Hmmm...

You know how during the day you think of about eleventy seven awesome blog posts that you're going to do as soon as you get the time, and then you finally get the time and sit down at the computer and start writing... and erasing.... and writing... and erasing... yeah - that's this post.  I think I've gone through 4 titles now.  And erased about 7 paragraphs (using the term paragraph very loosely.)  It's hard for me to jump in and just "start fresh."  I'm one of those people that likes to talk... a lot... and tell the antithesis of the "Reader's Digest Version."  I'm all about the back story.  So how b'zackly I'm going to just jump back into my half-a-year-neglected blog has me stumped.  I guess I'm just a little bummed that I didn't record all the day-to-day stuff that's happened these last 6 months - for my own sake.  And for the sake of boring you all to tears of course.  How 'bout I just start with today, and if something doesn't make sense, you just ask me for clarification.

Well, I guess to start with today, I have to tell you about yesterday.  It was our first day back homeschooling after a week long vacation to Galveston and the two weeks prior to that were fraught with a lack of normalcy because of Andy and I both having pneumonia (not at the same time thankfully, yeesh!)  So I was well aware that yesterday might be ahem difficult but WOW was it DIFFICULT!  I let Ira sleep in because he too (on our 2nd to last day of vacation) caught the upper-respiratory crud that Andy and I had.  He's getting over it thanks to our doctor calling in antibiotics for us, but yesterday was really the first day he felt better.  So we got started around 10 and let me just say, it was a battle all. day. long.  At one point Ira told me he wished I would "move to California and drown."  Touching, isn't it?  I tried to be patient, but you know what, I haven't been the most diligent in my prayer life lately and it shows in how my days go.  So we didn't get done with school until 5 o'clock.  GAH!!!!  And when I spend so much of the day "educating" Ira (be it behaviorally or academically) I feel like I don't get to be Ruby's mommy like I should be.  On top of all of that, it is near impossible to get anything done on a day like that, which just compounds the problem of feeling ineffective and worthless... California, here I come...  Dinner was late (Chana Masala -mmmm) but we were able to end our day with a decade of the rosary.

After the kids were in bed, Andy and I rolled newspapers (for our route of 800 that we throw once a month), talked, and watched our favorite show, Castle.  On top of feeling like a failure, I was also feeling particularly sad about our miscarriages.  I tell you, that is a deep heartache.  The kind that just takes your breath away at times.  It is so hard because in the end, when all the chips are down, it's completely out of our hands.  I can't try, pray, wish, or hope my way into more children for our family.  And I feel this acute emptiness in my life.  There's this gaping hole in my heart and I can't fill it.  It physically aches.  God can fill it.  I know that.  I know Christ didn't come to bring flowers and rainbows to sinners.  He came to die on the cross.  To show us how to live by dying to ourselves.  Suffering can be transformative if I offer it back to God.  I'm still working on that...

So yeah, to say I was dreading today would be an enormous understatement.  I had come up with a few different strategies to try to make today's school day go better. I got up right when my alarm rang at 6 o'clock.  "Serviam."  I started the day with a shower and more time than usual in prayer (no mass this morning, so I had some extra time.)  Ruby got up before Ira and she and I had about 15 minutes of snuggling, talking, and reading a book before she finally demanded "BREFEST"  It was just wonderful.  And you know what, the rest of the day went well too.  The kids and I were even able to go throw those 800 newspapers this afternoon so Andy didn't have to do it tonight.  Thanks God, I so needed a "today."

And I got this too:

And Ruby wore this to help Andy replace the brake pads on my car HA!!!  This is SO Ruby:

I'll leave you with Ira's narration for "Joseph in Potiphar's House"  it's a good'n:

"It was about the famous dream.  You probably know the story.  You know how Joseph's brothers sold him to a camel caravan?  The camel caravan sold him to Potiphar.  And Potiphar noticed that everything he told him to do, he could accomplish.  So he gave him charge of his whole household.  What an honor!  And Potiphar's wife was his friend, but after that, his enemy!  And she noticed that he wouldn't do wrong to please her.  And then she falsely told her husband lies about him.  And so Potiphar threw him into prison.  And then the king had a dream, well, two dreams actually.  And the dream was that there was seven fat cows eating by the river (probably the River Nile) and then seven thin cows came and ate up the fat.  And then he saw seven fat ears of corn, and seven thin and dry ones came up and ate the full beautiful ones.  And the meaning of this dream was that there would be seven years of plenty, then BLAM.  BLAM, BLAM, BLAM.  The food would be gone.  There would be a famine.  Yikes!  The Pharaoh made him in charge of storing up the food for the seven years of famine.  And people came from all over to get food, because the famine was all over the world.  Or at least that world."

You can't make that stuff up, folks!  And with that, I bid you "Goodnight!"