"Focus on....Hearts at Home"

I have been researching information on "how to be a mom". Well... I'm already a mom, but not the kind of mom that I want to be.

If the details of parenting are my clothes, and consistent information on being a 'mom' is a map, then oh my goodness!, I'm running around naked and completely lost in the middle of 5:00 Atlanta traffic! Tonight, I came across 2 very important resources to aide me in my quest to "Be a Mom" (the kind that doesn't suck).

First- Focus on the Family has a "Family Media Link" that will allow people (like me) to queue many different podcast and listen in order of selected titles while we busy ourselves with other task. This is extremely important, because I get sidetracked- almost instantly. Just having something queued up, ready to play back to back like an ipod song list is a miracle for me! (Currently, every podcast available about Parenting, Motherhood, Homeschool, and Marriage is queued. I may very well have 317 hours of listening to do. This is an awesome thing to add my 43 page "To-Do List")

I also discovered the Hearts at Home website. The title alone gives me so much hope! I'm a stay at home mom of 3 girls! My HEARTS desire is to enjoy and savor my 3-hearts- at home. I love Dr. James Dobson. I love Focus on the Family. I love the fact that I can LISTEN to the podcast about being a stay at home mom while I search the Hearts at Home website. (Hello! 3 girls. I'm busy. I have to be super duper productive during my "break time".) I'm so excited to have 2 incredible resources available and so easily accessible.

This year I am extra desperate to get myself a PhD... or at the very least, a DEGREE in motherhood. This year I will be a full time, hard core, no-turning-back-now- Homeschool Mom.

My oldest daughter has recently turned 6, and my middle daughter will be 4 next week, and in less than 3 months, the 'baby' will be 2. Ya. I'm seriously in need of MUCHO Crammo (cramming), because this year, I'll be taking the EXAM of my life in our venture of homeschooling-

AND the fun-emotionally-exhausting-I'm not a baby any more, but I'm still too young 4 year old stage,

on TOP OF the lovely, adventurous, my hands have to be touching everything, and pulling anything not nailed down off and out of it's place -2 year old stage (terrible 2's would have been a shorter version... but it's not the terrible-two's... they lied... it's the terrible 3's. I have one more year. Thanks)

I'm excited to have found HAH, well, relieved to the point of being giddy actually! I discovered their name via a plug on The Focus on the Family podcast about Stay At Home Moms. After using my handy-dandy Google Chrome, I discovered that Hearts at Home holds conferences, will soon have mom tips, resources, tools, etc.... BUT what caught my eye was that one of the speakers at one of the conferences happened to have been Julie Ann Barnhill.

I bought 2 books by Julie Ann Barnhill around a year ago called "She's Gonna Blow" and "Motherhood: The Guilt that Keeps on Giving" , and instantly fell in love with her methods of explaining the challenges and joys of motherhood. This lady was WRITING a book about ME. I'm pretty sure she was just spying on me, and using my life experience to inspire her to write a few books! But- you know- there's no way to prove that, so.... eh, whatever

Through these books I felt like I KNEW for sure that I wasn't alone in the exhaustion and frustration of motherhood, and felt overwhelmed with a sense of "WHOO HOOO!" because I related to her so well in the first chapters of each book, that I felt confident that the advice she offered would be feasible in my walk-down-mommy-hood.

And, too, I so desire that loving, affectionate relationship with my daughters. I have a sincere longing to actually focus on spending genuine quality time with these 3 precious gifts. But- I am "that" mom that we hear about so much. "The Mom that's too busy." "The Mom that's toooo stressed out." "The Mom that stays awake until 4 AM in order to wind down from an incredibly long day, and then finds herself too tired to get up the next morning, and irritable, and..... " Ahem. Moving on.

Hearts at Home is one of the few bookmarks that I've put as my "favorites", right alongside Facebook, Focus on the Family, The Fertitlity Wizard, Youtube, My Blogspot, and my email! I am anxious to spend time exploring the site, reading blogs that have been posted by 'other' mom's, and seeing if there is a glimmer of hope that one of the conferences they offer will be coming to Atlanta this coming fall!!

Seriously, though, what absolutely amazes me about HAH, is that God had already given me a vision 2 days ago about the importance of Moms joining together in such a variety of ways-- through offering one another tips about meal preparation and organization, or maybe offering suggestions on resources, favorite authors, activities, discounts, coupons sources, and so on. But really for Moms to come together and simply SHARE with one another- in a sort of marriage-vow-esk way... in times of sickness with puke stained clothes and in health.... in the rich times and in severe debt times, in joy and in sorrow....! Helping one another, loving one another, encouraging one another--- (maybe cleaning each other's houses?!?) ;-)

Tonight, I'm praising God for the incredible love that He has for me, and for my girls. He is providing me with the tools I need to survive my journey, but oh-so much more importantly, He is giving my daughters the opportunity to survive the crazy world we live in, by enabling their Mom to educate herself on "How to be a Mom" (the kind that doesn't suck).