Do you feel like you have been spending a fair share of your time staring into oncoming traffic?  Do you feel a little blindsided?  A little befuddled?

Do you wish you could get off the road, but you can’t find the exit?

I wish I could tell you the way to get off this road you are on, but sometimes it’s not your turn to exit.  Sometimes you have to stare down the headlights, face the oncoming traffic, and yes, even get run over.

Not because God doesn’t love you, but because often crisis draws you closer to the only One Who can pick you back up, dust you off, and send you on your way.

So, stop looking for exits and start looking up.  Stop focusing on the headlights and start focusing on His light.  You may get run over, but He will not leave you there to suffer endlessly.

Trust.  Believe.  Stand.

Love,
a mom who knows this road

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I came to this with nothing to offer except the commitment to raise my children in the ways of the Lord.

I started with a little homeschooling catalog and a school-at-home mentality.  I took a leap of faith into something I didn’t really understand.  It hasn’t been easy.

Michael Farris coined the term “transitional” to describe those of us who have transitioned from our own personal public school upbringing into this world of homeschooling.

Anything that is “transitional” typically has kinks that need to be worked out.  I am forever grateful to the truly transitional generation of homeschoolers from the 80′s & 90′s who worked out the legal kinks for my generation (although, we must never stop fighting for these rights!)  Because of this, the kinks that my generation of first generation homeschool moms must work out aren’t legal, but mental.

You see, I don’t have to hide my kids under beds or worry that what I am doing is illegal.

I have to worry that my public school upbringing will undermine my homeschooling.

That fact alone is why I started Raising Arrows.

I needed a daily pep talk and I was fairly certain I wasn’t alone.  I needed to know that I wasn’t doing it wrong if I didn’t do it like the public school.  I needed to know I was being faithful.  I needed to be reminded that what God called me to He would equip me for.

I don’t have all the answers.  I am a work in progress.  I have moments where I don’t have a clue what the next step is.  And sometimes it hurts.  My heart aches for all the missed opportunities, the lessons I couldn’t fit in, the times I chose school-at-home over living a lifestyle of learning.

Growing pains indeed.

But, the beauty of growing pains is the fact that you are growing.

Becoming a homeschooling mother has brought me to a place where I am always growing.  I am always learning.  My God-given talents are constantly in use and my shortcomings are constantly being stretched.

So, keep going, mama!  Keep learning!  Keep growing!  You are paving the way!

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The day is finally over.  The last little one is in bed and you can finally unwind.

and unwind

and unwind

long into the wee hours of the morning.  And when that first little one wakes up bright eyed and bushy tailed, all you can do is kick yourself and drink some coffee.

But, you do it again.

and again

and again.

Eventually, you crash and burn.  You vow to do better.  And you do for a while.  But eventually the vicious cycle starts all over again.

There’s a reason we mamas stay up entirely too late.  It’s called

Delaying the Inevitable.

We have spent all day in what feels like perpetual motion and at the end of the day, we just want to take a break.  But, we have trouble taking a break from our break, because every minute we delay our own bedtime we believe we are delaying starting the daily grind all over again.

We are afraid.

We are afraid that if we don’t soak up every second of down time, we may never get any again.  We are afraid if we don’t stay up just a little bit later, tomorrow will come too quickly. 

We are afraid of the monotony that has become our lives.

When we, as mothers, cease to find purpose and joy in our lives as homemakers, every aspect of that life suffers.

The world will tell us the answer is to leave the home and find purpose and meaning in a career that satisfies us and uses our talents.  It tells us raising children is not a worthy pursuit and will only leave us drained.  We must have some sort of creative outlet and the children must be secondary.

And for a moment, we believe.

We feel unfulfilled.  We feel monotonous.  We feel drained.  There must be more out there for us.

Many will leave the home.

Some will stick it out, forever looking forward to the time when the children are raised and they can get on with their lives.

Few will rise to the call of a joyful homemaker and actually enjoy this season of their lives.

