Family Dinner

So even with the best of intentions I haven't posted anything in a while. I know that probably not many read these besides my friends but I can be hopeful that other may benefit from my crazy wisdom. We all live very busy lives. I agree.. on Facebook NPR they posed a question about family dinners and suggested that people email their experiences with thier families. This is what I sent. Maybe I'll get a call. What dinner looks like for our family We are a typical middle class family with two working parents. My husband is in sales and I’m a full time teacher. Sometimes dinner is a challenge because on a weeknight we are usually not eating until 7 after arriving home between 5:30 pm and 6 pm. My husband and I were both brought up with having nightly family dinners. My favorite thing he says is that it is his favorite time of time to catch up with all of us. My girls are a little bit younger and do not have too many extracurricular activities that prevent us from our daily dinners. On average we sit down together 5 nights a week. They may not always like what I have fixed but at least they try it. I grew up with my family sitting down together every night. I do feel that in our busy society that this is not happening enough. This is the time that we can talk to our kids about what they did that day and what we did with our day. It is not always easy to come home and spend the time to fix a meal for everyone. I feel that it is important to have that connection, even when they don’t eat what I fixed. I hate that the sit down family meal is becoming a lost art. After dinner it’s usually off to the bath tub for my 5 year old (my 10 year old has started bathing in the morning). We continue with story time and bed. On the weeknights there really isn’t much time for anything else. So the schedule goes: homework (if not already done at afterschool) Dinner, bath, reading and then bed. I teach Middle School so I don’t get out of work until 4:30. It’s amazing how quick time goes after this. Plus we live in a very congested area of Johns Creek, GA and traffic also plays a role in what time we get home.

The return of the not so perfect mom

So I have been inspired lately to start writing in my blog again. I have several friends that are really good about it and their words provide me with inspiration and a occasional chuckle when I need it.As far as the title of my blog states I am not the most perfect mother. I sometimes don’t get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour. I let my kids watch T.V. probably more times than reading bedtime stories in bed. My kids sometimes get treat before dinner when they shouldn’t. Also my patience level is not where it should be. I struggle with time management as a working mother and no matter how hard a try I just can’t seem to keep my house clean ( I don’t have any professional help in this area but I am considering it.)For all of the imperfections I have, I have it pretty good; a loving husband, two beautiful children, a fabulous dog and a roof over my head and a good job. I really do have it all even if it’s not perfect.

Family Camping

I love camping with my family. Spending time outside and ignoring the outside world (for the most part) it is a passion of mine. There are so many that don't like being outdoors, I get it. To each it's own. I just experienced another great camping experience at Vogel State Park. This just adds to our many family adventures, those that have already happened and those yet to come.
The people you meet in a campground are very interesting. You have the other families with kids that end up being your children's best friend for a few days. The retired couple that spend two weeks out at a time every year. The camp host couple that volunteers several months a year to help out the temporary residents and help with the up keep of the park.
This past trip my favorite was the couple that was a few sites up from us. We were on a corner lot. Not the most ideal but not having every been to this park before but it was a good choice for as packed as it was when we got there. Because we had this "corner lot" we saw this couple going by our camp everyday. The funny thing was that most of the time we were either getting ready to eat, eating, or cleaning up from eating. When you are camping this makes up at least 3 of your activites for the day. Included in each activity preparing, cooking, and cleaning up.
Each time they would walk by they would ask "what's on the menu this time?" I think they we enamered with our set up, the kids and our choices of food.
This is camping talking with fellow campers finding out what has brought them out into the woods. Some are seasoned campers some are new. We are tent campers and in this campground we were in the definate minority. That seems to peak the interest of people as well. I do have to say I have seen some pretty fancy set ups. People bringing as many of comforts outside, but the main point : They ARE outside.

Mother's Day

I am thinking about all mothers today. I have friends that have seen their children grow up and I have friends that will never get to see their children grow up. I have to say how thankful I am to have my children. Some days they drive me crazy and sometimes I don’t think I am doing the best job of being their mother. Recently my child came home from school and she had gotten in trouble. I looked at her and said “No matter what happens you need to remember what?” Her response: “That you love me.” Whatever my girls encounter I want them to always remember that.
As I have said before and as it is stated in the title of this blog; I am not perfect. I make mistakes, but I have to be thankful that my girls are happy. I want them to be happy and enjoy their lives.
With a heavy heart I do think about my friends that have lost children or have not been blessed with children for various reasons. They will not have the privilege of sharing the adventure of their life with their children. I want those friends to know that I think about you often. I hate that this would happen to anyone that had been a parent for a short time or was not able to be a parent even though they wanted to. To my friends that do want this adventure but have not had found the right person to share “that adventure with” or have just not gotten around to it yet; It will happen and I hope you enjoy is as much as I have so far. Also stated in my blog title “adventures” do happen when you have children.
I love that I have given my children great adventures whether it being: driving cross country or just having an adventure downtown. I have explained to others that I want my children to see the world for what it is. So many people do not expose their children to so much out of fear. I do not want to keep fear from me showing them the world. I am not a world traveler but I am happy that my children have been able to see so much of our own country at a young age. I hope they do keep some memories of these experiences with them forever. Pictures help.

