Letting Me Be Me

Nothing says Veteran's Day like Christmas pictures, so in a minute I'll show you some of the hilarity I tried to render into sweetly innocent Christmas card expressions this afternoon, arguing with the sun to keep itself aloft for just a wee bit more of its soft glow hitting upon yonder barn.

But first, thank you for letting me be me. Here on the blog. Me sure ain't perfect. I think I'm the farthest thing from perfect on the planet. But my mama always did tell me I was way too critical of myself, so perhaps I'm just shy of Pluto, really. Or that N1R2s;fihjse[orijt b planet they just found out there. (or was that the flu...I forget).

Anywho, if you sent me a note recently (or called --- Kimberly!) - THANK YOU! I haven't gotten back to you because I've turned into PTO Photographer extraordinaire again this week, snapping 350 pictures of Al Hrabosky and FredBird at the school assembly Monday. It wasn't bad enough last year that I took hundreds of pictures, now I know a tiny bit about Photoshopping them - and MAN can it take up a life if you're trying to get your photoboards out before the kids forget that Al Hrabrosky and Fredbird came to visit...and if you aren't from StL, then you have NO idea who those two are...but nonetheless, just know it was big! And I finished them today. Now I just have to catch up on Fall Festival and the Run/Walk (Hello September?!).

But, I digress.

Yes, Here has been Ugly for a while. And yet, perhaps part of the healing is in admitting you have a problem? Hi. My name is Karin and I'm living on Autopilot? Or Hi, my name is Ugly. (Not to make light of any 12-step programs.) Call it sunnier weather, call it self-acknowledgement, call it taking Gramma's advice and starting a vitamin regimine, or call it God. But things have been better. My Women's Bible Study group has been reviewing Power of a Positive Mom by Karol Ladd since school started. I've read it before, so I chose to finish my Lysa Terkeurst journey before getting back into the Positive book again. I've been attending the studies - and leaving feeling GUILTY every time. Then last week, I thought to myself, wow I wish I had some sort of book on spurring on a positive attitude. I then hit myself in my V-8 head and pulled out my book. I'm off to read some more of it now. But first, here's to taking four kids to the park by yourself for the 30 minutes remaining of daylight before 6PM karate when no one's eaten and ... well ... roll tape:

It all started out innocently enough...

Then someone decided to start practicing the wildly popular I-sit-down-and-do-karate.

And someone else started impersonating historical figures.


Well here, writing on the photos is easier...


it pays to make the font bigger...