The toilet plunger king

Wanted to share Psalm's leggo creation: the Toilet Plunger King. lol!

Welcome, Noah! Happy birthday, Bethany!

We've had a great couple of days. Bethany had her very first birthday! I can't believe she's getting so big. While we decorated blueberry cheesecake pudding cake for her with letters and a candle, she enjoyed a fine fare of pumpkin pie for her birthday dessert, one of her favorite things. :)





Also, Noah made it up here yesterday for his winter break from school! We're all very excited. As always, he is gigantic, handsome, and very sweet!

The building of a body of knowledge

One of the comments on my last blog stated:

I’m resisting planning, because I want to follow [my child’s] lead as far as learning styles, structure, and areas of interest. But I don’t want to unschool, per se. The three R’s and civics are a must, I think, though I do hope to avoid curriculums for at least a little while and find those things more naturally in the world, if that makes any sense (the math of cooking, that sort of thing). But really, I think it’s about going with what works, like so much else of parenting.

That’s really why I’m resisting thinking too much about it. I’m waiting to see what works. And I’m trying to untangle my mind from school, like really assessing what of school is necessary and useful and how much of it is more for the institution’s sake than the students’.

Yes, to "find those things more naturally in the world" makes perfect sense. I agree. Making subject matter accessible and applicable to "real life" is a major gap in today's educational system. I hope that will change in time, but there seems to be a significant lag time between the pace of today's life, technology, science, etc. and how that is taught in school. Even just balancing a checkbook and budget escapes the curriculum of a student who may otherwise be taking Advanced Placement courses in economics.

It is vital to me (and them) that the children master the fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic. You bet. Does that require a schedule of worksheets and testing? I'm not of the viewpoint it does, unless that's the style that serves them best, but I'm not anti-test either, as I mentioned earlier. As they go on to further their education or even simply apply for a job, it will serve them to have experience with the formats of institutionalized learning. As someone who "bucked the system" for years, I ultimately determined that path to be more of an impediment than anything and wish I had kowtowed to "the way things are" more than I did. I am now in the utterly institutionalized process of becoming an institutionalized nurse-practitioner in a federal position, so I stand humbled. :)

Two of my favorite activities of high school were Academic Decathlon and writing for the school newspaper. When I look back, what appealed to me was the high degree of freedom, personal responsibility, and creativity I had in those endeavors. Academic Decathlon was awesome...we spent 9 months studying a wide variety of subjects but with a high degree of independence and freedom. A general outline of subjects for the competition provided a framework for our studies, but the style and nature of that studying was completely on our shoulders. We also were encouraged to explore these areas as deeply as we wanted to, and the material itself (Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus, for example, comes to mind) stimulated and excited me. An overriding theme would provide a context for studies in numerous areas, somewhat like a unit study in homeschooling where all different study areas are brought together into an overriding theme or context.

I feel comfortable planning a general direction for now but with the expectation that their interests will shine through and we can explore that direction from the perspective of their interests. While I want to ensure those "3 R's" are nailed, as you put it, I even more importantly want to create a context for current and future understanding. It is very important to me that the children learn history and geography but not simply as a set of facts and figures. I also want them to learn how to evaluate sources and determine what is worthy material in the first place. I want them to look at original sources, in addition to interpretations of those sources. My hope is to create a system so that the different events and developments can be seen as part of a larger whole, not just as a single piece of history, and so that these studies today and next year can be understood next to the studies of three and four years from now.

So, as a basic example, Wolfgang's interest in photography can be looked at historically, as in "the development of the camera in history;" sociologically, as in "what impact the camera had and has on our culture;" artistically as in "how photography has developed as an art form and also how it impacts our ability to appreciate art;" scientifically, as in "how does a camera work?", etc. This is certainly not revolutionary from a homeschooling perspective, just from the standpoint of standardized education.

I believe standardization is not the evil it is so often made out to be. I have my complaints about it, but mostly, I think it serves as a baseline to ensure that most children acquire a basic level of skills. What that standard consists of, however, is up for argument, and certainly from me. I don't think it's unreasonable that children be encouraged to think, rather than simply learn. When I look at Hirsch's suggested curriculum for each grade level, I see that it is very well-intended, but the idea of establishing a common body of knowledge for each and every child is so deflating!

Psalm's sweet bent

A friend of ours gave us several bags of clothing that her kids had outgrown, as well as a few sundry things. One of those items was a device that hooks up to the T.V. and comes with a microphone and cartridges. The kids were delighted to learn that they could watch themselves sing and dance on TV while the music plays. It may be karaoke, although we haven't found a way to bring words up onto the screen. Either way, after jumping around for at least an hour with this machine, Psalm decided a better use would be as a viewing station for his Lego creations.





Also, we recently had the pleasure of attending a gingerbread-house-making party! What a treat! A friend of mine hosted it and made 50 graham cracker houses and laid out tables of candy and frosting for us to enjoy. So Psalm made a little house very meticulously and then showed us, when he brought it home, that he devised a candy stash inside it too. Always thinking ahead, that boy!

The seven seals of the scroll

I spent much of last week worrying about my hearing in my left ear. It seems to be getting worse. While reading aloud to the kids at night, it's like I have a dead zone in my head, and, while very minor, I notice some balance issues here and there.

This was freaking me out. It certainly could have been nothing and, upon consulting with my father who also has a bad ear, a problem has never been identified with his hearing, even after getting a CT scan. I had to consciously remind myself to hand this to God and try not to be so afraid.

I'm the kind of mom who stands in front of the big scary rock at the park while the kids are sledding to make sure I can veer them to the side just before they bust their heads open. I would be very happy if they wore their bike helmets (the big kind, with full skull coverage) every waking moment outside. So this was certainly a brain tumor. This might seem out of line with my so-called faith. Why bother with faith if I freak out about boulders? That is a subject for a later blog.

On Tuesday, my totally unbedsidey doctor (who has to work hard to smile, let alone chuckle at my unreasonableness) reassured me that there is no reason to think anything bad is going on, other than that the middle of my three ear bones seems to be loose and has caused my ear drum on the left to be rather wobbly and not have as much tension as it needs to facilitate normal hearing. It is, in the world of ear, nose, and throat specialists, a non-issue. So yay! I had written some of this blog prior to the doctor's appointment and it was full of trepidation. This one has turned into a yippee. But back to my big a-ha moment.

I had planned to get some prayer at church Sunday during the worship time. Then Sunday came and we went to church, and the selected Scripture deeply moved me. Pastor Mark spoke about chapter 5 of Revelation:

1Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. 2And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?" 3But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. 4I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. 5Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals."

John turns, probably expecting to see a Lion, as Pastor Mark pointed out, but seeing instead a slain Lamb, who takes the scroll.

9And they sang a new song:
"You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
10You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth."

11Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. 12In a loud voice they sang:
"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!"

13Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:
"To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!" 14The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshiped.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="566" caption="Albrecht Durer's "Adoration of the Lamb""][/caption]

Without attempting to do this chapter justice, I simply lost all interest in praying for my ear. I mean, don't get me wrong. You're more than welcome to pray for it, and thank you! I certainly wouldn't complain if God tightened up my ear bone. But He has had other plans in store for my heart this week.

Reading Revelation is an intense experience, with such a contrast between the saints and angels who are worshiping the Lord and the dismantling of the world as we know it as the seals of the scroll are opened. As time goes on, I find myself not so much focused on what God has done for me, Mindy, and changed in me, Mindy, as I am simply amazed and appreciative of His gift to us all in Jesus Christ. My focus is shifting more to a basic appreciation that "it is done." (Rev. 21:6) I feel I am getting just a smidgen more of what it means to "let the peace of Christ rule in [my] heart," as Paul wrote in Colossians 3:15. He is nudging me on as I let go of myself a bit more. I wish I could say it as a more sweeping and total statement but I hold on more tightly to myself than that. It is one small yet joyful step at a time. My prayer for this year is that I can leap with both feet joyfully into the freedom He offers, rather than touching down a few toes into the top of the water.

Women of the Bible Series ~~ He Browses Among the Lilies...

I've been having a quasi-blog-conversation about Song of Songs with my friend Sarah. Sadly, Sarah is a friend I see in person and wave a hello to but very rarely talk with face to face. (Hi, Sarah.) I think we would have a blast getting to know each other but in the meantime, we comment on each others' blogs. I feel hers is a particularly good one. Here is a link to the two recent posts I'm referring to at the moment, although I encourage you to start from the top and enjoy them all.

Wilder Shores of Love

Loving Foolishly

She asks in the first blog,

Are we supposed to love lavishly? Are we supposed to lose our senses and make foolish decisions? Is that how God designed us?

My first encounter with Song of Songs in any meaningful way was in a college course entitled, "Women of the Bible." I have taken several courses pertaining to the Bible but never as a Christian. Thus, while looking back at my writings from that time, I must keep in mind that I learned about the Bible from a place of academic interest while also finding it very attractive. I did not, however, believe it to be a living text as I do now.

I commented on Sarah's first blog "I have always interpreted Song of Solomon to be more of a warning about that kind of thing," meaning, "Losing our senses and making foolish decisions." Sarah responded to me in her second blog that my comment made her "really curious" and she wrote:

1) Christianity is foolishness (I Corinthians 1:18)

2) We can look pretty foolish when we follow God (see... the entire Bible. But really, any of the disciples will do.)

3) The two major commandments are about loving God and loving others (Matthew 22:37-39)

It stands to reason then that, at some point, we will look foolish for loving someone. But looking foolish for loving someone is not always the same as loving foolishly.

I appreciate Sarah's summarizing of these point, agree with them and find that last sentence particularly interesting. But it calls into question this book, once again, about the young Shulammite who adores a young man and engages with him in a romantic and sexual way. Is she looking foolish for loving someone, or is she loving foolishly? Is she loving foolishly in a Corinthians kind of way (surely that's an adjective by now) or is she loving foolishly in a destructive way?

As you may imagine, this course I took dealt with issues of feminism and the portrayal of women in the Bible. Also, most college courses pertaining to this subject begin with the default premise that women are not fairly or adequately represented in the Bible. I'd like to write a series of blogs on this subject because I don't agree with that perspective.

When last I visited this subject, I wrote that "I read Song of Songs with a certain horror for the book's young subject." I am certainly not a Bible scholar and do not have any insider's knowledge on how the Jewish community has interpreted this book through the ages. From a brief examination, it appears that the Jewish tradition holds this book as exceedingly holy ("Holiest of Holies," says one rabbi). Certainly, there is great beauty in the text. Sarah quotes some of that poetry in her blog. Near the end of the book are the famous lines,

Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot wash it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of his house for love,
it would be utterly scorned. (8:6-7)

However, its very placement between Ecclesiastes and Isaiah, a book of fatalism and a book of prophecy respectively, leads me to ponder its reputation as a depiction of the love affair between God and Israel (or Christ and the church, as Christians have interpreted it). Ecclesiastes is an assertion of the inherent futility of finding lasting meaning on earth where everyone ultimately dies; Isaiah prophesies devastation but also the birth of the Messiah and the deliverance of Israel.

Solomon may have written this book or he may have been written to in this book; scholars disagree.

Ecclesiastes

One thing that interests me is the thread of the vineyard, a recurring theme throughout the Bible which appears in each of these three works. In Ecclesiastes, the vineyard is referenced in the context of an earthly pursuit, not only as a means to "cheering [oneself] with wine" but as a "great project" and means to earthly wealth.

1 I thought in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good." But that also proved to be meaningless. 2 "Laughter," I said, "is foolish. And what does pleasure accomplish?" 3 I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly~~my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.

4 I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. 8 I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well~~the delights of the heart of man. 9 I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.

10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my work,
and this was the reward for all my labor.

11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun. (ch 2)

This is just one tiny portion of a similar theme recurring throughout the many pages of this book. Solomon ponders upon all matters of earthly pursuits such as wealth, creativity, etc. and asserts their "vanity" and "meaninglessness." It is one of my favorite books of the Bible and kept a door of the Bible open to me when I struggled substantially in the past with this type of existential crisis of the meaninglessness of it all. I find that Solomon's ponderings of the world color my interpretation of Song of Songs, as it is also known as Song of Solomon and somehow has a hand in it, either as an author, a character, or the subject of criticism, as some scholars have suggested.

Song of Songs

In Song of Songs, the vineyard appears in a different context. The young Shulammite, the subject of the book, uses the metaphor of the vineyard as a reference to her own body and awakening sexuality.

6 Do not stare at me because I am dark,
because I am darkened by the sun.
My mother's sons were angry with me
and made me take care of the vineyards;
my own vineyard I have neglected. (ch 1)

A few more occurrences of the vineyard as the sexually awakening body appear. The couple is embracing one another ("His left arm is under my head"), possibly consummating their relationship, and seemingly content in the first 13 verses of chapter 2. Then, in verse 14, the book takes on a different tone. The character of the young woman begins to look for her lover in the "hiding places on the mountainside," entreating

Show me your face,
let me hear your voice;

15 Catch for us the foxes,
the little foxes
that ruin the vineyards,
our vineyards that are in bloom.

After that, she rather wistfully states, "My lover is mine and I am his; he browses among the lilies." Where has the subject of her earthly love gone?

Chapter 3 is markedly different from the previous chapters. She searches until she finds him:

1 All night long on my bed
I looked for the one my heart loves;
I looked for him but did not find him.

2 I will get up now and go about the city,
through its streets and squares;
I will search for the one my heart loves.
So I looked for him but did not find him.

