Had one of those things happen yesterday that at first you think is a bad thing,

but soon learn it  was really a gift in disguise.

My son The Biscuit went in to take a shower, and was happily singing to himself. Suddenly I heard a thump, asked if he was okay and heard the water turn off in an

 odd sounding way. He said he was fine, so I did not think twice about it. A few

minutes later he comes into the living room , fully dressed saying “Mom, the

bathroom has crusties in it “.

???????

I investigate, and discover the crusties are big chips of rust in the tub. The faucet

 looks odd, and I ask him what happened. He says “Nothing”. So I try to be calm

and get him to talk about what happened. ( Biscuit has Aspergers and when he gets stressed he has problems finding the words to say what he wants to). I discover the

 faucet is loose and away from the wal, and I figure that it just need caulk. So I call

 DH and ask him to pick up some caulk on the way home. He asks me if the pipe is

 still working – and I say its fine. I hang up and his little voice in my head says to

check it out. Water comes in the faucet, but turn on the shower and it starts coming through the walls. Uh Oh ….

So I call DH back and tell him to skip it I will call maintenance ( we are apartment dwellers). In the mean time son finds the words- he slipped and caught himself on the faucet. Biscuit is a big kid, and I begin to worry that he may have cracked the pipe- a big, messy job that could inconvenience the other 42 families living in this building because it is required to shut off the water for a repair.

Maintenance came and it turns up the pipe in the faucet was rusted , and was a miracle that any water was getting through. Not only that, but the connection to the pipe in the wall was showing signs of rust. The faucet was repaired and steps taken to prevent

 further damage. What seemed like a problem turned into a blessing- by repairing the problem it will prevent a major repair.

It made me think about similar events in life. Something happens and your immediate vision is that it is a bad thing, but a moment later you realize that it actually was something that was connected to the process of good. Then instead of grumbling you wind up offering prayers of thanks. Life is full of them- and when you get right down

 to it all things work for good. They seem dark and destructive to your immediate vision, but them you realize it was just the process of plowing or sculpting into something better than you realized.

We give thanks for the obvious good, but question the “bad”. I thinking reality we need to also praise and say thanks for those bad events. St Francis of Assisi  would do just that – praising Sister Poverty and Brother Want. Neither are a permanent condition , and are transformed when you shift your attitude about the situation. A friend once said to me that empty hands are the only things capable of grabbing all the blessings presented to you. The longer I live, the more I recognize the truth and wisdom in those words.

Thank you God for the broken pipe- for it helped to prevent a flooded apartment building!

This morning we begin a two week break from formal homeschool . We are
doing 6 weeks on, two weeks off year round, and so far it seems like a perfect
choice for our family.

 
So what shall I do with all this free time ? Water skiing ? Rock climbing ?
Deep Sea Diving ? Yeah, riiiiight ! With my 49 yr old body any of those
activities would surely bring about long term aches and pains that would
interrupt the flow of this household. But I am embarking on an adventure  .
Diving deep into my closets to dejunk, climbing the mountain of personal
paperwork that has been building since the beginning of the school term and
ski-ing …on my hands and knees to get at the crevices and edges of my floors,
cabinet doors and what nots. All that stuff that gets neglected in the daily swish
and swipe kind of cleaning  that you do during the on days of school.

ts not that I have let cleaning go by the wayside while school is on- on the contrary.
Nor is it that I have shouldered the burden on my own for the housework. It’s just
some things get pushed aside in factor of those times when you have a little more
time, energy and such.

