Tandeming Trolls

One of those "You Know" posts

2012-02-04T09:47:00.002-06:00

It has been a slightly rough week at Bridgetender School. The kids teetered on the brink of sickness for a day before completely falling in the pit with sneezing, coughing, congestion and low fevers. They are recovering and now I am at that point, taking Vitamin C pills and other preventative measures, like going to bed early, to try and avoid that chasm, especially since I have to teach kids at church this week. It was a freeing week, too, in which I confessed and repented to my kids that I have been once again hit with the "perfection bug" that causes me to stress out when the house/schedule/behavior of the kids isn't "perfect." The biggest indicators of me being enslaved by perfectionism are experiencing extreme irritability that cannot be mollified by coffee and having a critical spirit. It is so hard to confess to my kids, but so wonderful to have them run to me with hugs and offers of forgiveness. But the original intention of this post was to piggy back on a post made earlier by Jottings by Jennifer, whose blog is like a cool cup of water to a thirsty soul.

Last week, she posted a "You Know You Are A Youth Group Pastor's Wife" on her blog and challenged those who read her blog to come up with the same theme. My post is going to be "You Know You are Getting Old." Here are some of the indicators:

1. Your favorite Big Hair Band that you loved in high-school and saved up to go to stadium-filled concerts are now playing the county fair circuit, if they are even together. They also don't sound the same as they did when they are young.
2. The creaking noises that caused you to take the car in the shop continue as you get out of the car. (My husband's contribution).
3. You hear the drum solo from "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" played out in your bones as you get out of bed and walk to take a midnight bathroom break. Actually, if you know the song, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", you are probably old or"being retro."
4. You realize that you were one of the first people to watch MTV back when all it played were music videos.
5. You realize that you are as old as "Sesame Street" and when you watch the current episodes of "Sesame Street", you start longing for the good old days when Jim Henson actually made good puppet shows.
6. All the heartthrob actors from your youth look like old men. Yes, I am talking to you, Pierce Brosnan and Harrison Ford.
7. Those ads in magazines for electric hair pluckers now make sense.
8. You are telling some elementary-school kids that their parents probably heard the original version of "Stand By Me" by Ben E. King only to find out that their parents were kids during the 80's.
9. You see a video of Lady Gaga and think that she is just a cheap imitation of Madonna.
10. You walk in your grocery store and hear the music that played on MTV back when it was getting started.
And in the spirit of "Spinal Tap," (which is also an old movie), I will take my list to 11.
11. You know that you are old when you stay up really late one night and it takes days to recover from it.

Yes, culture is a great way to make you feel old. My parents could probably come up with a better list and my grandma could outshine us all with her list as she grew up in the Great Depression. The nice thing to know is that, however old I will be before I die, whether I lose my mind or my body functions in the process, God will be there to help me through each hurdle of old age, just as He helped me through each hurdle of each stage of life I have encountered so far.

Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he

I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;

I will sustain you and I will rescue you

“To whom will you compare me or count me equal?

To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?"

Isaiah 46:4-5

Another weekend in Pinetop-Lakeside

2012-01-29T00:35:00.000-06:00

One thing we miss from Illinois is snow. It never snows in Phoenix, though it has hailed twice. Fortunately, all we have to do is go a few hours north, where the elevation is 6,000 to 9,000 feet above sea level and there is snow in some areas. The route we took to get there, Taking 60 East from Mesa to Show Low is magnificent most of the way. Everyone has heard about The Grand Canyon and it truly is breath-taking. But the canyon lands we passed through between Globe and Show Low are also amazing and beautiful. The really interesting part of the trip is that 90% of the drive was spent without seeing a bit of snow. Then, for the last hour, we would see bits of snow on the side, in the shady areas. It wasn't until we got into Pinetop proper that we saw a consistent bed of snow, but even that wouldn't have given us much hope for more if we hadn't been watching the snow report for Sunrise Ski Park. Sunrise is about 40 minutes from Pinetop as you head east toward Greer. It has downhill skiing/snowboarding hills, sledding hills and cross-country skiing trails. The previous weekend, our Young Life leaders took their students to Sunrise for a day of sledding. Our original plan was to spend three nights and two days in snowy bliss. We stayed at a cabin in Premiere Vacation Club at Roundhouse in Pinetop. The cabins looked like double-wides with a facade of log cabin pine. Each cabin had a little porch near the front door which remained unused. The inside was very nice, but whenever I looked at the wrought-iron light fixtures with antler motifs in them, I heard Gaston from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" singing "I use antlers for all of my decorating..." We didn't spend much time in our cabin.

The cross-country trails in Sunrise Ski Park were not groomed for classical cross country skiing, which involves forming two grooves into the snow to guide the skis so that all you had to do was focus on going forward. Instead, it was groomed for skate skiing, which was great for Eric, but not so great for beginning skiers, like the kids. Furthermore, the skis that Sunrise Rentals had for the boys really were horrible--1/4 inch thick plastic sheets with some buckles to hold their boots to the skiis. By the end of the day, when they were tired, those plastic sheets weren't strong enough to keep their shoes straight, causing so many problems, especially for my youngest. Skiing in Arizona is a lot different from skiing in the north because the temperatures get in the 40's and 50's by mid-afternoon. We all started out in the morning with light winter coats, hats, and gloves because the wind was gusting. However, within thirty minutes, most of us had shed everything but the jacket. I was wearing a long-sleeved bicycle jersey with pockets in the back that soon became stuffed with hats and gloves from me and a couple of other kids. I probably looked like either a hunchback or Aunt Fanny in "Robots". We had fun and challenges throughout the day. We skied twice for a couple of hours each time with a break in between for lunch and hot cocoa at the ski lodge. The cocoa break allowed us to watch downhill skiers and snowboarders. At least one of the kids wants to return and learn how to snowboard. The afternoon session was a little more challenging, with sticky, slushy snow, a long initial climb, and then a descent down the same hill at the end. John had to stop halfway through the loop and walk, dragging his skis and poles behind him. Eric and Elizabeth were the only two who skied all the way back down the hill to the parking lot. By the time we reached the hill again to go down, my legs were shot from not exercising regularly. The whole time there was only one other cross-country skier on the trail with us and we met up with him two or three times during the day. It was a good day. That night, we realized that we should have brought sunscreen and pain relief medication for the sore muscles. The next day, instead of sledding, we decided to utilize the club's pool. It was lovely--heated to just below skin temperature with a hot tub that helped our aching muscles. After swimming we packed, checked out, and headed home. Below are some pictures from our trip:

Driving along 60 East

This is the start of a section of road flanked by rounded columns of rock standing on end that seemed like people lining the road to encourage you to keep going.

I loved catching a glimpse of the canyon lands and trying to get a pictures. If you don't like heights, like my husband, this view creates different feelings. His eyes were glued to the road for more than one reason.

This rounded rock formation reminded me of scenes from "Cars." It seemed as if we drove all the way around it, though I know we couldn't have. The blurry bit in the front is a bit of plant sticking up. All of these pictures were taken from the passenger seat of our Chevy Suburban.

Another beautiful rock formation. So many of them point up to the sky, as if they want to direct our eyes to the One who made them.

Skiing Pictures

Here is my oldest. If you have spent winters in the northern parts of the U.S., it just seems wrong to be cross-country skiing with only a long sleeve t-shirt, but if you bundled up as if you were skiing in Minnesota or Illinois, you would overheat. For me, the biggest challenge was remembering how to ski. I loved pushing myself into the classical lunge on the straight paths, but had some moments of panic as I had to re-learn how to snowplow downhill with a curve. Everyone fell going downhill at some point--even Eric, my expert.

Three kids waiting for the youngest to catch up with them. This was at the top of a long hill. This was taken during our afternoon run, when the snow was sticky, which made it easier getting up than if the snow had been really slick. Kyle is wearing a light jacket, Elizabeth has a jacket wrapped around her waist in case she gets cold, and Jessi is wearing fleece. No one is wearing mittens or hats because they aren't needed.

John skiing up at the end of the climb. Behind him is the downhill ski slopes. I think this climb took most of his energy. Eric stayed with him to encourage him going up. John is also wearing a light jacket with no mittens or hat.

This is a picture of the whole gang, including Eric. He is wearing skate skiis. Skate cross-country skiing is just what it sounds like. You push your legs in the same motion as when ice skating while wearing long, wide boards on your feet instead of short, thin blades. You can see the "V" marks Eric has made in the snow. All the kids LOVED cross country skiing, especially Elizabeth, who is the small red dot farthest from me. We are thinking of making this an annual pilgrimage, though we might try getting some skis for the boys at pro shops in Pinetop until they are big enough to get decent boots and skis from the Sunrise facility.

Adapting

2012-01-13T15:51:00.000-06:00

We hit our three year anniversary of my husband being laid off by Motorola and will be celebrating our third year of living in Arizona in April. The house we found was and still is, beautiful. The people who lived before us did a great job of updating it to present-day standards. And yet, I am starting to want to make it mine. It all began when we were getting ready for Christmas doing "Christmas cleaning." Christmas cleaning involves the refrigerator and blinds and other "extras." The blinds were awful, but the worst ones were the blinds by the window at the sink. Food from dishes had been flung far up the blinds. As I tried to get the food off, I discovered that some of them had been stained. "Why would someone put up blinds in a kitchen window that doesn't have privacy issues?," I asked. My husband agreed with me and off came the blinds, making the kitchen with its low ceiling and rust red walls a little bit brighter and giving me an unobstructed view when I sent my kids out in the back to play. As an added bonus, I have a window ledge to put things, once I figure out what we should our could put there. But even before this, little ideas were starting to blossom in my head. Okay, some of them are big ideas requiring a lot of work and maybe even a lot of money.

One idea would be to change the kids' rooms into kids' colors and maybe change their closets as much as I can. The girls want a sea theme and the boys want a space theme. The girls need help in their closet to help keep things more organized and I have ideas, but not lots of time to work out the details. I would love to change my bedroom from mocha brown to something that goes with our new coverlet. I have also dreamed from the moment we found the house of putting plantation shutters over the windows in our bedroom that overlook the living room (yes, you are reading that correctly) for both privacy and sound reduction purposes. In reality, if money were no object, I would replace them with stained glass windows custom fitted and able to be opened when desired. If I could, I would convert the sliding glass doors in the family room that are currently covered with bookshelves into french doors with a security lock to prevent young children from getting into the pool area without adult supervision. I would also change the windows in the dining room into french doors with security locks because it, also would have access to the pool area, where we now have a dining set in the pool area, thanks to my grandma.

Raised beds built by MWH*

Most of our efforts this year will involve the outside. We are in the process of converting part of our side RV pit into a raised vegetable garden. Because Arizona is part of opposite world, February is the best time to begin planting for a spring garden. By summer, the sun will have burnt everything to a crisp. Then, we can start another garden sometime in September or October. Over two weekends, I worked with my son, Kyle and Eric shoveling the rocks covering the dirt into a big pile. Last weekend, Eric bought the wood and some weatherproofing stain to build the bed. This weekend, he will finish installing the irrigation system that is essential to growing things in Arizona. Then, we have to buy a truckload of dirt and some plants and seeds to start it. As the season progresses, there are plans to put up a sun shade to screen the plants a bit, since this area gets a lot of sun through most of the day. The previous owners loved palm trees and we have 27 in our front and back yards, mostly in the back. I love the palm trees in the back because they provide a lot of shade in the pool area, but less in love with the front ones. I would love to replace one set of three in the front with a cocktail tree--grapefruit, oranges and lemon trees planted together to make one big tree. I would also love to replace some bushes in the back with rose bushes, which also seem to thrive surprisingly well in Arizona. We will see how much gets done this year other than the vegetable garden.

*MWH = My Wonderful Husband

Bridgetender Quarterly Update

2012-01-01T15:59:00.000-06:00

We made it through another nine weeks of school with a week-long break at Thanksgiving to see the Minneapolis relatives and a partial break in October to see the Memphis relatives. Here is a summary of what we learned this quarter:

History:
Tapestry of Grace is our program for both History and Literature. We read through The Great Depression through WWII. Elizabeth learned about FDR and Joseph Stalin in depth and Kyle and Jessi learned about Winston Churchill in depth. John and I read through _American in the Time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt_. The kids all learned about Anne Frank, Corrie Ten Boom, and the Holocaust. We also learned about Japanese internment. We worked on a timeline of WWII, starting with initial German aggression in 1937. We ended with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, prompting the end of the war.

Literature:
Elizabeth enjoyed reading _The Lord of the Flies_, _Our Town_ and _The mportance of Being Earnest_, and _The Red Pony_ by John Steinbeck. Jessi and Kyle read _Mr. Popper's Penguins_, _Mary Poppins_, and _Homer Price_. John read a lot of classic stories, like _Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel_, _A New Coat for Anna_ and _Madeline_.

Math:
We are still a Math U See family. Elizabeth finished Zeta, which is mainly math with decimals and percent and started Pre-Algebra. We are trying to get her motivated to work extra hard in math so that she can get through the lesson in record time and hopefully catch up by summer time. Jessi finished Delta, which is high level multiplication and division, and started Epsilon, which is fractions. She is also behind in math, mainly due to problems with long division. Kyle is on track to finish Math U See Gamma by the end of the year. John is doing well in Alpha, though he needs a little extra work to catch up.

Writing:
My friend, Tina and I are having a friend teach creative writing this year to all the kids twice a month as part of our co-op. She worked with the three oldest of our kids and two of Tina's kids on writing a newspaper and creating a radio drama. The kids really enjoyed the exercise and are learning a lot. Elizabeth is very creative in her descriptions. Jessi likes the human interest stories and Kyle likes fact-based articles. This should not come as a surprise to anyone who knows our kids. She also taught John and Tina's daughter some basic storytelling techniques. All the children loved learning from Miss Jenny.

Science:
Elizabeth got through eight modules of General Science covering The Scientific Method, the History of Science, and overview of the basic studies of science. Jessi and Kyle worked with Tina's oldest kids going through all but the last two chapters of Astronomy. John started reading _Christian Liberty Nature Readers Book 1_ with Tina's daughter. When we finish Astronomy, we will be learning about marine life.

Spanish:
We have a Spanish-speaking friend come twice a month to help us learn, mainly by speaking it. He taught basic conversational questions and instructions that I could use with the kids. The biggest problem in this area is getting me to talk in Spanish, since it isn't native. I think attending a bi-lingual church is helping in the matter, at least for me.

Fine Arts:
The kids are taking classes once a month from an art teacher. There have been some creative things from the Tapestry of Grace curriculum, like making posters and collages and play-dough scultpures. The kids also like checking out drawing books at the library and working on them without any help from me, probably because I wouldn't be much help in the area. I like their independent spirits. The primary art form of choice currently is manga. Elizabeth is getting quite good at it. My efforts at music became rather stalled this quarter.

I spent a few days reviewing the schedule I have with the kids to make sure that I spend an equal amount of time with them and add time for me and time with them individually. God has been really gracious in showing me a potentially really good plan. Another revelation is that there might be a better way to manage all the papers they create than three ring binders, which are currently NOT used by anybody. I switched to seven pocket file folders for everyone.

Best. Christmas. Ever.

2011-12-28T15:21:00.000-06:00

Maybe Christmas, he thought... doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps... means a little bit more! (_How the Grinch Stole Christmas_ by Dr. Suess)

In year's past, we have prepared with cookies and other things and celebrated Christmas for the whole month of December--mainly the preparing part. This year, we decided to try to keep gifts simple and prepare our hearts for remembering the Advent of Christ. We did an advent wreath on Sundays and, as much as our schedule allowed, kept up our Advent calendar. Eric found an Advent daily devotional that he read at dinner. I tried a different Advent devotional, though I probably should have focused on something else because after two weeks, the kids had memorized the Christmas story. In terms of preparing things, we limited the preparation to one day of decorating in early December and baking whatever cookies I could the week before Christmas, when we didn't have school activities. We just baked three different kids of cookeis, based on family preferences. As a family, we spent one night decorating gingerbread cookies and making a gingerbread house which was extra fun because my husband is such a goofball. On Christmas morning, the kids eagerly checked their stockings and then, more leisurely opened their gifts. The kids did not receive any toys from us--two of them are getting a little old for toys. However, everyone enjoyed the gifts we were given and a lot of thought went into many of the presents. Everyone received a surprise and we all got what we wanted. We spent the day hanging out together and getting the dinner ready.

Benefits:
1. I did not cry once in frustration or stress in trying to "do it all."
2. I did not "share" my stress with others because there was a lot less of it and between God and me, it was easily handled.
3. Post-present clean up was minimal and there was no extra work involved in trying to find room for things.
4. I felt the peace of God, which passes all understanding and made sure to pass it on to my family.

As an early Christmas present and confirmation to keep up the good work we started this Christmas, Elz came up to me on Christmas Eve and told me that this was the first year she really felt Jesus in our house. Mission accomplished.

"Since you call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect." 1 Peter 1:17-19

Real life examples from the Bible

2011-12-19T13:59:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, God brought to my attention the fact that sometimes the Bible speaks simultaneously in terms of poetical imagery and down to earth facts of life. While walking the dog yesterday, this tree caught my eye and I had to take a picture. It isn't a very good picture, so I am going to describe it. A lemon tree died and for some reason, the people living there decided to leave the stump. From that stump, a branch sprouted and from that branch leaves and fruit have blossomed. The passage I remembered from seeing it is Isaiah 11:1-5. I am going to copy both the NIV version for its poetry and The Message translation for its down-to-earth practicality.

NIV (1984)
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD—and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

The Message:
A green Shoot will sprout from Jesse's stump, from his roots a budding Branch.
The life-giving Spirit of God will hover over him, the Spirit that brings wisdom and understanding, The Spirit that gives direction and builds strength, the Spirit that instills knowledge and Fear-of-God. Fear-of-God will be all his joy and delight. He won't judge by appearances, won't decide on the basis of hearsay. He'll judge the needy by what is right, render decisions on earth's poor with justice. His words will bring everyone to awed attention. A mere breath from his lips will topple the wicked. Each morning he'll pull on sturdy work clothes and boots, and build righteousness and faithfulness in the land.

Of course, this passage really is talking about Jesus, about his lineage, coming from the line of David, son of Jesse and about his character and his work. But isn't it a comforting thought that God takes something dead (or is it only mostly dead?), whether a tree or some part of our heart and causes it to bear fruit? And isn't it wonderful of Him to give us concrete reminders of His power and His love?

Happy Advent! Six more days until Christmas

An Excerpt from _Beholders of the Rising Sun_ by David Plaep

2011-12-17T14:06:00.000-06:00

Very many thanks to my BIL and SIL, Daddin' Around and Just KT, who I believe gave me _Beholders of the Rising Sun_ by David Plaep when Eric and I were either just about to be married or our first Christmas as a family of three. If they didn't, whoever did, please forgive me for my faulty memory and know that it is really you that I am thanking. I remember reading it that first Christmas Eve. Several times, I had to put it down to let some of the thoughts really sink into my poor, pitiful, brain. It helped me appreciate Christmas in a whole new way. I have read it several times since then and I would like to share a section of it with you. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have, and may you have a blessed Advent season.

"The Word become flesh and made his dwelling among us..." (John 1:14)

The power of the Most High overshadowed Mary and the Word became flesh. In that moment, a parting....
By the words of Moses in the book of Deuteronomy, we know that there is only one God:

"Hear O Isreal, the Lord our God the Lord is one."

However, at the beginning of the Apostle John's Gospel, God reveals an additional, mysterious truth about Himself:

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."

The Lord is one--but the He is also intimately plural.

The relationship that our intimately plural God experiences stretches far beyond our understanding. In fact, like little children who have only the most vague idea that Daddy and Mommy are also husband and wife, we may not even give a thought to the private live of our intimately plural God. Like little children who cannot possibly understand the unique and mysterious pleasures of a man and woman in one-flesh relationship, we cannot comprehend the depth of pleasure and love that Father, Son and Spirit have always enjoyed together. But the truth is, passion and desire are written in God's name:

"...the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God." (Exodus 34:14)

Jealous..God's name is Jealous!

In his name, His eternal nature--such passion, such intense feelings! The astonishing revelation in this name, Jealous, is that God has always lived an intensely passionate life. This was true before anyone or anything was created.

Throughout eternity, Father, Son and Spirit have been profoundly happy together; delighting in their perfect Goodness, Purity, Power and Beauty. Their love for each other burns intensely; exquisite desire for each other--deep, everlasting pleasure. More than anything else in the universe, this perfect love that our intimately plural God has always lived in should be jealously guarded. It should never be disrupted. And yet...

...The Word became flesh...

Father, Son and Spirit approached the womb of Mary and stood at the threshold of unspeakable pain. In the moment when the Most High overshadowed Mary...a parting. A painful, tearing in the life of God; in the way the Father, Son and Spirit have always lived.

God with God became God with us--to eventually become sin for us

In the moment when the Most High overshadowed Mary, the first groans of the Spirit--too deep for words--lifted in lament from this fallen world.

Letting go

2011-12-12T22:45:00.000-06:00

The first weekend in December was an incredibly difficult weekend. My Grandma Carmichael held an estate sale to get her house ready to sell. She had lived in that house for about 50 years, spending most of her married life in it. She and grandpa had helped design the house and it was lovely. There is a porch between the carport and the house that has a roof and skylight so that you can sit outside in the middle of Tusconian summers and be comfortable. It had orange trees, a pecan tree and a "fruit salad tree", producing grapefruit, oranges and lemons. She hadn't been living in it quite a while, having moved to retirement housing five years ago after her house was robbed. She had been renting it at "blessing rates" to help missionaries and others who needed low cost housing. The problem is that renters don't treat a house as their own and renting tends to be more trouble than any money generated. As much as she hated to do it, she knew that it was time to let go.

The sale was a success in that she made money and almost everything was sold. She had done most of the work preparing for the sale, pulling things down from the walls and out of closets and cupboards, pricing them, letting friends and family chose from her stuff weeks before the event as a blessing. I had gone down for a day before we left for Thanksgiving to grab things she had made, like quilts and afghans and a few pictures, as well as some stuff for the patio. I also decided to take the china that belonged to her mother, wanting to keep it in the family as long as possible. I asked her at the time how she was coping with it all. I think at the time, she was too busy pricing things to have it really absorb. The day of the sale arrived with a threat of rain coming down all day, though it stopped by mid-morning. We set everything up in the carport, the porch and opened up the dining room where most of the furniture, pictures and linens were kept. Within minutes of putting up the signs, even before she had returned, people were coming up to the house checking out the stuff. There were hagglers and stragglers and browsers for two days. I think then, it must have really started to hit her because, for the first time in my life, I saw her get REALLY upset about some things. I was getting upset because my kids were in one room doing some school and watching movies and people were going beyond the boundaries of where things were and poking into all rooms. One lady emerged from a bathroom where we stashed anything we didn't want to sell clutching a quilt my grandma made asking what it cost. She seemed upset when we told her nothing in the bathroom was for sale. I had to put up signs telling people that nothing in the kitchen was for sale and to keep out of the rooms where we had things. The hardest thing to see sold was my grandmother's bedroom set, the one that she and grandpa had shared during their 50 year marriage. It sold for far less than the worth of the memories.

Before I left town to return to Phoenix, I stopped by to see my other grandmother, Nana, living in a nursing home and slowly succumbing to Alzheimers. My favorite time to see her is actually in the afternoon, when she is in her bed flitting between sleep and consciousness, when we can have "conversations" uninterrupted by other Alzheimer's patients. With her sunken cheeks and toothless smile and wispy white hair surrounding her face, she reminds me more and more of a female version of the old man who cleaned up Woody in "Toy Story 2" and who also played chess against himself to win back his dentures in a Pixar short. She no longer speaks coherently, though there have been times when I believe that she has understood what I said but replied in a new language created by Alzheimers. Each time I visit, I mention people she should know to see if there is any sign of remembrance. Her eyes still lit up when I talked about her mother and dad, whom I remember from my childhood. They lit up when I talked about my mother. But I remember when those eyes used to twinkle and dance with mischief and joy, not dully shine through age-glazed eyes. I showed her pictures of my kids on my iPhone and she watched, entranced, though I doubt she knew who they were. She got confused when I started talking about my husband, Eric, because her memory is of my cousin, Aric, who died many years ago as a young man. She started talking in her new language and out of the jumble of words, there were a few that seemed to indicate that she remembered him and that he had died. I showed her a picture of my Eric on my iPhone and told her that this was to whom I referred and watched the light in her eye dim with ignorance, even though she had attended our wedding and held several of our kids in her arms back when her mind was (nearly) whole. Each time I visit, I make sure to tell her how much I love her and miss her and how I will see her soon. Saying good-bye is especially tough because I don't know when or if I will get the chance to see her again. The one wry comfort I had as I left was that she was probably going to forget I existed within moments of leaving her, cutting the pain of "good-byes" short, at least for her.

