Half Way Through A Year

 I don't know about you but this year feels like it is going by quickly. Before I know it my youngest is going to turn three. This will signify the end of an era in my life. I also will have a child turn sixteen this year and she will be able to learn to drive. My youngest son will have his last year before he turns thirteen. This year is half way done and what have I done in the last six months?

I mean I have taken care of a lot of sick people pretty consistently. I have had my husband mostly frustrated with me. I have had a lot of days where I felt like I was not able to keep on going but I did. I have had my body just feel weak and tired and sick a lot. It's not been my best year let's just say that. I have felt so anxious and so undone. This is nothing new for me but I think this year it's been pretty intense. I have just been a mess.

And then there is the flip side of all of this because no matter how I am feeling and no matter how hard I perceive things to be....there is always that light and there is always good.

This year my seven year old started piano lessons that my parents are so kindly paying for. She is an absolute natural. In two months she has finished her first book and is halfway through her second book. She has written two short songs she can play on the piano and is in her first recital in a few weeks.

This year my fifteen year old will go to school for the very first time and will begin her last year of school. It has been SUCH a roller coaster ride for me and a completely unexpected one. However she is going. Today we tried to pick out courses and the testing and interviews are complete.

This year my oldest daughter will have her second baby. Her first baby is just starting to talk and it is the sweetest thing. He also has such expressive eyes and is so observant and empathetic. He brings us so much joy.

This year the Roses have bloomed so beautifully and around my town I have favourite Rose bushes that I love. Do you have that? Do you know in your town where you have a favourite Lilac tree or Rose bush or something similar? 

This year my oldest son went to my sister's a few times and came home happy and feeling more capable. This is such a gift.

This year we started to go to a church as a family and that has been such a blessing. 

This year I started an online book club with my sisters and it has been a positive happy happening to look forward to each month. We can't often meet in person so we all face time each other and chat about the book we are reading. Each month a new person gets to pick the book but they are books that are from our childhood. This month I am choosing Jane of Lantern Hill by LM Montgomery for us all to read. 

This year my friend gifted me a foot massager machine and it has blessed me so much. 

This year has been sad and hard and exhausting but at the same time it's been absolutely lovely. I hope you are able to see those lovely parts of your life however hard and exhausting it may be.

Blessings to you

Tansy

The End of Another Homeschooling Journey

 I am a few days away from the ending another homeschooling journey. So far I have had two end in graduation. This time however this journey ends at grade eleven. My two oldest children did spend a bit of time in school. My oldest daughter spent the most time in school, my son spent just kindergarten at school and homeschooled the rest of the time. My fifteen year old daughter has never been to school. However her school just got shut down and there has been no other homeschooling options that have opened up. She has played sports at a local private school for three years and it is the school her dad and I graduated from. It seems like she is going to go there for her last year of school. In May of 2025 she finished grade nine. In May 2026, so right now, she is finishing grade eleven. That means she did two years of school in one. She worked in grade nine, the summer, and all this school year to accomplish this. In the last month she has done two grade eleven courses. It has been SO MUCH WORK! She set a goal that she wanted to finish school early and it seems like she will accomplish that. She is going to enter grade twelve at fifteen years of age and graduate at age sixteen. I am happy for her to get to go to school because she knows a few of the girls in her grade and they are amazing girls. She will get to try things like drama and go on a missions trip and experience all sorts of things. 

However I am going to miss her dearly. I hadn't envisioned this. I thought I had one more year with her here every day. This is for the best I know, but she has been here, every day, her whole life! I wish I was someone who had a bit more capacity to embrace change. I just really struggle with it. This is happening though, I am almost certain. She also will be away for a month in the summer as well. These are such good things for her. I am so happy for her! I am just sad for me.

