7 in 7: Day 3

Goodbye, July.

This has really been a month of ups and downs emotionally and spiritually.  There are some days I am so close to my Lord and other days when I wonder if He's hearing me at all.  Of course, He is!  It's a good thing I have faith because some days He's just not very evident -- except in the small ways, that I have to look hard to find.

But this is not about that.

Instead, I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite photos from the month (besides what you can see on Instagram - just click the square camera on the right to take a look online).  I was super wordy yesterday, so today, I'll be picturey and I'll shut up.  Ha.

Enjoy...

7 in 7: Day 2

While we always try to allow for God's leading in our homeschool planning, summer is my brainstorming and planning season for the upcoming school year.  I have a lot on my mind lately and some of that is part of the homeschool planning (my end of it -- God's already done His preparations).

So here is a subject list for you so you can see where we are headed, but know that nothing is in stone.  Last year, a whole lotta life got in the way of my plans to create a Human Study.  I still hope to one day continue and complete that, but I need a break from the human body for now.  And everyone is still surviving even though we only made it through a small portion of that study because we learned a bunch of other things, too.

7 in 7: Day 1

My sister challenged other bloggers to take her seven posts in seven days challenge (well, I guess the idea wasn't hers, but the fact that she is doing it makes it hers) and I decided to take her up on that since I've been such a blogging flake lately.  Let's see if I can make it all seven days!

Okay, so today, I'm blogging about a field trip we took up into the Sandia Mountains to hike the Tree Springs Trail (some, not all).  I won't tell you about every detail because I know that I can get pretty tedious, but I wanted to mention some highlights and I'll break up my text with a few photos from the day.  Feel free to check instagram for others I posted there (just click the little square camera icon on the right for a web version).

Summer Questions: If Happiness was the National Currency...?

Read our other summer questions here.

Today's question:  If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?

Biding and Abiding

Today is July 22.  In exactly two months, I will be 40 years old.  It's been nearly two months since our family underwent a major change in our household.  On June 1, our oldest daughter, S, decided she wanted to be free of the confines of family relationships and our household rules and abandoned this life for the greener pastures of living freely, somewhere else.  Currently, we do not know where she is, nor do we know when we shall see her again.  Her contact has been spotty and inconsistent and continues in this pattern -- or lack of one -- as each new day arrives.

Today, as I ran typical Monday errands and brought Z to the Senior Care home where he continues to volunteer; bought milk, bread, toilet paper and other essentials at WalMart; and ran in to the chiropractic office to have my adjustment; I suddenly had this sense that I was living inside a bubble, going through the motions and biding my time until something happens.

Here I am.  This is my life.  Each day is ticking by one by one.  Yet, strangely, I am completely disconnected from my actions and my feelings.

An Earlier Writing - S's First Visit

Before I had a blog to write in and even before we were officially parents to our children, I kept a lot of notes and journal (attempts) on my computer and in notebooks all over the house.  My writing style then was really disorganized.  But I never wanted to forget the emotion and memories while so much was happening in our early days of fostering and parenting, so I wrote about a lot of things. Perhaps one day, I can pull it all together to make one cohesive recollection of our children's childhoods to be given to them when they're 40 or something.  Ha!

Anyway, I was looking through some of my old notes and stumbled upon some that I wrote after S's very first visit at our house.  We'd met her a few times before as she would come with the parent aide to pick up the boys and to drop them back off around birthparent visits.  She never really got past the foyer on those brief encounters.  But this was the first time we really got to "test the waters" and spend some time with her to see if maybe she could live with us and with her brothers as things began shifting in her then current foster placement.

More Advice for Homeschooling Families Just Beginning the Journey

So a couple days ago, I posted some first thoughts (from our personal experiences) that families who are considering homeschooling might benefit from knowing as they get started.  Again, we are still in a state of learning how this homeschooling thing works ourselves and we've been at it since 2006.  I hope those who are reading these posts do understand that most of what you learn won't come from advice posts like these or books or other websites; most of what you will learn about the process of homeschooling will come by way of doing the process.

That said, I'm hopeful that these posts will help reassure some of you that homeschooling is possible and for many of those who decide to take the leap, homeschooling will be an incredible blessing in your lives and family.  There will be a lot of mistakes and re-evaluations of your goals along the way, but as sure as we're still here today getting ready to take on an eighth year of educating our children ourselves, you can be successful, too.

Pray often.  Have great supports in place to lean on, from whom to seek advice and feedback and who will encourage you regularly.  Extend grace as often as necessary (and mostly, that's to yourself).  Be open and willing to learn along the way so you can increase in your own knowledge and therefore, your ability to teach others. 

Seek wisdom.  Seek understanding.  Seek out educational opportunities in the mundane, everyday activities of life, as well as in the great adventures that come along now and then.

That being said, I'll begin this post with something else you'll want to start collecting: ideas.

Some Advice for Homeschooling Families Just Beginning the Journey

First, let me apologize to my regular readers for how sketchy I have been this year on the blog.  I'm here writing a bunch of stuff consecutively, and then I disappear for weeks at a time.  This is no way to blog.  It doesn't help my need to write regularly and it doesn't help those who actually enjoy reading whatever silly stuff I think to post here.

Truthfully, though, my heart is here wanting to blog on a regular basis.  However, since I had to back track with my therapist recently and set a very simple goal for me -- to get out of bed by 8:30 a.m. each day -- actually doing much more than that has been very, very challenging for me.  Hopefully, I'll have better news on that front soon.  I'm getting my medication for depression and anxiety evaluated again this week and having some more regular therapy appointments during this rough patch, so I hope these things and lots of prayer will have me better able to see life more clearly and maintain some focus to be able to blog.

Today, though, I suddenly felt inspired to blog.  Though I've wanted to blog, I haven't felt a lot of inspiration recently.  So I'm seizing this opportunity amidst my life storm to reach out and be helpful to others.  My brain is seriously uncooperative with me lately, so please do your best to follow the crazy and I'll do my best to stay on track.