I love the verse that tells us God's mercies are new every morning, because I definitely need a fresh start every day! I have a hard time maintaining anything for long - and boy was yesterday long! See, I forget things. I forgot, for example, to let my husband in on the fact that the kids haven't been doing any work for several weeks (well, any is rather harsh, how about much?) and they have been taking full advantage of my distraction lately to - as Michael so succinctly put it last night - work hard on being stupid. So, after a very major lecture from Principal Dad, we all started fresh today. Clean slate. I'm so glad we are homeschooling!
So why am I so distracted lately? Funny you should ask. My band (Unchained - as soon as we get a good recording I'll post it and put a link here) is partnered with Prisoners for Christ and we will be going into prisons, performing and ministering. Our first gig is in 2 weeks. I have less than 2 weeks to learn all the lyrics (we can't take in our music binders, someone forgot to put them on the list of gear which will be checked down to the last patch cord when we go in and out of the prison) AND learn how to set up and tear down a brand new sound system in less than 15 minutes and do a sound check and power check all in that same block of time! Yikes! I've started dreaming about it. Scary dreams, where things catch on fire; I forget my words; cables don't reach; screaming, eardrum-tearing feedback abounds, etc... you know tha type of dreams I mean, where everything that can go wrong does. But I know that God will use even the bad to bring about good, and will minister to those He wants to regardless of how good or bad we are.
I work part time at a church, and I take the kids with me. They have their own little space to do their work, although they usually spend their time there avoiding schoolwork while I'm busy. This was another aspect of last night's Principal Dad lecture. They will from now on be required to do what they are assigned before they go off to play (and yes, Dad will be checking in on them, and no, I'm not TOTALLY helpless, just distracted and forgetful - I forget sometimes to feed them!).
So, today we are starting fresh. We read the Bible, worked on math and copywork, and now we're having lunch. Feeding time at the zoo! Leter, we'll go to the church and they will do their reading and give each other spelling tests. And I will work on perfecting the sound system set-up and tear down. And all will be well, for today at least. I'm sure we'll need that fresh start tomorrow morning!