To celebrate this joyous event, I stocked up on some of my must have cleaning
supplies over the weekend. I am a woman of simple needs and easily amused it
seems- something that keeps my DH smiling over. For some women romance
 means flowers and jewelry- for me it is Office Supplies. And for the really serious
declarations of eternal love, its cleaning tools !  Silly but true. The day they came
out with the Swiffer Dusters was almost as exciting to me as the day I married
and the day my son was born. Why ? They let me dust at the speed of light, and
a dust free surface is like a brilliant sunrise to me. One of my other passions is …
Scotch Brite pads. I use them every time I do dishes, which is about a billion times
every day. So yesterday we went to Sams  to look around, price mattresses and
pick up some cleaning supplies. Son got all excited over a 72 can count package
of playdough, to which we said yes. He still adores play dough, and I use the old containers to store
homemade herbal salves and ointments. These little guys are the perfect size for purse and desk ! Happy day, but  it soon got happier – mommy spotted a box of 35 Scotch Brite pads ! I don’t know who was smiling more by the time we left- my son or me. Turns out these are oversized pads, and I can cut them into smaller sets for different uses. A Scotch Brite works wonderful to clean grout
on ceramic tile floors, as well as cleaning whitewalls on tires.

 
I am a happy woman !

It is a fact that meals are more than simply putting healthy food in our bodies.
We also take in the scents, the textures and the visual impact of  the event. One
 reason why a holiday table is set with care- special dishes, candles, linens and so
forth.

Now consider a meal eaten at your desk. Consider every meal eaten at your desk.

Would it be as nourishing ? Very doubtful.

 
This thought occurred to me yesterday. We homeschool  at our dining room table,
and our dining area is also our school room. No way to change this- it is the only
space large enough to have a table big enough for working out projects, doing
 science experiments and so forth. Every night I clear the  off so that we can sit
down to dinner together. To my mind, that seemed enough and same for my DH. However, it seems for my son it is not enough of a transition. Son is a very sensory oriented person whom finds the subtle things in life to speak with a much louder “volume” than others. He picks up subtle smells and sounds, and these motivate him.

As a very normal child, he dislikes some vegetables, and is cautious to try different
 foods. At the table these are expressed, but if I make the same thing for lunch he
 will happily eat it , but in his room. A thought occurred to me- this child is being
forced to eat every meal at his desk, with all the feelings that a desk type environment provoke. So time for a change!

Step one- put on a small table runner . Step two- three ordinary candles in simple holders. Third, fix the plates in the kitchen as opposed to putting the pots on the table and serving there. First thing son asked was if it was a holiday. I said nope- just something nice. Second he saw the candles and got all excited. When daddy is gone for the evening we have a policy of having a “dinner date”- meaning anything served is served by candlelight. Mac and cheese becomes fancy under candlelight ! 

So this said something special was happening.

 So we had our meal, and he was calm, conversational and enjoyed every minute.I think DH even relaxed a little more , and for myself it was just plain pleasant.

 Years ago it was the norm for dinners to be served at a table set with matching dishes, linens and care. Manners were learned here, conversational skills as well. It became the time of day when the family connected and bonded. Children were instructed to eat what was placed in front of them, and they did- but it was easier done as the enviorment was filled with love and care so it was not perceived as a threat.. There was less work for the cook as a result, and people were generally happier I think. Now we take in some form of nourishment much in an attitude of “I need this, but I have a million other things
to do”. And in the case of my son, meals become sort of like yet another math lesson or writing exercise.

 Several have written about the benefits of serving meals with care, in a pleasant, relaxed environment. I plan on listening to them a little more closely and applying the principles in my own home. Home is, after all, a place of restoration, nourishment, encouragement and love. I think the family table can be a wonderful place to express this.

We have been homeschooling for 11 years , and my DH has grown accustomed to some rather strange items on our weekly grocery shopping lists. In fact, he has even stopped for some of these odd things on his way home from work. Guar Gum, powdered laundry starch, boric acid- all former list items. I may have crossed the line for him this week though.

“Sweetheart, could you stop at the little meat market on your way home and pick up a heart ?”

“A what ?????”

“ A heart. Preferably a cow , sheep or pig heart.”

