Jan. 6, 2008 Emotion will follow devotion...
Jan 6th, and we start back up tomorrow. I'm not sure I'm ready for this, but I'm determined to make it look good! I'm going on the principle that emotion will follow devotion. It seems I'm always preaching that feelings will follow faith. I'm definitely ready for the structure of school, and even my 13 year old says he'll be glad when school starts so he can't get in so much trouble. I didn't bother mentioning to him that he was in plenty of trouble BEFORE Christmas break. Thirteen is such a hard year...
The holidays have been great--because of how Christmas and New Year's fell this year, dH decided to close the clinic on Monday & Tuesday, and they're closed on Wednesday, anyway. So he worked his 1/2 day on Saturday, and then we had Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off--TWO weeks in a row! Oh, wow, what a blessing! You're hearing from a woman whose hubby has had approximately 5 Saturdays off in the last 24 years! These "long weekends" are incredibly rare for us, mostly because of the profession we chose, but also because it's our own business. These holdays were certainly a time of peace for me. Just having him home nourished my soul. I will never be one of those wives who have trouble adjusting to a hubby being home all the time upon retirement. I'll slip right into it like it's how it was always meant to be. I do envy the homeschool families who have Dad home, too, because his job is right there at their home.
I'm excited about Mystery of History, all over again. I'm reading The Histories of Herodotus right now, along with DS-17, and it's so entertaining. Herodotus cracks us both up, with "I've digressed again, but I need not apologize, since this has been my habit from the beginning of this work." I have 17yo DS in Omnibus for History this year. The curriculum changes we've made have been good. I'm very satisfied.
Wow, that right there should fill me with enthusiasm! Usually at this time of year, I'm groaning that we've wasted the whole year, and we're only half through!
Hope you all have a wonderful year with your kids. I'm going to try to, starting tonight, with getting enough rest.
Bless you all!
Melanie
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Jul. 28, 2007 A New Season
Apologies in advance for this entry being dry, but I've been off my blog for so long, I feel the only way to jump back in is to give a synopsis of what's taken place over the last few months.
Wow, where has my summer gone? After our spring-time crisis, of me having to work in our family business, the kids and I spent summer making up what school was missed. A LOT of school was missed. But a LOT of school DID get done, too, which I find to be absolutely miraculous.
For the first time in a while, Love of my Life and I did not take a vacation alone together. I just felt too overwhelmed by everything on my plate here at home. So Love of my Life is on vacation by himself, right now, sea kayaking at the Straits of Mackinaw. I'm so glad he went, and I'm praying that he comes back refreshed, and having met with God.
I've spent this week doing 4H meetings and trying to help my two youngest get ready for fair. And my oldest will be going to Indy, the week the others do fair, for the National Fine Arts Festival for our denomination. He's taking one of his short stories to the Festival.
And the day after clean-up at the fairgrounds, Aug 13th, we're going to start school. Sigh....Why so soon? Because our family vacation this year is going to be centered around a veterinary conference in Kansas City, for about 2 weeks at the end of September.
Our big excitement for this school year is that we're departing from the "off the rack" curriculum we've always used.
When I began homeschooling, the Love of my Life wasn't sure I could provide a comprehensive, cohesive eduaction. (He was wise to be cautious, although I was hurt and offended at the time.) Together we chose A Beka with its k-12 program, all spelled out. And the year we bought the clinic, and I had to work, their video home school program allowed us to continue home schooling. Because the kids were already doing that curriculum, the adjustment was less difficult than it might have been, otherwise. We did video for 3 years, and it has its merits, but it wasn't what we wanted for our home school.
Last year, I looked for different science curriculum, because science is not a strong point for A Beka, and we found Apologia. We had great success, and felt MUCH better about our science achievements! This year we're moving to integrated literature and history and composition and spelling. This is VERY different for me!!! But I'm praying that there will be many family discussions about things that matter, that will come out of this curriculum.
Pray for me as tackle my own "teaching learning curve"--that's the learning curve involved in teaching a new method/curriculum, etc! I am excited, and I feel as though I'm finally going to be teaching the way I've always known I was supposed to teach. I'm praying and believing that learning will come more alive this year than it ever has for us, before. But it's still a little scary.
Finally, my fondest prayer for our school year this year is to have it uninterrupted by the clinic.