As I left, I realized that, as hard as it is to let go of houses filled with memories, it is even harder to let go of the people who filled them. My time with both grandmas is much shorter now than when I was a young, single woman or even an older, married woman. Nana is literally living on borrowed time with an anuerism in her aorta that was supposed to have killed her three years ago. I even see my other grandma slowing down as she approaches 83 years of life. I know that I am not the only one going through this process of letting go and I know that I will most likely have to go through it again with my own parents and my in-laws in another twenty years. The really good news in all of this, however, is bound up in the current season--Christmas. It is a time when God initiated his last covenant, which would undo the death and decay ushered in by sin from the time it started in Adam and Eve and it started with a baby--new life to bring us new life.

" Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. He paid with Christ's sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately—at the end of the ages—become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you. It's because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God." 1 Peter 1:18-21 (The Message)

Stationery card

2011-12-10T18:56:00.001-06:00

Holly Year Christmas Card

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Waking up with songs in my head

2011-12-06T06:59:00.001-06:00

Each morning, I usually wake up with some song in my head. Sometimes, a song stays in my head all day. For two horrific days a few weeks ago, it was "Wonderful Christmastime", penned by the hookmeister-but-not-versemeister Paul McCartney (I really hate that song, even more than "Feliz Navidad!"). I can feel it wanting to creep back into my mind, so I will quickly share with you the song that started out playing in my head this morning. I like it, even if it is a bit repetitive, because of the play between the men and the women and the fact that it praises God by a lot of His titles/names. It sounds great in congregational singing and I bet it would be even cooler sung in our church, one repetition in English and one in Spanish.

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So far, my intention to really focus on Christ's coming has been going well, praise and thanks to God. I am using some reading plans on my iPad Bible app focusing on repentence and the goodness of God. The kids and I are reading Bible passages that relate to the Christmas story. I am done with three out of four gifts for my family and I am close to finishing the last one. I need a little help from my daughter for the gifts I am giving to the boys because some of it involves crocheting, which is not an area of expertise. He has been showing me how to make Christmas fun. I just have to make the certificates for all the fun things we will be giving the kids that are not items, but things they want to do. We have not seen the inside of a store yet, but I do need to get an outfit for her Aerials show. I think a daytime trip will be most welcome by all but the boys.

Happy Advent!

House vs. Home

2011-12-03T21:40:00.001-06:00

"A house is made of boards and beams; A home is made of love and dreams."

You can tell a lot about a person from how they decorate. The above quote is one of the first things you see walking into Nana and Poppa's house. The other thing you will see at least when you leave is this picture:

They have a beautiful house filled with antique furniture and pictures, though most of what they own are actually family heirlooms that they have restored. Everything in their house is fun, relaxing, and welcoming, from their incredibly comfy sofas and chairs in the living room, to the kitchen with benches around three sides of the table that almost invite you curl up for extended birdwatching or gathering people around to play games or even (gasp) eat together! Two of the kids' favorite places in the house are the "Relaxation Station," which is a cozy nook in a closet with lots of books to read and "Narnia," a room created from the attic storage space when they added on to the farmhouse to create a second bathroom. It is a simple sleeping room that can be only accessed by going through the closet, which is what inspired the name.

pictures on a lovely old knicknack stand

pictures of grandkids and pictures by grandkids

Pictures of grandkids in kids' room

The other thing you will notice is how many pictures of family and friends are scattered throughout the house. The side of their refrigerator is covered almost from top to bottom with pictures. And they have pictures of their parents, kids and grandkids from various ages in almost every room. In the "kids' room", where most of the grandkids sleep during nana/poppa sleepovers, the pictures are all of them when they were toddlers or younger. In their office, they have a huge framed collage of nana with ALL of her grandkids--14 in all, mostly when they were babies. They even have a couple of family portraits taken with their parents as babies. Anyone with any reasoning ability can figure out that people are important to the people living in the house, especially family.

However, my favorite picture of all doesn't involve people, but is a really great reminder for those who are on an extended visit, or who will use the upstairs guest bathroom because the lower one is occupied. It reminds me of how God has deliberately put people in my life for perfectly good reasons.

Gonna Advent like it's... the First Noel?

2011-11-27T19:40:00.001-06:00

I spent most of the week commenting to extended family about my disgust with the stores opening on Thanksgiving in some areas. I thought that we should have a full 24 hours of giving thanks for what we had before succumbing to greed. I spent Black Friday hanging with family and relaxing, totally uninterested in the "deals" I am missing. However, before you comment on how holy I am, let me tell you that I spent all the time immersed in family and not spending a whole lot of time with God. This puts me in the same category with the "pagans" and "superficial Christians" lusting after Black Friday deals for things that they may or may not need (and I put electric cupcake makers in the "do not need" category).

Now, the Advent season is upon us, part of the Christian Christmas tradition in one of the two big holidays Christians celebrate that relate directly to Christ. In years past, I have busied myself with cooking traditional Christmas cookies, having parties, trying to buy the perfect gift for family without maxing out the credit card and making merry with many different people every day from Thanksgiving to Christmas Day, taking a few days rest, and then having one last party on New Years Eve. This year, however, will be different. This year, I will try to put the focus on Jesus, who made a tremendous sacrifice just to take on human flesh and wait to celebrate his birth until the actual day. Here is my plan:

It starts with actually spending time devoted to God, remembering what He has done to make us right with Himself. Having time to do this means that a lot of the things I tried to do weeks before Christmas will be done days before Christmas, like baking Christmas cookies and breads, having fewer get-togethers before Christmas.
Spend more time with the kids doing fun things that they want rather than running around stores.
My husband and I have also decided to spend less money on stuff this year for the kids and each other because things don't make us happy. However, I am figuring out how to wrap non-material gifts that I think the kids will appreciate.
Some of the money we would have spent on items that just clutter up our house will be given to a charity, because Jesus came to serve, not to be served.
Have one final family Epiphany celebration

All of these ideas are not really my own and they are not new. The seeds were planted several years ago by The Advent Conspiracy and it has taken years of making baby steps and trying different things before this year's plan is being put into action. And the really cool thing about all of this is that God is moving in my husband, too to want to change, so that we are moving together and not pulling in opposite directions. And while some people may think I am getting all Scroogey, I think this will be a more joyful holiday than in the past for everyone involved because the overall stress level will be much lower.

y

Happy Thanskgiving

2011-11-24T08:58:00.001-06:00

Dear God,

Thank you so much for the family you have given me and the incredible love they have shown me. Thank you for helping me show love to them, both who are easy to love and those who are difficult, so that we know how much You love us, Your Difficult Children. Thank you so much for all the friends you have brought my way to encourage me and challenge me and help me laugh. Thank you for the brothers and sisters in Christ with which You have surrounded me, showing me that your Spirit can make family where there are no blood ties. I praise you for the wonderful way you have made us and all of creation and how You care for us daily, whether we acknowledge you or not. Please forgive me for not spending more time with You, the one who consistently loves me perfectly and never lets go or walks away from me.

All my love,
Kris

Smelling the Sweet Smell of Success

2011-10-30T18:35:00.000-05:00

My parents decided, when most people try to cruise easily toward retirement, to follow my dad's dream of owning a business in the food industry. When I was a kid, everyone who ate his pizza told him that he should open a pizzeria. He grew up in Chicago, where really good pizzerias like Lido's, Pizzeria Uno/Dues (the ones in downtown Chicago, not the franchises), and Geno's are a dime a dozen. When we moved to St. Louis, it was apparent that we would have to make our own pizza, since, in our decidedly unhumble opinion, Pizza Hut was the best pizza St. Louis offered, though that was over twenty years ago and the situation may have changed. He worked for years trying out different crust recipes until he found a winner in the Foccacia Romana recipe in "The Frugal Gourmet Cooks the Three Ancient Cuisines." Then he played around with sauces and different Italian sausages. My mom is a baker extraordinaire, coming from a long line of excellent women bakers. It is no wonder I had problems with weight over the years. For Christmas, she would bake at least five different butter cookie recipes from my great grandmother, GiGi's, recipe book, sometimes doubling them. One year, at her peak, she produced enough Christmas cookies to last us until February, though I might be exaggerating slightly.

Over five years ago, he and my mom decided to pull up their temporary stakes in Arizona to move to Memphis and follow his dream of making delectable desserts. They chose Memphis because my brother was working there as a chef and could help them out and becuase there weren't a lot of bakeries that offered what they envisioned. And just as he worked for years on perfecting the pizza, my dad has worked throughout the start of his business, trying different recipes, making little modifications here and there to produce cakes that are 100% lusciously decadent. They now have six staple cakes—caramel, carrot, chocolate, coconut, red velvet and strawberry. They also make pumpkin cakes for the holidays. They don't use mere buttercreme frosting, but add cream cheese for extra richness. The strawberry cake has four layers, with two of them separated by homemade strawberry filling. Their chocolate cake satisfies the most ardent chocoholic junkie's desires. In fact, all the cakes have dense flavors without being overpowering, or treacly. They are not flamboyant cakes, but aesthetically pleasing in a simple way. They currently sell them to deli's, restaurants, coffee houses and upscale marketplaces. With these six cakes and some "momma's cookin' cakes" like Gooey Butter Cake and Mississippi Mud brownies, their business has grown steadily over the past three years. Each month for the past nine months they have broken sales records. And they are starting into their prime season, when everyone is out a lot getting ready for Christmas.

I had that in mind when I planned to visit them in the middle of October. The last time I saw anyone was last Thanksgiving because running your own shop before sales take off and require outside help does not allow for many vacations. I also planned it around my SIL's fall break schedule. However, a series of events created a lot of work for my folks the week I was there. I actually had fun hanging out in the bakery for two mornings, helping the pitiful little bit that I could. I am pretty sure my kids enjoyed watching movies on the iPad in their office while I was helping there, though it wasn't exactly what we had planned when we traveled to see them. I felt especially honored (and nervous) when my dad allowed me to spread the first coat on the cakes. The kids helped frost some cupcakes that were intended to be brought home as taste samples and got to see how the cakes and frostings were made. To be sure, I was disappointed that I wasn't able to hang out and relax with them as much as I thought I would and that they weren't able to spend as much time with their grand kids, but I also know that in addition to being a dream, this business is their livelihood and their retirement plan. And we worked it out that, in the future, we would make tenative plans for all non-Thanksgiving visits, to be postponed if extra work unexpectedly came up that would prevent them from being able to spend time with their grandkids. We are currently planning to celebrate the sesquecentennial celebration of the battle of Shiloh in April.

If you are ever in Memphis, for whatever reason, or you live there, when you eat out, ask if they offer cakes by All American Sweets for dessert. If they do, be sure to try them. But beware, they are addicting.

Walking in Memphis

2011-10-26T13:57:00.002-05:00

Two Saturdays ago, the kids and I started our trip that went over the mountains and several rivers, through six states and the woods to Grandmother's (and Grandfather's) house. Afternoons are weird times to start a big journey, but one daughter and I had a fiber arts class in the late morning and one son and my husband wouldn't get back from his first cub scout campout until the early afternoon. My plan was to drive from the Phoenix area to Albuquerque, NM on the first half day, travel to Little Rock, AR the second day and spend a leisurely two hours on the road the third day to get to our destination in the Memphis area. It was crazy, I know. I wouldn't have done it if my kids weren't veteran travelers and able to be amused by drawing, listening to audiotapes and watching movies. And as an added bonus, my oldest is now able to ride "shotgun", which was an even greater help.

Part of the plan was to stop at a park the second day and have a picnic lunch in Amarillo to get some sunshine and let the kids work out some wiggles so that they would go to sleep easily. The problem with choosing a park, however, without knowing the area, is that it may not be in the best area. In this case, the area surrounding the park looked okay, though we passed through an iffy area to get to it. Just as we were sitting down to each lunch with a crowd of people that I thought were just enjoying a warm Sunday in the park, one of them came up to me and asked if I was planning on eating the free food handed out at 5 p.m. that day. I was still on mountain standard time in my car and told him we were eating lunch. He looked confused and one child wanted to eat closer to the play area to escape the smell of cigarrettes, so we moved. It turns out that the park I had chosen was the "homeless park.". One of the guys we met was pretty nice, though after an extended conversation, I wasn't sure how intimate with reality he was. We shared our food with him and prayed for him. For dinner, I wasn't initially planning to stop and eat, but I felt that I really needed a break from driving if I was going to make it to Little Rock, AR, so we stopped at a Love's Gas/Subway stop outside of Oklahoma City for a quick meal. The break definitely helped. The kids watched a movie and settled into their chairs for some sleep until we reached our destination about12:30 local time, though it was "only" 10:30 AZ time.

The next morning, we slept in, knowing we only had two hours before reaching Memphis. The original plan was to meet my folks down by Mud Island and take a tour of the museum and grounds. There were two complications to this plan however, the biggest being that the Mud Island museum was closed on Mondays. My folks also had some unexpected business with their bakery that kept them at work until the late afternoon. So, instead, we parked at a Lee Park, on the riverside, to play for a bit. As we prepared to take a walking tour of Memphis, an older gentleman stopped and asked me if we would pay him to wash our car windows. I have no problem helping someone who wants to work and after two evenings of driving, our windows were pretty buggy, so I consented. I wondered why he picked us out of the people milling about until I later realized Elz and I had shirts on with messages from Matthew 25:37-38 about helping the poor and downtrodden. I guess that would make us pretty good "marks." He did a great job and I gave him the rest of our fruit and some of our veggies as well as some money.

Memphis is built on a bluff, which meant we had to walk up three flights of steps to get from the river to the city. We walked up Huling avenue to Main Street and then across to Beale. That section of Memphis is eerie. It does not appear to be a bad part of town because there are no bars on the windows and the streets are relatively clean and buildings look well-cared for. However, none of the shops were open on Monday afternoon. There were also many buildings standing empty, like a neighborhood that is either in its twilight or the dawn of experiencing renewal. There is trolley service that runs along Main street, which the kids really wanted to try. I figure that since we have family living there, we can try that another time. We saw a statue of "Young Elvis" along the way to Beale. I had wanted to see Beale street ever since the song, "Walking in Memphis" became popular ("Walking in Memphis; Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale...). Memphis actually closes down parts of Beale street to all vehicles, the parts with the highest concentration of bars. This is really nice in the afternoons. I am sure it has saved a lot of lives in the evenings, too. All along the sidewalks were little brass stars with names of early blues musicians, most of whom I was not familiar. The kids were not interested at all in Beale street, especially when a band started to play some 60's blues in a marketplace square. They wanted to see the ducks at Peabody Hotel. We had read John Phillip Duck by Patricia Polacco many times, which is a fictional account of how the ducks came to be swimming in the lobby fountain. For those of you unfamiliar with the hotel or story, ducks are trained to march in line to a fountain in the lobby of the hotel, jump in the fountain, and remain swimming all day until around 5 p.m. when they march in formation back to their home on the hotel's roof. The lobby is opulent, filled with marble and gold, with lots of elegent sofas, tables and overstuffed chairs for hotel guests to relax after a long day of sightseeing. However, there were also little notes on all the tables indicating that the services of the lobby were for hotel patrons only. My kids were complaining about being hungry, since we had skipped lunch after a big, late breakfast. I would have been glad to give them money in exchange for coming in to look at the ducks and using their restroom; however, those little unwelcoming notes discouraged me from even trying to order anything. We walked back to our car, taking the same route, since the kids were afraid we would get lost and drove to my parents' bakery for some snacks and a tour of the new equipment.

Even though I am not a fan of Memphis, I enjoyed our excursion enough to take another walking tour next time we are visiting family.

Living in "Olden Times"

2011-10-15T09:04:00.001-05:00

The following discussion was instigated when my oldest daughter came down looking like she was wearing makeup. I asked her if she borrowed my eye liner or somehow had found one somewhere to use in her stash (though I wouldn't know how because I don't buy her that stuff). It turns out that she used a black crayon. To her credit, it looked REALLY nice and suttle, not at all like Captain Jack's heavy hand, but I was worried that the crayon might cause problems with her eyes. I explained it and made her wash the crayon off immediately. I suppose I should have been thankful it wasn't permanent marker. When she came down she asked how old she had to be before she could wear make up. I remember wanting to wear make up when I was her age because there were girls at that age whose parents allowed them. The other cultural influence of my teenage years was Madonna, who was trying to compete with Michael Jackson as most successful performer of the time by wearing underwear as outerwear or as little as allowed by 1980's censorship standards (search in google for "Madonna like a virgin" pictures to see what I mean if you didn't live through the 1980's). Like all good mothers, my mom told me I had to wait until I was 16 and also set different dress standards than what the 1980's allowed, much to my chagrin at the time.

Tammy Fay Bakker

So I told her that I was 16 before I was allowed to wear makeup and my mom took me to a makeup counter to have someone show me how to apply it so that I wouldn't look like Tammy Faye (a female version of Captain Jack for those of you born after 1980). This was her response:

"Mom, I know that you lived in the olden days when people were more modest, but this is MODERN TIMES and girls my age wear make up these days. Why can't I be like other girls?"

Conclusion of "Too Much of a Good Thing?"

2011-10-11T10:11:00.000-05:00

It has been several days since I wrote my blog and the offensive room is, as of Saturday, completely clean, with many thanks to my husband for helping in the final push. He even rented rug cleaner to clean the carpet. I took a picture on Friday after moving a bed and discovering another "mother load" of stuff to sort through. I almost cried when I saw it because I knew it meant another 30 minutes of work. Since it was the third piece of furniture I had moved that had stuff behind it, I also knew that I would need to move the other two pieces of furniture for a full reveal. I also took a picture last night of the completely clean room and will print it and post it so that they know what it is supposed to look like.

We had a family meeting Friday night to discuss what had come to light and the heart issues behind the problem (root vs. fruit for those of you who speak Christianese). The idea we wanted to plant in their minds is that, whereas people are a LOT more important than things, we need to take care of the things that God has given us because the money we get to buy the stuff comes from Him anyway. He provides daddy's job which gives us the money to give them allowance so that they can buy things. Everything belongs to Him and we are going to be held accountable for all the gifts He has given us.

I need to make two clarifications from my previous post. First of all, the children supposed to be cleaning their disaster area just simply played and talked instead of doing their work. The stuff that was in hiding places never moved. I originally thought that they simply moved things from one hiding place to another. In some ways, this bit of news was a relief. Before the meeting, Eric brought to my attention that I might have given the impression in my blog that we were going to get rid of a LOT of stuff that they hadn't put away. Initially, that was my intent with the clothing f and toys in general. However, I had a change of strategy late Thursday to just put the treasures and clothes in bins to be stored in our room for an undetermined period of time, simply because there were too many things that I couldn't give away and too many clothes that had been scattered in every corner. As the number of bins started accumulating, I realized that in order to prevent my room from becoming a disaster area, I needed to do some purging and re-organizing of my own. I picked up a book I had acquired at one time about organizing your house and read enough to be able to get my closet layout to work for us for both the short and long term. It took about three hours to accomplish this. I even had plenty of space to hold all of of my kids' bins of stuff.

At the family meeting Eric and I laid out the consequences of the past few days:

This would be the LAST time I would pick up for the children. From now on, they stay in their room until a parental unit determines that the room is acceptably clean. Extracurricular activities will be missed if they are not quick enough. Bathroom breaks and time to eat will be allowed if either they decide to put off cleaning up or (shudder) a bedroom turns into another disaster, though I hope it never will.
The room layout will change to make it more difficult to hide things. This has already been implemented.
The children who have created the problem will be responsible for only their clothes until they have spent at least a month proving that they know how to care for and treasure their clothes.
Other things, likes books, crafts, and treasures, will be returned slowly, to give them time to learn how to take care of them.
Allowance is put on hold for the offenders until they prove that they can take care of the things that they currently have.
We will, as a family, spend the next month or so going through each room and organizing it.

Here are some statistics on the results of cleaning:

One bag of clothes and assorted items, four games, and a few toys were given to a fundraising garage sale.
One bag of clothes and three bags of "rags" went to Goodwill from my room.
The recycling bin was filled to capacity and a little beyond this week, though a change in pick-up schedule might have also contributed.
7 bags of garbage were filled, one from my room, one from another bedroom and the rest from the "extreme makeover" room.
We found four pairs of missing scissors, two flashlights, enough crayons to fill at least a 24-piece box, roughly 20 pens and pencils and a few other "missing" items.

One bit of praise in all this is that God helped me stay calm during the whole excavation. In the past, this hasn't always happened. He showed me when to call someone for help and He guided Eric and I as to the appropriate punishment. As a result, one of the offending children has become extremely light-hearted and loving in spite of the "punishment." When asked if the change in behavior is relief at me doing all the work, relief at the "hidden things" revealed or relief that I didn't blow up at the discoveries, the answer was the last two. This is another praise to Him, who brings everything to light and can change hearts.

Too much of a good thing?

2011-10-06T02:00:00.003-05:00

Do you know the first thing that my youngest son said the day before we left for Walt Disney World? He did a victory dance because it meant that we wouldn't have to do chores and don't have to pick up while we are on vacation! I told him that we would probably have to tidy up a bit each morning, but that is easy with only a few things. I laughed and did a victory dance with him. Woo hoo! No cooking or cleaning up after the cooking. It should have started me thinking, though. Another question had been tickling my brain for months: How can the bedroom of one set of siblings become a disaster area with wall-to-wall clutter within thirty minutes of vacuuming it? I mentioned a few times after hearing moans from my request to clean up their room that they probably have too much stuff and need to pare it down.

Since returning from Disney, I have discovered that the last statement was like saying that Niagara Falls is a cute, little waterfall. On Monday, after their daily clean up/organize routine, I went and did more than a quick visual check. I opened the closet door. No, nothing fell on top of me, but I couldn't see two of the walls nor could I get into the closet. Then I happened to look at the end of one bed which is not quite against wall. It was stuffed with stuff. I saw the same thing under the other bed. And when I opened one child's "project bin", I found shoes, books, as well as clothes of undetermined cleanliness. I questioned the culprits like I always do about the proper places to put clothes, both clean and dirty, books, toys, precious things. Yes, they definitely knew where they should go. The problem was in implementation. I told them that there would be no video games, TV or pleasure reading (the WORST) until their room was pristine. I gave them some garbage bags. I started to take stuff out of the closet, just to make more room to go through stuff. They informed me that they could handle it and that they would "surprise me." They brought down two full garbage bags the first day. The incident sparked an flurry of "organizational desire" in me that resulted in the games and toy closet being culled and organized, a re-thinking of our current LEGO organization strategy to eliminate using coffee cans and just dedicate two of the three-level bin shelf for LEGO pieces and the beginnings of culling clothes in everyone's closet. The kids have spent an hour or more each day after school on their rooms to pick up the clutter. Today, the day before we have guests come, I told the kids that anything left on the floor by 2 p.m. would be eliminated in one way or another so that we could start cleaning the downstairs. A friend is having a garage sale fundraiser and I LOVE giving my stuff to others to help them raise money for good causes.

At 2:15 p.m., after finishing up in the other siblings' room, I walk in the room that inspired this organizational focus. It is STILL a disaster area, but not as much. I send all kids outside for fresh, cool air and relaxing play and start tackling it. I see something poking out from under the desk drawers. I pull out twenty different things, including garments of undetermined cleanliness, garbage and at least one book. After cleaning up that mess, I look under one bed and find the same situation, but covering the majority of the floor. It dawns on me that they basically spent two days trying to hide stuff in different places, thinking I wouldn't look. I stop, livid, and call a friend to talk me down so that I don't torch the place. She prays for me, which helps tremendously and I go back to work. I call Eric to tell him the situation and make sure he is okay with me putting a LOT of stuff into the garage sale bag. Five minutes later, I have half of their clothes in a give away pile. A thought starts to form in my mind. I call Eric again and get his approval. I grab an empty bin and start filling it with stuff on shelves that is not garbage, in desk drawers and under the bed. If they cannot take care of their treasures, then they will be removed and stored until they learn how to take care of their most basic items--clothes. By 3:30, I still have half a bed to excavate as well as finishing work on the closet and a few other places. I am exhausted and thirsty and need to stop to write out some stuff to Eric and get the kids ready for John's Karate practice before leaving for my own commitment at church. I say nothing to them, but tell the kids whose room I am giving an extreme makeover that they are not allowed in it, or even to see it. I am realizing that the job will not be completed before I need to go and I REALLY want them to wait until I am done to see the results as well as prevent them from trying to "fix it themselves." I grab a couple of roller-board suitcases, empty the drawers of their remaining clothes into them and have them join their other siblings. My husband comes home, we have a quick discussion while I go off to my commitment. Tomorrow I will finish their room and organize my closet to hold the additional bins of their stuff.

