New Directions Kind Of

I know I said no blogs until after NaNoWriMo, but I have a thought I wanted to be sure to follow up on in December.

First of all, I have written over 19,000 words. Woo Hoo! I am so proud of myself! It is hard to write a novel. I always just figured my biggest enemy was in not applying myself and not writing. But now that I am writing I am struggling with things like plots and character development. Since my novel is set in 17th century Ireland I am forced to do a ton of research while I am writing. And because the major premise is conflict between Protestant and Catholic characters how do I portray the truth without being judge-y? I have been consistently behind in my daily word count but I know I can still make it.

That was not my thought, but related somewhat. One of my biggest character flaws is laziness. I am great at coming up with ideas and I know what I should/need/want to do, I just don't. This writing business and actually being close to achieving such a huge goal has fired me up a bit.

Have you heard of Hannah Help Me? She is this mom who goes to other mom's homes and help them in their overwhelming lives. She sells a coaching program where she will send daily e-mails with a 5 minute video to help with everything from married life to budgets. All for only $39.95. I have been so tempted. I have at least 8 parenting books and more self-improvement books. I am a die-hard FlyLady fan.

The thing is, I know what I need to be doing. I plan to journal/journey starting in December, after I write 50,000 in my novel, in this blog about what I am doing/not doing to get my life on track. Putting God first, husband second, kids third. Budgeting, homeschooling, home-making, and you get to join in on the fun!

That's it until December. I have a house to clean and a novel to write. We have a pastor visiting from the other side of the country and members of our church have signed up to cook dinners and lunches for him this week. I signed up for tomorrow. Don't know why I did during NaNoWriMo. Don't know what I was thinking! Other than that it will be nice to meet him and kids will get to see service. Something they don't witness from me nearly often enough.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Snooze Buttons

My husband, after being told I was having girl problems, tried to smother them out of me with a pillow. Isn't he ever so helpful?

My friend overheard her four year old daughter telling her big sister in a warning tone, "Don't you shush me again!"

I have an associate who dabbles on the dark side. It used to really bother me. It still does, but not to the extent it once did.

What do these little accounts have to do with Snooze Buttons? Well, I'm glad you asked. My Bible Study this morning was about letting the Holy Spirit within you lead you. And after I fell asleep on the couch afterwards rather than dive into my day and get homeschooling going, and writing done, and morning routines, it occurred to me to ask; How many times do I feel the nudging of the Holy Spirit and ignore Him?

I smother those feelings, shush His voice, and as a result, things that should bother me don't.

NaNoWriMo

I apologize about my lengthy absence. We were planning a trip to Texas and Texas was the only thing on my mind. I did not want the world (at least not local criminal types) to know we were going to be out of town. We're back now and had a BLAST! We visited hubby's brother and family, went to the Texas State Fair and The Alamo. On our way we explored Bent's Old Fort in La Junta. On our way home we explored Carlsbad Caverns and Santa Fe. Our little GPS, who my crazy hubby uploaded a squirrel's voice to, told us we drove for 52 hours in our 9 day trip. The kids were wonderful in the car. I guess that would be a miracle considering how long we were driving. Hotel rooms were a different story. They were wanting to be awake and doing things WAY before we were. It was also tough getting them to stop fighting over blankets and pillows before falling asleep. Overall it was a wonderful vacation. Here are some of the highlights:

• The squirrel stuck in the Nuvi - AKA the GPS with a squirrel voice. Bob had also uploaded a "scary" voice but he had a British accent and was NOT scary. :) Bob promptly switched to the squirrel who randomly exclaimed such things as, "If you see a squirrel run in front of the car, it's probably my uncle Frank. He's crazy like that!" and "Do you think the gas station would sell walnuts?" and "Sometimes I get a little distracted... Hey do you want some peanut brittle?" All in this cute, sometimes grating, squirrel voice. When bro-in-law drove us around in Ft. Worth he did not appreciate the squirrel. He made disparaging remarks when he veered off course and caused squirrel to exclaim, "Oh NUTS! Don't worry, I'll get us out of here!" Poor squirrel.
• Rhianna did not like driving in the dark. "I want to go home and watch Dora!" "I don't like the freaky stuff!" Daniel had asked her about Texas, "Do you like Texas, Ri-Ri? What do you think of Texas?" "I don't like Texas. There's no sun!"
• Mike bought us fudge. Yum? No! It was HOT! What was hilarious is that his piece was not hot and he did not mean to buy hot. So he says. He did seem genuinely surprised at our reactions. Brendan was fanning his mouth. Rhianna had tears in her eyes, fist in her mouth and was drooling. Later we walked past another candy store and Ashton told Mike, "No fudge!" It was pretty funny.
• Carlsbad Caverns is a MUST SEE. It was a little disconcerting walking underground. Daniel was quite nervous and Bob talked to him on the way down. I was shaky and did some self-talking myself. But the scary part was brief. The lighting, shapes, colors, crevices, and tranquil pools were breathtaking. It was amazing. God was there. The boys asked how long we had been underground after about 2 hours. I reminded them about watching the miners in Chile coming out of the mine after being in there for 69 days. Just no comparison.
• Some pictures below.

