I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m not nearly so entertaining as Dave Barry, but I still do my best to do some sort of  “Year In Review”, although usually it is in the form of a newsletter that I send out at Christmas.  Well, this year I didn’t send out a newsletter.  I have a lot of reasons for that, such as the obvious money-saving excuse, but on a deeper level, I think it is because I have come to the conclusion that, those who are truly interested in what is going on in my life and that of my husband and children, either call me regularly, or read this blog.

I love blogging.  I intentionally have not put up any ads on it, to make it cleaner and friendlier for my readers.  However, my best

Kendall the Journalist

friends never read this blog. And, if they did, it wouldn’t give them any new information.  I talk to them regularly on the phone or in person.  My extended family, to my knowledge, never reads this blog.  In particular:  my brother and sister and most of the rest of my family do not read this blog.  Nor do they talk to me.  I should mention, however, that my sister does call me on random occasions, and she always seems to know where I live and what my phone number is.  I can only assume that means she still loves me!   On the rare occasions that I call them, the conversation usually starts with them saying something warm and caring, letting me know that I matter to them and they keep a close eye on me.  Something like “Oh, hi!  Where are you?  Do you still live in North Carolina?”  Or “I don’t have your phone number.”  (Please note that I have had the same cell phone number for the last decade, and that for the past two and a half decades I have sent out the obligatory annual newsletter apprising everyone of my address and phone numbers.)

Now, my immediate family does read this blog.  My mom, Gaylon, Kendall, his fiance Lishi and Faith usually read it voluntarily.  Alex reads it if I threaten him.  He has Facebook friends to talk to, after all.  Some of Kendall’s friends read my blog, and I am pretty sure several of my homeschool mom friends read this blog.

I do have a huge, accidental readership, though.  Back in September, when we were preparing for Alex’s “Victorian Themed Birthday Party” I decided to blog about the research I had done on Victorian clothing, and how it differed from Edwardian clothing.  I titled that post “Victoria vs. Edward”.  Well, apparently if you are a Twilight fan, you will spend a lot of time Googling those names and coming to my blog.  I have gotten literally hundreds of “hits” from all over the world from people Googling those names!!  Sorry, guys!  Just a conservative, Catholic homeschool mom here.

But, I digress.  I was discussing why I didn’t send out my customary Christmas newsletter with some sort of year-in-review.  Well, the other reason was that I didn’t have much to say.  One year ago, we really thought we knew exactly where God was leading us, and what we would be doing.  Now, that year has passed, and we only know one thing for sure:  we don’t have a

Alex at the Piano in His Victorian Tux

clue!!  Gaylon is still working in Texas, the rest of us are still living in North Carolina.  Our house has not sold. (Duh)  In fact, we only had ONE couple come to look at it, throughout the entirety of 2009, and that was back in January.  Yes, of course we will try again in 2010.  We have to.  And yes, my mother still lives with us.  We love her, and hope she will stay with us forever.  So, those are the questions we usually get asked.  For the stuff you didn’t know to ask:

Gaylon. . . loves working for Network Plumbing in Merkel, Texas, but of course he misses his family and wishes we could all be
together.  He comes home about every 3 weeks.  (Note:  I think he does a lot more ranching than plumbing, but that’s just my
personal observation!)

Kendall. . . is now a Senior at  University of North Carolina, Asheville.  He is majoring in Journalism.  Last February he became engaged to the beautiful and delightful Alicia Skojec, and they plan to marry next summer (2010).  We are thrilled for them!

Alex. . . is a Senior in High School, and is still homeschooled.  He has not done much acting this year, but has really focused on his piano and guitar, and is excelling at both.  He is very active in his church youth group and is looking forward to going with them to the March For Life in Washington, D.C., next month.

Faith. . .is a domestic goddess in the making!  She won three ribbons at the Western North Carolina State Fair in September.  Two 2nd place ribbons for a denim, appliqued jumper that she sewed, and for a crocheted scarf, and a 3rd place ribbon for a quilt.  We took a couple of quilting classes this Fall, and she is really, really good at quilting. (Me, not so much! LOL) She also got her own sewing machine and has been sewing amazing things.  She is a fantastic cook, as well.  She also taught herself to

Faith Shows Off Her Herbal Preparations

knit and has turned out some really pretty knitted scarves and pillows. We have been studying herbal remedies this year, and Faith has done a lot of work wildcrafting and preparing her own herbal remedies.  She is in 7th grade this year, and is still homeschooled.  She loves to read, especially Fantasy and Sci-Fi.  Her brothers have been happy to loan her all of their books.

