THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY!

Even if it is the dreaded “Friday the 13th,” I’m so glad that this week is over.  Ever have one of those really horrific, awful weeks when absolutely positively NOTHING goes right? And where the things that DO go wrong, go as wrong as they possibly can? Oh, nothing drastic or earth-shattering – nobody has died, fallen severely ill, lost a job – nothing truly life-altering happened.  It’s just one of those weeks.  Family stuff, teen stuff, job stuff, traffic stuff… just a lot of heartbreaking STUFF in general.   A lady on a local message board has this saying on her avatar:  “I try to take it one day at a time – but sometimes, several days attack me all at once!”  Yes, that’s the kind of week I’ve had.  A week of “Mondays,” so to speak.   Just enough to where it all becomes overwhelming… especially when most of it is completely out of my control and there’s not a darn thing I can do to fix anything – that’s the worst, haha. 

I’m hardly the only one, though.  Folks all over have had weeks just as rough and even far worse.  It’s just one of those things you go through in life – some good, some bad, some just plain “blah.”  It’s just the way it goes. 🙂  God never promised that life would be easy.  Quite to the contrary… the night before Jesus was crucified, He warned His disciples:

 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Through this long and winding road called life, we’ll have to slog through some serious amounts of sludge and yucky stuff.  But the good news is that we don’t have to slog through it alone.  He’s right there in the trenches with us!  He is right here in the trenches with me, even when I am gasping for breath, grabbing for that Light that I KNOW is there even though at times it’s but a faint flicker off in the distance… trusting the Healer, even while I’m breaking to pieces… unable to hold on but trusting – KNOWING – that the Anchor is holding me until I can.

And, in time, you and I and everyone else going through things that cause us such pain will come out the other side.  One day, we will look back and see how God was at work even in the worst of times.  It may not be apparent now, but it will be.  Just hold on a mite longer, friends, and He’ll get you through it.

Happy Friday!!

PS – there’s a great song I heard on the radio this morning that pretty much inspired this post.  I’m going to try to embed the video in this post somewhere, but if that doesn’t work, please CLICK HERE and watch/listen.   It’s a truly awesome song that was just what I needed to hear today. 

WELCOME, Loganville/Grayson Patch Readers!

Greetings from our little corner of Loganville!!! Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out my humble little patch of cyber space!.   This  blog follows our family through one (mis)adventure to another – from our high-tech treasure hunts (geocaching) to camping trips to collecting cards for our deployed military to just plain getting lost while running errands…. Just the life of an ordinary Loganville family, keeping things running day-to-day and searching out adventures along the way!  You can read a more detailed intro to our family by clicking HERE. 😀

Thus far in the short life of Geocaching Adventures, posting has been mostly limited to, well, our adventures in Geocaching.  Not quite sure what geocaching is?  Click HERE and read all about it. 😀  It’s a simple concept:  I use a billion-dollar satellite system and a hand-held GPS to find tupperware hidden in the woods.  😉 Sounds lame, but is actually quite fun.  Add to that the fact that I have NO sense of direction at all (not even a bad sense of direction!!!) and it gets quite interesting. 😉  The joy is in the journey; the destination is just the icing on the cake. 😀

Since Sharon Swanepoel, editor of the Loganville/Grayson Patch (an online newspaper chock-full of good local info and stories) invited me to be one of the blogs featured in their “Local Voices” section, I figured that now would be a good time to broaden the scope (and frequency) of posting here.   In addition to reading about our wanderings and the everyday trials and tribulations that go along with having a large family, you will also read more about “Operation Love From Home” and what we are doing to support our deployed military and any other topic under the sun that strikes my fancy at the moment.  I’m pretty A.D.D. (literally and truly), so my interests and adventures (or misadventures, as the case may be) vary widely. 🙂  So, if you are brave enough, hop in, buckle up, hang on, and enjoy the ride!!!!!

Here are a few posts about our adventures that you might enjoy catching up on:

A Wonderfully, Wander-Full Day

Monday’s Child-Free Adventure

A Bamboo Forrest Adventure

See ya in the funny pages! 😉

MamaKat & Family

What a Month!

As I mentioned earlier this week, April was one massive whirlwind of events!  Some were good, some not so good, but all of them were exhausting. 😉 Thank God for coffee, that’s all I can say – ha!

