A Dave Ramsey Renovation

So, as many of y'all know, a few months ago, this happened: 

(Yep, that's probably gonna have to be replaced.)

And, as house fires go, ours really wasn't that bad. 

The morning after the fire, I quickly snapped some pictures of the kitchen's damage and started to feel pretty good about what my clean up process would entail. It didn't look awful, so I figured I would grab a big bucket of soapy water, a couple of old rags and things would be good as new before lunchtime. 

I COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE WRONG, y'all.

See what I mean? It doesn't look awful and burned out and crumbling. There's some cabinet door damage above the microwave, but everything else *looks* pretty fine, right?

Another BEFORE shot of my kitchen, from standing in my laundry room/garage entrance doorway. Excuse the mess. I'd just had a fire, ya know.

I happily filled my mop bucket with some sudsy water, and while the sink was running, I noticed my kitchen window sill had some flaked ash on it. 

It didn't seem major, so I quickly wiped it off and plopped my bucket of suds down by my breakfast nook table so I could get that wiped off before we ate breakfast that morning. (We had donuts. And, over the course of the next few months- we ate a LOT of them. The kids didn't hate it.)

That's when I noticed the flaked ash had also settled on the mini blinds in our breakfast nook. 

UGH. I was so aggravated that I didn't think about cleaning into all those little nooks and crannies. Sheesh. But- in my mind at that point- my clean up plan was still manageable. Long and tedious, but manageable. 

Then I swiped my hand across my table top. And my vision blurred. And my heart started to pound. And I needed to find a paper bag to breathe into. Because I realized then that this thin layer of flaked ash was on EVERY SURFACE AND EVERY CEILING AND EVERY WALL AND EVERY THING OF MY HOUSE. 

I snapped this picture seconds before I decided to put a call into my homeowner's insurance and submit a claim to help me with the clean up. I knew that there was no way I was going to be able to get everything cleaned by myself and I figured the insurance company could help us get in contact with someone who could professionally clean and remove the soot and ash to keep our house from becoming a melted-and-burned-plastic toxic wasteland. 

The need to breathe into a paper bag became more and more intense as I started to walk into the rooms and swipe my hands across furniture and walls and toys and every.single.time my hands kept coming up grey. 

I had ash on the kids' bedding. And in Nathan's crib. And on every single popcorn ceiling in our house. Our A/C was running at the time of the fire so the unit pulled the smoke from the kitchen, into the ductwork and then pushed it out into every bedroom and closet and bathroom and time out corner we had under our roof.

I dialed the 800 number on our policy and started ugly crying to every single person I was transferred to. Bless the sweet people at Frontline Insurance Company. Our claim representative, Tracee, was just about the sweetest gal on the planet. I ugly cried/hyperventilated on the phone to her for about 20 minutes that first day as I had to recount the story of the fire and then completely melt down to her when I realized that my kids were currently walking around on melted plastic soot covered floors. 

She dispatched a crew of professional fire restoration specialists who arrived THAT DAY. PuroClean came, surveyed the damage and got a game plan in place. The dirty AC ductwork system is one factor I hadn't thought about before they came. The restoration contractor started talking about soot dispersion rates and inhalation risks and I got tunnel vision. I escaped to a soot free playdate at a local park with my kids where we breathed in fresh, ash free air while they got started on the clean up. 

We got back less than three hours later and my kitchen looked like this:

 (I had another paper bag moment.)

I don't know how they did it, but in less time that it takes me to bake a pan of homemade lasagna, those three guys tore apart my kitchen. They took down an entire bank of cabinets, exposing a ton of burned wood behind the uppers (which was thankfully just done to the wood of the cabinets and not to the walls), scraped my entire kitchen and breakfast nook ceilings and moved 80% of my furniture from the kitchen and into my living room. 

I couldn't believe how quickly they worked. (It was like they were professionals and they did this every day for a living or something.) I went to bed that night realizing my house looked drastically different already. I didn't realize at the time this was just the first phase of many more furniture shuffled, plastic draped, dust covered days that were ahead of us.

At first, looking into my hodge podged living room like this made me itch a little. If I'd only known then how much worse it was going to get before it got better. I had no idea how NOT AWFUL this set up actually was... 

Luke walked in and said "Momma! What has happened in here?!" 

Do y'all see that red box/fan looking thing on the floor? IT ROCKS. 

It's called an Air Scrubber and it became my post fire BFF. The contractors ran two of them night and day while they cleaned and y'all- my house never smelled better. I'm pretty sure the air circulating my rooms smelled better than the break room at a Downy factory. 

Seriously, my air has never been fresh like that before. I need one of these in my life. I may have joked with the guys about trying to stash one of them away while they were packing up the trucks to leave on their last day. (But not really, because they were kinda loud, and I'm pretty certain those cost more than the van that's currently sitting inside my garage.)

After the cleaning was complete, it was time to start thinking about the renovation. At that point, we hadn't heard from the insurance company yet so we weren't really sure what we were going to be able to afford do but we knew we needed to get some sort of plan in place so we could get the ball rolling once we got final word from our claim. 

 One of my friends, Amanda, who is an amazing interior designer came over one afternoon to help me pick out cabinet colors and wall colors and countertop colors and backsplash tile options and lights and accents and PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING that I couldn't do by myself without some major waffling and a huge dose of smelling salts. (Because Pinterest can only take you so far by yourself, y'all.) 

Between Amanda's amazing recommendations and my text-versations with another interior designer friend of mine Dusti about exactly how to use a can of spray paint- I would have been as lost as a goose in a hailstorm. For sure.

