Long Awaited SECOND in the SITES TO SAVOR Series!~ELLERBEE EIGHT IS ENOUGH~

Wow! I have got to be the all time queen of inconsistant follow through, when it comes to great ideas!!! My long time readers might recall my great idea 13 months ago, to have a monthly feature entitled "Sites to Savor" where I would introduce on my blog someone else's blog that I especially enjoyed. My very first Site to Savor introduction in April 2007 was "Land Life"...back in the (hilarious) Flat Reed days, before the adorable REAL Reed was finally able to join his family.

Well, I had great intentions, but I just never got around to the May 2007 edition of "Sites to Savor"...for one thing, our life turned totally upside down as Grant quit his job of a zillion years and I temporarily returned to work full time until we found our way to a brand-new life in a new place...with a totally new career paths for both Grant and I...and the HUGE transition for the children from home-schooling to public schooling... In the chaos of all that change, this blog really took backseat and just about evaporated altogether. But, the dust has settled! We are firmly ESTABLISHED now in our new life on this path so different from what we had ever imagined was on the road ahead. We are in a very good place...geographically, spiritually, career-wise, family-wise now...a much better place than we had been in a very long time. It has been a good change for us. Ironically, the move was just what Doug needed to round the corner and finally realize he is OURS...not just for now, but forever. I have seen a huge change in him this past year. Moving was harder for him than for any of the rest of us...he had a much rougher transition into the new school and establishing new friends. He suffered a lot of rejection, in the beginning, from other children and it broke my heart to see what he had lost (the acceptance he had had at his old school), but, gradually, he has found his own way in this new school and acceptance has begun to come. This move, initally, was heart-breakingly traumatic for him...but, this move was what he needed even more than any of the rest of us...until we moved and TOOK HIM WITH US, his heart did not comprehend that he was OURS. We could've told him he was ours until we were blue in the face and the message not travel from his head down to his heart...but, when we moved and he came with us, that just triggered something in his young heart. The light came on. And a palpable wall came down. God knew where we needed to be...and He prepared us to take that path by first taking Grant and I through three years of desert wandering. He dried our roots enough that we were yearning to be transplanted and willing to take risks that would have been unthinkable to have taken before those three long soul drying years that preceded all the change that transpired in our lives last Spring.

I say all that, simply to explain why this blog withered on the vine for a while. We were busy finding our way in this new land...busy getting our roots into the soil and figuring all this change out. But, now I am back...and, today, I thought,
"I ought to pick back up where I left off with "Sites to Savor"! I don't know if I will be able to do it EVERY month, as I originally envisioned...but it is something I would like to do sporadically regularly!

So, for May, I am introducing a site that I just recently found and have enjoyed reading....Ellerbee Eight is Enough. I tend to read back through the archives when I find a site that really catches my attention. So it was with "Ellerbee Eight is Enough", I was busy rooting around in the archives late one night recently, when I read a post that had me rolling in laughter. (I get really giddy late at night. I love the way sleep deprivation makes the world so much funnier!) Anyway, I thought I would quote here the part of that particular post that had me SO IDENTIFYING with each word and every sentiment!...

Excerpt from Gina's post on April 17, 2008: (with my own personal remarks interspersed)

As if that wasn't enough for the week, I found that one of our children is training as a pyrotechnician. Let's just say it's a boy and he's 9 years old. (Okay, Gina already had my attention...boy, nine years old...that is my world, too!) I bought several candles this week because frankly our house (the bathrooms) smell like... well poop. I lit the candles and we went about our business. I smelled something burning and went to investigate.
I found this:

(Sorry! You'll have to go to Gina's actual post in her archives to see the photo!)

...a trashcan full of burning toilet paper. The bag had completely melted to the sides of the trashcan and it was on fire! (Oh, I was feeling better already! Earlier that day, I had had to totally reassemble all the landscaping rock walls in our back yard after my own nine year old had restacked them in a new mountain at the far end of the yard. As I read Gina's words, I suddenly felt so much better. After all MY son didn't set the house on fire!) It takes a little to get me excited, but let's just say I was screaming.... "Who did this?" (Feeling even better! Another mother that SCREAMS!) And of course I had several little people saying, "It wasn't me." (How did MY children get in HER house?)
Finally the guilty one stepped forward (Oh, guess it wasn't my kids...none of mine would have 'fessed up with anything short of a waterboarding experience!) and admitted that he had been lighting toilet paper on fire. It got out of hand and he freaked out. He said and I quote, "It started burning and I didn't know what to do so I threw it in the trashcan and poured water on it." (I don't know what he thought was going to happen when he lit the paper with the candle lighter...) (Hmm...actions occuring a full step ahead of any thought processes...yup, that sounds eerily familiar!) He was hysterical and crying, "Don't tell Dad. Don't tell Dad. PLEASE DON'T TELL DAD." (Oh, this SO HAD to be one of MY kids!)
Poor kid. When I calmed down and started taking pictures (Oh my goodness! A woman after my own heart!!!), he started crying again and said, "You're going to blog this aren't you? Dad will know for sure." (It was at this point that I nearly fell out of bed because I was laughing so hard! I could just SEE the horror of such a realization on that poor little boy's face, just like I have seen it a hundred times over on Darcy's face...Yup, Gina is a blogger after my own heart!!! I love it that there is another mom out there who races for the camera before cleaning up the evidence...and then puts it all in print, to the utter horror of her own dear children!)