It all started with the littlest GeoKidz and I attending the Georgia Geocacher’s Association April meeting at Mistletoe State Park in or near Augusta, GA.  Yes, during Masters weekend! I am not a golf fan in the least, so I didn’t much care about all the fuss over who’s playing in the Masters, who’s winning, who’s losing… WHO CARES?! 😉 (Sorry to all golf fans out there – no offense intended… I’m just not into sports much at all.).  The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and it was a PERFECT day to be outside.  Of course, the pollen count that day was roughly ten trillion, so the Kidz and I were all stuffy and fighting off pollen-induced sore throats.   

The highlight of the day was the game of “human checkers” that the event organizers put together.  I have pics on my camera that I hope to download tonight (I’ve been saying that for two weeks, so don’t hold your breath TOO much… I put the “PRO” in “Procrastination”…got it down to an art form. 😉 )  They had cut out huge plywood squares big enough for folks to stand on, and painted them red and black.  The people playing the red checkers were given red t-shirts and red bandanas.  The black checker people had black t-shirts and black bandanas. 🙂 At each end of the checkerboard, there were ladders upon which the team captains sat.  They had a perfect overview of the board and could order their people where to move.   GeoKid2 had been dying to play checkers all day, so he jumped right in as a black checker. 🙂 He had a great time playing for the first five or ten minutes, then he was “jumped” by the red team – game over for the little fella! He took it in stride though and thought it was all just the funniest thing!  After the game, the kids and I took off and found a couple geocaches hidden in the park.  There are several more I want to find, but since this was approximately two-and-a-half hours from home and it was getting late in the day, we decided it was best to go ahead and mosey on back towards Loganville and call it a day. 🙂  I’m pretty sure that day was the only day we were able to get out and hunt some caches… stupid “real life,” intruding on my hiking/playing time! Grrr! Ah well, it was better than nothing. 🙂

My Prodigal Son (GeoTeen2) returned home on April 21 – a/k/a the Thursday before Good Friday, a/k/a “Maundy Thursday.”  So far, so good.   Keep your fingers crossed and send up the prayers that he stays on track this time and continues doing what is good (and court-ordered – lol) and avoiding what is bad.  🙂  Easter was the usual whirlwind of activities, culminating in a beautiful Easter service and then the traditional dinner and egg hunt at the in-laws’ house. 

This past weekend, the Geokidz and I – yes, all four of them! – went camping together.  GeoKid2 is wrapping up his first year in cub scouts (awww….cute!) and this was the annual “Family Camping” event held up at Mount Rainey Mountain near Clayton, GA.  We had a GREAT time (except for GeoTeen1, who is terrified of the dark and the woods… .and seeing as how there wasn’t much anything by way of city lights or any lights in the camping area after sundown… she stayed curled up in a ball in the tent zipped up tight while the rest of us roasted marshmallows. She refused to come out or even budge from her hidey-corner till daylight).  GeoKid1 had his first-ever experiences shooting BB guns and bows & arrows…he earned a couple cub scout belt loops for his accomplishments.  GeoTeen2 likewise got to partake of the shooting of BBs and pointy things, as well as saving the day and helping me get the camp fire started when it was being stubborn. 🙂

All in all, April was fantastic… lots of great things happened, some rough things happened, but in the end, God is good and so is life. 🙂

Rock on, everyone!

Updates coming!

April has been a frenetic blur of activity…from the April Georgia Geocacher’s Association meeting, to work being a zoo, to church stuff, to cub scouts events and our first scout camping trip (this past weekend – I’m so exhausted!), to easter AND prom…on the SAME weekend…. to our latest project to show our deployed troops some support and luv….yeah…haven’t stopped till now! I will have a wide variety of updates to give you soon, hopefully tonight, and pictures too! (Assuming, of course, this day-long caffeine infusion I’m working on remains effective past 8 p.m…. LOL!)

Happy Monday, folks!

I leave you with this thought, blatantly stolen from Facebook but too good not to share:

May 1st Prayer…Now I lay me down to sleep ♥ one less terrorist this world does keep ♥ with all my heart I give my thanks ♥ to those in uniform regardless of rank ♥ you serve our country and serve it well ♥ with humble hearts your stories tell ♥ so as I rest my weary eyes ♥ while freedom rings our flag still flies ♥ you give your all, do what you must ♥ with God we live, God we trust ♥ Amen