Yes, my parents are wonderful

I'm so grateful that people can tell from my blog that I have great parents. From the time I was born my mom stayed home to raise all five of us. She's also homeschooled us all (that's no small feat!). I was homeschooled k-12 as were and will be all the others. Plus, all three of us that she's graduated earned college scholarships. That's certainly a record to be proud of, but on top of that she's good at baking, gardening, sewing, playing games, dancing, taking care of sick kids, and a bunch of other great mommy/housewife skills. Oh, yeah, and she can negotiate the shirt off a salesman's back. She's pretty sharp.

Now my dad's no slouch either. He went back to school before the 3rd was born and stayed in until sometime around the 5th was born to get his CPA so he could get a job that would actually feed us all. But he's no desk jockey. My dad can water ski, shoot, build fences, remodel a kitchen, fix cars, play baseball, and that's just the short list. When his boss sent him and a bunch of other employees to self-defense training he blew everyone away by being the office guy (my dad even looks like an accountant) who could actually shoot and drive. He overcame a lot to get where he is today.

Both my parents are a lot of fun to be around. They were pretty regular about making time to play games with us and such. Of course that doesn't even begin to cover all the fun we had camping together. I've been as far north as Prince Edward's Island, Canada and as far west as Zion National Park. I've seen the sun set over both rims of the Grand Canyon and all the Great Lakes. Not bad for a little Alabama girl. We had such fun on those trips. There were plenty of times when all us kids would hole up on the back bed and play with all our dolls and stuffed animals. One time we were waving to the truckers with our dolls, and they kept honking as they passed and unnerving Dad 'cause he didn't know what they were all honking about. So we had to stop. I also remember driving through towns and across deserts while building things with our huge box of legos or playing endless rounds of gin rummy and squeak and old maid. I have a lot of good memories of my parents. However, that does not mean that I can't be honest about who I am and where I come from. My parents are wonderful people who taught me much more than how to read and do laundry, but I don't have to pretend that they were perfect in raising me and that everything they did was right. The Bible says that the truth will set you free. In order to see and speak and walk in the truth I've had to reject some bad habits and ways of thinking that came out of my experiences at home. This is different from rejecting my parents and even from disrespecting them. If this makes you uncomfortable that's ok. It made me uncomfortable at first, but if I'm going to run this race I need to know where my feet are.