Thanksgiving 2012: Enough is a Feast

I heard this saying on facebook today:

"Enough is a feast."

I thought to myself how true that is.  The Lord has surely given us enough, and that is as good as a feast.  I know He's blessed me ten-fold with more than enough, and I am thankful.

Right now, I'm sitting with my laptop, typing away, and thinking about what I should say I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving day. The fact that I can sit in my warm home with cozy socks, a blanket, and a hot cup of coffee in the quietness of my home early in the morning is reason alone to be thankful.

I'm thankful for my husband and four precious children who make me laugh every day and who bring me to my knees often.  Nothing like parenting to keep you on your knees before your Heavenly Father.

I'm thankful for my parents and the fact that I can just talk to them, share my concerns and happiness openly.  I'm thankful for my in-laws who are some of the most selfless people I've ever met.  I'm thankful for my siblings and my married-in siblings.  They are a joy to be around, and they set an amazing example for me.

I know many people have lost their loved ones, and it makes me want to throw my arms around my sweet family and show them how much I am thankful for them, how much I love them.

I am thankful for my church and church family.  Let me not ever take them for granted.

I'm thankful for this nice, warm home when I know that there are so many people with nothing. No home. No heat.  Dirty clothes, and very little, if anything, to eat.  I am so very thankful for what we have.  More than enough.

I am thankful for being able to be at home with my children and having a husband who supports my desire to do so. Even on the rough days when too much togetherness abounds, I'm thankful.  It's a blessing and a gift of time.

I am blessed beyond measure, and I pray that I am grateful.  He has surely blessed my life with more than enough.

Planning...

Our calendar has magically filled up to capacity. I don't know how it happened.  I'm normally the calendar guardian.  I ensure that it doesn't get terribly busy and that no one overdoes it.

Not this month.  Not next month.  We are busier than we've ever been.  It's been a good busy, and I think we'll be okay.  Thankfully, we've managed to preserve mornings and early afternoons for schoolwork and Sundays for church and family time.

The kids are participating in "A Christmas Carol" this year, so play practice and all things Christmas are on everyone's mind.  We have practice almost every day for two weeks after we get back from Thanksgiving, and I'm very happy that all of our practices are in the afternoon/evening.  The play is December 6th and 7th at 7:00.

At some point after our Saturday, December 1 practice, we'll go to get our Christmas tree and decorate the house.  I am normally a "let's not talk Christmas til after Thanksgiving" kind of person, but this year, it seems necessary to do some early planning.

After the play, we have Christmas crafts and cookie baking parties with friends.  We'll have our annual gingerbread house making party and our annual trip to Lights of the South.  We'll go to family gatherings, and we have plans with church family.  We'll travel to visit with Deron's side of the family for three days and come back for Christmas at our house with my side of the family.

I don't like being too busy.  I don't recharge in a group of people.  I get tired and nervous and I tend to put my foot in my mouth, repeatedly.  I recharge in the quiet, mostly early morning hours, but even still, I'm excited to do all these things.  I'm thankful my kids have the opportunity to participate in drama, an opportunity we wouldn't normally have.  I'm thankful to have friends who want to do crafts and bake cookies.  I'm not a craftsy mom, but I have craftsy girls!  Inviting friends over ensures that they'll get to make crafty ornaments.

I'm looking forward to cookie baking and hot cocoa. Christmas carols and cuddling on the couch.  My job is to make it happen, and enjoy it!

However, my plan is to make January boring. Super boring.

Playing to my Strengths

Deron went into the office for three days straight a couple of weeks ago.  It's quite a commute for him, but he learned a great deal during his employee council conference.  He came home and had me watch parts of the same seminar he had to watch.  The video was very interesting.  It was all about playing to your strengths.

The gentleman in the video says that only two out of ten people really enjoy what they do.  Two out of ten. That number is shockingly low.  Now, as an adult, if you're in a job you don't enjoy, it's not like you can switch jobs...just like that.  He suggests really evaluating your strengths and finding ways to incorporate what you enjoy and what you're good at into your day.

He suggests going back in your memories and thinking about what you enjoyed doing as a child.  Most of the time, your interests don't change. Your strengths don't change, and you have the same weaknesses.  He details several myths, as well.

One of which is this:  If you focus on what you struggle in, you'll get better at it and enjoy it more when in reality, you might get better, but you probably won't ever be great at the things you don't enjoy.  He suggests balance in study.  If your kid has 2 As, 1 B, and 1 F, don't focus solely on the F.  Continue a balanced study.