Valarie. . . still loves “documenting the dead” (Genealogy) and homeschooling. I am also still working on some writing projects, that I might actually carve time out for this new year.  I am forever trying to lose weight, and nope, it’s not working.  But alas, I shall start anew in a couple of days with (hopefully) renewed vigor and commitment!

So, there is our year in review.  It has blessedly passed by quickly, and we are praying very hard that this year, our house will sell, and we will get to all be together again.  Because, even though we could have sent out a newsletter bragging on our kids in depth, the truth is that this has been a very difficult year, and we really are glad it’s over.  In fact, it’s been, overall, a pretty rotten decade.  We are praying a LOT that the next year/decade will be infinitely better. We appreciate any prayers on our behalf, and please know that we pray for our friends and family regularly, whether we hear from you, or not.

Happy 2010!!

So, today I am going to start baking homemade rolls for Thanksgiving.  We are going to be at a friend’s home this year (Thanks, Tiffany!) so I don’t have to actually prepare the entire meal, which is so nice!  And, there will be about twelve people, so that will be really nice, too.  I really prefer Thanksgiving when there are a lot of folks to enjoy it with.

We are also going to be cleaning house today and tomorrow, because this weekend, we will be putting up all of our Christmas decorations!  So, I am thinking about the Holidays, and how fast they seem to be racing toward us.  It will all be here (and then gone!) before I know it.

Faith’s friend, Anamarie, said something the other day that really made me think. I have not looked forward to celebrating Christmas for a very long time, because it seems like we are always so short on money when it rolls around, no matter how much I’ve saved for it during the year.  (This year, for example, I have had to dump almost $1000 into my car in the past WEEK!  That was Christmas money.  Now, it’s just a painful memory. )

But, back to Anamarie.  I was driving the girls somewhere, and she pipes up in her adorable little twelve-year-old voice and says “I can’t wait for Christmas!”  And I said “Really?  Why?  What is it that you enjoy most about Christmas?”  I wasn’t being sarcastic in any way.  I really wanted to know.  Sometimes it is just so nice to get a glimpse of the world through the eyes of a child.  It’s almost always a nicer place than I tend to think it is. Well, she explained that she loves putting up the tree, and opening presents, and getting to go to both of her grandmother’s homes for more presents and for yummy food.  Hmm.  I remember feeling excited about those things.  It was a long, long time ago.  Somehow that excitement has gotten away from me over the years.

Okay, I don’t mean to be on a total downer here.  I am merely taking an honest assessment.  And, yes, I am very well aware of the fact that Christmas is not supposed to be about all that stuff, but that all of that stuff is supposed to be about Christmas.  The birth of the Savior of the world, the Christ Child.  And we do things every year to remind ourselves of that fact, to celebrate and focus on that meaning.  We light the Advent Candles every evening, and pray together as a family.  We go to Daily Mass more often, and we attend special church services.  We celebrate Wigilia, and go to Midnight Mass.  And don’t get me wrong:  I *LOVE* those things!  But I still find it very difficult to get in the mood when the time comes.

But this year, I am really going to try, really hard, to focus on the *spirit* of the season, and not worry about all the rest of it.  Yes, I would really love a big family Thanksgiving or Christmas, where all my family joined us and we had this wonderful time together, then all went to church together.  I would love to feel a sense of hopefulness about the future of our country.  I would love to think that our house is about to sell!   But none of those things are real.  What is real, though, is God, and the blessings that He has given us.  So, I am focusing on the blessings, and on being Thankful for them, as we Head for the Holidays.

This absolutely cracked me up!!!  If you homeschool, then you’ll love it.  If you have issues with homeschooling, please watch closely. . . twice.