3 The watchmen found me
as they made their rounds in the city.
"Have you seen the one my heart loves?"

4 Scarcely had I passed them
when I found the one my heart loves.
I held him and would not let him go...

Chapter 4 is a reunion, a very passionate statement from her lover about each of her physical features, slightly to the point of absurdity although something we perhaps can relate to if we have ever been in these throws of physical passion:

1 How beautiful you are, my darling!
Oh, how beautiful!
Your eyes behind your veil are doves.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
descending from Mount Gilead.

2 Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn,
coming up from the washing.
Each has its twin;
not one of them is alone.

3 Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon;
your mouth is lovely.
Your temples behind your veil
are like the halves of a pomegranate.

Chapter 5, again, may qualify as a description of the consummation of their physical passion for one another but scholars argue on this point and it seems more likely that the young woman is describing a dream sequence, which seems more accurate to me as well. In this chapter, she describes a vivid physical advance by her beloved:

4 My lover thrust his hand through the latch-opening;
my heart began to pound for him.

5 I arose to open for my lover,
and my hands dripped with myrrh,
my fingers with flowing myrrh,
on the handles of the lock.

Yet this turns despairing once again in an intense way:

6 I opened for my lover,
but my lover had left; he was gone.
My heart sank at his departure.
I looked for him but did not find him.
I called him but he did not answer.

7 The watchmen found me
as they made their rounds in the city.
They beat me, they bruised me;
they took away my cloak,
those watchmen of the walls!

What follows is her renewed description of his exquisite physical features, followed by her friends' entreaty:

1Where has your lover gone,
most beautiful of women?
Which way did your lover turn,
that we may look for him with you?

He is gone. In fact, he is not simply gone. He is browsing again. If this was written by or about King Solomon, I can't help but remember the fact that he had hundreds of wives and concubines. In 1 Kings 11, it states that "King Solomon loved many foreign women" and that he had, according to that text, 700 wives and 300 concubines. The young Shulammite responds to her friends,

2 My lover has gone down to his garden,
to the beds of spices,
to browse in the gardens
and to gather lilies.

3 I am my lover's and my lover is mine;
he browses among the lilies. (ch 6)

I interpret this as an inner conflict, an argument between reason and desire. She asserts what she wants ("I am my lover's and my lover is mine") but she is acknowledging the truth ("he browses among the lilies"). When the lover returns, he tries to address these insecurities:

8 Sixty queens there may be,
and eighty concubines,
and virgins beyond number;

9 but my dove, my perfect one, is unique... (ch 6)

In fact, there were many more than that, and I'm sure they were each unique!

As much as the young woman reassures herself that she belongs to her lover and he to her (see 7:10), there are several indications that their relationship is hidden in some way and this becomes more clear in chapter 8, where she states,

1 If only you were to me like a brother,
who was nursed at my mother's breasts!
Then, if I found you outside,
I would kiss you,
and no one would despise me.

The friends bemoan her state, wanting to "enclose her with panels of cedar" and hide her away. The young woman ties together this vineyard metaphor by writing how her beloved's attraction for her has "become in his eyes/like one bringing contentment" (8:10) and that

11 Solomon had a vineyard in Baal Hamon;
he let out his vineyard to tenants...

12 But my own vineyard is mine to give.

This vineyard is not, in my estimation, a fruit-bearing, life-bringing one. It is a vineyard of remorse, longing, and unrequited passion. "Like one bringing contentment" is a far cry from the throws of love described on her side of the story.

Isaiah

Finally, we come to the vineyard described in Isaiah. We have made our way from the fruitless vineyard of material wealth and then through the heart-wrenching vineyard (in this case) of physical attraction. In Isaiah, God Himself becomes the vineyard.

14 The LORD enters into judgment
against the elders and leaders of his people:
"It is you who have ruined my vineyard;
the plunder from the poor is in your houses.

15 What do you mean by crushing my people
and grinding the faces of the poor?"
declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty. (ch 3)

Chapter 5 contains what is subtitled "The Song of the Vineyard":

1 I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.

2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
but it yielded only bad fruit.

3 "Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.

4 What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?

In this light, the allegorical possibilities of Song of Songs~~the painful possibilities~~become more real to me. This is not an easy love story, with a bed of roses beneath a cheerful union. In fact, it is I who have been stereotyping the female voice in the story. Maybe it is the woman who represents God in the story, rather than the man. It is the young lady who pours her raw passion upon a lover who can't be found and who "lets out his vineyard to tenants," a version of idolatry. When Isaiah writes about God's deliverance of Israel, he writes:

2 In that day~~
"Sing about a fruitful vineyard:

3 I, the LORD, watch over it;
I water it continually.
I guard it day and night
so that no one may harm it.

New Testament

This mini-analysis is certainly not exhaustive~~simply a humble blog on this subject of vineyards. A discussion on vineyards cannot be complete without referencing the numerous times that the vineyard is used in the New Testament as a metaphor for the fertile soil of one's life. Jesus uses it repeatedly in His parables, and most significantly, refers to Himself as "The Vine." Almost 800 years after Isaiah was written, this thread of the vine lives on in the arrival of the Messiah.

1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

5"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15:1-8)

Merry Christmas from 700 years before Christ

From the Book of Isaiah
Chapter 9

2 The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.

6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

7 Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David's throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.

Chapter 53

1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was stricken.

9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

11 After the suffering of his soul,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.

12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

I'm a planner.

Now that we have started networking with the homeschoolers at our church and also online through this site, I see that everyone has a different style of and attitude toward homeschooling. Some parents are more committed to a child-led style and seem pretty relaxed about following a schedule or set curricula. Others are very committed to a schedule and curricula, and others seem kind of in-between.

I have spent the last 12 years doing coursework, either through the University of Iowa or through the midwifery school in which I was enrolled. I have also spent the last year doing classes through the University of Alaska. Some of this coursework involved rigid schedules, and others were very relaxed in terms of deadlines. From this standpoint, I see the benefits of both. I have found goal-setting to be vital to my own progress, and I always write lists of steps to get from one place to another. So, while most parents are encouraging me to be rather relaxed about our homeschooling approach, I myself feel enthusiastic and motivated to develop a gameplan.

[caption id="attachment_29" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Wolfgang studying a classic camera"][/caption]

My approach thus far has involved compiling material and resources (those we own and those we can borrow from the library) and creating a loose plan involving those materials. Between January and August, Wolf would be completing 18 weeks of public school. The language book I plan to use has three units, so I am planning to spend six weeks on each unit and develop material around this book. The book itself is an anthology with lessons pertaining to social studies, math, music, and other subject areas as well. It is Houghton Mifflin's Reading 'Delights,' which is a second grade book.) I have also invested in a program called "Five in a Row" which involves reading an excellent book each day for five days and studying it from a different perspective each day (math, art, language, social studies, etc.). Also, Wolf's Tiger Cub book provides social studies lessons galore.