Mamas, we must break this cycle!  We have to stop seeing our lives as a chore that will one day be over and start seeing it as something to be enjoyed!

Yes, it is hard to be a stay at home mom.  Yes, we get stuck in a rut, but we don’t have to stay there!

Here’s a simple exercise to help you begin to claw your way back from monotonous homemaking to abundant homemaking:

Every night before bed, think of one thing you will be doing the next day as a homemaker and mother that is purposeful and worthy of your time and effort.

In other words,

Look forward to homemaking!

Look forward to motherhood!

Monotony is a frame of mind, an attitude, and something that can be changed.  You don’t have to live like this!

Don’t just do the job…

Do it well.

Do it with love.

Do it because you enjoy it.

And if you don’t enjoy it, don’t just assume it’s your home and children who are dragging you down.  More than likely it’s you dragging you down.

Pray that the Lord will open your eyes to why you are feeling this way.  Read encouraging blogs, begin a blog of your own to chronicle your progress (and link up here every Monday for Welcome Home!), put together a binder of ideas or look for ideas on Pinterest to help you learn to enjoy homemaking.  Put your giftings to use in your home now instead of longing for the day when you can use them outside of your home.

Learn to love your husband.  Learn to love your children.  Seek the Lord with all your heart. 

Live abundantly!

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As I sat in that Country Club dining room I felt so out of place.  Surrounding me were men and women working their way up a corporate ladder I had never stepped foot on.  I’m just a mom.  What in the world am I doing here?

You can find me today at The Better Mom talking about feeling out of place as a stay at home mom in a crowd of working moms.

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I have avoided this post like the plague.

People email {a lot} asking how I’m doing, when I’ll update, and what I think of the program this far into it.

And I avoid.

Why?

Because I didn’t want to have to tell you I had fallen off the wagon!

What happened?

To begin with…LIFE.  I could use my pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage to totally justify all of this in your eyes, but that’s not fair because I fell off long before I found out I was pregnant.

The biggest reason was the amount of brain energy and time it took to do all the exercises that are involved as the Tupler Technique progresses.  I felt burned out.  And my “all or nothing” mentality told me that if I couldn’t get ALL the exercises in during the day, then I just shouldn’t do ANY of the exercises.  Not smart.

So, here I am with a humbling update.

My progress?  Not backward, but definitely not forward.

What do I think of the technique this far into it?  I am still a wholehearted advocate, but I have also learned something from a dear reader whom I conversed with via email a few months back.  She encouraged me to tweak rather than give up.  (Disclosure: What I am about to say is NOT endorsed by Julie Tupler or the Tupler Technique in any way, shape, or form.)

Tweak #1:  My braces are looking pretty ratty and I’m not fond of the new design (haven’t tried it though).  Wearing the brace at night always gave me a horrendous back ache and I wasn’t doing a good job of holding my stomach muscles in when I wore the brace, so I am only using the brace when I do the exercises.  Otherwise, I wear a support garment (like you find at your local discount store).

Tweak #2:  I am focusing solely on the first 4 weeks worth of exercises.  I had wonderful results back in 2007 from just doing those first 4 weeks.  For now, I am going to stay there because they feel doable to me.

Tweak #3:  Not really a tweak, but one that I wasn’t nearly as good at while wearing the brace.  Remembering to hold in my stomach!  And that brings me to an epiphany and a warning…

I don’t remember the exact date and time when I stopped holding my stomach in, but I would say it happened sometime shortly after I got married.

I wanted to be pregnant.

I wanted to be pregnant so bad, I quit worrying about holding in a non-pregnant stomach.

And then when I truly was pregnant, I definitely didn’t hold in my stomach.

And then I was pregnant all the time, so what was the sense in holding my stomach in.

And then I ended up with a diastasis recti so severe, I ALWAYS looked pregnant.

And I was mortified.

I wish someone had told me.

So, now I’m telling you…HOLD IN YOUR STOMACH!

