A Little Update

    All around me outside of this house is breathtaking right now. Every time I am driving the children somewhere I am sort of overcome by the colors all around. I just cant shake the beauty. It is astounding. I wish I could scoop up handfuls of it and somehow and keep it with me always. There is this feeling in Autumn that I get and it reminds me of innocence and happiness and freshness and wonder and I wish I had better balance at this life I am living. I wish I could portray how I feel to my children better than just remarks in the car as we drive.
  This month we had my little cow girl's birthday and that was the highlight. We had Halloween tonight. I had a two year old Elmo. We were not going to go trick or treating because we are on this 'diet' and so I didn't want to do costumes because I am lazy and costumes are not my jam at all. However we ended up going to the thrift store and picking up a little Elmo costume for the two year old which looked adorable and which he adored. He walked up to doors and said 'twick a tweat' and 'Gankchew' (thankyou) and was so overwhelmed that they were giving him candy!! He had a zip lock sandwich bag for his candy. He was so precious!!!!! I had a six year old pirate (we also got that costume today) and nine year old explorer with a questionable mustache and a beautiful eleven year old princess with a dollar store tiara; she had such high heels that four houses was her limit. I hadn't gone trick or treating with them before as my husband or my dad takes them and so it was fun to see them so excited. This diet has really changed my children's perspectives about sweets. They were SO grateful to get candy from four houses. So cute!
  So goodbye October. You have been inspiring. I hope November bring us health, sunny days, happy happy happy moments and through the changes that will come we will feel safe.
I hope you are doing well out there wherever you are. Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you have a blog feel free to leave the link in the comments. I would love to read it.
Love Tansy

The World In Autumn

If you could see the world in Autumn
The way I did today
Your heart would skip a beat
I was only driving home
From taking everyone to school
Thinking of all I needed to do
When I got back
And there it was
Mist covered mountains
With amber, silver, crimson and forest green coming through
Not a blaze of glory
But so tastefully arrayed
You cant help but feel an ache.
And all around
Beside
Ahead
Trees so beautifully hued
Grass refreshed after summer's heat
It was like all these beautiful memories
Were imprinted on each leaf
Right there for me to see
And warm comforting aromas were there
For me to smell
And it was just a drive home
But I could hear the laughing, the crunching leaves,
a warm hand in mine,
And the world in Autumn
Made my heart skip a beat

Tansy Elgersma

The Specialness of Today

  Is there anything special about today? I guess there is something special about every day that we are alive and still here. I often feel this sense of unease with myself and my life and I fight it. Today I really wanted to attempt to focus in and find something special. This morning I failed at that completely and my oldest had a bit of a rocky start to the day. However after I had breakfast and calmed down somewhat we had a successful morning of homeschooling and the sun was shining the way it can only during October. The sky is this azure blue and the leaves are all starting to turn. Everything shimmers on days like this. We headed to the wetlands where we love to go. The baby fell asleep in the car and so the two other children just played outside in yelling distance looking for snakes and I took some pictures. We eventually woke the baby up who had brought a little pair of binoculars which he uses to take pretend pictures of all the treasures he spots. The other day I heard a lady with three children and one on the way say she had never been overwhelmed by motherhood. I felt blown out of the water. I feel overwhelmed by motherhood every day. I don't know how other mothers feel but that's just me. I am not sure where I could exist that I didn't feel somewhat overwhelmed as chronic anxiety does that to a person but the every day needs of children, the every day responsibilities of running a house hold, money, food I mean the whole gamut... is often a seemingly large job. I often resent that feeling. I just want to cast it off me even just for a while although forever would be great! So today in looking for something special about the day and going to the wetlands I was able to put that anxious feeling aside and feel warm in the sun, happy in my children's happiness, and really listen to what they had to say and what they were thinking. I have been a mother now for a good while ~ I'll say ten and a half years ~ so surely there is going to be some point where I feel more capable of it. If I never do I just want to at least focus in on the specialness of each day and the little moments children faithfully provide ~ full of wonder, sweetness, total sincerity, passion and wholeheartedness. They are perfect reminders that life has much to enjoy and that each day we are here is special. My children are watching TV now and I am going to wash dishes and fold laundry. I hope the rest of this day ~ be it sunny or not where you are ~ is one where you capture that feeling where anxiety, unease and unrest is totally gone and that peace and warmth surrounds you. xo