“You need this for school, right ? “ ( Asking for fear that it had a possible chance of winding up as dinner)

“Yep.For dissecting, For health class”

So he agrees, and bravely sets out to acquire the item. Later in the day he calls me:

“Look, I hope you have room in the fridge for this .”

“How big can it be- it should only be the size of a fist roughly”

“What they gave me is the size of a small ham”

“Oh cool ! Maybe the lungs are still attached ! Even better !!”

“You are disturbing me.”

So, he brings the package home, and it turns up it is a few hearts instead of one. I get excited, son is curious and DH just shakes his head squeamishly. We are learning about the circulatory system in science and dissecting a heart is part of our curriculum. It is a good thing, as the stark reality of an actual organ can do more teaching than simply words on the page. Cooking often becomes an anatomy lesson for my son. He watches me doing some butchering from meats bought at the store and I explain the structure to him as I go along. DH never took Biology in his educational career, and so several things are mysteries to him. He thanks me for taking time to educate our son on such things, but at times I think I cross his threshold of squeamishness. Anatomy does not disturb me at all. However, anything involving owl pellets is more than my stomach can bear !

It’s been another incredibly busy week here ! I seem to hit the ground running

 at 4 am , and it does not slow down until 9 pm, when I fall asleep as soon as my

 head hits the pillow. Homeschool high school may be a breeze for some, but with

 my son it is far from it. He tries, very hard, but he still needs a lot of direction and

 help from me. He is definitely a slow bloomer, but once he blooms, he flies. I read somewhere that certain animals have a longer childhood and adolescence because they are capable of higher thinking ( chimps seem to be one species that comes to mind, dolphins another). I think my son spends a lot of time processing things before he

 feels confident enough to fly on his own. I am not worried. He is who he is and

everyone had been designed with a very definite plan. His design seems to be

something on the order of a mystery package.

So how do I survive home school? How do I get in algebra and chemistry, Latin

 and civics, and still feed people healthy nutritious meals? And for that matter,

how do I keep a clean house ? These seem to be the questions a lot of new

homeschoolers are asking right now. The prospect of laundry and multiplication,

 with a family eating home cooked meals can seem like an impossible dream those

 first few weeks!

My answer is a lot of planning, and planning for the unplanned. Meaning, I spend

 some time considering that I have a real child, a real husband, and both behave

in the way every other of these species behaves. The following rules seem to apply.

1. Meals are only economical if they contain things your household enjoys

 eating. Meaning that while beans and rice are very cheap, if 2/3 of the

 household considers them to be something like what zookeepers put out,

 it’s not a good deal. Not only will you wind up working to make the meal,

 but then have this silent frustration when they take two bites, declare they

 are full, and then look for snacks two hours later, and then leave you with

 the dilemma of how to remake the leftovers ( lots of them) , or throw it

out. What meals to plan? The ones that they look for seconds on and seek

out for midnight snacks. It is different for every family, but those are the

 winners. You will feel incredible satisfaction to have your efforts genuinely enjoyed, and you children may even tell you that you are an “awesome” mom.

