enjoying life

Who’s Fault Is It Really? {Thoughts From Me}

December 15, 2016 by Dana

Last night I was at home watching a movie with Don and the rest of the family. I am pretty sure it was a Christmas movie, yet I can’t remember the name. It was the typical man and woman meet and fall in love movie. Yet, near the end of the movie, there was one statement that really hit home for me.

You see in all my failed relationships, the other person has always pointed the failure towards me, yet I never felt the failure was completely my fault. The men in my life have always tried to make me feel that I was the problem, that it wasn’t them. They have told me that I would continue to find the same problems over and over because, well, that problem was me.

Honestly, I was beginning to believe them. Then Donald came along and he has worked to change my thinking. Trust me, it’s been really hard for him to do but this movie confirmed what he’s told me since we met.

You see, it was never me that was the problem. It wasn’t really them that was the problem either. The real problem was that these guys I was with were never meant for me. Since they weren’t right for me, our relationships could never work. It wasn’t anything either of us did, it was simply the wrong person for me to be with.

Now I know that’s easy to see now but it wasn’t so easy to see when I was with them. And walking away doesn’t make it easy to see when you have been told over and over that you are the problem. Sometimes it takes a HUGE wake-up call, like hearing it said straight out in a random movie, to make you realize, “Hey, I’m not the problem here!”

We can never be happy with the wrong person. God created us each to be unique and He created each of us to fit one other unique individual. That individual is our other half, the love of our life, our soulmate.

I’m blessed to have truly found mine, to know of his love for me, for my children, for our family and our life together. Sure things aren’t always perfect because we’ve both been brainwashed by being in the wrong relationship before finding one another and finding our right relationship, but we work hard to heal and love and move forward together. We are learning to forgive, to depend on each other and to embrace our life as it should be with one another.

When love is right, it’s just right. You know it wholeheartedly. I’m so thankful to have found my love in Don and also to have found this healing piece of truth from something so simple as this.

Until next time…

New Adventures {Thoughts From Me}

April 18, 2016 by Dana

Another month has passed by quickly. With the new found Spring, we find adventure outdoors together as a family. This is something completely new to us all and the kids are absolutely loving it! Well, we ALL are!

The weather has warmed up tremendously – though we currently have a bit of a cold front upon us as I type this – and it has brought the kids, and us adults, out of winter hiding. There’s been a bit of rain but there’s been a lot of sunshine as well. We look forward to this time of new beginning, both inside our home and outside.

Camping.

It’s a completely new adventure for me that began last August before we up and moved to NC. It began with new hope and love, with meeting Donald. Camping is something he loves to do. He’s spent most of his life exploring outdoors.

Camping is something I never in a million years thought I would do. Not unless it involved a shiny RV. But Don encouraged me to give it a shot and y’all, I love it! There’s nothing better than connecting with nature or sleeping out in a tent under the stars.

The kids are loving it, too – well, Winston and Laycie at least. Emma isn’t so sure she’s ready until we have a bigger tent for the family to share. Grandma swears she has never liked camping and doesn’t think she’ll like it now. And Jack has been up and down in his health this Winter with mild tummy bugs and colds, so we haven’t yet taken him along with us. They are slowly being convinced to join us though and hopefully, in a few more weeks, they’ll be willing to take that plunge. For now though, Laycie and Winston are loving the fun with Don and I.

It’s good for Winston to be out and about. He’s learning a lot about nature, first hand. Don’s been teaching him to fish as well. Hopefully, they’ll be out canoeing soon. He and Don have a lot in common which is great for both Donald and for Winston. It’s amazing to see the transformation in them both. God’s blessing shines through.

Win’s growing up fast and his years left at home are limited. I’m so thankful he finally has a man in his life to teach him all about being a real man and I’m glad that Don is up for the task, enjoying it right along with him. It’s a beautiful thing to see them both growing and gleaning wisdom from each other.

Laycie’s right along with those guys. Every time, DaDa Don (as she calls him) takes out the fishing pole, she wants to go, too. He’s taken her several times already and she’s caught a couple of good-sized fish. She’s learning to be patient and a little bit quieter so she can one day catch that monster bass. She’s also getting pretty good at her owl calls with her DaDa Don’s help.

So this is life for us now. A lot of out of the house, sleeping in tents in the great wild yonder. ReWilding. Getting back to nature and learning to love this life God has blessed us with as well as the many people in it. Bringing home close again so these kids of mine have the love, security and life they deserve to have. Life is a beautiful thing and I’m so blessed every day with my family and my little loves.

December Update {Epilepsy Awareness}

December 11, 2014 by Dana

It’s been a month since I posted on the blog. I really was feeling burnt out and just needed a long break. Plus I was sick with strep for two weeks and simply did not feel up to writing anything.

My life is ever chaotic but full. There is always so much going on. It’s never-ending but I’m thankful we have so many activities to keep us busy.

Jackson has therapy every Monday in Charleston right now but that should be ending soon. It’s for his Parent – Child Interactive Therapy and it’s been amazing for us. His therapist is so impressed with our family and how quickly we have achieved our goals. It’s been great for me too because it’s assured me that I have this Momma thing down. Parenting comes easy to me even when I feel like I’m barely keeping it together. I always knew I was born to be a Momma.