Every Day

   Every day at some point I make a shake for my children. In this shake there is almond milk, honey, spinach, bee pollen, collagen, strawberries, probiotics, vitamin C, blueberries and whatever else I throw in. Today I made it because the two year old all of a sudden started calling out 'shake time.' He, with much effort, pulled up the piano bench to the table to sit on and he waited. So I made the shake. As they were sitting there I thought I should just quickly capture the moment.

                                               She had been practicing hair styles for school.

                                                               This is her in a nutshell.

                     He of course has a porcupine beanie boo on a leash and a tuque tied to a string....

                                                    Shake time did not interrupt their game.

He sort of orders us around all day, keeps up laughing or sometimes crying, and is super cute.

Thanksgiving Dinner

  I have said before that my dad is faithful in cooking dinners for his family on holidays and this year was no exception.

 On Thanksgiving we all showed up to a delicious feast he had prepared. All the sisters and brother were there AND all the cousins were together as well. Since my sister and her baby had not planned on coming it was a happy surprise.

My parents need to move to a place that has a slightly bigger space for laying out food. It is just a fact that they chose to have five kids and they now have eight since three of us are married AND they have five grandchildren.

Oh these plates...they have been around for a good long while and I could eat pumpkin pie WITH whipped cream almost every day I am sure!

                           Here are my sibs and I. I am the oldest and of course ~ the shortest.

                                 And last but not least here is my life, my pride and joy, my family ~

                                                          I love all the expressions :) 

A Sweet Adventure

   Homeschooling has its benefits. I have to tell myself that often. The weather here has turned grey and rainy and so homeschooling is more of a challenge in a small house but when the weather is sunny we stumble out into the bright and hope for adventure and happiness. More often than not we find just that.

  I have two children who have a very hard time falling asleep. Maybe if they had total darkness and quiet it would be not such a challenge but in our house that is not to be found. So when we go for late morning or early afternoon drive sometimes this little guy catches a nap. When that happens I send the children out on a adventure together within shouting distance while I let him sleep. Please not his Noculars (Binoculars) he takes them on all our nature walks and uses them as a pretend camera. I love this!

I also go and take random pictures while he sleeps. Here are the middles off on an adventure together.

                                         Here is my view from the van's front seat.

 
                                                    My six year old took this picture.

                                      I hear shouts and run to see what has happened.

He is filled with wonder for this little snake who gently winds itself around his fingers and peers at him with shiny eyes. Then he gently lets him go where he was first found.

She wishes she was a boy so she would like snakes more. I explain many girls like snakes just as much as boys.

They each want a turn at the camera so I show them how to take a picture. This is my son's.

                                             We are thankful for this day.

Eve

    This morning I was talking to my children about Adam and Eve the first people ever to be created. I don't know what your beliefs are but for me I find it beautiful to believe that we have a design and a purpose ~ a great destiny if we should so choose to follow. I was telling them about how Adam and Eve did not wear clothes and how they were perfect. There were no carcinogens in their world, nothing poisonous or scary...just peace, harmony and beauty. It made me wonder and wish I could see what Eve looked like. I think in every woman on this earth there is a piece of Eve and inside of every woman there is a similar heart. I imagine Eve as she arose from the breathe of life being breathed into her being and just the dazzling beauty that would have surrounded her. The earth is its' purity and newness is not something I can fully imagine although I feel like at some points in time I have caught glimpses. She gets up and sees all this but then sees Adam. What was it like? She was perfect. She had the perfect body because God Himself had fashioned her with his very hands and she had been made just for Adam to be his other half. A part of him had been sacrificed for her. How powerfully symbolic.