Here was our "The Sky Is The Limit, Paint All The Things All The Colors" color scheme. 

Then, Matt and I heard from the insurance company and our plans became drastically more realistic. (We weren't going to be painting all the things.)  

Here is our "Dave Ramsey Renovation" scheme. Because we paid for all of our repairs and appliances and post fire renovations in cold, hard cash from the insurance company and our savings account, I like this color scheme MUCH BETTER. (And our bank account does, too.) I'd like to have the kids smear peanut butter and jelly onto cabinets that are paid for, ya know what I mean? 

A few weeks passed, and the first piece of the puzzle was delivered: our brand spankin'  new stove:

(Yes, he is wearing a fire man rain jacket. Because, why not?)

(I snapped this one to send to our insurance representative, Tracee to tell her thanks for pulling some strings to get us our stove money a little faster. We love her!)

I honestly never thought I could love a kitchen appliance. But, after going for a few weeks without a working stove- I LOVE A KITCHEN APPLIANCE. 

During our no-stove interum period, I got lots of good use out of our crockpots, my toaster oven, and my $9.97 Black Friday WalMart griddle. (Seriously, I bought that thing a few years ago and I honestly don't know how I ever cooked pancakes or egg-in-a-nests without it. Man! All those wasted years trying to cook one or two pancakes at a time in my small skillet. Mercy!)  

We got our stove installed and then got to work scheduling contractors to come and give us bids on the painting/cabinet work/texturing that we needed to have done. We worked numbers for just about every possible renovation scenario imaginable. There were cabinet refinishers, cabinet reFACEers, and new cabinet installers who came by to give us (shockingly high) estimates. We had several paint contractors come by to give us their quotes on the refinishing and texture work that we needed to have done on our walls and ceiling. 

At the end of the day, we were blessed with a recommendation from a friend to a cabinet contractor that is a member of the Church of Christ out in Pensacola. Their estimate was much, much less than the other renovation options that we had pursued. So, new cabinets were going to go in!

We also had to decide what we were going to do about our backsplash tiles. The microwave/stove hood unit that was installed before the fire was waaaaaaaay too low. To get our new cabinets to code, we needed to shorten the upper cabinet to 12" and raise the top of the microhood to a 30" minimum from the range surface. Doing so would leave several gaping holes in the backsplash tile directly above the stove.

(See? Ain't it purdy?) 

And, I realize that big holes above your stove is completely a "First World" problem, but if we were going to be renovating the kitchen for the ONLY TIME EVER in the history of our bank accounts, I wanted to try and come up with a cost effective plan to either hide the holes or completely eliminate that problem. 

Our solution: DON'T HAVE A BACKSPLASH. 

Y'all- have you walked down the aisles at Lowe's or Home Depot lately? Backsplash tiles are crazy expensive. Replacing our backsplash with tiles similar to the ones that we previously had would've cost us $10-$12 a square foot. And we have almost 50 square feet of backsplash tile to install in our space. Even when I found the perfect white subway tiles that I instantly fell in love with at less than $4 a square foot, our budget still just wasn't going to support that kind of addition. 

So, we decided to just demo the old backsplash ourselves (Yay for husband and wife demo day date!) along with the rest of the kitchen cabinets and have our contractor just skim and texture over the walls above our countertops before he painted it. We chose a wipeable/washable texture and finish for our paints so clean up hasn't been bad AT ALL when I've gotten flour or spaghetti sauce drips on it. 

We have plans to continue to save for some future backsplash tile installation (along with a new vehicle and a mini Disney vacation) but, in the mean time, I think my kitchen looks just as fantastic without having those expensive tiles above my countertop. 

At this point in the renovation, I escaped from the kitchen-less house with the three kids for a week while the contractors were here scraping and sanding and texturing and making about a 3.75 inch of fine drywall dust on every surface of my house. 

They were amazing contractors, they really were. They taped off the kitchen doorways and sealed in as much of the mess as possible, but even still- that fine, powdery dust settled in a thin, ghostlike layer on top of absolutely everything in the house. Truth be told, even now- a few weeks later- I'm still swiping up a fine layer of dust when I wipe down the furniture and tables. So, if you're ever in the neighborhood and want to come by, you are more than welcome to come write your name in the settled dust on my coffee table. (True story. I love company.)

This is what happened while we were gone. 

We got back home from our week at the Louisiana Grandparent Circuit (The kids had a blast! I need to blog about it- there was fishing and eating and playing and cousins and a never ending hunt for bouncy balls at my inlove's house after Luke bounces them underneath every dark, heavy piece of furniture they own. Ask them about it. It's fuuuuun stuff.) to a freshly painted but EMPTY kitchen (pictured above), and a living room that looked like this: 

 Y'all. Living like this was SO MUCH WORSE than during the clean-up-anti-soot phase. Bring on the paper bags for real this time.

So, if you ever want to find out just how well you handle stress and mess in your life- just live like squatters in a house with three kids in a dwelling without a kitchen for 4 days. I may have failed this real-life stress test in the beginning. BIG TIME. 

You get a real glimpse at what really matters, at how "First World" your life really is when washing your dishes in your bathtub makes you groan. I was inwardly complaining to myself one morning as I washed out my coffee cup in the kid's tub when I had to stop and make myself realize how blessed I really was in my current situation. I'd recently read this article, and- after pondering on her words for about the 17,385th time, I realized how fortunate I really was. Even if I was living in a house without a stove. 