Like most moms, I think my kids are pretty amazing.  But I have to say that Alex and Faith are outdoing themselves, as I type.  I am upstairs, Photoshopping old family photographs and working on my new Genealogy Website.  Alex is downstairs, playing piano. I love listening to him play as I work on my computer, cook dinner, or whatever.  His songs are beautiful and haunting, and somehow, his music turns the mundane chores of my daily life into something holy and perfect.

But this afternoon is different.  It is better than I ever thought it could be.  Alex is giving Faith notes to play on her violin, while he plays piano, and she is sitting on the floor, beside the piano, eagerly gliding her bow across her strings, as he writes down the notes for her on a piece of paper he found.  I can hear them discussing their composition, talking about which notes are best, and how long to hold them. He is teaching her music theory as they work.  It is more precious than I can express.

Yes, there is a God, and He is amazing beyond my ability to describe.  Perhaps His perfection is best experienced in the song of my children.  Not only are my children playing a beautiful song together, they are putting my world in perfect harmony with each note they play.

I have been so busy lately, that I haven’t even had time to check my email, much less blog.  Faith and I have been trying to figure out why we are so much busier this school year than we have been in the past, and we really aren’t sure.  Maybe it’s the quilting, or the violin.  Who knows?  At any rate, we have been moving at the supersonic speed of life, and I am taking a few moments (that I really shouldn’t spare!) to do a little ‘catch-up’ on here!

Faith entered three items in the Western North Carolina State Fair this year: a appliqued denim jumper, a crib quilt, and a crocheted scarf.  She got 2nd Place Ribbons for the jumper and the scarf, and third place for the quilt!  I am so proud of her.  When I was her age, I didn’t know anybody who could sew or crochet or quilt who was under the age of, say, 110!  And I certainly didn’t have any friends who entered crafts in the County Fair!

We have also started “Quilting 102″, and it already seems like it is going to be a lot of fun.  In the midst of all the sewing and quilting, we picked up a bushel of apples, and have put up a run of apple butter, applesauce and pie apples.  Mom has baked and frozen several apple pies, and we have been enjoying fresh baked apple crisps, pies, and cakes almost every night.  (Yeah, I really need to get back on that treadmill!)

L-R: Kendall, Lishi, Faith, Alex, Valarie & April

Alex started classes at Blue Ridge, and that is keeping him really busy.  He is also still taking French from a private tutor, and that  seems to be going really well.  She assures me he’s doing great, anyway!  I have always thought French sounded like someone trying to speak with a mouthful of oatmeal, but that is, indeed, what Alex sounds like, so I’m guessing that’s a good thing?   In his spare time, he is working at the Outback and has just joined “Company” at the Flat Rock Playhouse. We had a really cool birthday party for him this year, too.  He decided he wanted a “Victorian Era Theme Party”, so we all dressed up like we were from that time, and had a blast!  We got a couple of cool family pictures, while we were at it. (I just wish Gaylon had been here.)

Kendall has been staying busy with his Journalism studies, and finally got interested in doing something with the blog he set up almost a year ago.  He hasn’t done a LOT with it yet, but it’s coming.  He is finally talking about it, and making plans, which is a huge step!  Check him out and leave some encouragement: Kendall Brooks, Unedited.

I am trying to find time to work on a genealogy website that I have been playing with for about a year, myself.  Hopefully, I will get some time this year.  I really have some great ideas, just no time to implement them.  But, hopefully I’ll get it up and running soon!

Anyway, that’s the update.  I have to get moving now, because Faith and I are headed to Mary Jo’s Fabric Store in Gastonia today, on our way to pick Gaylon up at the aiport!  Yay!

Faith and I have been taking a quilting class, as part of our homeschool studies this semester, and we are almost done. It has been a lot of fun, and we have both learned so much! Well, the other night, as Faith was finishing up her quilting homework for the week, her new kitten, StellaLuna decided to help out a bit. It was way too cute, so I took a picture.

Stella, The Quilting Kitten

I have learned a little something about clothing style recently.  At least, about Victorian clothing style, what it is, and, by definition, what it is not.  Let me explain.  Alex has decided to have a Victorian Era Theme Party for his 17th birthday party next month.  We will have Victorian Era food and Parlour Games, and everyone is encouraged to dress the part.

