12/7/2011

Last weekend my family enjoyed a "Bethlehem Live" holy walk. In our area there are at least two churches that do these in December. They re-enact the Christmas story and we get to participate, as fellow travelers.

This is a great way to see the reality of the story that we commonly see as all clean, pretty and tied with a bow. Of course the reality was smelly, lonely, difficult, wearisome, and totally unexpected for those who first experienced it.

My kids were both able to enjoy it and understand at least some of what we were seeing.

I strongly encourage you to seek out opportunities like this in your area and enjoy seeing the Christmas story come to life in a whole new way!

It works for me!

12/6/2011

My daughter has officially passed the half way point of third grade. Yahoo!

In Indiana, we are required by law to school for 180 days and last week we marked off the 90th day of school for third grade.

It's been a while since my last post about third grade (which you can find here), so here's an update.

• We continue to LOVE our curriculum choice for this year: Sonlight.
• My daughter continues to do very well with Math (which still baffles me, since last year it was her least favorite subject and now it is her favorite do-first-thing-each-day subject).
• We have moved through American history from Indians to colonies and to the Revolutionary War, having read a handful of excellent books dealing with that time in history.
• My daughter has learned all of the lowercase cursive letters and will begin work on capital letters next week.
• We've memorized about 10 scripture verses/passages ("we" includes my daughter, myself and my son).
• Recently we've spent a few weeks doing experiments with radish seeds and sprouts. This kind of hands-on learning is great fun and helps in understanding as we can actually see "scientific" things happening (Do you know what phototropism, geotropism and hydrotropism are? You probably do but may not know them by those names).
• My daughter has taken strides in creative writing and in public speaking (something she dreads). When she has an assignment that is intended to be done in front of an audience, Dad is usually her audience. At this point, that's all she can handle. Though she did allow me to videotape her giving a "speech" last week so that was improvement.
• Attitude remains a struggle. A poor attitude coupled with procrastination has derailed our homeschool days on many occasions. We have a few good days and then a bummer of a day. There have been many times when I've said "THIS has got to be a record for the longest homeschool day ever" only to have a worse day come our way.

12/5/2011

Last Monday was my day. My day for God to remind me that He's there and He cares even for the little details of life. My day for things to be poured into my lap.

First, I took advantage of a Cyber Monday deal at Amazon and bought something for myself that I've been saving up to buy for over a year. I was able to get an AMAZING deal on it, which I'll share another time. But I was thankful and excited that the time had finally come and patience paid off.

Second, my mother offered to give us a Christmas tree. Yes, we have a Christmas tree already. However, it is not in the greatest shape. As a matter of fact, a piece or two fell off when we put it up this year. So when we visit my mom later this month, we'll be able to pick up a new-to-us tree.

Third, I opened my mailbox and found a homeschooling magazine WITH MY CHILDREN on the cover! Over a year ago I had submitted some photos to them for their consideration. A few months ago I heard back that they had chosen one of the photos for their fall magazine cover. So I knew it was coming but I didn't know when. Last Monday it arrived in the mail and looked great. How fun!

Fourth, my curriculum company sent a free Christmas gift to their customers and that arrived on Monday too.

It was an exciting day! I must say that it didn't end well, however. My son had an earache at bedtime which resulted in a trip to the 24-hour urgent care clinic where we sat from 10:30 pm until 1:30 just waiting for a doctor. It was 3:15 A.M. when we got home. At least we had a diagnosis - an ear infection - and medicine to help.

I guess you could say that I felt a bit like Cinderella - having a great day soaking in the deals and at the "stroke of midnight" it had ended! :-)

When God provides for us in unexpected ways - it's a blessing to receive His provision and see the generosity and thoughtfulness of others. It was a blessed day!

12/1/2011

My heart is heavy. I've had a rough few weeks. Even taking the entire month of November to focus on thankfulness couldn't keep away the grief that remains. Now December is here. By the end of this month, it will have been 6 months since my miscarriage. Somehow that number - 6 months, half a year - seems big and significant.

Despite things I've done to help myself cope with grief, I need a pep talk... once again. Need to remind myself of what is important. Even when it's hard. So this is a message from me to me... and to anyone else out there that feels stuck in the mire of grief and despair.