I had hot, fresh, running water at my immediate disposal. I was on my knees in front of a bathtub in the SECOND bathroom of my house washing one of 472 cups we have that are devoted to consuming only ONE TYPE of beverage. I was complaining to myself because I had to walk tens of feet into my kitchen with a working icebox to take out my half and half to pour into my automatically brewed coffee. 

God humbled me that morning, and for the rest of our insane eating-like-vagabonds-and-tripping-over-the-highchair-in-the-middle-of-the-living-room kinda days that we spent camped out in our living room, I didn't complain. 

And then one day, it happened. One glorious morning at 8:17am, men came to my house with a truckload of cabinets, just for ME. It was like Christmas in adult form. I didn't want to be that homeowner who wanted them to stop during every single step of the process so I could take pictures, so I didn't. I just went full-out 007 on them during their 14 second trips into the garage to cut trim and grabbed the fastest pictures ever taken. And here are the two sneaky "I'm gonna be like James Bond" shots that I got. Enjoy.

They never saw me coming. Thankfully.

Even without a sink. Or a stove. Or a light. Or a microwave. This was the most wonderful, grateful, blessed feeling I've ever had. And boy, did that feeling get even more powerful as the rest of the kitchen came together. 

Y'all! I can't even wait to upload the rest of the pictures.

I put this guy to work holding a box down while I was unloading dishes and spices and cups and plates and saucers the very SECOND the contractors had pulled out the driveway that day. Momma was READY to get her kitchen put back together. 

These two also got in on the action that day. Luke was more interested in building mountains out of the packing paper and empty cardboard boxes and Josie was more interested in taking the lids off the sprinkle containers she found and eating the sugar she found inside them straight from the tap. 

And then, before I even got to cook my first meal in my swanky new kitchen, this happened the next day instead:

So yeah, at that point, I'd say it was officially broken in. 

But the day after that, Josie and I really broke it in with a big ol' pot of Chicken and 

Dumplin's. 

My friend Sara and her family are missionaries in Japan. I was telling her about fixing supper in my new kitchen and I realized that she has never eaten C&D. Y'all. I can assure you that the first meal I fix for her as soon as they are back in the states from Japan will be this. (Unless she'd rather Red Beans and Rice, of course.)

If y'all could see like three inches on the outside of that frame, you'd probably notice a sink full of dirty dishes and a spilled cup of milk dripping onto the floor. Now that I think about it, I probably shoulda tried to get the mess into the shot, too. 

 Josie was really excited to help me roll out the dumplin's. And I'm pretty sure that's probably because "helping Mom" meant she had a prime raw-dough-swiping position. I can't say I blame her logic. 

In my humble opinion, the amount of dumplin's Betty Crocker Cookbook's tells you to fix is NEVER ENOUGH- so we triple it. Because that's how we roll, y'all.

Things still aren't completely finished. There are no pictures on the walls and the breakfast nook windows still don't have the blinds in them. (But, silver lining bonus: SO MUCH LIGHT!) Even still- functionally, it is complete and I absolutely love it. 

I'm still moving stuff around and rearranging shelves (for like the bajillionth time this week) and forgetting where I store the cutting boards and finagling just the right saucepan/skillet/pot lid ratio in my pot drawers. I say thankful prayers every morning as I fill up my new deeeeeeeep sink full of soapy water. I am grateful every time I wipe off my new Formica-fake-granite countertops. I feel blessed every time I switch on my ceiling fan or fancy new Pinterest inspired spray painted light above my breakfast nook table. 

I spruced up my kitchen one morning last week and shooed the kids into the living room after breakfast and school was over to play with their 4,071 piece bag of blocks so I could take some pictures of the finished kitchen to share with y'all. 

I love my new kitchen, and I hope y'all do, too. 

(And, if you're ever in the neighborhood and want to come over and dig through my cabinets or open and close my pot drawers repeatedly or run a humongous tub full of soapy water in my new sink- COME ON OVER! I'll brew us some coffee!)

Ta-Daaaaah! 

Our breakfast nook. 
All our meals happen here. As does school. And art projects. And PlayDoh. And some pretty intense games of Minnie Mouse Bow Bingo.

The main view of our kitchen, standing sort of by the corner of the pantry door. 

The dishwasher/cabinet that holds coffee cups and drinking glasses and a million mismatched tiny plastic cups. (How did we acquire so many kid's cups, y'all???)

At 5:11am, this is the most vital area of my kitchen. My friend Olivia brought me back my teacup and saucer from a deployment she made to Germany a few years ago. My beehive sugar bowl was from my Grammy Elaine's house. I love it so much- I'm on the hunt for some fabric to coordinate so I can try to sew a valance or dish towel or something to put up in my kitchen because how cute are bees?! My cutting board was my birthday present this year.I found a gal's shop on Etsy who does personalized glass cutting boards and I customized one with a scripture that, to me, is the motto of my life. And my new kitchen! 

(By the way, she didn't ask me to send y'all a link to her site. I just loved her, and her business- she donates 10% of her proceeds to an organization that helps victims of human trafficking- and I really love my cutting board. I'm dying to get one for everyone I know.)   

Kitchen sink. Complete with childproof locks. Because y'all- toddlers happen.

More sink! 

This is, in my opinion, the deepest skin ever created. It's a whole three INCHES deeper than my old sink and I'm pretty sure Josie could bathe in it. (And she maybe has already had to.)

 View from the sink looking left. Plates go in the upper cabinet next to the sink, then it's Tupperwear (Who am I kidding- it's mostly lagniappe butter tubs along with cottage cheese and yogurt containers) and then spices go next to the stove. 