All the while as I was working in the room, I kept thinking of how much time we spend cleaning up our stuff. The stuff we have has taken control of our lives to the point where the initial joy of the vacation for one kid is in not cleaning as opposed to the joy of going to an amusement park! For the last two weeks, I have been spending most of my time outside of school time in getting the kids to pick up after themselves, which leaves me feeling grumpy and tyrannical and little time for recreation and rest. I am not accusing my kids of being lazy or even from being different from their parents, but they have trouble differentiating between trash and treasure in today's throwaway society and they are overwhelmed with stuff to the point that they can't really treasure it as they should. Even I get overwhelmed with taking care of stuff, which is only partially due to being organizationally challenged. What is the solution? The only thing I can think of is to significantly reduce it to manageable levels, taking a minimalist approach. Do they really need building blocks, Kinex, Lincoln Logs and LEGOS? Especially when they spend the majority of the time with LEGOs building shelves full of creations? How much arts and crafts stuff should we keep? Honestly, I don't have answers, but I feel as if we are starting on a journey that will give us more free time to enjoy each other, enjoy the blessing of our house, and maybe even change our hearts to be content with less.

Our Vacation in Walt Disney World

2011-10-03T23:55:00.000-05:00

For two years, we saved money so that when our youngest was old enough to remember, we could visit Walt Disney World. I have been to Disneyland in California at least two times, so I wanted to see what Walt Disney World was like. Plus, Disneyland did not have the Hall of the Presidents. We decided to go in September to take advantage of a flexible homeschooling schedule allowing us to be there during off-peak times, when prices are a little lower and there are fewer people. We started our vacation in the best way--late morning on a Sunday, so that we could work all day Saturday as a family to get packed. Just having that stress reducer was a wonderful way to keep the previous week from being too stressful trying to do school, clean and pack. So we left in the morning after dropping off Jacques at a neighbor's house and some final packing. As with any trip, we managed to forget something--the boys' swimsuits. We arrived on Sunday evening in time for a late dinner at the hotel's kitchen. The kids were so wound up from all the sitting on the plane and the excitement of the next day's adventure that it was hard to keep them asleep. We attended Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Epcot Center and the Magic Kingdom in that order. Our order was partly determined by what restaurants were available at the times we wanted to attend and by how much time we thought we would spend at the park. My idea was to spend the first day at Hollywood Studios, which typically does not require a full day because we would still be on Mountain Standard (a.k.a. "Arizona time") and eating at 9 p.m. E.S.T. wouldn't be a big deal. We wanted to leave the Magic Kingdom for the end of the trip. I am not going to bore you with details, but leave only the highlights, the stinkers, the pleasant surprises, and the disappointments

Highlights:

Every sit-down restaurant we ate at was excellent. We had home cooking at Hollywood studios in a 1950's style table, Restaurant Marrekesh served Moroccan food at Epcot Center, a BBQ Hoedown with some Disney Characters, Greek food at Kouzzina's at the Disney Boardwalk and seafood at Cap'n Jacks (no relation to the "Pirates" franchise) at Downtown Disney.
Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom is the best rollercoaster I have ridden. Ever (I have not gone to Cedar Point, though, so my opinion might change in the future.
"Mickey's Philharmagic" at the Magic Kingdom was the best 3D show, maybe because it combined music and scenes from three or four of my favorite Disney movies with Donald being funny.
"Toy Story Mania" in Hollywood Studios had the best entertainment during the 85 minute wait AND was the best combination of ride, video game and 3D viewing.
"Soaring" at Epcot Center was the best non-rollercoaster ride.
"Splash Mountain" at the Magic Kingdom was the best water ride. It was funny and used the story of Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox and Brer Bear to extend the ride, giving us several minor drops before "The Big One."
"Tom Sawyer's Island at the Magic Kingdom was the best way to have fun that didn't involve stimulating the adrenal glands and/or disturbing your equilibrium.
The Kim Possible Adventure was the best use of Disney property and animatronic effects not in a ride. We were given a cell phone that gave us clues to find somewhere in the World Showcase. It gave us the feel of being in a very easy episode of "The Amazing Race."
Dinosaur was the best animatronic ride. I loved feeling the gust of wind when the T-rex roared at me.

Attractions I would avoid next time:

Captain EO at Epcot: There was a certain sense of nostalgia driving Eric and I to see the first 3D movie Disney made. However, it was, in Michael's words "Bad". The plot was hokey, the dialogue horrible, the dancing was boring, the sound effects when he was dancing would have been annoying if they didn't remind me of Weird "Al" Yankovik's spoof called "Fat". The kids thought Michael looked, sounded and acted like a girl ("He is the original Justin Bieber" according to my oldest) and they were not impressed with his dancing. Sorry Michael. Sorry George.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad rollercoaster at The Magic Kingdom: no big drops, just a lot of tight corners and dips. yawn.
"The Circle of Life" movie at Epcot. The movie's plot was Simba explaining to Timon how bad it was to dam a river in order to make an amusement park that would make him rich when it hurt the environment and used humans as an example of how they used to not care about the environment and almost ruined the planet until they came to their senses. Even Elizabeth saw the stomach churning hypocricy in the movie since all food and drink at quick service venues were offered in disposable containers and that WDW altered the environment to create the park in the first place as a way of giving us joy while making profit.
"Stitches' Great Escape" at the Magic Kingdom: They put shoulder restraints to make you think you are going on a ride, but you just sit there while Stitch "spits" on you," eats" many different things while you are in the dark and "bats" at your head a few times. Only Kyle was relieved that there was no ride.
"The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror": Instead of one long plunge several stories, you have several short plunges. All that is left is the creepy factor they create.
"It's Tough to be a Bug." at Animal Kingdom. Short on anything but potty humor, involving lots of bad smells, bug "spitting" at you and poking you.

Pleasant Surprises:

Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular at Hollywood Studios
"Walt Disney: One Man's Dream" at Hollywood Studios. A nice little homage to Walt Disney and his brother, Roy, who was the numbers man.
Awesome fireworks at Epcot Center. It was the only night we were able to watch fireworks for one reason or another.
Journey into imagination with Figment: John laughed through most of it, which made me laugh.
John loved "It's a Small World.", which made it enjoyable for me in spite of the annoying song repeated endlessly through the ride.
"Kilimanjaro Safaris" at Animal Kingdom. A cheery guide takes us on a tour of their African animals. They did a great job of hiding the big ditch keeping the tigers and lions from escaping. Our guide sounded like Ariel.
"Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor": Very funny with audience interaction, whether they volunteer or not. You can also text your jokes in the hopes of having them included in the banter.

Disappointments:

The Hall of Presidents at the Magic Kingdom. I wanted more animatronic action, more quotes from different Presidents, more highlights and problems of their adminstrations. That was what I was expecting and waiting to see for 32 years. Maybe the problem is me, though and not the show. My expectations were too high.
The Pirates of the Carribean. Jack didn't add anything to the ride.
The Studio Backlot Tour at Hollywood Studios was closed.
Not being able to walk through Cinderella's Castle. It seemed to be closed most of the time we were there due to some traveling musical show starting.
T-shirts. Very thin material for the price you pay.
Quick service food. We decided to skip quick service lunches, which mainly consisted of tasteless, fried food and focused on eating a late breakfast, which is hard to make tasteless, have a small snack in the afternoon, when we were actually hungry, and then enjoy the excellent dinners at a sit-down restaurant.
Kyle freaked out at a lot more rides than I thought he would. I think he just took the warnings they gave as a reason to freak out. He also was thoroughly fooled by the Disney designers who strove for realism in their rides and did such a good job that they convinced him that he NEEDED to push a couple of buttons in order for the mission to Mars to be successful (though it also said it involved a 3 month trip, which should have been a clue that it WASN'T real). I managed to convince him to go on The Big Thunder Mountain ride, but he didn't enjoy it. He went on the Dinosaur ride, but had his eyes closed most of the time. He even freaked out on a ride similar to Dumbo because John took us up too high. By the second day, I think he was freaking out just as a matter of principle. Or habit. We accomodated him when we thought it would be too much for him, like Space Mountain and Expedition Everest, and encouraged him to try a ride when we thought it would be okay, like "Soaring" and "Star Tours". It was funny and frustrating and sad at the same time.

Other thoughts:

As much as Disney tries to control everything to make sure it is the Happiest Place on Earth, they can't. They can't force the weather to be a balmy 80 degrees. It was in the 90's and humid most of the time. At one point, I tried making a Micky Mouse pattern on my shirt from all the sweat pouring down it. They can't prevent wives from shouting nasty things at their husbands before stomping away, they can't prevent the lightning and rain from closing down car stunt shows or from people booing when the shows are canceled. They can't prevent grumpy people from mishandling those stupid motorized scooters and bumping into people to try and get them to go faster or for people to be impatient or rude when their drinks take one minute longer than their food to be provided. They can't prevent toddler tantrum fits when their parents won't buy them a crappy piece of plastic junk that is sold for 1000 times more than it costs to make it. All of these things were witnessed by me. I even saw an adult mother snap at another mother who had temporarily misplaced her young daughter about having to miss a show instead of trying to help find the missing child. However, the people who work there are stars just because they are ALWAYS friendly, ALWAYS ready to start up a conversation, ALWAYS answer politely when a customer is rude to them and ALWAYS do their best to make accommodations for their guests. I would really like to know their secret. It was a wonderful five day break from reality, but it is definitely not a lifestyle I would want to live. Pictures will be coming soon.

Pictures from Woods Canyon

2011-09-24T20:13:00.002-05:00

There is something broke with the Picasa movie generator. I tried uploading from Picasa into my blog while in Picasa. I tried uploading it from Picasa while in my blog. I tried importing it to Youtube from Picasa and I tried uploading it while in Youtube. In all cases, only four pictures showed up before the screen turned black. I sent a request to Google help to see if they could figure out what the problem is. I received some singularly unhelpful links from a first line Google person. I explained to him, via email, exactly what I did and what was the problem and why his links were unhelpful. I have heard nothing else from him. Last night, I went to "Share Night" to hear my friend's experience in Ethiopia (We are Blessed To Be A Blessing) and we discussed the problem, since I know that she puts a lot more pictures on her web than I do. So I am trying something different by putting pictures on an album in Google and letting you view them.

Pictures from the Overtoom's Camping Trip at Woods Canyon Lake

Bridgetender School Quarterly Update--Beginnings

2011-09-24T09:50:00.001-05:00

I love fall! The cool, crisp mornings where temperatures are in the mid-70's; the promise that it won't get to the low 100's until mid-afternoon, allowing us all to venture outside past 9 a.m. Fall has traditionally been a time to start school. Not in Arizona! We started school on August 8, when it is too hot to really do anything outside after 9 unless it involves swimming pool. It is motivated as much by boredom as by the desire to be finished with school while the weather is still decently cool. Subsequently, we have almost finished our first quarter of school.

This year, many changes are taking place at Bridgetender School. First of all, my oldest entered 7th grade--Jr. High. My youngest began his first year of "full day" school as a first grader. A homeschooling friend, Tina, and I decided to form a two-family co-op for history, science, literature and art that meets on Thursdays. Tina has three kids, two boys and a girl and they live five minutes away. Her family moved here a year ago from the southeast and we have become great friends. We also started a PE co-op inviting families in the Mesa area who are in our Veritas homeschooling support group which meets Thursday mornings. She is the equipment procurement officer and I am the general coordinator and recruiter for the PE co-op. The first three weeks of PE co-op, which didn't start until September, involved spraying the kids down with cool water in a spray bottle every five minutes to prevent them from getting too hot. The city also graciously has their sprinklers running on one of the fields that provided a nice cool down. Our very first class began with a police bust a hundred yards away from where our kids were gathered to start warm ups. Thankfully, no guns were needed as about ten plainclothes policemen swarmed over a young guy with a backpack. Doubly thankfully, we haven't had a repeat of the incident.

The co-op uses Tapestry of Grace for history. The period of history we are covering is the 20th and 21st centuries. We are die-hard fans of Apologia for science, though John and her daughter, our first graders are reading Christian Liberty Nature Readers, The Burgess Animal Books, and The Burgess Bird Book, all of which put facts about animals of all kinds in entertaining stories. For writing, we are giving a mutual friend a chance to try her hand at a tutoring business. She comes every other week for a lesson and to review their homework from the last lesson. She has been guiding them on how to create a newspaper this month, since we are covering the turn of the century to the Great Depression when the Newspaper was still "king". Future units will include radio programs and commercials, TV shows and commercials and then internet based writing. So far, the kids love her and we enjoy the results. Tina found a wonderful art teacher about a year ago who lives 5 minutes from us. Once a month, she teaches our kids about a master and has them copy their style. The rest of the time, we are having Elizabeth and her oldest lead a class since they have the most talent and are the farthest developed, once a month we are doing a craft and once a month we are winging it. Tina has been teaching science so far and I have been teaching history. She is introducing me to the wonderful world of lap books, which she is using for science. I have been having the kids stage trench warfare for our WWI unit, using our couch and a mat to represent trenches, chairs to represent the barbed wire they had to crawl under, and crumpled paper to represent gunfire and aerial bombs. They have also had to give presentations to help me present history.

We are still using Math-U-See for math, though Eric is teaching Elizabeth now and grading her math. Elizabeth has also "graduated" to Apologia's General Science written for 7th graders . Jessi and Kyle are learning about the Universe and John is learning about animals. We are still working on Spanish and I am getting help from a friend who is a first generation American who emigrated from Mexico to give me conversational Spanish, rather than just "book" Spanish. We have some applications on the iPad to help us conjugate verbs and learn more nouns. We are starting an exercise program with the goal of meeting the Presidential Fitness requirements by May. It involves running, swimming or bicycling (depending on the weather), strengthening and stretching exercises.

My challenge is spending time with each child while my youngest needs so much help. His reading has improved greatly in the past six weeks, but he won't be an independent reader for a while yet, which is perfectly fine with me as I get the last of my "reading cuddle time." Jessi and Kyle are more independent, but even they need help with certain subjects. Elizabeth needs help sometimes with science and I love to work with her on the science experiments. My challenge with her is to let her plan her week without any assistance and let her fail at times or get frustrated. She had decided to go through one module of General Science a week so that she could go through Apologia's Zoology 2 book. I cautioned her that the modules were much larger than the elementary modules and required a lot of work. She insisted that she could do it. In the middle of the second week, she broke down and cried about how much work there was, at which time I was able to suggest dividing the modules into two week plans instead of one. At that point, she happily accepted the suggestion. For me, lesson learned.

Links

Tapestry of Grace: http://www.tapestryofgrace.com/index.php
MathUSee: http://www.mathusee.com/
Apologia: https://apologia.securesites.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_60&products_id=1

Woods Canyon Camping Weekend

2011-09-09T10:17:00.009-05:00

This is our third summer in Arizona. During our first summer, we went back into hibernation after a month or so of enjoying the daylight hours of May and June and withstood the hottest summer ever with only a one day respite in Woods Canyon Lake because we had just moved in the spring. We escaped for a month last summer visiting friends and family in the east. This summer, we took two extended weekends in the north, where the higher elevation means much cooler temperatures. For four days in July, our family spent four days at Woods Canyon Lake camping in our brand new "Big Agnes" tent. Yes, after about a year of discussions and prayers regarding whether to save up for an RV or not, we decided 'not' mainly because it would involved buying a second vehicle with actual towing capability. After seeing how cramped everything and everyone was on just a four day stay, however, the plan to get a bigger vehicle is back and we are just biding our time for the right vehicle at the right price.

Woods Canyon Lake is about 2 hours from the Phoenix metro area. The lake was made, like pretty much all lakes in Arizona, by damming a river. Poor river. It hovers on the edge of the Mogollon rim, which is part of the Colorado plateau several thousand feet above sea level. Because it is so close to Phoenix, it is a very popular day trip and is pretty noisy and crowded around the lake on the weekends. There are about three or four hiking trails in the area, so if that is your interest, you might want to go somewhere else for anything but a long weekend. The main ctivity encouraged, really, is fishing.

Our kids, before the trip, LOVED fishing, causing us to get fishing rods for everyone except me, who does NOT like fishing, at Walmart. However, after an hour of fishing on the first day with no results, most kids lost interest. Fortunately, there are a lot of crawdads also in the lake, which are an invasive species. They are more gullible than the fish and will go for anything that looks remotely like food and, as an added bonus, like to stay near the edge of the water, which means a piece of hot dog placed on a skewer in the water near the edge is sufficient to catch a crawdad. This activity entertained the kids for a long time. Kyle was the resident expert as he had just spent a day at Boy Scout camp catching crawdads and "helped" his siblings get good at catching crawdads. The crawdads were not turned into dinner, however.

The two hikes we made that weekend were a ranger-guided hike one morning and a three mile walk around the lake the next afternoon. The ranger-led tour was pretty short, but entertaining. Ranger Bob knows his stuff. He pointed out peaks of interest and other topological features and then took us around to look for native plants, talking a lot about the Ponderosa Pines that cover the mountains, as well as other native plants. He also runs tours along another trail that we attended two years ago. The second day, after lunch, we walked completely around the lake, which involved a brief thunderstorm and a detour around an eagle's nesting grounds. It also involves tender, green grass which is non-existent in our neck of the desert. The kids were great on both hikes.

The weather was gorgeous. Every morning was bright and sunny and cool enough to need a light jacket. Every afternoon, it stormed. Rain doesn't seem like a great thing to those living in the Midwest or, especially now, the East Coast. However, to someone living in the desert, rain is beautiful and getting wet is a luxury. The rain would end just in time to start a fire for the night so we could have s'mores.

We stayed at Aspen Campgrounds, which has sites for both RVs and tents. If you need to take showers every day, this is NOT your cup o'. All they have are pit toilets, though the cleanest and least smelly pit toilets I have EVER encountered. I rarely even saw a bug, though one lady told me that a mouse was crawling around during her first visit. Water spigots are very conveniently located Many tent sites had shower tents set up along with the eating tents and sleeping tents. Because it was so cool in the mornings and evenings, we just made do with washing our feet, which became very muddy with the rain--the only downside.

When we were at our site when it wasn't raining, the kids were playing among the boulders. I brought knitting and knitted a washcloth while we were there. Elizabeth crocheted. We played "The Dilbert" card game one afternoon in the tent while waiting out a storm. My favorite memory is of John waking me up on the last morning just as daylight was blooming to use the pit toilet. As we walked the 100 yards or so, I happened to look around and found seven deer checking out a nearby campsite. The closest one was about 10 feet from us. They all paused to eye us warily, but didn't run away when they saw us continuing to move away from them. By the time John and I had both used the facilities, the deer had disappeared.

NOTE: This was delayed because I have been trying to get a "movie" I created by Picaso uploaded and have been frustrated. If I get it working, I will post it separately.

Having Faith

2011-09-04T20:27:00.003-05:00

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1

As I was driving with my two girls in the car one night, my oldest started making unflattering comments about one of her brothers, who happens to be just as strong willed as she is. They are frequently combatants, as a matter of course. At that moment, I was picturing a pot pointing at a kettle. I acknowledged to the girls that he was pretty strong willed and then commented that whenever I was having to deal with the down side of my strong willed children, I reminded myself that someday, with God's help, it would be an asset because it meant that they would be more willing to follow their convictions rather than follow the crowd. I told her that I was confident that my strong willed children would all turn out to be wonderful adults.

My oldest child, with a look of complete doubt replied, "You must have a really strong faith, mom."

She has no idea :-).

Freaky week

2011-09-01T18:17:00.007-05:00

I have been telling people that I suspect my kids have a plan to take turns working me to my last nerve each week, because for the first three weeks of school a different child each week stood out as particularly difficult. The only child that has not accomplished her goal in the past three weeks is my sweetest girl, though I won't name names. This week, however, I think it was God's turn, because there were too many crazy things that happened that had nothing to do with my kids:

1. Jessi found a scorpion on the leg of a kitchen chair while cleaning the kitchen. Scorpions are pretty creepy anywhere in the house, but considering how much time we spend sitting on the kitchen chairs, the thought of a scorpion's stinger inches away from a child's leg was a bit unnerving. It is now a dead scorpion, BTW.

2. While walking one night, Jacques and I encountered a dog running off leash in the golf course. His owner was there, but he ignored the commands of his owner and trotted over to where Jacques had stopped. The unfettered dog, a big boxer, proceeded to jump on Jacques, growling and acting like he wanted to rip Jacques throat. Thankfully, no blood was spilled and I hope the owner didn't mind that I tried to hit his dog on the head with my big, heavy flashlight to force him away from mine. I think the word "unnerving" also applies to this situation.

3. I left my cell phone in the Fry's food store. I knew I left it in the Fry's because my husband installed a "find phone" app on his phone and on the iPad and the GPS told us it was in the vicinity of the Fry's store. When I went, sans Eric's phone, the clueless employee I encountered hapazardly searched through the lost and found drawer for 30 seconds and couldn't find any iPhone with a fluorescent green cover on it. Thoroughly discouraged, I went home and started to walk the dog with the intent of seeing if it was just lying in the parking lot or bushes or some random location around Fry's.

4. Within a few feet of our house as I was walking Jacques, a couple of stray dogs approached us. They didn't respond to my "No. Stay AWAY." until after four or five repetitions. At this point, I realized that I was still a little freaked out by the previous dog incident and didn't want to risk any further adventures with loose dogs. I turned around and walked the 1/2 block back to my house. I asked Eric to go look for the phone. He apparently found the one useful employee there at nine-thirty p.m. who successfully located my phone and gave it to him when he proved by entering the security code that it was "his."

5. Yesterday morning, while I was trying to start up the first ever Vandertoom P.E. Co-op, some kind of police bust happened within 100 yards of our three families. Several plainclothes police officers and several more uniformed officers with big guns descended on a guy carrying a backpack and arrested him after searching through the contents of the bag. One of the moms, totally freaked out, called to the police and asked them if it was going to be safe to stay or if we should leave. The officer replied that it now safe. Aren't those comforting words? Not really. I picked the park because it is a good midway point between several families and because I usually see mom's with their kids playing at the park, not drug dealers or other criminals. It didn't occur to me much later that the guy arrested could have been carrying a gun and determined to use it to resist arrest.

All this reminds me that the world in which we live is NOT safe, no matter how hard we try to make it safe with fences, child safety equipment, pest control, seat belts, child safety seats, the CPC, air bags, airport security, police, FBI, army, navy, air force and marines. I am also reminded of what I should do when I am freaked out:

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding shall guard your hearts in Christ Jesus." This comes from Philippians 4:6-7, which I typed from memory because our small church group is encouraging each other to memorize verses.

So, after repeating that verse and having God put things in His perspective, I am very glad and thankful this week. I am glad that my Jacques is okay, glad that my kids have keen eyesight and that scorpions don't move quickly, glad that my phone was easily found, and glad that an arrest was made without anyone having to use a gun. And I am thankful to God that He kept us safe throughout the week and humbled by the fact that I don't really even deserve His protection , but that He gives it anyway because He loves us more than we can ever imagine, for which I am most glad.

Homeschool Convention Inspiration

2011-08-09T19:10:00.006-05:00

My husband and I attending the Arizona Families for Home Education conference right around my birthday. It was almost like having a couple's getaway, except for the fact that we didn't see each other after the keynote speaker until lunch time and we were sitting listening to people for several hours each day. Ken Hamm (Answers in Genesis) was very entertaining and completely lucid and knowledgeable, which is not how the media portrays him. I actually heard a politician say something meaningful vs. a bunch of platitudes strung together in a sentence that says nothing so that it offends no one.

