La-La-La-La-Laundry

My husband's been laid off and we have a dryer that vents INTO the house AND we don't have air conditioning.  So, I think hanging our laundry out on the line would be a good idea for the summer. 

Here's my cute, artsy picture that represents doing laundry on the line:

Did you know that when clothespins stay out in the rain that they turn grey?  Neither did I.  Now I do...although I doubt that the ones made during the 50's and before did.  They probably made the clothespins out of better wood back when they figured people would actually use them outdoors.

Okay, here's my sweet little "I'm hanging my laundry out on the line!" Picture:

Aww....it looks so sweet, so idyllic, so...out of balance!  Why didn't I stick the pants in the MIDDLE of the two shorts?!  How is it I didn't notice that?!  Okay, anyhow, wouldn't you like to believe that my laundry line looks that cute and sweet out in the dappled sunlight like that?  Yeah, I'd like to believe that too.

Here's a picture of what my laundry line REALLY looks like:  (Brace yourself)

Crazy, huh?  We literally just strung line from deck post to tree to tree to deck post to tree and back again to deck post.  There's no symmetry, no balance, no attention to asthetics.  It looks like someone did it while in an...um..."altered state".  It's the junkiest thing!  But, hey, whadda you want me to do?  Spend $150 on a laundry "tree" (just as ugly in my opinion) or $450 for a set of laundry "T's"?  I'm doing this to SAVE money, so I gotta hang the line wherever I find stuff strong enough to hold it!  

Ugly but functional.  What can you do? 

The "After" Picture

Several blog posts back I showed you the true condition of my living room.  Well, I got all the kid's clothes tubs put back in the garage and Mt. Never-Rest went bye-bye, and even the coffee table is back where it should be:  in front of the couch.  So, here's the after picture, for what it's worth:

YIKES! Company's Coming!!!

Okay, I'm sure none of you ever resort to this.  But I had someone that was going to be in my kitchen in 5 minutes and I had a MOUNTAIN of dirty pots and pans so I hid them in my bathroom....

Yipper-doo.  Pretty ugly, huh?  Just plopped them right in front of the sink.  I have also hidden them in the shower but that is not such a good idea because I'll forget they're there and then the hubs reaches in and turns on the water in the morning and makes an unpleasant discovery.   I figured at least right in front of the sink I won't forget about them.

Oh the things we do to keep the veneer all nice and pretty for others...

What Homeschooling Really Looks Like

Okay, Ladies....I am sure all of you have beautiful orderly homes as you educate your delightful children and get done by noon every day. But for me and my house...it doesn't work like that. So here's the rundown on a snapshot of REAL LIFE HOMESCHOOLING:

Let's see what we have here....Well, there are the remains of dinner still on the table from the night before...the BBQ sauce.  Also the remains of a milk break, my food processor and all it's gear and the manual, a cookbook, a box of plastic cutlery (I have no idea why), the aim 'n' flame (also no clue), a swiss army knife, jewelry making wire, a t-shirt coloring project, masking tape, and a glue gun. 

And of course, front and center, my science textbook...mid-chapter.  But, pray tell, where are all the children?  The arms of one child are clearly seen in the picture, but what of the other three? 

Believe it or not, I stopped mid-sentence to take this picture.  That's right folks, I was actually reading this chapter to all four of my children when, one by one they drifted away AS I WAS READING until all I had was the chaos that is my kitchen table and one single solitary child.

Now, I will confess, they hadn't drifted far, but they were not sitting bright-eyed and squeaky-clean at the table eager for more nuggets of knowledge to drop from my lips as I read aloud about the human body.  Two of them had darted into the hallway to see how many push-ups they could do since I was reading to them about arm muscles, and one had wandered off for some supply needed for her hands-on project she was pursuing at the kitchen counter while I read at the table.

Ah, yes.  This is exactly what I thought homeschooling would look like!  NOT! 

