Zgarba Zeal

Hurry Up and WAIT!!

I don't think waiting is all that hard for me.  I usually find ways to fill my time, even if it is just a good book to read.  But these past two weeks have redefined waiting.  After my last post, I did have to go to the ER, and was diagnosed with a kidney stone which was lodged in the ureter.  I followed up with my urologist, the only one in the area, and scheduled a lithotripsy (sound waves blast the stone into tiny gravel that are easier to pass).  Since I had come down with a bad cold and had lost my voice, he also prescribed an antibiotic to make sure I didn't develop any other nasty bugs before the procedure.  Unfortunately, I had a severe reaction to the medication and ended up hospitalized.  Since then, my heart has been racing.  And racing, and racing.  While I was in the hospital, the doctor placed a stint to make sure my kidney could continue to function.  Lithotripsy was rescheduled, and home I went.  The tachycardia did not go away, though, and a subsequent EKG proved abnormal (inverted T waves), so lithotripsy was cancelled again. 

So here I am.  Two weeks and I still have a stone.  Thankfully, oh so thankfully, I have no pain.  My pulse seems to be returning to normal after 1 1/2 weeks of racing.  Hopefully, I will find out soon what the new plan is.  And hopefully, we can wait until after thanksgiving.

As to our Thanksgiving study--we finished Leif the Lucky and started Columbus today.  We should finish Columbus tomorrow and next week we will read Pocahontus and If You Sailed on the Mayflower.  We are also using a globe to trace the routes that Leif and Columbus took and a dictionary to look up unfamiliar words.  And The Usborne Book of World History has been a great resource with this unit study.

When December comes, we will begin our Christmas study, which always includes reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Another ER Visit--ALMOST

More drama in our family.  I have a genetic defect called medullary sponge kidney disease.  It's not as ominous as it sounds, although some people do seem to have a terrible time with it.  People with MSK have deformed kidneys.  The drainage tubes in the kidneys have small pockets where urine collects and turns to stones.  I have hundreds of these pockets in both my kidneys and hundreds of stones.  I know; it sounds like I'm exaggerating.  But my doctor said there were too many stones to count.  I used to joke that my x-rays looked like I had been hunting with Dick Cheney.  (An x-ray of my kidneys shows tw oval areas of what looks like buckshot!)  Some people have chronic kidney infections, constant pain, and other problems.  I am truly blessed with sporatic pain, and so far only one kidney infection when I was 11 years old.  (I wasn't diagnosed until I was 38 y.o.  Most people aren't diagnosed until their first kidney stone.  I probably had my first stone when I was 18, but they didn't do any x-rays or extensive testing, just sent me home with an "I don't know what's wrong with her, probably in her head" look.)

Thursday I had another kidney stone, large enough to cause severe pain.  The only reason I even want to write about it, though, is that I have to tell you about my sweet children.  Around 8 p.m. that night after about 3 hours of unrelenting pain, I lay down on our bed.  Before that I had a heating pad and rice sock (tube sock full of dry rice heated in the microwave) and sat in a chair or paced the house.  By this time, I had reached the point of wanting to go to the ER.  I made calls to arrange that, knowing I would probably be there HOURS if not days.  Then I just lay there.  Praying.  Oh, how I prayed. 

Then my sweet children came in to ask if I needed anything.  They re-heated my rice sock, brought me water, and then began to sing the most beautiful songs.  Noah sang "Good night, sweet Mommy, flush that stone right down the drain."  Jonah sat on the bed and held my hand, and Gracie sang "Silent Night".  What an amazing prayer meeting we had.  They got ready for bed, and we had our evening prayers.  Again, they prayed for my healing, and as they prayed the pain subsided GREATLY.  Within an hour, I passed the stone!

