Monthly Archives: September 2015

Daily Life, Project 365, Tim

The Sound of Change

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This was a very strange day at work. My employer has decided to stuff an extra 60 people into the office building floor where I work, and so we were all told to box up our stuff and get ready for the corporate equivalent of a Fruit Basket Upset. When the dust settles, I will occupy a somewhat smaller cubicle on the northwest side of the building, rather than the northeast side which I have occupied for the last seven or eight years.

Ordinarily, the only time (at work) that you hear people putting stuff in boxes is if they have been laid off, or are quitting. It is a sound full of negative emotional impact, especially if you’ve ever been laid off (which I have) or worked for a small company which was bought out or which closed its doors (which I haven’t). So, all day long I kept hearing the sound of people packing and would subconsciously tense, before remembering to tell myself that it was only a move. Modular office furniture is a perfect choice if you need to move or relocate rather often.

Around four p.m., the moving guys showed up, and began hauling away the belongings of those who had already left for the day. I tried to look alert and actively productive, for fear of being mistaken for furniture, and hauled away to some dark storage closet. As I was leaving, I decided to take a quick ‘cubie’ (less narcissistic than a ‘selfie’) to remember the otherwise insignificant beige cloth-covered box in which I have spent so many of my waking hours, since we moved upstairs in 2007 or so.

I was able to put all my junk in four boxes, which I thought was pretty good.

I was able to put all my junk in four boxes, which I thought was pretty good.

I can’t say I’ll miss that cube. It faced onto a hallway leading to a high-trafficked conference room, and I was constantly being disturbed by the comings and goings of people with nothing to do but stand around outside conference rooms, conferring noisily. I can’t wait to move into my (admittedly-smaller) digs, where I’ll be on a cul-de-sac that is en route to nowhere (hopefully not a metaphor for my career).

Project 365, Day 246
Tim

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David, Family, Project 365

A Daily Constitutional

Just before I was discharged from the Army (honorably, of course) I took 53 days of ‘terminal leave’ (it isn’t as deadly as it sounds) and explored Western Europe by train. Whenever I ran low on clean underwear, I returned to my central ‘base of operations’ near Heidelberg, where my brother and sister-in-law lived. I spent a lot of time in their laundry room.

My brother was frequently in the field with his tank squadron that summer, and poor Liz found herself in the awkward position of entertaining a feckless brother-in-law. (After all, training their kitten as a ferocious attack-beast could only fill so many of my hours). So one weekend, she took me off on a Volksmarch, and we were each awarded a valuable tin plate in commemoration of our achievement.

The German people are a hardy bunch, much given to brisk, orderly marching around the countryside, breathing large draughts of healthy country air. In a similar manner, our family has begun a new tradition: before we watch anything in the evening (whether it be a movie or some episode of a show on Netflix) we require ourselves to walk at least a mile (but in our own shoes, not in someone else’s moccasins).

An evening promenade with my youngest girl. You can see Sarah really has to push herself hard, to keep up with me ...

An evening promenade with my youngest girl. You can see Sarah really has to push herself hard, to keep up with me …

Some days we are more eager than others, but on the whole, it seems a healthy habit — helps to digest our dinner, and it gets us out-of-doors if we haven’t been out earlier (as is often the case with me, when I work from home). We use our Map My Run™ app on our phones so we get full credit for the exhausting walk — it is so nice to be patronized by the app: “Congratulations! This was your 49th fastest walk!”

Famed as we are for starting new traditions, it will be interesting to see if we are able to continue this habit. We’re already on our fourth day, which is not bad, by our standards. Maybe when my brother moves to town, he’ll take me on one of his famed ‘death marches’, carefully crafted to show me for the soft-bellied, programmer wimp that I am.

But there is always hope for the next generation. David has decided to take on the dual challenges of the Junior ROTC program at Curtis High School and the Cross Country Team at Lakes High School, this Fall. On top of three Potter’s School Classes and a bunch of other coursework, David is really raising the bar for himself, as he leaps boldly into High School.