I'm also praying for godly friends for my 13 yo and 16 yo sons. We've reached the age where many of their long-term friends are leaving homeschool coop, (as well as leaving our church), and it has left them both very lonely, in spite of being surrounded by people. I'm praying that we meet some fantastic new kids in coop this year.
I just reread this post, and I see that I'm praying for a lot of things this year. That's good! I'm getting more and more dependent on the Lord, as I feel less and less equipped to be able to do well at all my jobs. Perhaps that was His plan all along--for me to be dependent? (!)
Till next time,
Further up and further in,
Mel |
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May. 20, 2007 Invasion of the Honey Bees
Yesterday, we had quite an interesting day. I'd picked up a "Visible Dog" model for the kids to put together. We'll display it in the clinic when we've finished it. We were working on the skeleton, when we heard the buzzing of a bee. "That's funny", I thought. "We've never gotten a bee in the house". Instantly, I heard another one buzzing in the bathroom. "TWO bees?" I donned my leather work gloves (they were on the dining room table--we'd separated all lambs from the ewes and done weigh-in for 4-H that morning, and I hadn't put them away!) and I rescued the bees, and set them free outside. But by then there were two more, and by the time they were rescued there were 10 more. They were coming from the "cellar closet", the little passage way to our Michigan basement. When I opened the cellar closet door, they were so numerous it was like an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
Most people would call an exterminator.
I thought, "WHY are my bees in the house????" (We have 10 hives of honeybees...so they had to be MY bees, right?)
Well, this an explanation I hope homeschoolers will understand. Five months ago, we got mice in our old farm-house. I have cats, and don't like using poisons, but something had to be done. So I used poisons, putting them in the knot-holes of the old floors, etc, where I KNEW the cats couldn't get the poison. One week later, there was an unbearable stench in the cellar closet. The mice died in between the floors, where they couldn't be retrieved. Believe me, I tried. Finally, in desperation, I bought one of the plug-in air fresheners, Lavender and Chamomile, and plugged it in in the cellar closet. (It isn't wide enough to walk through, but it has its' own electical outlet--go figure.) It smelled like a funeral parlor for mice.
Well, yesterday, some bees apparently discovered that good smelling air freshener. All the oil is gone, but apparently they could still smell it. And they came in droves. I had to get that thing out of there. So I got my gardening hat--the purple panama straw hat that my husband hates, and the tulle from my wedding veil. (We've been using it for about five years, now, whenever we have to catch a bat in the middle of the night.) I tied the tulle around my hat to make a veil and tucked the bottom of it into a white turtle neck. Leather gloves on, I bounded into the closet, and came out victorious with the air freshener and no stings.
Then I thought to turn on the attic fan, and in a few hours all bees were gone. I had to use the bridal veil to rescue several hundred from the dining room window, and there were a few dozen stragglers on the carpet this morning, but the swarm was gone.
Then today, while on my walk I found the wild swarm, in a tree, in the swamp. Kevin came and took several pictures. I'll try uploading one, and see if I can get that figured out. Anyway, it seems like a good time to watch the Moody Science movie, City of the Bees! It's been a fascianting experience, all in all, and I'm glad I knew enough to keep me from panic! |
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Mar. 23, 2007 Plan B (which was really Plan A) (Or--a Miracle Happened!)
Well, guess what? As I hit the paved road, 3/4 of a mile from home, Kevin called me and told me the dog passed the super-ball!! There will be no surgery. I laughed with glee, both from the inevitable visualization of that process, and from what this means for my day.
Let's see...I'm all stressed out, now, but happy about not having to go in. Dinner is in the Crock-Pot, the bread in in the bread maker. Lesson plans are printed out, the kids are working, the dishes done, the laundry, on track, even though not caught up. (Is laundry EVER caught up?)
Someday, I'll have to share with an average day. Right now, I just want to go LIVE an average day. Happily, with my kids. I think I'll hug them when they least expect it.
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Mar. 23, 2007 A Day in My Life
What comes after an introduction? Learning about your new acquaintance, of course! And so, today, I will tell you how I'm spending my day. This isn't a normal day, but it is my reality.
