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Compelled by curiosity?

Along the Way

I walked a mile with Pleasure,
She chattered all the way,
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow
And ne’er a word said she;
But oh, the things I learned from her
When Sorrow walked with me!

© Robert Browning Hamilton

About the name

Welcome to The Flooded Fishbowl! My blog’s name and the website are a play on words, because that is how I roll. You can read a little about that here. Actually that link is more about the porcupine fish avatar and me. The basics of the fishbowl theme is that we live in one. Have you ever heard the sayings living in a glass house or living in a fishbowl? Anyone who lives in the public eye in view of all to “be judged” lives in a glass house or fishbowl. Living behind glass (or the feeling of doing so) is living a life to be seen/judged by all who think they have a right. RevMrKnowTea is an ordained pastor in the PCA. This means that most of our business is public to the church and this often gives the church (its members) the idea that all of our life is theirs to scrutinize, criticize, and run as their own. The problem with this, besides the obvious, is that even in a glass fishbowl others can not see and can not know the whole picture of our life. There are many difficulties and many blessings that come from living in a fishbowl and being a pastoral family, thus my tagline. We used to feel the “blessings” that come with this life, but lately our journey has been one of burnout and trying to swim through it. We are living day to day, praying for God to show us the joy and the blessings that overflow again. We are in a season of winter.

About the tagline

joy and sorrow | swimming in circles | drowning in the flood | sipping from the cup that overflows | this IS my Father’s world

It is fairly obvious I think, but there is joy and sorrow in the struggle of living in a glass bowl. There is joy and sorrow in being a parent, especially a parent of a special needs child. There is joy and sorrow in life. Living in a fishbowl means swimming in circles, going around and around and around. There are many times life feels like going nowhere except in circles instead of heading somewhere because we do not see the bigger picture or that we might really be swimming in a great wide ocean. My cup of life overflows with life, the joy and the sorrow.

About the flood

That flood I mentioned? Yeah, it is a good one. Life flowing full of the gifts God has given me. “But, wait!” you say. How can a fishbowl be flooded? It is all about water mass displacement. We are a large-ish family, a family of eight living in a small fishbowl. We rent a three bedroom house. Our special needs daughter has needs that require her to have her own bedroom; it is the smallest room in the house to accommodate everyone else in the house in the other rooms. The other two girls have one room and the three boys have the “master” bedroom. I use the term master loosely as this is an older home and there is no master suite or reason to call it the master other than the fact that it is about 1 foot by 1 foot larger than the girls’ room. The closet is not even any bigger and there is no bathroom separate for it. Speaking of bathrooms, we all share one bathroom, all eight of us. It gets, shall I say, crazy managing that. RevMrKnowTea and I sleep in the den/family room. Our bed, dressers, and other clothes share floor space with the couch, games, toys, and family TV room. We home educate our children which leads to extra books and shelves and parafernalia related to schooling that crowds life at times. Are you beginning to get the picture? Try this exercise: Fill a small fishbowl with water, pour in some gravel, then add eight fish to share the space, do not forget the plastic plants and the bubbling treasure chest or the old fashioned scuba diver. If you fill the bowl with the life giving water first and then put things in the order I gave you you will understand quickly how easy it is for a fishbowl to flood. It really is a rather wonderful life, my flooded fishbowl!

About the site as a whole

There is the main blog, mine, and our home school pages (when we remember we have it). Our school is registered as a private school in our state, St. Andrew’s Home School. I set up a perpetual, virtual garage sale for curriculum we no longer use or for other lovelies I think we need to let go (even if it hurts). Miss Moggiepillar blogs (sometimes) or she used to blog. I have yet to merge RevMrKnowTea’s blog over – on the to do list. We all have had multiple recipes on each of our blogs but we have decided to combine them all in one locale as we continue to collect favorites. Some recipes are old and we have no idea of their history, but we have used them, loved them, and tweaked them to our own liking. Others are ones we have found and loved and want to be sure we keep handy. You are welcome to print them and use them as well. Enjoy.

Follow

“Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road.” Oops, wrong song. “We’re following the leader, the leader, the leader, following the leader where ever he may go.” Still wrong? “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim.”
If you are interested in following any or all of the feeds on this site here you go:

’bouts me

So you decided to get all nosy and find out a bit more about me, huh? Well, sure; why not. I mean, after all, I do have this blog for all the world to see. The best way to get to know who this person writing here is to spend time with me, but since you can not do that because you are probably miles and miles away or maybe even a country or continent away you can read from this category.

Even reading those posts will give you a limit idea of who I am because that is not the big picture. I can spew a few factoids out in a list to help. I would much rather you just come have coffee or tea and shortbread with me though. You are welcome to ask me anything you want and I will answer it right here on the blog if it is appropriate blog matter. If I decide that I should not put the answer out there for the world to see (too personal or such) I will answer as best as I see fit in an email or reply. You can use my contact form, email me at Rae [at] thefloodedfishbowl [dot] com, or use the aforementioned ask me anything website.