some ramblings

Christmas is over. It was fairly low key this year. There is MORE I would have liked to get accomplished with CO but with travelling to Ottawa and then getting sick, I just wasn't able to do it all. I am ready to take the tree down (which I usually don't do until the new year). It is larger than I normally have so it is blocking a large section of my living room and it is dropping pine needles like crazy. My dear son whom I love SO much loves to sweep so I have pine needles spread further through my house than I normally would. The only thing really stopping me is I like to sit in the evening and read with the tree turned on. So I will wait one more week before taking it down and putting away the Christmas decorations. I will leave the winter ones up :)  Plus I am SO in the mood for spring cleaning and getting rid of things! Hopefully I still will be next week when we are back into our routine and with the new things on our schedule in the new year.
Most of my house decorations are more winter decorations than Christmas ones so I tend to leave them up until spring.
I am content with the little my son got for Christmas. It is SO easy to get sucked into the consumerism of Christmas. I was tempted to buy so much for him that I knew he would like but on the most part I said NO and if I did buy him things above and beyond his stocking and two gifts, I tended to just put them aside to bring out at a later date (some books, activities, etc.) I actually changed my mind Christmas eve and the present I was planning on Santa giving him I put away in my parent's basement and used one of the two presents I bought him (they were of the same set) to be from Santa. I am happy with this decision and may even donate the other gift to the playgroup that we attend on Thursdays or to our local EYC for their toy library. Overall he got PLENTY of gifts between family here and family in Ottawa. I have found homes for everything and next week I am going to go through his stuff and eliminate some old toys and downsize. My goal is for him to not own more than he can personally clean up himself.  Everything has a place and he is fairly good at putting things back. The only trouble is when he gets into modes like this week (He pretends he is Santa and he dumps a bunch of toys together into a bag or box walks around saying 'ho ho ho merry christmas' and giving the things away. The bags can be a fairly large mishmash and tend to take some work to resort. But hey how can I get upset that he is so willing to give away his own things.
CO loves to craft and read. In the new year I am going to start working on the kindergarten math curriculum that I have. The program uses lots of manipulates and is very hands on. We will add it to our week maybe doing 3 lessons a week and see how it goes. He very much enjoyed doing our weather chart that I introduced to him this month and understood it right away. We will keep it up and maybe in another month or so we will start doing the weekly chart rather than the daily chart. I also want to start a form of organized prayer with him. I don't know if I am going to do a small book with photos or a wall with photos of people that we are going to pray for daily. I wanted to do an outreach with him this holiday at a senior's place having him hand out candy canes or something but getting sick put a damper on that idea so maybe we can do it for Valentine's. I definitely want to expose him to being involved in the community from a young age so that it will seem like a norm to him. So often I see children these days who don't see beyond themselves or their little bubble and I want him to think about those in need. I try to have him select something at the grocery store every time we go that he puts into the food bank box on the way out the door. I have the photos of the foster children that I have through Compassion Canada and that I have looked after through respite up on the wall and we pray for those children.  I don't feel I pray enough in my own life so I want to work on adding prayer to both of our lives in the new year and make it a bigger focus. I want to model things like praying for my son. More than just saying grace. I remember being a teen and going to a prayer meeting with my father and thinking that that was the first time I remember him actually praying out loud for a purpose other than grace. I am not saying my dad isn't a praying man, I just don't remember him modeling it to us while growing up.

anyway Curious George Christmas special is over so I am going to take my little one up and read some stories and do some praying!

two books read in less than a week :)

I just finished reading Unlocked. by Karen Kingsbury

I find Karen's books to be a quick read but she does a great job with making you believe so much in her characters that I have a hard time putting them down and I often read them within 24 hours or 48 hours if my son isn't in much of a mood to let me read. I found myself crying through this book (which is common with her books, I am not sure I have ready any of her books that didn't make me cry) which I was regretting doing as I have been coughing for the last 5 days and having a bawl fest probably isn't the best for helping me to get over my cough. This book of hers was about an autistic individual which made me skeptical. Many times when I read fiction with characters with autism and the character isn't usually believable. Sometimes it feels that authors google autism and then their characters have ALL of the characteristics rather than just some of them. This character was done fairly well. Overall I would recommend this book as I would any of her books. She is probably one of my top 10 authors that I like to read.

book

one of the benefits of being sick is curling up on the couch with a blanket and reading :) I finished this book this weekend at work during down time in the evening. I read this book in a couple of days. Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik

This book made me very much wish that I belonged to a book club! I enjoyed it quite a bit. It dealt with a lot of issues...marriage, parenting, adoption, abuse, adultery, race, homosexuality, etc.

I liked that all the ladies in the book club were SO different yet their love of reading bonded them together and enabled them to be great friends for many decades (their children bonded as well). Through the book club they were able to accept each other and their differences, be there for each other and celebrate life with each other.

