Well Mannered Frivolity

       8 years ago, at 11:59PM we welcomed our sweet Mary Jane into the world.  She was born 2 weeks early.  A kidney infection sent me into labor.  I had a fever, so she was born with a fever, and we were both pumped full of anitbotics.  She was born a hale and hearty 9lbs.  I week later she weighed 7 lbs and was severly jaundiced.  My poor baby and I had to spend a week at MUSC Children's hospital.  My sweet girl had such a rough start.   Mary Jane is 100% girlie-girl.  She refuses to wear pants.  She has worn nothing but skirts and dresses since she was 3. She loves Barbie and princesses, and ballet, and all things pink.  She is sweet and thoughtful and caring and loyal and suprisingly tough despite her frilly exterior. 
     

  

  

I, Wendy F, belong to God. 

I am a holy vessel, because I house the Holy Spirit of the living God. 

The Lord of heaven has said over me, "I declare you holy."

Today I commit to start believing what He says. 

I am holy. 

Empower me daily, spirit of the living God, to treat myself as holy. 

Open my eyes to every scheme of the enemy to treat me as if I am not. 

You, God, are God. 

Your word  is true. 

This day, Father, I choose to believe you. 

In Jesus name, Amen

-Beth Moore Daniel: Lives of Integrity Worda of Prophecy Week 5 

My small group and I are doing Beth Moore's Daniel bible study.  As we (they) were discussing this weeks "homework" it became clear that I had not done it.  I had to 'fess up.  I haven't been doing it because I felt like I was losing my faith. It's hard to have faith when you are in the pit.  I was in the pit and everytime I looked up I felt like God was throwing another dirt clod at me.  

Man it felt good to get that out in the open. Now I still feel like I'm in the pit, but this time God has thrown me a lifeline. I can see the light at the top and start to pull myself out.

PG and Christy, you guys rock!

 I hope haven't brought any of you down.  Tomorrow I'll be back to my normal pithy commentary.

Wendy 

A - Accent: Southern fried

B - Breakfast Item: grits and tomatoes

C - Chore you hate: Laundry

D - Dad's Name: Jimmy

E - Essential everyday item: Lately, coffee

F - Flavor ice cream: chocolate

G - Gold or Silver?: Silver

H - Happy Place: My house

I - Insomnia: my constant companion

J - Job - Learning with my children

K - Kids:  5 of 'em

L - Living arrangements:  Single story suburran brick house

M - Mom's birthplace: My mom was born at home in Park Circle North Charleston, SC

N - Name your pets: Cats-Simon and Jenny, Turtles-Steve and Irwin

O - Overnight hospital stays: All 4 births (2 were born at the same time :)), once as a child, a week with Mary Jane when she was a baby, and alomst a week with Will for pneumonia when he was about 14 mos

P - Phobia: to many to count

Q - Question:  What purpose do gnats serve?

R - Religious affilation:  Southern Baptist

 S - Siblings: one- David

T - Time you wake up: Whenever the twins wake me up-usually around 9:00

U - Unnatural hair colors you've had: I've had the full specturm

V - Vegetable you refuse to eat: cauliflower yuck!

W - Worst habit: gluttony

X - X-rays you've had: just teeth unless you count ultrasounds-I've had  a whoppping 15 of those!

Y - Yummy:  My mom's yellow layer cake with chocolate frosting

Z -Zoo animal: otters

....Argh! This be Dirty Jenny Cash here remindin' me mateys that today be Talk Like a Pirate Day.

 Lila say she be gonna talk like Captian Feathersword. 

  

  

I would like to thank everyone for the happy birthday wishes.  Today really was a blessed day!  All the members of my small group called to wish me happy birthday.  We are meeting tomorrow.  Hopefully plans that involve cupcakes are afoot.:)  My husband came home with a sweet card, cupcakes, an "Over the Hill" mylar balloon, and instructions for me to buy myself an i-pod shuffle (he's a bit technologically impaired, otherwise he would have purchased it himself)  My parents gave me some birthday cash, and my dad wrote me a really funny letter about or Cherokee/Irish heritage.  Katherine made me a picture of a flower using rose petals that she preserved from the roses Bill gave me on our anniversary.  Lila drew me a picture of the two of us.  Mary Jane made me a handmade card and put a dollar bill in it.  That just melted my heart!  Between Bill, my parents, and my small group I'll end up with 3 servings of cake!  Now that's my idea of partyin' down!

 Maybe I'll turn 35 again next year!

 Now we have a short birthday hiatus.  My sweet Mary Jane will be 8 on the 28th.  More cake in 10 days! Woo-Hoo!

 Older and Wiser (not!)

Wendy 

It's the 36th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix's death.

It's also my birthday.  I'll be 35, thank you for asking.  How in the hell did I get to be 35.  years. old.

I've never really dreaded a birthday before.  I don't know why I've settled on 35 to be unsettled about.

I think it's because I've spent the majority of my adult years either pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or trying not to get pregnant.