Victorian Clothing ca 1874

Well, this may come as a surprise, but I simply don’t have any Victorian-style clothing in my closet!  I do, however, have one very nice British Overcoat, a la ‘Captain Hook’, and one Gypsy dress.  But not a thing that would pass muster with Queen Victoria.  I had an idea, I thought, of what Victorian clothing looked like, but upon consulting Wikipedia, I discovered that what I was actually thinking of was Edwardian.  I was picturing things from movies like Mary Poppins, or Titanic.  Nope.  I was wrong.

The Victorian Era is generally agreed to have lasted during the reign of Queen Victoria, from June 1837 until January 1901.  So, basically, in our country, at least in terms of fashion, think: Civil War and Wild West!  As an interesting side note: I saw on the History Channel some time ago that there were more patents taken out for sexual devices during the Victorian Era than at any other time in history.  Don’t get excited.  They were for devices that would prevent sexual activity, not enhance or encourage!

Incidentally, the Edwardian Era barely lasted a decade, spanning the time from Victoria’s death in 1901 to the death of King Edward VII in 1910.

I am looking forward to Alex’s party.  I do hope that everyone is able to dress up for it.  Most of his friends are into Drama and acting, so I think they will be very much into playing ‘dress up’ and participating in the Parlour Games.

We are beginning our 15th year of Homeschooling this year!  Wow.  It seems like it was just a few days ago that I first started teaching phonics to Kendall and Ryan.  Time has flown.  Kendall started his 3rd year of college yesterday, and Alex will start his first year of college classes on Thursday, thanks to the Dual Enrollment option here in North Carolina.

So this is going to be a very different year, with both boys in college.  Alex and I will be studying some stuff at home, namely 20th Century History, and he will be taking French again with Mrs.  U.  At the college, he will be taking College Algebra, Expository Writing, and JAVA Programming.  To top it all off, he will be working several nights a week at the Outback, where he just got hired on as a bus boy.

Kendall will be working on “The Blue Banner” this year, as part of his Journalism degree requirement.  “The Blue Banner” is the school newspaper for UNC-Asheville.  He is really excited about it, and I am anxious to see some of his stuff in print.  He will also be starting new job in a couple of weeks, and is looking forward to having a steady income this winter.

Faith and I actually started schooling a couple of weeks ago, on a very laid back schedule.  Next week will be a “full” week.  This year, in addition to the regular school subjects (History, Math, Science, Latin, Language Arts, Religion) she is also taking violin lessons and we are taking a quilting class together.  So, it promises to be a very exciting and fulfilling year.

A week ago today we found out that a young man we all knew had drowned.  His family goes to our church, and his younger sister and brother are friends with Alex and Faith.  They are fellow homeschoolers, and 4-Hers.  I think the last time I saw him was a year or so ago when he was helping lead the Stations of the Cross at our church with the Youth Group.  He and Kendall used to hang out together some.  He was planning to go to Chapel Hill in the Fall.  And, as much as I cannot begin to understand the endless desperation and grief of his family, I do know what it is to lose someone that you love.

The funeral Mass was held Thursday evening, and it was packed.  I realized, for the first time, how comforting traditions are, and how much I need them.  The Mass is always the Mass.  Whether it’s the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time, a Wedding, a Funeral, or a Solemnity, the tenets of the Mass are always the same, all over the world.  We know what to expect, and only the readings, responsorial psalms and songs change, to fit the occasion.  The homily will be appropriate, and we will receive Holy Communion to give us all strength and courage.  I think, especially at a time of death, when things are so surreal and unexpected, the soothing traditions of the Church are more meaningful than ever.  I have come to view Mass as God’s security blanket that we can wrap around ourselves.

Afterward we went out to dinner with several friends and our priest.  It was a good time of healing and relaxation.  And it was in reflecting on the funeral and dinner after that it occurred to me, again, that death is not at all about the deceased.  It is all about those of us left behind.  We hug each other and reassure each other that everything is going to be okay, that the rest of us are still here, and that life will go on.  It is one of the rare times that even stoic men will hug one another and publicly display their support and affection.