Work space, y'all! Along with my string light/Mason jar combo. MY FAVORITE THING EVER. (And yes, I may bribe my kids with candy corn pumpkins every now and then.) 

Thank you, Sears, for having a spectacular sale when I needed a new stove! It's got five burners on the top so I can put my tea kettle on the middle back eye and keep the water hot while I drink cup after cup after cup of hot tea this winter. (Or coffee- because I wouldn't want to hurt either of their feelings by playing favorites.) 

Also- families of three or more: GET A TOASTER OVEN. I got one for Christmas last year and it has been a game changer. I can fix over SIX SLICES of toast. At once. My life has been forever changed for the better. Thank you, Hamilton Beach. 

 My ice box and pantry. 
(And no, I wasn't going to give y'all a shot of the open pantry. Because nobody needs to know just how many bags of Community Dark Roast I store in there.) 

One word: MAGNETS. 

My friends and family know how much I love magnets so they'll sometimes add to my collection for me. My Mom just went on a trip to Natchez, MS and brought me back an awesome Gone With The Wind magnet. I also have a magnet I got from the last restaurant we ate at the night before Nathan was born. (Because I'm a sappy sentimental fool that way.)

Also- the first addition to the kitchen: A brand new fire extinguisher. That I have been shaking like every.single.day. Just in case. 

Another view from the breakfast nook looking toward the pantry and ice box. If you take a left right at that red stool, you'll walk into our dining room. 

A view standing at the pantry door of our breakfast nook. Check out my awesome spray painted Pinterest creation. I really love my light, y'all!

And this is Nathan's favorite part of the kitchen: the pot drawers. I didn't have these before, and I've gotta say- I love them as much as he does, too. I have so much more usable storage than I did before. That bottom drawer has an 8 qt. crockpot inside! Mind boggling, right?!?! 

Also- check out his thighs. They are down right bite-able, aren't they? Man, he's a cute kid. (In my own opinion, anyway.)

Now that you've seen the fancy schmancy "perfectly cleaned kitchen" pictures, I thought I'd throw in a couple of "this is how my kitchen really looks on any given morning" shots, too. 

Just so y'all know I'm keepin' it real.

 THIS IS MY REALITY.

Lagniappe dishes left to dry from supper the night before. 

We'd just had two of my sister's in love over with their crews for spaghetti the night before they left for their Disney cruise. 

I could just about polish my cooktop every hour, on the hour. (How does it get so dirty so quickly?!) BTW- That stovetop cleaner to the right is the BOMB, y'all. 

 A mom's life, in picture form.

A cold cup of coffee she never got around to drinking that was stirred with an iced tea spoon because all of both the soup and cereal spoons are dirty. And supplies to bandage her freshly gouged hand after she cut it coring an apple for her oldest son with her brand new post-fire replaced knife set. (PSA: Brand new knives are REALLY SHARP, y'all.)

 Dishes and school work and coloring pages. 
All three are present on my table at any given moment during the day. Ring my doorbell unannounced and you can see for yourself. 

Y'all. I almost couldn't post this one. 

Bottles of Cokes from Luke's birthday party TWO WEEKS AGO that we will never drink but I haven't gotten around to pouring out and recycling. Breakfast condiments and a dishwasher FULL TO THE TOP of clean dishes that need to be put away. Also, an open cabinet door because, as much as I know it drives my husband crazy, I can never remember to close an open cabinet door. Or the microwave. It's an illness. 

How my sink really looks. Half the time I forget to drain the water and it gets cold. The other half I forget to turn off the faucet and the bubbles rise above to cover the top of the faucet. It's a 50/50 shot either way.

Last shot of the post. This'll be my favorite part of my kitchen because it's evidence of who I get to cook for: MY FAMILY. My kitchen may be a mess, and those pictures on the wall may not get hung tomorrow, but to me- it's still perfect just the way it is. 

There will be (and already has been) jelly smeared on the cabinet doors. Water will overflow the sink and somebody is gonna drop a cup of chocolate milk onto the floor any second now. 

But kitchens are for living. And living is messy business. Especially when you've got three little ones you're living with. I'm gonna treasure my new kitchen. I'm gonna polish my new stovetop like a maniac. I'm gonna wipe off the cabinet doors like I'm the Karate Kid. And I'll scrub out the crusty bits of dried cereal off the table tops. I'll wipe down the syrup smudges off the breakfast nook chairs. EVENTUALLY.

 But, if you drop by sometime and notice that there's a coffee ring on the countertop or crushed Cheerios on the floor or if the chairs feel a bit sticky- it's because we've been living in our new kitchen. Because that's what kitchens are for. 

Now get in your car and come over for coffee, wouldya! 

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

  

Happy 4th Birthday, Luke!

 

and

she loved

a

little boy

very, very much

-even more

than

she loved

herself.

--Shel Silverstein

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Four years ago today my oldest, Luke, was born. And it was an awesome day. He was over a week late- as were all three of mine- and, in late August, IN FLORIDA, his delivery couldn't have come sooner. I guess I just cook my babies on a low, slow boil. Like crawfish, they tended to need to soak a while before they're ready. 

