I've Moved!!!!

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Enjoying the Story.

Until I figure out how to re-direct people automatically, you'll have to do it yourselves by clicking the link.
C'mon, I know you can do it!
One finger up?.... Ready?..... and... click!


The coffee's hot, the cookie jar is full, and the conversation is sure to entertain.
So come on over and say hello - we'd love to have you!

Jules

So long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu...

It's time to say good-bye. At least for now.

My life is so full with raising my children that this blog is incredibly neglected. And so rather than make excuses for why I cannot blog regularly, I am just going to end it. Possibly forever, possibly not. If time ever permits in the future I may come back to it. I have enjoyed sharing our lives with you and I have really enjoyed you sharing your lives with me. There are so many of you who have been a huge source of wisdom and encouragement for me, especially in my struggles to get my family on the homeschooling path. For that I thank you.

I do plan on hanging around and throwing a comment out there now and again. And if anything incredibly exciting happens (like winning the lottery) I will definitely post it, so check back every once in a while.

In the meantime, have a great night and peace and blessings to all of you.

A little reinforcement

It's always about the money around here. As much as I do not want it to be that way, it seems impossible to change. When you don't have it, you worry about where it's going to come from. Constant pressure about which bills to pay, which to put on hold, how to cut costs and reduce expenses, should we borrow from Peter to pay Paul...

When it gets really bad, I begin to doubt my efforts in this battle to live the life we're living. Sometimes it's such a struggle to continue down this path. It is a lifestyle that I fight to maintain. It would be so easy to switch directions, go out and get a full-time job, put the kids in school, find someone to watch the baby for a couple of hours a day and call it good. If I did that, money would never be an issue for us again.

But I know I would never be happy with that type of life. That is not what I want for myself and my family and so I continue the battle, fighting every day to stay afloat and provide my kids with the type of childhood they deserve.

When in the thick of things, a little reinforcement can go a long way towards uplifting and encouraging the discouraged. A breakthrough moment when your child grasps a concept and you rejoice with them, or a tender moment between siblings that would never have occurred if they had been in school. Those are the things that keep me going. Lucky for me, I had two experiences this week that, while small, succeeded in making me even more confident in my ability to continue this fight.

The first was my initiation into the world of homeschooling families in my area. We have no support groups that meet regularly. In this community, you are very much on your own. This week there was an attempt to start a homeschooling 4H club. We attended an informational meeting and I got to meet some of the other families in the area. I was so impressed! There were kids of all ages and they all played so well together. The teenage boys actually looked at me when they spoke! One of them even cracked a joke with me. They were all so comfortable being around other people - it was such a nice experience! After the meeting, the kids all went outside to play tetherball. They broke themselves up into teams without excluding anyone, and managed to take proper turns without anyone fighting. One of the boys, who looked to be about 16, comfortably held an 8 month old baby girl, not his own sister. It was so refreshing to see those kids and it made me so happy that mine are at home.

To contrast that, today Samantha had basketball practice at the school. It is only an hour, so the boys and I have been just hanging around, wandering the halls and playing with the baby until she's done. This afternoon we were walking around and I stopped to look at a poster of "Today's Stars" by the office. (blech) The boys had Anna by the hands and walked around the corner, out of my sight, although I could still hear them. They didn't get far when I heard an adult female say, "Hey! What are you doing? pause Are you here for basketball? Then you need to be in the gym!" My little Joshua, the quiet one, says, "Our sister plays basketball so we're just walking around." Then that other voice again, "No, you're not just walking around. You need to be in the gym." Her tone was very rude and I was insulted that she would talk to my kids that way, especially when they really were just walking around! I came around the corner, gave her a "look", picked up the baby and went into the gym. Then my anger and defiance rose to the surface and I marched all of us right back out of the gym and went and sat on the benches by the front door, just daring her to come and say something to them with me there! I was all fixed to say something to her about whose taxes have paid for this building anyway! They continued to play with Anna up and down the hallway, but the woman was gone. Darn! I was sort of hoping for a show-down! ;) The boys kept asking me why they had to go in the gym - they didn't understand the reasoning behind it when they knew they weren't doing anything wrong by just walking down the hall.

While we were sitting on the benches by the door, people were coming in to attend other functions at the school. Anna was in her glory, waving and saying "Hi!" to everyone who walked past. A few of the boys - mostly junior high aged - would not wave back or say hi to her or even acknowledge any of us. They just kept looking down at their feet and walking. Well me and my big mouth couldn't let that opportunity pass, so I would say something like, "C'mon, you can at least say hi!" or something else to get them to respond. Most of the time they would crack a smile but still keep on walking. It was such a sharp contrast to the boys we met yesterday that I again was so very glad that my boys are at home.

These are the moments that keep me going when the going seems all uphill. It's a nice little reminder of why the battle is worth fighting.

Isn't this supposed to be a homeschooling blog?

I figured it was time for an update on that thing we do around here called schoolwork. (do you call it that? I sometimes call it "lessons" but schoolwork is the term that I use the most)

Hmmm....


Ummm.....


*crickets*


Oh. Yeah. I guess that's my cue, huh? To update you on any things of educational value that we have been doing?