My Messy Living Room

I promised to get real on this blog so here goes.  I'm sure none if it ever gets this bad in your own homes but orderliness is not my strong suit.  ...oh, how I try...  I don't know what's deficient in me that seems to be so amply provided in others but chaos seems to reign supreme most days around here.
So here's a "get real" picture of what's going on in my living room right now:

Yup...this is for real.  Let me take you on a tour....

On your left you see what I call "Mt. Never-rest"  That chair is perpetually holding laundry that is waiting to be sorted and delivered.  Why we can't just run through a load a day and get it to completion by the end of the day is beyond me.

Above Mt. Never-rest is a picture that is clearly too small for the space.  Doesn't it look ridiculous there?  I obviously need something bigger.  But I digress...back to chaos.

Next to Mt. Never-rest and on the coffee table are a bunch of trash bags. (Yup, there's a coffee table shoved against the hutch.  Why is it shoved there and not sitting politely in front of a couch you ask?  No clue.  It's often there 'cause the kids move it aside to do sleepovers, dance shows, etc) These trash bags are working in partnership with the blue tubs stacked in front of the coffee table.  They are all full of either all the summer clothes that the kids either think look too dorky to be seen on their bodies OR winter clothes that need to go into storage.  (Why are they not in storage you ask?  Because I want to clean out and organize the garage a bit before re-filling it with MORE STUFF...you should see our garage...but that will be for another day....)

Next to that beautiful 200 year old hutch that's buried in BLECH is a 1 year old bookshelf I cobbled together out of cement blocks I dug out of the mud behind our house and wire racks from the garage.  Did I mention I homeschool?  That means I have a lot of books.  I have no place for them.  My dear husband, whom I love, bought $400 worth of lumber to build us a wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling bookcase that has been sitting in the garage for the past 2 (or is it 3) years half stained.  Love him, I really do.  But I am getting desperate for the bookshelf so last summer I invented my own.  Butt-ugly but it holds the books.  (I was kinda hoping it would make him feel a little guilty when he saw what I had to resort to but I don't think he did! lol)  As you can see both the beautiful 200 year old hutch and the butt-ugly 1 year old bookshelf have books lying all cock-a-mamie on them because I cannot reach either of them to put the books away properly.

Why am I showing you this?  Well, to make you feel like you're not alone with your own little pile of chaos that you have somewhere in your life.  Maybe it's not as big and ugly as mine, or maybe it's worse, but, please know I share your pain.

By the way, this space will be completely transformed by Friday night because my Dad just told me he'd like to come out to visit us over the weekend.  Yikes!  This is not the only pile of chaos that I have.  I have many.  I will be conquering some mountains this week while still trying to do all the other stuff I have to do.

My Kitchen Sink

Okay so this is my kitchen sink.  This is actually pretty doggone clean compared to how it normally looks.  I'll post a picture of how bad it can get another time. 

So...what do we have here? 

Well, starting at the top we have the view out the window.  I love our yard.  Very woodsy.  It's not a giant yard but it's very natural.  It's my favorite thing about living in this house.  As you can see, there is a grey fence out there.  That is my neighbor's fence.  Before they got the bright idea to put up a solid 6 foot high fence around their property and plow down all the foliage, we had this beautiful illusion that we lived in the woods.  Now, we get to see their fence every day and see their "yard" every day where before there wasn't a yard, just woods.  Grrrrr.  And, if I may, they don't even have young kids that go out and play in the yard!  That I could understand, but, they did all of this for a dog they bought that goes out to pee and then runs back in the house.

Next you see an index card pinned to the window frame.  On that card is a prayer request from a woman in my homeschool group.  We pass out prayer requests every month.  I enjoy being able to pray for her needs when I'm at the sink.

Next you see a gallon-sized ziploc baggie hanging from the curtain rod.   I am trying to economize by re-using my ziplocs.  Not the little ones, but the biggies. 

