Resting

High 70s, low 80s. My favorite summer weather has prevailed for several days now--coolish mornings and sunny, not-too-hot afternoons. The kids have been away for a few days with friends and El Professor and I have been enjoying a schedule-less, projecting frenzy. No specific mealtimes, no permission sought or given, just time, time, time to get some things done. We've been resting, really.

The past two years, specifically summers, have been filled with urgencies that pushed nest cleaning off the schedule, while the detritus of life took over the garage/cupboards/every drawer/desktop. Two summers ago, El Professor was suddenly given the assignment of adding an endorsement to his teaching license with this alarming statement--'or we will most likely have to lay you off half time'. He had about six weeks to learn linguistics and to cram for one of the scheduled tests administered at the University. Last summer he fell and broke a few ribs which put a quick end to most of the summer 'honey do' list. In the midst of this, other life things were going on...good things, hard things, things. Two years ago we joined the Classical Conversations group that was being founded here and experienced a sudden (but wonderful, challenging) homeschool course change. The first months were like this. It was a great experience, so last year I agreed teach the grammar and writing course for 4th-6th graders. (Prior to this, I had never studied grammar.) I spent much of that spring/summer/fall/winter studying/cramming/thinking/planning lessons. I loved every minute of it, it was challenging, and it was worth the effort. Having said that, though, this summer we are resting. Resting from studying and cramming. Resting from a sense of urgency.

Life is good, but hard. My dad survived the septic crash his body experienced this spring and has been growing stronger. He spent seven weeks in the hospital. My dearest, loveliest aunt is fighting colon cancer. My sister's sweet mother-in-law is dying of a sudden, acute leukemia. Life is fragile and precious. In the midst of all of this, we are resting from the urgent push we have experienced over the past two years. We are continuing our course with Classical Conversations, knowing that the pace will be ramped up this year with both kids in the rigorous middle and high school programs. I will be teaching the same grammar and writing course this year, so I've been picking away at planning/thinking/studying, but I'm not cramming. Instead, we've been painting bedrooms, scrubbing mold, priming, trolling Craig's List, organizing, organizing, organizing, oiling the furniture, breathing deeply, and cleaning our nest. We have been helping the kids finish their math books and El Professor and I plan to study/review the Institute For Excellence In Writing seminar, and to help the kids do some preparation for the upcoming school year. Still, we are enjoying the break from urgency, the opportunity to take care of ourselves and our home, and are relishing falling-into-bed-exhausted from hard work.

Rainy Day....Hard Times.....

This morning there is a tingling energy outside. There is a cold front passing through and the energy is present in the sound, the light wagging of the twigs on the trees, the spin of the wind scupture outside my window. Yesterday the sun was out all day, and the golden warmth was such a needed thing for me. I sat by the window in the library, the kids quietly worked on their school work, and I read....and read....and read....and escaped. It was wonderful.

My dad is having a serious health crisis and I am wrestling with a terrible, pending sense of loss, despite the fact that we might not lose him. Dad is a retired physician, and around him is a swarm of doctors, some are friends and some are newer doctors, who are all on "It". "It" being a staph infection that has spread around his sacroiliac joint and lower back, setting up pockets of infection, destroying tissue, and making him horrifically ill. "It" has gone septic. The agonizing pain of the abscesses has been chased by powerful pain medications rendering him 'senseless', somewhat unresponsive. He has eaten so little in this long illness (over a month), that he is weak. He lays now, intubated, in ICU with more surgery to come. Among the Scary Things....will he emerge from the 'stupor' he is in? He has had a head to toe MRI, as his many doctors search for a possible stroke or brain bleed, while also searching for more of the rampant Staph Terrorist Cells that are setting up camp who knows where? The MRI showed no stroke, but what about the no speech situation? It's very distressing. There's a name for the issue of no speech/low responsiveness--'metabolic encephalopathy'. It's like a crowd of toxins/medications trying file out.....on a dirt trail.

The rain is beginning and it is cold outside. I know we need the rain. The lakes and reservoirs need to fill for the dry, summer months ahead. But I loved that sun yesterday. Still, I will try to embrace this rain, try to see the need for it, and will choose to move, hopeful, into another day.

A blog post worth pondering (not mine, but the one linked here)

Among the myriad homeschool blogs I've come across is this one. This blogger reads and reports volumes about the things she is learning during her homeschool/parenting/life journey. My own 'busyness' takes a different form than regularly researching, reading, and sharing through blogging, but I admire those who do have and take the time to do so. Recently, this blogger posted information from a site that I plan to spend more time exploring. She was specifically referring to this post, and I truly appreciated the content I found there.