So what did my husband enjoy doing as a child?  Designing things, making things...He gets to incorporate that into his work on a regular basis.  He doesn't like documentation or finishing the projects.  Sometimes he still has to do those things, but he gets help from his co-workers who do enjoy taking the spinning top of a project and finishing it.  He gets me to proofread documentation.  He enlists the help of people who enjoy doing the things he doesn't enjoy doing. In a sense, they are able to work together to get the best traits out of one another.

Even when you find where you want to be, will there be things you don't enjoy doing? Yes.  Will you have to do them anyway? Yes.  But if you can find ways, even small ways, to incorporate things you love to do into your day, you might turn into one of the two. If you can find ways to incorporate things you enjoy doing that make you lose track of time, maybe, just maybe, you could be one of the two.

That seminar took me back to my childhood dreams of being a mom and a teacher.  (Granted...I didn't know I would be a homeschooling mom.)  So thinking about what I envisioned for myself as a little girl, I think I'm in a position to really enjoy trying to do the best I can where I am.  You know...bloom where I'm planted.  The grass is greenest where I water it and all that...

I'll still have to do the not-so-fun jobs around here, but hopefully, I can tip the scale toward what I really want to be doing.  Being a mom and teaching my kids...investing the best of my efforts and the bulk of my time into the things I really enjoy.  And I hope Deron and I can keep these things in mind as we raise our children, as we help them grow into teenagers and into adults.  How can they incorporate what they really enjoy into their futures?

Halloween and whatnot

Yesterday was Halloween.  The kids petitioned, eagerly, for a holiday.  They petitioned hard but to no avail.

We don't take off school for Halloween.  I did let them dress up in costumes all day.  We ate caramel apples dipped in peanuts and chocolate chips and drank apple cider for a snack.  We did read aloud a little more than normal while they built a Lego castle.  We played outside a little extra.  And our neighbors stopped by to make sure we were coming to their houses for candy.

Later, after the kids bounced around, anxious for us to head out, after we took pictures, after they had to wait "for-e-ver," we took the kids down the road to a few neighbors' houses.  When we got home, we ate pizza and watched a movie while we passed out candy to the very few kids that came by the house.  A good day. Fun times.

Recognize the bag, Mam-ma?!

Grace- My Littlest Peanut

When the kids were coming along, and we were having ultrasounds constantly, we used to joke that they looked like little peanuts.  You know, before you could see all their tiny arms and legs, they were our sweet, tiny peanuts.

Grace is still my itty, bitty, little peanut.  She's taller now but not much bigger around.

She's my painfully shy girl, but in some ways, she's quite a free spirited little thing.  She's, also, quite the comedian and spent one Sunday morning drive to church imitating a radio commercial.  She used an incredibly exaggerated Southern accent to sell some Kias.

She is deathly afraid of spiders.  She can handle most other critters, but she will burst into uncontrollable tears at the sight of one.  She won't even come in the house if she sees a spider in her path.  She'll wait and let someone carry her.

She's a spunky, youngest child, and she unfortunately, seems to command attention from her siblings.  They give in to her whims too often.  I think we're creating a spoiled little monster.

Happy Birthday, Daniel

To my sweet, adventurous, crazy, blonde-headed, blue-eyed, handsome boy on your 8th birthday,

Your changes this year have been a joy to behold.  You're one of the wittiest knuckleheads I know, and yet, you can be very sensitive.

There was a day last month that you were playing some sort of pirate adventure game in the backyard, and you were leading the way.  Grace couldn't make it up the hill, so you ran back to pick up your struggling comrade.  No one had to tell you that's what a big brother should do.  No one had to teach you a lesson that day.  It was a lesson you had, obviously, already learned.

You are a high energy kid who loves to get his school assignments done as soon as you possibly can.  Play time is, apparently, something you can never get back.

You have many of your daddy's traits.  You are a critical thinker, and if you think something is possible, you can think of a logical way to present your idea to me.  Even when your idea is crazy, you have a knack for presentation that keeps me from being able to rebut rationally.

I am thankful for you.  You keep me laughing.  You keep me on my toes.  You are a blessing.
I love you, dear boy.
Love,
Mom

Girls' Night

The girls and I went to a wedding last weekend.  Hannah woke up at 6:30.  She laid her dress on the couch.  Brushed her teeth. She brushed her hair. She was ready and sorely disappointed when she found out the wedding wasn't until 6:00 p.m.!  

"There's gonna be cake and kissing and my favorite part where the princess walks to the front of the church!  It's gonna be great!"

We rode to my parents' house, and they let Deron and the boys hang out there while we, girls, had a girls' night at the wedding.  Daniel and Ethan were afraid it would be too loveish and that there might be too much kissing.  

It's been a long time since I've seen some of the guests, so it was really nice to catch up.  The wedding was beautiful.  The music was lovely.  I couldn't have asked for a better girls' night!