First of all, THANK YOU!!! to all of you who took the time to comment and encourage me or give me some useful tips on the last blog. Thank you also to all those who wanted to say, “You’ve lost your ever-loving mind,” but refrained from doing so ;). I hope to soon start giving more details about Charlotte Mason’s method, our particular plans to implement her teachings, and some other exciting developments that have been happening around here that aren’t necessarily part of homeschooling but will be a part of our every-day homeschooling lives. When you beg the Lord for direction, get ready to follow when the direction is all new and slightly terrifying!
Second, I do want to apologize for how sporadic I’ve gotten again with my writing. It is not intentional, I hope (because it is certain to happen again) it will never be a permanent disappearance, and you can be sure there are always reasons why I disappear and that I’m frustrated about those reasons. However, I determined a few years back not to apologize and bore everybody with my long list of reasons (that look exactly like your long list of reasons why you aren’t getting to do the things you enjoy doing for yourself). If I do, the blog becomes a continual string of apologies, and I get weary when people do that all the time, don’t you? So here is my apology, to cover the next year or so 😉
V-Day 2011, Seattle. Delivering a heart-shaped cake to Daddy at work.
I love love. I love people who love big. I love that I have been married for ten years, and still if I sit and think about all the reasons I love Jeremiah, I get an overwhelming urge to try and make him understand just how big the love that swells and pounds in my heart really is. The differences between the me that loved Jeremiah when we were dating and the me that loves Jeremiah now are that I have a deeper, more layered, and superfluous love for him today, AND that when Valentine’s day rolls around and I feel like my opportunity for crazy love has arrived….I am no longer worried that he might break up with me if I show him my crazy.
V-Day 2012. Jay Paul had just been born so all anybody got was a card 😉
Despite my desire to show crazy love, this year we (Jeremiah and I) had just gotten back in town from a trip (Woohoo!!) before Valentine’s day hit. I hadn’t had my normal week of mulling and preparation before the day arrived. I also now have two little goblins who have come to expect lots of help preparing for their own day, and I am sure you all can empathize with the difficulty of stepping back into your life with four children after you’ve been away for a time. If you can’t empathize, I will say that it feels a lot like trying to take a delicate sip of water from a fire hydrant. Especially if one member of the clan (sweet Mae girl) vomits on you 2.5 minutes after you walk in the door, and you know there are a few days of sterilizing hands and scrubbing “accidents” ahead of you.
V-Day 2013. We made “breakfast in bed” baskets for our friends.
While my love has not dimmed, you can see that my time for amorous shows of my affection has decreased greatly. Every year I try to give myself an out. You can just let it go. He knows you love him. There is no need to come up with a way to show him or anybody else that you love them on Valentine’s Day. I try to give myself permission to be normal… … …But then the day comes upon me and I can’t BEAR to not do SOMETHING. It’s just against how I am made. So, here’s our attempt at a lower-key Valentine’s day:
I helped with Mary Aplin’s class Valentine’s Day party on the day before V-Day. I got the idea for these cupcakes off pinterest (which I am not on but still peruse from time to time). I used a box mix of strawberry cake and made some buttercream icing (tinted pink). They were delicious, if I do say so myself. So delicious that we made several more batches…
I used these daisies for her party as well, and reused them for my Valentine the next day. Vases were $1 from Target and the wool heart garland was also from Target.
Pace and I started off our Valentine’s Day right with a V-day variation of an “Egg in a Hole”. The other children said “No thank you, we will just have sugar coated cereal.”
I managed to squeeze in a morning run. I listened to Mumford and Sons radio on Pandora. It was glorious. Happy Valentines Day to ME!
I took these goblins on an impromptu picnic in the yard. I made the girls pack it themselves while I was in the shower. Surprisingly, it went well. Except for the fact that Pace only put 2 slivers of turkey on my sandwich and between 4 and 6 slices on her own 😉 Mae is getting frustrated that she can’t join in.
After lunch, I took these two goblins to Jeremiah’s office for our big trick. They tied notes to each flower and we passed them out to the patients in the waiting room at Jeremiah’s clinic, asking them to hand him the flower when he came in to see them. Except for the one grown man who was a little leary of offering another man a flower, it went well.
We took some of our cupcakes to Jeremiah and the nurses helping him. This shot was 9.8 seconds before Mary Aplin ran into the plate and knocked one cupcake to the ground, I palmed a second one and all the others were thoroughly squished. We reassured everyone that they had once been lovely. Daddy ate the one that fell on the ground. That’s real love.
Finally we made cupcake deliveries to the great-grands and grands in our town. Grandma and Grandpa, my Mom’s parents. Thank you Pace, for being the only child still willing to smile with any truthfulness.
Mimi, my Dad’s Mom–looking wonderful. Pace, apparently taking a glamour shot. Mae Mae, lost that sock didn’t you sweet girl? Jay Paul, I hope that was just an itch. Mary Aplin, are you on Mars or Venus? It was a wonderful but long day.
I hate not to have one picture of my Valentine on the whole post, so here we are on a date on our vacation. Trying awkwardly to take a “selfie”. We had our date the night before V-day and spent the actual night crashed on the couch with the kids, eating pizza and watching Ghostbusters (of all things!). Hope your day was filled with love like ours was!
Oh Abby, how I wish I knew you in real life! Your writing is so wonderful…. love and truthfulness just pours out of every word. You had me laughing in several spots and laughing hard….1.)the sugar coated cereal comment, 2.)one man being leary to hand another man a flower, 3.)the whole cupcake incident at your husband’s work and 4.) the commentary on the pictures of your kids with their great-grandparents. Absolutely priceless. Don’t stress about how often you blog. The wait is definitely worth it!!