Today Ryan went back to work after having 7 weeks off.  I loved having him home, but he’s excited to learn how to fly a helicopter and I’m excited to start our new curriculum.

The Bible.

I’m going to utilize our Bible like we never have before. We are going to center all our learning around it.  Spelling, language, history, science, government, reading, music, etc… 

Here’s how it’s going to work.

We have family worship time every night.  During this time we sing a hymn (same one for a week), Ryan reads a chapter of the Bible and we discuss it, then the kids have a weekly verse to memorize.  All the while I’m taking notes on the discussion and writing down words that are new to the kids (keeping it to only a few and building on them each night).  Then, the next day we use that information to create a school day. 

I’m so excited about this! 

We’re still feeling this out so I may stumble, but I know this is going to be good.   Also, Math may be the exception – at least for now while I’m learning how to make our day out of The Word.

Many Christians, even fellow homeschoolers, have said we can’t possibly have success with this.  It just goes to show that even though a lot choose to homeschool, the government still holds the corner on their thinking.

It isn’t about knowing a little on everything.  It’s about knowing a lot on what counts. 

I’ll be blogging…

My daughter made a startling comment yesterday. She said that she didn’t feel right supporting anything evil.   I had her elaborate and she did.  For example, not just staying away from inappropriate movies, but staying away from Hollywood as a whole. Or, not buying groceries from stores that support anything wrong.

And she’s totally correct.

But not really.

The right and wrong here are making it difficult to explain.
We live in the world. We eat the good fruit from the ground. But because we live in a fallen world that same ground will produce rotten fruit. Does that mean we shouldn’t eat from the ground at all?

It’s important that we, as Christians, stand for something. But, is it really possibly for us to stand for everything? I’d have to stop going outside – just stay hold up in my home. I couldn’t even own a car.

We can live in a sin-filled, fallen world without being of it.   The question is, what does that look like?  How far do we take this?   Where is the line?

And what do you say to your 14 year old who sees everything as black and white?

What is it about America that makes other countries cringe?  Are they jealous of our success?  Are they mad about our conflict resolution strategies?  Do they not like how we’ve decided that sinful acts are now sinless?  Could it be our arrogance?

Friday NASA is bombing the moon. 

I’m starting to see it now.  It’s all coming together.  Other countries hate us because we’re stupid.  Maybe hate is a strong word, maybe not.

I told my kids about NASA’s plan.  They don’t believe me.  It’s that ludicrous to them

We’re like that annoying kid. You know the one I’m talking about.  He spends all his money on a few cool gadgets and talks a big game like he knows everything about everything, but he doesn’t so he just sounds like an idiot. 

He’s the US.  We have an answer for every question and we have to be the best at everything.  We’re going to change weather patterns, fix the ozone, bring the Golden Toad back from extinction, create a new life and a make a new planet to put it on, save the earth, and adopt all the homeless foreign children.

Oh yeah, and bomb the moon in search for water.

Hasn’t NASA gotten the memo?  We’ve got our own water here on earth.  Find nearest kitchen, turn faucet, have water.

Congratulations, NASA.  You’ve just made us look like complete morons.

We’ve been working with the boys on dressing a little nicer.  Not that I think boys shouldn’t be allowed to get dirty and stuff, I just want my sons to know how to dress for an occasion.  To encourage this transformation, and it clearly is a trans.form.ation. for my boys, we’ve gotten rid of all the holed, stained, ripped up clothing and replaced them with collared shirts and non-destroyed pants and shorts.  It’s definitely a work in progress.

However, not all of them are struggling with this new skill.  One child, in particular, is really taking to the idea.

What?  He didn’t have a shirt.  The tie had to go somewhere.

Every job is equal in value.

What a revelation.

Sometimes when I’m doing the dishes I am simply getting them out of the way so I can get to a more important job, like mopping or something.  And I’m mopping so I can get to the next more important job…

It never ends.  I’m always doing one thing so that I can move on to something more important.

My dear friend, the one who came to visit last week, lent me a book.  I finished it quickly and found myself realizing some new things.  While I was reading it I thought, “Huh. That is a very fresh way to look at my job as a wife and mom”.  At the time, however, I had no idea how it would effect my day to day work. 