His first birthday approached and I got to WORK. His favorite book was The Very Hungry Caterpillar and I was a freshly teacher-turned-Mom, so I was obsessed. This was, if y'all can believe it, BEFORE PINTEREST so I was largely on my own in terms of inspiration, but I still managed to create a massive tissue paper caterpillar on our mantle and bake a cake large enough to feel Rhode Island and create and hang both house and yard decorations.(Ask my friend, Olivia, about the three trial cakes I baked, decorated and gave away before his party because I had to get it just right. Mercy. I had cakes in my house for weeks before his party. I'm surprised I didn't send us all into diabetic shock.) It has still, to date, been the biggest party blow out that I have undertaken. Sorry Josie and Nathan- it's a firstborn-first-birthday-thing. BONUS, however, is that I will be able to reuse all the decorations for Nathan's first birthday in October. 

(Again, sorry, Nathan. Momma's got to be able to put all that hard work to use at least one more time. After this, you can pick any birthday party you want. ::promise::)

The day of the party came and our house was jam packed. Every relative from every city, from four states away showed up to help us celebrate with Luke. (He, of course, was just worried about chewing on the bows and wrapping paper scraps.) It was a noisy, messy, chaotic, whirl wind afternoon. Punch was made and ice cream was churned and prayers were prayed and food was eaten and drinks were spilled and songs were sung and candles were blown out and cake was cut and naps were missed and it was perfect. 

It wasn't until later that night that I cried. It was after the lagniappe cake was put away and the balloons came down and the house was finally quiet that it happened. I sat down in the nursery, holding Luke and wept. That's probably not the best description. I cried buckets and buckets and buckets of tears. They were happy tears and sad tears and first-trimester-hormonal tears and tired tears and scared tears and worried tears and uncertain tears and proud tears. I cried for every emotion I had encountered in the twelve short months I had endured after finally becoming a mother, but mostly- they were thankful tears. 

 

Because I was. I was so thankful that I was the one chosen to be his Mom. Out of every person on the planet, God picked me. ME. He saw a part of goodness in my heart, in my mind, in my soul that He knew would make me a good Mom to him. It was a small part, a quiet little, untouched place that all Mom's have- I just had to use it. I had to find that place- that soft place for my Luke to land- and enlarge it. I had to grow that little area of goodness in my soul so that the more Luke would need it, the more would be available to him. I needed to become a farmer.

I needed to pasture this land in my heart for him so there were areas that I had to eliminate. I had to bush hog them down, disc them up, dig out the rocks and roots and tree stumps, pile them up and BURN THEM to the ground. Now that I was a mother- there was no room for selfishness. There was no room for empty conceit. There was no room for pettiness or strife or jealousy or slander. I needed to take those areas and slash and burn so I could grow a better crop. And it was HARD. And it was a never ending amount of work. I'm still working to keep out the weeds and hedge bushes that crop up when I let an area of my heart pasture lay fallow for too long. I'll be a constant gardener in this farming called motherhood for my entire life. 

And that's why I cried. Because entering motherhood was the strongest refining fire I'd ever been through. And birthdays are a milestone marking another year that I've survived that fire. It's an opportunity to look back at the months that have passed and think about the fields I've kept. I think about the weeds and briars and brambles I've pulled up in my heart that year. The ones that were rooted so deeply that it took some serious digging and praying and praising for me to finally get them out. And then, when I finally did and was able to plant that freshly turned soil with patience and goodness and honesty and love- I cry. Because I want to give my babies' fertile soil. Because I'm thankful that, with His help, I can. 

Motherhood has made me a better person. It's given me a divine responsibility to become the best Christian, the best wife, the best Mom, the best daughter, the best sister that I can be. It has refined me in ways that only Motherhood could. And, as hard and grueling and gut wrenching as it is- I feel blessed to be able to do it. 

My prayer is that my heart will always give them a soft place to land. 

Happy 4th Birthday, Luke.

(Now let's go eat some waffles to celebrate.)

What If We NEVER Go 'Back To School'?...

The beginning of August has brought a deluge of pictures of fresh faced, adorable booksack-backed kiddos standing on their front porch or at their bus stop or in their classroom with their new teachers across my Facebook and Instagram News Feeds. They've been posted with the hashtags #firstdayofschool or #backtoschool or #hallelujah and THEY HAVE ME HYPERVENTILATING. Because, y'all- I don't think I'll ever have a post like this. 

Because, y'all- I want to homeschool. 

On some deep, subconscious level, I think I've wanted to homeschool since the moment I held my oldest son, Luke, in the hospital. My husband brought him to me after they'd weighed and measured him- he was wrapped up and bundled with his precious newborn hat on and he was perfect. Innocent. Unstained. Unblemished by this fallen world we live in that's full of sin and stress and strife. He was to me, in that moment- the very personification of purity. 

I knew, of course, that the world would eventually stain and blemish and bruise him. The imperfect, sin filled world that we live in leaves it's marks on all of us. And Luke, (right along with my other two children and every other human on this planet) has been no exception. He isn't perfect. No one is. He's a rough and rowdy and rambunctious boy. But when those stains and blemishes and bruises have happened, I've been there.  

I can't stop myself from feeling a weight of responsibility to him. To all three of my kids. To teach them at home. To stand guard for them. To bar the door against The World while I train them to defend themselves against it. And while I keep them here with me, I'll protect them, and teach them to protect themselves, until they're strong enough, capable enough, mature enough, to stand on their own.  

Feeling the drive and desire to homeschool Luke when he was little surprised me. I talked with my husband about it, and he sort of agreed, but in a very non-commital way, seeing as he was literally a brand new, itty bitty, teeny tiny infant and we had FIVE YEARS to make some sort of concrete educational decision about his future. 

