Jan. 3, 2008 - My General Blog
There are so many things I would like to write about in the pages of these blogs, if only time would permit.
I am utilizing my general blog for my regular input and will now use this blog for specifically homeschool related thoughts or information.
I would love to have you check out my blog VEINED LEAF .
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Jul. 29, 2007 - Kids Are a Mirror
Our car’s air conditioning belt broke while we were in town today. Being Sunday, we were not able to get it fixed. As a result, we traveled the hour and twenty minute trip home with the windows down. The thermometer on the car read 96 degrees outside. The kids were complaining about the heat.
As my husband and I recalled memories of many car trips without air conditioning during our childhood, it struck me how “managed” our environment has become. Our kids, the oldest being fifteen, had never experienced what it was like to drive without complete temperature management at least in their recent memories. I was amazed at how utterly intolerant of the inconvenience they were. Crabby voices, shrieks and cries dominated the back seats of our Suburban.
I felt myself getting angry. “Instead of complaining about how hot you are, why don’t you guys just be grateful?” I snapped. “Be grateful and thank God for all the many days of your lives when you have had the luxury of air conditioning, instead of being mad about the one day in your lives when you don’t have it!” The older kids suddenly fell silent. I felt righteously justified in my anger. I had made my point. And yet, as I sat there, I began to think of all the times that I am the one complaining to God because my environment has become inconvenient and “unmanaged”.
It was impossible to deny. I could plainly see myself in them…
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Jul. 28, 2007 - Civil Air Patrol is great for Homeschool Kids
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Feb. 14, 2007 - Of Cats, Kittens and Character Pt. I
Our Mama Cat sits on the post on our back deck elevated above the diamond snow flakes gleaming in the morning sun. As I watch her soak in the warm rays, I can’t help but consider her history with our family.
Always an outdoors cat, Mama Cat came to us from my in-laws pig barn yard. She had every sign of becoming as strong, faithful and maternal as her mother Morgan was. Morgan had provided litter after litter of healthy, tame kittens that were the delight of my children and their cousins when they visited Grandma and Grandpa’s.
When we brought our fluffy gray cat home, we called her Mama Cat because she came to us pregnant as it was our express desire to maintain the tradition of cuddly, robust kittens in our own yard for our kids to love and hold. Six years have passed since the summer we excitedly awaited our first batch of homegrown kittens. Mama Cat has lived up to our every expectation and faithfully produced a wonderful world of fluff and frolic on our deck every spring and brought much joy to our family.
Each year some kittens make it and some do not. Watching the saga of life cycles repeated over and over again is a fascinating study in character development that can be extrapolated to parents and children. Which kittens make it to adulthood and why? Which children grow strong in character and why?
These days, it would seem, forming and molding character is a task too infrequently embarked upon by parents and much too infrequently acquired by children.
As a parent, Mama Cat has taught me a lot.... TO BE CONTINUED
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Feb. 9, 2007 - Evidence: Egypt and in Life
It reminds me of teaching my children. I want the evidence of their biblical, moral and ethical training to be discovered in their lives by those who interact with them throughout their lives. But more than an interpretive discovery based on facts associated with their educational experience, I want the tangible evidence on display as well. When people see the adults who were once my little children, I want their character to shine as bright as the gold of King Tutankhamun’s mummy mask. I want the hieroglyphs of their actions to tell the story of a life well-lived humbly before Christ. I want the work of their hands and minds to uncover and represent truth that stands as solidly as the Great Pyramid.
Our study of
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Feb. 8, 2007 - Underneath the Everyday
Feelings. The day doesn’t make room for them. To dwell in them is to threaten to stall out or, worse yet, tailspin. But how to avoid feeling when everybody else’s feelings come crashing in on you? All day. Everyday.
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Jan. 30, 2007 - Children in Today
The flow of children in and out of the hours of my day has molded me. The marks of their personalities, needs, desires - all the things mothers experience as we try to nurture our children – are evident in so many aspects of my life. The pathways of my thoughts have been redirected. My goals have shifted. My heart has been moved, moved and moved again. The transformative power of children is undeniable and that “power” has become one of the many things that make children a blessing in my life.
The willingness to be challenged, to be changed, to grow and continue to become, to me these are the attributes that make one’s life successful. Children produce opportunities for this kind of growth. As I welcome more children in my life, I also begin to recognize success in new ways. What once represented success to me pales in comparison to the vision of a successful life that I have today. Again, openness to children ushers exponential blessing in my life through my ability to see, know, understand more or differently than I once did!
The sound of children is in every echo of my day. This won’t always be so. I don’t want to squander the improvements I can make today through God’s “blessings” that will make me better and more successful tomorrow.
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Apr. 20, 2006 - Listening to My Heart
Listening to my heart, I hear a voice that says “trust.” It came to me last night too in the rhythm of the rain….
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.”
Tonight all in the house are still and I am …listening. Faith is building in the calm.