This approach will certainly cover oral and written language, reading, art, social studies, handwriting, and geography. Beyond that, I have math workbooks we will be using (at this point, our goals include counting money, telling time, doing addition and subtraction problems, memorizing math facts, and doing word problems. (I feel comfortable teaching math concepts, for instance, using the different books and subject areas listed above, but I also want the kids comfortable with doing worksheets, taking tests, etc. See note below on that.) I plan to stick with "Handwriting Without Tears" for practice in that area (of which Wolf, ahem, needs a LOT) and would like to add a religious curriculum and have a stronger idea of where we are going with world history. According to Hirsch's What Your 1st Grader Needs to Know, a very broad swath of history is covered in his ideal "good, fundamental 1st grade education," but I would like to consider other options that go into greater depth and I'm just not sure where to go with that yet. I will fall back on Hirsch's ideas if necessary but would prefer to look at some pre-existing curricula or ideas in that area.

In re: to the issue of doing worksheets, etc., some parents seem philosophically opposed to learning "being all about" worksheets, test-taking, etc. I myself feel that 1) Wolf is already doing it and seems to enjoy it; 2) college work involves testing and evaluation; and 3) it ensures that our personalized teaching and learning process is, in fact, resulting in knowledge he can call upon at will. However, looking back, I would have appreciated far more "hands on" math activities, for example, with a focus on application, rather than simply "knowing how." To this day, I truly have no idea what my training in trigonometry or calculus helped me to be able to do. Which is sad.

Finally, at the start of all of this planning, I wrote down the goals of the Anchorage School District for 1st graders to have them in mind as we go forward. I feel the more I can get a system down now, the easier it may be in the future when the twins get started, and then Bethany. One thing across the board that all homeschooling parents have told me is to be flexible, open-minded, and unattached to the one way that I think will work fine. One of the gifts of homeschooling is being able to be just that and to make adjustments when necessary.

What are your thoughts on this subject of planning? Do you plan to do it/do it now, or do you embrace more of an "unschooling" approach? You feedback is always appreciated!

Semester to bed

Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Exhale.

It's done.

It is only now, lounging before our blog with a yummy grown-up beverage and an empty plate of what used to display pumpkin pie that I realize how stressful it has been to complete 48 units of school while caring for a new baby.

For what it's worth, I remembering saying at the beginning of the year how impossible this would be. I was only doing it to be obedient to what God had, at that point, reassured me was, in fact, possible. Now I know it was. He was right. :)

In the meantime, I am plotting all the ways I can get out of nursing school in 18 months! I need to hurry up and become a best-selling author or stumble upon some long-lost inheritance from a relative from long ago. If anyone knows of any dead relatives from a prior century who left vague instructions for some future great-great-great-great-grand niece to inherit a sizable fortune (that has also adjusted for inflation) let me know.

Sorry....this is morbid humor. And probably not even funny. But I'm not really joking! I'm comfortable! I'm lounging! This must continue indefinitely into the future!

So, here's the update:



Oh! That's what I need to do. I should quit blogging and get my essay written so I can send off my application this week. That will be a whole new blog post. I must sound rather confused at this point.

So, this last week also brought a few other exciting developments.

I GOT TO KILL ALL MY MICROBES!!

Here is a picture of the little critters:



And here they are dying a gruesome death by bleach.



And my hubby totally kicked my butt in Scrabble, which was a first, by the way.



Which is totally awesome. :)

The woman with no arms

Perhaps you've seen this video; it is a day in the life of a mother who has no arms.

I had mentioned it in passing and the kids heard me and really wanted to see the video. So I put it on for them and they were riveted. Actually, they immediately squealed with delight upon seeing the mother changing her baby's diaper with her feet. It never occurred to them that that would be a hardship. It was simply "cute" and "sweet."

As soon as it was done, they wanted to see it again, and then a third time. Then, we did a search for other similar videos and found this one.

We spoke about resourcefulness, adaptation, and positive attitude. Then, the kids started experimenting with using only their feet. We tried putting on socks without our hands (I alone managed that one, and only because I had a baggy old pair on that lent itself to such a thing). Wolf immediately appreciated the two women's limberness because he himself could not get his toothbrush up to his mouth with his toes as much as he tried. (He did manage to get toothpaste on the floor with his toes, however.)

I felt touched by their enthusiasm to experience life in someone else's not quite as cushioned shoes.

Eagles convening in our neighborhood

We had every intention of making it out the door at a decent hour this morning, but as soon as we drove to the end of our street, we turned right back around to grab the camera. We counted at least 12 bald eagles, although there very well could have been more flying about, and for the first time I can remember, 2 golden eagles. The golden eagles were significantly larger than the bald eagles, with lighter chest feathers and faces just like falcons. (You can see one in the lower right of these pictures.) What an enjoyable way to start the day!

And now, on a rather humorous note, Zoya just attempted to make a paper snowflake and inadvertently made a chain of circles instead. She announced, "Look! A chain of trashcans for ravens! Ravens can have dinner here!"

Must reread...well, everything!

It has been an unexpected joy to read CS Lewis aloud to the children. While we have spent years reading aloud such timeless classics as Time to Pee and the Berenstain Bears, this is my first time doing it with a book I would choose to read to myself anyway.

A close friend told me that she and her husband read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged aloud with each other every other year and that reading aloud together is one of their favorite activities. I can honestly say that I get that now. :) While I thought it was a pleasant-sounding pasttime and way to spend enriching time together, I understand now how much more I glean from a book by speaking it. I do this with my Bible so this shouldn't be surprising, but to hear the words aloud, along with the added expressions that occur when the text is vocalized, makes it a true joy.

I could barely keep my eyes on the page while watching the look on Wolf's face as he pondered Lewis' delicious description of Mr. and Mrs. Beavers' den. Our tummies were inadvertently rumbling as Mr. Beaver caught some fresh trout from under the ice and the fictional children enjoyed their first meal upon entering Narnia as a family.

Alex asked me whether I planned to show the movie to them after we finish the book. While I myself would like to see it (I have only caught a glimpse of it once when Alex had it on) I lean toward "no" as far as the children are concerned, at least until some time has passed. Do you all have any thoughts on the subject? Being that the book is alive and well in their imaginations, I would hate to infringe upon it with someone else's rendition.

The character of Edmund continues to provide fruitful discussion about his dangerous choices. We have also discussed Peter's sense of honor as he insists on attempting to save Mr. Tumnus who sheltered Lucy at grave risk to his own life, even while Peter has never met him. I'm cautiously touching upon the parallels of the text with the story of Jesus. While I intellectually know that CS Lewis intended for these connections to exist, I don't remember the whole story of Narnia and I don't see all the parallels at this point. Clearly, Edmund is a Judas figure, and even more poignant are the descriptions of his inner experience upon hearing the name of Aslan. The lion king is also a clear parallel, especially as he is to fulfill a prophecy and release the land from its perpetual winter. I remember seeing him dead in the snippet of the movie I caught and thinking how he must rise again at some point.

