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THE PARENTING DARE BLOGI love, love, love mothers.
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I love being a mom.
Now, before I lose anyone, let me also share that yes, there have been some really hard, difficult, sacrificial aspects of my vocation, like when I had three children in three and a half years, and my husband and I were both still in our early twenties, learning life as well as each other.
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Summer. It’s summer. YEAH! It’s summer!
For many years, when I was a mom of littles, summer meant all of the children home, which meant that I needed to up my game as a caregiver. I made summer plans, which included keeping my children occupied, my house somewhat clean, and my sanity intact. For the last several years, as a mom of bigs, summer has meant lazy days, as the kids slept forever and ever, then, once up, kept themselves busy with friends, projects, and summer jobs. This year summer means something altogether different. If I am honest, I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to summer as much as I have in the past several months, as I finished up a year of teaching full-time at Holy Spirit Catholic School in Goddard, Kansas.
Greetings! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, filled with familial love, deep joy and just enough chaos to keep you grounded.
For this blog, I did a different type of podcast; I created this podcast without a script. Why? Well, I truly wanted to speak from my heart to yours today. So, when you have time, I invite you to listen to this blog via this podcast:
FRIENDS! It has been a hot minute! I have not been able to podcast since July! Crazy! But, drum roll, the first quarter of teaching middle school English/Language Arts at Holy Spirit Catholic School in Goddard, Kansas, is officially over. (We are actually now deep into the second quarter. Time keeps flying!)
No one was more surprised than me when I was asked to teach middle school for a year. I mean, shocked. I found it interesting how supportive my family was of this move.
I got up early last week so I could finish reading a book. It was a surprisingly good book and after I finished it, I sat and cried from a place deep inside me.
Now, here’s the deal. I didn’t cry because of the book. I wept because I am going to be teaching middle school English/Language Arts at Church of the Holy Spirit this school year. If you know anything about me, you know how much I love to read and write. While reading that book, I realized that I will be able to talk about books and writing all day every day. And that thought brought a cascade of unexpected but very welcome emotions. It almost felt sacred. Friends....I know that the audio quality for this particular podcast is not the best, but it will have to do.
Imagine that you had to create a new social media account for yourself, on Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest. And as part of that media campaign, you needed to share who you were in a very authentic way. So you were told to pick the five categories in your life that you were most passionate about; those areas would be highlighted on that platform.
What five things/people/groups/activities would make it into your top five?
If you are an older mom and if you could go back to when your first child was a newborn and do it all over again, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE? If you are like me, you have a list. A very long list.
If you had to hone it down to the THREE things you would do differently, what would those three things be? (And yes, I would love love love to hear your answers!!) So, how did this post idea originate? I credit Ashley Kreutzer out of Buffalo, New York, for this one. She is a young mom of many littles.
It is summer!! Yeah! Here’s to new schedules and bike rides and swimming pools!
I hope you are able to enter into summer, especially since it is JUNE. I don’t know how your May was this year, but ours was pretty loud, with many parties, graduations and ordinations. We loved it all but truth be told, June (with all of its open spaces on our calendar) was a welcome change. To LISTEN to this post via podcast, press the play button below! HAPPY SUMMER!! I love mothers! I also know that summer poses a bunch of new challenges for all of us.
One of the ways I have been supporting mothers is by giving specialized retreats in my home.
In the last email I sent out I made mention that I will not be giving retreats from my home anymore. And I had a lot more to say about that but I didn’t make the time to go into the details of that decision.
After I sent the email, I received some very nice messages and emails and comments from women, saying things like, “Hey, I am disappointed you are stopping those retreats. I wanted to invite some friends to your next one,” etc. I wanted to clarify what’s really going on. Note: if you have never LISTENED to one of my blog posts, I highly recommend you try it today. Why? Well, I added a TON of details as I podcasted this particular post, which simply means that it is close to my heart. I gave backstories and side stories (which I did not write out, but that more or less flowed from my heart). If you like to know The Whole Picture, then give this a listen! |
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I'm Lori Doerneman Wife. Mom. Catholic. Idealist with 8 kids, keeping it real. 
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February 2025
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