How NOT to handle grief:

*Relive the death. To relive "the day" over and over in your mind doesn't help. It doesn't take the pain away. It doesn't bring healing. It isn't a productive use of your energy and emotion and brain space. Instead, consider writing down in a journal all that you remember about the day of death. And close the journal. It's there if you want to revisit it, but this can allow you some needed distance. Put your mental energy and time into something more productive.

*Stop praying. Death and the frailty of life bring about many questions about eternity and the meaning of life. As a Christian, I know that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). Even when I feel mad at God, for allowing my child to die... I can still approach Him. I can let Him know how I feel. I can cry out to Him in my pain, my grief, my anguish, my tears. And He does not turn away or cast me off. Praying and talking to God is a helpful way to release pent-up emotions and you may be surprised when He speaks words of comfort to your hurting soul.

*Stop hoping. Hope is such a difficult thing to understand. It's hard to define and hard to grasp why some people have it in seemingly hopeless situations and others don't have it when they "should." To stop hoping is to give in to the despair. To stop hoping is to think that every day is going to be as bad as this one, as though there is no chance of things improving. Hopelessness says that my heart will remain as broken and hurting as it is right now. While hope says "I will get through this. Wholeness will come again. This is my winter season but spring will come!" To give up all hope for better days is truly the worst place to find yourself... and an even worse place to stay! As much pain as you may feel right now, believe that there will be better days ahead. The sun will shine again.

*Stop talking. I've addressed this one before on this blog so I won't repeat it all again. But healing comes through talking about your pain and grief with others. I'm not encouraging you to share everything with everyone, but rather to find one or two close friends who will help you bear your burden. If you're married, your spouse is meant to be your companion through hard times like this. Share from your heart, even when it's hard to say or hard to describe or tears are the only language you can speak. Talk as little or as much as you need to, in order to let one or two others share in your pain and walk through it with you.

*Distance yourself from those closest to you. Similar to the previous point, it is so easy to isolate yourself from others, shutting down relationships and friendships. Grief can be a big strain on any relationship, but especially on a marriage. The loss of a child is high on the list of causes of divorce. It is easy and happens naturally that spouses grieve differently and therefore start to drift apart in their grief instead of moving closer together. Don't allow grief so much power over your life and relationships. Resist the temptation to curl up and cry alone.

This list may seem like a no-brainer, but as one who is grieving, I admit that it is hard to not just naturally slip into these tendancies. It takes effort to live in the moment and not in the past. It takes effort to pray, to hope, to talk, to connect. Sometimes when grieving, the motivation to put forth the effort in these areas is hard to find.

I am reminded of this verse, which is my prayer for myself and all who grieve: "Praise be to God... the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort." (2 Cor 1:3). May the God of all comfort meet us in our deepest despair and fill us with comfort and compassion and hope for tomorrow.

11/30/2011

Kisses From Katie (written by Katie Davis) is a book about a young lady who left everything to move to Uganda to serve orphaned children. Reading her story reminds me of picking up old missionary biographies, except that her story is happening today, right now. This book is newly released and Katie's story, in many ways, is still being written.

Katie left home after graduating from high school to move to Uganda. And she stayed there. Over the next few years, she adopted more than 10 orphaned girls and founded a ministry to help meet the needs of the thousands of desperately needy children in Uganda.

She left behind everything - family, friends, college, career, a boyfriend, a convertible, the promise of a comfortable life in America. She gave it all up for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ, who called His followers to love and to give and to go.

Katie's life is a combination of the faith of Hudson Taylor, the compassion of Mother Teresa, the depth of Amy Carmichael and the crazy love of Francis Chan. If you enjoy missionary biographies, pick this book up for no other reason than to read a first-hand account of a modern-day missionary serving amidst abject poverty and yet overcoming it with the love of Christ.

I enjoyed the book very much. The stories are touching and often heart-wrenching. Katie tells the whole story - the tender moments with little children and the difficulties of missing family and friends back in the US.

Time will tell if Katie will be able to continue her work in Uganda, if she will spend her entire life with the orphans she has come to love there. I see this as the only "downside" of this book - the fact that the real end is not known. Katie has begun very well but whether or not she will continue on to the end remains to unfold. She is only in her early 20s. She has remained in Uganda for about 4 years. Can she remain for 10 or 20 or 40 more? Will the luxuries of western culture eventually lure her back to America or will God call her to do something else that requires leaving Uganda. Time will tell. And yet maybe her staying for her entire life isn't necessary for her impact to continue on. Just in the few years she's been there she has touched countless lives, brought hundreds to Christ, and simply shown love in practical ways which alone can give hope in seemingly hopeless situations.