Would love to hear from all of you~~what are your favorite chapter books to read aloud with your children?

If it's not a matter of life or death, it's not necessary?

The subject of face transplants has been more in my awareness lately after watching this documentary about it. It highlighted three people, two of whom had undergone partial face transplants. A third was in line and hopeful to receive one. Now, CNN has reported about the first facial transplant to take place in America. The article is here.

I feel saddened by the attitude of the director of the Institute of Catholic Bioethics:

Critics such as Peter A. Clark, director of the Institute of Catholic Bioethics at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said a facial transplant introduces unnecessary risks for a procedure that is not a matter of life and death.

"With something like a liver or kidney transplant, it's a life or death transplant," Clark said. "Even with a kidney or liver [transplant], you have to be put on immunosuppressants with serious side effects."

The article goes on to report that:

Bioethicist Dr. Arthur Caplan, chairman of the University of Pennsylvania's Medical Ethics Department, said Wednesday on CNN's "American Morning" that he initially had similar qualms about the facial transplant, which improves the quality of a life rather than saving it, but was gradually convinced.

People with major facial disfigurements "don't come out and basically stay at home and have a huge suicide rate," Caplan said. "They're really up against it."

At the news conference Wednesday, Kodish said the transplant had "abundant moral justification": the face as a personal embodiment as self.

He added that people with disfigurements are often isolated and suffer tremendously and that this case was "not cosmetic surgery in any sense."

It is sad to me that we might take our perfectly acceptable faces for granted, having never possibly dealt with people looking at us in genuine horror purely because of our appearance. After watching the documentary I had stumbled upon, I felt a newfound awareness of the issues involved with severe facial deformities. Be it through birth defects or serious accidents (often involving fire), it seems obvious to me that isolation, depression, and estrangement from society would certainly qualify as a strong case in favor of facial transplants. If a child is born with a cleft palate, for example, should we not bother dealing with it at all? Usually, it's not life threatening so why bother?

Please consider learning more about this issue and even donating to a cause like this one.

Wolf and Mom on the bus

We are beginning the (ahem...adventure) process of homeschooling next month! In the meantime, Wolfgang and I had a blast doing a fieldtrip yesterday to the play "Madeline and the Bad Hat" at the Performing Arts Center. At the end of the production, which was exactly the right length and with just the right balance of singing, dancing, and dialogue, the actors (4 in all) took questions from the kids. What a treat!

Reading aloud with the kids

I suspected the kids would be too young to patiently sit through a chapter a night of a longer book, as much as I loved the thought of ending our nights that way. Yet here we sit now, each night, with our first selection~~and the kids keep asking for more.

[caption id="attachment_11" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Our first book selection"][/caption]

The book right now is CS Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. We have made it to chapter 6 at this point and I am delighted at the level of interest and retention held even by our four (almost five) year olds.

Lewis does a fine job describing the thought process of young Edmund who is "spiteful at times." His decision-making process gives us the chance to discuss those key moments in relationships when we have the opportunity to foster it or damage it. Altogether, this book has proven a delightful first selection.

Zoya's enthusiasm has waned slightly and she is hoping for a more feminine book. Her tastes lean toward anything princessy, dainty, and pink, and the white witch is not impressing her with her "proud" and "stern" countenance. Anyone have any ideas? I'm interested in reading "The Little Prince" next time around, but perhaps "A Little Princess" is in order. :)

Reasons to homeschool #1

Because military jets crash into entire families.

Maybe my outlook's a bit dire...but you don't know how long you have with someone.

Wolf misses us and we miss him.

Exciting!

2009 will bring a new development~~the homeschooling of our children! We can't wait.

We pray your advent season is deeply blessed.

Microbiology must die.

I feel a peace descending upon this very table where I have sat entering my data for each of my recent labs. I am finishing my Microbiology class. And I plan on finishing on time, in spite of all odds against this. Chicken blood is growing bacteria in an airtight test tube at room temperature for cultures to be started tomorrow; my biochemical tests have been recorded; five plates of bacteria sit growing in a cooler over there, soon to meet their death by bleach; and I almost had a heart attack when I opened up a contaminated plate the other day that I had been saving to use for a current experiment. When one realizes that a microbe is microscopic and then finds an infested dish with a beautiful~~albeit completely, hideously creepy~~filamentous growth on it, the realization is all the more terrible.

Kindly, my instructor has let all students have extra time to finish up labs, as supplies only arrived recently for the last assignments. This caused a fair amount of grumbling on my end. The end of the semester is~~well, the end of the semester. I don't want your generous offer of extra time. I just need to be done. Done with these pet microbes reproducing in their comfy and nourishing plates.

This class has put much into perspective for me.

1) If you have health, you should get on your knees right now and thank God, because there are billions and billions of unseen creepy crawlies that want to live with you and possibly kill you, often in a completely passive and accidental kind of way;

2) When Time Magazine discusses the terrible and imminent end of our world due to global warming, I wonder what the press would have reported when people died in cholera epidemics prior to the invention of modern sewage treatment. Watery and profuse diarrhea until death without any flushable toilets. Can you imagine? No, you can’t. Not if you’re reading this on the internet. Neither can I.

3) Washing your hands and cooking your meat is incredibly important.

4) A tapeworm, even an 18 foot long one, may cause remarkably few symptoms. However, “emotional distress may result when a meter-long segment drops out of the anus.”

And that, my friends, is the understatement of the year.

I’m not sure I can handle much more of this class!

The new and improved version

This is not it. I had changed my privacy settings to take this blog "off the air" for a little while, and I have a whole new design in the making, but it won't be ready for at least a few more days. In the meantime, should you, my faithful readers, have any pressing subjects you would love (or just like) for my blog to address, leave a comment on this blog! I am hoping to encourage more feedback and interaction in the future.

When 24 hours seems like 100

We've had a sick baby. The day started wonderfully, with a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group at our church involving lots of yummy food and the beginning of a wonderful presentation by one of my favorite people. At that point, one of the nursery workers came to get me. Our sweet Bethany had thrown up, and so I gathered up the children and we headed home.

Baby then proceeded to throw up so many times I have lost count. After about 12 hours, she came down with a fever of about 101, but now, the fever has broken and she seems to be feeling much better. She barely slept at all last night because the reclining position seemed to greatly aggravate her tummy. We also had lots of cleanup sessions, baths, etc. and ultimately caught a few hours of sleep in the big rocking chair.