Every day that she has been here has been a gift. We have had ups and downs, lots of hard times, but she is just such a sweet light in our home. She is everyone's favourite sibling. I will miss her. She will be done homeschooling here in just a few days and then will be done forever. 

xo

In the Palm of the Hand of God

If I was going to go back to age twenty - one, which is the age I was when I got married, and imagine what my life would look like I don't think it would look like what it does now.

For starters I don't think I would have thought that my children would be spaced so far apart in age or that I would be having children in my forties.

I obviously did not think I was going to get cancer so quickly after getting married and feel exhausted the rest of my life!

I did not imagine I would never get to move out of the town I was born in.

I did not imagine I would be a grandmother at age forty two. 

I did not imagine that my child would struggle so terribly all his life so far.

I did not imagine that my marriage would be the way it has been.

I did not imagine that my parents would struggle so deeply.

I did not imagine that my first child would be adopted.

The list goes on. I didn't imagine all this. I imagined a fairy tale of sorts. I imagined my husband and I would somehow be used by God to bless others in a small town. I imagined a no screen life, children growing up with animals and mostly outdoors like I was. I thought we would travel and also minister that way. I had no idea about the rat race of just trying to pay bills and make enough to pay for counselling and doctor bills etc. I had this beautiful idea in my mind of how I wanted my life to be. I wanted to be impactful. I wanted to be so deeply caring. I wanted to keep every friend I ever had for life. 

Here I am this evening. I am so deeply bone weary it feels impossible to go on. This year has been just so intense. The sickness has not stopped week after week month after month. There has been an opportunity to possibly buy land and move but it keeps being dangled but also just not attainable. The school I have homeschooled through for years has gotten shut down. Plans are just plans. They change constantly and that is something I struggle with so deeply. I am the mother here. I am responsible for creating a calm and nurturing environment. I am responsible for the health and wellness of my family and I have been letting everyone down.

Life 

It is a journey. 

And I have to say that in amongst all this absolute soul deep exhaustion, there is soul filling beauty as always. ALWAYS! I have a two year old who changes her clothes about fifteen times a day because she feels so beautiful in them all that she can't decide what to stay in. She has cut her hair to the scalp in some areas and has a mullet and just loves it! She sings and dances and is so authentically herself. I have a one year old grandson who is so empathetic and so sweet. He is so full of love and preciousness. How could I ask for more!!!! 

So today I was crying and feeling so undone. I just felt so wild inside and I also felt this sense of safety as well. I knew that feeling these feelings needed to happen. I knew that they would pass. I knew that despair doesn't stay forever. I knew that I would make it through. I felt so thankful for the fact that I have learned this! It's taken a LONG time but I have that knowing inside me now. What a gift. I drove my fifteen year old to her first interview to work at a camp this summer. I thought of that and brought that about and that was a good parenting move on my part. I folded many loads of laundry that I gathered from around the house. I made dinner and did the dishes. When my brain tells me relentlessly that I am the worst, that I am a failure, that I have failed in every way shape and form ~ I am thankful to look around me and see of course I have but I have also triumphed. Life has not been easy, life is not supposed to be, and I am in the palm of the hand of God. I am RIGHT where I need to be. So onwards I go.

Don't forget that okay? You are in the palm of the hand of God. Life may be incredibly hard and exhausting and overwhelming. You are not alone. You are loved

Tansy

An Ode to Spring

 I can see the suns last glimmer on the mountain far in the distance

A blush pink Rose looks in my window

Tiny shoots of corn are freshly baby green in perfect rows in the field

Poppies are scarlett and burnt orange and vivid down the street

And Lilacs are just finishing up their perfumed contributions

Baby birds are chipping out of their eggs and busy parents are searching and protecting

The deep purple hue of the Irises in my neighbours yard feels royal and rich and transcending

The verdant fields and trees are healing after the pall of winter

The Buttercups in their glory are cheerful and flaunting and untouchable

The little flower pot by my doorstep with all its precious life brings me such joy

The winter was filled with sickness and anxiety and pain

This Spring feels like a gathering of strength, of renewed hope, of faith that was never let go of

