My Life, the Short Summary

I have about 30 seconds to blog, so this will definitely have to be finished later....

Life has been busy lately! I find that both my stress levels and my blogging time are directly linked to the length of my toddler's sleeping times (one indirectly proportionally, one proportionally) and his sleep times have been shorter than short lately - thus, no blogging time! Both of my blogs have been neglected drastically.

I've also realized that I need to refocus a bit. Lately I've been going crazy researching HG and homebirth midwifery, and while both of those need to continue, I need to be reading other material as well. I want to be reading more spiritually-minded Christian books, and I also want to be reading child-raising and homeschooling books. We're pretty sure we're going to homeschool our little fellow, and I have under a year till "preschool" starts. By that time I want to be well-researched, well-prepared, and dug into the homeschool community a bit. A year isn't much time to do that! So I am trying to figure out a balancing act between my beloved hobby of homebirth research, my much-needed research into HG, and my other real-life needs of marriage, parenting, and homeschool reading. Not to mention pleasure reading!

Right now I am reading....

"Mansfield Park" - Jane Austen
"Margin" - Richard Swenson
"Infertility for Dummies" - by two women, and no, I'm not going to go look it up
"Finding Your Purpose as a Mom" - Donna Otto (great!)
"Feminine Appeal" - Caroline Mahaney
"The Natural Pregnancy Book" - Aviva Romm (tops!!)

And have just finished "The Mother of All Pregnancy Books," "Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth," "Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year," and a couple others. And I've got a huge stack of homeschooling books on my desk waiting for me, courtesy of my wonderful church ladies - plus a Beth Moore Bible Study! So yes, I am over-committed, reading-wise.

I have a bad habit of starting too many books... It's not uncommon for me to have books out from two libraries, plus books borrowed from multiple people, plus books of my own that I've picked up! So I've put a moratorium on book-borrowing until I'm through with all that.

I am reading an amazing book right now called "Margin" by Richard Swenson. It is AMAZING. Until further notice, my life keyword is "margin" - referring to the practice of rejecting modern progress's time-stressed rat race style of living and keeping large amounts of "margin" - social, financial, time, emotional, etc. - in my life for friendships, stress-free (or nearly that) living, marriage, free time, helping others on the spur of the moment, etc. It's not easy in our culture which promotes and values busyness, but I want to make it my new goal.

Well, in terms of the election, what can I say? The first thing that comes to mind is, "Darn, Darn, Darn." Or, alternately, "God help us all." Well, it should be interesting, at least.... And anyhow, most of the propositions here in Arizona went the way we wanted them to, so that's some consolation.

Well, DH and DS (at this time of night, known as "crankerbug") are back, so my blogging is at an end!