We are all happy to be back home. Well, except Bob who had to fly to California two days after we got back and is currently driving 12 hours in one of their new police cars. 7 states in a week. Poor thing.

So that is why I haven't blogged recently. And this post's title is why I will not be blogging in November. November is National Novel Writing Month - NaNoWriMo. I am fixin' to write me a novel! It will be like number 4 in my priority list; after Bible study, Bob, and homeschooling. But I figure since I will be cutting out Facebook (cleaning), blogging (reading & writing) and movies (cooking), I should be able to reach the 50,000 words.

The Birthday Princess

Our little Princess is 3 years old today! Isn't she a doll? I need to remind myself that sometimes. She and I actually had quite a little discussion yesterday about how it was the last day she would be 2, so "NO MORE Terrible Twos!"

This afternoon I went to a neighborhood dollar store to find a princess doll for her cake and a homeless couple got in line behind me. Have you heard that the olfactory sense is one that provokes the strongest memories? Well this was one of those times! Reminded me so much of when my little one and her brother first came to live with us just over two years ago. Their biological mother has been homeless for most of her life. I was told that the little family had spent the night in a tent once because they did not get to the shelter in time. A baby girl and her brother in a tent. Not for fun. I've been crying most of the day since the dollar store trip.

I have been thinking about her bio mom today. What is going on in her heart? I wonder about her little baby. He is less than a year old. Every time I hear about them they are just losing another house. And I wonder about her other boy. The one who entered our home and left, but will always be a part of us. And ...I can't go there. So I'll push it aside for a time and save it for another day.

Back to the Birthday Princess... I could not find the right princess doll at the dollar store so I went to K-mart where images of the dollar store homeless couple followed me and I came home with a Disney Princess comforter when I had already gone over budget.

I can't take away her past. I can't let her live with her biological mother and biological brothers. I can't guarantee her a Happily Ever After. But I can buy her a princess comforter for her birthday. And way more important, I can teach her about Jesus and assure her that she is not just our little Princess, but she is God's Princess, too.

A Few Little Discoveries

I went to my first Writer's Conference this weekend! It was affirming, inspiring, and free. I chose not to go the the afternoon session I had originally signed up for; marketing and publishing. I chose instead to attend the panel on writing different genres. I loved it and learned a lot. I even took away a few blogging tips. A friend of mine attended the marketing/publishing session and came away slightly overwhelmed and discouraged. I was so glad I didn't go to that one. I am not in that place in my writing. It would be good to actually finish a piece first, don't you agree?

This afternoon, as I was looking around my living room, trying to figure out how to make it more Nester'ly, it occurred to me that I am slightly overwhelmed and discouraged in my attempts at decorating my home because I am not in that place in my home-management.

I am closer to this:

I dream of this:

The blogs and television shows that I am thoroughly enjoying reading and watching are these:

The blogs and television shows that I will benefit more from at this point are perhaps these:

So now I am off to de-clutter our home-school table. My decorator dreams will be placed on the back burner until I have a better handle on the management part of keeping our home. Thanks for letting me share. I'd love to hear suggestions for other blogs and t.v. shows that I would enjoy or benefit from. Does anyone want to share their dreams and realities?

Monday CHAT

I would love it if you would CHAT with me every Monday.

C = Challenge
H = Habit
A = Action
T = Time

Here's mine for this week.

Challenge: I just read The Nester's post this morning titled Meaningful Beauty. She offers a challenge to her readers: "My encouragement to you today is to be intenional about surrounding yourself with PERSONAL meaningful beauty." After I read that I walked around my house and found basically nothing, besides my books, that would qualify as "personal meaningful beauty." So that is my challenge this week. Purposefully place items around my home that would be meaningful to my family. I've been wanting to frame some of the kids' artwork.

Habit: Go to bed at 10:30 and wake up at 6:30.

Action: Go to the gym or walk up the neighborhood hill 3x this week.

Time: Something I desperately need to spend some time on today and possibly throughout the week is my form for our vacation. The school we signed up under this year will pay for part of our trip. It has to be pre-approved and I keep procrastinating.

I'll update on Thursday to let you know how I'm doing on my CHAT. I'd love to hear about some of your goals for the week.

"I Saved His Name In My Heart."

While driving my seven year old home from his speech session this afternoon, I was trying to find out some of the kids' names in his group. He could only remember the two girls' names. Go figure! Then he says, "There was Adam. From a long time ago." "That was a long time ago." After he thought a moment he said, "I saved his name in my heart."
Isn't that beautiful?