So, while I hate funerals and receiving lines, I have come to understand why we do those things.  When I was younger it all seemed so pointless to me, and so incredibly macabre.  But the older I get, the more I start to see past my own selfishness and understand the needs of others.

I hate that this sweet young man is gone.  I grieve for his family, who is still reeling from shock and disbelief and unspeakable loss. I grieve for those who stood on the shoreline but didn’t understand that he was ‘not waving but drowning’ until it was too late.  God rest his soul!

Bandit and Mustard

It has now been officially ten days since we last saw Colonel Mustard or Bandit. Faith is giving it until the end of this month until she gives up. I am, for the most part, trying not to think too much about them. We have never had such bad luck with cats before.

Mustard was the King of Cats. You could hear him purr from across the room, and he was poetry in motion to watch. He probably weighed in at close to twenty pounds, and was absolutely graceful. We have had him (and his brother, Piewacket) for ten years. Our home will never be quite the same without him. Neither will Kendall, for he belonged to Mustard.

Sharing the Couch

Bandit was the amazing foldable kitty. You could just scoop him up in your arms and he would conform to whatever shape you were carrying him in. And he would go anywhere you took him, happily. He was delightful to watch, as he chased butterflies in our grass, or stalked bumblebees in our woods. He loved to play, because he was, after all, still just a kitten, at eighteen months old. I have known and loved many cats. He was by far the ‘coolest’ cat we’ve ever had. Faith will never want another cat.

Okay, after a great deal of prayer, discussion, and downright agony, we have decided that even though Gaylon is working in Merkel, Texas, only 20 minutes from Abilene, that it is just not the right place for our family to live.  Abilene is so, ah, West Texas.  And we are so. . . granola!  Let me explain:  West Texas (for those of you who have never been there) looks just like the backdrop of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western.  And the people there pretty much have the same attitude as the cowboys you see in the Pace Picante Sauce commercials:  “New York City?  Get the rope!”  Just substitute the things we love for “New York City”.  For example:  “Homebirth?  Get the rope!”  or “Vegetarian?  Get the rope!”  You get the idea.

There are no health food stores in Abilene, to speak of.  And by “health food store”, I mean something along the lines of Whole Foods Market.  Not some hole-in-the-wall place that sells ridiculously overpriced vitamins.  They have a homeschool group, apparently, but they have not responded to my email, which I sent almost two months ago. There are no midwives nearby, unless you count the one I found in Brownwood, which is well over an hour away.  Organic gardnening?  I doubt it seriously.  Actually, I seriously doubt you could even get any kind of garden to grow there.  I sure as heck couldn’t in Southeastern New Mexico when we lived there! They don’t even have Verizon there!  No, really!

So, let’s talk about where we DO want to live.   We have decided that Austin is as close to Asheville as we can get.  The major differences are that Asheville has these amazing Blue Ridge Mountains and is practically sitting on the Appalachian Trail; but Austin has the beautiful Hill Country of Texas, complete with fields and fields of Bluebonnets, and Austin has Tex-Mex.  Mmmmm. . . . tasty!  Austin is full of “culture”, as one of my best friends, Donna, puts it.  And she would know.  She lives there.  When I asked her if they had health food stores there, she laughed and informed me that Whole Foods Market was actually started in Austin!

There are several large homeschooling support groups there, and I have contacted two of them so I could get on their mailing lists and get a feel for the homeschooling community before we get there.  I have been blown away by how friendly the folks are there.  But, I shouldn’t be.  Texans are the friendliest people on the planet.  Austin Area Homeschoolers has 1375 members on its email list.  That’s a LOT of homeschoolers!  And that’s not even counting the really big fundamentalist, Christians only, group.  Or the other group that I contacted, the Holy Family Homeschoolers, which is the Catholic homeschooling support group.  So, I am very excited and hopeful.  The kids and I are very anxious to get there and get settled, and quit living in limbo.  Mom, who of course is going with us, is also very excited and hopeful.

So, please pray for us.  Pray that our house will sell really, really soon, so that we can get on down there and get settled in before the school year gets going.  I know the economy is not so good right now, but with our God, all things are possible!

