Growing?

I have been blogging for almost 4 years now--pretty crazy! Occasionally I like to go back a year or two and see what I was posting about around the same date. So, after my post yesterday I looked back at March of last year. Guess what I was posting about??? Essentially the same exact thing. Have I not grown at all? Have I not changed at all? I find the same thing when I look back a year or two or more in my prayer journals. Still praying for discipline to have a regular quiet time, to hold my tongue more, to be calmer and gentler and meeker...I am truly a work in progress but sometimes I question whether any progress is being made. I saw Melissa yesterday and was telling her about my blog post and how I had essentially been saying the same thing last year and she reminded me that I did have some growth this year. I've made the decision not to have the kids enter anything into the fair. Don't get me wrong--entering things into the fair is great and a great experience and even a money maker--but, at this time of year for me it becomes just one more thing to add to the "to-do" list. And, of course, I don't do things halfway so when we enter stuff into the fair we enter a lot of stuff. If you don't believe me go check out this post--The Fair. It was really fun to oversee and help the girls out and even more fun to go to the fair and see all of their ribbons. This year we were going to enter Hannah's photography and the girls were going to enter the talent show. That is, until I realized how stressed I was feeling about pulling it all together. It is a lot of paperwork and getting the stuff there, picking the stuff up, and so on. I just don't have it in me this year. We've had an especially busy few weeks and some really fun, family visits coming up and I just don't want to deal with the fair stuff. I think a year ago I would've moved forward with the fair stuff anyway b/c it's such a great experience and lots of other reasons but it seems I have grown and am able to make the decision that this is not a good year to do this. I thought the girls would be terribly disappointed when I told them and I was feeling really bad and then guess what? They didn't even care. Well, they probably cared a little but it was no big deal for them. They could take it or leave it. So, no entries into the fair for us this year. I'm sure we'll go, we always go on $1 day (only day we can afford) and we'll have a great time with no commitments. Thank you, Melissa, for pointing out my growth yesterday. I was encouraged that I'm not a total loser. :0) I have a great day ahead of me--it's raining and rain makes me happy, I looked on my calendar and there's not even one thing written there for today, so we will be having a full, complete school day and my prayer is that I can do it joyfully and with a happy heart. Maybe I can even fit in a game of Five Crowns before we start our day.
Peace out, peeps!