Looking Through the Window of Blessings...6

214. The laughter and smiles found in a story shared between brother and sister

215. Bird pecking at homemade peanut butter and seed bird feeder

220. The peppermint, cool, freshness of clean laundry fresh from the washing machine

223. Embouchure...My lips remember

235. Pray phone call from my husband, sent by Jesus.

241. The excitement on her face, sparkle of eyes, happiness on lips, blush pink cheeks

242. That feeling as lips press against warm cup first thing in the morning

244. The divine privilege of being a small part of someone's faith journey, given to me by a God who does not need me but only wants to bless because He loves

246. Surprises! The kind you give.

Looking Through the Window of Blessings...5

172. Stories written longer

173. Soft sweaters that feel like Mama's hugs

181. SALTS. Love my sister. :)

194. Solitude of a little girl with pencil in hand creating a masterpiece

200. Trusting them to keep learning when I walk away. Integrity.

201. Snowmen sparkling, taking their last winter's stand atop curio

204. Allowing the warm tears to drip off my cheeks after a brief stop at Mama and Daddy's very empty house.

205. John William's gentle, tugging melodies

208. That giggle, the silliest boy sound

Sorrow in her Shoulders

Have you ever watched your child doing things that they love but noticed sadness in their eyes? In the curve of their tiny lips? In the slump of their shoulders?

I've noticed. Sweet daughter of mine dances, she plays with her dolls, pounds away on the piano, paints...and she loves all those things, but her eyes are not hiding what is inside her slowly mending heart. Happiness seems to escape her right now. Sadness envelopes her in some moments and rains on all that she loves, creating puddles of sorrow mud.

She is not overlooked, but it would be easy to do it. She is not the loud one with her most personal feelings. She is the one who wants to make everyone happy, who wants to serve everyone else. I have purposed to talk with her over the past two months to make sure she knew she could come to me, that I am hear for her, though I sometimes wonder if she thinks that she is here for me.

And maybe, in some ways, she is. 

In those quiet conversations when I go to her and say things like, "Your thoughts and feelings are important to me. How are you today," she tells me truthfully each time. Some days, she wants to talk; some days she does not. Some days, she looks away and her shoulders sag, and I know what she feels without hearing any words.

Today, she came to me on her own accord. Relief flooded my own sorrow puddle and joy droplets seemed to fill the hole. 

She is sad. She is learning what her triggers are and sometimes avoiding them. Sometimes not. She expressed this herself and I thought to myself, 

"She is mine. We are alike in this way."

I was so proud of this little girl of mine for telling me. I was so thrilled to be able to scoop her tiny self into my arms and hold her like the little girl she still is. We snuggled on the couch silently for a while as I stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. We needed each other. We needed quiet. We needed to remember.

I know there will be more moments like this, and we will keep talking, and we will keep snuggling in silence.

Tonight, she is hyper and loud, her normal, with a smile spread across her lips as laughter escapes her mouth. She is beautiful. She is sparkling. 

She is...mine.

Catapulting the Tar Pit: A Lesson in Making Curriculum Work for You

I've been planning history lessons over the past week.  It is the last subject to get put back into the mix of our schooldays since the funerals, though I still haven't decided what we're going to do with Five in a Row for the rest of the year. Ava says she misses it if I ask her, but if I don't ask her, it seems to not come up. At the same time, I don't know that I'm ready to give up those sweet story times yet. 

While planning history using Homeschool in the Woods Time Travelers series in the fall when we studied their Civil War unit, I found there to be so much to do that I couldn't possibly do it all unless I didn't do some of our other subjects. It is a unit study, which has its pros and cons. Ideally, I could use this study for history, language arts, science, art, penmanship, and more, but I like our language arts and science, and I don't see any point in not sticking with those subjects. While I always want to give my children the best I can give them, I find that I live by the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" motto.

This time we are studying New World Explorers, and it is honestly a fantastic unit study. I am, however, reminded that curriculum is a guide and not a rule, so we're doing the parts that work for us, which I am certain is how Amy Pak would want us to use her outstanding curriculum. 

When we last studied this era of American history, Lukas was in second grade, and we used My Father's World, Adventures. I loved it, so I pulled it out last night and began to incorporate the history portion into our New World Explorers history and combining the two into what I believe is going to be ideal for my kids. The read-aloud narratives and stories with MFW are phenomenal, and the projects in NWE are equally phenomenal, so we have a perfect system.  NWE has components which will challenge Lukas since, obviously, MFW is a curriculum designed for much younger students, and both students will benefit from the rich story-telling that comes along with MFW.

My point in telling you all this is that I am surprised by my own growth in the ability to determine our curriculum rather than allowing a publisher to define our path for us. One of the reasons we stopped using MFW is because the lesson plan was stressing me out. Every homeschooling mom needs to learn how she ticks, and I have learned that I don't like being told which days I'm supposed to do what, especially when medical appointments and the necessities of life prevented us from keeping up with their schedule, which honestly isn't that intense. It was what life handed us that was intense. 