First of all, I can't sleep, at 4:00 a.m. This is not terribly unusual for me, but not the norm, either. My mother used to tell me that if I couldn't sleep, spending time memorizing the Word of God would be a great thing to do--that way, if sleep was eluding because the enemy was up to no good, he'd rethink his plan, when he saw I'd gone to the Word of God. I was sure it was because the Bible would put anybody right to sleep. But at this point in my life, when sleepless, I do two things. I ask the Lord, "Am I to pray? For whom, for what?" If the answer is no, then I read the Word. Right now, our family is reading the Bible through, completely, in 90 days. I'm two days behind, in Deuteronomy. So, beginning at chapter 5, I read the rest of Deuteronomy. I make coffee, first, just in case...
6:00 am. Time to get Kevin up. It will take an hour. This is heartworm season--the time of year that is busiest in our veterinary practice. It goes from March to the end of May. Kevin is already exhausted. I crawl back into bed, and start trying to coax him awake. It doesn't work; I knew it wouldn't, so I get up and iron his shirt, pants, and the scrub top with his name on it, (in case he forgets, he says.) He calls this his "doctor costume".
7:00 a.m. Okay, he's up, now. He showers, while I begin TODAY'S Bible reading. Deuteronomy was the part I was behind on. Now I start Joshua, and I'm looking forward to it. I remember learning these stories from my grandmother, Gammy, in the church in Henderson, Tennessee, where she was my Sunday School teacher. She also had us make a model of the tabernacle, and I think it was a great way to get through Exodus, as a child. If I was my friend, Michelle, I would have done that with my kids. But instead, I just made them take turns reading it, so that nobody fell asleep. When Kev is done with his shower, I pour him a cup of coffee, and he tells me what he expects from the day. He has a patient that ate a super-ball. He'll have to operate today. For us that means war. Gastric surgeries are the surgeries he dreads most, because every bad memory about every GI surgery he's ever done will torment him in the three days it will take to know if he's been successful. The enemy uses these surgeries to beat up on Kevin (and on the rest of the family--we're all connected, you know.) I realize that since today is the vet-tech's last day of employment, Kevin will be operating with a tech who is probably elsewhere in mind and spirit. I offer to come in; he declines.
8:00 a.m. "I know I said I didn't need you to come in, but now that I think about it..." He doesn't want to ask me. He knows it costs our family a lot to have me go in to work. But the lesson plans are all made out, in great detail. Our oldest is 16, and can lead the other three through one day of school. It will put the oldest one behind, because he won't be able to get his own work done. But he'll be paid for babysitting/teaching, and he can do his own school tomorrow. The chicken house won't get cleaned out. The two other boys won't get their bedroom rearranged, like they want. But this is important. I'm going to put on my Vet Tech hat today.
9:00 a.m. Second oldest boy, whom I shall call Sparky, for this blog, is ironing his own pants in preparation for his Saturday work day at the clinic. He is 13, and works 3 hours/week cleaning cages. He's saving his money for an electric guitar, and he wouldn't miss work for anything. Other kids are dressed and outside, doing their chores. They're behind because I'm blogging. School is supposed to start at nine. I check to see if my clinic uniform is pressed--it is. I check to see if there is a frozen lasagne the kids can put in for dinner in my absence. Dang, there's none. Okay, Crock-Pot then. I throw in all the stuff for a lamb stew. The romaine is already "saladized", I put into the breadmaker the ingredients for a loaf of bread, and program it for dinner time. I keep saying, "hurry, hurry." My daughter, Miss M, gathers the eggs, but leaves them on the bench at the back door, and forgets to wash them. I "remind" her. Not as gently as I should. I "reboot" the laundry, moving the washed stuff to the dryer, and starting another load. "Hurry, kids, you needed to start at 9:00. You don't want to miss play time this afternoon!" I run out and do a barn check before I go. My first-freshener is due tomorrow. She looks fine, today. Good. My friend Barb will come if she kids, and needs any assistance.
