Rest

Have you read Jen Hatmaker's new book, "For the Love?" Other than "What is your Myer's Brigg's personality type?" or "What is in your backseat?", this is my favorite question these days.  I have wanted to read this book since its release but was too cheap to buy something that I knew I would devour in no time. So I put a hold on the book at the library and waited for my number to come up. After reading the first chapter, I was wishing I had purchased it so I could highlight, underline and star all the nuggets she offers in this book.

I am loving this book for so many reasons. One, it is hysterical! Laugh out loud funny! I have even had my kids read certain parts aloud in the car, or at the ballet studio. I have shared pieces with Joel. Jen is so funny and so spot on, it is hard not to want to share with everyone you come into contact with. Two, her nuggets are meaningful. Her chapters on marriage, children, aging, church offer deep thoughts to ponder, choices to be made and actions to be taken.

My favorite chapter so far has been the first one. In this chapter, Jen addresses the issue of women (most likely all of us) that try to do it ALL. She likens this life, this balancing act, to doing a trick on the balance beam. Her conclusion is that not everything fits on the beam, not every trick is worthy of being rehearsed, not every gig is worthy of our time and attention. This has really struck me.

In our backyard

I love homeschooling our kids. Don't get me wrong, though, this journey has been far from perfect and has had almost as many challenges as successes. But overall, homeschooling fills my cup. I love being the one to chart the course of learning for my kids. I love that my finger prints are the ones that are imprinted over the hours of the day. I love that there is time during the day to process character issues. Now, I don't do all the teaching. We attend co op's and online classes, ballet and basketball, music classes, etc. One because I don't know everything (spoiler alert) and two because Joel and I are always looking for ways to have other adults speak life and truth into our kids' lives.

The last couple of years of school have been especially challenging with Jack. Jack is very smart, curious, creative, inventive but has struggled, really struggled in the area of reading. Each one of our kids has read at a different age and I have learned along the way that kids will read when they are ready to read. I have tried countless programs with Jack to no avail. I have looked at myself long and hard in the mirror and wondered if it was me. Am I not disciplined enough to spend the consistent time with him that it will take to have him read? Am I not skilled enough to teach actual reading? Maybe with the girls I just got lucky? Finally after a long summer of really being consistent and pushing through, Joel and I decided to take Jack for a learning assessment. When we sat down and looked at him as an overall kid, there were pieces for us that weren't lining up.

What's up these days

These days I have been obsessed with Podcasts. I am not sure when or where I made the discovery but I am so glad that I did. Each time I start to clean my house, fold the laundry, take a long drive in the car by myself or prepare a meal, I throw in my earbuds and tune into a Podcast. It makes the time go by quickly and I feel like I learn something new each time.

I started with The Simple Show by Tsh Oxenreider. I have been a faithful follower of Tsh and her ideas of simplifying life for a few years. Emails would come into my inbox and introduce a new podcast and I would delete it not knowing where to start or how to access it. Finally, one day I just decided to click on my podcast app on my phone (comes pre-installed, who knew?) and give it a shot. As my kids and husband would tell you, since then I've become a little (or maybe a lot) addicted. Halle has even started listening to Webkinz Podcasts on her iPod. She came home from cheerleading and let me know that NONE of her friends had ever listened to a podcast. My little trendsetter!

Tsh's show led me to The Sorta Awesome Show with Megan Tietz and three of her sorta awesome friends. I love listening to their show! It is like sitting down and having coffee with girlfriends. They dish on their "sorta awesome of the week," goals, confessions, books, holidays, birthday parties, tv, you name it. I look forward each week to their new podcast.

But the area I have become most enthralled with and the reason and I am back to take a stab at blogging is the podcast called Personality Hacker. Megan mentions in her show (actually almost every show) her obsession with Myers Briggs personality types. One day she talked about the Personality Hacker podcast and how it has helped her with personal growth. I was instantly drawn to this show and really can't get enough of it. It feeds right into the part of my brain that led to my psychology degree.