I seem to always re-visit this pitfall. Last fall, I was stuck there again, sinking, sinking, sinking in the "you must do it all" curriculum tar pit. It took us months to do what we could have studied in a matter of weeks, partially because our schedule was insane and partially because I didn't want to skip anything. The history portion of our day was taking an hour, sometimes more, and what homeschooling family has time for that?

I've catapulted over the tar pit. I'm more surprised than you are. After almost 7 years of homeschooling, you would think I would have made it across years ago, and I actually did make it a few times for a season. I hope it isn't a season this time. I hope I stick with it because this feels perfect. School has been fun, interesting, ideal, exciting, and challenging the past few days. That is as it should be.

Do what works for your family. Don't do something just because you paid for it. I know, sometimes you have to do that, but find a way to make it work without drudging through the mess to the point that you hate it, or, even worse, your kids hate it and miss the excitement of learning. What works for your best homeschooling pal may not ever work for you. Don't sweat it. Move on, and do what's right for your family. You will only be relieved.  I promise.

Looking Through the Window of Blessings...4

145. Peanut butter spread messy on English muffin by boy showing love
148. The end of a well-written story
149. The smile on her profile
150. Independent study, because he was interested and wanted to
154. Happy laughter from a boy covered in sweat
158. New books to discover
161. Amelia Bedelia
163. Digging in dirt

Looking Through the Window of Blessings...3

95. Handsome Lukas and his boyhood sound effects
103. Clean house surprise
105. Sunshine on shiny wood floors
107. Lukas made a basket in a game right in front of Daddy!
108. A Father who dotes on me
109. Smooth, rich, jazzy Ella Fitzgerald
112. Little boy giggles from the getting big boy
115. "Adults have too much to get done all the time. You don't always have to get stuff done. Adults should play more." Thank you, Lukas.
122. Life Application Bible and all its warn pages and ragged pink leather
123. Husband quiet on the couch resting on a snowy evening
125. A girl in her brother's old clothes, dressed for bed
130. Glossy, cranberry red fingernails
132. Meeting with God in the space between the notes
133. Tears unexplained but purposeful

Texting Etiquette

On more than one recent occasion, I have found myself either the instigator or the victim, for lack of a better word, of a poorly delivered conversation that left me with various negative results. Frustration, anger, misunderstanding, hurt. I've watched this week as it has happened to someone else as well. The written word. It seems to wound more quickly sometimes than the verbal. The cyberspace lurking between your laptop, smartphone, or tablet and the person with whom you are attempting to communicate peacefully leaves a lot of room to draw conclusions or for misunderstandings, or, let's face it, to just read into things.

We all know that reading between the lines isn't the best way to build relationships, so why leave others with the opportunity to do so? In one of these recent conversations, I was disappointed in the person who was texting me. It is my opinion that texting or emailing someone should never take the place of building real relationships, and it should never, ever be used to avoid confrontation or uncomfortable situations. 

Don't get me wrong. I've made the mistakes. I had a smartphone. I texted almost exclusively to the point that it took getting rid of the smartphone for me to even see the error of my ways. My friendships were suffering. The friendships that were the strongest were the ones with those people who rejected technology all together or chose not to make it their BFF. Is that because there are fewer misunderstandings in a phone conversation about a controversial topic than there are on a Facebook timeline or text thread? Maybe. I think so.

In a recent conversation during which I allowed my emotions to get the best of me, I ended up apologizing for my nasty behavior. Did the person handle the conversation the way it should have been? Definitely not. It shouldn't have been handled through text, and that's exactly what I told the person (after I apologized). Was the information he sent to me wrong? Nope. It was the delivery of the information that caused the problem. After I apologized and shared with him that I was having a very emotional week and that I didn't respond well to him, I made sure to reiterate that some conversations are best left to the phone or face to face confrontations.

His words to me? 

"I think it might just be a generational thing. I text everything." 

Ouch. I will not take you on the "He just called me old" tangent, or the "wait until he's 37 and looks at people who are 50 as if they are close to the same age" tangent.

I sure hope he's wrong. If it becomes okay to text all the hard stuff to our friends, co-workers, fellow church-goers, and families, we will be left with a whole mess of lonely people wishing for connection with others. We will be left with shallow lives, emptiness, and lost relationships.

The phone I am currently using has a QWERTY keyboard. It is not a smartphone, but it works well for what I need (though I do get annoyed with having to empty my text inbox 3x a week). What I love about being able to text again is that I am better in touch with some of my dear friends as well as my sister and even my husband when he's at work. I love that texting helps to alleviate the lack of time a busy mom has to keep in touch.

But texting isn't a substitution for real relationships, for face to face confrontation, for building depth in friendships. It's a tool. Use it to make someone laugh. Use it to flirt with your spouse. Use it to check-in with your teenagers. There are all kinds of good ways to text people. Just be careful. Don't let it get out of hand.

