It's a Start

 Organization and I do not mix well as a rule. What should I be doing? Homework. What am I doing? Creating my very first blog. (I think.. I may have done this in the past but you'll find my memory is rather lacking)

Homework? What do you mean old woman? Well, I am a master's student at Liberty University Online Seminary working towards a Master's in Worship Arts in Ethnomusicology. This means I am learning about what worship means and what it means in different cultures. What exactly do I want to do with this? At the moment, I want to learn it. I adore worshiping God, Really it's my favorite thing. Singing, praying and praising God is fantastic. In addition, I am strongly drawn to the music of other cultures, I always have been. This coursework is designed to teach me how to be knowledgeable about the music of other cultures. The ultimate goal would be to become a specialist in cultural music to teach missionaries how to meet people in other countries with their own culture rather than creating little pockets of American (or other) culture in other countries. I hope to help others learn about other cultures and to help lead others into worship. 

However, I am also a wife and mother of 4. The whole wife and mother thing takes up most of my time. Student thing is a fun hobby, sometimes.

My husband and I have known each other for 19 years now. June 1994 was when we met, I was 19, he was 31. We talked about Star Trek and Conservative values when we met. We were a match made in heaven, 5 months later we were married (nearly 19 years ago). Our journey has been filled with a lot of insanity. Organizing it all into a cohesive readable format would be an interesting (I hope) read.

Don and I married on Nov 21, 1994. It was a delightfully intimate ceremony with the preacher Travis Irwin, my parents, my little sister and my friend Cori.  A month later we moved to Montana. Since then we have lived in Ohio, Seattle, Montana and now back in Ohio. We've had a rough run. If it's not one thing it's another, all. the. time. I guess boredom is not in the cards for us. We've always struggled with communication I suspect that's due to his own neurosis mixed with my crazy ADHD. We are working on it all the time.

Our first child didn't come along until 10 years into our marriage. We had wanted children all along, but it had never worked out despite many false starts in foster care and possible adoption. We even dealt with infertility and taking meds to help with fertility. I was diagnosed with PCOS syndrome X on the way. We gave up on having children. The day I found out I was pregnant I experienced a euphoria from which I am afraid I have never quite recovered.

In March 2004, my first child, a daughter, Aaneqa was born. She was followed 3 1/2 years later by my Heather. Rhys 2 years and 2 days after Heather and finally my little Zane came along in Sept 2012. Being a parent while suffering from uncontrolled ADHD is a very real challenge that I frequently fall short on.

My Aaneqa bug has ADHD herself, so she's a scatterbrained little sweetie. She's a stinker who is the apple of our eye. She loves to read much like myself. She makes great plans and gets frustrated when we are unable to follow through on what she has put together. She is so smart and loving. I enjoy when we get to talk together. It's such an amazing thing to be able to have actual somewhat in depth conversations with someone who came from your body. I've been amazed by quite a bit ever since she was first born. Even ordinary things. I just think, I cannot really fathom that some"thing" that came from inside my body is capable of "regular" or any  thing.

My Heatherbug has Autism PDD-NOS which is apparently no longer a diagnoses even though she only got it a few weeks ago. I'm not sure what her "new" diagnosis would be, but I know it's under the Autism spectrum. She is so beautiful and sweet. She tries so hard to be a good girl. She is my Mom's favorite person I think, and it makes me happy because they are both extremely special people and they each deserve to have someone love them and be there for them.

My Rhys was severely speech delayed. I had him in speech therapy and all, but he just wouldn't say more than 1 or 2 words. You could tell he was and is incredibly smart, heavens he's been able to open every door in the house locked or not since he was ONE YEAR OLD. Oh yea, he's a bit of a smarty pants. In March, he started talking a little bit, and has taken off a huge amount since then. Now, I have words to back up the smarts I knew he had. He is incredibly loquacious and now I just want him to hush a little. HA. He also has the best hugs and sweetest smile.

Zane y boy is a precious little happy mite. Everyone says he's just the sweetest thing and the ladies at church keep offering to steal him from me. Giggle. He's starting to think he needs to crawl and I know he will soon, and walk, and talk. I'm enjoying his baby times now before they pass on to the next stage. He is our last baby!

Don is working towards a masters in Christian Counseling. He is someone with an incredible work ethic and he never stops. He is a good man who has had a hard life.

I'm not 100% sure what I hope to accomplish with this blog, but I have so much inside I want to share. I hope I'll remember to do so and possibly get some organization to my crazy thoughts.