We have moved my husband's surgery up to the end of December, instead of January.  Through circumstances beyond our control, we believe the Lord is prompting the change.  Therefore, if you don't mind, I'd appreciate your prayers sooner, rather than later.  I don't know how I'll get through Christmas, knowing how much our lives will change just a few days after.  It goes without saying, we'll not be partying much on New Years' Eve (not that we ever do, anyway, but still.)  By then, I'll just be thankful to have him home, at least I hope he'll be home by then.  Oh, please pray that everything will go well and he'll recover quickly.  I want this behind us so badly.  Part of me doesn't want to talk about it anymore.  Thank you, my friends, for putting up with me going on and on about this.  Good ol' blog.  There's a lot about the Internet I do not like but I'm thankful for this blog.  Also thankful for you people who read it and haven't gotten bored with me by now.  I'm feeling rather boring at the moment.  I'm in a rut and uninspired.  That's when I start talking about the weather (see prev. post!) 

My husband keeps telling me to write a book and make some money.  Oh, yeah, that's easy.  No problem!  He's either being encouraging or just wishful-thinking (or both).  Which reminds me of something my kids did two nights ago.  After dinner, we started talking about owning a book shop.  My kids and I want to have a business someday and I think that is what sparked the idea.  We all think it would be wonderful to sell books - and we could read when business was slow!  After having fun with this idea, my middle son, Alec, and Carmen both declared they were going to write their life story.  They got paper and pencil and started at the beginning, "I was born ..." and so forth.  My oldest son, Chad, didn't want to write but I said, "Don't distract them - they're inspired!"  So I played the board game "Clue" with him while the kids wrote, spelling words for them as they asked.  It got kind of loud and wild at the dinner table but that's the norm.  My 6 yo, Carmen, wrote more than I expected since she has just learned to read.  I was really pleased with her writing.  She made a cover for her "book" (which was just one page but, hey, she's only 6, her life is just starting!)  Alec wrote one page and said he was going to stop there and wait to live his life some more before he wrote about it.  The whole time, I was silently thrilled about this awesome "homeschool" moment, inspired by a simple idea.  I couldn't help but think that if I had assigned them to "write the story of your life", their enthusiasm would not have been so great.  But since it came from their own minds, they were enjoying their self-inspired writing lesson.  This kind of moment doesn't happen too often but I love it when it does.  No, it didn't have any structure, no beginning, middle and ending, no grammar lesson (other than Alec told Carmen where to put periods).  But that's how we learn in this house.  A bit of structure, lots of spur-of-the-moment learning time.  Be it good or bad.  I also find that teaching something WHEN it's needed is very beneficial for my kids.  Today, Alec was spelling his word list and I brought up the subject of syllables (I can't remember why but it applied at the time.)  We also talked about emphasis, which was fun because I taught him how different words sound if you emphasize the wrong syllable.  And he corrected me when I said a particular word had 4 syllables - it should have had 5.  When we were done with our discussion, I could tell he "got it".

Another area that I have been pleasantly surprised by was Bible memorization.  It's something I have struggled to teach without much success until now.  I came across a little brochure from Rod & Staff about Bible memorization and followed their advice.  It suggested starting with the "Lord's Prayer" and listed steps to better memorization.  I have been reminding the boys nearly every day and today, after several weeks, I asked each boy to tell me what they'd memorized.  They both knew a lot more than I thought they would - praise the Lord!  I think they were excited themselves that they could remember so much, so I am encouraged that we'll continue to succeed in this area.  It's important for them to have scripture in their minds and hearts.

Hey, I think I'm out of that rut!  Turn the focus off of me and on to my kids.  That's a sure way to see beyond my woes.  Since I probably won't post again until after Thanksgiving, I want to wish my US friends a

Happy Thanksgiving! 

I feel badly that I'm looking more forward to my early morning shopping trip to Purple Cow (our local toy store) for their 20% off sale on Friday.   But I really need to think about being thankful for all that God has blessed us with.  I need to let that be the focus, for me and my kids.  I also have to make enough fruit salad for 16 people.  Easy but time-consuming and last-minute.   And, NO, I don't put anything on the fruit except a little orange juice and a sprinkling of sugar.  Fruit should not be covered in white dressing of any kind but my sister will argue that one - that is, IF she were speaking to me.  Fortunately, I celebrate with my dh's family and his mom loves my fruit salad.  She requests it every year.  She either likes it a lot or she knows to ask me to bring something I can't burn.