just another day....

and I hope I didn't take it for granted. Lydia was here, but Anne didn't come because she is sick. We did school, I washed bedding, vacuumed, made meatballs for dinner...

Charlotte Claire took Lydia outside to play for a bit, but I didn't venture out the door. Suzanne did the Activity Club driving tonight. I did work out, yay me, but shh, I had three squares of chocolate for brekky. The chocolate had almonds in it, so....I just didn't want eggs. Then lunch was one piece of Ezekial toast with peanut butter.

But I exercised. Not much, but still, it's something.



Tomorrow, there are some doctor's appointments, and some shoes to return...poor me, I ordered shoes online, all full of hope they would actually fit and not hurt my feet, well ha. Back they go. I'm going to look for a huge-0 suitcase at Kohl's when I return the shoes...because so many of us are traveling to Norway this summer, and we usually do lots of inter-family suitcase sharing. We have plenty of smaller ones, we just need a few of the larger checked bag sized bags.

Friday, goodbye for the weekend! Paul and I are going away, yay!!!! We're grilling some steak on Friday night, then burgers on Saturday, going to some vineyards, a brewery maybe, maybe up to Lake Ontario.

Well, today is ANOTHER day, I sort of ran out of steam in yesterday afternoon's post.

I had a huge revelation yesterday: I need to be WAY more thankful. It's so easy to see when the kids need to be more thankful. It's easy to see when other family or friends, or even strangers on the internet, need to be more thankful, griping and complaining about every little thing.

I had vacuum cleaner wars the other day. A clog here, a clog there, then it tipped over as I dragged and it hit a corner, and the whole dust collection bin section fell out, opened up, and made a huge mess, because I hadn't snapped it in properly. I was just wrestling with this vacuum cleaner. I told Paul that I've had issues with it continuously since I got it. He said, bless his innocent heart, "Is this something you can buy at the thrift store? A better vacuum cleaner?" Um, if that were the case, sweetie, don't you think I would HAVE ONE? But I didn't say that. I was too shocked at his sweet naivety.

So there's that. Then there's our camper. When we got that camper, oh heavenly bliss. We had six kids, so we bought a 35 foot camper. Some of my older posts describe the fun of pulling that thing to the Adirondacks behind our 15 passenger van. Once, we were behind a small parade in a small town, and the folks on the sidewalk thought it was still the parade, so we just waved.

Anyway, that shiny new camper from 1992 is not so shiny anymore. The roof started leaking. It's fixable, but we'll have to do lots of cleaning in there, airing out, ect. And we have to pay a good sum of money, yearly, to keep it where it is. It's a wonderful place, it's at our church property, and it's amazing to stay in it, but the money came due, and the camper is getting junky, and I was grumbling. Grumbling because I would really like to get a NEW camper, not even new, a used one that doesn't leak, that the refrigerator actually works, etc ect ect.

When I'm focused on what's wrong instead of what's right, then it's blah.

I realize what a spoiled brat I am.

Because hey, you can compare what you have with those who have more, and always feel like you're a day late and a dollar short.

Or, you can choose to be thankful for everything you have. You can pray for thankfulness. When you do this, God will certainly point out when you aren't being thankful, He'll show you what you can work on, and then it's up to you. You CAN get victory in this, and have so much peace in your life.

I find that in the "earthly" things, there has to be a balance. You can't just not care, you need to be a good steward of what you have, and make the best of things. Maybe I can't get a new floor, but at least I can try to keep this one clean.

The sun is shining this fine morning. I intend to get out there to the yard one of these days and rake up the leaves from last fall. Our rake is broken, so I do have a good excuse, ha. I should go buy four of them and have gym class, ha. Homeschool gym class.

The sewing machine is on the kitchen table. We decided to leave it out, after Suze got it out last night to make some more hair scrunchies. I am thinking to make Camille a skirt, and I want to teach them to use it. I forgot how much I love sewing, but I also hate it. I am very impatient, and the seam ripper is an evil little thing that I hate using. I am a corner cutter.

Suzanne and Camille made these brown sugar snickerdoodles the other day. Is there anything yummier than the scent of cinnamon baked goods on a chilly dark day? I did break off a tiny piece, and duh, it was good, why do I torture myself? I still say one should automatically lose five pounds when one resists this sort of temptation.

(And Sunny, because she's cute, and I'm still twelve years old)

And...off I go to start my day, which means shh, I'm going to scroll through the news and facebook, ha.