The Joy Journal

A wise Friend of mine who moved to Thailand last year with her family posted  the following message on facebook

 

"Yesterday, I learned about the death of a boy I had never met and only knew of him and his family through their facebook page I had been following. After feeling so sad yesterday, it hit me. Whenever his mom wrote, no matter how terrible things were, she would always have a positive spin on her post. Because of them I am going to be challenging myself (and I hope others do this along with me) to... look for the joy in each day. Life can be so frustrating, stressful & busy, but there are joyful moments in each day. I know some days I will really have to search for those moments and other days I will have trouble choosing, but I am challenging myself to find 3 moments of joy in my day. I would love to hear if you would like to do this with me too.:)"

This post came at just the right time in my life. I have been looking at the negative to much and not looking for the positive. It has been my experience that most people focus on the negative in life and not look at the positive. I will try hard to do the same everyday.

My 3 moments of joy today

1. Watching my first born son blow his candle out on his birthday cake celebrating the start of his 12th year of life!

2. Seeing my husband hug and kiss Duck numerous times when we were out to dinner tonight. ( Papa bird doesn't usually show much affection to the kids or I so this was an amazing sight)

3. Enjoying the cool breeze and slight warmth from the sun on this beautiful fall day.

As I write this I think I may go buy a journal tomorrow and call it my Joy Journal and write down 3 moments in everyday that have brought me joy and leave out for everyone to read. Moods are contagious infectious even, maybe this new found positivity will spread beyond this post and to others..

It all started with

A stranger on facebook who  inspired my friend

My friend now inspired me

Now who will I inspire??

Homeschool Mothers Journal

In My Life This week...
I got hit with bad bad news that was quite emotional. I lost my mom to cancer 5 years ago and my dad is now struggling with Cancer, and a broken back. He is not dealing with the pain well and the doctors won't give him any more pain  meds. It's frustrating because the meds he is on to keep the cancer at bay is causing his bones to soften therefore causing bones to break in his back causing him great pain and back surgery. It's no fun to see your parents in pain and unable to care for themselves. When I was giving my father a bath yesterday he was screaming and asking me to get his gun for him so he could end the pain. I was half tempted to do it just to call his bluff, but that's a risky game to play and I wasn't 100% positive that he wouldn't do it. Its frustrating to me because I believe in natural medicine not traditional Western medicine and my Dad is hard core Western medicine. When he was 19 he had Hodgkin's lymphoma and they gave him 6 months to live. With and insane amount of chemo and drugs he beat it, so he very much believes ANYTHING  that the Doctor tell him.

In Our homeschooling week (well 2 weeks I did not post last week)..

We had our first American Girl book club this week and are studying New Orleans in 1853 with Marie-Grace and Cecile. I am working on a longer blog post on that to post next month after our last meeting. The moms and I have some great ideas planned for next month.

We had a great opportunity to stop by and visit a house that in still under remodel that was part of the underground railroad. Which was great timing since we have been reading and studying a lot on slavery recently.They rebuilt the basement but used all the original stones from the house to keep it authentic. The house had to be moved about  500 yards to east due to the fact that a church (of all places) wanted to tear it down and build a parking lot. Thank goodness it was saved and moved, but it has been closed and under construction for over 6 years. They are almost though now and should have it up and running by next fall. ( fingers crossed)

Falcon and Robin touching the original stones on the newly built wall. If these stones could talk oh the stories we would hear!

 The secret steps leading to the basement.

Here you can see the original tree truck beams (with bark and all ) that were used to support the house.

The double fireplaces, the one on the left has a hidden door that leads to a secret room.

The city is ripping up the road near our house so have have spent countless hours sitting in strangers driveways watching all these big machines work! Duck and Owl were super excited to get up close and clean big chunks of dirt of the treads.

This weeks documentaries we  watched

Great one about Religion and government conspiracy ( on netflix)

 Falcon has been interested in this war so he watched this 2 disk set and wrote a summery on  Desert Shield and Desert Storm.  He didn't seem to comprehend a lot of what he read so we went to the library to get books for him to read.

 An interesting self help type film ( on netflix)

A great one that goes along with our studies on Egypt

I needed some laughter in my life so I watched this stand up comic and laughed my butt off! ( not a homeschool thing, just a little something for my sanity).

My favorite thing this week...
A quick trip to the beach, there is just something about the waves and the water that calms me. It's definatly my happy place. The kids ran along the beach, threw sticks in the water, collected shells, climbed on the rocks and sat  with me and watching the waves crash against the pier.

What I am Thankful for....
I am so thankful for the awesome group of moms who I know who go out of their way to help each other and keep all our homeschool events running, fun and smooth.