What a fine, manly specimen!

What a fine, manly specimen!

This evening, David and I met to plan out his life, and to detail the steps he’ll need to take to place him in a position where he will be equipped for certain paths, should God offer them to him. It was encouraging to talk it out with David; he’s a level-headed kid with a good understanding of what his priorities should be. I’m so pleased and excited to see him briskly and firmly stepping into manhood!

Project 365, Day 245
Tim

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Daily Life, Project 365, Recipes/Food

Meal Planning

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Oh my mercy! If there is one thing that I can NOT SEEM TO CONQUER, it is meal planning. I don’t know why in the world this relatively simple task seems to elude me. I have tried over the years, really I have. There are notebooks scattered all over the house with menu plans scribbled in them. I have binders full of recipes. I have shelves of gorgeous cookbooks.

I have NO excuses. Oh, I have lots of reasons why I don’t like to meal plan, or why I can’t seem to “get it,” but none of them are very plausible.

“It’s too difficult?” Um, really? Picking 5 or more dishes is hard?
“It takes too much time?” Hmmm, isn’t it just a matter of deciding on a recipe and making it?
“It’s too confining! I prefer spontaneity.” Well, couldn’t you “spontaneously” pick out a few dishes to make?
“It’s too hard to have the right ingredients on hand.” LOL! Girl, you live 5 blocks from a major grocery store.
“It takes too much work.” Bwahaha, aren’t you making meals for your family anyway? This does not have to take any MORE time than what you’re already doing.

See! Even the voice in my own head is working against me, crushing my excuses.

Harrumph.

Our first attempt at a new (meal planning) recipe.

Our first attempt at a new (meal planning) recipe.

Since this week (and the last) were sort of limbo weeks for me, and I was a little gloomy anyway, it seemed like the perfect time to spend hours on Pinterest. Oh, and meal planning is just the kind of thing that is ALL OVER Pinterest. Goodness, there are meal plans for gluten-free diets, paleo diets, low carb, low fat, large families, busy families, and everything in between.

Finally, something struck my fancy.

And really, I think it’s all about what would make this fun for MOM here in this instance.

My beautiful assistant.

My beautiful assistant.

Theme Meal Planning

I read how one family enjoyed the simplicity, comfort and fun of having regular themes for their meal planning. I quickly pinned several great blog posts, but, after a little bit, realized I would actually have to get up and do some real planning if I wanted to make it happen. So much more fun to just lose track of time on Pinterest. Sigh.

I made Sarah come and sit at the table with me. I gave her the options of different themes and asked her to help me. We settled on:

Monday: Soup
Tuesday: Pasta
Wednesday: Crock-pot
Thursday: Casserole
Friday: Seafood
Saturday: International
Sunday: Roast and veggies

Next I handed her cookbooks and asked her to pick out recipes. She found a yummy looking chicken noodle soup (with homemade noodles) for Monday, a one-pot pasta recipe on Pinterest, and a delicious enchilada recipe from my Mexican cookbook for Saturday. We already have a crock-pot meal in the freezer. Things were rapidly coming together. We made a list of ingredients and went to the store. Again, fairly easy and painless.

Sarah wrote the meals down on a cute divided picture frame I bought and made sure to put it in plain sight.

Found this on the local FB sale page.

Found this on the local FB sale page.

Who knows, maybe I can conquer the anti-meal-planning giant that always seems to beat me down. And teach Sarah and David to cook in the process. Win-win.

Project 365 – Day 243 (Aug 31)
Kathy

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Homeschooling, Project 365

Homeschool Planning

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I have been homeschooling for just over 15 years.

I have graduated 3 students from high school.

I have sent 3 students off to college. With scholarships.

So, ahem, you would think I have this whole homeschool thing completely figured out. And you would certainly think I at least know how to plan out a homeschool schedule for the new year. And you might scoff at the ease of homeschooling just two measly children after a household full of 5 busy homeschooling students.