It’s not just for debutantes or single women.  It’s not just for vanity’s sake.  It’s not even because your mom said so.

It’s because DR isn’t something you want to have or want to get worse.  I don’t have the medical repercussions many woman experience (bowel issues, hernias, etc), but I do know my pregnancies would be easier if my muscles were not separated so far.

So, there you have it…I fell off the wagon and I’m back on.

I’m going to go back and update all the old posts with new information.  I’ll send out new updates here and there.  And I’ll continue to offer hope and encouragement from someone who understands!

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The title of this post might surprise you.  But, as someone who started her marriage and mothering feeling un-blessed, I know that sometimes you have to actually learn how to feel blessed.

After 15 years of marriage and nearly 14 years of parenting, I can now look back and say with confidence it took a complete change of heart to see my family and my home as a blessing…a change of heart only God could have given.  I had to learn to not only LOVE my family, but to LIKE my family.

I had to learn to feel blessed.

When the Lord placed Psalm 127 in front of me and opened my eyes to its words, I remember spending hours pondering the notion that children are a blessing and a reward.  I certainly did not treat them that way.  In fact, I was almost convinced my then 3 year old son was the naughtiest child on the planet and spent his waking hours crafting up ways to terrorize our home.

Looking back, I realize he wasn’t naughty at all.

He was 3.

I had expectations that were so outrageous and unattainable for both my children and my husband, that there was absolutely no way they could ever meet them to my satisfaction.

I didn’t feel blessed because I didn’t recognize my blessings.

How easy it is to focus on the negative.  We see only that which distresses us.  We keep meticulous records of wrongs and then wonder why our home feels tense and troubled.

We must turn from this way of life and begin to see the blessings before us!

On the Raising Arrows facebook page under the the Only Likers tab on the left hand side, there is a FREE Cherish Your Children Checklist.  (now available to all, so just click the link!) There are many ideas there to help you begin to see your children as a blessing, but what about your husband and your home in general?

How do you begin to see the blessings that surround you so that you begin to see peace in your home?

Be in the Word. The Psalms are among my favorite passages for teaching an attitude of blessing and being blessed.

Be forgiving. The bitterness and strife caused by unforgiveness will steal your peace and cause your eyes to be blind to the blessings around you.

Be joyful. Rejoice in the Lord!  He HAS blessed you.

Be aware. Watch for His blessings.  Ask Him to open your eyes to His blessings.

Be thankful. A thankful heart sees blessings in the little things and praises the Lord for His faithfulness.

Now look around you and be blessed!

10 Days to a Peaceful Home HOMEwork:

• Start a Blessings Journal and record all those things you’ve been missing and thank the Lord for those things.
• Tell your husband and children they are a blessing to you.
• Tell others what a blessing your husband and children are to you.

Purchase the entire series along with new content and worksheets for $1.99!

Be sure to visit these brilliant women during our 10 days adventure between November 7th-18th! I love these ladies and we know you will too.

10 days of Character Studies | Confessions of a Homeschooler
10 days of Christmas Countdown Ideas | Milk & Cookies
10 days of Creative Writing | Chocolate on My Cranium
10 days of Crockpot Meals | The Happy Housewife
10 Days to a Godly Marriage | Women Living Well
10 Days of Growing Leaders | Mom’s Mustard Seeds
10 Days of Homeschooling High School | Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
10 days of I Wish I Had Known | Fruit in Season
10 days of Keeping Your Marbles | The Tie That Binds Us
10 days of Kid-friendly Food | Planner Perfect
10 Days of Language Arts Lesson Planning | Jimmie’s Collage
10 Days of Learning Apps | Daze of Adventure
10 Days of a Mason Jar Christmas | Cajun Joie de Vivre
10 Days of More JESUS in Christmas | Preschoolers and Peace
10 Days to a Peaceful Home | Raising Arrows
10 Days of Raising a Life-Long-Learner | Bright Ideas Press
10 days of Science with Math | Blog, She Wrote
10 days of Teaching Values | Our Journey Westward
10 days of Winning your Child’s Heart | I Take Joy

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A beautiful blond headed little girl in a pink sundress ran ahead of us at the zoo.  She scrambled up the boards of the llama’s fence in the petting zoo area and grabbed onto the llama’s halter and looked as if she would climb right on that llama’s back as the llama struggled to get his mouth around to bite her tiny little arm off.  Thankfully, a woman standing nearby retrieved the little girl before the llama could defend itself.

and all the while her mother stood a few feet away…

texting.

