Trying Something New

This is my first attempt using Windows Live Writer (found a post about it that was convincing here). Hoping to have a better time of posting pics and videos now that I’m using a more user friendly program than Blogger seems to be. I’ve posted through Word before, but any pics or videos I include also have to be uploaded to Blogger, so the only helpful thing about it is that it doesn’t time out or glitch and lose what I typed. Problem with that is that my biggest complaint w/Blogger is the pic/video uploading. Rarely do I lose text. But one good thing about using Word to post to my blog is that if I do happen to lose a whole post at some point (I’ve heard it happens!), at least I have a back-up copy. I’ll post my thoughts about using WLW when I have more to say about it.

Case is with the girls tonight. I left him herding them toward sleepytime. He let me get out of the house ALONE for the evening. Very refreshing. I really enjoy having an hour or so here and there to better appreciate all the wonderful things that make up my very blessed life.

When I am away, I can see things more objectively. Like how sweet my children really are, and how much I do enjoy being with them all day every day and what a privilege it is to be the one who knows them best and see all the ways they grow and discover the world around them. Case and I can tell when I need a break when my general attitude has the undertone of negativity and discouragement. Since I use my blogs to decompress in some way or another, it is probably obvious to you, my readers, when I need a break as well! Perhaps it is a very good thing that I do not have time to blog much. I would surely give the impression of an ungrateful, crabby woman much more than I already do!

Another “break” I enjoy is when we have company and I am able to observe the girls more from an outsiders’ view—actually seeing them, not just being with them—there is such a difference! Sometimes, it is surprising to me how much I don’t notice on a usual day alone with them. I also treasure the rare phone call that one of the girls will make to me. I’ll save those messages forever, or so I tell myself. Probably seems strange, but I so rarely hear how they sound on the phone, and it is terribly precious to me to hear those sweet, tiny voices call me “Mommy” on the phone.

What do you know? When I decided to wrap up this post, I thought I should at least try to insert a couple pics to see how easy it could be, and it totally was! Blogger-users, brace yourselves for a shock: I put the curser where I wanted to insert the picture, and, viola! There it appeared, only seconds later! And another thing: I posted the second picture SECOND, and it is AFTER the first one! Such luxury! Now I have only to publish this post when I get home and then try a post with a video, which I'm not sure I can even do with Live Writer, but I'll let you know. That will be the true test of WLW!

(Oh, I guess I should do some sort of caption for the pics I chose: this is why it took us so long to let Haley feed herself “messy” stuff. It just didn’t seem worth it to have a few minutes of peace and then have to deal with the aftermath. Once in a while, after an exceptionally challenging day, I found it worth the clean-up to eat my own meal without much interruption, but it is almost NEVER worth it to Casey. That’s why some nights, I put him next to Haley—so he can decide what he wants to do. Oh, and this pic is from Jan. We have been working on the “don’t put your bowl on your head when you’re finished” lesson these last couple months so messy food isn’t quite as bad here in March. But it still isn’t always worth it. We hadn’t been using bibs for a few months in there, but they’re definitely BACK now!)