I know this is a day late, but I wasn’t online yesterday at all because of our neighbors moving.
The Carnival of Homeschooling is hosted by About Homeschooling this week. Fly on over and check out Beverly’s Alaska theme.
Wow! It’s been almost a full week since I last blogged!
Let me tell you what has been going on with us. Our best friends and next door neighbors moved today. To Seattle! (We live in Vermont.) Yeah, we will not see them for quite a while. So, we have been spending every minute with them and helping them get ready for the road. (They drove!)
I cannot even begin to explain how much these people meant to us.
When God brought them to Vermont - yes, God brought them here. He revealed it to them to come here, from Texas, before they head to Seattle to fulfill their missionary vision. When God brought them here, Bob and I were just in the early stages of seeking Christ. I cannot even imagine where we would be in our walk had it not been for these amazing examples of God’s love and grace coming into our lives.
My first real experiences with Jesus happened after the mother of the family invited me to join a woman’s book study group.
The D thought Christian Rock was not as cool as regular rock, which we used to listen to, until he found out that their daughter, his age, likes it too.
The mom and I were both stay-at-home moms, and the only moms in our apartment complex who sit outside with the kids when they play. Needless to say, we spent many days together.
The dad and Bob used to play outside with the kids when they were home from work. All the kids in the neighborhood would join in the big kickball games that they would start.
They have four children ranging from The D’s age to Little E’s age.
The boys actually schedule our day around when the girls would be home from school, so they could play.
Their little boy would always come over when his sisters were at school to see if Little E could ride bikes.
We had barbecues and birthday parties together. We went to the beach together. We spent hours outside playing together.
We will miss them so much, but we are at peace with it because we understand that the Lord has plans for them in Seattle. Their time here is at its end. They have blessed so many lives and our lives have blessed them as well.
I am excited to hear about what God has in store for this amazing family.
I am excited to experience what He has in store for our family, too, as this chapter of our lives ends and we start the next one.
I was reading the blog PHAT Mommy the other day and she has a post up about how she is less than passionate about homeschooling. It’s a really thought-provoking and honest post.
As I read it, I could really relate. I sometimes feel that way, too.
When I do, though, I remember (or more often, my husband reminds me) that this is only a season. A time in my life, not my whole life. If I focus on what I am doing in this season, instead of what I did before or what I want to do after, I am much happier with what I am doing now.
If I focused on what I “gave up” to homeschool, or what I could be doing now if I wasn’t homeschooling, I would never get out of bed in the morning.
I have ambitions that span beyond being mother and teacher to my children. (Gasp!)
Right now, I know that this is what is right for me and my family. And I am okay with that, now that I have a right perspective about it.
I don’t know how I could feel okay about it, though, if I didn’t start to develop a right perspective about God.
I’m not saying that someone who does not believe in God cannot be at peace with their decision to put their ambitions on hold to homeschool their children, but for me, my peace has come with the realization that God has great things in store for my life, but this is where He wants me to be right now.
There is noting better out there waiting for me that my children are holding me back from. And, yes, I have felt that way when things have been tough.
I was just starting to get my freelance writing career going when it was put on my heart to homeschool.
The boys were about to start school and I was not able to sleep because of the stress. I had had some problems with the school when the D was in kindergarten and second grade (we had a great teacher in first) and I did not want to deal with that again. Also, Big E had a really tough time with some badly behaved kids in his class the year before and they both hated going to school.
When I say hated, I mean, they screamed and cried in the morning that they didn’t want to go.
I went nights without sleep and finally I prayed to God to give me peace and wisdom, and most of all sleep. He did. He also put it on my heart to homeschool. (To what?!?)
At first, I was totally on board with it. I mean, it was God’s idea, so it had to be great, right? The kids thrived the first year, too, so I knew it was a great thing.
This year has not been as good. Personally, I have really struggled in rebellion against God and I sometimes do not want to accept that He has the best plans for me. They are usually not the plans I had.
It hasn’t helped that we have had a very big struggle with the D this year either. He is going through a really tough time emotionally regarding his bio-father and his behavior has been challenging to say the least.
Of course, I know that it would only be worse if he was in public school, but that didn’t stop me from thinking that I was not cut out to homeschool and from fantasizing about all the great things that I could be doing with my life if I wasn’t.
I have been working on trusting God and submitting to His plan for my life, even when - especially when - they run contrary to my own plans. The more I trust God, the more I am passionate about and satisfied with this season of my life.
I can’t imagine how I would find peace without Him.
Even my husband’s sage wisdom, that this is only a season, comes from the Lord, from Ecclesiastes 3.
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven”
This is the time that I need to focus on raising my children and homeschooling them. For the most part, it is enjoyable and rewarding. But when those moments come when it is not so enjoyable and the reward seems elusive, I only need to remember that this is God’s plan for me at this time and He has wonderful things in store for me in every season.