Things rocked along for a while, we got pregnant and had our second child- our daughter Josie. Things were sort of hectic as we settled into our new routine with a home with two littles, but even with the new changes and craziness, I still wanted to do it. 

We pressed on a few more months and found out that we were pregnant for a THIRD time in three years with our youngest child. Nathan was born 10 months ago, and we have now settled comfortably into our new, even more loud and busy and boisterous routine with three small children in our home. And, as harried as my days can (and most certainly DO) get, I still want to homeschool these three rascals. Because right now, even in this crazy place I'm in- it still feels right.

Now, y'all- that's not saying that I don't doubt myself like a million times a month. That I don't have supreme guilt agonizing over the massive mental "Pros/Cons" list I've tabulated in my mind. (Below is a small snippet of the borderline insanity that streams through my head on a minute-by-minute basis when I sit down and start to consider what it will take when I embark on this homeschooling adventure.)

• Will the kids feel cheated out of the booksack-packing-lunchbox-carrying-bulletin-board-decorated life I am choosing not to give them? 
• Will they hate me when they're teenagers for not sending them to a brick and mortar school? 
• Am I patient enough to do this? 
• Am I smart enough to do this? 
• Am I organized enough to do this? 
• What if they do poorly in school? What if Luke turns 7 and still can't read or write his name or count to 100?
• Will I be a bad Mom if I'm an awful teacher?  
• What about my sanity? I love my kids and all, but what if I don't EVER get a break? 
• What if I look back in seven years and wish I could have a quiet hour to myself while they are away at school? 
• What if I regret not sending them? 
• What if I hate it? 
• What if they hate it? 
• What if they hate me? 
• What kinds of things are they going to sacrifice by my keeping them home? 
• What kinds of things am I going to sacrifice by keeping them home?
• What if? What if? What if? What if? What if?...

I also have a bunch of hypocritical feelings about my desire to homeschool because, before I had my own babies, I was teaching other people's. I was an elementary school teacher in one of the best counties in the entire state of Florida, in the BEST SCHOOL DISTRICT within that county. At the best school in the district. (I'm talking to Y'ALL, my Oriole Beach Elementary friends!) OBE is the very same school that my kids are zoned to attend. My sister-in-love is still the school secretary there and I continue to have wonderful connections and friendships there even today. We stop by and say hello a couple of times a month because we love OBE. And we love the people that teach there.

But I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can stand there at the end of the hall or in the doorway of a classroom or at the curb of the school and do IT. Passing that baton that is my baby to someone else. I can not say goodbye to my child. To my ward of this world. To that little soul I've been entrusted to glide and guard and guide through this world. I'm not ready to give that duty to someone else. Because, to me, it's not their job. IT IS MINE. It is what I feel called to do.

For me, what weighs on my heart at the root of all of this is INFLUENCE. It's the seconds that make up the minutes that make up the hours that make up the days of my children's lives that I'd be giving up to send them away from me to a school each day. It's about my inability to hand over the weight of the responsibility for the events that will happen during these important, life-changing, character-molding, soul-imprinting moments to someone else that isn't me. I don't want to give that up.

My purpose in this life is to get to Heaven and to help bring as many people there with me as I can. I'll be there with my husband, my family, and most importantly, I have to raise my children to be there, too. And, for me, as their Mom- the best way I know how to point them there is from home. Perched right here at my dining room table. 

Luke, my oldest, will turn four in a few weeks. And here in Florida, the state offers and pays for 540 hours of instructional time that focuses on academic readiness in order to help prepare 4 year olds for kindergarten. {In short, it's free preschool.} When I looked up the statistics online, something like 80% of parents in the state enroll their students in free VPK. 

We aren't.

That doesn't make us better than the 80% that do send their kids to preschool, it just makes us different. Besides, Luke is in preschool. He's learning everyday here at home. With me. And with his little sister and baby brother. (Who are about the two cutest classmates a kid could ask for.) We are learning letters and numbers and language skills and how-not-to-pitch-a-fit-every-time-someone-else-is-playing-with-your-favorite-toy-skills, and having picnics and field trips and nature walks. 

Our normal, happy, everyday life is a preschool. 

 The straw that broke the Homeschool vs. Public School camel's back happened last Spring when the idea of actually sending Luke to school was actually brought up and I actually almost hyperventilated in public.  

I was at a park on a play date with a good friend of mine. There was another young mom at the playground with a son who was exactly one year older than Luke. We, of course, as women frequently do- got to talking, and school came up almost immediately. She told us about where her son had gone to preschool and how much she liked the place and how excited he was for school in the Fall and blah, blah, blah... And then she turned and asked me where Luke was going to go to VPK. The sky darkened, my vision blurred and it suddenly felt like I was being slowly suffocated by a giant anaconda while standing in a pit of quicksand. 

I stammered something to her like "Well, he's got such a late birthday, we will probably wait and if we decide to, enroll him in a preschool thing when he's a little older. Maybe we will wait an extra year to do the VPK thing." That's when she looked at me and dropped a bomb on my tender little Momma heart: "Oh, well, that's OK- I guess." she said. "But, if you are going to use the free VPK voucher, it's only good for the year that they're four. If you miss the boat for that year, it'll be on you to pay for preschool." ::gulp:: 

That meant that if Luke were going to go to preschool, he would have to go in August. Like, four short months from then. He would be so little. He'd not even have turned four by the first day of school. I couldn't take it. The thought of sending him to school away from home was paralyzing me.

Y'all, I could not leave that park fast enough. My throat was tight and my eyes were hot and I had that terrible "I'm about to cry" feeling in my chest and I could NOT have a breakdown in front of this strange woman or my good friend and her child or in front of my kids. 

