photo credit

Remember the scene in The Wizard of Oz where Toto pulls the curtain back and reveals the secret...that the Great and Powerful Wizard is really just a man pulling levers and pushing buttons.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

Well, blogging can become like that. Many times, we, meaning mom bloggers, make our blogs look pretty and write positive, uplifting things and post beautifully staged pictures of our homes and projects, giving the impression that we have it all together. Not necessarily me. It can be unintentionally deceiving and discouraging to other moms who only see this facade and don't know what really happens in our homes and lives. They don't see the struggles, the mistakes, the same things that they deal with. The nature of blogging requires a balance of privacy and publicity. Of course, we have to be careful what and how much we share with the rest of the world and, naturally, we want to show our best side.

I'm pulling back the curtain a little here.

Honestly, there are days when, no matter how good my intentions are, no matter how much I've planned, it is just pure chaos here...morning to night. There are dirty dishes piled up and mountains of dirty laundry to be washed. Clean laundry that was folded and stacked has to be refolded because a little person was looking for his favorite shirt. The three-year-old is hiding under the table nibbling on a block of cheese or writing on his belly with a marker. Or he noticed the door was left unlocked and he is running down the driveway in his underwear...or naked. The six-year-old and nine-year-old are arguing over a toy, book, TV show, the color of the sky. The teenager disappears every time I ask him to do his chores and only shows up when he's hungry. I'm not up for the bedtime battle and I let little boys fall asleep on the couch watching cartoons. These are the days that wear me down. The days that I don't want to share because they make me feel like I failed somehow.

The truth is that these days aren't necessarily a failure in themselves, but they are the ones that define me. How will I respond? Will it be with grace and love? Or will it be with selfish impatience and anger? Another truth: I don't always respond with grace and love.

Being a mom is beyond hard.

Blogging gives me a creative and social outlet and allows me to develop another facet of myself. I am the woman behind the screen, pushing buttons and clicking the mouse, creating the vision of me that I want you to see.


Shared at: Fellowship Fridays

Welcome! {2012 Ultimate Blog Party}

Welcome to Raising Knights! 

Thank you for stopping by! My name is Christy and I am a homeschooling mom to five boys, tot to teen. I write about a wide variety of things here. You will find my thoughts on and experiences with raising boys (sorry, I don't know anything about raising girls other than from being one), homeschooling, reviews, household tips, and any deals that strike my fancy.

Things have been quiet for a while here, but that's getting ready to change...as soon as I get a new computer. :) We have been waiting on our interest-free loan payment from the government tax refund. I'm writing this post on my husband's "work" computer and it's just not the same. I don't want to upload pictures or anything to it, so I'm limited in what I can do right now.

2012 is a year of big numbers for me.

• To kick the year off, my baby turned two, which means he's technically not a baby any more, and my second-born son turned 13, which means we now have two teenagers.
• The next big number will happen in July, when my oldest turns 18, the "official" age of manhood. He will be able to vote in his first presidential election, meaning one more vote for the conservatives!
• In September, I will be four decades old...yes, the big 4-0. That's all I'm going to say about that.
• Then the very next month, Papa Bear and I will celebrate our 20th anniversary! It's hard to believe that I have spent half of my life with him. What a roller coaster ride it has been! But definitely one I would do again.

How about you? Do you have any big things happening this year?

Oh! I almost forgot! Be sure to enter the giveaways over at 5 Minutes for Mom. I'm giving away a $25 gift certificate for Child ID & Safety products from To Love and Protect. It's about half way down this page. Have fun!

It's Almost Here! 2012 Ultimate Blog Party

 

Mark your calendar now for a week filled with awesome blogs and tons of amazing free prizes! Be sure to look for my prize offering - a $25 Gift Certificate for Child ID & Safety Products from To Love and Protect. You could use it to get Child ID Kits for all of your kids or a couple of Child Safety ID Wristbands for your next family outing. I even reactivated my Twitter account for this, so follow me (Raising_Knights). Even if it's only to laugh at how inept I am at it...if I ever remember to tweet. Don't forget - April 13-20!

We Interrupt This Blog For Real Life

An amazing thing happened recently...my computer crashed. Well, actually two computers crashed, one of them twice. I was beginning to wonder if it was a divine sign after the first time. After two crashed computers...hmmm. I'm borrowing another of Papa Bear's computers to write this, but my camera is mysteriously broken also, so no pictures. Is it just me or does it seem that all of this broken technology points to more than coincidence?