After reading this post I was reminded of a time, years ago, when El Professor and I met with one of the elders of the little church we were attending at the time. I don't remember the purpose of the meeting, but I remember the perplexity the elder conveyed over the fact that I hadn't had a conversion 'moment' that seems to be the conventional Christian idea of what it means to become a believer/follower of Jesus. My journey to faith had many arduous moments, days, weeks, months, and there are markers along the trail of where I began to question, and the answers and resolutions I found along the way. Every 'believer' has a different story and a different process, and I need to pray for wisdom and patience as my own children process, question, hurt, doubt, experience, believe, and question some more......

Summer

A few days ago, El Professor and I sat down with a calendar and mapped out things we still need/want to accomplish this summer. One thing that is now off the calendar....climbing the South Sister. The Broken Rib Situation is beginning to slow El Professor down as he is learning that his determination to stay somewhat active means pain. In the past few days he has been resting more and accepting that he really can't go for long walks or help with tasks like unloading the groceries. Still, we are enjoying summer.

Maybe next summer.....South Sister and Moraine Lake.

The weather has turned hot and our house doesn't have air conditioning. Right now the doors/windows are open and the high velocity fan is pumping the cool morning air into the house. We've been doing our best to stay cool with activities such as Evening Movie on the Lawn and Freezer Surprise for dinner. Last night's Freezer Surprise was a spaghetti meat sauce with a January date on the foil cover. (It was great!) I'm trying to avoid indoor cooking/heating up the kitchen. Hopefully, by the end of the week all of the Freezer Surprise will have been discovered and I can defrost the freezer. It's getting rather 'ice cavish' in there.

We have some 'fix it' projects to do such as finishing the 4 year old unfinished windows, cleaning mildew off the yet-to-be-replaced aluminum windows, cleaning out the garage, and moving the remnants of the old woodpile we unloaded on Craig's List. I am beginning to ramp up preparations for my teaching role at Classical Conversations. Oh, and we need to file our taxes...how long is that extention good for?

I love the cool summer mornings and the drone of the fans. The birds are singing. The purple bush beans are beginning to crank out beans that need picking and the bolting lettuce needs to be gathered before it is too bitter for summer Caesar salads. I'm off......

Good Post....

I love this post.

The Heart of the Matter (or why we home educate)...

I was out on the patio the other day, checking vegetable starts and ‘outdoor tasking’ when Daniel launched into an explanation of a flawed proof for evolution, sighting a 1953 experiment conducted by a man named Stanley Miller.  The information he was spontaneously sharing came from the book, It Couldn’t Just Happen, that he read this year for his Classical Conversations Rhetoric class.  Although first published in 1987, this book remains an excellent resource for opening and maintaining a conversation about origins.  For Daniel, some of these conversations took place during his Classical Conversations Rhetoric class, and it is for honest conversations about fundamental topics, such as origins, that I have maintained a deep interest and desire to see our kids schooled outside of the public education system.

I was a public educator prior to ‘retiring’ in 1998 to manage our home, raise, and school our two kids.  I spent 11 years in the classroom teaching 1st and 2nd graders.  Those years were busy, demanding, and stressful, and while I was ready to hang up my stick of chalk when the opportunity came to do so, those years were also full of sweetness and I had the privilege of working alongside some very well intended, loving, serving colleagues, many of whom were also Christians.  Still, as our own two kids approached school age, the public school system wasn’t an option in my mind.  Large class sizes, my children’s maturity issues, etc. were all part of my concerns but, ultimately, the heart of the issue of educating our children has been an issue of world view.  

In September, Daniel had to write a science report on ‘amoebas’ for his Classical Conversations Biology class.  Each week, the students in the middle school class, Challenge A, research a topic, write about the topic, hand draw an illustration, write a bibliography, and present all of these to their cohort (classmates).  A quick check of our home library afforded very little information on ‘amoebas’, but we did have one book, John Holzmann’s (of Sonlight Curriculum) Biology.  Excellent.  Now, as the assignment required two or more references, we needed another book.  I stopped at St. Vincent de Paul, ‘O Excellent Supplier Of So Many Of Our Books’, and grabbed a middle school biology textbook.  $2.50 (which was less than my library fine).  There was a whole section in this book on amoebas, complete with illustrations.  As Daniel and I read over the section, however, we found that the information was so laced with evolutionary information that it seemed to be more like a tool of evolutionist indoctrination than an honest study of one-celled creatures.  Ultimately, I recycled the book (in the ‘blue bin’, choosing not to regift the book to St. Vinnie’s), and discussed with Daniel how one of my frustrations with the school system is that materials, such as this book, are used to teach core subjects, and that the information is dedicated to a theory of origins that is taught authoritatively rather than acknowledging the status of ‘theory’.  There are no disclaimers such as, ‘Some scientists believe.....’ 

