It's time to...FLY!

 

FLY
by Flhomeschoolmom
Scrapbook.com

 

What does it mean to FLY?  Well, the capital letters FLY actually stand for Finally Love Yourself.  This is something that I first heard about several years ago while trying to follow the FlyLady system.  And, I must admit that I have not been successful with her system because I almost ALWAYS fall off the wagon and things go back to CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome).  But, clutter is an issue for another blog post at another time.

 

One thing that I have found about myself is that it is quite easy for me to love other people and it's easy for me to love animals.  But, I struggle with being able to love myself.  Why?  Well, I've given this a lot of thought and ultimately I've come to the conclusion that it has to do with how I was raised and events that happened in my life before I became an adult.  I am an adult survivor of child abuse.  I have a constant broken record that regularly plays over and over in my head with very negative and self destructive messages.  I could share those messages, but I won't. 

 

This year however, I have set out on a mission.  My mission is to FLY, to Finally Love Myself.  So far, it is March 24th and I have yet to make a single entry into my 2016 FLY journal.  The picture on this post is my journal cover and it's actually made entirely out of junk...but that's not important.  What is important is that I enjoyed making the journal cover, I loved how it turned out, and completing it gave me a positive boost of self accomplishment.  I think that often those of us who live with clinical depression and anxiety, for whatever reason, have a lot of difficulty with feeling good about ourselves and anything that does make us feel happy, proud, etc. is something that we should continue to do.

 

I have asked myself multiple times this year why I haven't yet made a single entry into my FLY journal, and I think I have finally come to a conclusion.  I've not made an entry into the journal yet because everything that I've had a desire or need to journal has been negative and not positive.  If I'm working on finding a way to finally love myself, then wouldn't making negative journal entries defeat that purpose? 

 

 

"Great Expectations" and Mid Life

Today finds me in the middle of creating literature study guides for Charles Dicken's novel "Great Expectations" for my 10th grade and 8th grade boys who are homeschooled.  I always liked the novel, but never paid a lot of attention to certain things in it...like Miss Havisham and her creepy house.  I don't think that most school age kids really grasp that novel and I'm happy to be having to read it again at a much older age.

 

While I'm definately NOT Miss Havisham, I have recently been finding myself in a unique place.  I don't know if I'm beginning to hit my "mid life crisis" or exactly what is going on.  I'm drifting back to music I loved as a teenager, my "style" is changing and I can't honestly say it's becoming more "mature"...more like more "gothic".  Deep down I thought that the weird "Gothic" phase I went through between the ages of 18 and 19 were just that, a phase.  However, I find myself drifting back to it.  I'm not saying that I go grocery shopping decked out in black lipstick, eyeliner, mascara, and jet black nails.  Nor can I say that I've went as far as to dye my hair from it's natural medium/dark brown to crimson red.  But purple is sounding intriguing....ROFL.

 

But seriously, almost a year ago I was "informed" by an 18 year old girl that HER generation invented the funky colored hair.  When she said that, I had to laugh and then I had to pull out pictures that were taken when I was in high school.  The pictures weren't of me, but they were of my friends and classmates.  Some people had raspberry blue hair, others had grape purple, some had fruit punch red, and there was even some lemon-aide (including strawberry lemon-aid) and lime-aid colors.  Now, WHY do those hair colors sound like kool-aid flavors?  Because that's exactly what they are.  There's a non-toxic technique for dying your hair with kool-aid, coffee and tea will work too if you want more natural colors, lol. 

 

I'm also finding that my parenting is changing a bit.  As my children get older, I'm giving them more freedom.  Some of that "freedom" has led to learning interesting things about my boys.  My oldest son wanted to take photography as a school elective, and I discovered that he's a very good photographer and his favorite subject matter appears to be nature.  However, he's also taken a few interesting "selfies" with our digi camera...one makes me want to label it "Class Clown". I also learned that he despises jeans and button-up shirts.  He always looked so good as my "preppy" kid, lol.  My youngest son has decided that he wants to have long hair.  He looks good with longer hair, and he can continue to let it grow as long as he keeps it washed and brushed.  And I've learned that not only does he dislike sports, he also hates wearing sports themed clothes.  In fact, it would seem his favorite clothing colors are black...and he too hates jeans.  And allowing my children this "freedom" has caused some backlash from in-laws.  My MIL is a 60 something year old pastor of a church.  In her opinion, I should "force" my boys to maintain a "clean cut" look.  Why?  Would I prefer for my boys to go through their "learning" phase while at home where they can have positive guidance or would I prefer for them to "rebel"?  I remember being the teenager who had EVERYTHING dictated to her...how to dress, how to act, what to listen to, who to be friends with, and even who to date.  Yeah, that resulted in a MAJOR rebellion phase.  I don't wish the same for my boys, and I'm finding that when you give your children trust and "wiggle room", you not only learn about your kids, but you also give them the opportunity to earn MORE trust.  Am I saying that we should always trust our teenagers 100% of the time with everything and never give them any "restrictions"?  No, but I think that teens should be given trust unless they have given us a reason to NOT trust them.  Along with that I believe that good, sound guidelines should be in place...sort of like, "yes you can go out with your friends, however I would like to know where you are going, who you are going to be with, and I expect you home at a certain time."  Why do I want to know where my kids are and who they are with?  Well, I'm a mom who cares a LOT about her boys and I simply can't shake some of the "old fashioned" ways I was raised.