In the meantime, I've been catching up on all those chores and projects that I thought I didn't have time for. I spent all yesterday afternoon and evening (until midnight) working on:

• Emptying the office closet, so I can make it a quiet nook for the boys and a safe place during storms. It's in the center of the house, under the stairs. I removed the lower shelf and added it to the top one to create a place for emergency supplies. My plan is to paint the walls, put a large cushion or floor pillow in the bottom, and maybe add a section of rain gutter bookshelves or other low-profile book holder.
• Reorganizing the downstairs and upstairs hall closets to make room for stuff from the office closet. That led to culling through our sheet sets. Some had to go, some were suitable for camping, a few lone flat sheets are going into a fort making kit for the boys, and the remaining complete sets are being stored in their respective bedrooms. I still need to find a place for our board games.
• Sorting and putting away a mountain of clothing that I had not wanted to deal with. Some outgrown things that needed to be put in storage. Mostly clean clothes that I had let pile up because putting away clothes is my least favorite chore. To make it easier for me and the hobbits to put things away, this became...
• Taking the sliding doors off of the hobbits closet, hanging a curtain rod, and using ring clips to hang twin sheet curtains. The three youngest share a closet and their chest of drawers is in there also. Of course, I had to straighten and clean out the closet and then that led to...
• Cleaning the hobbits' room. That by itself is a big job. Everything is now in its place. Even the space under the beds is clear. For the moment. Once the room was clean, I got started on... 
• Hanging a couple of pictures and peg racks on the walls for their hats and dress up stuff. I had found the peg racks at thrift stores long ago and finally spray painted them white yesterday, in between my other projects.

The hobbits love the changes to their room. None of them know about the empty closet yet or else they would be in it right now. Kids do love cozy nooks. Needless to say, I did not have a hard time falling asleep last night. Now, I'm off to buy a gift for my niece's daughter's birthday party tomorrow, pick out a paint color for the "secret nook", purchase a new shower curtain liner, browse the thrift store, and pick up a few groceries.

Mom Blog Monday Blog Hop ~ I'm the Featured Guest

Welcome to Raising Knights! 

I was fortunate to be randomly picked to be the featured blogger for the Mom Blog Monday Blog Hop. Make yourself at home and poke around my blog, check out some posts, copy some recipes, leave a comment or two. Be sure to follow via GFC or email because I'll be having some giveaways in the near future to promote my new business, To Love and Protect. Thanks for stopping by!

If you are a regular reader or found me by accident, then read on to find out more about the blog hop and then link up your mom blog. 

Are you a Mommy blogger? Do you blog about your kids? Do you blog about great things for Mommies?

 Do you wanna meet other Mom Bloggers?

This blog hop is hosted by The Not-So-Secret Confessions of a First Time Mom , Luxury Living Frugal Style, and So Easy Being Green!

Rules?

All we ask is that you follow So Easy Being Green, The Not- So- Secret Confessions of a First Time Mom, and Luxury Living Frugal Style.We are the first three on the linky!Then follow spot #4 which is the featured blog! Be sure to leave us a comment so we can follow you back!

We would LOVE it if you'd grab our button and put it somewhere on your blog or in a blog post! This would help us spread the word. However, you aren't required to.

Happy Mother's Day & Blogging Break

Happy Mother's Day!

My posting has dropped considerably in the past month or so because I'm just not able to focus on writing anything right now. Papa Bear is in the process of buying and taking over a business with his brother and I've also been planning my own business venture. Add that to our curriculum change, my renewed motivation to do better with planning our homeschool and organizing my days and it doesn't leave much time for blogging. I've been feeling guilty about it so I decided that declaring an official break would give me a break. There is no such thing as "Super Mom"...in order to focus on some things, other things have to be laid aside for a time.

Stay tuned...I'll let you know what I'm up to soon. I may pop in occasionally with a small post here and there until then.

2011 Ultimate Blog Party

Join us for the 2011 Ultimage Blog Party hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom! Since I have only been actively blogging since August, 2010, this will be my first Blog Party and I am looking forward to meeting lots of new bloggy friends. And there will be prizes too!

My name is Christy and this is our homeschooling family blog where you will find a little bit of everything including snippets from our daily life, curriculum and product reviews, recipes, and bits of wisdom I've learned along the way. With five boys ranging from nursing toddler to teenager, every day is an adventure. I admit that I struggle daily to find balance and am grateful that I can rely on God's grace every time I fall short. In a house full of men, this blog is my daily indulgence. A place where I can talk about random mom stuff and not have to shorten it down to two or three to-the-point sentences. A place where I can find others of like mind. A place where I can be me. I hope you'll find some things that interest you. Thanks for stopping by!

