Once upon a time, I loved blogging. Writing was therapy to me. It still is, but I don't attend my sessions much anymore.
I wrote this blog and read about 100 others. Literally nearly a hundred. Check the list of blogs on the right side of this page that I read. Maybe it's not 100, but it's a LONG list. But look at that list & see if you notice anything similar. See the date marked under each of those blog names? It tells how long it's been since their last post. Apparently those once avid bloggers have fallen into the same trap I have. Social media. It takes blogging & smashes it into short, much quicker little bites. You get blurbs about their lives there, snapshots of their kids, but not much depth. (Usually anyway.)
While I love social media & use it EVERY SINGLE DAY I wonder if like so many other things in life these days, we're all living too fast. We need smart phones so we can be connected ALL THE TIME. We take pictures & post them of everything we do. We need drive-thru restaurants to be FAST. We need the microwave because we don't have the patience to cook anything that takes more than 2 minutes. Everything, every day, all day long, has to go fast fast fast fast. In fact, I wonder how many of you opened this post, saw a lot of words & sighed because it would take more than 30 seconds to read. Or how many clicked out of the page altogether & missed reading this?
So I'm going to make a step toward trying to do better on this myself. I am going to set a reminder in my phone (yeah, I see the irony!) to post here at least once a week. {And yes, I just spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to set that on my phone, which led to me reading a couple of texts, googling something and checking facebook. Yikes. Have to start right here at home for sure!} So here's the latest on us!
School resumed about 4 weeks ago. The kids are getting settled into their new classes & routines. I'm getting set in mine. Time for an update on us. I'll start at the top of our family & work down the ranks.
Larry and I are doing great! Not much changes day to day for Larry since his schedule and routine don't alter with the change of the school year or the start/end of the summer. So for now, he is just plugging along as usual. His job keeps him busy. Today we went on our September date, which is where the picture above was taken. He got to choose a movie and a place to eat for his birthday month, so we went to the local Studio Movie Grill. It's a little pricey, but it's a fun experience.
My school year began August 17th. After a REALLY FUN week of in-service with an incredible staff at my school, we began our year and it's been a great one so far. Of course there are always bumps along the way when you work with junior high kids, but all in all, it's been great. We are all gearing up for October. Lots of fun things coming up! And October always seems to pass so quickly. When it's over, we'll be knocking on the door of November and December and all the holidays...and before you know it, half the school year is over already. I know...maybe I'm rushing things a bit, but time passes so quickly! I've read a couple of books since school began that were really good and have enjoyed my Saturday mornings to sleep late.
Savannah began her 2nd year of college in August. She is enjoying her classes and working at a local vet's office. She really is suited to work with kids or animals or things that involve some combination of the two, so this job has been lots of fun for her. She doesn't anticipate a change of heart as far as her major and career goals (which don't include animals) but it's been a fun place for her to work and nurture the pets that come in for care, grooming or boarding. She is an art major, planning to get a degree in animation. She has researched heavily and has narrowed down her vision for the future to 3 particular schools. When she finishes up at the local junior college in the spring of 2016, she will move on to one of the other schools. None of them are close enough for her to continue living at home to attend. I am so grateful to have her home for now, but I'm already grieving her moving away next year. I know it's inevitable and it's what we raise our kids to do---become independent adults that is--- but it's so hard to think of her being far from home. Can I go ahead & ask for prayers for that now? It's gonna be HARD for his mama. She is also collecting movie posters for things that she enjoys the technical or animation side of. (See picture above.) She's pretty much determined that she will collect them until her entire wall is covered. She's doing great so far.
The week before school started, Sam was at football practice and injured his quadricep. (That's spelled right, isn't it? Blogger is saying it's not, but I could've sworn that's how you spell quadricep.) He had to go to the team trainers daily for a while for treatment and had to sit out of practices and games for 2 weeks. He had just made it back to full gear when he went for practice on the morning of Labor Day and ended up getting a concussion. After a scary first few days of ER and doctor visits and dizziness and headaches, he was looking pretty much back to normal but had to wait it out for two full weeks before he was allowed to do anything at all in sports. He was just released by his doctor yesterday to return to full activities. He is excited about that & ready to get back on the field. Fortunately, being out of the game only meant missing 1 game because this past week was our school's bye week. (Or is it bi-week? Or buy-week? ha ha! Whatever it is, we didn't have a game this week.) Outside of his sports-ing, school is pretty normal for him. He's not a big fan of his geometry or chemistry classes, but otherwise he's doing great. He was able to begin Construction and Welding classes this year, so he's having fun in those. {He plans to go into the Army and then to be a welder professionally, so he's happy as can be in those classes because they really suit him!}
Sarah has begun high school and is having a ball. She is my socialite, fashionista, chillin-with-her-friends one of the kids. She is in the band, which is massive in size and is really enjoying the friends and football games and texting and all that side of high school. Fortunately, she's also a really good student and a good kid all around. (But don't tell her I used the 1st pic above. She hates it.) She is taking American Sign Language in school so she is often found practicing words (finger spelling or signing them.) She enjoys shopping with me and asks for new jeans or clothes or shoes or something almost weekly. I hope she marries a rich man one day who can keep up with her shopping habit.
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All in all, life is good. Larry's brother in getting married in a couple of weeks, so we're all excited about that. Pumpkin scented candles and harvest-print hand towels are popping up in Walmart, so I'm happy. Tomorrow we are walking down the aisle to officially join the church we've been visiting for the past 5 months. The weather is beginning to cool off ever so slightly, so that means appropriate football game weather is coming soon. See? (Yeah, I know...but it's cooler for us!)
There are times in life when I look at my little world with such happiness I can hardly contain myself. This is one of those times. I have an amazing God, a wonderful husband, 3 healthy kids, awesome friends, a fantastic job and coworkers, a home with a roof over my head, plenty of food to eat (actually more than plenty!), clothes on my back, a little bit of money in the bank, a car to drive. There is music and laughter and wonder and good conversations and so much else to be thankful for. I can't help but smile.
Thank you, Jesus, for this rich, satisfying life.
