Life Happens At Home

Where we live, you know that Spring is rolling in when at least once a week you can leave your back door open and the crisp breeze of fresh air can blow through the screen right into your home.  You can look outside at the blooms popping up everywhere! 

And, my kids also know (and probably dread) this is the time when the dust rags for deep cleaning come out and Momma goes on a rampage aimed at every dust bunny I can find in our home.  This is when our saying of, "If you haven't worn it/used it in the past year, then it's not going to get used and should go somewhere where it will," gets put to use!  This is when it hits...the spring cleaning bug!  

I like to be organized.  I work better in an organized environment.  Honestly, I relax and simply breathe better surrounded by organization and cleanliness.  So, how in the world do I find myself frequently surrounded by something that more resembles a scene out of the movie "Twister"?

I think the best answer to this is simply ~ Life Happens at Home.

Life that includes two dogs, one cat, and three children still at home.  Life that has led us to homeschool the two youngest of our children, while the oldest is in his first year of college.  Life that includes my part-time bookkeeping job that is done from home.  And oh, did I forget to mention, my husband also works from a home office?  Like I said ~ Life Happens at Home.

And I wouldn't have it any other way...most days.

Most days it is an incredible blessing to have us all here under one roof!  You can't trade for being able to call Dad in to help with a science project, especially for something like a dissection of a worm that Momma may be just a tad squeamish about. Or, to be able to rejoice with an ice cream bar outside on the hammock in the early afternoon to celebrate mastering multiplication of fractions. These are the great moments.

Then there are the not-so-great moments.  The moments of frustration when the phone has rung for the tenth time, and every time it rings my kids think it is a recess bell.  I find they are much quicker to dismiss for recess than to come back in when I call them to resume their school work! Then there are the moments when a child has not put a necessary reading book back on the shelf the day before and then spends twenty minutes looking for it when she needs it next.  This is only to find it exactly where I suggested it might be in the first place, but maybe she just assumed I didn't know what I was talking about twenty minutes earlier.  The moments where I look up and think to myself, "I would love for my kitchen to look like a kitchen and not a science lab!"

However, it is in these not-so-great moments that the greatest lessons usually come. These are the ones, if you allow yourself, that you can learn from.  This is where I have learned what curriculum works best for our family.  For me, it was one that I didn't spend days creating on my own when I can use one I love that someone else organizes for me!  This is where I have learned what schedule works best for my family.  For example, when I let go of this for one week to intentionally see what my kids would do, I found my 6th grader started setting his own alarm for 7am to get up and accomplish all of his independent work before breakfast and Bible time!  And another not-so-great moment filled with overwhelming clutter was where I figured out that my kids actually liked being organized, too!

One day, not too long ago, I looked up in the middle of the day and saw chaos. Instead of nagging at my kids to help pick up,  like I usually did, I simply began to quietly pick up and organize our work area on my own.  A funny thing happened...the kids followed.  And then, the best thing happened...my 6th grader, as he was cleaning up next to me says this, "Mom, I sure can work better when things are in their place to start with."  Wow. 

Spring has sprung.  The beginning of a new season.  The opportunity of a fresh start. Spring cleaning. Cleaning of the messes and clutter of our home, and with it, the picture of the messes and clutter I often carry in my own heart.  That clutter that only Jesus can clean up and make new.  I am thankful for this. I am thankful for lessons learned.  I am thankful for Spring.  

I am thankful that...Life Happens at Home!  No matter the season!

This crazy call of homeschooling

It is another Monday morning.  The house is quiet.  The kids are still sleeping.  I sit at my kitchen table with a small remnant of coffee left in my cup as I linger here after my quiet time.  Out the window I look to see the sunrise, but instead see the incoming rain clouds.  Inside the warmth of my house this makes me think of the proverbial calm before the storm.

