Why I Don't Need A Gym Membership

Not that I am sure I could find the time to actually go to the gym if I did have a membership. I mean, seriously, have you met my people? They tend to be busy. I'm exhausted by the end of the day.

Some days more than others.

The morning was smooth, or at least as smooth as a day with five young children gets. Minimal bickering, overall happiness and helpfulness. We call that smooth.

But at some point, the yarn began to unravel and fray. It started with the frantic cries of Anna.

"Mommy! I need to go poddy!!"

I was in the middle of sauteing peppers and onions to add to our dinner dish later that evening. I dropped the spoon and dashed upstairs. It was too late, though. She had panicked and quit thinking. Anna, dressed in her dress up princess gown, had sat down on the potty and relieved herself.

With her underwear up and her gown dangling in the bowl of her little potty seat.

"Did you have an accident?", I asked her.

"No. I put my pee-pee in da poddy."

In her mind, she had made it to the potty in time and it didn't matter that her clothes were wet and now dripping and dragging all over the bathroom floor. I helped her out of her clothes and plopped her in the bathtub with the water running. I figured an early bath might be the order of the day.

I mopped up the mess and then headed downstairs to grab my trusty steam mop. Once back upstairs, I turned it on and checked the water level in the bathtub. I was just about to steam sanitize the floor when the doorbell rang. I took off down the stairs to answer. I peeked through the blinds and saw that it was not a 'real' visitor but somebody with something to sell.

Now, you may never even think of doing this. You may be able to turn people away quickly and politely, but I get stuck listening to a while lot of jabber about something I am either a) totally disinterested in, or b)totally disinterested in paying for. And my house takes major blows because the children abuse the fact that Mommy is distracted and get into all manner of mischief. Knowing all that, I walked back upstairs. Without answering the door.

Yup. That's right. I am that rude. Care to come for a visit?

I got half-way upstairs when a scream ripped through the air. My older two girls were airing their opinions as to who was right and who was wrong about what, I don't know. Nor did I particularly care. There are those screams that need a referee, but then there are screams that just need a swift and firm reminder as to the important things in life. So I went back down the steps. (I think the scream scared the person at the door away)

Once each girl had verbally professed that she deemed her sister much more important than the skirmish at hand, I finally made my way to the bathroom. Where the bathtub was more than a little too full. I slapped the water off and opened the drain to let some of it out. Anna got a bit panicky as the open drain and needed me to hold her hands until the water was at a more appropriate level and I could re-engage the drain plug.

At about that moment, Thomas hollered at me that the kitchen was on fire. I flew down the steps and into the kitchen to see smoke coming from the stove top.

I'd forgotten all about the skillet full of butter and onions and peppers. It was a lost cause. I removed the carnage from the heat, turned on the vent fan, and stared dismally at the remnants.

We were having guests for dinner and I had just ruined the major flavor contributors.

As I was contemplating what to do, I heard Thomas holler at me again. Daniel had done the deed and was leaking around the edges. So I changed the baby, calmed him down, and went back up the steps.

Sarah came skipping into the bathroom and asked why Anna was in the bathtub and could she get in with her? Sure, why not. Two clean kids for the price of one. Elizabeth was close on Sarah's heels in asking to get in the tub. I sent the girls down stairs to drop their dress-up clothes in the proper place.

While they were gone, I took advantage of the 'quiet' to finally mop the bathroom. Thomas came around the corner and asked if he could mop the kitchen for our guests tonight.

Love that boy. I sighed with contentment, handed him the steam mop, kissed his head and sent him on his way. I had just finished washing Anna's little body when Sarah Grace called up the steps that our guests had arrived.

Leaving Anna happily playing the water, I headed down the steps and realized that I hadn't folded the load of laundry that was dumped on the couch and that every chair in the living room was filled with books or toys or dress-up clothes. The girls bounded out the front door to greet Mrs. C and her baby as I flew around the living room trying to clear the seating in a room that had been mostly clean just a half hour ago.

Once Mrs C and little Zoe were made comfortable, I shooed the girls upstairs to go ahead and bathe. And then I asked Mrs C to watch two sleeping babies and a tub full of girls while Thomas and I ran to the grocery store to grab a few more peppers. I still had hopes of salvaging dinner.

I made my way back up the steps and made sure all the girls remembered to not dump all the water over board and to not aggravate one another by pouring water on someone else's head. Mrs C followed me up and very graciously took over with the girls whilst I high-tailed it back down the steps and off to the store.

There were several more trips up and down the steps last night, but honestly, the story you just got took place in just over half an hour.

Fortunately, the Lord saw fit to remind me in the moment to laugh and enjoy it. As hectic as it was, I was happy to be in the middle of the crazy.

And at least I got my step-aerobics for the day out of the way!!

Ordered Steps

I've been sifting through pictures. Not just the recent ones, but from moments in years that were so long ago that I barely know the girl smiling up at me. The freckles are all there, the lopsided smile, it's the same. But Time has made differences.

And if you had asked the teen-aged girl in those picture where her life would take her, she would have responded with a haphazard "I don't know" and a shrug of her slender shoulders. If she was in a particularly feisty mood, she may have created a story of things she imagined would come to pass.

But she didn't know the blessings that Life and Time had in store for her.

It's like that, though, isn't it? These days we walk through, though we don't know what tomorrow will bring. We hope and dream and plan, but in the end, we just don't know.

Never did I ever see the life I lead as being mine.

I always said I would marry a man I could be comfortable with. I did. I'm the wife of a man I respect and love deeply. He makes me think, he makes me laugh, he makes me feel safe. He challenges me, he protects me. He knows when to let my Type A personality lead, and when to steer me in a different direction.