I got us all loaded back into the van as quickly as I could, holding back tears the best I could while I speed dialed my husband's work number. I called him faster than anyone has ever called anybody else ever before since the beginning of time. Alexander Graham Bell would've applauded both my speed and accuracy. 

The Dowager Countess totally gets it. 

(source) 

Matt and I have this awesome symbiotic relationship in that I always, ALWAYS overreact to situations and he always, ALWAYS tells me when I'm freaking out. I called him and breathlessly filled him in on the conversation that just transpired in a :13 second "I-just-met-a-Mom-on-the-playground-and-she-said-that-Luke-will-have-to-go-to-VPK-in-the-fall-but-I-don't-think-I-can-send-him-because-that-just-seems-so-young-and-he-is-so-precious-and-innocent-and-I-just-don't-think-I-can-do-that-and-maybe-I-am-a-freak-and-what-do-you-think?" version of the situation. 

And y'all, NO LIE- Matt's response was: "Boo. Relax. We are not obligated to send him to VPK. You are right. He is so young. There is absolutely no real reason that we HAVE to send him to preschool. He is fine. You are fine. Our family is fine. Not everybody goes to preschool. Plenty of people live normal, happy, healthy productive lives without ever having gone to preschool. And our kids will survive without it, too." 

I have never loved my husband more than I did on that fateful morning as I lamaze breathed into the phone and borderline ugly cried while sitting in my van in an empty parking lot of a Mexican restaurant. Because HE GETS ME. 

Somebody asked me, when I told them of my misgivings about sending Luke to VPK what I'd be worried about him being exposed to at preschool, given the fact that they are only 4 years old. Well, to be honest, I'm worried about just about EVERYTHING he'd be exposed to. 

Kids are clay. They are impressionable. And soft. And malleable. And easily molded by their environments. 100% of absolutely everything they come in contact with leaves a mark on them. Good or bad, positive or negative, embarrassing or validating- those marks are there. PERMANENTLY. And I want to be the one who leaving the most imprints on my kid's lives. 

It's like when I bought peaches a few weeks ago and (unwisely) put them in the big part of the buggy where my oldest son sits while I shop. By the time we made it to the register to check out, all of his wayward kicks and rolls and nudges and smushes between the big tub of oatmeal and 4 milk jugs had turned what had been a sack of perfectly ripe fruit into a big ol' bag of peach mush. And I think kids are like that. They bruise easily. Their souls need to be handled with care, because their spirits are tender and need to be treated accordingly. 

Luke is like a sponge. He literally picks up on every single thing that happens in my house, in the grocery store, in church, EVERYWHERE. When I think he's not listening. He is. When I think he's not paying attention. He IS. He can tell, by the tone of my voice and the sound of my tone, before I ever tell him, who I am on the phone with when a call comes in. "It's like he's got ESPN or something." 

But seriously, raising my kids has been the best motivator for me to change some of my less-than-desireable behaviors. Being their Mom, being the one who has the greatest influence on their lives has been the biggest incentive to make me a better person. To make me a better Christian. A better wife. A better daughter. A better friend. Because I know that they will mirror the behaviors, habits, and attitudes they see in me. And I want to give them the best example possible. 

But the weight of that responsibility is sometimes hard to bear. Because I'm not perfect. I lose my patience and my temper and my sanity more often than I'd like to admit. And I've got to be honest because there are days that I want a break. 

There are days when I think about friends of mine who have school aged children who can get like entire HOURS of their days to themselves. Zero fighting. Zero squabbling. Zero potty breaks. No incredibly loudly squealing kids in the background of their phone conversations. At 9:47am, they can watch TV or browse Pinterest or take a nap or sit on their couch or read a book or drive their cars or take a bath or basically do ANYTHING IN THE WORLD that I am not able do right now. And y'all, there's a selfish part of me that worries that I'll miss not having that when I'm homeschooling my kids. (Ouch. It kinda stings to admit that.) 

But then I think about the flip side to that coin. I think about the days and hours and minutes that I will get to spend with my kids. The joy I saw last week when Luke tried UNPROMPTED to write his name for the first time ever. How cool it was for me to see Josie initiate an opportunity to share with her little brother because he was fussy and she knew she could do something to help make him laugh. 

I get to watch my two oldest kids celebrate literally every.little.thing their baby brother does. "Momma! Nathan justa crawled to me!" or "He justa rolled my ball back!" or "Nathan justa ate the snack I gave him!" or "Nayyy-fun's sooo-a cuuuute." "I wooove my widdle brother." "He's just the sweetest ol' thing!" Moments like that are the fuel that keeps my engine going on the tough and tired and troublesome days that I'm sure I'll encounter while I continue to teach and lead and raise my kids at home. 

And, y'all, now don't get me wrong. I realize how dramatic all this must sound. How completely over reactionary it may seem. Because, right now even to me as I am writing it- IT DOES. I am 100% guilty of over dramatizing this situation.(I compared my kids to Play-Doh and ripe summer fruit, for mercy's sake.) I know know there are plenty of homeschool situations that aren't perfect, just like I know there are scores of public school situations that are far from ideal. 

I am worried that, by writing a post about my views and decisions about homeschooling my family, I will offend someone who has chosen not to. THAT IS NOT MY AIM. I have close family and dear friends that homeschool. I also have close family and dear friends that send their kids to school outside their homes. Both sets love their children. Both sets want what's best for them. I do not doubt that for a SECOND.

