Monday Morning Musings: Where is Suz?

I survived the 2014 April Blogging Challenge, then promptly turned invisible. I've posted at most three times so far in May. I got way behind in responding to comments, too. I want to apologize to all of you for being so absent.

The month of May has just been a blur for me. There are things going on that I can't discuss in a public forum, though I really want to and then there are things happening that are ripping my mama-heart to shreds. Our youngest son is leaving on June 1 for the Marines and I cannot fathom him being gone. I can't think; I can't focus. I feel such a huge sense of loss and I can't stand it. If I understood correctly, we won't be able to hear from him during boot camp and that is thirteen weeks long for the Marines. If I'm counting right, that will be sometime in September. Although all babies are miracles, he's my miracle given to me at a very hard time in my life. I had just lost his sister to stillbirth and Heavenly Father gave him to me. Now, twenty years later, I have to let him go. I'll end up in an asylum after this...

On a happier note, our oldest daughter graduated with an Associate degree on Friday. So many things are changing around here! My daddy wanted at least one of his children to graduate college as he'd never even graduated high school. Here she is with her daddy.

Well, Daddy...none of your kids have graduated college (yet!) that I know of, but your granddaughter has done it. :)

There were other invigorating moments at our house last week.

On Monday, we had a snake in our kitchen.

On Tuesday, we got our Zoomie stuck in the mud in the front yard. The car was in the mud up to its axels. Little as the car is, it took four of us to unstick it. This isn't an adventure that I'd like to repeat again any time soon!   I would rather deal with a snake!

What adventures have you all been having? Please share. I would love to hear about them!

Monday Morning Musings

I have been having fun over the last few weeks photographing the various wildflowers as they come into bloom. Please let me know in the comment section what you think of them.

Have a beautiful day!

Monday Morning Musings

I have opened up a new blog today that focuses on crocheting and knitting. It isn't much right now, but I am hoping for it to grow.

It is where I plan to house posts about my ministry crocheting lapghans for a local nursing home. I also hope to feature other groups that knit and crochet for charities, whether it be for the elderly, babies, or anyone in between.

Please visit it when you can: P.S. Annie's Grannies!

Monday Morning Musings: Soldier's Deck of Cards

Please be sure to click the button above and join Cathy for her Monday Morning Musings.

Our oldest daughter shared the following video with us recently. I know that there are as many different feelings about cards as there are card designs, but I think whatever it takes to help one remember that He is with us is a good thing.  I never would be able to keep track of the cards like this boy can!

Monday Morning Musings

I have been reading in a devotional book titled Known and Loved: 52 Devotions from the Psalms. It is devoted to mothers who sometimes feel a loss of identity and value as they live life as someone's mother or someone's wife. It shows us that we are still a person of value to the One that created us, even when we seem to be otherwise ignored or disregarded. He knows who we are and has a desire for us to know Him.

Each devotional is short; moms are busy folks! Each devotion has something to ponder as well as scripture references to further drive home the point of the devotion.


Do you read a daily devotional?

Please share the name of the one that you are using in the comment section. Maybe the one that you're reading is just the one another person out there needs to read to feel whole and closer to Him.

Monday Morning Musings

We have been a homeschooling family since 1997. Our oldest two children spent some time in the public school system. Our two youngest children were homeschooled from the start. I read an interesting article earlier today called Homeschool Myths Revealed. Here is the comment that I posted there:

The socialization question has always been a funny one to me. Generally, my children had just performed at a church and would be out conversing with various people (adults and children alike) in the congregation. Someone would bring up the question of schooling and socialization. My husband would challenge the person to find any one of our children that had not been out and about talking to the people. Some of my children are bold enough to initiate conversations without any prompting and one of them is like me, shy and reserved for the most part, but even he didn't shy away from talking to people of any age group that talked to him.

At one church, one of the state senators in South Carolina sought two of the children out to speak with them and was very impressed. The heart of the former mayor of Anderson, South Carolina was won over by our youngest child when she walked up to my husband at the podium during a presentation and carried on a conversation, then apologized to the people for interrupting and returned to her seat.

All of my children were home-school graduates, one in South Carolina and the rest here in Texas. The one that graduated in SC had no problems getting into the US Navy. We provided his transcript and he breezed right in. The other three had no problems getting accepted into the local college and a major university. All three have been on the Dean's List. The youngest graduated a year early, was the youngest student at the college when she entered, and is in the honor society called Phi Theta Kappa.

I think that, although many people think homeschooling limits their opportunities, the exact opposite is the case. It opens the world to them. They have developed the skills necessary to pursue what is important to them because we allowed them to study things that were of interest to them, not forcing them to study the same things in the same way as every other person in town.

Homeschooling helped them to better develop themselves as individuals.

I would love to hear about your thoughts and/or experiences concerning the way that you chose for your children to be educated, whether it is/was homeschooling, public schooling, or private schooling.

Monday Morning Musings #4

First, I want to apologize to Cathy for missing last week's Monday Morning Musings. I don't know where my head was, and wherever it was, my brain was very absent. :)

Our (adult) children love My Little Pony and found a pony version of Monopoly . We've spent several hours at a time playing this game.

During one of the games over the weekend, our son landed in jail. While David and I were distracted with a transaction, our son "escaped" from jail and we didn't even notice. At some point, he said "Oh, I shouldn't really be out of jail. I just took my turn and went."

Immediately after that, he landed on a property where I had built a castle (like a hotel in regular Monopoly) and ended up having to pay me about $1100 in rent. Our oldest daughter then made the comment: "Honesty doesn't pay you; it pays other people!"




That just struck me as sometimes true, sure, but really very funny. Had he not said anything, we never would have realized that he'd been so sneaky.

~~~

Disclosure: Both the My Little Pony Monopoly and the regular Monopoly links are affiliate links. If you click them and purchase either (or both) games, we will profit from your purchase. Thank you for your support of my genealogical research!