At horse riding lessons I saw a similar sad, albeit less dangerous, situation.  Mommy spending the entire lesson texting while her 5 year old son learned to maneuver his steed.

This addiction can be seen in grocery stores, at stop lights, and in schools across America.

And restaurants?  Don’t even get me started.  It is beyond me how two people can go to lunch together and NEVER look up from their phones to have an actual conversation WITH each other.

Everywhere I look people are connected to their phones and disconnected from life around them.  And the worst of it is parents who are missing entire chunks of their children’s lives because of overworked thumbs.

It truly is an addiction.  An addiction that is stealing parents away from children and children away from parents.

But, lest you think I am writing this looking down my nose in condescension at texting mommies, I want to tell you there are plenty of things in this world and this life that will try to rob us of what really matters.  Texting is but one of them.

Our hearts, souls, and minds were created to worship.

We WILL worship whatever we focus on.

And yes, texting can be a form of worship.

A worship of technology.  A worship of being “on top of the latest news.”  A worship of the world.  A worship of self.

It is so easy to become immersed in the world of texting and facebook and emails and twitter and get caught up in just checking one more time, just sending out one more thing, just answering one more question.

We are afraid of missing something.  But the thing we are actually missing is much more important than what technology can offer.

We are missing life.

Real.

Abundant.

Beautifully colorful.

Life.

And children.

Children who are growing up without engaged, connected, focused parents are essentially being “left to their own” (Proverbs 29:15).

Please, mama…

Unplug.  Shut down the screen.  Shut off the phone.

You will not miss anything.

And what if you are the last one to know what was happening online while you were away?

How would what you missed (if you had known about it immediately) have enriched your life and your children’s lives?  Would one more hour, one more day, one more week really have made a difference.

My guess is

not really.

In fact, I would imagine if you totally unplugged forever you would not miss much.

Can you parent and be technologically savvy?

Sure.

But you had better be extremely self-controlled.

And you better be willing to step away from technology and be mom.

No gadgets.  No laptop.  No distractions.

Just mom.

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After I wrote a post saying I was giving up soda and a friend who reads my blog caught me with a soda in hand, I said I would never write a post like that again!  So, this post isn’t quite like that one in that I’m not saying I’m giving it up forever and I’m not without purpose this time, but I am doing without soda for a time and here’s why…

1.  I was reading through Large Family Logistics and even though I’ve heard it a hundred times, something about Kim saying how much better she felt after giving up soda made me think perhaps I should work toward that because…

2.  I’ve noticed how tired I am and how I use soda to combat that.  I also know that the soda is robbing me of the vitamins and minerals that I need in order to stop feeling tired!

3.  My husband is an inspiration!  He hasn’t had a single drop of soda in 20 years…yes, TWENTY years!

4.  I don’t drink enough water.  I never have.  But, I need to.  I always figured since I wasn’t thirsty I didn’t need it.  I was wrong.

5.  I’ve given myself a goal.  No soda until November 1.

6.  I’ve given myself an incentive.  For every soda I dearly want and I do without, I am putting aside $2 to donate somewhere (I haven’t decided where yet).  I’ve already racked up $10!  I’m curious to see how much money I was spending on soda…and frankly, a little scared!

So, this is sort of an experiment.  I want to see how much I was spending.  I want to see how much better I feel.  I’m even curious to see if I might happen to drop some of these stubborn pounds simply by giving up my soda habit…

until November 1, that is.