It's so hard to sort out the "school" from the "life" sometimes. The two things are so often intertwined. Circumstances have recently been such that most of our learning has not taken place between the pages of a book. But I can guarantee that the children are learning. They are learning how to be a good friend. They are learning how to comfort those who are grieving. They have learned about drinking and driving. They have learned how to be extremely sad and yet continue to function on a daily basis. They have learned to always wear their helmets. They have learned to pray for those who have suffered a loss. Oh, wait a minute. These are the things I have learned this past week! ;)

Official schoolwork came to a screeching halt last week as I tried desperately to sort out my emotions. It's amazing to me how this stuff works, though. On a random trip to the library at the beginning of last week, Jeremy pulled a movie off the shelf and asked if we could check it out. It was called The Sign of the Beaver and I am sure he was attracted to the picture of the log cabin and the boy dressed like a frontiersman on the front of the movie case.

It sounded like a good story and then I saw that it was based on a book by the same title. I have a rule that, whenever possible, we must read the book before watching the movie, so I looked the book up, found it in the young adult fiction section and checked it out too. We started reading immediately, only because the boys were anxious to watch the movie.

I cannot believe I have never heard of this book!! It quickly became one of those that we could not stop reading, which doesn't happen often with my active boys. The basic plot line is about Matt, a 12 year old boy, who is left behind on the frontier in Maine while his father goes back to Massachusetts to collect his mother, sister, and new baby. He becomes acquainted with a neighboring Indian boy and their relationship really deepens through the book. I won't give any more than that away, except to say that if you have kids who love old fashioned adventure, this book is perfect. I will be buying my own copy to have on our library shelves.

We read a little bit of it every day last week until we finished it on Thursday. We had some great discussions along the lines of "what would you do if...?" My boys really got sucked into the fact that Matt was only 12 and yet he was totally alone and responsible for "holding down the fort" while his family was gone. Good, good stuff.

So, yes, there has been some learning going on around here. It wasn't exactly what I had written on my schedule. It wasn't getting Jeremy any closer to independent reading, or Joshua any closer to telling time, or Samantha any closer to mastery of long division. But it did bring them closer to my heart. I will forever be grateful that this book came into our lives in the manner it did, at the time it did. It couldn't have been more perfect.

Healing

Thank you for all the kind words and thoughts. Friday was a very hard day but in some ways it was also very healing.

Mike's cousin delivered an excellent eulogy. He had Mike pegged perfectly which made everyone laugh with the memories. The laughter was soothing and comforting as we remembered how Mike touched each of our lives with his kindness.

A woman who had been at the scene of the accident left a letter at Mike's home the night before the funeral. In it she described Mike's last moments and how she was there to comfort him. She said that while he was never conscious during that time, she still sat by him and held his hand and kept telling him that he wasn't alone.

Then she wrote that Mike's death had impacted her greatly because she and her husband recently bought motorcycles and they never wore their helmets. After seeing the accident and being with Mike she wrote to his family that she will never again get on her bike without her helmet.

We will miss Mike terribly and will always remember his selflessness and love towards everyone. I have made a vow to never let another opportunity go by to tell people how much they mean to me. We have loved Mike and everything he has ever done for us, but did we ever tell him so? No. Did he know how much he meant to us? Probably, but I will never know for sure. It sounds like a cliche', but it is so true. I wish I had just one minute with Mike to let him know how much we loved him. Don't let the time pass on your opportunities either. If there is someone in your life who means the world to you, tell them. Today.

Sorry. No creative title today. (have I ever had a creative title?) :)

Tomorrow we go to Mike's funeral. I am not really ready for it - I know it will be so hard. I don't have a good track record when it comes to funerals. The last one I went to, (besides the one for little baby K.) I went through the viewing line at the visitation and by the time I got to the family I was so upset I think they were comforting me more than anything! I hate that!

We found out today that the woman who pulled out in front of him was drunk. That makes it even harder to take. And he was not wearing his helmet, which makes me want to grab him and shake him and yell "What were you thinking?"

I have felt surrounded by a dark cloud all week. Derick has not really shown many outward signs of grief yet. I know he is hurting and maybe it will take actually seeing Mike and attending the funeral to get him to let it out.

Tomorrow is going to be a very hard day.

For Mike

A dear friend of ours was killed in a motorcycle accident last night.

We got the call this afternoon. We were too shocked to cry at first.

He was a father-figure and friend to Derick during those crazy teen years.
He was a single dad who raised two great kids all on his own.
He dedicated everything he had to his kids while they were growing up. And I mean everything.
He accepted me and loved me immediately when I first met him.
He was a groomsman in our wedding and felt very honored that we would ask him, "the old guy".
Every time we saw him he would hug us and say emphatically, "If there's ever anything you need, call me. Whatever it is, wherever you are, I don't care. You can call me." And we knew he meant it.
He was a storyteller. Any visit was sure to be chock full of stories of his mad-cap younger days - especially the one about riding his motorcycle up the steps and through the front doors of his high school. And his eyes would twinkle and he would laugh and you were never quite sure if he was pulling your leg or not.
He was one of a kind and we will miss him tremendously.


*sigh* I am really, really sad.