I love my children and my dear husband.  You're probably wondering what he was doing?!  He so hates to see me in pain and feels completely helpless.  He's really good, though.  He makes sure I have what I need, reheats the rice sock, brings me water, stays close enough that I can tell him if I need anything, but doesn't hover.  He prays for me, and reaches out to our friends and family to ask for prayer.  I had prayers going up all over this country.  (Just before Mark's heart attack, we joined Facebook at the urging of one of his brothers.  We thought it would be a good way to stay in touch with family and share pictures.  It has turned into a blessed prayer ministry.  When we need prayer, we share our requests--our "friends" are limited to family and friends, no strangers--and friends post their prayer requests.  So many people we have been able to pray with, so many old friends we've found, and so many relationships built with family that we saw only at reunions and so briefly, then.)

So today I am just resting.  We will be celebrating Jonah's 11th birthday with my parents this afternoon.  His birthday isn't until the 16th Nov., but my parents will be out of town.  He's kind of excited.  He gets an early birthday and then we will celebrate his birthday at home on the day.

And I'm counting my blessings!!

Praying for our Soldiers

Thanksgiving Unit Study

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS

We are taking an extended break from our History of the World unit study.  We have worked our way to Noah and will take up the history of Noah and his sons, the Tower of Babel, and Sumer when we resume our studies in January.  In the meantime, we will NOT be idle.  (Aren't idle hands the devil's workshop?)  This week we have been doing a fun unit study around the book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

I found a unit study using this book here.  We will be using some of these ideas as well as our own.  We added a Bible study reading the story of Moses and the children of Israel who were fed manna and quail from the heavens by the Lord.  Egermeier's Story Book Bible is a great resource.  We have two weather books to use:  The Magic School Bus:  Kicks up a Storm and How It Works:  The World's Weather.  We continue to discuss healthy eating.  And, of course, we will be eating spaghetti and meatballs.

HomeMade Laundry Soap

I wanted to post this link again.  We made our second batch of laundry soap.  The first lasted about 6 months.  (We do about 10 loads of laundry each week.)  On my second batch, I was less exact.  I didn't measure the water exactly, just added what I thought was about right.  I really, really like this recipe.  It's easy to make and works well.

Here's the link to my first post:  http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/JoyfulMomma/676876/

And here's the link to the recipe:  http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/laundrysoap.htm

Battling the Flu

I'm Back...And Where We Are in our Studies...

I never really went away, but I have definitely neglected my blog.  I have been a bit frustrated by my lack of direction here.  I post school plans, family updates, health news, and miscellaneous thoughts.  And I guess this will continue to be a hodge podge of my scattered thoughts.

School Update--Plugging away!  We finished The Magician's Nephew within two days and we've also read Archaeologists Dig for Clues.  And we're about half way through each of the other books listed in my previous post.  We have also added a few other books and movies.  Biblically and historically we have reached the time of Noah.  One thing different this time around is that I have given myself permission to not finish a particular book or to just read excerpts from it.  We will most likely not be reading all of Genesis: Finding our Roots, but we will likely finish Adam and HIs Kin. 

We have added:  The Magic School Bus:  Inside the Earth, The Magic School Bus:  In the Time of the Dinosaurs, and Dinosaurs, a nature series by Dalmation Kids.  (All completed.)   We have read several chapters of a biography of Charles Darwin by David C. King and will continue to read it.  We have used an Usborne Flip Flap book for reference and will use it as we study other historical periods (Homes and Houses:  Then and Now).  I found a book, We're Sailing to the Galapagos:  A Week in the Pacific, which we will be reading and reviewing this week.  I also have a book that we will be reading called The Case for Creation by Wayne Frair and P. William Davis.  This was published in 1967 and I believe belonged to my dad.  This is NOT an exhaustive list of what we have read, but it does include most of the books we have used for this particular study.

We have enjoyed AVKO Sequential Spelling and Edward Brook's Mental Arithmetic, although I have had to modify their use to fit our family. 

During these last few months we have had to take time off for illness, the death of my grandmother, work and vacation.  Currently, we are battling the H1N1 Flu (no complications) so we haven't been doing the basics (spelling and math) but have instead been listening to books on tape and reading aloud.  We have also, these last few days, been watching Al Gore's An Incovenient Truth.  We have watched about an hour so far, and we are watching only a few minutes at a time then discussing what has been presented and examining the facts and the conclusions he draws compared against facts and science presented on other websites.

