~*~*God, you have called me to educate our children at home. I don't expect it to be easy, but I have to tell you, this son you gave me makes me want to give up and put big sister in school sometimes. He can be so difficult and demanding! How, exactly, am I to teach sissy, make the meals, keep the house cle...well, not a health hazard at least, keep little man out of trouble, clean up his messes and meet his agonizingly impossible demands...AND work 3 nights (or 4, as in this week) a week? You tell us to come boldly to the throne of grace for help in time of need...well, here I am Lord and I NEED HELP!!!!  I give this day to you and ask for the grace I need to not just get through it, but to do all things with joy, in love, and in the keeping of my calling as a homeschooling mother.

• The Small Academy of Tiny People
• The Unlimited Academy of Childish Education
• The Wild School of Merry Children
• The Skeptical Prep School of Freaky Education
  
• The Fresh Boarding School of Startling People
• The Amazing Finishing School of Discount Education

1. Start in September, (which we always do, but later because of the upcoming move ) finish in June; dividing the year up into 3 blocks...but this is school every day except holidays and scheduled vacations
2. Start in January and continue through December; this is three weeks on, one week off with two weeks off in June, July and August.
3. Follow the same school calendar as public school, which starts AUGUST 18. Madness.
4. Start in September, finish in August and start next school year in August

     Sometimes when I'm reading 101 Devotions for Homeschool Moms, I feel like Jackie Wellwood must somehow have gotten into my head or my heart. Which is encouraging - I know I'm not the only one dealing with whatever is causing me grief or stress at the moment, that there's someone down in the trench with me.  Sometimes it's like God is speaking right directly to me.

     I opened up my book to number 36, "No More Trials, Please" and almost continued looking for something else to read today, but my eye caught the verse:

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.                                           Romans 8:28

     Well, first of all, I do love God so this is pertinent to me.  And it suddenly hit me that all the things I struggle with, internally and externally, God is using to refine me and mold me into the woman  He planned for me to be.  I've always known God uses circumstances to refine us, but it was a proverbial light bulb moment for me. 

     In particular is the struggle I have with my husband's ex. That is a long complicated story so I will give you the Reader's Digest  Condensed Version. My husband is my high school sweetheart, but we broke up while still in high school and he started dating what is now his ex. We parted ways, but I never really got over that break up and could never understand what he saw in her.  Over a decade later, the Lord brought us back together, as was His original plan for us. We were both saved at a young age, but walked away from the Lord and were very backslidden as adolescents and up into our late 20's/30's.  We have always known that we were meant for each other, and when we were together again it was like we were finally on the right track, finally that restlessness and disconnectedness I had felt since our separation dissipated.

     During that time we were separated, they had 3 kids together. Their marriage and life together was very chaotic, culminating in my in-laws getting guardianship over the boys. Around the time that the Lord caused our paths to cross again, their mother took off for several months and no one knew where she was. Since that time, she has been in and (mostly) out of their lives.  Oh, she always has some reason why she can't be around or help take care of them...but, well, I better stop there. 

     I had really forgiven her at one time and God asked me to be kind to her. She had just moved back up here and basically had nothing. So I helped her out as I could. I wanted to kind of taker her under my wing because I really wanted to see her get back on her feet and get to a place where she could have her boys again - children need their mother!  She had been gone for several years at that point and during that time, we had a daughter together and my husband regained custody of his boys.  Things were going fairly well for us as a family. It was tough at times though. The boys have deep wounds in their hearts from all the dysfunction they have endured from their parents. And even though I had the best of intentions, I messed up in my dealings with them fairly regularly.

     Their mother was around for a couple of years, long enough to work her divisive magic,  then took off again a couple years ago. Things have changed dramatically between the boys and their father and myself. Part of me just doesn't want to put forth the effort to try and reconcile with them...I don't want to get hurt I guess. Part of me wishes they were my boys, because if they had been mine, their lives would have been completely different. They would not have endured some of the things that no child should ever have to experience.  My husband never really had much of a bond with his boys, had an emotinally unavailable father himself, and really doesn't know how to connect with them either. It just feels completely hopeless to me, so what's the point of trying?