Bumblebee Cupcakes

So I finally got around to uploading the pictures of Faith’s 12th Birthday party to my Flickr account, and no sooner had I finished than I got an invitation to join a Flickr Group called “Cupcakes Take The Cake”, due to the cute little Bumblebee Cupcakes I made for her party.

So, I checked out their group, and these ladies even have a blog (Also called “Cupcakes Take The Cake“, but located on Blogger, not Flickr!) all about cupcakes.  They are obviously far more focused than I will ever be!   Anyway, check ‘em out. . .they have some really awesome ideas.

And, if you think the cupcakes are cute, you really need to check out my Flickr account and check out the Beehive Cake, too.  That was really adorable!  All made from scratch, with lots of love!

I can’t seem to find happy news anywhere. The economy is still in trouble.

An airplane carrying 228 people disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean a few nights ago, apparently due to flying into a “towering wall of thunderstorms”!!

Obama is over in the Middle East.  That in itself is a bit frightening, but then he goes on to say that America is one of the largest Muslim countries in the world, right on the heels of his comment that we are not a Christian nation, and bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia? (Make no mistake:  if the rest of the world thought ill of us because of Bush, Obama’s spineless groveling is surely not garnering any respect, either!)

That “late-term abortionist” Dr. Tiller was shot and killed on Sunday, so one nutjob has made everyone else in the pro-life movement look bad.  The fact of the matter is, we support and honor all life, even the life of scum-sucking maggots like Tiller.  We are not relativists, like the pro-choice camp.

Faith and Bandit

And probably the worse news of all, at least to me, is that two of our cats have gone missing.  Kendall’s amazing cat, Colonel Mustard and Faith’s cat, the coolest cat that ever lived, Bandit.  Nobody has seen Bandit since Monday, and Mustard has been gone since sometime Tuesday.  This is really, really weird for both of them.  We have, of course, heard lots of stories about cats who disappear for days, weeks, or even months at a time, and then miraculously come home.  I am praying that that will be the case here.  But my heart is so heavy, and I am so sad for my little girl, who is absolutely devastated.

A few months ago, Faith wrote the most delightful children’s story, complete with illustrations that she drew and colored herself, based on Bandit.  It’s called  Trouble in Space.  Bandit inspired her in so many ways, and he has kept the rest of us totally entertained by his adorable antics.  He just HAS to come home!

She has never had good luck with pets.  When she was about three years old, her cat, Daisy, was shot and killed by our druggie neighbors, probably for “sport”.  Then, when she was seven, her little black dog, Angus, was killed by a hit-and-run driver right in front of our house, while Faith and Alex stood at the side of the road, screaming.  Then, in October 2007, her cat, Hermione, disappeared.  So, when she got Bandit from the pet store as a tiny kitten, she swore she’d never let him out of the house.  Eventually, though, it became apparent that he desperately wanted to go outside, and so she gave in, because she loved him so much.  And now he’s gone.

She cried herself to sleep last night.  I woke up every two hours, hoping and praying that he’d be waiting on the front porch this morning.  But no.  And now, Mustard is gone, too.  He is much older, and we had recently been concerned about his health, but we are not in any way ready to say goodbye to him. It’s going to be really dark around here for a few days, at least.

As a mom, I feel a bit silly writing something about motherhood on Mother’s Day, but please indulge me.  I love being a mother.  I don’t think I’ve managed to do much else worthwhile with my life, but being a mom is truly the most wonderful and meaningful thing I’ve ever done.

I am a “SAHM”, or “stay-at-home-mom”, and I am so grateful for that privelege and blessing.  I am especially grateful for my amazing husband, who makes that possible and supports me in that calling.  We are a dying breed, us SAHMs, but I think we are as important as ever.  Nobody knows my children like I do, and nobody can love them like me.  No school, no teacher, no ‘caregiver’ can ever measure up to a Mother.

Now, I’m not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination!  (Just ask my kids).  But, thankfully, Jesus left the Church a role model and mother than we can all look to for encouragement and hope:  His own Mother.  I am relatively certain that I will never have to suffer the horrors that the Mother of God endured faithfully.  Just knowing that there was a real, live, mother who went through the things she went through, and still remained faithful, gives me so much hope and motivation!  And it makes it seem quite trivial when the kids don’t want to make their beds or do their history or physics homework.

