Moving Dates

When on the verge of a birthday - a big one like 30 or 40 - you have a little time to prepare. The date is not going to change on you either.  You know when it will happen. You can process and cry over it in the days, weeks and in my case months in advance. That is just how I work.

I process the drama of something before it happens so when I turned 30 I had had my breakdown about it months before. Though to be accurate I may have had a 2nd breakdown months after too!

When 40 was around the corner, I tackled it months before so I could make it a happy day.

But when the looming date is a closing date on a house. It is not a fixed date. There is wiggle room and a date that is out of my control.

You might say they keep moving my cheese.

My processing is all over the place. One minute I am thinking about paint colors and the next I am crying because its too soon there were things I wanted to finish up - classes, Bible Study.

So far I don't have a fixed date or a timeline to adjust too. So I am all over the calendar with hardly a dry eye on Sundays.


(written in the fall of 2015)

Peace on Board

We have been looking for a house all year. Looking forward to a house even longer.

When what we needed wasn't showing up the search area expanded.

Then we found a house. A house with character. Which we always wanted.

He liked it at first. I was not convinced. It is so far from my family (almost 3 hours) and certainly would require leaving our church. Which I guess I always knew would have to be the case though I thought I could transition out of a church that was 45 minutes away rather than go cold turkey from one 1.45 minutes away.

So I was told of a couple from my hometown who lives in the same area and was told they "love it" out there. So I did a little facebook stalking and based on what I could see they love it out there!

This peace - you know the peace that surpasses all understanding- washed over me, If they can raise a couple of happy kids there, so can we.

So I was onboard.

However, that has not stopped me from coming home from church everyday for the last month or more with wet eyes, a red nose and the regret of ever putting on mascara.



(written in the fall of 2015)

Our Classic Fathers

I went to school for Elementary Education but honestly apart from Thematic Units I don't remember much about my classes. We may have covered Classical Education I can't recall a thing.

So to see education with fresh mother eyes and hear about Classical Education it was - well- it was eye opening.

Our Founding Fathers were classically educated. They produced documents that have lasted centuries. The people supported them, fought for them, fought with them and understood what these documents meant for them and their posterity.  Over the years, men and women have willing laid down their life to protect the law of the land.

Over the years, our education system has failed our Founding Fathers by producing students who don't understand our form of government, why it is unique and why we as a Nation are an important force for good in the world. All you have to do is watch old youtube clips of Jay Leno's Jaywalking segaments to see how ignorant our citizens are. It is scary.

So I was sitting in the practicum a little spellbound and had this revelation.

200 years ago kids were educated in one room school houses and understood their form of government. And this was my revelation, classical education is needed to continue self - government. How can a nation of people who don't understand our Nation's documents be expected to recognize or even care when those documents are being trampled on?

They can't think for themselves. They do what they are told. They believe what they are told. They don't question or research if it is true. They believe what the tweet, post or anchorman says.

In contrast, the classically educated person is trained to ask questions and research. They have learned history so they can see it repeating. I don't think the average public school is doing this. This is why our nation is in such peril, no one is thinking.

Today, things are so dumbed down as it was designed. A nation of non-thinkers are easier to control.
We need a nation of thinkers to perpetuate our self-government.

The Wish

I read this book one day this summer called "Wish". Its about an elephant couple wishing for a little elephant. It was a story about their life together and their wait. This made me think of a dear friend who is still waiting for her own "elephant" to join her and her husband. It also made me think too about my own wishes...

This book converged with 2 other events, a week spent in the nursery during VBS, as well as my soon to be 3 year old in the midst of hardcore potty training.

While I should have had my fill of babies the idea of not having another is still too permanent to accept. There is still the wonder of who another might be or favor or tend toward.

The "advanced maternal age" risks, the expense, the lack of room and my current full hands - it just makes sense to be done. But the heart misses, what the heart misses whether its just lingering thoughts about the little lost one's void or the potential of another, closing the chapter on babies is still too hard to do.

I remember so well an episode of Little House and the Prairie where Caroline (Ma) thinks she is pregnant again only to figure out she is just starting menopause. She is devastated and feeling like half a woman.

The feeling of that permanency is heart breaking. The window of time is shrinking -fast- and I wish I felt more comfortable with that or felt fearless to go through that window -one last time.

The Junior Arborist

So my little boy did a really cool thing at the Winterthur Touch-a-Truck day this October. He said yes to the Junior Arborist "ride".  The arborists were dressing the kids in harnesses, hooking them up to a rope and hoisting them up the tree just like the arborists do when they needed to trim a tree.

So many time he frustrates me over the silly things he cries over (like today whilst typing this) or the simple things he doesn't want to try. But, I didn't see him bat an eye when we asked if he wanted to try this.

I thought he would be back out when it was time to step into the harness. He didn't.  He stepped into the harness, got hooked to the rope and up he went. He loved it.

There was this little piece of me that thinks this is the first in a line of many experiences that he will do on his own.  Things I have never done before, and there is a bitter sweetness in that, because he will have this rich exciting experience all on his own. I got to watch but I didn't go up the rope with him. I don't know what it felt like.

I do know it felt incredible to watch my timid boy do something daring and out of his element. I want him to be brave and take on a good challenge and feel the joy of accomplishment.

The Knitter

I looked out at the little 3, 4 and 5 year old faces before me. There were at least 10 children. We were discussing and reading from Psalm 139 : 13-14

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

 

 

I told them that I can remember almost everyone of them being knit in their momma's belly. I remembered excited announcements, swollen mommas, tiny faces, ornery toddlers. What a blessing to be able to say I witnessed, this room of fearfully and wonderfully made kids being knit together to become the funny kids they are today shy, boisterous, still a little clingy, smart and wonderful kids.

 

Which makes the idea of moving away from them all the harder.

 

There are precious children out there where we will move to. But I don't know them yet. We have no history. I have no history or sweet memories with their mothers. Nor do they have any woven connection to me and my babies.

 

Just loose strands out there and I am just not sure I know what do with that yet.

 

To trust the Master Knitter, why is that so hard?


(written in the fall of 2015)

Lingering Drafts

Lingering drafts. I won't let you linger anymore. As I writer, I like to have some chronology to what I write. If I write something in October but publish it in June it irks me because it is out of place. Its not in order. It may lack a backstory. However, I also feel like I have cheated myself by not being a good writer or blogger. So in a feeble attempt to give some back story.  This is what has happened in the past year.

We homeschooled with Classical Conservations.
We bought a house.
We moved.
We had to leave our church.
We have transitioned into a new community and are still searching for new connections.

Some of these were challenging. Sometimes so challenging that I was too much in the thick of it to even process it in a blog.

So I am just setting a schedule for each draft. And now because of a shift in my daily schedule and because I think writing is necessary for my soul to be whole, I hope I will be faithful to my words and this blog.

Because Hope, Glory and Wonder still abound and I need to be reminded of it too.