     In 8 days, my oldest stepson is graduating from high school (the boys are public schooled). I had asked him if his mother was coming and he said he didn't know. That could mean she may not have a way to get here (she lives several hours away) or she doesn't want anyone to know she's going to be here until she shows up.  I asked again later and he said she is coming. So now I have to deal with being around her. I don't even want to live in the same universe with her, much less have to see her or talk to her at graduation and his open house. It's like, you've been gone for over half his life for the most part and then you show up for graduation, wanting all the glory for being his mother? Give me a break lady.

     I don't want to put on a face that doesn't match what's inside, but what's inside at this point is so ugly...I don't want to wear that face either. So, God has been bringing little things here and there to the surface...dross to be skimmed away.  I have 8 days to find some kind of peace with all of this. I realized a while ago that the reason I don't want to forgive her again is that the last time I did that and put my heart out there, she crapped all over it and I don't want to do that again. I don't regret one thing I did for her, because God asked me to do it, but I do regret being so naive about her and trusting her more than I should have.

     So, all these trials and tribulations, and this big one...learning to forgive and forgive again and again, learning to love someone you despise, God is using them to make me a better wife, mother, sister, friend,  and woman. I journaled:

... I have been called to the ministry of motherhood, so the trials I experience should not be dreaded, but embraced and allowed to work God's purpose in my life and to work out the undesireable traits within me in order to become more like Christ.

     Looks good on paper, doesn't it? The practical application, however, is another story. I know it will be painful, difficult, and uncomfortable to allow God to work these things out of me.  I feel like a lump of dough, being kneaded and kneaded. The end result will be a soft, pliable dough, without air pockets, that will bake up beautifully and nourish and comfort all who partake of it. It will be worth it in the end, but in the interim I question whether I want to go through with it at all. I do have that choice, after all. I don't have to cooperate with God on anything. I can do my own thing. The only problem with that is that it only ends in chaos.

     The weekly book study group I belong to is starting a new book, The Power of Motherhood, by Nancy Campbell. I read the first chapter and it is already challenging me in the way I have viewed motherhood. I guess I've never really had a concrete (or completely accurate, for that matter) view of biblical motherhood. Apparently there is much more to mothering than just taking care of your children. As I was reading and pondering, I really felt the Lord's gentle conviction conerning my relationship with the 3 boys he has blessed me with. Though I did not give birth to them, God has still called me to mother them. What if they don't let me? They are so hurt and have that "tough" exterior...they would probably never acknowledge, or even admit it if they did, that they might need me to mother them. Can I even dare to hope that they would want me to?

     I recently had my last MOPS meeting. I was on the Steering Team, something I so greatly enjoy. I did Publicity this year and produced our bimonthly newsletter.  I had so many great ideas that I was excited about trying next year...yet felt that God wanted me to step down from steering. As I prayed and considered this, I realized that God was asking me to pull back and focus on my family. I was just thinking of my immediate (household-wise) family, but today I'm thinking that maybe God is leading me down the path of reconciliation with my stepsons.  And that can only be fully accomplished after I reconcile with their mother. Am I up to this? God  never puts or allows more on us than what we can handle, though I often think He is much more confident of my abilities than I am. I want to fully walk in all the destiny, blessing and love that He has for me and I can't do that dragging around a bunch of baggage, so I'm going to have to let it go. Once and for all, always keeping in mind that ALL things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose...

I am fortunate today to have a few moments to myself. Kids are in the bath having a blast, so I am using this opportunity to sit down with my favorite devotional book: 101 Devotions for Homeschool Moms, by Jackie Wellwood.

I did chapter 35 "I Don't Know How to Do This!" and it was very insightful for me.  The verse was 2 Corinthians 12:9

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee:  for my strentght is made perfect in weakness.  Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

I often struggle with feeling so inadequate and incapable. But it never occured to me that I should consider this a blessing, an opportunity for Christ to be glorified through me.  Here I am, working so hard at DOING homeschool without allowing God to just BE who He is through me.  Lord, help me stay out of your way!

In the "food for thought" section at the end, she says list the inadequacies that I feel are hampering my homeschool efforts and seek the Lord's direction in these areas. As I wrote each one, I realized that I rarely take these concerns to Him in prayer! Shouldn't this be the first thing I do when I feel stressed in those areas?

I am thankful today that I can provide the Lord with AMPLE space to show up and be the amazing God He is! I am certainly NOT inadequate in that area!

