For six months this trip has been planned. Girlfriends at Grace are going to see Priscilla Shirer at a church in Columbia. I signed up for the trip knowing I would need the refreshing of a girls’ weekend and knowing God has always been faithful to meet me right where I am in life. I also knew in the back of my mind that we would likely have foster children when October 8th and 9th rolled around. However, my husband has not wavered in his willingness to let me go. We leave at 1:00pm tomorrow and will arrive back sometime Saturday evening.

Tonight I’m down to three kids while my oldest two are out for a bit. Everyone has been bathed, laundry is done, the kitchen is clean, and all of the dishes are washed. I probably won’t pack until noon tomorrow when e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. else has been completed.

Today was wonderful. My Aunt Kathy came down from Maine to help take care of my mother after her back surgery. She decided, since my mom is doing exceptionally well, she’d come to Augusta for the day to see the kids and me. She brought fruit salad and roast beef from the deli. Lunch was delicious as we sliced through hot bread soon after it was pulled from the oven. The children climbed trees and rolled around in the dirt as Aunt Kathy and I sat in the living room listening to the giggles and squeals from the open windows. I closed my eyes as I realized where I’d be in just 24 hours. Relaxing with the girls. Soaking up the presence of the Lord. Laughing. Crying. Resting.

Jesse went to the symphony with friends and Joshua went to Sam’s school talent show.

Everyone will be asleep soon and I will sit in bed and read with my love. God is good. If ever I’ve needed a little break to regain my sanity, get the pep back in my step, stoke the flames within me, put the wind back in my sails; it is now.

~audrey

Today we had co-op and our foster children had visitation, which takes them out of town until after bedtime. I debated going to visit my mom after co-op, but decided to stay home instead. I have a ton of stuff to do around here including give three very hairy boys some much-needed haircuts! Staying home was probably the smartest decision I’ve made in a month!

Joshua ended up going home with a friend after co-op, so Jesse and Owen and I had about three hours to get a LOT of stuff done. I went to the bank, drove thru the post office, went to the car wash (always makes me feel better to have a clean car…even if it only stays that way for about 24 hours!), cleaned the house (can I get an AMEN?!), did lots and lots of laundry and even put it all away. I feel like I’m getting my groove back.

I started compiling my list for OctoberFest but realized it’s really going to be November before I do a large chunk of it. It will just be so much easier if I wait until the foster children go home before tackling some of these things; like turning the “foster kids’ room” into our school room.

Either way, today gave me a good boost. Tomorrow is Bible Study in the morning and school time in the afternoon…and church again in the evening. Busy, busy, busy.

Happy Tuesday!

~audrey

One of the definitions of the word festival is: gaiety, revelry, merrymaking. By that definition, we will be having an OctoberFest of sorts in the Wilkerson home.

Today was going to be good. Mondays have turned into review and cleaning. The boys and I sat down with books, snuggled on the couch to fend off the morning chill as fall has swept in with no warning and my kids are still sleeping in their tighty-whities. We reviewed our memory work, practiced our presentations, and read. Every room has an open window.

I’ve been fighting discontentment lately as I look at our “Debt Snowball” and the things that so badly need fixing in every room of our house. Faucets that leak, a wall in the bathroom that stays mysteriously damp (gross!), a dishwasher that is out of commission because it is leaking somehow, from somewhere. I was reading a book recently on contentment and what a blessing it is to others when they see that you are content no matter what season of life you’re in. The truth is, my house could look a lot better and feel a lot better if I’d take even better care of it. So, through the inspiration of my friend Ali, I will be compiling a list of Fall Cleaning tasks to be completed during the month of October. Cleaning and re-organizing is utter gaiety and revelry to me, hence the title, OctoberFest. 🙂 I think I will post my list once it’s complete (the list, that is…not the house)

Our pastor taught on the dangers of having self-esteem yesterday. The overall message was that it doesn’t matter what other’s think of you. Being a child of God, you are made in Christ’s image, so what other’s think about you, your value, and your worth, should not matter to you. Something is only as valuable as the amount one person is willing to pay for it. For example, an antique vase could be worth $1 million if there is one person out there willing to pay one million for the vase. God loved you so much that he paid the ultimate price, the death of His only Son, that you might be saved from your wretchedness. Fill yourself with His word, that you might have high God-esteem. Because what your Daddy (Abba Father) thinks of you is really all that matters.