Jackson also has therapy on Tuesday’s where we always have. He’s my third child at NextStep. They are amazing to work with.

Last week, Jack was fitted for braces and shoes for his feet as requested by his wonderful therapist. The braces fit inside his shoes and help with his arch support. They keep his ankles from twisting and help him balance better. At least that is the hope. If these don’t work, he will get ankle supports to help him gain strength in his legs and feet. The goal is to prevent him from having similar issues as Emmalee has.

Laycie began back with her speech therapy last week as well. She’s officially done with physical and occupational therapy. Her speech is still challenging though so she will continue with that. I really need to get her an appt to have her tongue tie checked and discuss surgery options for it. I just dread having her suffer with having that done.

She has a neurology appt on Monday. We will see how she is doing and if she has lost any more weight. If so, she will be switching medications again which is always a challenge for her. The doctor had some suggestions for us that we will discuss at this visit. Not sure what they exactly are but I trust his opinion on the matter.

Winston and Emmalee are doing great as always. At the neuro Monday, I will bring up Emma’s followup for her feet so we can see where we are on that. I’m so past ready for the doctors to get rolling with a treatment plan.

So that is our most recent update. Life is just so busy right now and Christmas time is always exceptionally busy for us. Hope you are all well! God bless!

September Update: Just a post of where we are! {Thoughts From Me}

September 19, 2013 by Dana

I haven’t been blogging much this month. I’ve actually been enjoying a little time off. The weather is gorgeous and it’s inspired me to do a little Fall cleaning around my house. By the time I wrap up my daily to-do’s around the house, I’m really too tired to be inspired to do much online past my reviews and a quick check-in.

Last year, when I as pregnant, I wasn’t into housekeeping much so the house is a real disaster but that’s ok! It’s only one season of our life and it passes so quickly. Then there is the demand of keeping up with a baby, and his siblings – readjusting schedules, homeschooling through and watching him and them learn and grow. It doesn’t allot for a lot of homekeeping time there either.

Add in the baby having reflux, food allergies and Epilepsy on top of it and my time diminishes even more. Now that he’s a year old, and his reflux, food allergies and Epilepsy are somewhat under control leaves me time to catch up on the things I’ve been putting off.

Last week, I emptied an entire box that’s just been piling in my house for four years. This box was full of my paints, my brushes and anything else related to my hand-painting crafts. This hobby of mine was sadly neglected and not organized at all but now all those paints are stored behind my bedroom door in an over the door shoe organizer and it works for now. I can see the bright colors which I attempted to sort them into. I still don’t have a permanent home for the brushes but small steps will get me there. I want a rolling drawer cart in the classroom so they will either go there or in my cubbies under my kitchen table where I now store my hobby items and review things.

This week, I’ve been catching up on work that should have been completed months ago but couldn’t be since Jackson was sick. I’ve also been going through clothes from the building that have piled up. I missed two whole boxes of 6-9 months clothing for Jackson because I didn’t have time to get out there while he was sick. Those will now be sold to buy him new clothes in his size, which adds another thing to my must get done list.

I’ve also be reorganizing things throughout the house to make it better work for us and printing things in prep for school lessons. I just purchased a great set of Eeboo All Around the World Alphabet Wall Cards second hand from Sam @ Sam’s Noggin. I plan to use them with Laycie this year. I know she’s really going to love those!

We also have our set of Touch Math that we will continue to work through with Laycie this year. She really loves the hands on uniqueness of this program. It really works well for her. She will also continue to use her Logic of English curriculum that we reviewed last week. Another program that she really loves!

For the next few weeks, I plan to clean, clean, clean and organize, organize, organize! I will do my best to update when I can. I have a few plans for the blog, too, that I can hardly wait to put to work.

But for now it’s just going to have to wait.

March Update {Thoughts From Me}

March 7, 2013 by Dana

It’s always busy in our life. One thing leads to another and it seems there is never enough time to get everything done. Life is full and filled with ups and downs right now.

Our new porch is in the process of being built. We’re using our front door because we aren’t able to get out the back. I’ve got boxes stacked in front of it, to keep my littles from mistakenly going out.

We’ve been doing a lot with school.

We’ve got a lot of reviews going on right now, too. A lot of great stuff that I’m looking forward to sharing about in the future. Needless, to say the kids are having a lot of fun right now.

We’ve had doctor’s appointments galore recently. Emma had her nerve conduction test a few weeks ago and the results came back perfect. No issues with her muscles. She’s being set up for botox injections and casting to correct her toe-walking.

Jax also had his 6 month checkup. He’s 27 1/2 inches and weighs 15.4 lbs. She advised us to hold off longer on his veggies and try making our own to see if he outgrows his reflux issues. She said he is gaining weight and doing amazingly otherwise.

I’m currently working on a reorganization project, house-wide. Living in Chaos is for the birds. It’s slow going but it’s getting there and I’m excited to see things in their place.

I feel like my mind is going a 1000 miles a minute, trying to keep up so this is just going to be a brief synopsis of our life at the moment. Hopefully, in the future these posts will be come more organized. Until next time…