Well, my precious few moments to myself are over. I have a plan for the day that I prayed over and prioritized, so I better get at it. Even though my daughter learns in spite of my inadequecies and failings, I am still an educational tool being used by the Lord. I want to be a Power Tool! I must stay plugged into the Power Source to  work effectively!

Hannah is very excited to be doing this study on horses. She got right into the notebooking without me "nagging" her to get to work! What a wonderful way to learn! I hope I'm doing this right with the pics. Some of these blog sites are really easy to use, this one seems to have a bit of a learning curve...or I'm just old! This is a pic of Hannah busy at copywork.

This is her notebook

And here is my Happy little girl! I'm very pleased with her handwriting this year. She has neat penmanship, something I value greatly! She's so wonderful...I'm so thankful God has blessed me with such a treasure for a daughter!

We had an interruption in our schedule this week...one I should have planned for but did not.  So, Friday will be Unit Study Bonanza day as we catch up in that.  Math and handwriting are current...thank God for that! I am eager to get back into this study with her...I'm interested in horses as well!

Now, I am off to bed...first must make my honey's lunch for tomorrow. I'm also so thankful for my husband! He takes good care of us! It's so wonderful sharing life with the one God created just for you. He is my best friend and I miss him when he's not here!

I mentioned in my last post that I thought I  should look around the house and see what I have on hand already to contain our Homeschooling Clutter.  I found the old-faithful of storage containers...the banana box. The Universal Storage Device.

I took a good long look at the top of my desk. Had to, as it was just buried in stuff. The Piles that were still there from the last time I organized (I'm a Piler, not a Filer), the intention being that the Piles would stay neatly stacked until The Cabinet arrived.  Of course, I needed something in each one of the Piles at one time or another, plus Random Stuff found its way there...

Me:  Ok everyone, it's time to get this mess cleaned up! Hannah, you clear off the [table, counter, whatever].

Hannah: Mom, what do I do with this?

Me: What is "this"? You have to be more specific than that!

Hannah: It's [something that did not belong where it was]

Me:  Oh, just go put it on the desk, I'll take care of it later....

The Random Stuff then began to breed in the dark of the night, and when we were away.  It began to overrun the desk...AGAIN.  It wasn't really that big of a deal, as far as functionality goes. We didn't often use the computer here since we did not have internet access for quite some time.  I worked on the M.O.P.S. newsletter at the library, and there just wasn't much else to use it for, other than printing out monthly budget sheets.

But now, we have internet, high speed even! No more dialup for us, thank God!  It is much easier to see the monitor without Mt. Papermore in front of it!  And it only took two banana boxes to contain the Stuff.  The bottom box is Stuff we don't use often.  The top box is Daily Stuff we use, well, daily.  I even cleared Stuff off of the baker's rack in the kitchen.  It is nefariously placed next to our table, where much of our schooling takes place.  And me, being the Piler that I am, well...it's Mindless Piling, really.  I don't even realize that I've Piled there until I can't get to the cookbooks for fear of an avalanche.  Not a bad organizational day for me. It looks much neater here and my daughter could even work at the desk to do her interactive unit study on horses today! If I can figure out how to post pics on this blog, I'll do that.  Xanga has a photo uploader tool that really makes it easy. I haven't figured this one out yet though!

We learned at bedtime tonight that the Sun rings!  It is too low a frequency for human ears to pick up, but of course scientists have a nifty instrument for that! We just love that children's Atlas of the Universe that I picked up at Border's the other day. We keep getting distracted from other subjects and tasks to sit and read about all of the amazing things God placed in our universe.  Just thinking about our Sun took my breath away, and it's not even that big as far as stars go!   I have also been working on invitations tonight for my oldest stepson's high school graduation and open house.   Just a couple weeks away...I've got to get a move on!  Fortunately, my desk is clean. I have a place to start my day with a plan.  A Plan...hhmmm...I guess that's my next Project.  Coming up with a Master Plan, or Routine as FlyLady would say!  Trouble is, I've never been a routine-y kind of person. And that's caused a lot of trouble for me over the years...