Apr. 9, 2006 - Rejuvenation
Today as a casual wind blows through the leafless trees surrounding our yard I rest in the peace of our children’s play. As I walk, the scattering of winter rubbish matted in the grass grabs my attention. Contemplating, I bend to pick up torn paper, a plastic bag, bits of a blue shattered sled.
The children scatter. Two discover a felled bird. The baby babbles in the stroller. Our boys wander, snow sleds in hand, to put winter toys in the shed. One comes with wagon in hand, hair windswept across her face. Another dons bare feet, exclaiming of the tenderness of her soles on the cool ground.
There is peace in our efforts, a gentleness in our purpose. Today is a day of rest. We are taking a step away from the battle; we are resting in the comfort of home.
How wise our Maker was to place rest on our agendas. The young green discovered hiding under that which is old and winter-weathered mirrors the soft rejuvenation of my soul in rest.
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Apr. 2, 2006 - Released into Bouyancy
There is a broadening that has happened to my spirit from walking out in faith. Like stretching muscles, there was a painful resistance at first. But then I reached a breaking point where suddenly I felt a release, a certain buoyancy and ease in stretching. That’s how I feel tonight. I am watching and waiting until God again requires more. Lord may we heed and obey when you draw us beyond who we are. Do not let us falter into temptation. May we be faithful as you are faithful.
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Mar. 29, 2006 - Listening
My eyes ache. The children are all sleeping and my ears are ringing. It was a long day of school work, house work, computer work. And now I am feeling fragile. How can we take it on – what God has put before us? How can we keep up with the daily changes and challenges?
Sometimes it is easy to question if we heard God’s calling correctly. But human questions and frailty are not necessarily a measure of how well we have listened, only a reminder that we need to keep listening.
My ear strains to hear.
Show me the way through another day…
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Mar. 26, 2006 - Spring Winds
Spring winds roar through the hood of my jacket. Our yard is like a desertscape. Little tufts of brown grass hug the dried dirt beneath my feet. Drifts of snow blackened appear as sand dunes, wind-swept. Water gathers on lower ground puddling above the half-frozen earth. My white shoes turn gray as they absorb moisture.
We walk, my husband and I. Brisk wind clears our heads and brings perspective as our bodies become alert to shelter us from the cold. We talk. What we say forms the layout of our week, establishes our vision, bonds us together. We travel the circle of our yard and arrive at the Quonset. Opening the Quonset door, we find shelter from the wind inside the darkened building. Monster machinery rises immediately above us nearly touching the ceiling. It seems impossible for the giant vehicles to fit inside a building, but they do.
I climb the stairs to the cab of our tractor. Dwight pushes the door handle release button after I struggle to make an impact on it. The cab has been cleaned and polished since I last saw it in the fall when it looked more like a work-horse than a show-piece. Summer routines fill my thoughts. How comfortable it feels to sit in memories that will be recreated for another season.
Dwight pulls out The Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes which
has been jammed under the buddy seat, a book I bought in
Dwight mumbles something, and I descend the tractor steps. How familiar even the most unfamiliar of objects can become. “I am not going to strive,” he says. “Not if I am going to survive.”
I listen and think…no, of course not, because life is before us to live and survival comes from a hand much larger than ours. “It should be an interesting summer,” Dwight muses. I agree, and we both laugh softly as we step out of the building and are swept into the wind’s driving course again.
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Mar. 25, 2006 - Yoked with One
Only God could've known
What the future might hold.
And together we face
What we cannot see.
Our hearts are a flight
And then down again.
Tears watering growth
Splash down laughing faces.
Our children are lights
Brighter than the sun.
Together we remember...
Yoked with one.
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Mar. 23, 2006 - Clinging to Promises
Sometimes life broadsides us with a change of direction we would have never imagined. When that happens, it’s good to remember that, although the earth is rumbling under our feet, God never changes. He is forever our I AM.
Tonight I am clinging to that promise as I fall asleep.
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Mar. 22, 2006 - The Perfect Decision
In the decision-making process a moment sits like an hour on the canvas of a day. The agony of plodding through the intricacies of each possibility saps my limited storehouse of energy. It is as if my mind were a computer driven by alien software, programmed to discover unrealized eventualities and endlessly play out possible scenarios. I know why computers freeze-up.
There’s a limit to what we can know of the future and of what we can predict.
“It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.” 2 Samuel 22:33
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Mar. 19, 2006 - Together Family
It is quiet. When you’re used to bustles of constant activity, it is amazing how mute the house seems when no one else is there. Yesterday was my time for real quite as Dwight took all seven kids with him to run errands. But this morning, I share the home with Eli, our eight month old baby who hasn’t quite been himself the last two days and is spreading his tummy trouble to me. The rest of the family went to church.
I am imagining them there: They will fill a pew with their various body sizes, heads of different hair colors turning this way and that. The older ones know to keep still and usually do. The younger ones will take their turns on daddy’s lap, sometimes bouncing, sometimes over his shoulder, sometimes between his legs.
