Sweat and Bugs

That pretty much sums up the couple of weeks for us here at the Barefoot household. Temps have been in the high 90s with heat indexes (or is it indices?) around 105+ with nary a drop of rain to cool things off. It's so hot out, even the chickens' combs are drooping. We've all been sweating ourselves silly, unless we jump in the little blow-up pool we set up in the front yard. Sometimes I wish we could live in that thing!

Along with the devastating heat and lack of rain, our garden has suffered a serious pest invasion. I'm sad to report that all of our squash, zucchini, and pumpkin plants have either died or are in the process of succumbing to vine borers. We have fought the bugs as hard as we can, but to little avail. I'm counting ourselves lucky to have gotten at least a few crops harvested and in the freezer. Like everything else in life, we're looking at it all as a learning experience that we can grow from. Lord willing, we'll be able to grow some pumpkins and butternut squash in our fall garden, or Thanksgiving just won't be the same.

Unfortunately, the garden isn't the only place we've gotten bugs. Mary picked one up at Vacation Bible School last week and has since passed it on to her brother. That's the third time my kids have picked up someone else's illness at church. People, if you know or even suspect that your child is coming down with something, PLEASE keep them home! Trust me, there isn't anything so important going on that your 2-year-old is going to miss out on.

And, as if that weren't enough, the kids' computer got infected with a virus that promptly spread through our router to my desktop. We were sans computer until hubby finally got it all cleaned out and restarted. I'm just thankful he was able to backup all my picture files. I had three and a half years worth of photos on this thing, including Ben, Sarah, and Mary's homebirths. You can imagine how devastated I would've been if we'd lost those!

So, that's what's been happening in my neck of the woods. How about you?

(I'm sorry that our computer troubles kept me from finding and responding to your comments on my last post before now. If you haven't heard directly from me yet, you will. Your words of encouragement mean a lot, and I appreciate every one of you. I wish I could give you all a great big hug. Thank you!)

I'm Sorry

I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I don't come around visiting my friends' blogs regularly. I'm sorry that I hardly ever chat on Twitter anymore.

I'm sorry I pour all the energy of my good days into my children and home, trying hard to make up for the bad days, because it rarely leaves me time to share any of it with you.

I'm sorry that my bad days make me want to jump in my car and just go. Anywhere. I wouldn't and I don't, but I wish I could. Even though I know I can't run away from myself. So instead, I drag through the day with leaky eyes and no life.

I'm sorry that my bad days are so frequent.

Be Careful Little Lips

I don't often use my blog as a venting place (my husband is usually the one that I get to pour my heart out to, bless him) but this is one of those occasions where the incident just keeps sticking with me, and maybe someone will read this and benefit from it (or at least relate).

I was taking care of some coupon-shopping earlier this week at one of my favorite stores. I was just about to start my transactions with the cashier when another customer approached. Now, because I generally have several transactions to do that take a good bit of time, I make a point of letting other customers go ahead of me, just to be polite. So, I told the older woman to go ahead, she thanked me and put her item on the counter. As the cashier rang her up, the other woman turned around, looked at me and said, "Having a baby?" Knowing how overweight I am, I wasn't going to blame the woman for making the mistake. Patting my stomach, I said, "No, already had her."

But then she said, "Oh, it's not because of that....it's just your face. It's so...."

Glowing?

"...puffy."

Sigh.

Unfortunately, that was only the first insult I was to receive before getting out of the store.

A little while later, the cashier and I were having a merry old time ringing up my purchases when another couponer got in line behind me and started chatting with me. It started out cheerfully enough, talking about what good deals there are this week and such. Eventually, the conversation began taking a more personal tone. She started telling me how she's trying to talk one of her sisters into couponing, claiming that if she can have eleven children and still find the time to do it, so could her sister. For the sake of clarification I asked, "You have eleven children, or your sister?" No, she did. "That's nice," I replied, and made the mistake of telling her how many we have. And then she asked something no mother should ever ask another mother.

"Did you give birth to all of them yourself?"

Yes, that's exactly how she said it. And my stomach still twists when I think about it.

If I tell you how many children my husband and I have, what difference does it make to you whether I gave birth to all of them or not? Does it somehow make you better than me that you physically reproduced all your children yourself? What about women that can't have their own children? Does adoption not count in your eyes? Or do you only save your self-righteousness for those of us that have the "shame" of admitting we're remarried?

Between my husband and I, we've had nine children. His first three are grown and gone, as is my oldest. God knows I wish we'd had all of them together. What wouldn't I give to have been his first and only wife, and he my first and only husband? How different would our lives be had we not walked a very long, broken road before finding each other? We like to imagine that since we married in '04 and our children were born in '05, '07 and '09, we'd have quite the houseful by now had we found each other first. But such is not the case, and we'll never really know.

All I do know is this...I can't change my past. I can't fix the mistakes I made in my youth. I can wish I'd found Eric sooner just as much as I can wish I'd found Jesus sooner, too. But I found them both eventually, and I'll never be ashamed of that.

And for the record, if I'd been thinking fast on my feet, I would've told her, "No, I didn't give birth to them all. I picked up a couple on a Buy One Get One deal at Rite Aid."

To Join or Not To Join?

I was in town shopping a couple of days ago, and ran into a woman I used to work with. (Yes, dear readers, I was not always the happy-to-be-home, barefoot mom you see before you. Once upon a time, believe it or not, I used to be a three-pots-of-coffee-a-day, five-inch-stilettos-with-a-charcoal-grey-pencil-skirt-wearing, everyone-comes-to-me-for-the-answers, business woman. Sometimes, I really miss those high heels.) It was so nice to see this dear friend, and I would've loved to get caught up with her (I've given birth twice since I saw her last!) but there was no time for either of us.

Hastily, she asked, "Are you on Facebook?"
"No, are you on Twitter?"
"No. You need to get on Facebook, girl!"

And the truth is, I've been thinking about it. She's not the first person that's asked me to join Facebook, and I'm getting the feeling that she might not be the last. I see people talking about it all the time, and I'll admit that I am a little curious. But let's face the facts...between blogs, our farm website, couponing, bookkeeping, homeschool and Twitter, I'm spending a guilt-inducing amount of time on the computer as it is (and I still don't feel like I do enough....I certainly don't get to go around visiting my blog friends as much as I'd like, that's for sure!)

So, I'm asking all of you that are already on Facebook. Is it worth jumping into, or just another time-waster? What do you get out of it? What's so great (and not-so-great) about it? I'm really looking forward to seeing what you have to say about it. Thanks!

As Years Go By

As years go by I hope you'll see
How precious you are to Daddy and me
What a joyous blessing you'll always be
As a member of our family



As years go by I'll continually pray
You seek the Lord and follow His way
That on His narrow path you'll stay
Careful in all you do and say

As years go by I'll watch you grow
And teach you things you need to know
From adding numbers to making dough
Reading, writing, and how to sew


As years go by we'll have our fun
Laughing in the summer sun
To hop and skip and jump and run
Playing til the day is done.

As years go by you'll be all grown
A wife with children of your own
What happy memories I'll have known
After all the years have flown

But those years are still far away
For now we'll celebrate this day
From all of us, we gladly say
To Sarah Ruth, Happy Birthday