I'm a stay at home, home-schooling Mom of five precious children. Five. They bring so much joy to my life. They keep me on my toes and on my knees. They have taught me to multi-task, to put others ahead of myself and a better appreciation of long, hot baths. They cause my heart to swell and squeeze. They make my head spin and put my ears on overload. They fill my days, my nights, and my arms.

These days, I don't make it into many pictures. I'm generally the one armed with the camera, desperate to catch and hold captive some moment. But the lady with the freckles and lopsided smile, she occasionally makes it into a shot.

And she's incredibly content with the life that found her.

I know, O LORD, that a man's life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps ~~Jeremiah 10:23

The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps. ~~Proverbs 16:9

And that's pretty sweet comfort, yes?

My Passive-Agressive Demise?

Picture it...

My four older children sitting at the dining room table eating leftover pizza for their lunch. I'm roaming around cramming bites into my mouth while speed cleaning and trying to think ahead to the rest of the afternoon, and I hear...

"You never know, Sarah. She's pretty old already and she might be dead when you get to sixteen."

Desperately trying not to choke on my pizza, I headed towards the dining room wondering aloud,'Who might be dead?"

"You, Mom. Sarah Grace wants a Mommy Date to the thrift store when she turns to sixteen. But I told her you were old and you might be dead. You just never know."

First of all, YEAH! That's my daughter who wants to go thrifting with me.

Second of all, YIKES! And does my son know he's not the main beneficiary on my life insurance?

Summer Happiness

There is no shortage of activities in our town during the Summer months and we take full advantage of several of them. One of our favorites is Concerts in the Park. The music is generally pretty good and the side shows are generally pretty awesome!

It's just that the sideshows aren't part of the planned entertainment. Jugglers, Frisbee games, more bubble blowing than should be legal, and people watching (by far, my favorite) are among the usual suspects.

Plus, I have never been what that I didn't see tons of people I know. It is so much fun to chat and catch up.

My kids, though, they just view it as another excuse to get dirty and tromp around water making their Mommy a bit nervous. Here they are 'fishing' with a stick with some bread stuck to it. For every fish that nibbled on the bread, they got a point for 'catching' a fish! Pretty fun little game, really. Especially when they couldn't tell if that was the same orange fish that ate earlier or when one of the fish happened to be nearly as big as the child 'fishing' for it, producing all kinds of excited running and jockeying for position.

And small scale heart-attacks waiting to see who's gonna get shoved in the water.


Anna never strays far from the food. Girl has her priorities to be thinking of, ya know.


It was nice to have at least one who stayed put. Daniel was utterly content to just lay on his blanket and watch the hullabaloo go on around him.


And they all sleep so well after these outings! Which we all know makes it worth going to bed half an hour late for, right??

My Budding Artists

Sometimes I wonder why I ever bother to decorate anything before having lived in a house for a full year. It isn't until then that I have firm ideas about what I want to do. Everything done before then is with a vague perception of what I might think I like. That being said, we started over in the girls' room.

The walls were a raspberry pink. But only the top half, because I was going to put up bead board on the bottom half. The bead board sat in the guest room for six months while I dragged my feet. Finally, after the tornadoes of April, and while the power was still out and I was DUE to have a baby, I repainted the walls. They are now a soft bluer-than-aqua aqua color.

Honestly, I won't go into great detail over this. I have just a few more touches to finish up and I intend to do an entire post on the girls' room. I think it's pretty awesome, and they LOVE it.

The focus of this post is one of the projects Sarah Grace and Elizabeth have done.

I've had these two canvases for several years. I can't even remember what the original purpose was. Browsing around online had given me some inspiration and I talked to the girls about my plan.

They were delighted!

On an errand to Hobby Lobby, I picked up several colors of paint (and hooray! it was on sale!!) and a variety pack of paint brushes (and hooray! I used a 40% off coupon!!).

The girls and I spent some time contemplating designs and finally the afternoon came when I drew (and erased as needed) with a pencil on the canvases. Then I traced over the drawing with a Sharpie to make the lines easy for the girls to see.

And then, we squirted paint onto the lids of plastic butter tubs and the girls went to it!

We talked about what should be painted first and discussed colors and paint brush techniques (of which I only know, well, none) and the girls were a study in diligence.


Sarah Grace had definite ideas about how to do things, while Lizzie was simply content to go with it and take direction from me or Sarah Grace.


In the end, the girls carefully painted the images and I blotted on the back ground color. Then we sprayed them with a protective coating and hung up the artistic perfection.

Art by Sarah Grace

Art by Elizabeth

Actually, they sat on top of the girls dresser for a week or so before I got around to hanging them. But that is simply a function of a scatterbrained Mommy of five, right?

Some Day My ISP Prince Will Come

Y'all know I had a baby, right?

And it's summer and we have things to do.

And then there's my notorious tech-karma, or lack there of.

Which leads me to our current situation. Our internet service is slightly defunct. I have several blog posts written, but I can't upload the pictures. And these particular posts need pictures. NEED. However, the provider has been contacted, they are aware of the problem, and they are coming to fix it on Friday.

Which means there will be plenty of Freeman Footage next week.

But for today, you get nothing but me and my wordiness. And not much of it because we have things to do.

However, here is a laugh. Remember Doo-Doo? He's been mentioned a time or two. And since we thrive on the juvenile around here, I'll give you the most recent comment from our Anna about her beloved little thing.

'Mommy! Watch me!'

She very carefully put the round little object in her mouth that she has affectionately dubbed Doo-Doo. It was funny to watch because it's all she can do to get the thing to fit in her mouth, but she can do it. Then she spit him out with a 'pop' sound and grinned as she informed me of her accomplishment.

'Mommy! I can put my Doo-Doo in my mouth!'

I laughed. I guffawed. I snorted.

Oh. Yes. I. Did.