So yeah, I love being  a mom, and I am so grateful that I have gotten to do it full time.  I wouldn’t trade it for all the money and prestige or “freedon” in the world!

I’ve been reading a lot of really good blogs lately, and can’t help but think that there are so many ways that I could improve this one.  I could make it look more “professional”, somehow.  I could focus on just one of the things that interest me, like political commentary, or family life & homeschooling, or genealogy (which I think I will still just make an entirely separate website for that), or Catholic Issues/Apologetics, or, or, or. . . .

The problem is, my brain goes in too many directions at once, all the time.  And I can’t even blame the children for that, I’ve always been this way!  For example, last week, I wanted to blog about so many things that I wound up not blogging about anything.  For example, I had a really great blog post floating around in my head entitled “Dude!  Where’s My Plane?” about Obama pretending he didn’t know that someone took AF-1 and did a low flyover of NYC, terrifying the people of Manhattan and causing them to evacuate buildings and have major PTSD flashbacks of 9/11!!  All for a “Photo Op”????  I hope Obama is smarter than that, but at the same time, that would simply mean that he really is that sinister, to intentionally terrify his own people like that.  (Good thing he didn’t try a stunt like that over Dallas or Houston!)

Or I could talk about homeschooling.  About Faith, and how she’s been so busy lately digging up herbs in our yard and woods, and drying them, chopping them and making herbal remedies!  Our kitchen smells kinda funny from time to time, but I am so proud of her! Or about Alex, and how he did so well in school this year, and how funny he was co-hosting the HCHA Talent Show last week (see pictures all over Facebook!!), or about how Kendall is finishing up his first year at UNC-A, and how much he is enjoying studying Journalism, and how cute he is running around with a digital microphone and interviewing everyone he can.  I could say that Gaylon is still in Texas, and that we’re still in North Carolina, and it still stinks!  Our house hasn’t sold yet (duh.) and we are going to move to Texas at the end of the summer anyway, to be with him and get the kids plugged in.

Then I thought about how I’d like to discuss how well my genealogy research has gone lately, and how much I have enjoyed getting in contact with cousins I didn’t even know about down in Central Texas on the Adams side.  We’ve exchanged pictures and information and it’s just been incredible! And did I mention I’m building a website just for genealogy?   That way I can not only separate my genealogy from my political and religious views, but I can keep from boring to death the few readers I have who are not related to me!

And then there is my Catholic Faith, which I am usually pretty low-key about, because I have so many friends who are not only Protestant, but have been taught that Catholics are not Christians, and must be ’saved’!!  My Jewish friends are much more understanding of me being Catholic, probably because of that whole persecution thing.  But I absolutely LOVE being Catholic, and there are so many things I could ‘blog’ about, that might help people understand our faith, our beliefs, our Christianity.  That would probably be best in a separate site, as well.

So, what to do?  What to blog about??  It’s not like there are all these people reading my blog, and hanging on the edge of their chairs waiting for my next post!  Most of my close friends don’t read my blog at all, and of my family, I think only Gaylon, Kendall, Mom and occasionally Faith read it.  And of course, Lishi, (Kendall’s fiance) who is one of the only people who ever leaves me a comment. (And of course, Laura R. and Laura S.!!  I love my Lauras. . .)  I know there are a few folks scattered across the country who read it, but they never comment.  I tried a Poll once, and only a few folks participated in that, so perhaps the bottom line is this:  I blog for me.  If someone doesn’t like what I have to say, they certainly don’t have to read it.  Lishi’s brother, Steve Skojec, always has really great taglines for his blog, like “Cogito, Ergo Blog” (I think that was it. . . . I don’t remember exactly, and now he’s changed it) or his current one “You Didn’t Ask, But I’ll Tell You Anyway”.  Okay, that one really fits my situation, as well. LOL.  I’ve never met Steve, but I love his blog!

So, yeah.  My blog will probably continue to be a collection of randomness, and my title, “Chasing Thoughts” is probably very appropriate.  Maybe someday I will actually be able to focus on one thing for a great length of time.  But then, I will finish writing those books I’ve started, and not worry about blogging!