The children have also had individual projects that they have worked on.  Noah is busy creating stories, comic book heroes, and comic book drawings.  Jonah has tried his hand at gardening and has quite a pepper patch.  Grace has been sewing clothes for her stuffed animals and a nightgown for herself.

So...that is our semester.  I'm glad we started early so that I haven't had to worry about taking our time.  We will likely finish what we can this month, then take a break to do a Thanksgiving unit study and then a Christmas unit study.  (If we can get to Abraham, then we will begin incorporating the Weaver curriculum into our studies in January.)

Lessons Plans--I. Adam

I.  Adam

    A.  History

          1.  Adam and His Kin by Ruth Beechick (already own)

          2.  Story of the World--Vol. 1, by Susan Wise Bauer, just part of this and only maybe (borrow CD's from library)

          3.  Dinosaurs by Design by Duane Gish (own)

          4.  Archaeologists Dig for Clues by Kate Duke (own)

         5.  Egermeier's Story Book Bible (own) and the Bible Genesis 1-5  (I want them to KNOW that the Bible is not a book of stories but a history--a true account--of God's people.)

   B.  Bible

        1.  Genesis 1-5

        2.  Calvary Chapel printouts  (There are 5 sets of lesson sheets for the story of Creation, Adam, and the Fall.  Each free print out includes a coloring page for younger children, word finds and crossword puzzles for middle children, and more difficult word finds and crossword puzzles and questions for older children.   You can choose which worksheet is most appropriate for your child and print those.  Again, free resource!)

        3.Memory Verse--John 1:1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

    C.  Music--find a creation hymn and learn together  (I haven't looked yet, but I'm sure there is something good.)

    D.  Nature Study--Rocks

         Collect and label a variety of rocks.  We have a Magic School Bus book which has an excellent (but simple) chart to help categorize types of rocks.  I think it's called Magic School Bus:  Inside the Earth, but I have to find it.  It's not with the other Magic School Bus books.

    E.  Art

        Create a mosaic with rocks, pebbles, stones, or shells.

    F.  Copy Work--John 1:1, poem, other literature we are reading.  Also, rec'd this tidbit in email, so we will be using it for copy work:  "I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting system through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in." ~ George Washington Carver.  And the verse from Romans 1:20.

    G.  Poetry--Find creation poem, hopefully by Robert Frost or Robert Louis Stevenson, poets I wanted to concentrate on.

    H.  Literature--The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis.  We have this on CD, so we will listen to it together and they will narrate back to me.

Then we will do math and science as discussed in the previous post.

Obviously, this is a bare bones outline and I still have some work to do for this first unit.  But it's getting there.  We actually started on this unit yesterday.  I don't plan ahead on which book we will read which day, or how much of that book we will read.  I just kind of go with the flow.  We listened to 6 chapters in the Narnia book yesterday, then stopped, not because they asked to, but because we hit a point where we were having to pause too often for someone to get a drink or run to the bathroom.  (We had already been working about 2 1/2 hours by then, including other readings, so it was time to stop.)

I also want to look for appropriate videos, but haven't gotten that far yet.

We will have 3 periods of work:  10-12 noon, 1-3 p.m., and 8-9 p.m.  (Again, this is approximate.)  The evening time we already use for family prayers and worship and will just add some related reading, a hymn, practice the memory verse.  If we find that we are going later than 9 p.m., we will just begin a little earlier.  We may need to add an hour in the morning for the 3 R's, but we'll see how this works next week.  I don't know, looks like this may take us months to complete and I was hoping to finish in a few weeks.

We are all really excited to get started.

Lesson Plans Part I

I have been using several resources to pull this together, including Ussher's Annals of the World, Reading Your Way Through History, and www.amblesideonline.com.  So the broad outline:

I.  Adam (4004 BC)                                         Ancient Civilizations                     

II.  Noah (2948 BC)

III.  Nimrod (2234 BC)                                      Sumer

IV.  Abram/Abraham (1996 BC)

V.  Jacob

VI.  Joseph (1745 BC)                                      Ancient Egypt

VII.  Job (1635 BC)

(That's as far as I've gotten so far, in writing everything down.  Dates are based on Ussher's work and are approximate.)