And those of you who have children, and maybe those of you who don't, know that 35 is The Year Of Birth Defects.

If, heaven forbid, I were to get pregnant (settle down, Mom.  I'm not going to!) I would be refered to an elderly multi-gravida (sp?). Elderly?!?  I would be weasling my way out of the much dreaded  anmiocentisis.

I was watching an old rerun of 'My So Called Life" the other day, and I thought to myself--that guy who plays the dad is kinda cute.  The Dad! cute!

Next thing you know I'll be knitting, watching Murder She Wrote, and drinking tea.  Wait, I already do those things.

I'll get over this little bit of sefl-indulgence.  After all, the day after my birthday is  Talk Like a Pirate Day, so at least I have something to look forward to.

Age is relative.  I remember talking to Bill's Nana and telling her my dad was dreading his upcoming 65th birthday.  She replied "Oh, to be 65 again.". heh heh

In honor of my boys I'll end with a little Floyd.

Time 

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town

Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain

And you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run, you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking 

Racing around to come up behind you again

The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon March 1973 (I was only 18 months old!)

 Next time I post I'll be "shorter of breath and one day closer to death."

Cheers,

Wendy 

Leting go.

This was the feature article in the Faith & Values section of our local paper.  It is about the tearful goodbye between a mother and child on the first day of "school."  It ends with the child crying in the classroom and the mother crying in her car.  The child in question is a mere two years old. 

Of course they are crying.  They are going against nature. I'm sure this is a very caring mother who only wants the best for her child.  I imagine she put quite a bit of thought into which preschool her child would attend.  I know.  I was once there.

Back on 1997 I forced my tender little two year old, Katherine, into preschool.  And, yes, the first few days included several tears shed on both our parts.  The only good that came out of the preschool ordeal was that it cemented in our hearts and minds the idea of homeschooling Kat, baby Mary Jane and any future children we might have.

I just want to make it clear--I am not condemning this particular woman or any woman who puts her 2 year old in preschool.  I'm railing against society here.  I'm railing against the notion that our children cannot possibly be "socialized" unless they spend 13+ years only with other children born the same year as them.  That children are little buckets waiting to be filled with information that some gov't group has deemed necessary for their age.  If thethe child in question is a little ahead of the game, he or she are labeled gifted.  If they are a little behind they are labeled with a veritable alphabet soup of learning disorders.  Labels stick.  For life.

It scares me that families are turning their precious little children  over to the "system" at younger and younger ages.  

Okay.  I'm stepping down off my soapbox now.  I'm sorry if I've stepped on any toes here, but this is a subject I feel passionately about.

Wendy 

The boys have a new favorite CD.  For quite a while they were enthralled with Johnny Cash Live at Folsom Prison.  They particularly enjoyed Cocaine Blues. Well, time marches on, and tastes change.  They now love Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon.  Their fave track is On the Run--one of the long instrumentals that the Floyd are so well known for.  Any time we are in the car it's all Floyd all the time.  Bill vacillatates between thinking it's pretty cool to wondering just what the heck I'm teaching his children all day.

 I know a great majority of home educators would be apalled by what I am exposing my progeny to.  The Charlotte Mason crowd like classical music, one composer per term, if you please.  The super conservative Christian hsers prefer their tunes without a beat. I supose the Classical hsers like classical musc, too.  Unschoolers I come across tend to be politically liberal and/or pagans.

I'm a conservative evangelical Christian/Charlotte Mason/Classical/Unschooler.  I'm slightly crunchy, kinda funky, and married to a tattooed guy.  My children love all things Harry Potter. they collect YuGiOh/Pokemon cards, and (gasp) we all watch TV.  We are pretty unstructured, yet we are learning Latin together.   

What are you like?  Are the rest of you as weird as I?  I've always marched to my own beat, but sometimes a girl just wants to fit in, ya know?   

See you on the dark side of the moon,

Wendy 

I got this little meme from Making A Person.

Instructions: Grab the book closest to you. Open to page 123. Scroll down to the 5th sentence. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog - name of the book and the author. Then tag 3 people.

The book closest to me is Grammatically Correct: The writer's essential guide to puncuation, spelling, style, usage and grammar 

By Anne Stilman

 Cautions about the exclamation point-

Use this puncuation mark sparingly, or it will lose it's effectiveness.  Relying on it to infuse excitement or importance into uninspired lines will make your writing look amateurish or - even worse - gratingly like ad copy

It is persmissible to use iti n combination with other strategies for indicating emphasis, such as capital letters, boldface or italic type,  but don't over do this: Usually, a better approach is to use one strategy or the other. 

Those of you who know me or read me regularly might find it a bit ironic that I have this book close by, being that my "punctuation, spelling, style, usage and grammar" skills are so poor.  Alas, this book is a relativley new aquisition.  Expect improvements in the near future.  

Yeah, right.

I not going to tag anyone. If you want to do this little meme consider yourself tagged.

Wendy