We are in our second year of homeschooling our two youngest children, Hunter and Hope.  In a short while I will be at this same kitchen table (full of scratches and scuff marks from books and pencils being slid across it) trying my best to teach a kindergartner how to read and a 6th grader how to compare fractions by converting them to decimal form.  I will do my best to lovingly teach them about grace and patience, mostly by trying to live it out with them daily.  And, I will often fail.

Don't get me wrong, we have some great moments of accomplishment. 

 
And then we have some moments of just, well, yuck. 


Raised voices, bickering kids, an eleven year-old's frustrations over those fractions, or a five year old voicing a concern over a silent 'e'.  Hope explained it this way to me: "Why in world did someone think it was smart to put a silent 'e' on the end of a word to make an 'a' make its sound it should already make!  That 'a' has too many sounds.  It should only get one!  Aaannnnd, that's not fair that the 'e' doesn't get to say anything in that word!"  I tend to agree with Hope on this one, especially when you are the one trying to defend the silent 'e'. 

Then there are the even harder days where the teacher is the one lacking motivation.  There are times where I start to allow Satan to creep his crafty thoughts into my head.  Thoughts like, "I would have so much free time if the kids were enrolled in public school.  I could get soooo much done.  I would be such a better friend.  I would have the house clean.  I wouldn't be doing my work at 6 am in the morning. I...I....I...."  And that is the hardest lesson of all in this homeschooling journey for me ~ it's not about me.

It's not about me.  It is about God and the journey that He has called our family on. It has always been about Him.  This is definitely not something I ever thought we would be doing a mere two years ago. We didn't even know of anyone that homeschooled their children two years ago. But, little by little, God has been faithful to provide families for moral support and a community of pioneers that have gone before us if we need help in the future to teach the "hard stuff" if we get stuck.  Or I should say, when I get stuck.  I know that Chemistry is going to eat my lunch! It is about me sharing a Bible story with the kids prepared to answer their questions, and walking away from it with me being the one challenged or encouraged by the Word.  It is about me growing in Him and learning dependence on Him in a way I never even knew I needed.  It is about our kids watching us prevail and fail and how, either way, the journey makes us press that much more into our mighty Creator.  The One that knows what we need and how we need it, well before we do.

And that may come in the form of an unexpected surrender to a crazy call...oh, maybe like...homeschooling. 

So, I humbly say...Thank you Jesus for the scratches and scuff marks in my table.  Thank you Jesus for the scratches and scuff marks in my life.

One day at a time. One storm at a time. One Monday morning at a time.

Bring on the storm!

And so it begins...

Every new endeavor always contains one thing ~ a beginning.  And this is exactly where I am.  The beginning of something new and exciting.  I have wanted to blog for a while now.  I am not really sure why.  I don't believe anything I have to say is any more important than what anyone else is saying.  I am not the best writer and am notorious for run on sentences.  I am just a wife and mother trying to live out this life one day at a time.  However, I do believe that God provides every single one of us a story.  A story that is meant to be shared.  This is the story of our life, and He is the author.  I am a continual blank page and if I stay at a place of openness and submission, it is amazing the crazy, good things He can come up with to fill the pages of my life.  Now, don't get me wrong, some of the stories that have been included in my almost 40 years of life (and yes, I am excited to say I get to turn 40 next month!) have been less than fun and most certainly not good, at least according to the world's standards.  But, I have faith in a God that works all things for the good of those who love him (Romans8:28).

So, I am excited to share this journey with you, and if you can, stop by from time to time.  I would love to share with you the adventures of our day to day life! I look forward to sharing the good days, which from a mom's point of view usually includes a day with no one sick, no toys stuffed in a toilet, and no blood.  But I also look forward to sharing the hard days.  Because actually, these are usually the ones that end up being considered the best days.  The hard days are the ones where we get great opportunities to press into our great God that much more! 

Well, it seems I have two kids that need expert architectural assistance at this time...there is some serious fort building going on in the other room!  So, until next time...


Kim