Families have different reasons for choosing home education or home based education, and I have gleaned some great encouragement and wisdom on the subject from many sources, including an article written by Ron Julian of the McKenzie Study Center and Gutenberg College.  (Read it for yourself here.) Written in 1993, seven years prior to our own foray into the waters of home education, the issues of shepherding our children’s hearts through their education rings true today.  Home education was a growing movement in 1993, and the heart of the matter remains the same today.  

For our family, joining Classical Conversations has been an unexpected mercy in our home education journey.  It has been a financial sacrifice for us, but it has been well worth the cost. Granted, we could have combed through the book It Couldn’t Just Happen on our own, but the opportunity to discuss the information in a tutor-guided session with several other students has been valuable.  Weekly accountability to get the readings done has kept Daniel on track.  Daniel, who doesn’t *love* to read, loved this book and I am grateful that he had the opportunity to look at some of the arguments that evolutionists claim support their theory and to explore the huge, gaping holes in those very claims.  Several months after reading about Stanley Miller’s 1953 experiment, Daniel is still chewing on the information.  Home education has given us the opportunity to look at the holes in what our society, education system, and culture claim to be true in fundamental topics such as origins, and I am thankful. 

Annivesary

It's my 'blogoversary'.  (I wonder if I spelled that correctly, and if there is such an entry as 'blogoversary' in Merriam-Webster which would certainly be a reflection of our culture and time.)   As of late, I've been busy, distracted and haven't written as much as I thought I would.  A year ago, when I first started blogging, I had intended to write more about home schooling and to share observations from my thirteen year transition from public school teacher to mother, to homemaker, to homeschooler, and the sometimes shock of 'christian culture' that I encountered in that transition.  I had intended to do more curriculum sharing and unit study updates.  I still hope to.  :-)   

A Little Sojourn...

This morning I sprang out of bed, having overslept.  It is Saturday, a day for sleeping in, but this Saturday morning afforded me the opportunity to sojourn, early, to the regional teaching hospital with a few other women, where a Very Sick Friend had been taken the morning prior. I've written about this friend before--about a year ago she was the subject of my first ever blog post.  She has survived, to date, several crises surrounding her failing liver, and this most recent crisis involves her recently transplanted liver.  Her name is Grace, she is valiant, and she is well named.   

Despite the seriousness of our journey, there was laughter, fellowship, and very honest, probing conversation.  In many ways I was the benefactor of two women who felt pulled to travel two hours north and invited me along.  Those two hours were spent sharing, praying, discussing...singing.  I think the latter was the best of all, trying to remember stanzas of hymns, or any song three women from different faith communities shared in common.  We found common ground in the familiarity of 'It Is Well With My Soul'.  I thought for a moment of the story I have heard about the hymn's origin, and felt a gratefulness that one man's response to suffering was a song through which countless others have been bolstered up and encouraged. 

    

We arrived at the hospital to find Grace, amazingly, lucid and able to receive a few visitors. This was not necessarily our expectation, as we thought we might do nothing more than give Grace's husband an encouraging hug and then pray--in the waiting room.  I watched these two women attend to Grace, check on her husband's needs, so benevolent, so real.  We talked a bit about life, visitors, and songs.  Grace likes hymns.  Then, we sang.  We  sang 'It Is Well With My Soul', and this sweet, Very Sick, very yellow woman, Grace, sang along.  After a bit, we gathered a lunch for her husband, greeted Grace's out of town family members flocking to the hospital, and left. 

We were home before 4:00, and yet it was such a profound time.  I am blessed, humbled, and grieved by the whole experience of today, what has come before, and what may follow.  I am the benefactor of these women and their wisdom, perspective, benevolence, intuitiveness, and ability to balance self protection with reaching out.  Today I was the student on a field trip of life, and when I came home a bit raw and hopeful, this is what I found....   

Golden Globes

This weekend was one of those 'it felt so good to get some things done' kind of weekend. Emphasis on some.  We have a lot of bath towels--they were all dirty,  the beds needed changing, and I really needed to get some 'make ahead' freezer lunches banked for El Professor to grab and take to work.  Many of the bath towels are now washed (there are still some to go), two of the beds were changed, and there is a neat stack of quickie grab lunches in the freezer, plus a big batch of minestrone soup.  