I now have six years of homeschooling under my belt. There is still undiscovered country called "Jr. High" and "High school", but there is a lot of stuff that is becoming easier. I feel a lot more prepared for John being in first grade than I was for Elizabeth, for example. So finding helpful seminars is a little difficult. A couple that sounded like they were helpful really just were things I had heard previously, like using the Charlotte Mason Method to teach language arts. It was a good reminder that I don't have to cover all subjects explicitly, but they get covered by having kids read good literature and copy it. The most helpful was the seminar about preparing for high school and beyond and a class on micro-enterprise businesses, as Elizabeth has an interest in turning her artistic giftings into early money.

However, the one that was initially the most disappointing in the beginning ended up being the one that has left the biggest impression on me. The title of the seminar was "The Biology of Auditory Processing" and it appealed to my inner geek. I thought it would be a detailed explanation about how information is physically captured in the brain from the ear. However, if I had done a little more homework on the presenter, I would have realized that her focus was in helping mothers schooling learning disabled students. It was also, apparently, the second lecture in a two lecture series, which was NOT spelled out in the information sheet. And the presentation was on how food choices affect your ability to learn and hear. I don't have any learning disabled kids, so I was tempted to walk out and ramble among the vending hall or find a quiet corner to ask God to help me assimilate all I had heard during the two days. However, I was in the fifth row right in the center, which would mean I would make an obvious exit. I would hate to have someone walk out on me in the middle of my program (if I was ever brave enough to become a public speaker, which I am not). So I sat there and alternated between listening and stewing over "false advertising" and, finally, hearing God's quiet voice tell me that He had me here for a reason.

Basically, she recommended limiting dairy or even eliminating it for a time being, eating foods rich in Vitamin E and taking lecithin supplements. Dairy seems to be an inhibitor and the mucus generating effects might affect hearing. Vitamin E is a good brain booster and lecithin helps with concentration and focus. So as a personal challenge (because I love all things dairy especially butter), I am trying to virtually eliminate it and substitute it for food high in calcium and high in Vitamin E. I am now drinking unsweetened almond milk for it's high calcium content. And I am enjoying it. I am also converting my family to the Mediterranean practice of dipping breads in oil, specifically, walnut oil, which is high in Vitamin E. I don't think that I could totally eliminate it. I definitely could not turn down my daughter's first dinner of quesadillas made completely without adult supervision because it was 90% cheese. Instead, I limited myself to one half. I also couldn't turn down pizza last night. And pizza without cheese is like eating an ice cream cone without the ice cream! Speaking of which, instead of ice cream, I am eating frozen fruit bars. Coconut is my favorite. I am also not counting items baked with butter and/or milk as dairy because that would also eliminate pancakes. If you know that I am "cheating", please don't tell me and ruin my day.

We will see if it helps me feel better or not and if it helps expand our palates for a wider variety of food.

Forgive me for bragging...

2011-07-25T10:49:00.004-05:00

As a homeschooling mom, I get the wonderful gift of seeing my kids grow and develop 24/7. I want to share some of the things I see in my kids.

My oldest daughter wants to be a vetrinarian. While she does LOVE animals, her gifts lay entirely in the arts. She sewed by hand a skirt, using the waistband of some old underwear as the elastic waistband. There is only one place where there is a pucker. She is awesome at drawing and painting and we may have her help in my co-op (with one other family) once a month. She has picked up crocheting pretty quickly and this weeked, finished a cap in turquoise and purple striping. All of this is usually initiated by her. She also likes music, though it is not an area of focus. She is VERY determined and VERY task focused.

My second daughter also wants to be a vetrinarian. However, her talent is being able to remember the names of every single person she meets. For a long time. She has asked me if I remember a child she played with at the park once when she was five years old. She charms almost anyone she meets and is really good with kids She also has a love of music and is very focused and diligent in this one area. "You need to stop playing the piano because (various reasons)." Secretly, I love saying that, even though I act really annoyed because she is either NOT getting ready to leave for somewhere or she is not helping out as she should. Her diligence and focus in other areas is definitely lacking. If she does pursue a career in music, she will need someone who will not only arrange her schedule but also be willing to pick up and clean after her and find the stuff that is missing. Unless God intervenes and gives her a desire for organization and cleanliness or she works hard to overcome her natural inclination as I am trying to do.

My oldest son (third in line) wants to be an architect. It comes from all the times he has been upset when I have announced that we need to destroy all LEGO creations in order to replenish our, collection of roughly ten thousand pieces. He hates having is creations destroyed and my response to his whining has always been, "LEGOs are temporary creations. If you want to build something permanent, become an architect." He has a photographic memory for facts and can make wonderful LEGO creations. He LOVES to read and is probably at the same level at his older sister. A currently annoying gift he has is at pointing out errors. However, it can be very useful as a potential career. He is pretty young, so the focus and diligence are somewhat lacking right now as is typical of the age level. He is incredibly vibrant and knows how to flash an all-over-body smile that will melt your heart and make you forget that two seconds ago he was annoying his brother or sisters to tears. Unfortunately, that seems to be his main talent right now.

My youngest is my class clown. For reading, he prefers funny stories. He also has a great imagination and is showing a talent for drawing. What I love most about him though, is his soft heart. He has already chosen a wife, our neighbor's daughter who also takes Tae Kwon Do. He makes very romantic statements about her, which makes me wonder what shows he secretly watches. His focus is definitely dicey. One week, he is focusing with laser-like precision in Tae Kwon Do; the next week, he is making faces in the mirror while the instructor is speaking. I think that is also a sign of being a young kid. I am looking forward to seeing what talents emerge from what I see now.

My kids are probably pretty ordinary and, with any luck, probably won't be rich or famous. However, they bless my life every day.

Advantages of dry heat

2011-07-21T08:21:00.002-05:00

A little over a year ago, my husband installed a multiple-line, retracting clothesline. We had been discussing it for a while because standard dryers typically take an hour or more to dry clothes. I had noticed that it takes very little time to dry wet towels and bathing suits and I figured that we would save both time and energy, which turns into money, by hanging clothes out to dry.

In the summer, it takes almost no time for clothes to dry. Yesterday, with temperatures at 107 degrees, I washed the sheets. It took two loads because we added some new sheets I purchased at IKEA and a new duvet cover. I decided to use the same bin for both loads, which meant that I had to start hanging the second load on the remaining line before taking down the first load. When I ran out of room, I took down just enough to hang the rest of the load, then took down the remainder of the dry bedclothes. By the time I was done taking down the dry stuff, the first sheets I had hung were dry--about 15 minutes.

In winter time (I use the term loosely in deference to my Northern friends and family), the clothes take longer to dry, closer to the time it takes the dryer to dry them, unless I hang them out in prime time--10 to 1 p.m. So I use the dryer a little more.

In general, I really like hanging the clothes to dry. I am sure the clothes are getting some dust in them, just because of where we live. It is another reminder than nothing in this life will ever be perfectly clean until Jesus comes back. I have had birds leave droppings on the hanging clothes, too, which is pretty gross. The other advantage, though, is that clothes don't get wrinkled as long as I fold them as I take them down. This means that, in order for kids to fold their own clothes, they have to come out with me as clothes are taken down. We have all become really good at folding clothes without laying them down. For sheets and towels, I especially like having the kids help me because then, we can do "the folding dance:" Fold two corners together, then come together to meet up with the other two corners. Share a kiss as I grab the entire partly folded sheet/towel. Repeat as necessary, especially with the kisses. Sadly, my oldest refuses to include kisses in the folding dance, but I love seeing the ear-to-ear grins from the other three as I bend down to kiss them.

In general, I am very glad to have the clothes line. It is also very convenient to put wet swimsuit on after a swim, quick or otherwise. I am also one step closer to being prepared if we ever suffer total economic collapse, including a total loss of power ;-).

Goodbye, Harley! And other thoughts

2011-07-18T18:19:00.004-05:00

Saturday morning, Eric and the kids said "good-bye" to Harley for the last time as two different people were interested in adopting him. I was asked to stay around and interview the families to make sure that he would be put in the best family. It was a bit unexpected requirement and one of the families made it downright inconvenient by being 30 minutes late for the appointment. It meant spending an extra hour at Petsmart. It could have been worse. I could have spent an hour at Petsmart with two kids. However, a friend came with us and when I found out I would have to spend an extra half hour there, I asked if he could watch the kids at the nearby Barnes and Noble. I don't know which situation is more dangerous, an Overtoom kid in a bookstore or an Overtoom kid in a pet store with lots of cute dogs and puppies who want to be adopted. At least books are less expensive. We do have a new dog coming soon to keep Jacques companyand you can get his profile here.

We had a beautiful respite from the heat last week. One day, I looked at the thermometer at 9 a.m. and it read 87 deg F, as compared with it being 104 deg F at 10 a.m. today. We went outside and played for about an hour at a nearby park. We could have stayed out longer, but our water was running out and I was getting tired. Just about every afternoon, we see mountainous thunderclouds forming in the south or east. Most of the rain manages to avoid us, emptying itself onto Tuscon or Casa Grande in the south or in the Mogollon rim to the north and north east of us. It still provides spectacular views.

This Friday and Saturday, my husband and I will be sans kids at the Arizona Families for Home Education Homeschool Convention. I usually look forward to conventions because they help give me a bigger picture focus and I LOVE the curriculum sales. My focus, however, has changed over the years. Now I am looking at the "preparing for high school" speakers since my oldest will be in Junior High this year. It is held in July because that is low season for a tourist-focused town. I like having time to talk with Eric. We don't always attend the same classes, but we get to shop together for books (oh joy!) and have lunch together. Some VERY good friends are watching our kids while we are being inspired.

Dust storms and other summer fun

2011-07-14T13:05:00.010-05:00

My daughter is asserting her independence through her hair. She has been wanting to get it cut really short and, since a child's hairstyle is not a hill on which I am willing to die, she and I worked together to find a hairstyle that was acceptable, in that it was not actually modeled by a boy in the hair book and it WAS modeled by a girl, not a woman. My husband teased her when we got home by saying that she now looks like Justin Bieber.

Before the dust storm, we had a pillowcase/wii party with a neighboring family. The moms worked together to make pillowcases for an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which you can learn more about by clicking on my link, We Are Blessed to Be a Blessing. The kids played wii while we sewed, which made everyone happy, or relatively happy. I was happy to have someone to share the sewing load and to help me persevere after messing up on a really easy pattern. Altogether, we made 10 pillows that day and my friend sewed 12 pillows on another day. It did confirm that I really dislike sewing in general but enjoy sewing something simple with friends.

For three solid weeks, at least one kid was involved in some kind of camp. Jessi was in the Phoenix Zoo's "FutureVet" program the second week in June. The next week, Elz was in their "Junior Zookeeper" camp and Kyle was taking their "Into the Wild" program. The Zoo's all-day camp lasted from 8 to 3 with a couple of dousings at their Yakula Caverns water play area to stay cool in the heat. All the kids had a chance to meet zookeepers, vets, prepare food and learn more about taking care of animals. I give the zoo high marks for organization and for excellence in content as they stuck to facts of animal care and zoo maintenance without bringing up either theories of origination.

I had a blast with John and whichever child was not attending camp. Kyle also attended Boy scout camp with Eric at R Bar C near Payson, AZ. He played games, learned how to whittle, made a leather pouch, rode a horse (which was NOT the most pleasant experience for him) and other fun and exciting things.

The last week of camping fun involved Summer Bible Camp at Redemption Church in Gilbert, AZ. This year, the theme involved private detectives Justin Case and Natasha Mygarbagetruckfellonitside. They were solving mysteries from Matthew 5:3-12. The large group presentation was AWESOME as were the games and crafts. Jessi, Kyle and John were attending while Elz and I worked on the snack crew. Elz is officially too old for Summer Bible Camp/VBS (sniff, sniff).

The boys took swimming lessons with a neighbor again for two weeks. The Tuesday after our July 4th celebration, she had a little swimming party for all of her students. That ended when Eric pointed out the big black cloud as the reason we needed to go. He (or was I the one?) thought it was a big thunderstorm cloud. The rest of the people weren't fooled. Cries of "dust storm" broke out and within 30 seconds the pool was empty and within another minute, everyone had vacated the property. We had walked to the party and hadn't quite made it home when the storm reached us. It wasn't too horrible to experience, with the exception of getting dust in the eyes and teeth, though pool towels helped limit that. Visibility was reduced to 1/2 a block within seconds of the storm hitting. I think if we had to drive, it would have been worse, though because of the visibility problems. Most dust storms get broken up by Gilbert, way to the south of us, so we knew it had to be pretty big. We didn't realize exactly how BIG it was until the next day, when we watched the news programs and saw videos on youtube. It was big enough to be on Russian news! It did mean cleaning up the house because, in the short time it took to get six humans inside one door and two dogs inside the other, a heck of a lot of dust blew in the house. Also, I had to clean the back porch the next day so that when we came in from swimming, we would track muddy footprints on the newly cleaned floor. I also cleaned the front porch and had Elz clean the pool deck. The blacktop was brown. Everything, in fact was brown.

July is half over at this point. The Overtooms have a camping trip in the near future and attendence of the Arizona Christian Home Educators conference in the nearer future. The kids and I might also spend a week with my Grandma C in a cabin up in Pinetop, AZ, high enough to escape the heat, which waned a little this week with more storms passing through the area. And, of course, swimming is almost a daily activity, even though the water is not much cooler than bathwater.

Introducing the Newest Member of our Family

2011-07-10T09:46:00.005-05:00

The fish died. One of my children won the fish at a Trinity Community Church (when it was known as Vineyard Community Church) Harvest Party coin toss game. Those fish usually last a few days before dying because they are the cheap goldfish used as food for bigger fish. I probably bagged that fish, too, because that year I helped put fish in bags as part of the set up. It outlived many of the $5 golfish that we bought to keep it company. It survived roughly seven years and a cross country move in a big ice cream bucket. But its time was up.

For a while, I have been thinking that our dog, Jacques, needed a doggy friend. He can spot a dog from a far off distance and wants to smell each and every dog. I have to keep him on a tight leash when I see a dog to make sure that he doesn't lunge at them. And there are a lot of dogs in our neighborhood, sadly to say, that don't welcome him. However, true to form, our kids have failed to keep the agreements they made to feed and care for Jacques, mainly in the area of poop pick up. Eric and I have gone back and forth on whether to get another

dog. One morning as I was walking Jacques, I ran into a lady in the neighborhood that I hadn't seen in a while. We started talking about Jacques and the question of whether to get another dog and she mentioned the AZ Poodle rescue group that only takes in Poodles, poodle mixes, bichons and other non-shedding dogs. We would have to feed the dog and love it and take it to any vet appointments necessary, as well as take it to a PetSmart every Saturday. They would pay vet bills. We filled out an application, showed up a Petsmart and received Harley.

Harley is a fairly active dog. He is either a coton de tulear or a maltipoo.

Two ladies in the organization have a difference of opinion on the exact breed. He and Jacques like to play together, mostly in the morning. He LOVES his walks in the early morning

and evening (I wait until the temperature drops below 100 to take him for a walk, which usually

happens about 30 minutes or so after the sun has set). He is a bit mischevious and doesn't know how to beg at the door. This means that we need to let him out every couple of hours. He is quick an

d likes to dart, which means I trip over him many times a day. When we first brought him to our home his hair was badly matted, which is why he is wearin

g a shirt in this picture. The hair on his legs had overgrown his paw, which made him look a little like a Who from the The Grinch Who Stole Christmas fame. He loves to scavenge for food and will pull things out of my purse, jump on the kitchen table if a chair is left away from the table. Or jump up on our leg while we are eating. He loves playing with toys and anything can be a toy--a t-shirt left on the floor or any stuffed animal. He will drop for belly rub with the slightest interest shown to him. This makes putting a leash on him a bit of a challenge. Unfortunately, he has picked up Jacques' bad habit of barking when guys enter a room that I am in. As a result, we are trying to extinguish that behavior in both of them with the help of a squirt gun.

Jaques, I think, likes him and is jealous of him. They like to play together, whether it is chase or tug-of-war with a play toy. He also has been appreciating the extra food available, though he gets yelled at if we catch him eating Harley's food. The biggest problem comes when we give the dogs treats after walks. Jacques tries to steal Harley's treat after he has already been given his treat and he is not being as careful in getting his own treat lately. My solution to that will be to make him lay and put the treat on the ground so my fingers don't get nipped. I will probably have someone hold Harley to pull that off.

We have had Harley for two weeks now and a couple of people have shown interest, but no adoption looms. I am hoping that in the next week, someone who wants a medium-to-high energy dog to adopt him because our kids are becoming very attached to Harley. Parting with him will be difficult, even for me. But I keep telling our kids that most of the dogs that we bring in will be here with us temporarily and that we need to show them love and affection while they are with us and be able to let them go, knowing that they are going to a good family.

Relative Month--Part II

2011-07-07T09:18:00.004-05:00

Part II has been delayed numerous times over the past month as I have been losing a wrestling match with Google's Blogger to publish other movies that I made from pictures using Google's Picassa program. Theoretically, it shouldn't be a problem since the same company had developed the both software packages that I am using, but it is reality that is currently winning the battle. Each time Blogger shut down after I spent a considerable time writing and trying to add movies, I have walked away in disgust for several days, maybe even a week. So I am giving up on the movie idea and sticking to prose for a while.

Five days after Nana and Poppa left with the cousins, Eric's sister, Michelle and her husband, David arrived. We had a great time hanging out, mostly at ball games. We did hike up the Treasure Loop trail at Lost Dutchman State Park the day after their arrival. Because a "cool front" came in, bringing temperatures down in the 80's, we didn't have to make sure to leave too early. During the drive, Elizabeth, Kyle and John, took turns developing a creature that became bigger and more deadly with each mile. I think they would have continued throughout the trail if I hadn't asked them to pick a different topic. The trail isn't as interesting as the Wind Cave Trail at Usury Mountain, but the Superstition Mountains, edging the trail are beautiful rock formations which you can see here. We hung out in the pool for a bit in the afternoon before getting ready for the highlight of their visit, watching the the Twins play the Diamondbacks. We took the light rail to the stadium. For the first time, I realized how unscenic the ride was as we passed about six strip clubs scattered throughout an industrial complex. It was a great game if you were a Diamondbacks fan. Unfortunately, the Twins fans accompanying us (Michelle and David) and surrounding us were not happy with the outcome. I did see someone with an "Alex, Minnesota" sign. During the game, I received a message that Kyle's baseball team, playing in a championship tournament game that evening won their game. Yay! The next game in the tournament was at 8 a.m the next morning. Boo! We stayed for the end of the game and watched the fireworks in the street while waiting for the light rail to arrive. The kids, especially John, who hasn't seen as many fireworks, were transfixed. We arrived home at 11 p.m.

The next morning started waaaaay too early. Eric and Kyle left earlier because the team had practice. Michelle and David were able to see Kyle play and see his team come from behind to win the game. We celebrated by eating at In-and-Out, where Michelle and David had the grilled onions (sorry KT!) and then headed back to home to nap, talk, and swim. I also had some great bonding time with Michelle at my favorite yarn shop, The Fiber Factory. I made Mojitos for pool time, Eric grilled and we all waited to see if Jesus would show up, since that was the day that someone predicted that he would return. As we expected*, Jesus was a "no show."

Sunday morning, bright and early, Michelle and David returned to Minnesota. It was really great to spend an extended time with them. We hadn't had much opportunity to really get to know David before he married Michelle last July. Happy 1st Anniversary to you both!

On a completely different note, I have returned to Facebook, but will be limiting my Facebook friends to family only, just to keep down my viewing time.

* Matthew 24:42-44 and 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3

A Relative Month--Part 1

2011-06-12T22:44:00.008-05:00

May was almost equally divided between school and having fun with relatives. I just have to repeat what I said in an earlier post: I have the best in-laws! For three days, I had my lovely, talented, and wonderful SIL KT. I will let her tell her the details of her visit in Glorious Vacation, GV2, and GV3. She brought two of her four kids for cousin fun. On day two of her visit, Poppa Jim and Kathy arrived for week 2 of their vacation which involved seeing Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. I think it is almost a requirement that when you visit us, you need to visit the Grand Canyon. (Hear that KT?) Then KT left to return to the chilly north, leaving her kids for us to enjoy. Nana, Poppa and my niece and nephew stayed for a five more days.

I am so amazed at how creative these kids were. The girls found a site that showed you how to re-fashion old t-shirts into new outfits. They spent a night with a bag of "rag" clothes that I gave my daughters for their creative endevors and made some amazing things. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of that because Eric and I were out. This inspired the boys to have a fashion show, too, which I did immortalize in pictures:

A lot of fun involved swimming and playing games. Banagrams is currently the most popular. Think of it as Speed Scrabble without the board where the winner is the one who uses the last tile first. The kids were great at playing together. My oldest son and nephew really developed their friendship. Nana and Poppa were able to watch Kyle play baseball while I ferried the girls to church activities one night. I was able to spend some quality time with my niece and oldest daughter. Another highlight was taking Poppa and the boys on a hike of Wind Cave Trail at Usury Mountain State Park. The trail takes you near the top of Pass Mountain. I have done the hike at least a half a dozen times. Last time Nana and Poppa visited, they brough my niece with them and I arranged a girl's hike up the mountain. It was great to spend time with the boys, too. The weather while they were visiting was beautiful.

I have some more videos that I created from the few pictures I took. However, I have had some problems loading more than one video for some reason (or Blogger is not behaving itself). So the next post will be mainly pictures of the Wind Cave Trail hike.

Happy Birthday, to my wonderful husband

2011-06-05T10:36:00.007-05:00

Is the house glowing from all the candles representing each year of my husband's life? No! The glow comes from his wonderful smile.

I won't say exactly how many years my husband has been alive. We have been married for over a decade. He is younger than me by 11 months. On his birthday when we were engaged, he would tell everyone "I'm thirty and she is thirty too." His humor tends to be punny. It has earned him the endearment "goofball." He is God's answer to my prayer to introduce me to a godly man. Though he isn't perfect, he is perfectly wonderful!

Happy Birthday Eric! I love you!

Oh yeah! The Boy can Play!

2011-05-23T23:00:00.007-05:00

This year, Kyle joined Little League Baseball where the ball is thrown by a catapult-like machine. His team has done great, finishing second place overall in the league. He is currently in the 7-8 year old bracket, which is about the time you see them start to be able to actually catch and throw the ball. He just started playing last spring. Kyle is a great batter, rarely striking out. He is also a fast runner, thanks at least partly due to his oldest sister, Elizabeth and his competitive spirit. Ever since he was big enough to run, he has been trying to beat her in races. Of course, because she has always had longer legs, she only loses if I 'rig' the race. Until he started racing against kids his own age, I am sure he was frustrated at how slow he was in spite of my attempts to explain that longer legs give a person an advantage in running.

At the beginning of the season, the games usually involved more offense than defense, with the kids still trying to figure out where to throw the ball and how to throw the ball and how to catch the ball. In fact, on our team, some of the kids figured it was safer trying to outrun the runner to the base rather than risk the other kid dropping the ball. Sometime around the beginning of May, however, the practices and games paid off as the baseball instinct kicked in and you could see kids taking their time before throwing the ball to a base to make sure that it actually would be catchable and know that they could still be able to get the runner out. We have seen kids on all teams make awesome catches of fly balls, and awesome throws to a baseman to get a runner out. We have also witnessed some absolutely crazy plays, like the time one of our kids scored a run by running from third base when the ball was barely nicked into play and the catcher was holding the ball a foot from home plate as he ran behind her. That "miracle run" created momentum in last Saturday's game for us to be able to come from behind to win against the team who entered the tournament in first place, and, like us, lost their opening tournament game.

Last night, we witnessed a wonderful (for us), if not miraculous, come-from-behind victory. It was the last game before the championship game. We had lost the first round of a double elimination tournament because our bats went cold and our defense was a little on the sloppy side. This game, the third since our last loss, started out okay. It was pretty obvious, however, that the team we were playing was incredibly savvy at base running. In one inning, they had a guy on second base stay when the ball was hit to the third baseman and then run to third after the third baseman threw it to first to get the runner out. The first baseman made a beautiful catch, his feet just barely touching home plate, his arm and body stretched out as far as they could to catch the ball right before the runner's feet touched the base. There were a couple of other plays in favor of the other team during the game that seemed to be questionable, but the Little League commissioner was there and, of course, if he didn't object, we shouldn't either. The kids were getting frustrated and starting to miss plays. Our coaches who are really great at being laid back or even joking to break up any tension from a bad play or strike out, just kept encouraging the kids to play their best and not worry about being down. At the bottom of the third inning, as our team came up to bat, the other team was winning 14 to 3.