I realize that to recommend this book, I am encouraging other young people to consider Katie's path, which is so against-the-grain and radical. To encourage others to turn away from what our culture values and pursue a life of complete faith and dependence on God, learning to value what He values. "What will you do about college?" was a big question that Katie's parents had. Yet, Katie is off doing work she loves, living a life of meaning and purpose, changing the world for the better, storing up treasures in heaven. And in many ways her young age is an asset - she is living proof that one doesn't have to have a college education to impact this world. Young, old, rich or poor, you can be used of God to love others.

My pastor once said the following, as it relates to missions: "Each of our lives will be spent on something. The only difference is how we choose to spend it." We only have one life to live. Will we spend our days focused on self-preservation and achieving the American dream? Or will we be poured out for others, giving and giving and giving, leaving behind what is of lesser importance in order to attain what is eternal?

Katie has chosen the latter and her story is an inspiration.

I recommend reading the book and if you're interested in learning more, check out Katie's blog at http://www.kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/ (There's a brief video there that introduces Katie and shows a bit of the work she does daily in Uganda).

11/28/2011

I don't "do" Black Friday. I don't wait in lines or go shopping at midnight.

But I do shop at CVS and their "Black Friday" deals always start on Thanksgiving Day. I usually head out early on Thursday morning to see what freebies I can snag.

Here's what I was able to get this year: 4 packages of M&Ms, 2 King Size Hershey bars, a bottle of LA Looks hair gel, a box of Cool Touch Kleenex, a package of Carmex, a package of Breathe Right strips, a 90-count package of Dental Flossers, a 4-pack of batteries, a Balance bar, a package of Sheets energy strips, a package of Finish Quantum dishwasher tablets, a box of toothpaste, a box of Fiber One brownies, a 2-pack of toothbrushes, a pack of Advil PM, a pack of regular Advil, a pack of Listerine breath strips, a bottle of Excedrin, a box of Cepacol throat lozenges, a package of Benefiber drink mix, and some lip gloss. All of that is in the picture.

One item NOT in the picture is a $19.99 Christmas gift. (because my daughter often looks at my blog and I don't want to ruin her surprise)

How much did I pay for all of those items and the gift?

Go ahead and guess.

$5

It's true. For $5 out-of-pocket, I got the $20 Christmas gift and all of the items in the picture. How? I paired coupons with their sales and their rewards bucks (called ECBs - Extra Care Bucks - like a CVS gift card to use on future purchases).

I consider my freebies to be a few more reasons why I continue to shop at CVS.

11/22/2011

Recently I heard a friend recommend the book Same Kind Of Different As Me. Knowing nothing more about the book, I requested a copy from the library.I didn't know what I was in for!

I love books. I love to read. This book is a real treasure. I laughed. I cried. I'm challenged to consider how I automatically judge someone based on what they look like, dress like, or the language they use. I'm challenged to get out of my comfort zone for the sake of showing love and grace to others.

This book tells the true story (the fact that it is true just makes that much more of an impact) of a wealthy man and his wife who begin to volunteer at a soup kitchen. They end up befriending a homeless man who has quite a past, quite a story to tell of growing up in near slavery in the South during the mid-1900s. It is hard to believe that his life - his poverty, his back-breaking labor and nothing in return - is true and happened in recent history. This isn't a story from the 1800s or pre-Civil War times but one that happened recently with its characters still alive to tell the story! It is shameful. It is beyond sad. And it was reality for this man... and probably for thousands of others like him. The book is written from two perspectives - the wealthy white man's and the homeless black man's.

I highly recommend this book. It's an easy read but it's worth whatever time you spend getting to know Ron Hall and Denver Moore. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll weep over the darkness in the heart of man... and the darkness in your own heart too. And yet, you'll find love and hope springing up out of the darkness.

There's a brief video about the book here, if you're still sitting on the fence about it.

Denver Moore closes the book with these words: "I used to spend a lotta time worryin that I was different from other people, even from other homeless folks. Then, after I met Miss Debbie and Mr. Ron, I worried that I was so different from them that we wadn't ever gon' have no kind a' future. But I found out everybody's different - the same kind of different as me. We're all just regular folks walkin down the road God done set in front of us. The truth about it is, whether we is rich or poor or somethin in between, this earth ain't no final restin place. So in a way, we is all homeless - just workin our way toward home."