~audrey

I can’t believe it’s the first day of October and it actually feels like fall!! Right now, it’s 72 degrees out and tonight there is a low of 51!
Josh is taking the boys camping tonight, so I’ve invited some girls over. I thought about getting a movie, but then realized we’d have much more fun if we just eat, laugh, and play games. My house is a mess right now. I need to pick up every room, vacuum, mop, and light some candles, but all of that will have to wait until I get my four men on the road to the wilderness. I think Joshua is checking the clock every 15 minutes for when Daddy will arrive in the driveway and they’ll pack up the truck.
This morning I opened all of the windows in the house, lit a fall candle, put on some CHRISTMAS MUSIC, and spent two hours changing out summer and fall clothes. I love this time of year.
In two days, my love will celebrate his 32nd birthday. Where does the time go? He was 23 when we got married. That’s right, we’ll celebrate TEN YEARS in about 16 months. Unbelievable.

Time to check the mail and move on to the next task.

Happy Friday! We have our fall festival at church tomorrow afternoon. I hope to take pictures. We’ll see.

~audrey

For some reason I’ve had a few movie quotes swirling through my head lately, amongst other things. I love Tyler Perry’s Medea movies. In one of them, the crazy old uncle is passing gas, laughing, and shouting “Just let go and let God!” For reasons beyond me, that silly quote has been running through my head in the last day or so. I’ve been a little stressed about getting our school work done because of the attention our foster children require. I have grand ideas, detailed lesson plans all written out, and a schedule of when it’s all suppose to go down….but it just never happens. I find myself distracted at church and at co-op, thinking of all that needs to be done at home, bills that need to be paid, nursery volunteers, school work, discipline issues that need to be addressed, etc, etc. Another problem is, I feel like I’m slowly losing control of my house (and a few other things as well). These children are scheduled to go home in one month, Lord willing. Therefore, I’ve decided to Let Go and Let God. I’m going to focus on the basics (reading, writing, math, and memory work) for the next month and let go of the rest. When the foster children leave, we’ll have all the time in the world to catch up. I want to enjoy this last month with them.
At church, we’re doing the Bible study Faithful, Abundant, and True by Kay Arthur, Beth Moore, and Priscilla Shirer. Yesterday Priscilla said, your greatest danger is letting the urgent things crowd out the important things. It’s so true. But at the same time, it’s so hard for me to swallow. To me, the things that are merely urgent also feel very important at times. For example my house. I would rather lose sleep and miss a meal than wake up to a dirty, messy house. So I will sacrifice “other” important things to get my house picked up and clean at night when the children have gone to bed. I’m finding it very difficult to reach a balance lately.

Well, I feel like I’m just saying the same things over and over and sitting at the computer certainly isn’t the way to get anything accomplished. I’m off to be productive. School then laundry. 🙂

Happy Thursday!

~audrey

Don’t you hate it when you back yourself into an uncomfortable corner and things start to spiral and all the while you realize you’ve done it completely by yourself.

That seems to be what I’ve done.

Part of the battle we face as homeschoolers, is learning when to say ‘no’, keep your plate (ie: schedule) clean, and just stay home and focus on your priorities.

I’ve been in a funk lately. Another roller coaster ride of whether or not our foster children would be leaving this past week, my mom’s surgery, a pregnant friend in crisis, and it’s the week before my cycle. I think I’ve come to grips with the fact that I just need to be quarantined during the week leading up to my period. I’ve never been a hormonal person with many symptoms of PMS. I’ve always just glided right through the waves of female life. But I was just talking yesterday with Ashley about how hormonal I’ve been lately. Always on edge with annoyance in my voice. I want so desperately to be rid of that. It doesn’t take long for my children to begin mimicking my tone of voice in their communication to one another and that’s when it hurts the most.