I'm just catching a quick second to blog while she sits down watching her siblings play in the living room. Here are a few fun photos from lately. As much as the self-inflicted pressure of NaBloWriMo proved unsustainable in the long run, I enjoyed regularly blogging and sharing with you all! My blog needs some love. I have about five written in my head but they will have to wait.

Watching Bethany interact with her siblings is (usually!) very entertaining.

Another supremely cool craft :)

I'm glad someone's getting use out of these! Actually, Zoya is only joking. These are way too small for her. However, Bethany, being the true Alaskan that she is, despises hats and has no use for this adorable set I bought her before she was born.

Semester countdown

Almost done!!

This week will consist of:

1) Nutrition in the Health Sciences final

2) Organic and Biochemistry final and lab practicum

3) Speech group project preparation (we're either debating the issue of spanking children or of living together before marriage; either way, should be fun!)

4) A LOT of Microbiology work left to accomplish, and still no supplies to redo my cultures. Opting not to stress. They're probably sitting in my mailbox as we speak but...it's snowing out. Enough said.

The King succeeds

A book came into my home many years ago called The Queen Cleans Everything.

At first glance, it looks like the cleaning book you wish you'd always had. (Except I had never really wished for that before when it was given to me by my mother-in-law. Cleaning was not a book-worthy subject in my mind at the time!) I put it on the shelf for when I would run into some crazy mess that nothing would clean and it comes out every now and then.

Twice now, this book has failed me. It has succeeded on different occasions, don't get me wrong, but tonight I experienced the second failure of one of the Queen's pieces of imperial knowledge. The Queen Does Not, In Fact, Clean Everything. My pot with the black burned cranberry residue is still black and burned. Don't bother boiling baking soda for as long as it takes.

This brings me to my point, which actually pertains to the walk with Christ. My friend Erika lent me a book by one of my favorite Christian writers, Henri J. M. Nouwen, called The Way of the Heart. A quote really resonated with me:

What needs to be guarded is the life of the Spirit within us. Especially we who want to witness to the presence of God's Spirit in the world need to tend the fire within with utmost care... Sometimes it seems that our many words are more an expression of our doubt than of our faith. It is as if we are not sure that God's Spirit can touch the hearts of people: we have to help him out and, with many words, convince others of his power. But it is precisely this wordy unbelief that quenches the fire. (p. 54)

I would never have imagined the great love God has for us. While He does not need us, He deeply loves us. Pursues us. Tends to us. Cares about each and every one. The author of Hebrews wrote that Jesus is the "author and perfector of our faith." He has an ongoing role in the story and carefully touches His pen to it.

It wasn't until after I got baptized and shared the news with others that I learned how many people had been praying for me. Thank you to everyone who did. It humbled me to realize that it was not my own feat that accomplished my salvation~~it wasn't my wisdom that brought me to my knees. It is by His grace alone that this was done, and I did nothing to deserve it and everything to sabotage the likelihood, if I'm being honest. I can't express my gratitude adequately. I had no idea what I was missing.

Sometimes I wish I could come up with just the right words to talk everyone I know into following Jesus. But that's not for real. This process is not The Queen Cleans Everything, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Thankfully, it does not rely on my inadequate communication skills in this arena. God's Spirit does the job, and what I have learned from walking with Jesus is that it is not a sometimes thing. It is not "sometimes going to work" and "sometimes not going to work," the way He involves Himself with us. He is always there and always working on my behalf to invite me to greater freedom and joy than I have ever known and I can completely trust in that. How likely would we be to keep saying "yes" if He sort of kind of showed up every now and then and sometimes nailed the cleaning task but just as often failed? He is a faithful companion, shepherd, and savior. It's up to each person to say "yes."

"He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out." (John 10:2-3)

Painting by Nathan Greene

Wow. That worked out.

Yesterday was such a gift. I feel seriously hugged. It means so much to know that living in Alaska does not mean we will never again have a great Thanksgiving meal!

All went smoothly yesterday. I finally got to bed at 6 a.m. Thursday morning, sure that I would be up within an hour or two to get those pies done in the morning. Somehow, I didn't have to wake up until 10 or so (not sure how that happened but the family was very obliging) and, of course, the pies still beckoned.

Pumpkin pie is easy enough to throw together but the blueberry took more preparation and was our first time working with a double crust that you roll out and cut slits in, etc. (Zoya was my helper.) I had lofty visions of curly, gorgeous edges to this pie, but after about 15 minutes in the oven, a chunk of the crust fell off and allowed blueberry goop to spill out onto the oven floor. It did not seriously hamper the taste. :)

In went the turkey, which has left me convinced that all meat should come with a little built-in timer that pops out when it's cooked just perfectly. (I'll save a bad joke about the perfect goal of genetic engineering.)

Beyond that, there wasn't much to do while the turkey cooked because everything was made already. The stuffing cooked in the slow cooker and the cranberries and sweet potato casserole went in when the turkey was finished. Alex took the kids on a long 2 hour walk in the snow.

A cranberry crisis ensued when Noah called to wish a happy Thanksgiving, which caused me to forget about everything on the stove. Once I hung up, Alex peered into the smoking pot..."What's in here?" "AUUUUGHHH!!" Turned out to be exactly what the cranberries needed in order to gelatanize just right. Sadly, the pot looks doomed, so if anyone has a suggestion for how to get the burnt blackness off the bottom, please let me know! The marshmallows had to temporarily come off the sweet potatoes in order that they finish heating up. In the final moments, we realized that mashed potatoes and gravy hadn't made the list so we whipped that up and put it all out and, good Lord, it all tasted great.

So in the wake of our Thanksgiving engorgement, I'd like to share a list of what I'm grateful for. This is certainly not complete but it's a start.

• It is not lost on me that my children are blessed with abundant food. This places them in the minority in this world, for which I am humbly thankful.
• My husband who is also my best friend and the love of my life.
• All my kids!
• My husband's job; the fact that he supports me staying home with the children
• If I can't have Noah here, I have the next best thing: knowing Noah has a great dad who takes care of him and all of my family who loves and looks out for him.
• My friends new and old; our family down in CA.
  
• Indoor plumbing, heating, and all the comforts of home
• Our church and church family, and the many people who take the time to enrich our children's experience there.
  
• Living in a free land where I can choose who, how, and where to worship.
• Being able to read and write.
• Being able to go to school and get health care.
  
• Being free to dream a dream and knowing it just might come true.
• Having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ the mighty Savior.
• All the ways God grows and stretches us.
  

These are all the "big rocks," so to speak. Here's the more "kick back" list. :)

• 4-Wheel Drive
  
• Coffee
  
• Alaska
  
• Eagles, moose, and the rare bear sighting
• The internet
• Klove radio & talk radio
• High quality distance education options
  
• DVR cable and the ability to skip commercials
• Our down comforter and crocheted orangey blanket
• Snow, seasons, and the weather
• Blogging, both my own and all the wonderful ones I get to read
• Grey's Anatomy. Yep, I admit it. It makes the list.
  
