How Do You Do It All? My Top Ten

I read frequently another home schooling list. In last few days, someone asked, "HOW DO YOU DO IT ALL?". I offer her plea anonymously:

I am having a very hard time right now. I feel like no matter what I do I can't do it fast enough or well enough. It took me the entire day just to fix my husband's scout shirt today (We just moved). I feel like I can't give my kids all the attention they need. I can't teach them the things they want to learn. I never get enough sleep. i have an 8 yo boy who needs help with writing and math and my 5 yo girl wants to learn to read. my 2 yo and 8mo baby girls want to be held and swung and call for my attention all the time. I know I am supposed to home school every time I pray about it. I know it. I just want to know how do you do it all? How do you feel like your brain is not turning to goo? And how do you keep from feeling like you have failed every day?

What has followed is a long long series of posts entitled "Re: HOW DO YOU DO IT ALL?" Half of one days digest and all of today's digest. It appears a lot of people on this list understand and can empathize.

I had a list of ideas come to me.

1) I hurt for you
2) Upper level class in values and priorities going on.
3) Hitting the wall is sometimes the only way we come to God.
4) There has to be a bright side in all of this. Find it, hang on to it.
5) Is hubby aware?
6) Kids are resilient.
7) Can someone else help with the 2 clingons?
8) Are you a list person?
9) Go to sleep, it will be better in the morning.

and finally....

10) Frustration is a mild form of insanity. It is the inability to adjust expectations to reality. (Author/Leader/Entrepreneur Grant Sharp)

If someone else would mind sharing their thoughts I will certainly pass them on. If you have a link to a blog or two where you have written about this before, I will pass them on too.

I remember those days. So many children. All wanting something. Cyndy wanting to quit. Dad holding fast to the tiller as the great ship Weiss weathered the storm. We always came out the other side of the squall. Having now 30 years of sailing under our belt, we know the truth of the line from "White Squall", "You can't run from the wind. You face the music. You trim your sails and you go on." Cyndy would be the first to tell you, that what she became and what I became and what our children became when the squares were up, in the middle of the ocean, with no land in site, and God was our only lifeline, has been worth it. I look forward to meeting together with all you old salts as we trade tales of the open sea and all of our journeys and adventures.

I Also Got Tagged for a Meme

I actually got two tags. One from Tammy at Just Enough, and Nothing More and also from Pinehurst in my Dreams, the author unknown to me. I have no idea what this is. Or why?

So I put this off for a while. Busy and I guess just male. Quirky things about me? Seven of them. For me, its like an Iraqi walking into an american grocery store. Too many choices creating anxiety and emotional overload. ;-) But Tammy has been a good blogging friend, and I admire her writing skills and thinking willingness. So... here goes:


1) I love books, but unfortunately more than reading them. We have a huge library in our home. But even though I read a lot, I have far more books than I will ever in this life have time to read. And I am still buying more. Go figure. Maybe being surrounded by knowledge makes me think I am full off it. Come to think of it maybe I am.

2) When I really want to relax, I go to my closet and bring out the slaps that I used to wear when I was went to school in Hawaii for two years. Not the actual ones, of course. These are newer, but the same style. Black mock velvet straps, cane insole, cork bottoms with rubber on the bottom. I can't walk fast in them unless they get wet, because they are slippery on the soles of my feet. But they take me back to wonderful days. After basketball practice was over, we would shower, put on our gym shorts and our lava lava over that, a t-shirt and slaps and go to dinner. Even now as I think of it, the warmth of the sunset on the north shore, a breeze most of the time and friends to eat with and laugh with and talk with, lots' of food, and lots of Hawaiian fruit. Time that seemed to move way way way slooooooow. A taste of heaven for me.

3) My wife and I have been blessed with 11 children. One at a time. Oldest is 31, youngest is 13. How about that? People say that is different. Being with Cyndy and the kids, now and in the life beyond, is the most humbling and amazing blessing I ever remind myself of. As each one of the kids develops, as we observe each one doing amazing things, making amazing decisions, and living amazing lives, it gets all the more humbling.

4) I have been in life or death situations 7 times so far. By that I mean, one inch, one second different and I would have checked out of here. One time, I said to myself, "So, this is how I am going to die. How interesting" as it was happening. Then I worked my way out of that one too. I found out through all of this, that I have the courage to make very very hard choices when life and death is on the line, and I found out that under that kind of stress, I was very peaceful and calm, all about the task at hand. I don't know what I do with that knowledge yet, but somehow it is nice to know.

5) Until recently, I didn't fully realize how big a 6'4" and over 300 lb person I am. When I look at people, I look them in the eye, so seeing eye to eye, I have always thought of myself as their size and height. Then the other day, I was walking out the front door and noticed two things. One, my head was very close the the light in the entry and also that I filled the entire space that makes up the front door. I thought to myself. Man, you are a big guy. Then I began noticing that other people, most other people came up to my chin or even lower and that many women were also really short. Like I don't look at the top part of their head, I look down on it. I see the thinning hair, etc. Even Cyndy became short suddenly. No wonder people can be afraid of me. I had no idea that I was a landmark instead of a person.

6) When in college, I decided to get a degree in english. Why? You won't believe this. My logic went like this. If I can learn to master symbolic language and representation, then when I read the scriptures, I will understand more how God thinks and why He does what he does. I will understand more of the message of Jesus Christ. And IF I can come to understand that, anything else in my life will work out. Now 30 years later, I understand symbolic language less than ever, and I am still wondering how things are going to work out in certain areas in my life. I used to love picking apart a short story or a great poem or other great literature. Today, I don't have the same energy and desire to attack those kinds of challenges and figure all that out. (Note: Cyndy proof read everything I ever wrote in college, which saved my bacon. She does not proof read my blog entries now, which usually ends up frying it.)

7) We have never owned a new car in our lives, and we have never sold a car that I can remember. However, we have had several hauled away for salvage and one time, the guy was walking along the side of the car after he pulled it up on top of his truck bed, and grabbed the door for balance and as I remember it, it came off in his hand. We all laughed so hard.

So there you have it. My stream of consciousness attempt at this Meme thing. By the way, how do you pronounce that word?