Why aren't you....x or y or z?

First, I want to mention a couple of ladies who you can thank for this new out-of-my-normal-style blog entry. You see, I don't normally post anything that isn't new, exciting, fun, or successful. For me to post something so "personal" as how our days REALLY go (which I'm about to do... see below) is quite a stretch for me >VBG>. These two friends have blogs that I LOVE because they are "real." They don't just post the good and great things which is my normal style. They post enough of the everyday stuff for the reader to know that they are REAL people! I will attempt to do the same this month thanks to their inspiration. Here are two of my friends... one a "real life" friend and the other a "cyber friend."

DeEtta, my long time friend and fellow bloggger is mom to many kids, military spouse whose dh is currently deployed, and homeschooling mom with 2 graduations under her belt and one more to come this spring. She's always gone ahead of me in all things homeschooling and parenting. I'm VERY THANKFUL for her willingness to openly share the good and not so good giving the rest of us encouragement to hang in there when things don't go as we had planned. Ok... I won't be going anywhere near MANY of the subjects that she broaches - like annual checkups and Bible study thoughts - but my LIFE posts will be a start! We've known each other since our oldest ones were just little. Thanks to the internet and blogging we've become closer friends over the years and through her many moves. Awhile ago on the homeschooling internet loop that we co-own, she mentioned that she is the one who jumps right into things and I'm the one who follows along and figures out what to or how to do (LOL) whatever she jumped into. That pretty much summarizes how we operate and the saying holds true for blogging. She jumped in and I followed, at some distance I might add, jumping on the blogosphere bandwagon nearly a year after her. Remember, I'm the one who has to analyze everything to pieces. However, one day I just took the plunge and here we are. So, you can thank DeEtta for my blog in general because I would NEVER have started if she hadn't jumped in first. Both she and the next friend I'm going to talk about, Dorothy, are the ones you can thank for me taking the risk to share a few more personal thoughts and things on my blog.

Dorothy, is my cyberfriend from England. I've "known" her for years! I met her on the SHS (Support4Homeschool) loop that DeEtta and I co-own. We have similar interests including both of us being involved in our churches and music ministry, both having home businesses, both homeschoolers, etc. She recently posted this paragraph on her blog: "I said right at the beginning that this blog was an attempt to carve out some time for reflection, but I've not done an awful lot of that yet. Perhaps I'm afraid to bore anyone who might be reading. {g} Perhaps I'm afraid to disappoint anyone who may be thinking I have a great life! Perhaps I'm just nervous about exposing myself. But the last few days have been tough and I need to try to figure out what has been happening and try 'bring my thoughts captive' before they run away with me." This touched me because I don't want anyone to think that *I* have it altogether all of the time or that my kids and house are always "just so" because I only share the good or great things on my blog. Also, the title of her blog is YOU DID WHAT? which is a phrase I hear almost daily around here (see sidebar explanation under Worker Bee - lol). So, thanks Dorothy for motivating me to be more "real" on my blog. I hope to travel to England some day and meet you in person!

Now, back to the title question. Why aren't you... x or y or z? . Here are just a few of the questions that I recall being asked in the last week:

Why aren't you going to the Christmas Party tonight?
Why aren't you coming in to visit?
Why aren't you working on this yet?
Why aren't you going to home group today?
Why aren't you able to go for coffee?
Why aren't you able to schedule our annual Christmas get together (that we've done for the last 20 years or so)?
Why aren't you making supper tonight?
Why aren't you going to go to the mall?
Why aren't you... and the list goes on.

I can't even count how many times I've been asked the above or similiar "why" questions in the last few weeks or so. I'm not really one to readily admit that I can't do it all especially not on a blog for all of the world to see (LOL). So, I've decided to list what we do in a day, week, or maybe even the entire month - we'll see how it goes - in a feeble attempt to explain "why" I can't do alot of the things listed above even though many of the questioners won't even be reading my blog. It will also serve to remind me that we do accomplish a lot in a week even though what we do may not be as measureable as marking off this event or that event on the calendar. We maintain a pretty fast pace around here in order to do care out some time for things other than work and school, each being full or nearly full time jobs for me. Even with our fast pace, we still don't have time to do all that we would like to do and there's never enough time for sleeping (LOL). I always say there will be plenty of time for sleep later.... years from now when the kids are grown and I'm retired.

I wanted to start our daily recap on the 1st, but you can see I'm already a few days behind. I doubt anyone is keeping track, but I have had a few people email or call inquiring why I haven't updated my blog (LOL) in the last few days. I plan to recap nearly everything we do in a day for a few days, maybe a week, or maybe a month. Tim just asked what I'm doing and I said "I'm recapping everything we're doing each day." He said, "you can do that?" IOW, we do SO MUCH in one day (most of the time 4 or more of us are doing entirely different things simultaneously) that he's not sure I can actually record an entire day or week's worth of activities let alone an entire month's worth. I'll give it a shot and we'll see what happens.

*For the record*... I consider blogging time well spent and it's GOOD for me - maybe even great - because it forces me to record what's happening in our family on a regular basis and it is the main reason why one of this year's New Year's resolutions is met! You see all of my pictures from this year are sorted and journaled thanks to the blog and that's more than I can say for many previous years! Blogging helped me meet one of my goals for this year which was to keep up with my photos... notice I didn't say photo "albums."