The last few weeks have been chock-full of play dates and visits to my mom. As a result, we’ve had more days outside the home than in. Our schooling has gotten way off track and we’ve been tending to rush to get finished so we can move on to the “fun stuff”, like today for example, we’re heading to a friend’s house to play in 30 minutes. I cannot cancel this play date. My sanity depends on it. However, I cannot let this happen any more. What my sanity really depends on is extra time in the Word. Extra time on my face before the Father, depending on Him to make me a better wife and mother; increasing my patience and helping me along my journey to a meek and quiet spirit.

Next week our plate is clean. We will stay home and get back to the important, simple things.

Happy Thursday!

~audrey

Josh and I were noticing last night how dusty our bedroom is.

We’ve lived in this house for four and a half years and of course I regularly do things like dust, vacuum, change the linens, clean the master bathroom, etc. When I vacuum I’m always careful to get the baseboards and corners with the attachments. However, it certainly does seem like our room is the dustiest in the house. When the lights are low in the evening and we’re laying in bed, I can look around and see dust bunnies and strands of dust on the walls and ceilings. I confess that I certainly don’t clean our ceiling fan blades as often as I should. Out of sight, out of mind? Our ceiling fan is on 24/7, 365 days a year, so I never notice how bad it is until it is turned off. Yikes!!

Yesterday I decided enough is enough! I filled my bathroom sink with warm water and just a splash of…you guessed it….Pinesol! I got an old rag, my step stool, and went to work wiping down the walls in my bedroom from ceiling to floor. I vacuumed behind my bed, thoroughly cleaned the ceiling fan, wiped down the double window, sills, and panes behind our bed, dusted all of the furniture, and vacuumed. By the time Josh got home I had a huge smile on my face, knowing what his reaction would be. It was great! He walked in our room and I heard him exclaim, “Holy cow!” as I stood smiling in the kitchen. Our room feels like a brand new place. I don’t plan to ever let it get that bad again. Seriously. Four years of dust was NOT pretty. I mean who wipes down their walls regularly? Do you? You can be honest.

Unfortunately, now the rest of my house feels completely inferior to the cleanliness of my master bedroom.

Now I’m going to ramble a little with some random things:

My mom is recovering nicely and one of her sisters is in town taking care of her; I know they’re enjoying each other’s company.

Our foster children’s case went to court again this past Monday. It looks like they’ll be with us for another month and should be reunited with their parents after that. Just in time for the holidays!

Happy Wednesday!!

~audrey

It is 8:45am, Thursday morning.

The windows are wide open, the birds are chirping, the children are squealing in the front yard as they breathe in the beautiful morning air. The washing machine is spinning and here I sit, at the computer, with a big cup of hot coffee by my side.

My mom had major back surgery yesterday. She’s been suffering with severe spinal stenosis for quite some time now and the doctor felt it was time to operate. What he found when he opened her back and exposed her spine was much worse than he expected. Through God’s great grace and mercy, the surgeon was able to accomplish everything needed to relieve my mother of the pain that has kept her up at night, led her to quit her job as a nurse, and has been hindering her quality of life. By the time she got upstairs to a post-op room, she was awake. She looked at my dad and me with tears in her eyes and said, “My legs don’t hurt anymore!”

The surgeon told us that the day after surgery is said to be the worst for post-op pain. Today is that day. It is also her birthday. My mother and her twin brother are 56 years old today. Happy Birthday Momma and Uncle Mike! I love you very much. The boys and I will be praying for Mom at the top of every hour today. I pray for a supernatural recovery that baffles the scientific minds of her doctors.

I look forward to spending the day with her on Saturday as my dad picks up my aunt from the airport. What a blessing to have adult siblings willing to drop everything to fly down south and take care of their little sister. My mother and her twin brother are the youngest of five. Only two of them know the Lord; my mom and the aunt that will be arriving first. I pray that the Lord will use the time with her oldest sister (who is arriving in a few weeks) to reveal Himself to her more than ever before. Many seeds have been planted over the years and we’re praying for harvest!

On the topic of harvest, my wheat berries that I planted have sprouted!!! I wasn’t sure if they would, but they have and now I plan to plant an entire 25′ row to harvest in early spring.