As Sunday night drew to a close, it was time to take in The Golden Globes.  But in the spirit of a weekend of getting things done........

I decided to turn on the little TV in the kitchen and deal with all of the 'golden globes' that have been rotting in my garage.  

Of course, I needed a 'golden globe' to sip whilst taking in the Golden Globes and dealing with those 'golden globes'......

The result?  These apple chunks cooked down, I sieved them with my food mill, and put several quart bags of smooth applesauce into the freezer. 

The best part?  All of that applesauce will be wonderful to have and no one will be making fun of what I was wearing.  

A Heavy Thing....

I am so very grieved about this accident,  yet I am so thankful that Maricel and Wilder are still with us.  So....very......thankful.

Out of the mouth of babes...

"I had a big splinter in my foot but my dad was still alive so he pulled it out."  

This was a profoundly consuming week.  

That quote?  

Spoken with such truth and innocence by the seven year old daughter of a friend, that it pricked my heart with the earthly finality that it conveyed.  Another friend had brought this child and the child's five year old sister to a park day we had planned.  "What a good memory of your dad," my wise friend responded without missing a beat. 

Some years ago a group of home school moms began getting together.  The group has had different takers over time, we all attend different churches, but somehow through a web of connections our lives  have been woven together.  This week the husband of one of these dear women died of a heart attack.  The sweet teller of the splinter story is one of the six children left behind.  

This week I thought of 'light' blogs from the places of enjoyment that sustained me.  There were also reassuring  Summit Summer hikes, pleasantly mundane things like laundry, shopping for my step-niece's upcoming wedding, and Thirteen's golf camp.  But the undercurrent was ever present,  waking me up at night or early in the morning.  You see, this circle of home school moms also holds the friend who awaits 'the call' for a new liver.  Though very fragile, she somehow plans for the school year and calls to ask what kind of sweet peppers were on that sandwich I made her.  The need is real and deep and can wash over you and leave you gasping and questioning, seeking counsel and perspective...where is it?  Where is the boundary?  Where is it?  Where is it? Where do you find the true boundary?  How do you decipher between wise service, true need,  and your own selfish flesh that screams out for untroubled, idyllic summer days on the lawn sipping iced tea?  

Friday afternoon I went blueberry picking with an Oldest-and-Dearest--you know, one of those friends from your early twenties?  One of those who attended your wedding and was there when the kids were born?  We weren't able to go early in the day so we went in the hot afternoon, slathered on sunscreen, and picked.  For nearly three hours we sweated and picked.  In the quiet, and in the sometimes overwhelming loudness of a SE Asian tonal conversation on a nearby row, we talked about loss and responsibility, and the realness of human feeling and struggle about such matters.  I shared some of the counsel we received this week (some of which was hers) and she shared about their journey as caregivers/guardians of a disabled, adult orphan, and the recent death of her mother.  29 combined pounds of blueberries later (not counting the ones we ate) she picked up the tab and my extreme gratefulness for the honesty of her stories and for allowing me to share mine.  

Must read....

this. 

Look for this story.....'Since you asked:  The Official Bambam Story' posted on 7/21/08 

Update....

Wow...amazing how God works.  My friend survived the internal bleed and was discharged from the hospital in that faraway city.  Here's the amazing part--a benefactor sent a private jet down to get my friend and her family and spirit them home sans all of the hassle of a commercial flight. Another friend and his children rode down on the private jet and road tripped the family's car home.  My friend has now officially been accepted at the nearest teaching hospital where transplants are performed.  It is my understanding that this hospital has a low mortality rate on transplants and this is due to high standards for potential transplant patients.  She has been accepted!  I'm feeling very thankful.   

Perspective....

I am a great emoter.  When the ride is a bit bumpy and disconcerting things fly my way I wear my feelings on my sleeve and I emote.  The economy is disconcerting and I have some real concerns about El Professor's teaching position for the upcoming year.  Possible job cuts don't settle well with me and it is easy travel to the Land of What If.  This morning, however, was a time of gaining perspective.  

The first post I wrote on this blog was about a very ill friend--I needed to emote about this fragile woman with a steel spirit, so I wrote about my encounter with her in 'Little Coats Big People'.   This morning I got a phone call and an email letting me know that this friend is in the ICU in a faraway city.  She and her dear family took a car trip to a time share they had and were poised for a little get away when she began to bleed internally.  Much of her year and their year has been spent living with the frightening and ever increasing episodes relating to her failing liver.  She is in final stage liver failure and needs a liver transplant.  She is on the transplant list, but one must be even worse (as if I can imagine how much worse a person could be) before moving to the top of the list.  So, there they are.  In a faraway city, in a hospital where her case is new and unknown to the medical staff.  By comparison my cares have been uncomfortable and very real to me, but I am gaining perspective.  