100 Followers! What Did I Do to Deserve You?

Wow! I have one hundred followers and I've not asked for a single one. Thank you all! {Thank you, Michelle for becoming my 100th!}

I'm still trying to figure out what I want this blogging thing to be. When I browse through the blog world, I see review/giveaway blogs and wonder if I should try that. But then, I imagine how much time they have to spend on it and think about how I'm a minimalist {at heart} and really don't want companies to send me a bunch of random stuff anyway. I suppose I could be very selective and only do occasional reviews. Hey! I already do that...with my own stuff. There are also those blogs that chronicle the daily life of the blogger and are so witty or gritty that you just have to read them. But I'm not very witty and definitely not gritty and my daily life is rather mundane. What about those photography blogs? After all, I've taken more pictures of my kids since I started this blog than I have in the past several years. {Poor kids, they won't have much of a visual record of their life from about 2003 until 2010.} No, I'm still not very good at it. Then there are those amazing cooking blogs with photos of delicious food to drool over that was made from all-natural, organic ingredients. I used to like to cook but I don't have time to try new recipes very often. I'm in a season of my life where I need to stick to tried-and-true for a while. Everyone loves a good informational blog. One that teaches you something new that will make your life easier or better. One that I don't think I could pull off is the crafter blog. I do some crafty things on occasion but it's usually something that someone else wrote about on their blog, along with a detailed picture tutorial. Besides, I haven't taken the time to figure out what's wrong with my sewing machine...for a whole year now. And I have supplies to make soap and molded crayons that are waiting patiently for me to make time for them.

I suppose that I could stick to what I'm doing. A little bit of everything. But the successful bloggers say that you should have a niche and stick to it. I don't have just one area of interest. Maybe I should try to narrow it down.

Okay...I'm a mom.

A homeschooling mom.

A Christian homeschooling mom.

A Christian homeschooling mom of boys.

A Christian homeschooling mom of FIVE boys.

A Christian homeschooling mom of FIVE boys and wife to a cop and soldier.

{In the words of Levi: "This is gonna take a while."}

A Christian homeschooling mom of FIVE boys and wife to a cop and soldier, who strives toward healthy, natural living, cooks with real food, likes to sew {when my sewing machine is working}, has breastfed for a combined total of over nine years, advocates babywearing and co-sleeping, loves reading...

Maybe that's my niche. Being me. I'll stick with it for a while. After all, it did win me an award. LOL.

For those of you who have taken the time to skip through my blog, is there anything you would like to see more of? Less of? Do you have any awesome blogging tips for me?

The Versatile Blogger Award

versatile: embracing a variety of subjects, fields, or skills

Aww...My first blogger award. Thank you, Kerri at Oh Mann! for awarding me The Versatile Blogger Award! You can read about her life with her Canadian and their two boys...

On to the "rules" of this award:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award
2. Answer 10 questions
3. Pass it along to 7 blogs you've recently discovered and enjoy
4. Leave your recipients a note, telling them about the award

The 10 Questions...

1. Why did you create this blog?

I wanted to be able to share with other women but, as an introvert and busy mom of five boys, I don't keep up with "real life" friendships well. No chatting over coffee or shopping trips for me. And I wanted an outlet, something just for ME. I've always liked to write and blogging ties it all together.

2. What kinds of blogs do you follow?

Like-minded moms, typically moms of boys, who have similar parenting styles and faith beliefs. 

3. Favorite make-up brand?

Physicians' Formula mineral makeup, mostly

4. Favorite clothing brand?

No allegiances to brands, but I do prefer natural fibers and good quality at discount prices. 

5. Indispensable makeup product?

Physicians' Formula mineral wear foundation

6. Favorite color?

Right now...turquoise/aqua. And gray. Almost always, cool colors, blues/greens.
 

7. Favorite perfume?

I don't wear perfume, it gives me headaches. Prefer natural scents, like essential oils, in lotions and soaps.

8. Favorite film?

If I ever got to watch anything other than action movies or comedies, I might be able to answer this one better...Pride & Prejudice, maybe. I can't seem to think of any other movies at the moment.

9. What country would you like to visit and why?

I've always wanted to go to Ireland because it was so green and lush-looking. And I love their accents. :)

10. Would you rather forget to put mascara on one eye or forget blush on one side of your face?

Mascara since I don't wear it consistently anyway. Definitely need blush for some color.

I'd like to pass this award on to some deserving Momma bloggers:

Raising A Handful
The Blessings of Modern Domestication
Life In Between the Lines
Musings of a Real Housewife
Let's Talk About Boys
Boy Crazy
Comfort and Conversation