Most of the parents on our team were shouting encouraging things to our kids but secretly, most of them were thinking, like me, that it had been a good season and that finishing third was very respectable. Somehow, in spite of racking up two outs with no one on a base, we managed to get six runs, bringing the score to 14 to 9. The fourth inning passed with the score 16 to 15. Once again, we had scored six runs with two outs. We were really close to the time limit for ending the game. If it had taken a minute longer to end the inning, the game would have ended and we would have lost. However, we had one more minute and our team took advantage of the rule. The other team tried to protest, but the commissioner upheld the ruling and told them to get ready to bat. So far, neither team had been able to consistently make defensive plays to prevent the other team from racking up points. However, we managed to get the first batter out with a beautiful throw by the pitcher to first base. They put two or three runners on the base. The next batter hit a line drive that our short stop caught in mid-air. After taking a second or two to realize that he did indeed have it, he ran to second base to get the third out. No runs had been scored in the inning. All we had to do was make two runs to win the game.

At this point, all the parents on our team were beside themselves with renewed hope, jangled nerves, and a rush of adrenaline. I couldn't sit still. I had brought knitting with me, like I did almost every game because it helps me stay calm, but my hands were shaking too much to be able to knit. I suddenly realized that this was probably exactly how Eric felt each time the nurses told him that our baby was ready to exit the birth canal. He would get so excited and agitated that they would make him sit down for fear of him fainting with excitement. The first batter managed to get on base. The second hitter struck out. Kyle was next. As he was waiting for the first pitch, Eric called out, "Hit it and then run as if Elizabeth was trying to catch you." He hit the ball to first base and ran as fast as he could, even though he would most likely get an out. However, the first baseman bobbled the ball, causing it to bounce off the outfielder's glove and roll close to the fence. Kyle made it to first with no problem and then, because the fielder still had not gained control over the ball near the fence at first, ran to second base. Someone in on the opposing team threw it wildly, causing the ball to go over the third baseman's head, which allowed Kyle to advance to third automatically (one of the league rules). The runner on second had already scored and we had tied the game. The next batter hit a beautiful, uncaught line drive into the outfield, bringing Kyle home for the game-winning run. The parents were on their feet, jumping up and down, laughing and crying. The kids on the bench and on the bases were at first confused when their coaches told them to stop playing until they explained that they had just won the game. Then their excitement and joy matched that of their parents. So tonight, we get to go the the same ballfield, at the same time as last night and play the team that beat us in the first game of the championship series. If we win tomorrow night, we have to play them one more time on Wednesday night to be able to claim the championship. If we lose tomorrow, we will still be number two and the other team, who started out the championship series in last place, will be first.

I am so proud of how all the boys, especially my son, have grown in confidence, skills, and grace as the season has progressed. I have learned a lot from the coaches about how to stay cool and graceful under pressure. They rarely pester the kids, like some of the other coaches and when a kid makes a mistake, they gently give guidance, sometimes making it humorous, to help the kid learn from their mistake. Whatever happens tonight or even possibly, Wednesday night, everyone on our team can walk away proud of what they have accomplished.

One of my heros

2011-05-14T11:24:00.003-05:00

I have recently "officially" added a new blog that I am following to my list, called "Blessed to Be a Blessing". The woman who writes it is one of those unspoken heroines who quietly do amazing things. She is a homeschooling mom with whom I have become friends. She and her family are trying to help a government run orphanage in Ethiopia. She has "adopted" two of the boys there and has visited twice in the last year. The last time she visited, she managed to raise money in one or two days to buy 100 pairs of shoes, socks and underwear for the boys. That story is dividing into five parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. It is totally amazing and one of many stories which point to the fact that governments can't really help people. Only people can help people.

Currently, she is trying to raise money to get new pillowcases and blankets for roughly 300 boys living there. Her whole family will be traveling with her to go to Ethiopia in a few months. They have been in regular contact with their boys through the magic of Skype.

My next blog, which may not happen for a while, will be all about the wonderful time we had during "Relative Month".

God Bless!

The Relatives Are Coming! The Relatives Are Coming!

2011-05-06T22:57:00.003-05:00

Unlike Paul Revere, this is not a warning, but a joyous proclamation. KT and two of her nuts arrived from Minnesota, today experiencing a forty degree temperature change. After having to delay pool time in order to simultaneously do schoolwork and get the house ready for the visit, we spent a glorious hour staying cool in the pool in near 100 deg weather. In-laws arrive tomorrow after visiting places west and north of us for a week. Sadly, KT can only stay a few days, but her nuts will bless us with their presence for the rest of week, leaving with their grandparents. We have no current planned activities other than a fishing trip with Poppa. I have probably the best in-laws ever and I am lucky enough to have two complete sets! Another SIL and her husband will be visiting us for a few days giving us an excuse to see the Phoenix Diamondbacks. After that, we have a week of school before we take a break. And then it will be time to consider visiting family in cooler climates.

Yay for family! Yay for rest!

Good Friday, Bread and Saying Goodbye to Friends

2011-04-22T23:43:00.010-05:00

Yesterday was Good Friday. At least for some of us. The pastor speaking last night wondered if the residents of heaven, especially Jesus, would consider it to be a good day. It was a day Jesus had to "...endure the cross, scorning its shame..." (Hebrews 12:2a). Chances are, he would only think it good because meant that his work of justifying an undeserving people was finished and because, in the perspective of eternity, it was over in the blink of an eye.

Speaking of Jesus, I made an experiment this week with our bread machine that will ensure home baked quick breads throughout the summer. For those of you who are confused, Jesus claimed to be the Bread of Life, meaning that only He can satisfy our deepest needs. I know, the link is tenuous. Please give me some grace. Because our Breadman Ultimate Plus is of this world, it has a weakness in making quick breads. It doesn't mix the ingredients well. Many times, I have tried making banana bread, even stopping the cycle to mix the ingredients myself during the mixing cycle only to see white chunks of flour in the finished product. This week, I took my parent's zucchini bread recipe, mixed it in my Kitchen Aid, and poured half the recipe into the breadmachine to bake at the specified temperature and cooking time. It turned out great. The other half I baked in my mini-loaf pan. I like using the bread machine because, being a MUCH smaller oven, it doesn't heat up the house as much. I made carrot raisin bread last night, right before going to bed so that we would have portable, relatively nutritious breakfast ready in time to go to Kyle's 8 a.m. baseball game.

My father-in-law and his wife suffered a huge loss on Thursday when his friend, Don passed away. The picture to the right is of Don sitting next to my sister-in-law, Michelle during one of the many bonfire parties. Don was a frequent Boundary Waters canoeing partner of my FIL and the two couples often got together for food and games. My memory of him was being very gentle, very funny, very quick to smile and loving the outdoors. My heart goes out to his wife, Dorothy, daughter Beth and all the other kids and grandkids who will miss him, as well as my in-laws. And so, for yet another reason, I have a reason to rejoice that Jesus is "the Resurrection and the Life" and remember that just as he raised Lazarus from the dead and just as he was raised from the dead, so too, we will one day be resurrected and join Don in bodies that are unencumbered by age and free of any kind of disease. He is probably eating bread that tastes even better than the carrot-raisin bread that my bread machine baked because all food will taste heavenly in heaven.

Another comment that my pastor made last night was how inadequate, how understated, how lukewarm the word "good" is to describe this particular Friday. A song describes it as a "beautiful, scandalous night." I would describe it as horrifically wonderful day. But then again, maybe words cannot describe a day when God stooped to humble himself so much as to willingly accepted the punishment that we earned, so that we can receive the gift we can never repay.

Happy Easter!

Second Summit Achieved: North Mountain

2011-04-19T00:07:00.006-05:00

The kids and I packed our camelbacks and snacks for our second hike to a summit around Phoenix: North Mountain. I discovered while hiking that Shadow Mountain, Lookout Mountain, North Moutain and Shaw Butte are all pretty close together. This time, we invited two other families to join us.

One family I met a year ago the Veritas homeschool group when they moved to Arizona from South Carolina. We actually live no more than ten minutes away from each other, walking at a six year-old's pace. She has three kids roughly the same ages as John, Kyle and Jessi. We have been getting together since August for a little group P.E. in a nearby park. Kyle and her middle boy are fast friends and are playing baseball together on the same team. Elizabeth has found a kindred artistic spirit in her oldest son, who is Jessi's age and Jessi and her young daughter like to play together and Jessi gets her Barbie fix at their house.

The other family I met through two different families. She emailed me in the winter with a list of prayer requests for a family we know whose wife was going through breast cancer surgery. I knew the woman, a busy mommy through a Bible study that we had attended and she had a Boy Scout connection. A week later, I actually met her when I helped a mom in my homeschooling group run a garage sale to help her raise funds to go to Africa to see the sons that she "adopted" living in an Ethiopian-run orphanage. Since then, I started to consistently run into her in our church and she decided to join the homeschooling group. Isn't it funny how God throws people together?

The hike started out cool and cloudy with a bit of a wind. Since the beginning of April, temperatures had taken a twenty degree dip, which was actually welcoming. However, a couple of my kids complained about being cold in their short sleeved shirts (don't laugh, you Minnesotans and Chicagoans! Don't cry either.) However, the sun soon burst out from behind the clouds and those wearing coats soon gave them to their moms because they became too hot. The start of the trail was steep but wide and soon turned into an aging road that led almost to the summit. The summit is actually being used for micro-wave extenders and cell phone towers. The trail seemed to end there, though a small, round, sun faded sign indicated another trail that looked more like a foot trail than a groomed trail. However, it took us down, winding around boulders, making us sit down sometimes to get to the next ledge (for those of us with short legs or weak knees). Most of it was rocky, though there were a few times when it became those little small pebbles that can easily cause you to land on your derrier. There were at least a few times when I wondered if I lost a marble or two to let my kids scramble down the steep path with a drop off so close that would lead to certain damage if they slipped off it. Plus, I had heard from a mom at our P.E. class that this is the time when hibernating snakes, grumpy and starving, come out of hiding for the first time all winter. However, the kids kept their footing and we didn't see any snakes, at least on that hike. The only potential problem came when one child, terrified of bees, encountered bees flying too close to the path. The kids all seemed to hit it off and the moms who didn't know each other got to know each other better. A fun time was had by all. I hope you enjoy the "movie" I put together.

Flying solo

2011-04-06T17:28:00.006-05:00

My WH is gone for a few days on a business trip. Again. This is the third time in four weeks that he has had to travel to get his project tested and ready for reality. It looks like he will be gone next week, too. However, I really have no reason to complain now that my kids are older and can help me out and, in these travels, he has at least stayed in the same time zone, rather than traveling halfway around the world, as was required of him in his old job. Whenever he is gone, I have taken the opportunity to watch movies that he wouldn't want to see, like romantic comedies or sappy dramas. Lately, however, I have watched documentaries when he is gone. Last time, I watched "Which Way Home," about a couple of boys who are barely teenagers illegally crossing the Guatemala border into Mexico and riding on the tops of trains to try and reach America, the Land of Hope and Opportunity. I watched it because immigration is a huge issue in my neck of the woods. Last night, I watched "The Spill" because my cousin worked on it as a researcher. It was about British Petroleum (BP) and examined their corporate culture during a time time that they experienced four disasters in six years. It was well done, of course, because my cousin worked on it ;-). If you get the chance, watch those films. Both of these films were made available to me on Netflix instant access which will be making cable obsolete pretty soon.

I also tend to stay up too late , either watching movies or surfing the net or reading. Last night was no exception as I went to IMBD to view some upcoming movies to see if there were any that I really wanted to see. One preview caught my attention because of one line. The movie is called "Limitless" and it is roughly the same storyline as "Flowers for Algernon" for those of you who read that in school. The line that caught my ear was this: "How many of us ever know what it is like to become the perfect version of ourselves?" Isn't that the same theme in most superhero stories--ordinary people receiving extrodinary powers through radiation (Spiderman, Ginormica in "Monsters vs. Aliens), a ring (The Green Hornet), scientific experimentation (The Hulk, Captain America), really cool toys (Megamind, The Green Hornet, Batman) or otherworldy parentage (Percy Jackson, Harry Potter)? Everyone wants to be better than they really are, which is why we have a huge section of self improvement books in the bookstores and surgical/drug enhancement tools to help us in that goal. However, this is worldly thinking and is totally against the gospel message. Phillipians 2: 6-8 sums up the anti-superhero plan of Jesus pretty well:

He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death--and the worst kind of death at that--a crucifixion (The Message).

This isn't a new concept, I guess. Just a great reminder as I get ready to celebrate the beautiful, scandelous night of Good Friday and the joyous, victorious Easter that Jesus died so that I could become a child of God, with the superhuman power of prayer, forgiveness, grace and the love of God, which surpasses all human understanding.

Happy 1st Day of April

2011-04-01T16:43:00.003-05:00

The Overtoom pool was opened for swimming today. No, this is not an April Fool's Day joke. My wonderful husband (WH), who saw that the temperatures were going to be reaching the 90's by the middle of the week, covered the pool with a solar blanket on Sunday to help warm up the pool so we could enjoy it during the heat of the day. Today was Veritas Park Day. The kids played outside for 2 1/2 hours as the temperature climbed from the low 80s past the 90s. You could feel the promise of the breath-stifling, pizza-oven summer heat yet to come. Trust me folks, that is a promise that no one really enjoys being fulfilled. Anyway, the kids were hot and grumpy from all the running around and playing in the sand. After lunch, we took a bit of a rest and then donned our swimsuits to see if the pool was warm enough to be able to stay in it. It was quite bracing, even with the help of the solar blanket, but felt awesome against the 98 deg heat. We played in the water for about an hour before the kid's chins quivering with the cold drove us reluctantly from the water. It was a great end to Spring Break.

Bridgetender school break

2011-03-30T16:51:00.008-05:00

After working pretty hard for many weeks, Bridgetender school is taking a spring break in between units. The curriculum I have tried this year is Tapestry of Grace, and so far, I am fairly pleased with it. I was looking for something that was sequential, had a list of books for history, history questions and suggestions for literature and arts and crafts. Plus it helps me in organization and in getting the kids to take control of their schedule a bit. It took me a while getting used to the format and to find everything, but now that almost a year is under my belt, I think I will be staying with it. The only problem I have is that they are a believer of having the kids read dumbed down versions of the classics. I would rather have them listen to an audio version of the book or have me read it to them, though I have tried some of the books. Incredibly, the book they recommended that was a kid's version of Le Miserables was actually pretty good. Who knew that the behomoth of a story could be succinctly and coherently reduced to 20 pages or less ;-)?

For spring break, we had some big plans, some of which will not happen. Monday was a day to relax after SportskidzAZ and music lessons. Our plans involved fishing, a day trip to Old Tuscon Studios just south of Tuscon, a day-long hike around Pass Mountain and two days of mostly relaxation. The kids lost the privilege of going to Old Tuscon Studios due to mulitiple instances of poor behavior from nearly all of them. The day-long hike, involving 7 miles around a cute little mountain became a little daunting because it is reaching the 90's in the afternoon and when the longest we have hiked has been 3 miles. I think it will be something we will do as a family maybe sometime in the fall or winter.

Tuesday night, we went fishing and had a picnic dinner at Riverview park in Mesa. Elizabeth, for the first time, caught six fish with her fishing pole, after two or three disappointing ventures. Kyle also caught four fish. Everyone except the youngest learned to bait a hook with a live worm. We initially brought Jacques with us, but it proved to add to our frustration in helping the kids and getting everything set up. He was distracted by all the scents and dogs. So, eventually, Eric brought him back home, which is just a few minutes away from Riverview Park

Yesterday, instead of traveling for 5 hours round trip to Tuscon, we went to Shadow Mountain in Phoenix about thirty minutes away. In the morning, when I started searching the internet for places to hike, I stumbled upon an article at Arizona Central about a hiking series called "Seven Summits around Phoenix." I thought it would be a great goal to climb all seven summits by the end of the year, even though the hiking season will soon be coming to a close due to heat. I decided to start with Shadow Mountain because it was short and listed as the least strenuous. Like many of the cute mountains, Shadow mountain is surrounded by homes and we parked in a neighborhood to get to the trail. The hike is about 1.6 miles, though the trails are more or less "use" trails rather than groomed trail. Whoever was in the lead got to pick the route, though I did over-ride a couple of decisions. We ended up climbing up two little summits and across two saddles to get to the highest peak. I put together a "movie" of the event from the pictures that we took. Don't expand it to full screen. I tried it and everything is fuzzy.

The rest of the week will be relaxing and doing little things, like going to the library to get books for next week, finishing up our shoe and sandal shopping for the girls. We are currently searching for stores that cater to girls who do no like pink and bling on their schoes, which is the current taste of our girls. Jessi has accepted a shoe with minimal pink, but Elizabeth refuses. Friday is also Park Day with our homeschool group, which is an event everyone looks forward to attending.

Next week, we will be returning to the grindstone. ;-).

Cute Kid Quote of the Day

2011-03-22T21:12:00.004-05:00

This quote brought to you by the baby of the family, who is currently finishing up Kindergarten:
"Momma, I know how to count by twenty."
"Really," I said, "Can you count by twenty for me?"
(Skip counting by twenty was not part of the Kindergarten curriculum)
He promptly counted by twenty up to one hundred. I told him he did a great job and asked him who had taught him that, intending to praise the teacher.
"My brain." he replied.

For more frivolity, check out Mercy Me's Cover Tune Grab Bag of "Eye of the Tiger". It is pretty funny/silly. They also did a good cover of "Obla-Di, Obla-Da" with the help of the other bands traveling together in the Rock and Worship road show. Just don't listen to too many Cover Tune Grab Bag videos or you might have "The Cover Tune Grab Bag" song stuck in your head. Like me.

My Week, Randomly

2011-03-16T20:15:00.014-05:00

I am a very random thinker. I also think in details. This has huge (SQUIRRELL!) implications. I have labeled all cabinets and drawers in the house to make sure that I am consistent. I frequently lose my phone, keys, books, planner because I am in the middle of one detail when I put it in whatever random location I happend to be dwelling at the time. I am easily (SQUIRRELL!) distracted, especially from chores. If you don't get the squirrell references, watch the movie "UP!" which is just about my favorite all time Pixar movie. The only advantage I have found to being random involves conversations. It is especially useful when having a conversation with an Alzheimer's patient, when they can still talk, because most of their talk becomes free-form words generated at random. Most of my writing, thanks to the magic of word processors seems mostly sequential and I am getting better thinking sequentially in my old age with a little bit of practice. But this time, I am letting go of all rules involving being sequential and having a theme and allowing myself some free-form writing. My first subject is...

Japan. Once again, I am amazed and heartbroken at the the devastation that an earthquake can inflict. I am praying and asking the kids to pray for the people of Japan every day while there is so much chaos and issues. The need seems to be overwhelming and it makes me realize that I have been...

...playing WAAAAY too much Mahjonng Dimensions lately. Initially, I thought it would be a good game to play because each game lasts only six minutes. The challenge is to clear all three levels, each one more complex, in that six minutes. However, it is as addictive as slot machines because you keep thinking, "I just need to try one more time and I KNOW I can clear all three." with the result that you play until, as a purely hypothetical example, you start smelling dinner burning. I can honestly say that I have cleared all three levels within the six minute allotted time, though I don't think I should be proud of that accomplishment. I would like to thank God for doing an intervention for me. Last night, after the kids were in bed, I was greeted by "Mahjonng Tiles by Charmin," where the pyramid of tiles is placed on a giant roll of toilet paper that rotates so you can see it from different sides (I am NOT joking). There are two blocks with Charmin on them and the red bears are in a corner watching you play the game after pushing Charmin as the t.p. which will "leave you clean without leaving pieces behind." IMHO, this has to be the worst campaign slogan I have heard in a long time, unless I am the only one who doesn't really worry about "cling-ons." I have enough potty humor with four kids, two of them boys, to put up with games going to pot. I am through. This is a very good thing because I am in the middle of a...

...sock knitting class: I have been wanting to take a sock knitting class for a while now and my wonderful kids all chipped in to buy me a class as a Christmas present. The classes are held at The Fiber Factory in Mesa, which is a great place to hang out if you are interested in just about any craft involving thread and even some that don't. It has the potential to become a dangerous place for our budget. I love my teacher because she can explain things both technically and visually in terms beginners understand. The first week, she showed us the tricks for setting up using four double pointed needles with a fifth floater, which is the European style of knitting socks. This style has you working from the ankle to the toe. Last week, she showed us how to knit the heel flap, turn the heel, and set up the needles for the gusset, which is the section that goes over the instep/arch of your foot. This is a picture I took after I successfully turned the heel. I am enjoying the class, but, like always these days, it seems like if I add something that I like to do, our schedule goes insanely busy because I have four kids involved in...

...baseball, which meets three times a week and, in spite of the fact that we signed up our little darlings two months ago, still does not have a playing schedule; horseback riding, which has become a little simpler since we combined the two girl's lessons into one time slot; karate twice a week with two of the three class times inconvenient for our family and with a rank promotion looming in our future; boy scouts and extra curricular boy scout activities; kid's choir practice and a concert at a local nursing home; a make up needed for a birthday party for my six year old that was cancelled due to sickness; church, serving in kid's church, meeting in small groups at another time during the week, baptism parties. There is so much to be done and I really have to carve out time with God to help me prioritize it all and put things in their proper perspective. For the past two weeks, we have had two or three things going on each weekend, which means that there is no time for keeping the house clean and getting ready for school, unless I cut in on traditional school subjects to include "life skills" lessons or stay up late. Staying up late reminds me of the...

...Rock and Worship Roadshow that Eric and I attended last weekend with another couple which featured Jars of Clay and Mercy Me, though it also had warm up bands like Matt Maher ("Alive Again", "Love Will Hold Us Together"), The Afters ("Light, Light Light up the Sky"), Thousand Foot Crutch (a Christian heavy metal band with incomprehensible lyrics), and LeCray, a Christian rap artist. Jars of Clay ("If I Had Two Hands" among their many songs I love)had the most uplifting set up, with lots of white light immersing the stage and brought back memories of our courtship. Mercy Me was incredible. The lead singer, Bart, (yes, we are on a first-name basis, at least on my end) has a great sense of humor and a beautiful voice. It was awesome singing with 13,000 people "All of Creation." My girlfriend and I cried when they sang "Beautiful", because Bart explained that he wrote for his daughters. By the time the concert ended, Eric and I bought Matt Maher's two CDs and we took the light rail to our car to get home, it was 11:30. Overall, every act was awesome, even if I didn't like the music genre which was true only of Thousand Foot Crutch (I could almost hear my Grandma C. reacting to the music by saying "You can't tell me this isn't devil music! You can't even understand what they are saying!!!). If they decide to do it next year, I would highly recommend attending it. Athough, I will admit that most of the enjoyment was in attending any concert that doesn't involve the kids, like the children-focused concerts and most Ravinia concerts (OH! How I miss you, Ravinia!), which reminds me that...

...it is time to wrap up my first attempt at writing somewhat randomly. I hope you enjoyed the ride. I promise you sequential types that I will limit this style of writing because a little bit of randomness goes a long way.

God bless!

In my own little world

2011-03-11T10:42:00.005-06:00

I was up very early Friday morning, prodded by possibly God to spend some quality time with Him. After doing that, I went on the computer to read the news and joined the night owls in being the first in the U.S. to have learned about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan

The kids and I watched some of the footage from CNN, mostly from the vantage point of a helicopter. It was totally amazing to see what water can do when it leaves its boundaries and how much force it can exert. You might even tempted to think that the footage is really cool until you see a sheet being violently waved from a second story window and realize that someone has been trapped by the water which has become poisonous with all the oil, gas and other chemicals that seeped in from cars, refineries and other places. They are frantically trying to get help. Unfortunately, the helicopter is working for journalists whose job is merely to document their pain and suffering and not actually provide help.

Okay, that last statement was pretty snarky, judgemental and self-righteous. There are probably rules on how much journalists can help out, as much as to prevent a bad situation being made worse by someone without knowledge and skill trying to be helpful as well as to protect their journalistic objectivity (no, really, they are supposed to be objective). I can also be accused of passing people in my car who look like they need help because I am too busy getting through my day or too distrustful of getting scammed/injured/robbed. Fear and busyness are enemies of compassion and love.

So are pre-conceived notions. God is busy at work destroying my pre-conceived notions by giving them a face and a name. He has placed Eric and I in a Bible study with a culturally diverse group of people, which is not our comfort zone. We have highschoolers through grandparents and many different ethnicities. And once a week, we all have dinner together before dining on God's Word. Naturally speaking, I have left the confines of my own little world. And yet, God is showing me, once again that His Holy Spirit creates bonds more powerful than bonds of race because those are bonds of my heavenly family.

"Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves."
Romans 12:9-10

Die, Germs, Die!

2011-03-03T11:23:00.003-06:00

We are in the midst of studying the Civil War in school. Last week, we studied the war up to the battle at Gettysburg and the kids memorized parts of The Gettysburg address, which means that I worked on memorizing it too. Their memories are much better than mine however. I have loved digging into this part of history, though reading some accounts aloud has been difficult to do without weeping.

We are also in the midst of a second wave of sickness. The first one started at the beginning of Februrary and lasted almost three weeks, taking the first four victims by storm and then slowly wearing down the last two survivors until they succumbed almost two weeks later. This sickness involved fever and coughing. The coughing lasted a week after the fever ended. It was the coughing that brought down the last two holdouts. Who can avoid the germs when they are being flung through the air like grenades by the majority of people? For two whole days, children lay silently on our long, curving sofa watching all sorts of movies and shows, listening to books on tape and taking naps. I was using all the artillery in my arsenal--Vick's vapo rub, expectorant, mister, lots of cups of lemon slices steeped in hot water and honey, hot water bottles, lots of vitamin C pills and early bedtimes for all. We also canceled every single outside activity for the two main weeks we were sick, including uninviting an out of town guest to spend the night--not that she really wanted to stay in a great germ battlefield. My goal of insulation was not only to prevent others from being attacked by our germs, but also to prevent any other germs from infiltrating our house and further weakening our weakened immune systems. Near the end of the sickness, with the few people who were recovering to help, I mounted a final campaign against those germs by cleaning the entire house, including the knobs of every door, drawer and cabinet. For a brief, sweet time, the germs were decimated and retreated to some other house and once again, the melodious sounds of yelling, whining, complaining, as well as bomb, gun and crashing sound effects rang through the house.

Earlier this week, Jessi woke up with a fever and complaining of a headache and sore throat. John also complained of a sore throat for a couple of days. Jessi was crying so much about her sore throat that I made her gargle with salt water. I also took her to the doctor, since I knew that strep throat was attacking families. If strep throat had broken through our flanks, I was going to bring the big guns, penicillin, as soon as possible. This time, Jessi was confined to her bedroom for long periods of time, where she could nap and read, both for pleasure and for history. We cleaned the refrigerator, in case any germs were trying to hide out and survive in the cold. It REALLY needed to be cleaned anyway. John never developed a fever and stopped complaining after the second day. Jessi's fever broke by the second day. So far, no one else is showing symptoms of being engaged in a battle of the immune system. This is a good thing, because our weekend is VERY full with a Cubmobile build day, a sock knitting class for me, and a birthday party for John, who will be turning 6 on Monday. We really don't have time to be sick. So tomorrow, we initiate yet another offensive on germs, cleaning every surface, every knob and handle. I might even spray down the LEGOs that we have with germicide, all ten containers of them. We have them loosely organized by function--units, lines, areas, volumes, angles, rotating pieces, people and their accoutrements, doors/windows, round pieces and the "what is this?" bin. And we have a lot of them as the kids have accumulated at least twenty or so kits, big and small, over the past four years. Considering the party will involve building Lego creations, however, it is probably necessary, in case any germs have managed to survive and multiply. It is not a job that I am looking forward to doing. However, I believe that it was William T. Sherman who said, "War is hell."

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T22:14:00.005-06:00

My son, John, at the ripe old age of almost six, has already decided who he is going to marry. She is a neighborhood girl we will call "Julia." A month ago, when I asked him who he wanted to play with, he said, "Julia. I wuv Juwia and want to mawwy her." That is good enough reason, I suppose. In setting up the playdate, I told Julia's mom about his intentions. She laughed and said that we should start planning the ceremony for right after they graduate from college. They are in the same Sunday school class and they both like Tae Kwon Do, though she is a level above him, so that if he tried anything, she could kick his butt :-).

To prepare him for his playdate, I told him that Julia might want to play with Barbies at some point and that he might need to play with her and then let her play legos. The girls assured him that she had a Ken doll so that he wouldn't have to play with girl dolls and he was okay with that. I had visions of Ken shooting Barbie or fighting bad guys to protect her. After the playdate, the mom told me that John and Julia played well together and that he had a really funny response when he asked her to play legos with him. Julia told him that she would be right there and John replied, "Okay, but if you don't come soon your Barbies are going to DIE!!!!!" "I'm coming, I'm coming, she replied and hurried off to the lego room. Julia has two older brothers with a lego collection that rivals ours. Fortunately, she also likes to play with legos.

Today, when we were in the car, Jessi reminded everyone that it was Valentine's Day, a holiday that largely gets ignored in the Overtoom house because we have a better day to celebrate: February 25th was the day Eric and I decided to pursue a relationship. John replied, "When I am with Julia, love overwhelms my heart. That is why I want to marry her." Hearing that come from a not-quite six year old is both precious and funny. It also makes me wonder if some daughter is stashing romance novels and reading them to him. I can't think of any books that he reads or any movies that he has watched that involve romance other than the recently released "Tangled" and "Ella Enchanted." And there is no gushing about love overwhelming them in those movies. It is also interesting that a little boy is occasionally inserting love and romance amid the shooting noises, explosions, and lego creations.

All I know is that I need to treasure these precious sayings in my heart.

A New Computer for a Midwestern Girl

2011-02-06T21:42:00.001-06:00

Earlier this week, as I was dealing with colds, fever and coughing ravaging my home, my Dell had a terminal problem. Terminal as in gone, dead, taking the big sleep, going to that big computer shop in the sky. It had been slowing down considerably over the past month or so and restarting it helped a little bit. We had replaced the keyboard and the external hardrive, but it was getting bogged down and freezing up more and more frequently. Unfortunately, I helped it along in its demise. I had just butted heads with my eldest and frustrated with her, when I see that the computer, which I had tried to shut down to give it a break thirty minutes earlier, had not yet taken the last step toward shutting down. I gave it a slap of frustration and another slap of frustration for the problem between me and my daughter and yet a third slap of frustration at the way I dealt with the situation. Apparently, hard drives do not like being slapped, especially old hard drives. When I tried to boot it up again, I received an error message that talked about re-installing the OS. Not a good thing. When I gave my computer guru husband the message on the computer during his lunchtime call, he agreed that it was not a good message. No matter how much he worked on my old computer, it wouldn’t work. So now, I am typing on my brand new HP computer and my husband and I are working to get everything onto this new computer. He is doing most of the work because I am still encumbered by fever and coughing and the urge to sleep through most of the day. By the end of the week, I hope to have the flu bug banished and my computer set up with all the stuff I am used to having. My biggest hurdle will be trying to transfer my Tapestry of Grace DE licence from my old computer to my new one.

And now for something completely different…

I have been living in Arizona now for almost two years and yet, I still consider myself a Midwesterner. I like what my pastor has said many times. He grew up in Iowa and loves Hawkeye football and everything Iowa…but not enough to live there. I am feeling a little bit the same way. I love the Midwest, although I do NOT miss shoveling snow and enduring the month of February and March when rain and snow keep us inside for way too long. But I love the Midwest at a distance and, if there is a Midwest team in the Superbowl or the Final Four or any other championship series, I will root for that team. Of course, I would prefer the midwestern team competing in the championship to be a Chicago team. This year, Green Bay denied Chicago a chance at Superbowl stardom, so my husband rooted for Pittsburgh. Green Bay, even though they are archrivals to the Bears, are a Midwestern team, so I was rooting for them. I have a feeling that my husband will be banishing me to the couch tonight and not because I have a cold and fever, either. He was not happy that three of the four kids took sided with me. When Green Bay scored their third touchdown, he and the young, temporary Packer fans exchanged razzberries until I reminded them that some of them still had fevers and that sending saliva all over everybody might not be a good idea. I’m just glad I chose a comfy couch.

Catching a ride on the flu train

2011-02-05T10:11:00.003-06:00

My kids never get sick on Saturday. At least hardly ever does a bug show up on Saturday. It is always on Sunday evening that we see the first signs of infection, so that we can share with all of our church friends. Last Sunday evening, Kyle started showing symptoms of not feeling good. He didn't each much at dinner and voluntarily went to sleep. Sure enough, he woke up on Monday with a fever. We didn't show up for the sports program, limiting our outing to music lessons for the girls. Kyle did a little school when the advil kicked in, but otherwise read and slept on Monday when we returned home. Unfortunately, it meant that he missed the Wolf promotion ceremony. He is still officially a wolf cub, but didn't get to stand in front of everybody and receive his pin and other stuff.

Kyle's fever didn't break until Tuesday night, at which time, John was not feeling great. I should have kept John from karate class, but it really didn't show up until after he took the class. Great, his teacher hugged him at one point. There goes another person down with the flu. John got to watch a lot of TV because he can't read yet, which brought some complaint from Kyle. I tried to do school in between checking on John.

John's fever broke Wednesday afternoon at which time Elizabeth started coughing. On me. Several times. At that point, my husband and I started exchanging "air kisses" so that he wouldn't get anything from me. By the next day, Elizabeth and a were conducting a coughing concerto each day and evening when our cough medicine stopped working. We were also downing lots of lemon water with honey. I need to give the girl's horseback teacher a thank you note as she gave us a ton of oranges and lemons from her tree. At night, I would add some brandy to mine, an old Overtoom cold remedy. We did a little bit of school that day, but not everything on the schedule was accomplished. Thursday is usually a lighter day anyway.

We gave up all pretenses of school on Friday and watched a couple of episodes of "Blue Planet" as well as some shows of "Jelly Telly," a new kids program from one of the original creators of Veggie Tales. Elizabeth and I were feeling pretty bad. I took two naps that day, aided by the kids being quiet.

I think the cold is culminated with me today. I ran a fever last night and have a horrible cough that is doing absolutely nothing to relieve congestion. My throat is raw from coughing. And now, Kyle is starting to cough, which he didn't experience in the first round of illness. So far, Jessi and Eric have been successful at avoiding the train. May they miss the ride completely. My plan is to completely clean the house today to wipe out any germ that might be thinking of sticking around and infecting others. I need to start soon before the advil wears off. And I am hoping that all the work will loosen the gunk in my lungs.

Catch phrases

2011-01-26T14:20:00.008-06:00

During a really frustrating day of homeschooling, each kid used their catch phrase on me which, in some ways, gives you a glimpse of their character.

Elizabeth: "Well, that is my own style (of writing/pronunciation/penmanship/etc.)!"

Jessi: "I can't find it!"
Kyle: "I will never finish it!"

John: "I was just being sarcastic."

Of course, summaries don't really adequately describe anything, just like you can't really know a song just by listening to the 30 second track on Amazon/Emusic or you can't really enjoy a book by reading the Cliff Notes or even an "Illustrated Classics" version of the book. For instance, Kyle is very concerned about doing a job well and if he can't do a job well, he doesn't want to do it and will use any excuse to avoid doing it. Once he has started it and finds it is not as daunting as he originally thought, he is very enthusiastic about finishing it and doing his best work. Jessi is so good at making people feel welcome and loved, but, as a result, she is not task oriented. Therefore, if I ask her to do something, like put her spelling and vocabulary words in her binder where she will be sure to find them when she needs them next, she may or may not do what I ask. She is easily distractible by people, books and any random object and can be waylaid on her way from the kitchen/living room to the office where her binder is kept. Elizabeth is definitely very artistic and does like to create her own sense of style, which currently reflects tomboy sensibilities. And style is a matter of personal choice/opinion. She is learning, however, that not everything is a matter of opinion. Even though John is my class clown, which means that even homeschooling moms are not immune to having them, he is very artistic and quick to pick up the phonics.

I also have to remind myself that these catch phrases have some hint of me in them, too, which of course, is completely humbling. Humility is a good thing because it keeps me teachable.

And people, unlike individual books or songs, don't ever stay the same (generally speaking). So these catch phrases that I hear from my kids now is not an indication of the adult they will become or even the person they will be next year. Just as they look slightly different from their baby pictures and I am not the same person I was when I was busy being a prodigal daughter. That thought gives me hope and inspiration to continue homeschooling my kids and loving them for who they are, with all their glories and faults, which is just how God feels about me.
*
"...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
Phillipians 1:6

Dealing with Cultural Irrevelance

2011-01-23T21:21:00.007-06:00

Last night, we watched "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes," a Disney flick from 1969, two years after I was born. It is part of our plan to "educate" our kids on the cheesy movies with which we grew up. So far, the kids have watched "The Apple Dumpling Gang," and the original "Absent-Minded Professor" with Fred MacMurray in addition to the latest. At the beginning, we had to pause the movie to explain that the four or five huge boxes in the movie with the huge bank of buttons and rotating circles known as "tape drives" were parts of a computer that in real life would have less than 1% of the capability of Elizabeth's new iPod Touch (which is another story altogether). The star of "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" was Kurt Russell, known in the 1980's for his dimples, cornflower blue eyes and wavy hair and his ability to star in either "cult classics" or bad rom-coms with his significant other, Goldie Hawn.

As I was helping out in the church nursery this evening, we were talking about old movies and I mentioned Kurt Russel's name. The college student helping us out said "Who is that?" The father of three smiled, mentioned that he had HEARD of Kurt Russell but that he wasn't familiar with that particular movie. Did I feel old! I realized that few of them probably had heard of Michael Jordan, Walter Payton (can you tell I have spent a LOT of time in Chicago), Bee Gees or even Billy Joel! It started a great conversation about what TV shows were our favorites. The college age kids fondly remembered "Fresh Prince" and "Boy Meets World" whereas I remember "Giligan's Island,"Happy Days" and "The Love Boat." I told them that in another thirty years, they would be sitting talking to a high school or college age student reminiscing about Justin Bieber or Will Smith and the student would look at them blankly and mutter "Who?" As I was looking at recent pictures of the male movie stars that I thought were "hunks" like Kurt Russell, Jeff Bridges, and Harrison Ford and realized that they are starting to look like a bunch of old men I realized that it means that I am old and possible culturally irrevelant. It is tough becoming culturally irrevelant. It almost makes me want to sign up for the Junior High Youth group. And if you want to see a cute set of dimples and don't care how bad a movie is, rent "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" from Netflix.

Cute kid quotes

2011-01-21T08:23:00.002-06:00

I try and capture the cute things my kids say in a notes application on my iPhone. Here are some of the things I have heard them say over the past month:

Elizabeth: The context is the last season of "The Amazing Race", of which we have watched three episodes so far. One team, a couple who are covered with tattoos and peircings readily admit that intelligence isn't their strong suit, but that they are strong and athletic. And there are times when they display a lack of knowledge. However, so far they are patient with each other in difficult circumstances and I admire them because they know themselves pretty well.
"I think that the tattooed couple were smart before they got all those tattoos."

Jessi: (wearing a shirt that is only slightly big on her) "I am glad that this shirt is so loose. Now I can flex my muscles without worrying about splitting the shirt. "

Kyle: He made a comment while we were playing in the icy snow in Flagstaff that was so funny and true. He was on a playground set and Eric and I were lobbing snowballs at his "fort". All during this time, the girls were busy transforming the bottom half of a snow man into a chair. When he got tired of the game he asked us to stop. "I have to go and taunt the girls now."

John: While we were listening to our huge collection of Christmas songs, Elvis' "Blue Christmas" started playing. After listening to the song for a few minutes, John asked "Is this a girl singing this song? It sure sounds like a girl!"

My apologies to anyone who has a tattoo or several and to any Elvis fans out there. Rest assured that I made sure that Elizabeth realizes that there is no connection to tattoes and intelligence and John knows that Elvis is a boy, not a girl. However, it is safe to say that there are no Elvis fans in this house.

Pictures from Flagstaff

2011-01-16T22:19:00.003-06:00

Eric created a slideshow of pictures from our trip to Flagstaff that you can access here.

The first few pictures are of our room, then we switch to our snow play, followed by our trip on The Polar Express. One of the pictures show John laughing and me with a funny face. At that time, we were playing a game where he blew a kiss at me and I pretended that the kiss landed in my eye, blinding me. Elizabeth was determined not to smile in any of the pictures. I will have to say that the servers on the Polar Express really enjoyed themselves the whole time (or at least put on a darn good show). I told Eric that when we retire, I want to be a server on The Polar Express.

Enjoy!

What's in a Name?

2011-01-07T10:00:00.003-06:00

When traveling along Highway 40 to see my folks for Thanksgiving (over the mountains and through the woods, to Grandmother’s house we go), we saw a church called something like “Unified Penticostal Fellowship of Holiness.” That church seems to be working too hard to specifically define itself, isn’t it? We also had fun going through a section of Oklahoma where they called the river going through it the North Canadian River. I checked a map later and found that it doesn’t even originate in Canada! My guess is that someone directionally challenged named it :-). Our old church changed it's name from Vineyard Community Church to Trinity Community Church while we attended because it broke off from the fellowhip of Vineyard Churches.

We gave careful thought to each of our children’s names. With our first born, we started looking at the brothers of Joseph for a boy’s name. We wanted to skip Judah because it is more common, but the problem was that most of the other brothers had horrible blessings or horrible names. Friends and relatives alike were relieved that we had a girl because they all like her name, which means “Oath of God”. Jesus changed people’s names a lot. Simon became Peter (The Rock), Saul became Paul, and he promised to those who persevere in Revelation 2:17 that he will give them a new name written on a white stone. I think God wants to show in a very tangible way that He never leaves us the same when we invite Him into our lives. I like that and I can't wait to see what my new name will be.

A few months ago, our church, to which we recently became committed as members, announced that it was merging with another church in the area. It is a merger and not a corporate takeover because both churches changed their names. Our church which was known as “East Valley Bible Church” and their church, formerly known as “Praxis” became “Redemption Church” on January 1st. During the announcement, the leaders basically admitted that, other than God’s leading, there seems to be no earthly reason for these two rather large churches to combine into a mega church. Since we decided that we trusted the leadership enough to become members, I have to trust that they know what God's will for our church is. Besides, I really like the name. East Valley Bible Church is pretty long and usually referred to as evbc. However, “Redemption Church” will help me remember the purpose of Jesus Christ coming to the earth, dying on the cross and being resurrected. It is like a name and a mission statement all in one. I really like it even if I will have to work at remembering a new church name!

Happy Epiphany!

2011-01-06T09:31:00.002-06:00

My sister-in-law introduced me many years ago to the idea of celebrating Epiphany. Her family celebrates it instead of (or is it "in addition to") Christmas. Epiphany is the date that the Church set as the date that the Wise Men brought their gifts to Jesus. It is celebrated on the twelfth day after Christmas, which is probably where the song "Twelve Days of Christmas" originated. So a few years ago, I decided to try and celebrate the holiday in a very low key way--have a cake on January 6th and give kids verses that Eric is given when he prays for the kids.

When Elizabeth was about two years old, God inspired us to pray and ask Him for verses for our kids for each year. Then, when they became adults or left for college, we could give them their life verses. I bought a scrapbook for each of the girls to make the verses really pretty. When the boys were born, we added scrapbooks for them and gave them verses. There is a gap of two years around Kyle's birth in which Eric was too busy to pray, mainly because at that time we were traveling at Christmas. It was one of the many reasons we decided to stay at home for Christmas. Initially, we would present them to the kids as the first Christmas present. However, when a pile of presents is waiting for you, a gift from Jesus that involves words is not that impressive. Eventually, it became the reason we started celebrating Epiphany, so that Jesus wouldn't have to compete ;-).

The really interesting thing is how these verses have sometimes been so timely. For instance, the Christmas before all the upheaval of Eric's layoff hit us, God gave Elizabeth, who was probably most affected by the move in terms of friends, Psalm 34:15 and He gave to Kyle the verses John 6:32-33, to remind us of His provision. Jessi's verse, Psalm 119:108 encouraged us to praise God through it all, and John's verse, Romans 3:22, reminded us that God's best provision for us was His righteousness, which we didn't deserve on our own merits.

It is amazing how faithful God has been in giving Eric verses for the kids and how faithfully Eric has been praying every year for his children. Good job, honey! I love you!

Does anyone else celebrate Epiphany?

Weather and Memories

2010-12-31T18:43:00.007-06:00

Here is an Arizona weather update that will not bring envy to our Midwest friends: There was a freeze advisory last night which will continue tonight. The high today was in the low 50s and there was a wind chill factor last night. A neighbor claimed to have seen snow flurries yesterday, though we were out and about shopping and missed it. Right now, our downstairs furnace is not working, though the new one we installed last spring, that keeps the upstairs warm, works fine. Here it is a minor inconvenience. In Chicago, this would be a more serious problem. We will get it fixed by Monday.

Our family Christmas present to ourselves was a trip to Flagstaff/Williams for two days. The original plan was to ride on The Polar Express Monday night and go skiing the next day. However, I didn't have my act together enough to get ski clothes for everyone in time. Plus the snow was very icy and hard--not good conditions for first time skiers. The Polar Express was really fun. We took the 6:30 p.m. train out of Williams. We drank hot (okay, warm) chocolate, ate cookies, heard an audiobook of _The Polar Express_, sang Christmas carols, saw Santa Claus, who gave them bells. As we returned to Flagstaff, Eric and I discussed options for the next day. We decided upon a tour of Lowell Observatory, home of Pluto, which is another way to say that Pluto was discovered there. It was a great tour. The tour guide involved the kids in many ways. They got to operate the dome, and move the original refracting telescope around with her supervision and help. We picked up some souvenirs, like a book called _Can You Count to a Googol?_, and a really beautiful cobalt blue ornament for the Christmas tree named "Night Skies." We ate at Olive Garden and returned home.

The only "problem" we had involved our hotel accommodations. We had a great view of the snow-capped peak of Humphrey's Peak. The room was swanky, like we just stepped into an IKEA catalog showroom. Everything about the room and hotel was stylistically focused on giving a feeling of snow, including the frosted glass on the door and surrounding the desk. However, a frosted glass door to the bathroom is not very practical when six people are staying in a room. Every time someone went to the bathroom, the light glared through the door, waking Eric and I up. I believe there were at least six trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night, including one that I made.

The frosted glass door ended up being the least of our problems, however. Sometime around 12:50, a person near our room decided to take a bath. Or try and create rhythm by turning bathwater on and off. After fifteen minutes, I guess they got bored because they decided to keep it on, creating a roar in the wall that went on for what seemed like forever and probably lasted at least 20 minutes. Eric finally call the front desk to complain. At 1:40, the water turned off and stayed off. Or so we thought....The Bath Person ran their water rhythm at 2:30 for another 30 minutes and repeated the efforts at 3:30 for yet another 30 minutes. In the past, when we had babies and were disturbed by inconsiderate hotel guests, I would think "At 5:30 a.m., when our kids are up and crying to have their diaper change and be fed, we will have our revenge on you, Mr. Late-Night-Carouser!" This is not as sure a thing with older kids, though my kids are plenty loud when they do wake up. For fun, I tried to think of what would cause a person to run a bath in the middle of the night: a harried mother so desperate to have an uninterrupted bubble bath that she gets up in the middle of the night for Calgon to take her away; someone who didn't get to the laundromat in time and was washing a few loads in the bathtub before a day of skiing; maybe even a terrorist building a bomb and washing equipment before, during and after his manufacture of evil (this thought came during the last session). John, of course, slept through it all. And, now I have a funny story to tell about our first trip to Flagstaff, which means, of course, that it was a great time of making memories.

Wherever you are, I hope you are staying warm and have a Happy New Year!

Living The Advent Conspiracy(?)

2010-12-29T10:46:00.002-06:00

A few years ago, I heard about The Advent Conspiracy. If you click on the words, it will take you to a video explaining what it is all about. I really like this other video too. You are probably thinking that, considering that the Advent season is over by a few days that this post is a little late. I would tend to agree, but then again, some ideas need time to percolate in your brain and in your heart before you can really process them. For me, it has taken a few years to really wrap my brain around it. And then there is the danger of taking it a bit too far and bringing up visions of Ebenezer in our relative's mind. Here is how I tried to implement our Advent Conspiracy this year:

1. Giving gifts of the heart: For relatives, starting in September (which apparently is still to late to actually finish all projects on time), I practiced my knitting skills by making small, useful items. I still have one more to make. Hopefully, that one relative will consider it extending the joy of the season.