I have this strong inner longing for order. I like it when things work correctly, too. When there is chaos and nothing works like it should...well, that just irritates me. I suppose by now I would be used to it! But oh, how I long to fall into the magazine spreads that taunt me with wide, open floor plans, white furniture and gleaming chrome fixtures in the kitchen and bath. Not the sterile, Cosmopolitan apartments in New York city...but the remodeled 1898 farm house or the quaint little East Coast Cape Cod or something along those lines.

I can smell the scent of the fresh-cut flowers as they serenade the atmosphere with their delicate fragrance.  Hear the crisp, linen curtains dancing in a warm, Spring breeze that gently frolics throughout the house.  Feel the embrace of the Comfy Chair that resides next to the Coffee Table With Character in the living room, neatly adorned with flickering eco-friendly soy candles and the latest copies of my favorite magazines...a refreshing glass of iced tea perspiring in waiting.

Obviously, no children live there! But how sad that perfectly decorated home must be without the giggles and smiles, sticky fingerprints and AWOL lego pieces, abandoned sippys, and magic refrigerators that cool the ENTIRE neighborhood in the summer while magically restocking themselves with junk food when no one is looking...the evidence of the love of a husband and wife, the blessing of God...my children!  Is it possible to have both...at the same time? I dare to dream!

I have gradually come to accept that children and mess go hand in hand. At least at my house they do! People who have known me my whole life may be scratching their heads in confusion as they read this. Dawn...a spotlessly neat home...in the same vicinity, or zip code even? Surely I jest!  No really...all these years that I have struggled with clutter I have had this Inner Neatnik tied up and thrown in a closet somewhere.  She longs to be free, yet doesn't want to be the one to do all the work...

And so we must factor in the kiddos.  My two kiddos in particular are mini-me's.  The oldest because she has lived with me her whole life and I have done a marvelous job of modeling behavior that I DON'T want in her...the youngest because he's just started walking in the last month or so and there is just SO much to explore now! PLUS, the added bonus of Big Sister's personal training by yours truly. It seems the deck is stacked against me, and I'm the dealer!

I'm finally at a place where I am starting to just do stuff because it needs done, not just leaving it because it's someone else's chore that day. My house is not over run by clutter, for the most part. Well, my desk is a breeding ground for it and right now is the bane of my existence! I need a cabinet with doors to store homeschool materials in. I am apparently waiting to find the "perfect" cabinet. I keep finding some on sale (oh, that's perfect!) but they are too narrow (that just won't do!) and so the search continues.

I had a thought today to look around the house and see what I already have that could be used to store things temporarily so the desk can still be used as it was designed.  And when that cabinet finally gets here, it will be a simple matter to transfer materials to it. Making do with what I have...creating an atmosphere of order using the tools I already have instead of waiting until everything is perfect. That's why I don't get a lot of things done sometimes...I'm waiting for the perfect something...moment, time, object.  Lord, free me from the bondage of perfectionism!

I have been learning, albeit excruciatingly slowly, to quit being uptight about things that really have no eternal value and letting my kiddos be kiddos.  There are, of course, better times than others for wild, childish effervescence. And teaching my children to know the difference between being orderly because the occasion calls for it and abandoning all sense of civility for the pure pleasure of unfettered imagination...well, I'm still learning that myself! I think it will be a good lesson to learn for all of us in the Yoder home...sticky floors and all!

We will be starting a  unit study today called "All About Horses."  I purchased a bunch of neat materials from currclick.com, including this.  My daughter adores horses...and dogs, cats, butterflies, lizards, snakes...pretty much anything from the living creature category! She was thrilled to know that I got this unit study for her. It is an interactive unit study, with web links. I can't wait to get her started on it!

I have printed out the necessary pages for our first couple of days. Our first day will consist of putting together her notebook and designing a bulletin board presentation.  Plus some Math-U-See and handwriting practice.  I'm sure we will also spend quite a lot of time looking at a children's Atlas of the Universe I picked up in the bargain section at Border's Saturday.

Well, there it is. An official "schedule"...so now I must stick to it. We also have an appointment in the early afternoon so we will need an early start at the day. I better be getting to sleep soon! I really hope that posting my plan for the next day will help me stay on top of our schooling.  We are trying a 3 weeks on, 1 week off approach through the summer, and hope to continue that from here on out.

I hear my pillow calling my name...off to make my honey's lunch and hit the hay!