• Wool socks. I am all about the wool socks.
• Costco and their reasonably priced produce

I pray that you find many things to be thankful for in this season of your life.


This photo has persuaded me that I may have a future in food journalism. I love food. I love writing about it. I love taking pictures of it. I love eating it. :)

Bethany kept Wolfgang's spoon while he was feeding her some of his mashed potatoes.

Me and the cute, potato-covered baby

The popping of cranberries

Wednesday, 2:00 a.m.

Can life get any sweeter? Cranberries are popping on the stove so they can spend the rest of the night swimming in sugar; sweet potatoes are boiling and I'm about to open this season's first carton of eggnog.

This has already been a blessed Thanksgiving celebration. Tonight we attended a glorious service at our church. The worship room was packed, voices sang loudly and joyfully in praise of the Holy Father. Children were invited to come up and share what they are grateful for, and Psalm and Wolfgang chose to go up front. Psalm said he was grateful for Bethany, and Wolfgang for his mommy and daddy. Three members of our congregation had been asked in advance to share what they are grateful for and my husband was one of them. The way God has moved in his life is truly worthy of praise. I feel his testimony touched everyone.

We took communion and sang some more, then ate lots of pie! Bethany got her first taste of pumpkin and she did not appreciate the limits I imposed one bit.

I was joyfully surprised by how many children spoke of being thankful for their freedom to worship freely in our country.

~~

Thursday, 5:35 a.m.

I really should be getting to bed but I am only now getting to that eggnog. Tonight has been very productive. Thus far, we have the following on the menu for tomorrow and all of it is sitting in the refrigerator ready to be heated up:

Turkey, prepared with an olive oil and herb rub, stuffed with vegetables, and sitting in a bed of vegetables and white wine

Homemade stuffing in the crock pot

Cranberries

Maple-glazed sweet potatoes topped with pecans

Stuffed manicotti (I opted to purchase this pre-made instead of making it fresh)

Pumpkin pie

Blueberry pie

I am thankful that God has equipped me to cook for my family. Truly, He has brought me a long way. Alex did most of the cooking in our home for the first several years of our marriage and I was rather scared in the kitchen. Tonight has gone without a hitch.

At church, I began to process something that has been forming in my heart for a couple of weeks. We love it here in Alaska, although it is painfully far from the rest of our family. Especially now with Alex's sister back in southern CA, we are acknowledging how it is on us now and our own joyful task to establish rich traditions in our family for the children.

This is my first year cooking a Thanksgiving meal for my husband and little ones and it is a uniquely precious experience. The process itself brings back so many memories. As much as I miss my family, I feel very connected to them through the images these dishes evoke.

My mother will be surprised to learn that I have opted out of canned cranberries in favor of fresh. She would always make a delicious, fresh cranberry sauce but humor my crass tastes with the canned variety. I see my stepfather Papa Bob in my mind wielding the electric knife before a huge turkey. I see Grandma Jane too. She was the master pie chef of the family and always went all out at every holiday. It was very touching to see my stepmother Debbie take over that tradition after Grandma Jane lost her life so unexpectedly two years ago. When Debbie came up to see us last year with my dad, Debbie made pies with the kids. So many blessings. So much to be thankful for.

White flag of surrender

My participation in NaBloWriMo~~blogging every day for 30 days~~has been a failed strategy. When Bethany lures me into our big comfy brown chair in the later hours, I just can't say no.

I guess it would be more accurate to say "Bethany in all her infinite cuteness is a very successful strategy. :) Sleep is the inevitable result of her wily ways and tonight is no exception. I have just woken up bleary-eyed and slow-handed after rocking her to sleep and am raising the white flag.

No more self-inflicted NaBloWriMo pressure. I'll blog when I darn well can. Happy Thanksgiving! More soon, I hope. Must get to work in the kitchen.

My dear ears

I went to an ENT recently to inquire about what seems to be hearing loss I've been experiencing over the last 18 months or so. I was hoping for a clear cut answer, such as "You have a big slimy blob of wax that's blocking your eardrum and here's a fresh set for you." Unfortunately, there was no obvious issue so he sent me to an audiologist.

The audiologist and I spent an hour together today with me hooked up to all sorts of weird ear devices. The good news and bad news is, I'M NOT CRAZY!!! My left ear apparently does have some hearing loss. It is functioning at the bottom of the healthy range, with parts of it falling below the healthy range. My ear drum is a little over-excited, which means the tiny bones behind it may not be articulating as well as they should. Also, the cochlear cells were not sufficiently responsive to stimuli.

Apparently, my dad has a big hearing loss in one ear as well. I asked him today about it and he said the cause was never determined. He was given a CT scan or something similar and sure enough, that's what the next step may be for me, according to the audiologist. Looking online is not helping to reassure me, but I feel comforted knowing I don't have any balance issues or something more...neurologically worrisome.

Please pray for my ears!

The line leader has a new job

Writing about our line leader system yesterday caused an expansion in job description.

Those of you who have been in our home know that our kitchen is very little. I am not complaining, because I get very excited that we have such blessings as running water, a ready heat source, etc. A vast portion of the world does not own these things! But teaching our children how to be proficient cooks, keepers of the home, etc. does not work so well when all our children our gathered in the kitchen at once. There is barely room to breathe when that happens.

So the line leader now has the job of kitchen assistant as well. They are SO EXCITED!! Wolf went straight to the calendar to see when his first day would be. The kitchen assistant will be the child who~~you guessed it :) ~~helps in the kitchen that day: helps prepare the food, sets the table, does the final kitchen-clearing after all the dishes are gone, helps load dishes into the dishwasher, etc.

While I'm on the subject, I thought I'd share the title of a book that is blessing and encouraging me. It's called Managers of Their Homes by Steven and Teri Maxwell. The subtitle is "A Practical Guide to Daily Scheduling for Christian Homeschool Families." As you can probably guess at this point, I have read many books on the subject of home management (while certainly not claiming to have perfected the practice but God certainly is faithful to meet us where we're at!) and this one is helping me to bring many different facets into a running whole. I recommend it. Useful tidbits I'm loving:

~ The importance of putting Jesus at the center of the day. What I appreciate about their approach, however, is that, unlike many other Christian books on the subject, they do not insist on waking up and doing this. The expectation is that the reader will ultimately find that early morning time frame to be the most girding, so to speak, but the emphasis is on the doing, not so much on when that happens. This reflects their overall approach, which is to encourage the reader to:

~ Just do something. Don't feel like you have to make all these changes all at once. Start small and let the results speak for themselves.