Here’s one more for the recipe box. Lately, I have been making these homemade granola bars for my kids (and myself). They are very good and are not full of junk like some store-bought brands are.
I also like the fact that they are high in fiber and I control the sugar content.
Here is the recipe I use, but I encourage you to try other ideas.
Granola Bars
1/2 to 1 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup crunchy peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup melted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/4 cups oats
1 1/4 cups oat bran
1 1/4 cups wheat bran
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 to 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips (optional, but so yummy)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray or grease a 9×13 pan (or thereabouts). In a large bowl, mix together the first 5 ingredients. Stir in the rest. Press mixture evenly and well into the pan. Bake 15-20 minutes, until light brown. Once fully cooled, cut into 24 bars. Enjoy!
My baby sister graduated from college this past weekend and I made her a Mocha Mousse Cake for the party my mother threw for her.
People raved!
The recipe is here.
It is a must try for all chocolate lovers.
This time, it’s the Carnival of Homeschooling. This week it is posted over at The Lilting House.
Lots and lots of homeschool posts in there this week.
And the Carnival Controversy that just won’t go away is back. Melissa takes a stab at bridging the gap, bringing all homeschoolers together, and putting the whole thing to bed.
Here’s hoping, huh?
You might have noticed that I have my own little disclaimer in my side-bar now so that anyone who might be offended by my world view can skip right to the homeschooling posts.
Some say, “Can’t we all just get along.” I say, “Can’t we all just get a life?“
I read plenty of stuff I don’t like on other homeschooling blogs. BFD. I can usually glean something useful anyway. And if I really don’t like the blog, I just don’t come back.
Aren’t we all adults here?
At any rate, or rant ends here, Melissa did a fantastic job on the Carnival, so take a gander.
The Gonzo Education Carnival is posted at Principled Discovery.
I remember once last summer, at Big E’s swimming lesson, I was chatting with another mother and she noticed that Little E had some colors on his hands. She asked him what it was and we told her that we had been mixing colors that morning.
We took glasses of water, colored them with food coloring of different colors, and experimented with what colors they made when we mixed them together.
She asked me if I ran a pre-school or day care, or something.
That story illustrates the way that most parents view education - as something that happens in places other than home. At school, at daycare, at pre-school.
That’s one of the things I value most about our homeschool experience, that we finally understand, as a family, that learning takes place all of the time, not just during set hours of the day at school.
I was reminded of this on Saturday when I read a story in the paper about deep-sea explorers that uncovered a sunken treasure worth $500 million. I was telling my husband about it and explaining that under the agreement the company made with the British government, they would get to keep 80% of the first $45 million and 50% of the rest.
Big E could not understand what I meant, so I went over to the dry erase board and we all calculated step-by-step how much the company would get to keep and how much the British government would get.
Working it out on the board, he and the D were able to see what the agreement looked like in terms of dollars.
It was such a great moment because they got to use their math skills in a practical setting and we got to incorporate learning into our daily lives in a way that was totally unexpected.
This is a connection I think a lot of families miss out on because they separate learning from their home life.
It took us a while to really get this concept, but I’m glad we did. It’s just one of the many reasons I love homeschooling.
The kids had a really cool experience today. I had my monthly government access show this evening and, as I usually do, I brought the kids with me and Bob stopped by the studio on his way home to pick the kids up, before the show went live.
Well, this month, there was no volunteer there to operate the cameras, so the guys who work there asked if the boys wanted to do it. I said they were going, but they could play around for a little bit and learn how things work before it was time to go live.
As it turned out, Bob agreed to stay and let them do the whole show. So, the boys ran the cameras for the whole show! They even got to wear headsets and communicate with the control room.
They had a blast and it was a great learning experience.
This is one of my favorite songs, “I’m Not Alright,” by Sanctus Real.
I like this song for two reasons. The first is that the chorus - “I’m not alright, I’m broken inside, broken inside. And all I go through, leads me to You.” - really gets to the heart of why we do need Jesus. It’s not, as many a Christian-basher would have you think, that we need to feel superior (read: holier-than-thou) or that we cannot think for ourselves, but because we are all broken inside in some way and to some degree and only Jesus can heal that brokenness.
The second reason has to so with the second verse:
Burn away the pride, bring me to my weakness
Until everything I hide behind is gone
and when I’m open wide with nothing left to cling to
only you are there to lead me on
Because honestly, I’m not that strong
I have a tendency to avoid God when things are not going well because I think I can handle it on my own, or I am too proud to ask for help. This verse is very much like what I have had to go through more times than I would like to admit - to have God strip away everything that I am hiding behind, until I am forced to turn to Him. And that is really what I need because, like it or not, I am really not as strong as I would like to think I am. I have never really been able to make things better without leaning on the Lord for my strength.
Technorati tags: Sanctus Real, Christian music