  I wondered was her hair curly or straight? Was it long and flowing or maybe short and wild. Did she have blue eyes or were they brown or green? Then I wonder, I really wonder...what size was she? If I was God what would I have made her look like? If I look at nature and think of it in terms of God's enjoyment it seems to be very colorful and shapely, strong, elegant the list is endless. Was Eve size two? Was she size eight? Was she size 15? Did she have size nine feet or size six or maybe size twelve? Really though does it matter? NO. This morning as I was thinking I thought it did because I wanted to know what God thought was the perfect body. I wished to know what He thought was 'right.'

  As has many women I have struggled with even liking my body. I have loathed many things about it. As time goes on I realize more and more what I 'had' and what I still have and that exterior beauty often is quite fleeting. There are some older woman who the world would still deem 'beautiful and stunning' but most often age strips us of things in our youth we think is important and the bare bones of who we are inside is what really matters. Our hair color is grey or white, our eyes have faded, our skin is wrinkled and our spirit has to be what bring out our beauty. It has to sparkle and shine and be light.

  I am so sick of caring about how my body looks. Right now my hair is reaaaaly long. It touches the top of my hip bones and it is frizzy and so dead at the ends but who has time to schedule child care and pay the blood money for a hair cut where I wont be butchered. I try to take the time to style it but I hit the ground running every morning and I just can't seem to find the time. Everyone needs me and when they don't I need to clean like a psycho (at least that is how it feels). There are so many other things I could grouch about. My teeth are shifting. My parents spent so much on braces and I have so appreciated that fact. I have tried to take care of my teeth but they are shifting so they are not as straight and I have been told I will lose them eventually because of bone loss and receding gums. Lately it has been getting worse fast. My skin...scarred by acne, thousands of black heads, my arms ~ always too big. I have never had those thin graceful arms. You get the point.

  And I am so sick of caring about this. I am so sick of wondering how Eve looked.
We ALL are perfect. Your too straight hair...too thin hair....too thick hair...the too tiny chest, the too big chest, the legs, the stomach.... but in reality at this moment just for now let all the negative words just slide away and be beautiful in your skin.

  We ALL deserve to be beautiful in our skin. It is ours alone. We alone can dictate how we feel about ourselves we don't have to give anyone else the power.

  So as I look at myself...and I want to just tear myself down for multiple reasons tonight I just wont. I'll brush my teeth, cleanse my face, stretch and sigh. Wait and wait for the children to finally succumb to sleep and just tell myself that how I am, how I look, my body, is mine and it is perfect for me. I could have been Eve. One more step towards some peace and victory.

                                                      Here I am in all my Evely beauty.

                                                Baby number four coming out the next day.

                                                         A couple weeks after the birth.

                                                             Two years after his birth.

This picture is from a couple days ago. I wanted a picture of this sweater which I loved but I hated the picture and why...oh so many body loathing reasons. So here it is.

Thankful

I am thankful. So thankful. This life I have been given is full of love and beauty. Here are some pictures of our Autumns so far.

Thankful for my sister who lives with us.

                            Thankful she can go to the school she attends where she is cared for.

Thankful that things are sometimes peaceful around here. It reminds me of when they were little and things were simpler. 

                              Thankful for this little spitfire who turns six soon. She is the sweetest.

                                                  Thankful for these two lovelies ~ my girlies!

                                             Thankful for this crew and our adventures.

                                Thankful for this new way of eating and the fact that we HAVE food.

                                                   Thankful for this sister and my sweet niece.

Thankful for the teacher who is bringing so much joy and fun to learning for my two middles. Here they are officially starting their worm farm.

                                  Thankful for extended family and their never ending kindness to us.

                                                  Thankful for brilliant colors, for light!

A thankful heart is full of life and I want to be filled with more and more thankfulness because there is so much to be thankful for!!!!