~ Scheduling your children and home will bless you. Oh, how I can attest to this! When a written schedule is in place, the day more often than not flows so much better. Everyone knows what to expect, mother and father included. So often, we wait until there is chaos brimming up before changing activities or even planning for the next part of the day. A schedule frees up the day in order that the home be the place of love and encouragement that God meant for it to be. In fact, the author states outright that as many decisions as possible should be made before the day ever happens. God intends for us to delight in our children but when children and their drama are in control of the home, the end product is certainly not delight!

~ Changing activities more frequently helps to prevent the aforementioned chaos from brimming up in the first place. This particular point right here SO COMPLETELY ROCKS. (I'm laughing at how certain friends of mine are probably going, "Dang, this blog has lost me. How can "changing activities more frequently" and "SO COMPLETELY ROCKS" go in the same bullet point?)

~ A half hour of attention paid to something every day will result in progress. The Maxwells emphasize that "plowing through an activity until it's done" often turns into a source of chaos and frustration. Steady progress for a half hour every day ensures that very thing: steady progress. I love this point.

~ A certain piece of Scripture I had not seen in relation to this subject of homemaking has been mentioned several times: "Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule, a little here, a little there." Isaiah 28:12

~ The authors write a section on baby scheduling but for those of us who don't schedule our baby's feeding times, etc., the authors are extremely respectful and include testimonies from parents who do it both ways. This quality is rather unique, as the issue of baby-scheduling can be a rift between those of different parenting philosophies.

~ Practically all the parents in this book have way more kids than me. 8+ children. Very helpful and reflective of the concepts such as those in Michael Gerber's E-Myth books (I think I'm thinking of the right author) which discuss how important it is to plan your business as it will look when it is the ultimate size you plan for it to be, not the size you currently have. Systems don't matter as much when there is 1 child in a family, but as more children are added, this becomes more useful and even vital.

~ Finally, at the end of it all, the authors include forms and samples of all of the systems written about in the book. I haven't gotten to that part yet.

This book is divided up usefully into sections pertaining to teaching chores, scheduling priorities, unexpected challenges that pop up in life, etc. If you are not a Christian or a homeschooler, this book may overwhelm you with its Biblical emphasis and even seem strange and foreign. If you are a Christian but not a homeschooler, the section pertaining to homeschooling is just that~~a section. It is not foundational to the information inside. I'm excited this book came into my life.

Preschool wisdom

I wanted to share something that has worked for us. The kids really get excited about certain things. Who gets to get the mail? Who gets to sit next to Bethany? Who gets to take the last bath? It seemed we were always having to hash this out and try to make it fair while trying not to make it the end-all-be-all big deal that all the kids were making it into. In a moment of lucidity, I wrote down their names, one after the other, on every calendar day. For instance, November 1, Zoya. November 2, Wolfgang. November 3, Psalm. Then over and over in order until every day had a name. That child became the "line leader." Thank you, Mrs. Chris.

Our line leader is the child each day who gets to do all the fun stuff. If he or she wants to allocate the job to another child, that is his or her choice. If any decision comes up pertaining to the order of children, the line leader gets the job and/or chooses the order. It has eliminated a huge amount of bickering. Probably 70%. Being the line leader also comes with certain jobs, such as making sure the baby has toys when necessary and helping to feed her. This has been a great system for us and I wanted to pass it along.

Meal planning and shopping

One of the first steps to taking advantage of bulk food purchases and saving money is to plan your meals. Simply showing up at a supermarket or warehouse store without a plan leads to lots of money spent but not necessarily the equivalent in planned meals for the family. This leads to overspending, not only due to buying food which does not result in actual meals but because extra supermarket trips become necessary in order to make up for missing ingredients.

Heading to the store with a list in hand, however, and the knowledge that you will come out of that trip with a certain number of meals can be efficient and gratifying. Here are some ideas.

Step 1: Take inventory of your current supply. What do you have already? Write it all down on one sheet of paper.

Step 2: On a second sheet of paper, write down all of the meals you could make with the food that you have. Don't settle for things you could partially make if only you had such and such ingredients. Get creative and make a plan to utilize what you already have so that you can use your food effectively. Think of different ways you can use everyday foods. Rolled oats can be turned into muffins or bread for a bag lunch; eggs can be turned into quiche with whatever leftover veggies are in the house. If you have a random ingredient that you suspect can be a base for a main dish, do an internet search for recipes involving that ingredient and see if you can find something simple or adaptable based on what you already have.

Step 3: Take a blank calendar sheet and begin writing those meals down in the squares. Or, you can simply keep a list on your refrigerator of the meals available in your home and cross them off as you make them. In a future blog, I will write more about bulk and freezer cooking so you can spend less time preparing food each day.

Step 4: Make a plan for new meals and plan purchases around them. If you are able to come up with 20 meals from what you already have in the house, you have at least 10 days (and probably more) of lunches and dinners planned out. That leaves 20 days for the remainder of the month to plan for if you want a full month's worth of meals, but naturally, you can pick whatever length of time you wish. The point is to plan. Make a list of ingredients you still need to buy in order to make those meals. Also, try to think of meals that can utilize some of the same ingredients in different ways. That way, you can take advantage of larger sizes and the associated lower prices.

Step 5: Go shopping with your list. Also, get a shopping plan in place if you need one. If there are certain ingredients you need to buy fresh, either plan to have those meals sooner rather than later or make a note on the meal list of what you need to purchase at the time when you get ready to prepare that meal. One way to overspend on food is to visit the supermarket repeatedly while trying to brush up on just those few extra ingredients that you need for something. If you follow these methods, you will be doing more shopping up front but far less during the course of the month. Be willing to visit multiple stores in your initial shopping excursion to take advantage of lower prices.

Enjoy the results. I think you'll appreciate them.

Meh. Grumbles.

I spent at least an hour on the phone this morning with the nursing school at UAA. A few things came to light:

1) I can apply!

2) Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, the information was lost on me that I needed yet one more class to complete my general ed requirements. I'm pretty sure I am not the one who overlooked this. Turns out, I can't use the same class for both the general ed requirement and the nursing school requirement, so I have enrolled in a fourth class for next semester, Intro to Political Science. I have more humanities courses under my belt than I know what to do with, and here I am, taking yet another course that has absolutely nothing to do with nursing. I love learning for the sake of learning but enough is enough already.

3) Consequently, I dropped the Biostatistics course. UAA couldn't guarantee that they would accept that one for credit and would not evaluate it until after completing the class, which is just not going to work. I'll take stats "in person" at some point via UAA. In the meantime, I'll finish up my U of I Bachelors by taking an essay course. It will be fun to get a few pieces of writing going.

Words cannot express how thankful I am that I can apply and do not have to push that back a semester. The rest will get done in due time.

Look what Bethany can do now.

We looked over to find her standing! Then she reached in to get her own legos~~which of course requires major supervision, but it was rather adorable to watch her "be one of the kids."