Why we do the things we do

I do go by the mantra everything happens for a reason. Why do we do the things we do? As a new school year starts I feel a new sense of renewal of why I do what I do. Balancing a job as a teacher and the job of being a mother has its daily trials and tribulations. I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, I always knew I wanted to be a mother. As the first two weeks of my school year have come to end I think about why do I do all of this. Because this is what I want to, because this is what I am meant to do.

Every day brings new challenges. I have to learn to balance all of it. Sometimes I feel when I look at the clock at 5 on a school night, “oh jeez I need to leave to pick up the girls” what is the other part of my day going to be like? Balancing parenthood for real and balancing parenthood during the day brings on a whole new meaning of modes." I have the teacher mode and the mommy mode and sometimes it intertwines. For example this week, my older child (age 8, 3^rd grade) and my younger child (age 3, preschool) had their own set of needs each day when we got home. My older one still needed to complete homework and the younger one required attention at the same time. What do you do? Finally a solution came to me. Something that would work for everyone. My younger one would have homework too. As crazy as it sounds I had to come up with a solution to keep my younger one from bothering her sister too much while she was actually trying to accomplish something. Much to my delight it WORKED! We had a pleasant evening without screaming and yelling between the two, “finish your work!” (To the older one), “Stop bothering your sister!” (To the younger one). My little one enjoyed doing her homework, even to the puzzlement of one of her teachers, “she said she had to go home and do homework?” I just had her trace letters and pretend she was taking a spelling test too. Finally and evening with out fighting and frustration in this new school year.

When I am in the teacher mode I feel like “What do I need to really accomplish in the next 45 minutes?” Sometimes it really takes some planning and other times you can come up with the idea in the spur of the moment. With the past two weeks full of meetings and deadlines, and this and that I have felt a bit overwhelmed at times. I have to say this though, through out my years of teaching so far I have never felt so calm. “Okay I need to do THIS, oh well I did not get THAT done.” Feeling a bit more comfortable in my skin helps. Teaching is like parenting, you get to know them, you try to nurture them, and you want them to succeed. I do feel lucky, and sometimes exhausted by my unique role in life. Knowing that I am making a difference makes me happy, even when the days are long and I don’t feel like doing too much when I get home. I want my children to be happy, be successful, and feel they have accomplished something too. My children at home and at school. I do all of it because I want to. I do all of it because I feel I need to. I feel that I have a purpose even when I don’t want to do everything I need to. It is all a balancing act. We all do it, we all need to do it, no matter what we do.

Happy Weekend!

Why GPS is wonderful

So yesterday I dragged my children up to an outlet mall about an hour north of where we live. I was going along the interstate and noticed the traffic at a stand still going south. I just thought to myself, "This is not going to be fun on our way home". I thought maybe I should just turn around now, but I kept going. We got to the outlet mall and looked at the three stores on my agenda. One of the stores has camping supplies and I went with specific items in mind. Luckliy the sales guy told me they were having a HUGE truck sale that starts on Friday and I may want to check it out. So I decided not to purchase anything and wait.
As I do on most of our long car excursions, I bribe. I bribed the girls with Ice Cream if they were good in the store, they weren't perfect but not terrible. So Ice Cream it was. As we were eating our treats (yes, I had one too, it's acctually becoming a problem); I checked the GPS to see if the southbound traffic was still there. It indicated that it was. I kept going back in forth whether I would take the back roads or risk the interstate. I decided we would take the back roads. We got to Braselton, GA, a town I am relativly familiar with. I stopped in a parking lot to see if my route would change from this location. It did change slightly. As a I was driving down the winding country road we passed by the Mayfield Dairy and I told the girls "If you are good when we go back on Friday we can stop here on our way home."
Shortly after saying this I turned and was going to continue on the back roads but came upon the interstate again. I decided to get back on the big road and take my chances, it was getting later and we still had to stop by the store.
Almost holding my breath we kept going and to my relief the traffic had cleared.
If I had not had GPS and did not go the back way for a little bit I would not have remembered that the Dairy was a convient stop for us on our way home. GPS also keeps you moving instead of sitting still in traffic. My girls like looking at the rolling hills and the farms that we pass by not getting increasingly irritated by not going anywhere. I only heard "How many minutes until we get home?", once.

Summer Pictures

Pictures taken in my mom's garden. One of my favorite subjects