If the above mentioned conversation had taken place without all that cyberspace to allow me to read between the lines, I don't think I would have reacted poorly. Would I have been sad because of the topic of discussion? Sure, but I believe I would have had nothing negative to say, and feelings would have been spared, my feelings and his. The way we word things through text doesn't always come across well. 

So...the moral of this blog today is, "Texting should never take the place of proper etiquette. Don't use it to avoid confrontation, to argue, to cause drama, or to save yourself the hassle of a phone call. Use it for good."

And, since I did digress briefly, I might as well include a second moral to the story. 

"Never tell a woman in her 30s that something is a generational thing. NEVER, EVER."

Or, if you do, make sure you are, say, 20 years OLDER than said woman.

Looking Through the Window of Blessings...2

While reading a short portion of Ann Voskamp's book today, I was inspired by her words once again.

"When I name moments- string out laundry and name-pray, thank You, Lord, for bedsheets in billowing winds, for fluff of sparrow landing on line, sun winter warm, and one last leaf still hanging in the orchard- I am Adam and I discover my meaning and God's, and to name is to learn the language of Paradise."

And so I continue to name God's blessings...

51. Love notes from my sweet husband
53. Phone chats with my sister
54. The opportunity to love
55. I Peter 5:10 texted to me by my husband
57. All those cards Mama faithfully sent
58. A man who prays for me and loves me
62. Noise
63. Silence
66. Longevity in friendships
71. Honest words from a child searching for faith
73. The smell of chocolate
76. The smile on her face
81. Heart-shaped pancakes
90. Snow falling ballerina soft
92. The memories held in the photos

Looking Through the Window of Blessings...1

There couldn't be a better stage of my life to be focusing on life's little blessings. Today was no exception. Some days, I feel like I'm a hot mess. No, seriously. You wouldn't believe the craziness that is lurking just below the surface.

Anyway...a window into today's blessings...

35. Challenging words from an internet article
37. The privilege of being used by God to draw others to Him
38. Nerf wars
39. Psalm 40: 1-3 "Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord."
41. Forgiveness from a friend
45. Singing at the tops of our lungs
49. That feeling I get sometimes when driving Daddy's truck, like a part of him is in the truck with me.

One Thousand Blessings

I'm missing my blog. I haven't felt very inspired lately. Grief does that to a person, or so I am learning. I'm not going to go on and on about sadness right now. I want to tell you what I'm reading that is uplifting to me rather than focus on the ins and outs of this journey of mourning on which I have been unwillingly tossed.

I'm reading Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts, but let me back up a little.

I went to our local Christian bookstore a few Saturdays ago. It is this tiny little store that I have loved since I was a young girl. I looked at every single book they had on the shelf labeled, "Grief." Some seemed to be trite. Some seemed to be overtly sorrowful. I know, I know. Books on grief might contain a little sorrow in them. It's part of the game, right? Still, I want to get through this without having to feel weighted down by what I'm reading, especially by authors who admit in the first pages of their books that they've never experienced the loss of someone especially close to them, a parent, a spouse, a child. 

Why in the world are they writing books on grief? Tell me, please!

Maybe three days after my little journey to the bookstore, I received an email from my dear friend, Sarah. She was just checking to see how I was doing and suggesting this great book she just read. She continued to explain that the author had experienced the loss of a sibling as a little girl and that this was the tale of her journey back from that, her journey and search for thanksgiving in the everyday. That's all she really said, and then she told me the title, which I have already mentioned to you. One Thousand Gifts.

Of course, this is the book I should be reading right now. I began reading it last fall, and I put it down when Mom got sick. I already owned it when Sarah suggested it! It is a book that requires thought and concentration. I felt incapable of offering the book justice as my brain stopped functioning normally that day on which Mom made her decision, the one that changed all our lives, the one that meant she knew she was ready to meet Jesus face to face. No chemo. Not any more. So, I put the book down.

I am now reading chapter three in short increments, thinking about them, digesting them, living them. I decided not to wait until the end to start my list of 1000 gifts, or, as my list states, 1000 blessings. I think I will share them with you from time to time and maybe share some thoughts about the book along the way too, though I make no promises. Commentary isn't my greatest strength, but I can already feel this book changing me. I used to think I was a rather grateful person, but now I see how so much of the way I think is bogged down by selfish desires. I have so much to learn, so much to change, so much healing to do. 

So here are a few highlights from today's list (which, incidentally, is rather lengthy)...

1. The elastic pull of a good morning's stretch
6. A project completed together in peace
8. The drawing closer of God's wooing love
12. Mis-matched outfits that make me smile
13. Children's gleeful longings for the words of a book
14. Willing and eager helpers
19. Reminders of Mama
21. Ward and June Cleaver...inspired laughter
27. Frog and Toad

Thanksgiving can be found in anything. I've always tried to to find thanksgiving in the little and the big. Now I shall make it a habit. 

How about you?