Negative: there was too much talk about sex for my liking fortunately it wasn't too detailed. There was a lot of different issues (some listed above) and by the end it almost felt like too much for four families though I guess there was a large time span.

Anyone belong to a book club?

the spirit of it all...

my kid cracks me up...my aunt just walked through (if you know the layout of my house I live in a 4 bedroom house, 2 of the bedrooms are in the basement and are occupied by my aunt and sister, that is attached to a 2 bedroom house, that my parents live in, via a 'sunroom' which used to be a garage and was convereted into livingspace, the dog is the only one who really lives there...the kid plays there and we use the space when entertaining and need to set up a large table) the stairwell headed to my parents place (which is where she takes all her meals unless I cook a family dinner at my house) and CO heard her go by so he yelled 'dat u aunt duce?' 'I'm having a bath because I have a stinky bum!'.  He cracks me up! this is totally the words out of my mouth telling him last night that he needed a bath real soon because he is stinky :) my kid totally baths on command. We don't have a set bathnight or time. Basically he has a bath whenever he feels like it (sometimes a few a day) or when I want 5-30 minutes of peace (which usually ends up being closer to 5 when it is my idea)

last night my kid was crying because he wants presents. He is only 3 but it still annoys me that he is sobbing over something such as 'stuff'. I understand he was tired as well but it is hard to teach small children about not being selfish. It is also hard to teach them not to drink the bath water or to plug things into walls. Especially when they are stubborn, contrary, sneaky and fast.
We went out a couple of days ago and did some shopping for other people. He had a hard time in the begining of our thinking of things other people would like (that weren't things he wanted) but i the end did ok. We have those presents wrapped and under the tree (which is hard for a three year old to leave alone but he is doing fairly well. He wrapped one of his toys and has wrapped and unwrapped it a few times)

gotta go he is making puddles through the house for splashing in....ug

farewell to fa*cebook

I have said farewell to fa*cebook (for over a month now). The saddest thing about getting rid of it is that I will loose that connection with the small handful of old acquaintances that I enjoyed keeping up with. But this means that I need to work harder at keeping the lines of communication open in other ways. I'd like to go back to good old letter writing (I know I have said this in the past and failed)
One of the biggest reasons I left fa*cebook is that I was tired of caring so much. Caring if people would be my friend or not. Caring that people didn't send me birthday greetings. Caring if people wouldn't comment on my status.
Another of the reasons I left it is that I found it addicting. Even though I kept my friend numbers low, and didn't join groups, I found myself checking it multiple times a day. What a waste of time!
This fall I have found myself overwhelmed a lot.
Overwhelmed by the amount of unnecessary stuff in my house, the clutter and the lack of space to put things. When my aunt moved in I lost a lot of space to keep my things and I have yet to have all those things that were once in her room organized so I can function and use it. Which is sad as it was my crafting things. And I miss creating things.
Overwhelmed by loneliness. I have no close friends. I have nobody in my life right now that I feel that I can talk or to who is challenging me spiritually. I work weekends so I miss out on fellowship on Sundays. I was attending a moms and tots biblestudy group at my church but this fall they decided to cancel it as there was just four moms. I was extremely sad by this and I have yet to find another one. I have decided to put myself out in the community more so that I can meet other moms. CO and I head out to different things a few times a week (playgroups, story times, etc.) but it is hard.
I feel like when I moved here over 5 years ago I lost all my friends that I had. It was not just because I moved, but they married, moved away and have new friends. Friends that they are closer to and they have more in common with. I got tired of working so hard to keep some of my friends as I felt I had to beg them to spend time with them and I didn't really feel that I should have to beg and bribe my way to keep a friendship. I know friendship is about giving and taking but I felt I was doing the giving and receiving nothing back. I am not saying the loss of these friendships weren't my fault, I know I am far from perfect.
I just really miss having a friend. Someone to talk to. Someone to turn to when I am sad and in need of a hug. Someone who I know will celebrate with me and be sad with me as I live my life's journey.

Being a single mom has been hard. I really struggled in the beginning and I had many moments where I felt overwhelmed. There were lots of moments of joy and I love having CO in my life. But I struggled with getting frustrated easily and feelings of guilt when he acted out or didn't listen well. I struggled with feelings of guilt when he acted poorly while under my parents care on the weekends. I faced lots of self-doubt on my ability to be a good mom. I took it personally when people complained about something my child did or didn't do. And the more people complained, the more I questioned my abilities and skills to raise my son properly. Which in turn made me unhappy. I couldn't control all of my son's actions and it isn't easy raising a head strong very stubborn child. But I think I am doing a good job. Could I do better? well I believe there is always room for improvement.

so how do I learn to take critism better? how do I take negativity being sent my direction and not let it turn me into an unhappy person full of doubt?

(CO is asleep so I am going to run to the store while my mother keeps an ear out for him)