Well, that’s all somewhat true.

I definitely have a lot of things figured out for our homeschooling family. I know what curriculum we have loved over the years (Sonlight, Horizons Math, Rod and Staff English, Spelling and Health, and of course the EXCELLENT Potter’s School for so many online classes). I know that we have thrived at homeschool co-ops and made some of our closest and dearest friends there.

At the same time, I have made many mistakes. I have neglected subjects. I have spent more energy on people than school, opening up our home to friends during school hours. I have taught according to MY STRENGTHS and not based on my CHILDREN’S NEEDS.

This last week I spent a good deal of time trying to decide how I would map out our homeschool schedule for the fall. I have used a variety of planning schedules over the years – I have printed out individual weekly pages, I have kept loose schedules, I have made detailed charts, and we’ve had months where we plugged along without a written schedule.

Some of our current books.

My current stack of books.

So basically we’ve covered a broad spectrum of organizational plans.

This week I spent hours looking through Pinterest at blogs on homeschool planning. I downloaded files, looked at dozens of organizers and planners, made lists of paper, and tried to determine what was keeping me from just going ahead and making September’s schedule.

A mostly filled out chart

A mostly filled out chart

Finally I went back to the large chart that I’ve used for several years now. It has worked great for us in the past, and I have most of the template already created and in place. I use printable address labels for the individual subjects. The template works perfectly in Word, and I can easily and somewhat simply modify and change each month’s schedule once I have the first one in place.

I divide a 24 x 32 handwriting chart (from Amazon) into two halves (one for David and one for Sarah). I print out a cute graphic for the month, glue on their names, and proceed to fill up the month of curriculum lessons.

The address labels fit perfectly on the lines of the handwriting tablet, and having the document in Word makes it easily editable and changeable. The only thing that is difficult is the time it takes to fill out the assignments, but really that’s true any time you do careful planning.

You can see it more clearly in this pic.

You can see it more clearly in this pic.

This time I decided to just print out the subjects and write in the daily assignments by hand. I had mostly filled out September (which has a bit of a slow start for us with our classes beginning on different dates), when I stumbled on a review for some online homeschool planners.

I found this interesting article which included a graphic for picking the best online planner for your school. It also had reviews of several of the major online organizers. I signed up for several of them, downloaded one, and went with another one. I found myself really enjoying the ease of tracking things online and recording all of our books and info right on the computer.

I can print out schedules, send the kids special messages, track our assignments, move work to different days if we miss something, and so on. I’ve imported most of our September assignments, and am thinking about abandoning my large, oversize chart. We’ll see how the kids and I like it. I know Tim will laugh at me – I’m constantly changing and tweaking things in our school and household chores. I can’t help it, making adjustments, trying new things, and exploring different options, keeps our homeschool experience alive and fresh for me.

I’m also entering into the high school years with David and Sarah, and I want to do everything I can to help them have a wonderful, challenging, creative high school experience.

I finally settled on the Plan, Educate, Record online planner. I am very pleased with it thus far. The price (FREE) was great and the ease of figuring things out (SIMPLE) right what I wanted. I will review it again after we’ve used it for a little bit.

This was the first week of our Three Week School Start. Each week we’re adding in portions of our school. By the week of the 14th, we’ll be fully engaged and participating in all our classes (and our co-op program). Exciting! Once again, I find myself so thankful that I have the privilege and joy of educating my children. I am thankful that Tim has supported and encouraged me to be home with the kids, teaching and learning alongside them.

Here we go! Fall 2015!

Project 365 – Day 242 (Aug 30)
Kathy

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Being a Disciple of Jesus, Daily Life, Kathy, Project 365

A Discouraged Spirit

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I’m working through some Project 365 pictures that I need to post from the end of August.