Spring sings ~ 'keep on, don't let go, don't give up, don't forget'

His promises are new every morning

His faithfulness is seen in the goslings with their protective parents,

In the Foxgloves adorning old fences

In the faithful parents screaming out their encouragement at the baseball field

In the dirty feet and hands of a small one after a long day in the sun

Mercy is renewed

It does not cease

The Lavender with its peace filled scent

The tiny berries just beginning 

The fresh Spring light of a new day

A wonder filled world

Spring

When I See You

 When I see you

It's always fleeting

And you don't want to meet my eyes

I've hurt you

And yet there was no way not to

You are so deeply wounded

Not just by me

It's been all the years

All the people

There has been trauma you pretend has never been

And I know too much

I see too much if you ever meet my eyes

Because I recognize it

That's why he chose me you know

Because he recognized it

But he didn't understand

And I've tried to push it all away

And be strong too

But all that pain is an unrelenting tide

And I feel yours

You hold it back with impossible strength

You have held up so many other's worlds

In shaking careworn hands

But I cannot

I've let it go

And its tidal wave proportions are immeasurable 

Two Years Old

 What life is like at two

You think you are the cutest and most beautiful or most strong and brave

You have a lot of opinions and you like to sing and talk and scream

You are always doing something ~ busy with your mind climbing and talking and making messes

You like jump and dance and sing

You like to cross your arms and practice hand signals like thumbs up

You told me you were a big girl

You say, 'I can do it mineself'

You say, 'I'm super cool'

You say, 'I'm super super tired'

You are so tender to your baby doll

You are fierce in fighting for what you want

You are tiny but strong

You don't sleep much 

You want to go wherever anyone else is going

You like chocolate

You rule this house like you are queen

You are funny and precious and melt the most grumpy soul

You have a sense of humor

Your confidence is unmatched

You can count and share and help crack eggs

You put on your own shoes 

You say, 'I wuv you' and 'see you much'

You call yourself Merry Mae

You have one patch of hair that has grown long and the rest is curly

You are two

The 1990's

 I have been seeing these posts on the 90's on Instagram and it got me thinking about that time in my life. Oh the 90's ~ I miss this time of life tremendously. In 1990 I was eight years old and I was entering one of the best chapters of my life. I had moved to a beautiful property on an island that was thirteen acres of magic. There were friends all down the road and what a road it was ~ it consisted of forest, field, friends and freedom. I felt so much freedom living there. I did so much exploring and connecting with nature. 

 We moved when I was thirteen and my teen years back in my home town also held much joy. There were no cell phones and not much internet attraction yet. I spent hours chatting on the phone with my friends and hanging out having so much fun. We didn't know all that much about what was going on in the world. Of course life wasn't perfect but it was simple in many ways and my friends were pure gold. I wish  I could sit each of them down and just thank them for all the joy they brought my life forever. I graduated in the year 2000 and so my adult years have felt like this continuing downward spiral of humanity. People have such deep addictions to their phones and screens here. The access to way too much information is just an abomination to the nervous system. 

 When I think of my quality of life now...it makes me miss the 90's all the more. I am SO DEEPLY thankful that I got to grow up during this era. I was a typical 90's kid. I drank out of the hose, I played outside for hours, my parents had no idea where I was, I rode my bike everywhere and my horse as well. We didn't have a TV until I was thirteen so for the first thirteen years of my life I saw screens only a handful of times a year! My children have never got to experience this and it has broken my heart. 

 I often long to feel the freedom I felt during those years again ~ the thing that I am grateful for about myself as a child was that I appreciated it! I knew what it was. The bike rides down the hill with my hair streaming out behind me, the fields I galloped my horse through, the climbing high in the trees, ice skating on the pond, feeling invincible and hopeful ~ I savoured it so deeply.

 I am now forty three almost forty four. I have many beautiful memories to draw from and the memories from the 90's are some of the most precious. What an era!