Loneliness

Is the emotion of loneliness a sin? I wonder if we experience loneliness as a result of not being in continuous relationship with God, which leads to sinfulness. Or is it just because the earth is not our home?

Loneliness is a part of my life. It has been for most of my life, but now it seems to be worse than other times. I don't live near family and homeschooling the kids leads to a great deal of time spent alone. I am dealing, not very well, with agoraphobia. The agoraphobia means that there are many days that I don't leave the house. Peter says that I'm timid, I say that I'm shy. Whatever it is, makes it harder for me to alleviate the loneliness.

The loneliness has gotten more extreme since being home from Houston and have recently been doing some research. I wonder if loneliness is a mechanism that the Lord uses to bring us closer to Him. Did you know that Elijah dealt with depression? He felt all alone and that he was all alone in following God. So did David, but I think his may have had something to do with his horrible decisions. Or maybe he made those bad decisions because of his depression.

I would love to say that know I am going to just focus on all the positive things in front of me, but that wouldn't be real. I tend toward seeing the hard things. Sometimes that's good because I am apt to see why those hard things are necessary and do whatever it required. And people being mean and saying unkind things does tend to get to me. That is sometimes all I hear.

I don't have all(or any of) the answers but I think that I need to try and focus on Psalm 27 for now. Fear really is son of a motherless goat to quote my funny husband.

Laundry, ugh!

I dislike laundry! I wish there were a way to dress my kids without having to fold laundry. That is really the part that I dislike. I don't mind any of the other parts. Weird, right? I am trying to be thankful/grateful for the things I have instead of focusing of the negative. So, I am thankful that my kids are able to have more than one change of clothes. Maybe if I hold onto that I will be joyful while doing the folding. I may even watch a little TV. Our laundry couch is right next to the TV so it makes it quite easy to let my mind turn to mush.

Brain Drain

*I am trying to find a good way to make sure that we get everything done that we need to get done each day. Since we have been back from Houston not everything gets done everyday. I thought about making check-off sheets for the older boys each day. But we don't do everything every day. I am plenty stumped about what to do. I am going to try this way for awhile and see if it works.

*In other matters, I am totally enjoying reading a Twitter account--specifically Adam Baldwin's. I agree with some of his ideas, but he is way strident. But he just begs for people to have discourse. I wonder if he actually follows through with his ideas, mainly regarding education. I wonder if his children go to public school.

*The boys are still enjoying martial arts. I found a list of good boy films at Mommy Life. I love finding blogs from veteran boy moms. She talks about not trying to stop boys from rough housing. I feel reasonably good about my rule--if you hurt yourself wrestling/rough housing don't come crying to me. It's worked pretty well, if I do say so myself. Now pardon me while I break my arm patting myself on the back.

*Peter is leaving for a trip tomorrow. Yay? It will be good for the kids to get out of the habit of thinking Peter will save them from school work when he gets home. But I will miss having Daddy come save me at 4:45.

*We are thinking about moving Esther to a big girl bed this or next week. There was a bed with a trundle on sale for a really good deal at Costco this week. (BTW, I ♥ Costco.) And now we also got a mattress.

*I just found out how to put that heart in up there. I am so excited!

*On Pat Robertson, Jennifer Moody an education reporter and blogger with the Mid-Valley newspapers in Oregon had some wonderful and constructive things to say.

This format is working well for me right now because I am a bit distracted. It's not too much pressure for me to have deep eloquent paragraphs upon paragraphs.