And who knows, perhaps someday I’ll be able to say,

“Kids, your dad hasn’t had a soda in forty years and I haven’t had one in twenty.”

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At five weeks, I hit a standstill in my journey to heal my diastasis.  I was discouraged.  I started a support forum.  And I kept going.

But it has been hard work.

There has been no progress, but I’ve also not gotten in all my reps and I’ve realized I am straining my belly too much getting up out of our furniture.  So much thought has to go into this, so I’m thankful I’ve only had a “standstill” rather than a “setback!” 

This week I am refocusing and starting over at Week 6.  {yes, that is allowed!}

I’m ready to get going!

The last time I spoke with Julie, she gave me some great little tidbits of wisdom that I would like to share here as well as encourage you to visit the forum (page 4 in particular) and glean wisdom from one of Julie Tupler’s certified trainers, Bonnie from Beautiful After Belly, who has been popping in on the forum to encourage everyone there!

*The first 6 weeks are just to strengthen your muscles. This is why you are not to exercise during that time.  You strengthen the muscles, then you heal them.  In fact, you need 3 good weeks before you ever start week 4.  If you’ve had a setback prior to week 4, don’t go on until you’ve had 3 good weeks in a row under your belt.  And don’t be afraid to redo the week you messed up.  {like me!}

*This is a marathon, not a sprint. I have a long way to go and my exciting nearly overnight success in the first several weeks was because I was finally healing connective tissue that had been damaged for a long time.  However, when my progress slowed, I became discouraged.  I saw this as a sprint even though I knew it would take more than 18 weeks to heal my DR, I still thought I would see the breakneck healing I was seeing in the beginning.  This past week I’ve realized this is a process, not a quick fix and I have to quit seeing this as something I just hurry up and get off my plate.  Thus, it is ok to go back and redo weeks and even go back and start over.  Just because I am blogging the journey does not mean I’m going to have a perfect 18 weeks.  I’m okay with that now.

*Everything you do is a workout! That’s right…every time you pull a cookie sheet out of the oven, pick up a crying baby, or hand a platter of meat to the child next to you, you are doing work and your muscles must be engaged or you are straining.

*Contractions are more important that headlifts. If you only have time for one exercise during a particularly busy day, do the contractions rather than the headlifts.  And you can do these contractions just about anywhere.

*Watch how you pick up baby! If you can, pull baby close to your belly to keep your DR from popping out and always, always engage those muscles when you are doing the “work” of picking up baby!

*It’s never too late. I’ve had many moms ask me if it is too late for them because their baby is 10 years old or more.  Well, guess what?!  Even men have this condition and they NEVER had a baby!  So, it is never too late.  Jump in where you are and heal the damage!

*It’s more about the connective tissue than the gap. If you have only a 1 or 2 DR yet have very deep connective tissue damage, you will actually have a harder time healing than someone who has a much larger gap with shallow connective tissue damage.  This is one reason I am thrilled about the connective tissue healing I’ve seen!

*Wear the splint, wear the splint, wear the splint until your DR is a shallow 1 or 2. Yes, I know that feels like forever, but I’m right here with you.

*Closure of you DR is NOT permanent. That is tough for me to write.  This is not the end.  There is no end.  Hopefully, though, you will have trained your muscles to hold themselves in at all times and you will not undo the healing you have done.  Be aware of your tummy and remember that everything you do is work!

So, I keep moving forward from here.  No longer will I be chronicling using the weeks as a label because I realize now I can’t do that and be true to the needs of my body.  If I have a bad week, I have to go back, blog or not.  And I promised you all the nitty-gritty details no matter how ugly they were.  Well, this is one of those lessons I’ve learned through this journey.

I also found out Julie is hoping to put together a FREE conference call where you can sit in on a Q&A session with her.  She’ll compile all the questions she gets and work her way through them.  Julie is also working on a 6 week online support program that will hopefully launch in January.  Visit her site: DiastasisRehab.com or her facebook page to stay up to date on what Julie is working on.

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