2. Giving Relationally, Part I: Instead of spending hours baking cookies to give away to people at Christmas, I tried to host several cooking making parties, where each family would come with dough and we would bake cookies together. This had limited success. For starters, most of the parties had to be canceled due to the stomach flu "being gifted." The one party that went through ended up taking four hours to make the cookies to be shared, probably because the primary bakers, the other two mom's and I, talked as much as we prepared cookies. My hope that the children would want to take turns helping make the cookies was not really materialized. However, the three families were able to spend some time getting to know each other better. In that regard, I consider it a mixed success. I think next year, I will change it to a cookie exchange party.

3. Giving Relationally, Part II: Every year, we try to get a "family present" that is fairly big. This year, instead of something material, the family present was tickets on The Polar Express. It is a train that runs at night from Williams, Arizona along the Grand Canyon Railroad for an hour. Wait, let me clarify that: it runs for a while along the Grand Canyon Railroad until we hit a warp that brings the train to the North Pole :-). During the ride up, we are given cookies and hot chocolate, listen to an audio version of "The Polar Express", and sing Christmas carols. At the "North Pole", Santa comes on board and walks all 13 cars greeting kids and giving them a big bell. We sing more Christmas carols and generally enjoy the jingling of the bells ringing incessantly. We also spent the next day in Flagstaff touring Lowell Observatory, the place where Pluto was discovered. The guide was really good at getting the kids involved to keep their interest most of the time. We also had to play in the snow a bit, though the snow was icy and hard. Because of this trip, their gifts were smaller and fewer, but we made some wonderful memories.

4. Giving Charitably: Our charitable giving was boosted in several ways. Our church had a special Christmas Eve fund to help take care of refugees and some of the poor in the area. This helped us focus our efforts a bit. In addition, however, we received a check from Eric's grandfather's estate a few days before Christmas. In general, we consider all money coming from God who provides a job for Eric, but receiving an inheritance is doubly so. The amount was a testimony to Albert Overtoom's wise stewardship of his money, considered that he died at 99 still able to pay his bill at the assisted living community and be able to bless not only his six children, but also his twenty-odd grandchildren. We reserved a small amount for ourselves and then discussed where the rest would go. I have to say that giving away a bunch of money is really fun. Later that night, however, we would be totally humbled by the realization that it is impossible to out-give God.

5. Worshiping Fully: Sadly, this was a place where I fell short, and it is probably the one area that I should be focusing most of my "efforts". Because of all the extra curricular activities, parties, programs, etc., the first thirteen days passed before we had a chance to put up the stars and read from the Advent Calendar. In the morning, the kids and I would read from Jesse Tree Devotionals, but my own personal time with God suffered from trying to get the presents, organize the parties and doing rather than being with the One who gave Himself to be with us. Because of this, words from Isaiah 28:11-13 keep popping into my head. It seems that this has been the same evaluation I have given myself at the end of every Advent and every year, I try and figure out how to focus more on worshiping and less on doing. So this year, I am starting now to seek God's plan for next Christmas with the hope that with enough percolating and enough presence with God throughout the year, next year will be different.

"In that day the LORD Almighty will be a glorious crown,
a beautiful wreath for the remnant of his people.

He will be a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment,
a source of strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate."
Isaiah 28: 5-6

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-23T09:30:00.006-06:00

Before I start sharing some Christmas cheer, I would like to share a "bah humbug" moment brought to you by the corporate office at Starbucks--They suggested stores to be open at Christmas, though it is a purely voluntary decision based on employee willingness to work on the day. I realize that the prospect of getting double pay for holiday duty which will probably be a pretty easy day is very tempting, but please can we all agree to have just one day where we take a break from trying to stimulate the economy?

I've been given lots of reasons to laugh lately, both through my children and through circumstances. So I will share them with you:

1. Elizabeth's fun faces. These pictures were taken at a wedding this summer. This is what I get to look at every day. :-)

2. Hearing Elizabeth and John ask me the name of the girl who is singing when Elvis' "Blue Christmas started to play. They told me in very decided tones that they do not like Elvis. They also debated whether the songs sung by Annie Lennox over the Starbucks loudspeaker was a woman or a man.

3. Hearing the annual playing of the album "Cow Christmas", with such classics as "The Hallemoojah Chorus," "We Wish You a Dairy Christmas," and "Angus We Have Heard On High." I am sure that when my husband was buying this as a single man, he didn't think about how many times the kids would want to listen to it every Christmas.

4. Watching Jessi try not to smile while I was reprimanding her for getting lost in a book instead of doing her chores (while secretly wishing that I could have that same luxury). Her excuse was pretty funny, too. "Mom, I was going to start cleaning the bathrooms, but then Elizabeth started washing the hallway floor and I couldn't get upstairs anymore!" Of course, walking on wet floors, has never been an impediment in the past if it involves getting to a book or toy or sweets.

5. All the slow, indecisive drivers that God has put in my way in the last week while I am shuttling kids to activities or trying to shop. I also enjoyed driving in the pouring rain yesterday and the fog last Friday as I drove to Tuscon to see grandmas and my uncle. Remember from a previous post, that I was determined to laugh through trying circumstances. I had to laugh at myself for being nervous driving in fog when I was fully capable and not very nervous about driving in snowstorms in Illinois less than two years ago. I am becoming such an Arizona wimp!

6. Seeing joy on two different mailman's faces. The first one was overjoyed when I offered him some Christmas cookies. I think we are one of the last people on his route. The other mailman at the Post Office counter was ecstatic when I brought in packages for some relatives yesterday (12/22) and told him that I wanted to extend the joy of the season by sending it standard rather than express or next day. He drew Christmas Trees on them to make sure that the recipients would know that they are Christmas packages. In case you are wondering, the packages involved some projects that took longer than expected.

6. Looking out of my bedroom window into the living room below (yes, you are reading that right) to see Kyle look up at me and give me one of his big, huge, grins. This is becoming my standard morning routine.

7. Watching a Tim Hawkins video clip that I haven't seen yet. This clip had the kids and I almost rolling on the floor laughing. We had to watch it several times to hear it all. My house apparently is full of deadly weapons.

I hope anyone reading this has a Merry Christmas. And if you are one of the relatives getting a late Christmas present, I hope it makes your post-Christmas time merry, too.

Trying to be a train conductor

2010-12-12T17:17:00.008-06:00

For our Thanksgiving trip to Memphis, I downloaded a couple of games for the kids to enjoy if the audio books, movies, or activity books were wearing thin. It takes roughly 48 hours to get to Memphis and back. I tried to download games that had a little academics as well as fun. The games I downloaded were "Contraptions" and "Train Conductor". I ended up splitting my time between knitting and playing the video games while listening to movies or audio tapes or silence (which is golden by the way). If you are interested, we listened to Focus on the Family Radio Theater presentation of _Ben Hur_ and _At the Back of the North Wind_ and an audio book of _The Titan's Curse_ by Rick Riordan. All were excellent and well done.

During the drive, I became addicted to "Train Conductor." It is a game where you have three to five train tracks and you have to move numbered trains to the matching track number. This sounds so simple and yet, when you get to the two hardest levels, you have trains coming out constantly, going in opposite directions on the same tracks going to other tracks. The worst situation is when you have moved a train to the right track and within seconds of getting to its destination, another train comes out on the same side and the same track and they crash. Crashing ends the game. After a while, I would have to quit because I became so frustrated at it. How in the world do the creators expect me to be able to get all the trains on the right line when so many of them are going to the same track in opposite directions and there is no rest?

Then, I realized that some of my frustrations coming out in the game were in realizing that in real life, I was trying to keep my own set of trains and tracks going, sometimes at cross purposes. Housework, hobbies, homeschooling and Christmas holiday traditions of his family, my family and ours. All this adds up to having the spirit of perfectionism, which is pride in action as well as attitude. What if I just let some of those trains go on the wrong tracks? In the game, I would lose points but maybe avoid a crash. In life, I would probably be a bit more relaxed and able to enjoy my family more and my home more. I might be less critical of myself and those around me. Would you consider that "bonus points?" I would. As an double bonus, as I was contemplating this, I heard God telling me that some of the tracks that I am trying to manage were not given to me by Him because his "yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matthew 11:20)."

Wow. What a great Christmas present--rest and peace and joy. Wait a minute, isn't that what Jesus came to do in the first place? Why do I have to keep re-learning the same lesson over and over again? Oh, wait--its because I am human and humans have been suffering from major memory loss problems ever since sin took root. The irony is that I have been reading and re-reading Romans 3 & 4 a LOT lately to soak in "the basics", which speak about the righteousness that I have by my faith through the free gift of God's grace carried out by Jesus Christ's life, death and resurrection. There is nothing I can do to either lose my salvation or to ensure it. Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

So what am I going to do with this newly re-discovered knowledge? Check my schedule with God more. Laugh more and be thankful for all of God's blessings, like my kids, my husband, "toys", and the gift of laughter. Thank Him also for having a sense of humor that He demonstrates in so many ways. Laugh when my trains crash in the game. Laugh at the fact that it took two weekends to fully put up the tree and decorate the house. Laugh at the fact that I need to purge my home every three months of "precious" stuff my kids have collected that fills their beds, their closets, every spare surface of the house, and every drawer. Laugh when my washing machine decides to take a holiday break. Laugh at the undone "whatevers" that I had planned to do. Laugh with my kids and my husband at all the fart jokes that come up at the dinner table and maybe make up a few of my own. Which brings up another question in my mind: Did Jesus ever tell fart jokes at the dinner table when he was growing up?

"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midian's defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. --Isaiah 9: 2 - 6

Thankful for a Respite

2010-11-19T09:42:00.003-06:00

Last night was Kyle's final baseball game of the season. It has been wonderful to see the boys, especially Kyle, develop their skills and begin to understand some of the strategy. There were several innings this season where they actually made plays to get kids out and many boys actually caught pop fly balls! Considering Kyle has never played baseball before, he did very well. He can run fast, so as long as he could hit to ball, he can usually get on base. He became better at catching a thrown ball, though grounders still get by him. Most importantly, he had a lot of fun and learned that it was okay to strike out, to get thrown out at a base, and to make mistakes. I am most thankful for the coaches, who did not have an ego complex, but who made sure the boys practiced and that they were in control in the dugout. I am, however, thankful that two of our days are not being taken up by baseball.

Tonight, we attend John's graduation in TaeKwonDo. He will go from white belt (first level) to orange. He attends classes twice a week, which has sometimes clashed with Kyle's games. Added to this, the girls have horseback riding lessons each week, Kyle has Cub Scouts and Jessi has a weekly worship choir practice. For the last six weeks, I have been attending a MomProps Bible study focused on parents of tweens/teens, which happens the same night as Kyle's

All that means that there has not been one week night for the past six in which we have been able to eat without having to go somewhere immediately afterwards. Our schedule is school, some rest, sometimes an afternoon commitment and then getting ready for dinner and evening engagement. The crock pot has been good to me. I have also made many of Gigi's chicken salad sandwhiches (my great-grandmothers recipe) for baseball game nights.

So, as we move into Thanksgiving preparations, I am very thankful that God has given us the means and arranged the schedules so our kids can explore sports and teamwork in outside activities and know that other adults expect them to listen and obey them. I am thankful that He has given me the stamina to get through each day. I am thankful that there are so many nights when we are still eating as a family, even if it feels a little rushed. And I am thankful when at least one sport ends and we have one night of being able to rest together as a family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Change of Seasons

2010-11-09T20:18:00.006-06:00

Can I go outside now?

Several weeks ago, the high temperatures which Arizonan have been suffering broke, allowing people to turn off air-conditioning, open windows, and step outside after 8 a.m. Last year, we had higher temperatures over all, but this year, we truly had a monsoon season and you could feel the humidity stick to your skin. This weather has been wonderful. The nights have become cool again and then, sometime around mid afternoon, it is a balmy upper 80's, perfect for playing outside.

What we don't get to experience so much is the change of colors. Most of the trees around us are either pine trees or palm trees, imported. And even the leafy trees that we have don't experience cold enough temperatures to turn colors or even fall off until sometime in December or January. I miss Lake County, Illinois, when the kids and I could take hikes out in Forest preserves and create swirls of leaves with their feet. I miss building piles of leaves in our yard for the kids to bury themselves. Walking in fallen leaves appeals to all my senses. If I really want to experience it, though, I can drive 3 hours northeast, along the Mogollon Rim, which is a range of mountains separating the valley in which we live from the Colorado Plateau, or go to Prescott in the middle of the Bradshaw Mountains. Even the mountains surrounding Tuscon, like the Catalina Mountains, have aspen and other deciduous trees in the upper ranges. It sounds like a great field trip for Bridgetender school. :-)

Even though I may seem to be complaining, Fall has always been my favorite season and in Arizona it is doubly so. By September, we are all suffering from cabin fever, even with a pool.

For your entertainment...
Last week, I had Jessi and Kyle memorize and sing "Erie Canal". It is too large a file to upload here, so Eric posted it to his Youtube account here. It is a bit long because they sang it more
andante than vivace.

Last night, the kids were outside at twilight, playing. The high had been 64 but the temperature was dropping. They decided that they needed winter gloves and hats. So they went back outside wearing gloves and hats...still wearing shorts and sandals. Yes, that is quite a picture. Too bad I can't find our new camera. Honey???....

Filed under "Not Quite Forgotten"
You might have noticed in recent months that I stopped publishing weigh-in results. I took a bit of a break with the stress of starting the homeschool schedule with a new curriculum and a new student. By the grace of God, I did not gain weight This was a huge surprise because, based on how bad my eating habits became, I should have gained it all back. Spurred on by God's kindness, I am going back to trying to lose weight at a REALLY crazy time for trying to lose weight. My goal is to lose the two pound necessary to get me to a ten pound overall weight loss before Thanksgiving. I am trying to avoid sweets until the Thanksgiving holiday time, where I will be in an environment inundated with luscious cakes, cookies, pies, and food in general. If I lose the two pounds and hold it through Christmas, I will be a happy girl.

Bad Missions ideas

2010-11-05T23:31:00.004-05:00

This has probably been handled better by other blogs, like "Stuff Christians Like" and "The Church of No People," but I thought I would share some ideas of spreading the Gospel that might not have the life changing, come-to-Jesus impact you might think they have. These are all things I have either been told about or personally experienced.

1. Leaving a tract instead of a tip: Whatever message you "think" you are sending, the actual message you send to the person who has been serving you is "I am a cheapskate. Come be a cheapskate like me." Most people do not want to be known as cheapskates or associate with them. Moreover, when you stiff the server, that tract connecting you to Jesus tells him or her that Jesus is a cheapskate, which is a total lie according to Phillipians 4:19 So next time you are tempted to leave your server a tract, make sure you leave him or her at least a 50% tip. That applies double if you have just eaten at a pricey restaurant because if you can afford to eat at a pricey restaurant, you should be able to afford a generous tip.

2. Putting a tract in a kids Halloween bag when you have been chintzy on the candy: Though you really want to be Jesus' light in a dark holiday, you are actually sending kids the same message as the lousy tipper. My goal has always been to give them really good candy, put a Bible verse on it and to be generous in how much candy you give. Not all of my family members have been on the same page, which is why I eventually started buying those M&M cookies bags at Sam's Club instead of many bags of Hershey's Miniatures. There is no way to be a cheapskate with big bags of cookies.

3. Having two male missionaries walk around, bicycle around or drive around at night and approach a single women who is walking her dog or walking with her daughter with offers of assistance: You may think that you look like the "hands and feet of Jesus," but really, you just appear creepy and most women start feeling for their mace, personal alarms or phone when two men approach them at night. Telling them that you are a missionary doesn't really make them feel any safer because anyone can pretend to be a missionary as a ruse to get close enough to do something bad to them. Oh, and don't ask the woman how far of a walk she has to get home. We have read _Little Red Riding Hood_ once or twice in our lives, you know.

4. Standing on a corner or in the middle of a college campus and yelling out to all the people passing buy that they are sinners/prostitutes/drunkards/etc. on their way to hell: First of all some of those people you are insulting just might be Christians. Secondly, you are the exactly the type of person that Jesus would have insulted when he was alive because you try to make yourself appear to be more virtuous than others. Have some humility, please! And maybe it would be better to get to know the people by listening rather than by shouting.

5. Attending a soldier's funeral protesting something that isn't remotely related to nor honoring to the sacrifice that the soldier made for his country or to the grieving family.

To read about a bad missionary idea that (hopefully) hasn't happened yet, read this at Stuff Christians Like. If you have any other examples of bad missions ideas, leave them in the comment section. I am personally trying to stop arguing as my bad missionary idea. Another job for the Holy Spirit!

"But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:4-9

What about mercy?

2010-11-02T15:20:00.006-05:00

My youngest had a bad night Monday night with sniffles that woke him up. I knew that trying to get him up would be a challenge on Tuesday morning, but we were meeting with another family early that morning to do P.E. and I needed everyone to get ready quickly. My husband woke the kids up before he left and the youngest laid there while everyone else dragged themselves out of bed. I took a shower. Ten minutes later, he is still lying in bed with no intention of getting up. I go over and gently shake him and kiss him while I tell him that it is time to get up and get dressed. After I am dressed, I go in and remove his pajamas and lovies from his bed, placing an outfit on his bed. This causes him to stir a bit. Fifteen minutes later, I find out that he is still not dressed and has done nothing more than pull himself into a vertical position. My voice is sharper now as I tell him that he had BETTER be dressed soon or he will not get breakfast. Ten minutes later, he loses breakfast and I put a timer on him giving him two minutes to get dressed or he will receive corporal punishment. If you have been keeping any track of time and the number of times I have spoken to him, you know that it has been about an hour since he was first told to get dressed and that he has had at least four requests, more than my usual number. He fails to beat the timer. As I walk upstairs, telling him to come to my room, he starts wailing because he knows what is about to come next. Seeing me pull out the instrument of discipline, he cries out, "What about mercy?"

I do feel the need to end this story with some bragging on his behalf. At the Monday night Boy Scout meeting, which he attended with his Wolf Scout brother, John received a hiking badge, even though he wasn't old enough to be in Boy Scouts. The Scoutmaster gave it to him because, on the long hike up South Mountain during last week's family camp outing, he never complained once. He still gets a proud smile when he talks about it. He will also be graduating to orange belt in Tae Kwon Do next week. And he has read his first book with very little help from me.

I love my kids even though they are giving me gray hairs.

November Elections--Confessions of a Frustrated Voter

2010-11-01T02:54:00.003-05:00

This Tuesday is an election day.

The political signs have been up for months and I am sure that if I watched the morass of manure known as network television* without the benefit of pre-recording it, I would be assaulted with negative campaign ads from all of the elected officials with the exception of judges, who can’t really campaign. Instead, I rely on a combination of voter guides, campaign web sites and newspaper interviews to research the candidates. And I do most of my research at the last minute. There. I have said it. Every Tuesday after the first Monday of November during an election year, I resolve to keep better track of the candidates voting records so that when the next election season comes around, I know whether I can trust the incumbent or send them a pink slip. Instead, I go back to trying to keep up with homeschooling, outside activities for kids, church, housework, friends and other local affairs. Then, when election time comes up again, I resort to the equivalent of cramming for the test. This year, because of the sheer number of issues and candidates on the ballot, my husband and I are using the “divide and conquer” method of researching the the two pages of decisions that we have to make. I usually have no problems finding information on any of the candidates, except for one—judges. According to judges, they can’t state their views on any issue because it would affect their impartiality as a judge. So, I am asked to vote whether or not to retain a judge with basically no information provided other than to see how their colleagues view them, through Judicial Performance Reviews. This is where my frustration starts.

* I also confess that some of the shows on TV are pretty good, but "morass of manure" has alliterative qualities and, you must admit that most of the political TV ads closely resemble manure, at least in smell.

This year, the voter guide I use did claim to have a guide on judges. However, voter guides generally rely on the candidates replying to their surveys and, of the 56 judges on the Mesa ballot who were sent generic questionnaires regarding their judicial philosophy, only eight replied. Since this is a voter guide developed by a conservative group, one could assume that the other judges didn’t reply because they are the liberal judges who feel the need to legislate from the bench because most Democrats do not respond to their surveys. However, my mom taught me that when we assume things, we make, well you probably know that saying. One of the judges wrote a letter referencing a website that would allow me to see a record of decisions made. However, there was no good interface that would allow me to look at one judge’s history of decisions on that site. I would have to look up each individual case, read it, find out the judge’s decision and why they made it for the last year to develop an idea of whether they are judging strictly by the strictly literal interpretation of the law or by the law as they wish it had been written. I also started looking at the Judicial Performance Reports for the judges. The problem is that only 20% of the attorneys that were surveyed actually sent in results, which might skew reports one way or other. What if a bunch of liberal attorneys want to give a conservative judge a bad review and make sure to send in their surveys or conservative attorneys try to "blacklist" a liberal judge through those surveys? The one place that didn’t seem to have much information about judges was the local newspaper, which is EXACTLY the place that, theoretically, should be providing the information. But that is another day's rant.

With the problems that have surfaced with judicial activism over the last few years, shouldn’t we be provided information about how many of a judge’s decisions have been overturned in appeals, and whether or not they believe in a literal interpretation of the law vs. a revisionist interpretation? Fortunately, my homeschooling cohorts have come to my aid and provided the web address of an anonymous blog which rates the judges based on whether they are very conservative, moderately conservative, moderately liberal or very liberal. The blog is anonymous because the state conduct guidelines would allow a lawyer to be debarred for openly criticizing a judge or other attorney, though siting a judge as "liberal", "moderate" or "conservative" is hardly being critical. Apparently, the anonymous blogger is a lawyer and wants to continue to practice law. Without knowing this person very well, except by reading other blogs published on the site and other sites read by the blogger, I am basing my decisions primarily on the blog’s recommendations because I have very little other information and because the blogger is not afraid to highlight when people disagree with their assessment of the judge's political leanings, which I respect very much.

So I go with a bit of knowledge I glean from my sources and with help from my hubby doing the research to vote on Tuesday. After having spent the last year or so studying the American Revolution with my kids and reading about the months that our Founding Fathers spent designing a government that passed power from one person to the next peaceably with input from the governed through the election process, I have a renewed passion for voting and for making sure I am making reasonably informed choices. I also urge you to exercise the freedoms that our forefather's fought to give us, the freedoms that women and emancipated slaves fought to achieve, the freedoms that people living under dictators in other countries can only dream of having: the freedom to have a voice in our government and to hold government accountable. Whether you agree with me politically or not, please vote this Tuesday.

Bridgetender School Update--Kids

2010-10-25T15:49:00.005-05:00

I talked about the curriculum and some of the fun stuff we did during our first nine weeks of school. I thought you might be interested in hearing about the individual kids.

Elizabeth, sixth grade: Elizabeth is not liking sixth grade very much. She is in what Tapestry of Grace calls the "dialectic" stage, when they expect kids to start making connections. She is used to discussing facts, not trying to make connections. She has a lot of reading and extra work to do verses the other kids. Her favorite form of non-fiction is diaries, which she decided after reading Diary of a Napoleanic Foot Soldier by Jakob Walter. I had her write about three page paper about John Watt, the "inventor/improver" of the steam engine. We both learned a lot from this process, particularly how few books there are for kids considering the man jump-started the Industrial Revolution. I will be sending out her paper to family. If you are not family and I know you, I will be happy to send it if you send me a request in the comments section. She has almost finished Epsilon in Math U See, which involved learning about fractions and everything related to fractions, like factoring, finding the greatest common factor of two numbers, etc. It also introduced some pre-algebra concepts. Her biggest challenge, this year, however, is to write legibly and follow directions. Whenever I ask her to write neatly her response is, "I am like my dad, Mom. I can't write neatly." She is taking horseback riding lessons once a week, guitar lessons and is attending a homeschool youth group once a month. She is also serving with her dad in 1st grade and has developed a knack for being able to calm a special needs kid down when he gets out of hand.

Jessi, fourth grade: Jessi worked very hard to master multiple digit multiplication to be able to graduate to the Delta book in Math-U-See. Like Elizabeth, it took her a long time to get neat enough to be able to properly add the lines without forgetting or mis-reading numbers. She is doing great remembering Spanish words and loves putting together newsletters which have been assignments for science. She is getting very talented at using Hallmark Card Studio. She is enjoying all of her reading. She is also learning to be organized, with some progress. She started her first horse-riding lessons last week and really enjoyed it and she loves playing the piano. She also participates in the church's children's choir, which leads the elementary and pre-school in worship and verse memorization once a month.

