When Life Gives You Lemons…

This morning has been “one of those days” where I let myself mope around the house in self pity. Maybe due to the rain… or the long weekend spent prepping our townhouse in Baltimore for sale… or the lack of sleep… But what’s worse than allowing yourself a pity party is getting into bed at night and realizing that you let a whole day wallow by. So I made myself get off my lazy butt and filled out a rebate form (wahoo! Aren’t you impressed?! :), made a “Lemonade Stand” dress, a sort of tribute to a lemon-y kind of day:

reminded myself that the rain won’t last forever, and that my favorite part of the day is waking up in the morning and walking into a sun-bathed kitchen and family room:

flipped through the children’s journals that we started this summer and thought about how much Calvin has enjoyed doing math, spelling, and reading since school ended:

and rejoiced in the fact that if it were not for these “down” times, I would not appreciate the things I do have and give thanks because every good and perfect gift comes from above

Tags: Etsy, Life
Posted in Life | 4 Comments »

Blog: Life Edited

I’ve never been good at keeping a diary. Part of it, I think, is because I’m a perfectionist. So if my handwriting gets sloppy from trying to keep up with all my thoughts, or if I misspelled a word, used bad grammar, etc. I’d rip out those pages or toss the diary in some corner of my room, discouraged with the inability to make my life look perfect on paper.

It occurred to me the other day that this blog is essentially a diary. A modern diary. A diary for perfectionists because now I can delete, edit, spell check, and put up pretty pictures that have been touched up and cropped. Essentially, it is my life, edited.

Not such a bad thing though, when you think about it. Because as I run through the day’s events, it gives me time to evaluate and learn from mistakes and not-so-perfect endings and then thank God for extending His grace! It’s like a collection of blessings that I can look back upon (and hopefully that my kids can look back upon) and be encouraged.

It is also a place where I can document funny and peculiar things about my kids for them to remember:

Jeremy’s dad drove his Viper the other day and Charissa insisted on sitting on the car… so I can take her picture… To future-16-year-old Charissa… if you’re thinking about becoming a model, the answer is “no” … unless you’re modeling for me:

“Shake shake shake, shake your booty…” (And no, you cannot be a dancer for a rap video.)

BTW, you can’t tell, but the first photo in this post was actually taken during a very intense argument (”I’m right!” “No, I’m right! You are WROOONG!”) Charissa was in the middle of pushing her brother in which he responded by laughing at her… which made her even more angry… Talk about glorious photo editing (and an awesome camera)!

Tags: Blessings, God, Life
Posted in Life | 3 Comments »