January, February, March, April and May are all complete. Yay us!! June is only missing 3, two of which I hope Tim going to write about his time at JH Ranch with David.

July and August are an entirely different story. Yikes. I have quite a few back-dated pictures to post and blogs to write. I’m fairly certain, however, that I have a picture from every single day, so the Project 365 is still intact. It’s the small things we cling to, I find, that keep us sane.

So, bear with me as I publish several posts from the end of August.

Last week I was in a bit of a slump. David was in California with his good friend, Marshall. Tim was getting Daniel settled in at college in Murietta Springs. Rachel and Joshua were back in the busy, engaging activities of life at Union University. Sarah and I had a lovely time being together, but I could NOT motivate myself to do anything. I was tired and apathetic. I didn’t want to DO ANYTHING. Whenever I thought about the coming Fall activities, I just felt dread and weariness. It was odd and a wee bit troubling.

Planning school is inevitable.

Planning school is inevitable.

“Well, that’s it. I’m done. This couch looks cozy and that stack of magazines has my name on it.”

I didn’t want to think about house projects, fall ministries or co-op classes. I didn’t want to plan our homeschool schedule. I didn’t have a clue about making the most of this fresh year with David and Sarah. The sun was shining, but I felt too blah to enjoy it.

“Mom, are you okay?”

When your daughter hurries to call you after receiving some rather pathetic sounding text messages, you know you’re not doing a very good job of hiding your emotional state. Ha. One of the delights of my life is how my children bless ME. Rachel has the gift of encouragement, and she NEVER lets me fall into negative self-talk or believe the lies that Satan is so good at throwing around.

“Kathy,” a friend texted me, “you have had some BIG changes in your life this month, watching three children go off to college. It’s going to manifest itself in odd and emotional ways.”

“And you’re not a crier,” another sweet friend messaged to say, “so it has to come out other ways.”

Haha. Oh, how my children and my friends and my husband know me so well!

Thankfully after a day or two of pity parties involving shots of espresso (not that different from my regular parties, now that I think about it), I began to feel my old self. It helped when I made a mental list of all that I had done this summer.

Including:

1. A HUGE overhaul of the garage
2. Completely organized, sorted and labeled all of Tim’s tools and hardware
3. Organized the two sheds in the back yard
4. Emptied and helped Tim clean out our shed in the Duckabush (not touched in years!)
5. Worked for a week on my mom’s house in Texas – emptying, organizing, selling things, giving away stuff, etc
6. Decluttered our master bedroom and closet
7. Painted our bedroom, completely moving everything around, and surprising Tim with a new desk and work set-up
8. Hosted 7 families (and LOTS of kids) for a week of camp
9. Worked with Daniel to plant and landscape the front yard
10. Spent time with my niece/nephew and great-nephew, brother-in-law and sister-in-law
11. Welcomed my son’s beautiful fiancee into the home for a whirlwind (too short!) visit
12. Helped Rachel get ready and set off for college
13. Helped Daniel move out of his room – all his stuff sorted, boxed up or given away
14. Helped David move back to his room
15. Helped Sarah move beds around and switch things from Daniel’s room to hers

I realized that I wasn’t broken or incapable of tackling big projects, I had just done a LOT already this summer.

I let my spirit rest just a bit without panicking or fretting. I got an email from one of the amazing kids in my student government class and realized I had a few fresh ideas myself. I sat next to Tim while he spent hours working on our AWANA website and felt the excitement of the coming year. I went to a meeting with the new directors of the AWANA program and saw what fun it was going to be to work with them. I made plans to meet with some women regarding our mentor program.

And ever so sweetly the Lord breathed renewed life into my spirit. It wasn’t dramatic and startling. It was gentle and subtle. And isn’t He like that sometimes.

May the Lord give strength to His people.
May the Lord bless His people with peace. Psalm 29:11

I am so thankful for His mercies which are new every morning and refresh and refill my soul.

Project 365 – Day 239 (Aug 27)
Kathy

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