In our book club, we’ve moved on to the sequel in Marta’s Legacy. It is a two-part novel by Francine Rivers and the second book, Her Daughter’s Dream just released on Tuesday. I brought it to the hospital yesterday and by the time I went to bed last night I was already through the first hundred pages. I’m going to have to fight the temptation to abandon my responsibilities and curl up with my book today. I figure if I can get my house work taken care of this morning and complete our school work when the baby goes down for a nap, I should be able to read for a while after lunch. 🙂

Have a fantastic Thursday! We have a field trip tomorrow and Josh took the day off to go with us. We’re taking a boat tour of the Augusta Canal as well as having some time in the classroom to learn some science facts about the wildlife on the canal. Should be great fun. I plan to take pictures. Tomorrow night is girls’ night as we celebrate my sister-in-law’s 25th birthday at Taco Sushi. I’ve never been there so I’m very excited. I could eat sushi every single day if I could afford it!

~audrey

Last week flew by once again.

The weekend held much drama, thanks to our van.

It all started when the van began acting up. I’d have to put it in neutral at stop lights because if I left it in drive the engine would rev and lurch the van forward; sometimes even with the break pushed all the way down. It was scary. The kids and I decided to drive through the car wash. Half way through the ride, the van died. Thankfully, it started back up before it was time for the track to dump me out at the end. Unfortunately, while vacuuming a few minutes later, it died again. It took someone jumping it off three times to get me going again. We prayed all the way to the car doctor. Right as we pulled in the parking lot, it died again. Thank you, Lord, for getting us all the way there! Did I mention it was 101 degrees that day??

The kids waited patiently for a friend to pick us up.

Thankfully, the van was repaired in a mere two hours for only $130!! That was such a blessing!

Unfortunately, the next morning, we loaded all of the kids into the van to go swimming and not only would it not start again, but we also had a flat tire!

Once again, thankfully, my husband had a kit to plug tires and all the van needed was a new battery. Two hours and $80 later and we were on our way to the pool. I’m quite thankful to have my van back. Did I mention it will be paid off in a matter of months. That makes me love it and want to take extra special care of it THAT MUCH MORE!! 🙂

We’ve had some cooler weather lately, so I’ve been catching up on some much needed work in the gardens. I found an old Lowe’s gift card while cleaning out my wallet, so the kids and I bought some cabbage, broccoli, a blackberry bush, and some fall flowers for the front beds. While working on garden stuff, I sorted through all of my seed packets from the spring and found the ones I had purchased for my fall garden. Beets, brussel sprouts, celery, and carrots. I also plan to try one last round of potatoes and sweet potatoes. Unfortunately, you never know what kind of weather we’re going to have in Georgia, so I don’t know exactly when our first frost will come. It could be in three weeks and it could be in two months! I may also experiment with a long row of wheat, but I haven’t decided just yet. I got a creative idea from the Square Foot Garden book on how to store my seeds. Did you know there are “sell by” dates on seed packets? Well, apparently it’s a marketing ploy because the dates are usually within the purchase year. Seeds are actually good for anywhere from 2-5 years depending on the seed and how it is stored. Interesting!

Happy Weekend!!

~audrey

We certainly enjoyed our long Labor Day weekend. We spent two days hanging out at the grandparents’ houses. Everyone enjoyed meeting our new kiddos and it was a treat seeing my niece and sister-in-law. The children are doing incredibly well. Baby is just precious and Little Girl is sweet as pie and gets along wonderfully with the boys. I promised to take her to the store this evening so she can pick out a girl toy. We have nothing but Legos, tools, and guns in this house and she’s a girlie-girl all the way!

I forgot to add to my last post; the biological parents have given their consent for me to homeschool Little Girl while she’s in our home. That NEVER happens! What a blessing!

Today was basically the ‘start’ to our week. We had co-op this morning and a case worker home visit this afternoon. My poor hubby is sick in bed and I have a leader meeting at church tonight. I’ll have to plan on putting the kids in bed early!

We have a busy month ahead of us. Between my mom’s back surgery, two family birthdays, co-op, field trips, and planting our fall crops, we should be ready for some rest by October! I sure am looking forward to fall!! Even just the few mornings we’ve had in the upper 60’s with the windows open for a few hours, makes me look forward to cinnamon candles and Christmas music.

Happy Tuesday!

~audrey