Character "stuffs"

    Sometimes people have trivial dislikes and pet peeves. By sometimes people, I mean me. One of mine is clothing and shoes with characters on them. I have some weird hierarchy of dislike and peevishness in my mind. Disney princesses and children's cartoon characters are the worst. Disney characters like Mickey and Minnie and gang  are okay unless Minnie is being all sultry (what in the world is that all about????) Superheroes are best if I like the colors and designs(not that far off from picking sports teams based on color and design of uniform).
  I used have a hard fast rule of no character anything.  No clothes, no shoes, no backpacks. The only exception was unders and jammas. I still really don't care for them; I find most of them tacky, but something made me lighten up and relax over something so silly. A little boy named Knox had a certain fascination with the movie "Cars."

   In the "Cars" watching zone. Totally checked out on life and I am sure drooling as a bonus. 

   After he was gone, I'd see all sorts of Cars stuff, and I'd think about how much he'd love it and wish I could get it for him. As a result, I let it go (no pun intended and I still have not indulged JK in a princess shirt but it may happen...you never know).  Yesterday, we were scouring the town for a size 13 pair of cleats for Creed for soccer and finally found one loan pair at Payless Shoes. They were having a b1g1 half off sale and lo and behold they also had these and I actually kind of think they are cook. Shhhhhhhh......

And I just had to get them...in memory of a little boy mesmerized by Cars that would probably now be infatuated with super heroes.

 Elizabeth picked out his outfit; superhero shirt and superhero shoes.  I apologize for all those whose pet peeve of mixing universes has now just been activated.

 The smile on his face says it all. :-)

Some Sunday Thoughts

  During communion today, Jon was talking about how important the Sabbath is as a rest from our weekly struggles and what a provision it is to be able to take a step back from our struggles to come together in worship and communion.(this is very paraphrased I am sure) I was thinking how grateful I was for a church where our whole family can partake in this sabbath rest together. I love having my family in the pew beside me, and I have often marveled at how being in church seems like such a rest. Yes, there have been lot of times of wrestling babies and toddlers, and there are still some rough weeks of parenting in the pew. That may not seem restful and sometimes I'd be the first to agree it wasn't a restful service for me in particular and whatever child is disrupting the rest, but overall there is a tone of rest in our pew. There are no distractions; nothing competing for attention. The kids "usually" seems extra loving. There is a sense of peace and relaxation as we come to worship. I love that.
    It hit me as I was thinking about his words and savoring my own thoughts of being with my family and partaking of worship and sabbath rest together how much we need to do this together. After all, if this is a rest from the struggle of the week, we most certainly struggle together all week. One of the upsides or downsides, depending on how you look at it, of homeschooling is that we are together a lot...a whole lot...like almost all day everyday. We get each other at our best and our worst. We get each other when we seem to misspell every other word, when we can't find our workbook, when we can't figure out why in the world the letter "x" is a star player in math, when we really just want to read a library book instead of the current history book, when people are being too noisy, when toys are all over the floor, when Mr. Nobody is the most popular offender of all things. You get the picture. ;-) Sure it isn't all a struggle but there is plenty there and we are all in it together. It truly is one of the best and worst things of homeschooling.
  Worship together as a part of our sabbath rest is just what we need.  We struggle together and we rest together. A truly glorious thing.


** I hate writing anything related to homeschoolers as there is always a fear too much will be read into it. I can only speak from my on personal circumstances. I can't imagine the weekly struggles of dropping off and picking up(right in the middle of nap time!!!!!!), making lunches, cleaning lunch boxes, dealing with homework when everyone is tired after a long day,  and have mercy looking for shoes and socks at 7am! Non-homeschoolers, please enjoy and cherish your much needed sabbath rest with your family!