 I've read oodles of pro-homeschool articles telling parents that if they send their children to school outside their homes they don't love them enough as a family that homeschools. That, if they send their children to public schools that they aren't worried about their souls. I AM NOT SAYING THAT. 

I am not speaking for your family. I am not speaking for your children. I'm speaking for my family: myself and my husband. I am speaking for my family and the three precious souls given to me.This is the place we are currently in. These are the decisions we are facing. And this is the path we feel led to take. 

The most important graduating credential your family could pursue should be the same, regardless of the educational setting you choose to acquire it in. That's leading your children to attain a citizenship in Heaven. 

Now all I need to do is try and track down a full length denim jumper outfit and a shirt with 3" shoulder pads because I've got a 'homeschool Mom' uniform to put together. If you see any plaid seasonal, fabric painted vests or a pair of acid washed, elastic waisted jeans- send them my way. I'm currently accepting donations.  

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"Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6

 Written by Solomon, the wisest king who ever lived on the face of this Earth in the history of the entire world. Also, my homeschool/parenting motto. 

An Ode To VBS Teachers

I always loved Vacation Bible School when I growing up. Seeing my church building decorated with all the props and posters and displays always got me PUMPED for our nights of classes, crafts, and lessons. I always loved and appreciated VBS, but it wasn't until I became an adult with children of my own who are students that I really, truly appreciated what Vacation Bible School is. 

You see, it's easy, as a kid, to take all of the hard work and planning and preparation that goes into making a VBS possible for granted. It's easy to see the fake clouds suspended from the ceiling and the huge painted cardboard rainbow or the super sized airplane/puppet stage combo and think "Awesome! VBS decorations!" without thinking about the actual work that went into painting a 20 foot rainbow or dinosaur or airplane or hot air balloon or castle or palm tree or whatever else you could think of that is on display in the church building. 

*(By the way, have you ever knelt on a hard, linoleum floor for any length of time while wielding a foam paintbrush tracing outlines on bulletin board paper while trying desperately not to stray from the pencil lines that were drawn on it? Because adult knees can only take so much pressure before their kneecaps begin to protest and their joints seize up. When they finally straighten up from their hunched over position, they don't really straighten up from their hunched over position. They stand up and sort of hobble around for a bit, limping like a blind chicken looking for a feed bucket while they wait for the blood to begin circulate through their aching and abused joints. Then, after a few minutes of the 'blind, hungry chicken' dance, they can begin to walk normally again. This exercise has given them just enough time to refill the paint on their paper plate before they need to get down again onto their greatly protesting knees for yet another 12 minute round in the "Follow-The-Faintest-Pencil-Line-Ever-Drawn" game.) 

Being an adult, I can see now that VBS is a marathon filled with glitter and stapled butcher paper decorations and lessons and snacks and costumes and silly songs and prayers. It's a grueling race and sometimes it seems like you'll never see the finish line. But you KEEP GOING. Every night. Because it's an event that children will remember always and an opportunity to teach them Christ in ways that only a week of VBS can offer.

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 So, to anyone who has ever completed this marathon-like event called Vacation Bible School and lived to tell the tale: THANK YOU.

• To anyone who has ever dressed up in a VBS themed costume despite the sweltering summer heat: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever stood outside in the afore mentioned heat while little children make vain attempts at playing yard games: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever stayed up late into the night painting wall decorations: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever taken a frightened (and often times screaming) child who is new to your church, to your class, to VBS, under their wing so they aren't scared: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever scarred their retinas by staring into a projector while trying to trace Bible character outlines: THANK YOU.
• To anyone else who has volunteered to be the song leader, thereby forcing them to participate in all of the action songs, and thereby having to sing all 319 verses to Father Abraham: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever cleaned out a WalMart shelf of black acrylic paint at 10pm: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever driven two towns over in search of chocolate gold coins (or any other lesson manipulative that you absolutely had to have): THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has violated the rules of time and space to calculate individual class/snack/craft rotations for 5 different 35 minute rotations between 7 individual locations: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever made a palm tree out of a pool noodle, some butcher paper, a few fake fern fronds and some fishing twine: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever written 3,481 different children's names on sticky backed name tags at a registration table: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever taken the 17.2 hours required to make that layered rainbow Jello snack to go along with a Noah's Ark Rainbow lesson: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever walked a neighborhood in the thick summer heat to pass out flyers and invite your neighbors to VBS: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has used one of those staple-remover claws to pull out 291 staples out of classroom walls after the VBS decorations have come down: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has swept, vacuumed or mopped a floor after a night of crafts and glitter and sand and sticker paper and glue dots: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever taken somebody else's child on a bathroom break: THANK YOU. (You just wiped a hiney for Jesus.)
• To anyone who has ever stepped outside their comfort zone and invited their neighborhood children to ride along with them to VBS: THANK YOU.  
• To anyone who has laminated and cut out little, tiny, itty bitty, individual versions of memory verses or book marks or crafts to hand out to the students: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever burned their fingers on a hot glue gun: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever glittered every scrap of construction paper in the building (and themselves in the process): THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever watched the VBS teacher's small children so that they can teach classes: THANK YOU. 
• To anyone who has ever prayed, in advance, for the work that will be done and the souls that will be reached at VBS: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever done anything that could touch any soul for Jesus through Vacation Bible School: THANK YOU. Your effort has not been done in vain. 

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"...Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for the harvest." {Jesus, speaking to his disciples about the spiritual harvest.} 

James 4:35