Give it a read! Find out that everyone you meet is really just the same kind of different as me... and you.

11/17/2011

I am not an expert on foster parenting, nor am I a professional social worker. However, I've learned a lot about foster parenting in the last two years, as I trained and served as foster parent. So I am passing along my Top 3 Resources for learning about fostering.

#3 - Your fostering agency. Depending on your state, there will be anywhere from 10 to 30 hours of pre-training required to become a foster parent. Those hours of training are helpful and provide a framework for understanding "the system." That is the time to ask questions and seek clarification, to better understand the role of the foster parent, the fostering agency, the case workers, and others. With that said, though, I would still only list this as the 3rd most helpful resource. I found the training to be helpful but not as helpful as it could've been. They provided some answers, but also left many questions unanswered. In many ways, we walked out of training with limited knowledge and didn't even know what questions we should've been asking at that point. We didn't know what all we didn't know yet.

That leads to an even more helpful resource:

#2 - The internet. I found it very helpful to locate my state's Department of Child Services website and read through their online foster parenting manual. Almost any question I had about procedures or technicalities (like, can you cut a foster child's hair without their parents' permission) was addressed in the state manual. It's lengthy and wordy (similar to trying to read the tax code) but it was also pain-stakingly thorough, which is what I wanted when I had a specific question needing answered.

However, there was still one more resource that proved to be even more helpful in preparing me to be a foster parent:

#1 - A foster parenting podcast found here at www.fosterpodcast.com. This podcast is simply a California couple - Tim and Wendy - chronicling their years of experiences as foster parents. They are quirky and fun to listen to. They are Christians, so I can appreciate their heart as they approach fostering. And they are very honest about their experiences. My husband stumbled upon their podcast when we were just starting our foster parenting training. Their advice and tips were more valuable than any other training we had. I started listening at episode 1 and listened all the way through to the current episode (as I write this, there are 109 episodes, each from 20 to 35 minutes in length). They have addressed everything related to foster parenting - attachment, discipline, security, schooling, therapy, relationships with birth parents, the role of the case workers, etc. They have fostered over a dozen children and ended up adopting two young girls through the foster care system a few years ago. They tell it like it is and don't sugar-coat the hard stuff. The only caveat is that they are in California so listeners must take that into account and consider laws and regulations in their own state, which may differ (quite a bit, even) from California.

If you are thinking of fostering or just want to learn more, I strongly encourage you to start by listening to Tim and Wendy's podcast to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly of foster parenting... and the reasons why you should still seriously consider it!

11/16/2011

Recently I was inspired when I read about using cookie dough as a teaching tool in this blog post.

So this week we used her cookie dough recipe and had some cookie fun. My daughter was doing a unit study on bugs and was encourage to make a bug poster. Instead I had her create some edible bugs with our cookie dough. Then my son got involved and we just started creating for fun.

And of course we enjoyed eating our creations later!

When the time comes to study state history, we are definitely making an edible map of Indiana! :-)

Homeschooling with cookie dough - works for me!

11/3/2011

My boy is growing up. He's just weeks away from his 4th birthday. It seems that just recently he has grown a few more inches and taken strides in development too.

This week he surprised us all by being able to reach his toothbrush way back on the counter.

Last week I was peeling carrots and he wanted to help. I wasn't sure about the wisdom of handing a peeler to a 3-year-old but I let him try it. He was actually quite good at it and peeled two entire carrots for me!

A few nights ago my husband was doing something in his workshop. He set up a piece of wood for my son to work on cutting with a very small saw. The little guy worked and worked at it, eventually cutting a small piece off. How excited he was to show off what he had done!

Potty training seemed a bit delayed, but I know that is common with boys. Now, though, he's got the hang of it and does very well all day long.


Recently my son has caught on to the fact that football players wear helmets. So when he heads outside to throw his own football around, he insists on wearing his bicycle helmet as well. :-)

Without much help from me, he has learned to count to 15 and can spell his name.

He has always been a little helper. He loves to help daddy with any project he's doing - insulation, drilling, building. When I wash dishes, he's quick to grab a stool and come over to help. When we head outside to rake leaves, he heads right to his kid-sized rake and joins in the work. He's different from my daughter in this, as she would rather run off to play than to willingly do work.

So, one of the people I'm thankful for this month is my boy. What joy he brings to our family! And how thankful I am to daily be a part of his growing up.