My Everyone

No, that isn't a grammatical error in my title! (Although I am sure you will find plenty in the postings as I type so quickly and with only 5 fingers in total that punctuation and spelling sometimes go astray!!)

I have recently been reading an excellent book entitled 'Finding your own North Star' by Martha Beck, as recommended to me by my good friend, Liz.

In it she talks about your Everyone...you know when you are having a bad day and you say that everyone thinks I'm fat/stupid/ugly or whatever and it stops you from being happy about yourself? It basically refers to the people in your life and how to work out which ones are good for you and which ones make you feel bad, by asking yourself a series of questions.
Well, I think we all naturally know who they are and tend to avoid those who are not 'for' your cause, ie not helping you find your North Star.

I think that I have pretty much figured out these things already and have generally lived my life accordingly...with greater strength as years have passed by. But what if one of those people on the no no list is someone that you cannot avoid? She does cover that, but I am struggling with the logistics of the reply on moral grounds.
So where does that leave me? Well, having had a week of HE camp where pretty much all the people there were telling us how great the boys were etc and then judging by some recent comments from people to my blog, I have been feeling pretty good about the way things are going for us.

This could be a good time to encourage those people who read but don't leave comments, to leave one when they stop by ...even a smiley face would be cool, as they go a long way to keeping us minorities motivated!!

So why is it, that all it takes, is one 'Everyone' to rear their heads and say discouraging things, to knock you off balance?

I'm trying to put a positive spin on it because in some ways it is like a red rag to a bull, and makes us all more determined to prove that our way is the right way. At least for us.

And to prove a point I will tell you about today. Well, some of it.

Rob took the bigger boys off to the woods this morning, with the intention of building a den. Something along the lines of the one they made at Pengraig. William and I were left at home as we both are a little poorly to be up for the damp and cold in the woods today. We stayed home and watched Bob the builder on his Cowboy holiday (actually a lovely 'film'), an episode of The Waltons and The sound of music, inter spaced with reading and puzzles.

The men came back at about 3pm with some photos of their fabulous construction (why do the photos never do them justice?) and you'd expect them to all flop and be idle for the rest of the day. But no! Tom had a vague idea of building a Radio shack in the back garden, so at 4 this afternoon, off out went Tom, Jonathan and Rob to build it!!! As a team, yet it is to be solely for Tom's use. How many people can boast that their sons age 12 and 14 can work together in that way twice in one day? And the second time not for his own gain...on Jonathan's part anyway.

Only because of HE does that happen in our house I think.

By the way, the Radio shack looks uncannily like a compost toilet....you never know!!!