2. Real children and real husbands snack. If not pointed in a definite direction to something easy to grab, requiring little or no prep and tasting good, they will gravitate to the chips, cookies and so forth. The trick is preparing enough of these things to cover a few days without replacement. In this house homemade granola bars and trail mix are favored by dh, peanut butter sandwiches by son. I make my own bread and English muffins for these, and granola bars and trail mix on the weekends. I also keep cut up veggies, chunked cheese and often hard boiled eggs on hand to snack on as well, but the veggies for some reason are thought of as lunch sides. Somehow busy people require good nutrition to have bodies that run this crazy race smoothly, and a little prep time will go a long way to helping this come into being.
3. One truth that it took a while to realize- fresh veggies are only good for you if you actually consume them. Meaning that their presence in the crisper drawer, rotting, benefits no one. So, after shopping I wash the veggies, dry them and cut them up and store in Tupper wear containers. An added bonus is that these are also very handy for quick stir fries or veggie soups. A batch of dip makes for a good addition- think a party with the veggie tray. Every day should be a party !
4. Every homeschool mom should be issued at least one crock pot ! Modern ones cook a lot faster than older models, so most of my crockpot meals are started at lunchtime. Meat loaf is one particular favorite meal here, as is glazed carrots and spaghetti sauce with extras. I toss in Italian sausage, peppers and onions with a jar of sauce, and it makes for an incredible rich tasting meal at dinner time!
5. Like it or not, you cannot do it all. Learn to say no to what is not in the best interest of the big picture. Delegate jobs and ask for help. No harm in that- no one has to pretend to be superwoman. Red capes get really annoying in the real world. Most are dry clean only , and that means yet another errand to your days .
6. Finally, or perhaps most important, spend some time each day in prayer. It does not have to be an elaborate time. First thing in the morning is wonderful, but not the only way. You can treat time at the sink as a time of prayer. Same with time cleaning the bathroom or so forth. It will certainly improve your attitude about the time you devote to the task. Prayer makes it a time of blessing, and then you in turn will be blessing your family. However you do it, you cannot do it wrong, and no matter when you do it you will be glad you did.

Three weeks into the year , and the rubber finally hits the road, so to speak.

The honeymoon is over, and now the work begins. Happens every year in

 our homeschool, as I am sure it does ours.

The day starts out fine, happily doing Bible Studies, filling in worksheet

 and having great discussions. Move on to math , and suddenly it seems

okay to just squiggle any ole thing on the white board and call it numbers.

 According to this mom’s rules, this will not fly. This is a quick trip to

error-ville.

My son has dysgraphyia. Writing itself is a challenge, let alone neat writing.

Dysgraphya is , in laymen’s terms, a neurological “quirk” where the message

 from the brain gets scrambled before reaching the hand, and he child spends

 more time trying to remember how to form a number or letter than

 remembering how a word is spelt. With therapy, it can be overcome. We

 have spent several years now overcoming this “gift”, and the time has come

 to focus on neatness and more.

I did not correct the mistake, but reminded him that neatness is very important

 for accuracy. He pressed- or rather raced- to get the problem done, so we could

 take a break . Work was checked, and it was wrong- because his illegible

 writing made it impossible to read the actual digit. So, do it again- which

was of course met with grumbles, and again racing and scribbles. Again,

errors. This was accompanied with loud protests and the display of the  “tude”.

 I think this is the hidden child that lurks in every family 

The “Tude”  does not fly far in this house, as I am sure is true with yours. Here

the “tude” is met with the most powerful weapon on earth- the Mother’s Stare.

Within minutes the “tude” runs with tail between legs, and my real child returns, apologetic and ready to try again. I reminded him that what we are doing here is important, and if something is worth doing, it is worth doing right.

Of course, the battle was not over. Mr Hurry Up paid several more visits, which

 have been met with clear examples of the consequence of sloppy work. One was

in home ecc- the decision to hurry up through a bread recipe yielded really bad bread, which will be eaten with the rest of the meal . By days end , after having to do so

many things over because of errors, I introduced him to a bit of wisdom from the Pennsylvania Dutch- “The Hurrier I go, the Behinder I get”. I think he understands this one completely.

It’s been another full week of home schooling here. I always start out

 with a plan and find I have to adapt some things once we begin. After all these

years I still make some errors in judgment about what materials will work

with my son. Time and time again these happen as a result of my listening

 to someone else’s expectations of what my son should be doing rather than

 where my instincts lead me to believe. No harm- it makes for some new

 horizons and interesting perspectives on our journey.

This Wednesday my DH and I will celebrate our 26^th wedding anniversary,

 and I have been spending my free time working on a project to mark the

 occasion. We do not celebrate in the traditional ways with gifts and evenings

 out, but rather do fun quirky sorts of things for anniversaries and birth days.

