Acres of Abundance

Birth choice is vital Picture this.. A woman walks into a hospital. The bright lights are blaring, the floors are squeaky clean, the corridors long, the faces strange. She has come to experience one of the most formative and powerful days of her life. She is here to give birth.  She signs a form, is assigned a room, with a bed, a bathroom, a curtain to pull around for some privacy. She's nervous but excited. The noises carry on around outside, as people bustle about. She unpacks her things with love, a baby blanket here, a suit and hat and booties there. The midwife on duty is lovely, but she's finishing in a couple of hours. She hopes she's still there in time for the birth. At any (and many) moment, the door to her room swings open to let in another stranger, someone who is doubtless polite but has an opinion on her ability and progress.  They all talk to her nicely, explain everything to her, but they push her for an inch here, an inch there. "Yes, I know

Preparing for your best homeschool year yet- my new course Hi guys, I'm so excited about the build-up and reaction to my announcement of my upcoming course launching on the 13th November 2018 called Preparing for Your Best Homeschool Year Yet. Here are the details: A five week course, with a weekly live Facebook chat where I will be bringing tips, stories and ideas on a theme designed to help focus on your goals and purpose and troubleshoot your problems and questions Support through the week in the private Facebook group where you can ask me questions, add ideas and encourage each other. A fabulous weekly printable to help you press in to meeting your heart goals in 2019 BONUS: For those who sign up before the end of October, a personalised, one-on-one skype or FaceTime session with me in either January or February discussing any deeper or further questions or concerns. How do I sign up?? Leave a comment on this post if you would like more information or:  Hea

Questioning ourselves is something that is so easy to come to, as mothers. Did we choose the right school/homeschool curriculum? Did we choose the right piano teacher? Are we working enough on manners? Do they know enough about…? Am I doing the right thing for discipline/behaviour? Do I listen to my children enough? Do I spend enough quality time with them? Do I love them well enough? Am I making the right food? Am I feeding them too much sugar/wheat/whatever??? Wow, isn’t it exhausting? Sometimes we can get in what I refer to as a mental rut. Jennifer Read-Hawthorne, in her article Change your Thoughts, Change your World says; We humans, it seems, have anywhere from 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. But according to some research, as many as 98 percent of them are exactly the same as we had the day before. Talk about creatures of habit! Even more significant, 80 percent of our thoughts are negative. I would hazard a bet that a lot of those negative thoughts would

As mentioned before, in my previous post ( What to do when you are Never Enough ,) I have been called SuperMum. By lovely people, giving me a kind compliment, when they see that I have seven children, home educate them, grow some of my own food, etc, etc. I have always felt uncomfortable with the name despite the love it is said in. I look around and see the messes, the tempers flaring, my faults and frailties and I feel anything but Super! I imagine that the name is given in misguided assumption that my life is perfect, that I NEVER snap at my kids, that I always have everything under control (with seven kids? Who are we kidding?!) and that if I did, hallelujah, I would take the name and give an acceptance speech! But I know all too well how fallible I am. How I can never get it all done and how I fall into bed at the end of the day physically weary and with things still left undone. But God has been reminding me of some verses He has given me over the years; Just as

I shared a few posts ago that I realised I had been writing many posts on gardening because it was easier than the topics I feel more deeply. Don’t get me wrong, I am passionate about gardening, I love it. It’s my happy place. But it doesn’t leave me vulnerable. It doesn’t dig deep to share my struggles. So, deep breath… I want to write about when you feel like you are never enough. When every night, you go to bed with your head full of the things you did wrong that day. When you keep busy; watch tv, scan facebook, listen to podcasts in your every waking moment because it provides a much-needed reprieve from the voices in your head. When those voices in your head are always finding fault, tearing you down, comparing your life and your actions unfavourably to others. I have to confess I have struggled with this all my life. Always feeling like others have it sorted out more than I do. I share my happy things on facebook and people say to me “Oh wow, you’re so amaz

I have been thinking lately about kids and apologies. It’s a subject I have given a lot of thought over the years. “Do we make our kids say sorry?” “How do you get a child to mean it?” etc. We had a recent event which I felt was a wonderful picture of success so I thought I might share about it in the hope that it helps some others. We have just had easter, which means the kids are rich with chocolate (for a few days!) My seven-year-old came in to my bedroom and said “Mum, three of my cream eggs are missing!” Then began the investigation into who was the thief. “Did you take the eggs?” starting from the youngest and working our way up, looking for the shifting eyes and the uneasy denial. We found the culprit. After establishing that Miss four did, indeed, take Mr. seven’s eggs, we began our now-usual, long-winded process of helping our child to own her fault, take responsibility, find empathy and create recompense and reconciliation. Because that’s what we’re after, re