Please pray for this dear family with two children and two loving parents, one of whom is teetering on the edge of very fragile health.   

Crossing my arms the other way......

As I sat in a staff meeting several years ago the school principal had all of us try an interesting exercise.  "Cross your arms.  Now, uncross them and cross them the other way."  It was a time of change in our elementary school, school programs, and district.  The point of her exercise?  To address the idea that change is uncomfortable.  I've often reflected on that exercise as life has bumped along with many opportunities to cross my arms the other way.  The metaphor only goes so far, however.  I've found that I eventually uncross my arms and recross them the comfortable way. :-)  Still, she made a good point.  

I don't teach at that school anymore as I opted to go on maternity leave when Ten was born and I never went back.  We home school our kids and it has been a fascinating journey.  As this school year draws to a close, however, I am looking ahead to next year and finding that I am having to cross my arms the other way.  We've participated in various co-ops, home school resource center classes, and private lessons over the years, with the resource center classes being the only constant.  Each year offers new changes and opportunities, but this next year is one in which everything is changing and I am trying to patiently let the dust settle, making suggestions, asking questions, and waiting.  Waiting is hard for me.  I like to problem solve and get it all figured out--now.  All of this change also involves El Professor's position as a public school teacher.  He has a new building assignment for next year which will have him making a daily tour of three schools--lots of driving--our '87 Jeep is never going to make it--we will need to find a 'new' second car.  

So, I'm crossing my arms the other way...and waiting.   

Serenity

We spent Mother's Day weekend out in the Oregon high desert where El Profesor grew up.  He grew up on the high desert plateau, 5,000 feet above sea level with long, cold winters and hot, dry summers--'the dry side' as some Oregonians refer to the side of Oregon east of the Cascade Mountains.  I grew up on 'the wet side', in the Willamette River Valley, 500 feet above sea level, in town.  When El Professor first took  me out into the high desert I found it fascinating, marveling at the tumbleweed all along the barbed wire fence lines.  Overall, though, it seemed drab to me--dry bluffs, juniper, sagebrush and blah.

Over the years, I have grown to love the high desert.  When our kids were young we stopped along the road at a little 'town spot' (a store and a lot of wide open space) on the way to El Professor's childhood home and the kids marveled at the sound.  It was The Silence.  It was so very silent that it pressed on your ears, ears so accustomed to the steady drone of town.  

This Mother's Day weekend the high desert was awakening from winter.  Snow was still in the higher hills, but the trees and shrubs were just beginning to leaf out, the daffodils were in bloom and the wild flowers were flourishing in their dusty places.  Away from the hustle and bustle of town, away from the dense, busy underbrush of the Willamette Valley, way out in the desert I experience serenity.  

Little Coats Big People

I used to be a school teacher.  I still am a school teacher, although a different breed of teacher now that I am 'retired' from the public school classroom and am homeschooling my own children. Tonight the phone rang, and the conversation that ensued brought back a memory from my classroom days.  Sometimes, when the room was quiet and abandoned for the day, I would walk around and straighten up.  Although my students were only in first and second grade, the hugeness of their personalities their 'realness' somehow sized them.  They were real, delightful, troublesome and a lot of work at times.  I was their teacher and they were huge, consuming and worthwhile.  As I would straighten up, inevitably I would gather a coat from a heap on the floor.  A coat from a huge being.  A tiny coat.  I remember holding up a coat and marveling at the smallness of this garment which belonged to a hugely real being.  They were small children, those first and second graders. 

I have a friend who is very ill.  She has been ill off and on for as long as I've known her.  I met my friend in the early years of my homeschool wanderings when our sons were in a basketball class together.  In the years I've known my friend I've learned of her liver transplant and the trials of her Hepatitus C which was the cause of her own liver failure.  She lives graciously, practically, faithfully and optimistically.  A few days ago I learned she was in the hospital.  Prior to that I knew that she wasn't well and my concern was swelling--I hadn't seen or spoken to her in a month.   I had a huge sense of sorrow and a tangible sense of her frailty--like one of those tiny coats.  

Yesterday, I intended to leave a small package on her doorstep.  Just a token, a care package.  To my surprise, she opened the door.  I was stunned but went inside to visit for a few minutes.  Today I saw her again and then tonight she called.  What a blessed reassurance.  The coat is tiny but the being is huge and real.