Thankful Sunday and Reality Mondays….

I know that I won’t get to post this tomorrow and I still can’t get the time right to have wordpress post it for me. So I’m combining Thankful Sunday and Reality Monday together today.

• Very thankful for the beautiful sunny warm, not hot weather we have had this last week.
• My children, while they need to improve in their work ethic, they have done better this week. Praying for a better week, this upcoming week.
• That we found a free year round swim team for the boys.
• That the kids were well behaved at the internment and lunch yesterday.
  
• That I made it through the first week of school

My reality for tomorrow is that I’m a bit sad, I’ve come to realize that even though I’m no longer abused that the effects of that can still be seen, sometimes unknown to us. I went for an eye exam for new glasses and during the dilation part of the exam the Dr. asked me if I had had any eye injuries, I tried to pary that one with: oh well, my daughter had scratched my cornea when she was a baby. No, she said this would have been a blow to the eye or two…..well then, yes an abusive mother and ex-husband had hit me in the eye. Why do you ask? Well it seems that you can lose pigment in the back of your eye and that only happens with eye injuries….i can’t tell you how sad I am to have some dr. I don’t know and had no intention of sharing anything that personal with; know that I’ve been abused. I have to wonder if that is why my right eye is so much weaker than my left eye. I didn’t ask because I was trying to absorb the whole incident. When you work so hard to forgive an abusive person and don’t have any sort of interaction with them, you tend to not place a lot of concern on past abuse. You are too busy struggling with the emotions of the abuse and still have to face them at times when you wish you didn’t. I think that you are still working on the forgiveness thing as well, when old memories pop up you must forgive all over again. Plus, once it has been so long you really don’t dwell on the abuse, you are trying to do something positive with your life and not repeat the cycle of abuse.

So life goes on and I’m  sad once again for the little girl I was, and who I would have been if not so abused. At least two days later, my head is not hurting quite so bad and my eyes are not dilated anymore.

Reality Monday

My reality today is that I”m terrified! Every year about this time, I start stressing out: can I do well in my classes? Can I continue to homeschool my kids while going to college? Can I keep my sanity and still try to be there for my husband, friends and church commitments? How on earth will I balance it all?

I know that the Lord will give me the energy to make it through, but I am human after all and suffer from fear. I know in my heart that the Lord wants us to continue to homeschool through highschool. I often question him on this and always get the answer back from my husband who is not aware of my fears that he wants us to continue. He was raised in this school district and did not get the help he needed with his learning disability. Another answer is that I’m especially driven this year to getting a good plan and schedule up for all of us. I’ve always had a laid back schooling  mentality but this year, I’m needing/wanting/being guided into how a plan will benefit us so that I can continue to homeschool and get my degree. The old adage of “Fail to plan, plan to fail” keeps coming into my head.

Sometimes I wish I could take the easy route and send the kids to public schools but I”ve seen my older ones fail to graduate and get into bad relationships, and make horrid choices that will take a long time to rectify. So I know that taking the easy way out is not the answer for us. I’ve run into homeschoolers that give me the impression that they are homeschooling for the status of it. While at times, I’m struggling with why am I doing this? Homeschooling does not protect your kids from bad character issues either, it just means that we can work on changing them befor they become a very big problem. My sons have friends that are good kids but have traits that I’m not overly fond of and then I get the task of being the mean mom explaining why they can’t do what their friends do. Which also stresses me out.

I’m getting the feeling that this is going to be a make or break year for us. The boys are lazy learners and I’m not allowing that anymore so they are going to get more challenging schoolwork and have to spend more time learning. I can see huge battles already. I was going to put together a planner for the Ark this year but the task overwhelmed me, so I caved and bought him this, I need him to start taking responsibility for his schoolwork to a minor degree. He will have to write down his assignments that don’t get completed in my time frame and finish them before I come home or he won’t be allowed to play with his friends until he gets them done and in the winter, that will be hard on him. I did however plan out the younger ones schoolwork. I am going to print off checklists for them though, so that anything they don’t finish with me, means that it will be written down for the husband to oversee and checkoff, leaving me to double check it when i come home from UA. I can’t believe that I only have two more weeks off.

