Hi! I am glad you stopped by!
These are the musings and meanderings
of a Christian, homeschooling Mom.
Writing to have a little fun and fellowship
sharing our life and times with friends and family.
Sometimes it is really hard to see the forest for the trees. Daily battles, over time, begin to wear. Just when I want to throw in the towel for awhile, the bell is rung and that round is finally over and I can breathe again.
And then there are daily miracles, if one takes the time to see them. I wish it were not so hard for me to live in the moment and appreciate it's beauty. A character flaw that I need to address.
Progress was made and lost in my weight battle. Just when I was doing really well, I ended up with a stress fracture, FROM exercising! Finally ready to get back into my routine and my back, inexplicably, goes out on me. This too shall pass and my Wii Fit will be snide but I am ready to start again.
Amazing journeys had the girls and I experiencing the beauty of Florida for the very first time. Homossasa Springs and manatees, Disney and Shamu, Bush Gardens and a safari where we learned that zebras are not black and white but brown and white and got to feed a giraffe named Dolly. Where my girls got to spend time with one of my very favorite people in the whole world and get to know her and where I got to help a friend realize a dream.
Another amazing journey had Mike traveling to Africa as a missionary. Almost 3 weeks in Sierra Leone traveling to remote villages and preaching the Gospel.
In which a new cousin was born with the most beautiful name, Stella Louise.
In which Rowan got her first steady job babysitting for a women's Bible study and had her first big balloon gig.
In which Jenna turned nine, got her ears pierced and her hair cut short and played soccer.
In which there has been cause for laughter, stress, patience, panic, relief, gratitude, and great joy. We are blessed beyond imagining with riches untold. The basics. A roof over our head, clothes on our backs and food in the pantry.
Health insurance meant that our Dr. could send us where she needed to, test what she needed to, and find people who would be able to figure out what was wrong with daughter the elder. An almost 2 year long medical mystery has been mostly solved.+ There is still the small matter of a biopsy this week but we are at peace, God is on His throne and so very clearly loves us beyond understanding. There isn't really a "cure" per se, but knowing what we are dealing with, that all her symptoms were real and valid, and that while often uncomfortable, she most likely will outgrow most of it. And while a week short of a full semester "behind", she will hopefully be able to put in full days again shortly, once the medicine is in her system and the systemic symptoms subside.
We are richly blessed on our friendships and in our family. The house of often full of laughter and music, friends and teens and young women of God. Our parents are together and well and we love them dearly and they us. I believe a statistical rarity in this day and age. Our deepest gratitude for the faithful love and support both raising us and still. We are blessed in our siblings as well, though we don't get to spend as much time as we would like with any of them. They are each unique and wonderful and beloved.
While our church as a whole seems to be having some growing pains, our church family remains one of our great blessings. What riches God gave us in our families and friends.
Blessed too that we can home school still. The Lord's provision is perfect and Mike continues to have work every day with more on the horizon. Here too it is often difficult to maintain a "big picture" perspective sometimes. I forget our goals for doing it in the first place and it becomes a grind of keeping up with the public school scope and sequence. Then I get a grip again. What we do is rigorous, yes, but no curriculum is my master. My goal isn't to complete, say, a Latin book each year for each level, it is for them to learn Latin thoroughly and well develop a love for it. For it's rigor, it's logic, it's order, it's beauty and the way in which each subject, in some way, reflects the glory of God.
So here we come into my very favorite time of year. Blessings of nature and simple pleasures. A time to feast our eyes on the spectacular beauty of the trees last hurrah and trade it for the simple, stark beauty of the winter landscape. A time to batten the hatches and fire up the wood-stove against the cold. A time when the last leaves have fallen and been raked and played among,. The end of soccer season and sewing class until the spring. A time to cuddle with children in the still loved read aloud hours and find ourselves again in Narnia or at Hogwarts or the Shire. A time to sit and knit and watch old movies and new favorites while our hands busy themselves with gift making. For baking so the kitchen smells waft through the house and the heat from the stove adds more warmth to the house. For reflection and quiet before the next season of Advent.
A season of Thanksgiving when there is so very, very much for which we are thankful.
I think I have wanted a salt water fish tank from my earliest days at the beach.
Growing up on Cape Cod with the bays, marshes, estuaries, and the Atlantic we have been beachcombers since we could stand. And forever, the disappointment of having to put our treasures back before we left the seaside for home.
We lucked out a few weeks ago and got 2 tank set-ups for free. So close!!
Well, Mike was (and is) working so much and I couldn't carry either the sand or the salt water needed on my own so I was resigned to wait.
Up came our field trip to the Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.
We spent the day doing water testing and catching flora and fauna and my desire to have my tank was becoming more of an obsession. Turns out our friend Michael was free after the field trip and great sport that he is, helped us head out to the beach for sand and water, back to the house to set up the tank and back to the river to see what we could catch. It really was a fabulous day.
So now we have a 15 gallon salt water tank and we spend as much time observing our finds as we do catching them. In the hatching tank there are three anemones where we once had one and some sort of eggs on a piece of seaweed.
There are 6 or 7 shrimp and we just observed on the largest one, that it is carrying eggs!! They amuse us with their antics, cleaning constantly everything in the tank.
A graceful, bio-luminescent comb jelly floats back and forth in the current feeding, hypnotizing us with it's grace and light show.
There are 5 fish, four different kinds, not sure what kind they are yet and 4 sand-worms.
Two snails are terribly busy in and out of the sand but my very favorite thing to watch is our beautiful barnacle. So graceful, the feathery critter sways and feeds and ducks back into his shell.
We are on a constant hunt for a pipe eel and find them but the net we use needs a smaller mesh to catch one.
After long months of thought and weeks of working on layout, I am moving my blog to Blogger.
The new website address is http://lizzie-aworkinprogress.blogspot.com/
I hope I don't loose anyone with the move. Let me know what you think of the new one!
Blessings
Lizzie
I had wanted to do this last year and never got to it. So Jenna and I were working together on presents last night and I was able to complete the first two figures of my sculpy Nativity. I think they are not half bad!
I got the directions here.
Two months ago my husband, backing out of the driveway, hit the postal workers vehicle. They got out and she called whoever she had to call and he came out to the scene. He was dismissive of the whole thing, there was no damage, nothing. Then he noticed an infinitesimal scratch, took an entire roll of film on it and everyone went on their merry way.
Yesterday, we got a letter from USPS.
It said: "Ref: Damage to U.S. Postal Service Property"
It informed us that they were making a claim in the amount of $865.80 for damages sustained. And it goes on to immediately threaten legal action if they have not heard from us in 30 days.
The whole thing is ridiculous but the worst it that they had it TOWED 3 times!! This is needful on a vehicle that went and finished it's route no harm, no foul, no damage? Almost $300 in towing charges alone!! It is usury. Plain and simple. It matters not that we have liability coverage, we do, it is the principle of the thing you know?
I suppose we will just have to file the claim in that amount as that is the amount it cost USPS to have it fixed. And Mike did back into the vehicle. But it is wrong, plain and simple. Lousy!
