This Friday's Five

1.  I find that putting everybody else's needs before my own is really catching up to me.  As a mother, this is my nature to do this.  And I will continue to put my kids' needs before my own but I need to get creative and find more time or an outlet to be able to stop and take care of myself too.  I cried yesterday while watching one of Oprah's final shows.  It was a recap of a previous story she did about a 36 year old mom dying of breast cancer.  She spent the time she had left on this earth to record video and audio tapes of her talking to her daughter so that she would have her mom as she grew up.  The daughter was 6 years old when her mother passed away.  There is so much I want to see and do with my children as they grow up to be young men and women...but if I don't find that precious time to take care of my health needs then I am afraid I won't be here to enjoy life with my family.

2.  Friends.  I hope that everyone has friends that they can lean on.  My friends mean the world to me, especially one in particular.  I pray everyday that my children find and keep good friends like I have.

3.  I am really looking forward to continuing with our schooling throughout the summer.  I feel that this will give us a greater flexibility of our time throughout the year.  We can't plan for the unexpected but we can try and be prepared for when the time comes.

4.  It looks like Jacob will be registering as an 8th grader this year.  He will be starting his 8th grade curriculum next week.  We have acquired the switched on schoolhouse curriculum that he will be working on as well as 2 high school courses in US History and Algebra 1.  We will also be incorporating alot of book unit studies.

5.  Tomorrow is the Tour de Cure for the Middle Tennessee area.  Jesse and Elizabeth Anne are the official  youth ambassadors for this year's event.  We have our jerseys and clothing all set out and ready for our 4am departure to Murphreesboro.  Jesse and Judge are riding 100 miles this year and the kids and I will be riding at least 10 miles.  Depending on Elizabeth Anne's blood sugar...we will do more riding.  We are anticipating a really long day tomorrow...please pray for the boys' strength and endurance as they persevere through the long ride.  It is an amazing task for a 9 year old diabetic child to ride that far in one day!  Last August he completed his first metric century ride and did awesome!