Thank you Sara for telling me about the Deanaland blog (www.deanaland.blogspot.com )!! It has me laughing and reading almost non-stop. We share a hatred of laundy...she calls hers Mt. Laundry and I, as you well know, call mine Mount Washmore.

I think all women battle this awful but critical element of life. I know we should all be grateful we don't have to operate an old wringer washer or a knuckle busting washboard, but laundry is the most unfinishable task I know of. Even on the rare occassion that I get every piece of clothing washed and put away, everyone undresses, puts on pjs and there it is again. It's doneness is so short-lived!! Erma Bombeck said that cleaning the house while there are still children living in it is like shoveling the walk while it is still snowing. I live by this saying.

But sometimes, like tonite, when my wonderful father-in-law pops in to drop off a wonderful smoked ham for Christmas, I am very embarrassed at our untidy existence. I know how tidy their home always is (and was)...my husband tells me about it. I also grew up in a tidy home. But then again, we were five women all working together on housework. And we really did not have alot of other things to do. I mean, I only had one barbie!! We love the domestics of the home- I recall my sister and I having cook-offs to see who made the best scrambled eggs. I could not have been more than 6 years old and that put her at around nine. That is right around the ages of mine!!!!!! How could my mom allow us to cook...and we had a gas stove!!!!!

We also left the house in the morning and came home around dark. We played (alone mostly-rarely ever together)by the heavily snake-infested Clark's River (and yet I think I only ever saw two) and ate our weight in unwashed (and yet delicous) blackberries. I can't imagine my children living that kind of freedom and yet I long for it for them. They get doses of it here and there, but they live in a very structured and heavily supervised world. They also hear grown-up lingo and see grown-up erotica even on Saturday morning commercials. Even homeschooling doesn't shelter them as much as they need it!! And doesn't unshelter them enough either!!

Okay, not where I meant to go with this blog, but it is late and it went. I am not about to edit it. I wanted to be funny. Another time I guess.

Tomorrrow morning, putting together the food baskets at church...I am so excited I probably won't be able to sleep. What a nerd. I apologize for being weird. I guesss growing up a little on the needy side makes me feel really good giving back. Off I go to bed to feel really blessed in our home where we have enough to eat, enough money to pay our bills, money to buy a nice Christmas that is all bought and tucked away in various crevices of the house, the ability for me to be a stay-at-home (when do I stay home?LOL) mom and homeschool our children, and a loving, but not ever perfect, family. A family dedicated to a living relationship with Christ. I am blessed. We are blessed. I bet you are too.