A New Year, A New Term

What I am supposed to be doing

What I am actually doing

 

So here I sit trying to think of ways to make tomorrow better, or I am planning my planning I  suppose you might say. My children have been using a checklist this year and while I think it works I am not crazy about it. I want something that I can put in specific instructions if I want to, but keep it simple and list like so I can easily see what they have completed each day. I am looking at something like this method Life As Mom has. It reminds me of MFW planner sheets which I like but I want o keep it to one page. Not sure I am up to the task.

Using Ambleside Online means most of my planning is done for me I just have to work out the details of when to do each reading. For some reason I am wondering if what I have been doing is working or if it is other circumstances that has my children not succeeding. All these things are making me drag my feet in the planning of our next term. I want to make it better, have them succeed, I think I need to have more firm expectations for them. Just not too sure what those should be. How do y’all refresh your students workloads?

As a CM mom I guess I am not certain how to step it up from straight narrations to something more substantial for the older crowd without giving a very specific paper topic. I think I need a few extra months to just read all I can in this area. No that’s not possible, okay I will just have to buckle down then and do my best with what I already know and fill in the gaps as I go. Man I wish I would have known about Miss Mason back in my college days!

Mandy

On Happy Holidays

I trust you all are well fed and feeling warm fuzzies after the holidays. If not (and I know there are plenty that are not) I truly am sorry and my prayers are with you. I myself have had no real reason to be exceptionally happy this season, my husband is still out of work and my family is living with my parents for the 4th year in a row, which is cause to much heartache and trial. However this year I reached down, I mean way down into my prideful self and did something I don’t usually do. I let it be known that we needed help. I shared with our new church family on only our second visit how bad things have gotten and how despair has been creeping into my heart and pushing the Lord out. My pastor’s instant action was prayer, which had I not been with my children would have brought me to my knees, and an offer of gifts. I was floored!

The following week I had friends and family provide even more. I was astonished! As the weeks turned to days before Christmas I was beginning to worry about not having enough money to pay for our storage unit (which has nearly everything we own in it) and losing our things to auction. My amazing friends you have bought soap from me in that time of worry and given me enough that the weight is lifted. I am so grateful and filled with joy!

Needless to say the night before Christmas I was the one who could not sleep I was in awe and wonder of the goodness of my Lord and Savior. He worked it out for His glory. This Christmas was the best one ever and my children were so thrilled over all of their gifts, each one chosen with love, kindness, and care. Thank you dear angels, my cup runneth over.

 

Mandy

You can’t be joyful until you rejoice

Listening to Pastor speak about Joy today really struck home for me. I keep asking God why nothing changes in my situation. Why after 4 years we are still homeless and jobless. We are faithful and doing what I thought we were supposed to be doing to live our lives for Christ.Yet as I heard Pastor Dusty say those words, “You can’t have joy without rejoicing.” I knew in my heart I had not been joyful. I had brought my family down to earthly things. Complaining about our situation to my husband who felt helpless to change it with out a good income instead of rejoicing that we have shelter and are all together. Getting angry when I am mistreated or annoyed by another instead of rejoicing that they trust me enough to let their guard down.

Rejoicing is the outward expression, the confession, of joy in your life and without that confession there can simply not be joy. Everything else is just simply temporal happiness that depends on your current mood. I know this is something I have to change. I pray the Lord does his good work in my heart to that end. Because unless I begin to rejoice always what have I gained, certainly not the joy of my Saviour. But what I have lost goes much further than myself, I have set up all who know me to fail at finding joy in Him as well. What better way to point someone to the cross than to reveal the joy it affords me in even the lowest of times. I should know these things, a long struggle with depression shows me that Jesus is the center of it all and yet I still turn inward and fix my eyes within instead of fixing my eyes on Him. How amazing is our LORD that even while I refuse to see he is my saving grace and never gives up on me. For that I rejoice today!

If you are interested in hearing some of Pastor Dusty’s or Pastor Dave’s sermons visit Ferguson Church of the Nazarene to hear recorded archived messages. They are always timely.

Mandy

Future engineer

If you have a child who adores hands on work maybe First Lego League / First Tech Challenge is a good fit for them. FLL uses Lego Mindstorms to build a robot and program it to do a series of tasks in a timed completion. FTC the teams build a larger metal robot that is both remote operated and programmed to complete a set of obstacle challenges. Our local team, sponsored by Everything Engineered, was a homeschool team and they competed against other local schools doing pretty well for themselves for first years. My son is 12 here and he has had most wonderful experience working with his coaches and teammates this season. You can be sure we will be at it again in a few short months planning for next years competitions. Check it out at www.usfirst.org

Mandy

Tis the season for…

Mishaps and mayhem! I love my children dearly. But what possesses them to do things they have never seen myself or my hubby do? You know things like write on a computer screen.  I would say if we used a stylus I could understand it but we don’t so…why? In the past 2 weeks I have had my 2 1/2 year old son make some beautiful art in both permanent marker and ball point ink. Google to the rescue!

After some searching and debate on which method would be safest for our plasma HP All-In-One machine I took the plunge, hoping I would not make the situation worse. First up the permanent marker. Apparently writing over the marks with dry erase marker erases them. Yep worked like a charm with minimal effort. I just wiped down the screen after each small section I worked on.

A little tougher customer was the ball point pen. There was some discrepancies in what I found on whether using various solvents would ruin the antiglare finish so I opted for a drier method first go-round. A plain ol’ rubber eraser, actually the eraser on the end of my papermate mechanical pencil. It took a little more effort but it did the trick. I am happy to say my screen is now baby art free and hopefully baby will decide he likes paper better very soon. Because he is lightening quick you know.

Our Favorite Christmas Tradition

A few years ago while introducing our children to Dickens my husband and myself came across a full audio recording of A Christmas Carol read by Sir Patrick Stewart. The children were immediately smitten and an annual tradition was begun. Every year since then we initiate our holiday season with this wonderful gem of sin and redemption. If you have never listened to it before with your family I linked it here for you to enjoy.

 

Mandy

Christmas is coming

Lately I have been spending a little more time on a fabulous hobby of mine, making soap. Actually it began over a year ago as making whipped body butter for my family.

During the dry winter months my little ones’ eczema gets so bad and my hands start aging before my very eyes. I had wanted to try to make my own lotion for a while and after looking around at some Kindle books on Amazon found a recipe I liked. I did not really think too much about it but we all loved how it felt and smelled, so this year as our homeschool craft fair came around my children wanted to make some more to sell. I supervised and helped them label the various tubs (we made 4 kinds) and they actually sold pretty well.

I kind of thought it would be really wonderful if one day I could bring in some money to help hubby not be so stressed since he is out of work. So naturally I asked God to take that silly thought out of my head because hubby had a perfect job opportunity. We were going through the formalities  because we all knew how perfect it was. Uh huh, you guessed it, poof that job fizzled out. Instead God put it in my heart to try making soap, so I thought well at least it will save us money and gave it a go. I ended up loving it and mentioned it to a few friends and had planned on making some nice Christmas gifts for family since we are not getting any money in. Well those few friends all wanted some and they loved them so much they wanted more so I have been pretty busy crafting soap for Christmas.

I gotta say I am in awe of how God works and while this is something so small and not ever on my radar I know he has a plan for all of us and it is always perfect! So how is God moving you this Christmas?
Mandy