But it has.

There’s this job I’d been half-doing for a while.  I didn’t see it as being as important as other things.  It was one of those jobs that needed to be done so I could move onto something else.  Therefor, it was never done completely, but just enough to get by.  When I took to viewing it as just as important as everything else I do, however, something happened. 

I did the job well. Completely. 

Not only that, but I didn’t mind doing it.  I moved slower, no longer feeling the need to rush, because the job I was doing was as important as the next job.  I gave it my full attention, taking care to do it correctly.

Another surprise - I also didn’t feel the need for recognition.  Since my new view has each job on an equal footing it isn’t like I’m needing a gold star for my hard work in this one area. 

This little idea has sprouted and is growing wildly right now.

And the fruit is good.  Really good.

I’ve been pretty consistent about getting rid of the junk in my house.  Little by little, or a lot by a lot, the unnecessary stuff in our life is exiting our home.  What seems like truck loads of stuff leaving, however, isn’t making quite the dent that I’ve expected.

There is always something else.  More stuff.  It’s breeding in the cracks and crevices of my home when I’m not looking.

It’s not like we’re bringing a ton of new things into our home.  This is stuff we’ve had forever – floating to the surface now that it has room to ascend from its dusty pit.  I’m finding myself staring at all this stuff, wondering what the attachment was before I decided to get rid of it all now…

…now that I’m seeing it all for what it really is.  A time stealer.  I’m spending so much time obsessing about de-junking that my days feel even more cluttered than they did before I started getting rid of the clutter.   It’s like a never ending circle and I’m getting to the point where I just want to open up my door to strangers and holler, “Come and get it!  Just take it all!”

But that would be crazy. Which would be fine with me, but I’m not too sure my husband would be on board with that idea.

I know with persistence it will all go.  I mean, how much stuff can we really have?  There has to be an end somewhere and I’m determined to find it.

If I can just stop decluttering long enough to look for it in all this clutter…

My friend left the other day after a week long visit.  While she was packing up to leave she had a jar of white chocolate peanut butter in her hand.  She brought it to share and was taking the leftovers home.  I don’t like peanut butter but I must confess my fondness for this particular mixture.

I told her if she didn’t leave it here I would question her friendship. We snickered and then went on doing whatever it was we were doing.
After she left I was picking up the house and spied the jar on the counter. 

My friend loves me.

I opened it up, took a finger lick’s worth, put the lid back on and pushed it to the back of the counter where it would wait until lunch. 

While I cleaned the kids made sandwiches in the kitchen.  I knew we were running out of bread so I peeked in to make sure there would be enough left for my sandwich.  To my delight we had a whole other loaf.

Yum.  I couldn’t wait.

After I was finished cleaning up I realized that I had missed lunch and I was very hungry.  So, I made my way into the kitchen, grabbed myself two slices of bread, and then went for the jar of sweet peanut butter. 

Which was surprisingly light.

I opened it up not wanting to know, yet already knowing.

My kids had taken it upon themselves to polish off every last bit of what was in that jar.

I wasn’t mad but I admit to being quite disappointed.  They don’t sell that stuff at any of the grocery stores that I shop at so I’m out of luck until I find it local.  Even then I probably won’t buy it without a manufacturer’s coupon, paired with a store’s coupon, during a sale.  That’s because I’m obsessively frugal.

At least I still have my Nutella.  The kids have been forbidden…

You know how it is when you have a friend visit and they bring their kids and their pets and all their stuff?

My friend left yesterday after staying with us for a week while her husband was out at sea.  She has 5 kids, a dog, and 2 cats.  They all came with her.  They all left with her.

And now I’m sad.

We exchanged wisdom, laughed, sewed, made jewelry, went shopping, and had a garage sale. We stayed up way too late and ate ice cream in the middle of the night. 

We cooked.  A. Lot. Of. Food.

It was so much fun.

So, you know how it is when you have a friend visit and they bring their kids and their pets and all their stuff? 

It’s totally awesome.

Totally.

I’m wearing a sweater today.  We live in Florida and it’s only 57 degrees.  It just feels wrong.

At least I like the sweater.