10:00 a.m. I'll be leaving for the day. Sometimes I take my youngest with me, or the youngest two. But today is going to be a long one, too long for kids. I catch my neighbor, a dairy farmer, as I drive out of our neighborhood. I tell him I'll be out of the house all day. He offers to check on the kids at lunch time. He'll be in the field across the road from our house, today, so it's no trouble, he says. ("Okay, but no tractor rides; they have school work to do!" I make him promise. They love tractor rides in his REALLY big tractors.) It's very much on my mind that my friend Sue lost her house to a house-fire last Tuesday. I pray for God to protect my children. From there, the prayer grows to the protection of home, property, livestock...then to my sisters and their children and their husbands. The drive is almost 45 minutes, so I have a while to pray, and I cover some spiritual ground. I'll arrive at work at 11:00. I'll pull more bloodwork on the patient, and take another set of radiographs, to visualize as well as possible where the offending super-ball has gone. By 12:00, I'll have the patient anesthetized, if everything goes according to plan. I hope there are no other surgeries scheduled today. That would complicate things a lot. The surgery and waking up my patient will take three hours. We may have to use some powerful pain meds, post-operatively, which will delay wakefulness. I may actually be with this dog until 6:00 p.m. or later. I'll fill that time, by meeting with the office manager to discuss the resumes we've gotten in response to our newspaper ad. I hope we have some good ones come in today. I want to get these interviews over and done.
6:00 p.m. We're having a farewell dinner for the departing technician. I, being less charitable than my husband, pointed out, a few days ago, that she's been with us for less than a year, and she's leaving US, not the other way around, and that in any other clinic, a card and a cake would be sufficient. Pointing these things out to my husband is a waste of air. We're having a dinner, and we'll send her on with our blessings, and be happy that she has this opportunity. I know he's right. All bosses should be like this--it makes me mad that he seems to bear this burden alone. Meanwhile, our kids will be having lamb stew alone. They're well-nourished, and safe. But I'm not happy.
7:00 pm Dinner for Vet-tech, laughing, well-wishing, tears (hers), and thank you's for how good we've been. My heart is saying, "yeah, yeah, hurry up and get this over with."
9:00 pm I'm finally driving home to my kids. Thank God we don't have to do this any more often than we do. Still, what will next week look like, when Kevin doesn't have a technician at all? My mother in law called from Arizona today. She and my father in law have decided to come home next week. They leave one week from today. They'll be moving into their house next door to us. Thank God! That will be a relief. With my detailed lesson plans, in Edu-Track, (my home-school software program that I LOVE,) she can lead the kids through school, and they won't have to be so very grown up. They can still be kids, with her here, to be the grown-up. Because I never know when I'll have to go in.
10:00 p.m. I arrive at home. All the kids are in bed, but they pop right out, when they hear me arrive. Everybody talks at once; seems Omah called today (my mother-in-law, bless her!) and talked to everyone of them. That soothed their hearts. I send them all to bed. Kevin won't be in for an hour or two yet--he went back to the clinic after the dinner, to check on the patient.
11:00 p.m. I'm checking everyone's math, history, and language. They are the easiest subjects to check, and give me a pretty good idea who really worked and who goofed off for the day. I won't check everthing. I can't. I'm beat. Anyone who goofed off will spend Saturday making up the work. And I'll sit right there with them, as we both make up for lost time. They might get something done, if I can keep my hands off them long enough to let them work. These work days make me want to hug them a lot. |
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Mar. 22, 2007 Everyone tells me "Write a book!"
But, of course, being busy, I can't possibly manage to write a book. Maybe someday, when the kids are grown, except that then I won't have them to provide me with all kinds of new material. Perhaps blogging will be an acceptable substitute for a while, and maybe a good way to remember what it is that I want to write about, someday.
I suppose an introduction might be nice...I homeschool my four children, while trying to help my husband run a veterinary hospital, and also keeping our small sheep farm running smoothly. That doesn't leave much time, so I'm trying very hard to discipline myself to maintain my routines. It is particularly difficult for me when the lambs and the kids are due. Such an exciting time, and so very busy. It's such a kick to catch those slippery, steaming little bodies, and to feel your heart race in those few seconds (microseconds?) before that first little cry. It's hard to want to put dinner in the crock pot, or do another load of laundry, when the exciting stuff is going on out in the barn.
But spring is springing, finally, and our goal is to have a summer vacation this year, so ROUTINES will save the day!! I am determined. Today, my youngest son, (we call him "T-bone") came in (as I nursed a migraine) and asked, "Hey, Mom, do birds ever get scared of how high they're flying?" Why do my answers to these questions sound so dumb, compared to the question itself? Funny, I felt I needed to get outside, headache, or no headache. And pretty soon, I didn't even remember that I'd had a headache.
I lack the courage to believe that what I say here could be important, encouraging, or influential to anyone else, but I do hope that my words will nurture someone. T-bone's perspective surprised and encouraged me; maybe MY perspective can do that for someone out there! |
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