Moving onto the counter and starting at your left you will see a stack of Ikea cups and bowls.  These are so handy.  I have limited cupboard space (or don't know how to use it right) so for now they live on the counter.

Next we have the hand washables drip drying in the dish rack.  And next to them the empty sink.  Just above the sink you will see two paintbrushes that I've washed from one of the kids' art projects and they will sit there for months until I finally return them to their home.

To the right of the sink you will see liquid dishwashing soap and my ugly cup that holds my dish scrubbies.  I would like to hide them but I use them all the time so I think it just needs to sit out.  Next to that you see the dishwasher detergent that I was too lazy to put in the cupboard, then an empty bottle that I've been putting off cleaning for a month, then my spray countertop cleaner.  I'm sure I could hide the kitchen cleaning supplies...but where?  Do other people hide theirs?  If we hide them, is that creating that artificial veneer that everything is perfect at the expense of real life?

The rest of the stuff on the counter is my bread making supplies.  I didn't sit it out "on display" for you to see, I was just about to make some bread so it was all sitting out.  I make two loaves at a time because that's all my Kitchenaid can handle and I'm too lazy to knead my own at this time :).  I would like to make four at a time though.

Well, that's my kitchen sink.  Feel free to send me a REAL picture of yours and a description so we can "get REAL" together!

Passionate Housewives

This book is sold through Vision Forum. I love Vision Forum...they cast such a vision of Christian homeschooling life. Every man is noble, every woman is lovely, and every child is obedient. They paint a picture that is soooo beautful. I want to live in their picture...and I wonder what the people that are fully attempting to "live the Vision Forum life" do when find that they fall short of this beautiful ideal every single day? What do they feel when they lay their heads on their pillows at night and feel like their families have failed to reach that ideal? I am glad that I am not surrounded by Vision Forum families. If we all put on this veneer of beauty and domestic perfection toward one another, I think I would crumble with discouragement.

But anyhow...I still love the picture they paint of "Biblical Domesticity to the Glory of God". It is my little private dream that I strive towards. (You'd never know by looking at us, but I do.)

My friend and I have decided to read through this book together and discuss it. We had our first discussion today. We covered the Preface and Chapter 1. Here's what we LIKED:

"As we have pried our covetous fingers off those things that are not for us and instead clung to God with all our might, we have found our desperation met with mercy, strength, and power by our loving and powerful Savior. While it may seem counterintuitive, the lesson is true: living MORE for self will only keep us further from that true joy we're after as women."

"If we find ourselves in a position where we feel that serving our families gets in the way of serving Christ's Kingdom, then we should fall on our faces and repent...Serving our family IS serving the Kingdom."

Here's what we DIDN'T LIKE:

There is a statement in the book that is presented as a worldy lie: "If you don't make time for yorself, no one else will!"

We didn't agree with their assertion that it is wrong to make time for ourselves. At this point in our walks we do believe that it is important to make time for ourselves, to recharge and renew. Many acts of service to our families are draining. The tank gets empty and we need time to refill. One of may favorite expressions in this regard is this: "I need to take care of my kid's mom." If I don't take care of my kid's mom and my husband's wife then I become an exhausted irritable screaming shrew. Maybe the Vision Forum ladies don't...but I do :). So, I believe in taking time for myself...thus this blog.

Getting Real!

I love poking through other people's blogs. I love to catch a peak into other's lives. Especially Christian homeschooling moms like me. But, I often leave feeling defeated because they so often have it all "figured out", all their ducks are in a row. All their gifts are handmade, all their meals are beautiful, all their kids are exceptional...you get the jist. Well, that's not what my life looks like and I don't want to paint that kind of a picture. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want this blog to be a gripe fest...but I want it to be REAL, I want to share the good and the bad. So, if you agree with me that nothing's perfect this side of Heaven and we shouldn't paint a false picture that it is, then feel free to tune in.

But, to get real, this is my THIRD attempt at a blog that has ended within a month, so don't hold your breath! lol