I still have to print out my resume, references and the application and write a cover letter for the internship I want to do next summer. Another stressful thing for me to attempt. No wonder I’m not sleeping well, lately. At least the Lord has my body responding to a schedule of waking up at 7am. I hope I can continue that…..especially since, I want the boys to get up at 6:50am M-F. We will do school on saturday but I will let them sleep in.

My stomach is hurting just thinking of it all, so this post is done, before I stress out even more.

Reality Monday

You all know that almost 4 years ago, the Lord prodded *pushed* me into going back to school. He has worked out every snag so far and I’ve done very well. It hasn’t been easy but every time I’ve questioned whether or not I’m doing the right thing, the Lord has always sent someone to tell me something that just reinforces that I’m doing His will. The Lord has sent me the best professors to get me where I need to go, they have taught me, inspired me, built up my self esteem, guided me.

Last night I was at a party and saw my old psychology professor, and of course she drilled me giving me tons of info to think about, she has raised so many questions that now need answers, and decisions to be made. Should I go into Clinical Counseling or go with Counseling Psychology? No, I do not have the answers yet to this questions, but I know that I will be praying over them until I decide what to do about it.

My issues are that I’m afraid to make a decision and I’m afraid of failing. I also worry about how to balance raising children who need to be homeschooled while I’m working towards a grad degree. The Ark is going into 7th grade, Ace, 4th, the Princess/Artist is in 2nd and the Peanut going into K. Sending them to school is not an option, our public schools can not accommodate their special needs and I can’t afford a private school. So I need to find the energy to continue to do both, which frightens me to no end. I’m trying to give it to the Lord but that never has been easy for me, and I”m so stressed about the whole thing.

On a different note, I”m beyond stressed that my adult children sometimes just don’t think about the choices they make and then they want someone to fix it for them. I’m still angry at times at the ex husband who didn’t do his job as a parent, I’m angry at the court system here as well as DFCS, for leaving them with him, angry even more that he lied, manipulated and intimidated everyone to keep them and no one saw through him or cared enough to do anything about it.

All of this makes me very strict on some issues with the younger set of children, I do not want them making the same mistakes and I tend to be controlling at times. I feel like I’m forever on them for poor character qualities, I’m not but that is what it feels like. I get wonderful comments on their behavior when they are out, and people are always commenting on how great they are, so I know that they are learning how to be responsible adults but again this all weighs one me greatly.

So these are my current struggles along with the fact I have to call the Dean of Psychology and make an appointment to see if they will accept two or three of my psy. classes from the community college I went to. I made the appointment, pray for me, if I don’t have to repeat these classes, then I can take classes that I haven’t taken yet, decreasing my time working on my Bachelor’s. I need a vacation from my life.

Reality Mondays

I am on a mothering forum and they have started blogging on Mondays about the reality of their lives. So here is my reality Monday for this week.

We rolled out of bed late but made it to swim team practice only 5 minutes late, stayed there, had the Princess/Artist read in the van since it was drizzling when we got there. Today’s reading did not go very well, she struggled with sounding out and I struggled with patience. I really need to make sure we don’t take breaks from reading as we go backwards when we don’t read daily.

We came home to the husband and there was an injured black and blue butterfly on our door, I took some photos will share them later. Got some food into us and then sat down at my desk to find a check and mail off a medical form, and fill out the swim meet championship form and guess what? I can’t find them…..because everyone sits at my desk to get on the computer and moves everything.

We will have to find an alternative because I need my own space and I’m so tired of everyone at my desk moving things, or worse yet piling things on my desk because they don’t know where to put them. This really sets off my temper.

I’m considering getting a Macbook this fall and setting up the iMac on a small desk in the dining room so that they can be off my desk. Especially since I will be doing a great deal of studying when I’m not teaching them or paying bills or running the household. I really need to have my own space to not be bothered and have my books spread out.

So I guess I just shared one of my major flaws, I hate sharing my desk with anyone. We live in a small house, and I have a strong need to have just one spot where nobody is allowed but me. I think that is enough of reality Monday for me today.