 The reason for this is long ago we decided there is no possession, meal or trip

 that could adequately represent what is gained in marriage or in life. He jokingly

 asked me what I want for our anniversary and I told him something blue. I am

 thinking dryer lint (makes neat modeling clay for a learning extension) or even

a pack of blue post it notes so I can use them to leave notes for myself all over

 the house. Reminders of the books I need to return, to remember to buy new

 needles for my sewing machine or even a clue as to what file backed up on CD

holds that great unit study I want to use next month. Diamonds could never perform

such useful things!

 Last year for our 25^th anniversary we bought a bag of White Castle hamburgers

 and took them to a nearby woods for a picnic. Why this “extravagant “move

instead of a trip to somewhere exotic or a piece of jewelry ? When we were first

married and I was feeling kind of shaky about the realities of our new life together (money, the reality of what it meant to be an adult and so on), we would venture

out at 2 o'clock in the morning to get some White Castles. As a child it was the

 only fast food we ate, and they made me feel safe in a strange way. Now at 25

years into this I no longer feel scared about those things. The possibility of what

 lies ahead in life is scary, but I know we will make it through alright. My husband

 has become my White Castle, and through him I have seen that The Father does

 an even better job of driving away the dark doubts and fears that life brings.

If we lean into Him our fears are driven away.

This year I have been going through You Tube and finding videos about things

 that were very meaningful in our life in those early years, and we have both

enjoyed the trip down memory lane. Our son has been watching them and gets a

 laugh at these “old “things. We were married 3 weeks after Charles and Diana

 were wed and 2 weeks after the launch of this experiment called MTV. There

 were no cell phones, microwaves were sort of rare in households, there were these

 new things out called VCR’s and Beta- Max .The home computer was a brand new

 idea that cost thousands of dollars, with no internet to connect to. Home Pregnancy

 tests were these complicated things that required you to leave them sitting perfectly

 still for 13 hours to see if you got a ring or not- a big improvement on going to the Doctors for the test to see if the rabbit died (yes, a real male rabbit would be

used and would die if the results were positive).Ayds was a diet candy

 supplement- AIDS was unknown You needed blood tests before you got

 your marriage license as well. Whole different world in those days.

Memories are good things. They help to show you who you are now and how

far you have come. Back on that day in 1981 I thought I understood what it meant

 to have two become one. 26 years later I know I am just beginning to see the full enormity of that, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Something dawned on me – a lapbook does not have to be put in

a file folder. You can make the mini books, and mount them on pages

of cardstock, and place them in a notebook. This way the two can be

 combined. The Biscuit LOVES making lapbooks because they are

 short, have great eye appeal and have these fun folds. I like notebooking

 because it goes into more detail than a lapbook does. So combine the

 two and it’s a beautiful thing !

Happy day ! I think I found a math curriculum that

Will work with my son, and best of all it is free !

I found it through Old Fashioned Education, and it is a curriculum that is

used in European schools I believe . MCP math , found at http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/primary/default.htm

I am excited ! Through the years we have tried Miquon, Saxon, Singapore,

Teaching Textbooks, making Math Meaningful, assorted worksheets,

 Manipulatives, drills – and he still struggles. I was looking over the site and

the lessons and something about it seems like it is thorough enough in a

totally different way from the previous curriculums we have used,  but taken

in steps that he gets. I printed off one lesson last night , tried it today ,

and son LOVED it. So much that he kept begging to do more because he felt

like he was smart. You have to love anything that empowers a child

to the level where they feel smart !

There was a story in the news this morning that said older women benefit

By drinking 2-3 cups of coffee a day. It helps to keep the brain functioning.

I smiled , thinking that I have been doing something right all along .

I am a heavy coffee drinker, I am older ( 49), and my brain is in  high

Demand most days. News like this, combined with finding a curriculum

That seems to work, makes this home school mom smile a big smile

On this hot and humid afternoon !