Pencils are in high demand during church time. One or two of the children will be vying for them more than once this morning since there aren’t usually enough to go around. The older ones will shush the younger ones, some of them helpfully trying to distract the little ones from their confinement.
And Dwight will sit there, a pleasant, peaceful look on his face. Sometimes his eyes will close; he will be in prayer earnestly seeking the Lord in his heart. But mostly he will listen, thoughtfully taking in words of life, weighing them with the measuring stick of his experience. He will think of me and feel my absence. He will be tenderly proud of the children God has given us.
At home, I can’t help but to think of them. A family is meant to be together. These days a “together” family says a lot.
The phone just rang. It was Dwight. All went well at service and the family is heading to a fund-raising function for an ill child at another church. I continue to try to pacify my own little sick one as he spits up between the words I am typing.
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Mar. 15, 2006 - Opportunities
Have you ever been on the edge of something big? I mean like a really big opportunity?
Just having the possibilities open up to you sharpens you, doesn’t it? It means you have to grapple with it.
You must ask yourself questions: Am I up for it? Can my family cope with the changes it might bring? Will I be able to handle increased levels of responsibility? As you ask yourself these questions you grow. You begin to practice what life might be like by stepping up your attention and execution of daily tasks. The house is cleaner; the beds get made; the dinner menus are evaluated; the laundry gets done; pictures, which have sat on the floor for months, join the ranks of those already hung; the tub gets re-caulked.
Children get shaped up too. Suddenly, everybody needs a haircut. How long have the boys been walking around in floods? And every time you encounter a little face in the course of a day it gets wiped: nose, mouth, chin and cheeks. Where did those chore charts go that I made two months ago?
It’s like a practice run. If we took this opportunity, life would demand that these things get done efficiently so we could move beyond just the mundane. We would need to keep up with a quickening pace and grow more accountable to those beyond our home. Our personal discipline would have to match a spiritual discipline to trust in God and God alone. Every member of our family would need to synchronize. We would need to be ready.
But what if we didn’t take the opportunity before us? What of the sharpening, the honing, the streamlining? Would we loose it all? Would we just slump back into what once was? Nobody wants to go backwards after exerting the effort it takes to move forward; yet, if the opportunity is not taken what direction than becomes forward? Can we stay sharp for that which is currently not before us? Can daily routines stay tight for what is simply the “everyday?” What will become our motivation?
I pause to think….
It seems obvious that motivation should not come through opportunity only. It should be there ready, waiting in the unknown for what may eventuate. Wedded with God’s holy purposes motivation should drive us to be our best in the everyday. Steeled and tested by the mundane, forged in the furnace of self-discipline and submission to Christ, humbled by the omnipresence of a Greater Love.
Our
father, take us on paths of righteousness for your name’s sake. May we
serve you with acumen and dedication, daily giving all that is ours to
you, waiting and watching for opportunity – really big opportunity – at
every turn.
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Mar. 13, 2006 - Connections in Humility
Humility ties the hearts of family members together. In it we become many generations bound as equals under one God.
Let our family live as one, loving more than self , working to impact those who live beyond comfort’s reach, glorifying the One whose breath sustains our lives.
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Mar. 13, 2006 - Family of Individuals
Sitting at the computer I can hear the familiar noises of our household. Keys are clicking on the keyboard. The baby breathes deeply as he nurses. Echoes of a two year old’s giggle travel down the hall. My sons, ten and twelve, mill around and wander in and out of my room asking me advice on how to do computer animation and “make the best movie ever made.”
“Hmmm..., I’ll have to think about that, boys, it’s not really my area of expertise, but I’m sure there’s someone out there who knows about computer animation,” is all I can think of to say and I try not to sound too half-hearted as I stare at my computer screen.
The little ones are chattering, the six year old exerting her intellectual dominance over the four year old. Our teenager bounds up the stairs after being called by her dad.
There is a lot of energy in a family. Individuals springing up from two other individuals that God has joined, bumping into and intermingling with even more individuals made from the same union, God-given interests shaping each one, pulling all of them in different directions while at the same time (hopefully) uniting them as one.• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link
Mar. 9, 2006 - Speakers Making Life Interesting
Last night we had a wonderful time attending a fund-raising banquet for a local crisis pregnancy clinic. The speaker was Michael Reagan, the adopted son of President Ronald Reagan and his first wife Jane Wyman. Wow! Does he ever have an amazing history! I hung on to every word as his story of God's grace slowly fell into my heart word-by-word, all the while weaving a fascinating texture into my understanding of one of America's greatest presidents.
This weekend we will be attending a Home Educators' Convention. Mark Hamby of Lamplighter Publishing will be the speaker. He is also an excellent story-teller. I had the privilege of hearing him at MACHE several years ago.. Hamby's message is one of family reconciliation which I would guess is pertinent to all families most of the time. My parents will be joining us to watch the little ones, so we are looking forward to the whole weekend.
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