Time for Coffee and an Introduction

Hello and welcome to my blog!  Please grab yourself a cup of coffee, tea or cocoa and let's talk.

 

My name is Ali and I'm a thirty something stay-at-home mom who homeschools my two teenage boys.  I have always homeschooled my children and consider it a blessing to know my boys as well as I do.  And, I'm fairly confident that I have managed to raise a couple of dudes who will one day make excellent, loving, and godly husbands for some lucky ladies.  But, while I feel rather confident of that, I'm not in any hurry for them to meet "the one" and get married and start working on making me a grandma!

 

I have been married to my husband for seventeen years now.  I find it amazing every time we celebrate an anniversary and I prove to myself and others that "yes, real love does exist" and "yes, marriages can be made to last".  And let me just say, that if you are unmarried or just recently married and you stumble across this blog, marriage is NOT a fairy tale!  If you think that your foot fit the slipper, your prince found it and you're going to live "happily ever after"...you were likely drunk when you lost your shoe, pumpkins don't turn to coaches, and marriages don't work without a lot of give and take, forgiveness, and compromise.  But, even I like an occasional fairy tale now and then.

 

I struggle with depression and anxiety, and sometimes those two things can over shadow the "joys" of my life.  I hate it when I have flare ups with those, but it happens.  I'm not going to sugar coat everything and say that I totally have my life together, I'm perfectly organized, I'm Betty Crocker in the kitchen, my kids look like they stepped out of fashion magazines, etc.  The truth is, some days I don't get out of my pajamas, shower, or brush my hair.  Some days...the bad days...I don't want to get out of bed or off the sofa.  Some days, cooking is a major chore and laundry gets done out of necessity.  THAT is the reality of living with "major depressive disorder" and "generalized anxiety disorder".  Yes, I'm medicated for my depression and anxiety, and the medicine does help, but it isn't a "cure".  As far as I know, there isn't a "cure".  But, I use my hobbies AND my belief in God to help find a "spark of hope" when everything looks really black, drab, and dreary.  Sometimes, I simply HAVE to make my own sunshine!

 

Now, what exactly is this blog going to be about?  Hmm...I'm not really sure, probably a little bit of everything. So, I'll just tell you how I decided on the title for this blog.  The title for this blog came about partly from my hobbies and partly from a conversation with my mother-in-law when we went shopping together a couple of days ago. 

 

I'm a VERY scrappy person.  I love scrap quilts, scrapbooking, making handmade cards and envelopes for "happy mail", collecting "tid bits" of things, and recycling.  I'm absolutely addicted to paper, especially pretty paper.  And I'm equally addicted to handmade paper and making paper.  I keep at least one (sometimes more than one) compost bin going at all times in my yard, I love plants...all kinds of plants, and I have a major soft spot for cats.  Ok, my sister tells me that I'm one cat away from being "the crazy cat lady".  My current "fur babies" are: Spooky (a 3 yr. old black and white long hair female that I rescued), Bandit (a two year old white and black short hair that sort of looks like he's wearing a bandit mask), Nibbles (a two year old white and grey short hair that well...nibbles), Mini (a two year old stunted black and white short hair who is half the size of a "normal" cat), and a grey tabby named Chubs that I have no idea how old he is...someone dropped him off at my house and he has taken up residence with my other cats.  Bandit, Nibbles, and Mini are all the children of Spooky and another cat I used to have who sadly had a bad encounter with a neighbors dog...rest in peace Garfield :(

 

Now that you know a little bit about me, let me tell you about the conversation with my mother-in-law that led to the creation of this blog.  While she and I were out shopping a couple of days ago, something that we do about once a month or so, she told me "Ali, I don't know how you do what you do.  You live on a tight budget in a small house, you homeschool, etc. and yet you don't really complain about how difficult things are, why?"  My response was, "my hobbies are how I do it all.  I have to have hobbies to keep me looking forward to something new."  She sort of smiled and said, "yeah, I have no interest in scrapbooking because my life has been one big scrapbook".  I didn't say anything to that because I knew that she did not mean that in a positive light.  To her, the "scrapbook of her life" is one disaster and one let down after another...it's all a bunch of "scraps" without anything substantial to show for it.  But, what she fails to realize is that we are ALL "scrapbooks".  If ANY person looks back on their life, they are viewing their personal "scrapbook"...it's memories, it's challenges, it's good and it's bad, it's happy and it's sad, it's treasures and it's junk.  The fact that our lives are made up of "scraps" isn't a bad thing, we just have to decide what to do with those "scraps".  We can put them in a book with photos, we can journal them, we can "smash them" (yes, I like smash booking), we can artfully depict them, we can craft them into a quilt, or we can just stash them in a book or binder and call it a personal junk journal (yes, I junk journal).  Either way, any way you want to look at this crazy, wonderful thing we call life, we will leave things behind when our time on earth is over...I mean, we can't take anything with us! 

 

If you want to know more about how I make my life work, how I deal with depression and anxiety, or my crafty endeavors, then please follow me!  I might just amaze you at how wonderful "The Scraps of Life" can be.