Kyle, Second grade: His biggest challenge is in writing. He writes beautifully, but it takes him a very long time to write a short sentence and his hands tire out easily. However, with all the writing he has had to do, he is making progress in this area. He loves math the most, though I think he is also enjoying learning about mammals. He has not met a book that he doesn't like. For "fun" reading, he picks books about Canada, the Mexican-American war and other wars. He is even reading long chapter books like "The Hardy Boys" series and "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series. He is playing baseball and enjoying being a Tiger Scout. He was absolutely ecstatic when he learned how to shoot a bow and arrow and a BB gun at the last Boy Scout camp.

John, Kindergarten: He is picking up sounds of letters very quickly, knowing at least 13 different letters. We are using the Ruth Beechick method of phonics to teach him to read. It has worked for my three oldest kids and he seems to be enjoying it. He has picked up blending sounds very quickly. While we learned about the letter "L", we worked on his pronunciation so it no longer sounded a lot like the "r" sound. For math concepts, he has learned the days of the week and can count to 100. We are working on months of the year and being able to recognize numbers up to 100, mainly by dot-to-dot pictures. He also listens in on some of our group studies, like science and our history discussions. He is really good in art, IMHO. His biggest challenge is to know when to stop being "funny" or "sarcastic" and give me a serious answer. He is taking Tae Kwon Do twice a week and really enjoys it.

Our week off started with a little excitement as Kyle learned that bagels do NOT need 20 minutes in the microwave on high to defrost. I stopped the microwave much sooner than the 20 minutes mainly because the fire alarm was triggered by the yellow smoke pouring out of the microwave. After turning off the alarm, stopping the microwave and re-assuring the alarm company that we really didn't have a fire, I set up fans to send the smoke outside. The bagel was charcoal and the red, plastic, flower-shaped plate was partially melted. The kitchen still smells of smoke and we are hoping that the baking soda in the microwave will absorb the smoke that seems to have been absorbed by the microwave.

If you are getting tired of homeschool updates, rest assured, this is

THE END.

Bridgetender School Update--pictures

2010-10-23T14:50:00.014-05:00

In case you missed it, I gave a general update of the first quarter of our homeschool. However, I started writing it, then added a link to a worship song that I liked and posted that before I finished the update. Therefore, the Bridgetender school update is below the worship song link. So go here to read it before you continue. Below are pictures of the kids showing off their geology creations. One of the things that Tapestry of Grace had our kids do is create geographic land forms like peninsulas, isthmus, island, mountain, precipices, etc. We used salt-dough clay, which took a while to dry and then painted them. The blue construction paper represents water. Before we destroyed them, I took a picture of each child in front of their creation : John, Jessi, Kyle, and Elizabeth.

I have also included a collage of pictures. Three pictures have kids showing off the paintings they made of a specific mug as part of our art class at home. I don't know why I didn't include Elizabeth's painting. The other pictures are pictures of a hike we took at Papago peak, a collection of "cute, little" mountains separating Phoenix from Tempe. The idea was to try and mimick a Lewis and Clark hike by having the kids carry a backpack full of water, clothes, drawing materials for their journal, and some "provisions". It was perfect because we had never been on this particular trail. Then we talked about the differences between our hike and their exploration, like the fact that we have a restroom nearby, marked trails, a playground, packing a small snack vs. packing food for a month or more with camping provisions, which makes packs a LOT heavier than what they carried. The hike also only took about ten minutes to climb up vs. spending a whole day walking. And if we decided that we were hungry, we had the choice of going to a fast food restaurant to get more victuals. Since the hike and the playground didn't take very long, we drove to a nearby tomb in the form of a pyramid for one of Arizona's former governors and his wife. All this is very close to the Phoenix Zoo and the Phoenix Botannical Gardens.

This month, our homeschooling group had a field trip to Mother Nature's farm. It is not necessarily a place that I would recommend, although it did have a cow that would "moo" on demand and it had a small hay maze that they kids liked and a bounce-n-play. It is primarily is a tourist farm located in the middle of Gilbert suburbia with a clear view of an empty businesss park. They were able to "decorate" pumpkin with foam shapes. Kyle refused to decorate his, however, so we don't have a picture of it. I think Elizabeth would win for most area covered. Last year, the kids and I went to a farm that had a "pizza garden" and an awesome corn maze, which we might re-visit if I can remember the name of the place.

We have a week of rest from school while I get ready for the next unit and we have some fun times together.

Next Post: Bridgetender School Update--The Students.

To Know Your Name

2010-10-17T15:52:00.009-05:00

I am providing a link to a song we sung today at church that really affected me. We have sung it before, but the words seemed more alive today, for some reason. It might have something to do with the fact that I have been reading Randy Alcorn's book, _Safely Home_.

"For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."
Ephesians 3:14-21

P.S. Special thanks to my wonderful husband, who showed me how to embed a video into my blog. He is awesome!

Bridgetender School First Quarter Update--Curriculum

2010-10-15T18:01:00.009-05:00

This posting is for the benefit of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, who I want to thank for their encouragement in so many ways. Homeschooling is more difficult than I ever imagined and, even though I still have a much better teacher-to-student ratio than any public school classroom, it is a huge challenge to teach four children in a one-room schoolhouse environment. Every year, I pray, asking God if He wants me to continue homeschooling and if so, what He wants me to do for the coming year. So far, I still am getting the message to keep them at home. Over time, I am learning that the most important lessons I can teach my kids do not involve history, math, or language arts, but interpersonal communication because I am realizing that the two job objectives given to all humans by God is to "Love the Lord God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind" and "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37). I feel like the blind leading the blind in these two areas, sometimes.

Having said that, I having included a character development skill in our school. Our focus for this year is "listening" and that isn't just in the context of "obeying", it includes knowing when to speak and when to hold our tongues. Our key verse is James 1:19-20. This is an excellent chance for me to improve my listening skills, too. I am finding that they do excellent work when we are practicing as part of school, but aren't so great at applying it to "real world" situations, so I expect it will take a full year to work on it and a lifetime to get really good at it. :-) We are also studying the book of James, using Kay Aurthur's "Precepts for Kids" series.

In terms of academics for the three older kids, we are using Tapestry of Grace for history, geography, and literature; Math U See for math; Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) for a combination of grammer and writing skills; Apologia...Land Animals... for science; reading Spanish-English books for Spanish, and occasionally doing dictation and copywork for penmanship, writing, and listening skills development. We are doing art at home, using Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner to work on their drawing skills as well as suggestions from the Tapestry of Grace arts & activities sections. The kids are attending SportskidzAZ for one day of P.E. a week and they are involved in outside sports activities. John, my kindergartner is currently studying numbers and the calendar for math concepts, is learning letter sounds, and plays or doodles nearby during the group studies for "osmosis" learning.

Tapestry of Grace has required a huge adjustment. It is a curriculum involving books, writing and other activities for a specific period of history that is divided into four different age levels--lower grammer (Kyle), uppper grammer (Jessi) and dialectic (Elizabeth). And it has reading for me so that I know what my kids are learning. I have provided a link if you want more information about it.

The IEW course for writing teaches children to write by giving them a paragraph, teaching them how to create an outline the paragraph and then re-write the paragraph based on their notes. As they improved, you introduce, one at a time, "dress-ups" like a "who-which" clause, participles, and work on developing a list of synonyms for overused words like "small", "nice", "good", etc. You let them play with the different "dress ups" in re-writing. So far, I am using what we are reading in the Apologia science book for source material, though I may include history, too.

I am very thankful to God, who continues to show me ways to improve the schedule and gives me great ideas to make studies more fun, like having the kids "ride the rapids" like Lewis and Clark in a laundry basket down our hallway. It involved me pushing the kids as fast as I could and then releasing them to see how far they would slide. I was half tempted to oil the bottom of the basket if the clean up wouldn't have been so difficult and if there hadn't been a distinct possibility of damaging walls. I am also thankful that we were able to experiment with the schedule for the first month or so before the outside activities began. I am also thankful to my husband, who is such a great encourager when I need it most.

Next post: Children's Progress at Bridgetender School

A Little Like a Jane Austen Trip Part III: The Last of the Journey

2010-10-10T09:35:00.003-05:00

Since I have dragged this out a bit, let me start by re-capping our summer adventures that I have already documented. We left on July 16 for Memphis, where my family was staying--just me and the kids. Eric stayed home to work for two weeks before joining us at our "final destination." We spent six wonderful days with my family before traveling a day to Chicago to visit family and friends for four days. We left early on Thursday, July 29 to drive up an hour north of the Twin Cities to spend 24 hours with my brother-in-law and his wife and four kids who are, roughly the same age as my kids.

My very short visit with them was wonderful. The cousins get along pretty well, especially the first day and my kids were able to attend their church's last VBS night with their three oldest. It meant that I was able to enjoy "girl time" with my sister-in-law as we walked around the small city near their home. We had some plans to do shopping, but, like most small towns in which I have lived, most businesses were closed by 6 p.m. Therefore, we found the local Dairy Queen and then walked off one tenth of the calories that we consumed. The kids were sufficiently worn out and sugared up from VBS. My sister-in-law had already volunteered to watch my kids for a day so that I could meet Eric and have alone time with him for 24 hours before we all met up to get ready for the big event that intiated this long trek--my sister-in-law's wedding. I do believe that this officially qualifies them for sainthood.

Words cannot express how glad I was to see Eric again. Sure we talked on the phone several times a day while I was gone, but touch is one of my "love languages" and I had been starved for two weeks. I felt like I was on my honeymoon again, which is wonderful. It was also the first time we had been alone together on an overnight since we went looking for homes over a year ago, which didn't count much because most of the time, we had a real estate agent with us. We walked around a lake the next day and basically rested in each other's company until it was time to meet up with our brother's family, their kids, and our kids to get ready for the wedding.

The wedding was lovely. For several years, my sister-in-law knew that she wanted to have her wedding in her father's backyard and I don't blame her. Eric's dad lives on several acres with tall trees surrounding the beautifully restored farmhouse. Some of the unique touches to her wedding was having a "unity tree." They both added soil and water to the tree, which represented their living, growing love. They also read a children's book called A Lovely Love Story by Edward Monkton to the 25 kids that were invited to the ceremony. After the ceremony, everyone grazed on all sorts of appetizers--marinated meat on a stick, piles of veggie trays, fruit trays and all sorts of delicious, filling creations. They had beer and wine from places where they had visited and, instead of a wedding cake, they had Girl Scout cookies and cake "shots." All the while, the 25 or so kids played in the grass, in the driveway, drew chalk pictures, on the play equipment and in the playhouse near the trees. There was no dancing, but there was a bonfire later that night where hot dogs could be roasted and s'mores made. And because there was no DJ or dancing, it meant that we could all spend time catching up with family that we hadn't seen in a while, which was VERY nice. It was pretty late at night when we dragged our kids back to the hotel room, where we were going to stay for a night before moving into his dad and step-mom's house for a few days. Then, we spent a few days with his mom and step-dad and his daughter and her family. It was all relaxingAll too soon, it was time for a final load of laundry before heading home.

We left fairly early with Eric driving the whole way. We drove to Sterling, Colorado that first day. In case you were wondering, yes, it was a long day of driving. Our goal was to drive to Arizona from the Twin Cities area in two days with a rest day in between. Sterling is not a town I would recommend. We had a lovely view of the mixed level prison, which was within walking distance. There was also a Travelodge nearby and one of our kids confused the prison with the Travelodge, even though they have never stayed in either. We ate a restaurant that offered "fried macaroni and cheese" on the kids menu, which is as gross as it sounds. The next day, we spent time at Focus on the Family checking out their play area, which is designed after their "Adventures in Odyssey" area. The kids had a great time, though it didn't hold their attention for that long, as is the case with most play structures. We ate at "Whit's End" cafe, which is supposed to be like the soda shop featured in the radio/book/video series, but felt more like an amusement park experience in terms of food quality and prices. After lunch, we drove through a downpour to Garden of the Gods and attended a multimedia presentation and browsed through their book store hoping that the rain would stop soon. In desperation and a bit of boredom, we decided that driving around the park in the thunderstorm would be better than looking at all sorts of overpriced kitch. Just as we were about to leave, the sun suddenly appeared, driving the rain away and enticing us to hike. Within thirty minutes, the only evidence of rain were streams running alongside the trail and some streaks along the rocks as water had fallen. Even those eventually disappeared. Garden of the Gods is incredibly beautiful. I wish we could have spent more time hiking. That night, we stayed at Pueblo, Colorado, which was also chosen for no other reason than it didn't require a long drive and it was further south, bringing us closer to home. We ate at the children's favorite restaurant since hearing a Tim Hawkin's monologue: Cracker Barrell. The last day of travel, which also was a long drive, was pretty dreary, even with entertainment. There were a LOT of pit stops, for some reason, as if our kids didn't really want to be home. Unfortunately, it extended the time in our car to almost beyond patience. I almost cried when, an hour from our house, a child mentioned that they had to go to the bathroom--again. The biggest problem is that because of the route we took, there is nothing within the two hour drive between Payson and Mesa with the exception of a casino that is twenty minutes from our home. It always seems as if the last half our of any excursion is the most painful, whether it is a place where you were visiting or your home. Hearing occasional whining about having to go to the bathroom only made the situation worse. I was so relieved when we finally got home and I was able to get out of the car and into the warm, musty smelling home that I hadn't seen in 25 days. It was dinner time, however, which meant getting back in the car and getting a pizza that we could throw in the oven as well as other basic supplies. Eric and the kids worked at unloading the van of suitcases, sleeping bags, pillows, activity bags, garbage that hadn't been properly disposed of, DVDs and CDs, electronics equipment and a host of other things that we had accumulated.

In some respects, each segment of my trip seemed too short and yet, I don't know if I would make such an oddysey again. Living out of suitcases became very tiresome after the first week, especially when you are sharing a suitcase with four other people who happen to be children that rummage through to find their clothes, mixing the rest of the clothes in a heap. Do you realize how well socks and underwear can hide in big suitcase? If I had been like Elizabeth Bennett and actually stayed a month in one place, it might have been a little less stressful and the kids and I might have been given a more permanent place to put our clothes, maybe even a cabinet as stylish as the one that Lady Catherine deBurgh suggested to Mr. Collins! I also missed my husband's company for two weeks. I missed my dog, Jacques and our daily walks together. I also missed the rhythm of being home, even if that rhythm did not involved going outdoors because it was too hot. The trip did, however, give me a deep appreciation for my kids, who, though not perfect, were perfectly wonderful through all the long car rides here, there and everywhere.

Roots theme

2010-09-28T22:53:00.003-05:00

Before I begin my little ramblings, I would like to point you to a wonderful blog posted by my friend, AquaJane. I enjoy her writing in general and her book, Beyond Betrayal, but this one especially hit my heart as have been struggling with trying to set up a permanent settlement in Arizona after being uprooted by my husband’s job change.

The roots theme has been running in my life for a while now. It started during the Winter/Spring of 2009 when I was working with some women to host a prayer seminar in our church. Most of my contribution was in praying with the women and giving a little bit of input, mainly because I felt like a lieutenant next to some four star general prayer warriors . One time, as we were praying, someone was reminded of a vision one of the women had our church being like prairie flowers that typically had their roots growing very deep beneath the earth’s surface as a representation of our church. As we were praying about that vision, I thought I heard God telling me that sometimes He removes healthy plants with deep roots to transplant in other areas. This came at a time when my husband had lost his job and there was a very real possibility that he would be getting a job out of state and had interviewed for a company in Arizona. One of the things the Women's Ministry did for conferences/seminars was to gather a group of women before the seminar to pray for God to give them scripture verses. AquaJane was given my name and the verse God gave her for me was this:

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."--Isaiah 43:19

God wasn't really being subtle with me, was He? No, he knew that I would need advance warning for the move he wanted me to make and was graciously giving me that advance warning. And two months later, we were down in Arizona. Many times in the last year, I have felt like a withered plant needing lots of fertilizer, water, and TLC. God has been providing the TLC and Living Water, either directly, or through others. I think I have been pretty good at creating fertilizer ;-).

As I have said, my husband and I have been putting down roots in Arizona for the past 18 months. We have found a church that we enjoy and, because we are people who need to be committed, we have been attending a membership class. We have been prodded by God to participate and serve in the church long before this. Last Sunday, before the membership class, I attended a luncheon for one of the groups that I had joined. The woman who was the leader in my group talked about the difficulty she had during her move and how she knew that she needed to become involved and serve in a church in order to put down deep, strong roots to weather the storms of life. Of course, because I have the tendency to cry at the drop of a hat, I could feel the tears well up as God brought the root metaphor up again, reminding me of how faithful He has been through this transplant.

However, God is reshaping my roots. Unlike prairie flowers, cacti don't have deep roots, they have wide spreading roots. I think there are two reasons for this: sand does not allow water to infiltrate deeply as quickly as loamy soil common in the Midwest. Downpours in Arizona can result in flash floods as the water cannot be quickly absorbed and just runs downhill. Most subdivisions around here have areas called "washes", where rainfall is directed onto grassy basins. So it makes more sense for the roots to be at the surface where the water will actually be, rather than digging down deep where water can't penetrate. The other reason is so that the roots can catch water even during brief rainfalls.

And yet, the blooms on a stodgy, cactus, with its bulgy, waxy, green-grey skin are some of the most delicate, translucent beautiful flowers you can find anywhere. So, somehow, God is changing this flashy, deep-rooted prairie flower to survive in the desert. And I am learning that you don't need deep roots or shallow roots to bloom and bear fruit. You need turn to the God who knows you intimately enough to give you exactly what you need to blossom.

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” James 1:17

Jane Austen-like trip Part II: Travel and visiting

2010-09-21T21:16:00.007-05:00

A friend commented that my trip was like travel back in Jane Austen's day except for the fact that I traveled on smooth roads in an air-conditioned vehicle with shock absorbers that went much faster than a coach-and-four, and we could be entertained by more than conversation/staring out the window and with the added convenience of stores/rest stops with indoor plumbing. By the way, did anyone realize that Jane Austen grew up during the reign of King George III, which should be known by everyone as the king who was SO arrogant,pig headed and insane that he lost the American colonies when they rebelled? It puts the interclass romance theme in a different light, doesn't it?

It was great to see my folks. We took in a AAA baseball game, went to the library, played at the park and the kids tried catching the hundreds of frogs that live in my folk’s backyard thanks to a pond in the neighbor’s property. My family and I were able to talk about a lot of things. The kids helped with "quality control" by tasting my dad's frosting before it went on the cake to make sure it tasted good. Because my folks get up really early for work, we went all went to bed pretty early. It was very relaxing.

The trip to Chicago was a little more stressful. I was caught by a policeman just after crossing the Illinois border traveling the Missouri speed limit of 70 mph, which was 15 mph over the Illinois speed limit. I was actually traveling about 75. To make matters worse, I was traveling at those speeds in a “construction zone.” I use quotation marks because there was no evidence of any actual work being done on the road—no construction vehicles, no lane closures, not a single individual in orange walking along the median. There was just the signs warning of a construction zone that wasn’t. I was suspecting that those signs were the latest method in speed traps until someone mentioned that construction workers were on strike. Still, I believe that the devil is basing his roads in hell on the Illinois road system—half completed construction, full of potholes, speed traps and tolls.

I spent three days seeing old friends, which was wonderful. Unfortunately, a lot of the ones I wanted to see at church were on vacation. It was good to see my old church, Trinity Community Church in Libertyville, worship with old friends and listen to an awesome sermon. I hugged and spoke with as many people as I could. I had little get togethers with the different groups of people each day. The kids have had a blast playing with old friends. I have been a little tired from staying up late talking and laughing with friends and some family. We also had an emergency orthodontis appointment due to a wire getting loose. That cut into time I would have liked to spend visiting my old neighborhood. I spent a day cleaning clothes, cleaning up the van, and re-packing. It was a great time, but for my next Chicago visit, I think I will allocate five days so that I can see all family and more friends and still get some rest. By this time, however, I was also really starting to miss my husband and looking forward to our time together.

Next Installment: "Mystery of love, at last I've found you..."

Hodgepodge update

2010-09-17T12:09:00.004-05:00

I deleted my account on Facebook today. I am guessing that it will take a week before I automatically start typing in www.fa.... and have the facebook address not automatically pop up. My brother has accused me of being me melodramatic as I kept saying good-bye so many times. I definitely have not silently drifted away leaving people wondering where I am. I made plenty of announcements, commented on my progress in copying contacts, notes, pictures and other things before cutting myself off from what has helped me or maybe hindered me in making the break God provided. I think that was my point. A friend understood me exactly when she sent me a video which you can watch here. I am tempted to start hyperventilating just thinking about it. However, God did bring me 1800 miles away from the one home I hoped I would always have here on this earth for a purpose and I think Facebook was preventing me from truly plunging into His plan. I have a long list of books to read and home projects that will fill the time if I pull myself away from the computer, because there ARE other things to distract me on the computer. One big advantage will hit soon as my email will no longer be clogged by messages from facebook whenever anyone commented or replied. However, I am already fighting urges to relog onto it. I think I have the same reflex that the person who is trying to lose weight sometimes goes to the refrigerator to look for food just because they are used to going to the refrigerator and eating. I think I deserve and extra big scoop of ice cream for doing what I should have done months ago. Speaking of ice cream...

I lost two pounds last week, bringing me back down to 8 pounds lost overall. I had a bad cold, complete with sore throat, to thank for that because I wasn't hungry, especially for sweets. As I recover, my goal is to get to the table hungry again for every meal and say 'no' to sweets for one day.

This weekend will be very busy. I will be going to a Beth Moore simulcast at my church all day Saturday and then spend most of the day there on Sunday between church, a special meeting and attending a membership class with my husband. Have a great weekend.

Hodgepodge

2010-09-12T21:18:00.005-05:00

At this point in time, I have a bunch of entries to make and not enough time to make them all individual posts, so I am combining a couple of posts into one so that I can continue my vacation blog, though most of the people reading it are the family that I visited.

To Facebook or not to Facebook...
Hello. I am Kristina Overtoom and I am a Facebook addict. I check it several times a day, spending half an hour, on average, at each time. I have developed an unreasonable urge to keep track of every single friend's life, though I am well over 100 friends between old friends, new friends and family. It is cutting into my time with my family, my hobbies and my chores. Even though I believe Facebook is not evil unto itself, I do believe that it is a poor communication device for anything but trivialities and only allows superficial bonding. And since I have allowed it to take over my life, I feel the need to "pull the plug." Forever. Or at least until all the kids are out of the house and I have "all the time in the world. :-)" It has felt like a lifeline to me since I moved seventeen months ago, but it is really a poor substitute for the phone and/or email. I will take the next week to make sure I have contact and blog information for everyone who is my friend and to "give notice" to all my friends so that they don't see me unfriending them and think that I no longer like them. Please pray that God will bring me through this difficult time as I Facebook detox and that I can withstand the urge to create a new identity in Facebook.

The Diet Wars, Parts XVI through XXI: Revenge of the Stress Monster
Returning from my vacation, I had a week to prepare for school. It involved getting familiar with a new curriculum, planning for a new student, John, who is in Kindergarten, and making sure I had all the books I needed at least for the first two weeks. And actually making a schedule. When you are only teaching one child, a schedule is not as necessary because there is only one child. However, with four different children at varying levels and needing help in different subjects, I needed to come up with a schedule that allowed me to flow from one student on the subjects which required individual attention. It was very stressful and I chowed down on lots of sweets, which is my habit. The first schedule I created really stunk, leading to more stress as the school day was much longer than last year because of inefficiences. The school just down the block from our house has been very inviting. However, I keep reminding myself that this IS God's calling in my life and that all callings from God involve difficulties. So the last four weeks, my eating habits have been horrible and I have returned to feeding my sweet tooth which is an old, ingrained habit of looking for false comfort. However, I have only gained back the two pounds that I lost during the vacation, which is, I think, a mercy of God and the result of exercise. Another mercy from God is that He has infused in me a quiet peace over the last few days that, even though I have stumbled, He will carry me through this. "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Phillipians 1:6). And so I am ready to re-group and get back into the game instead of wallowing in self disgust and giving up. I will not make the 40 week deadline, but then again, that was my own goal, not God's. My goal is to get my quiet times back on track, which should be helped as I "feed on him, not on food."

To God be the glory!

My "Jane Austen" trip--sort of

2010-09-04T14:20:00.006-05:00

Before I met my husband, I had heard of Jane Austen, but never really read any of her novels. They are basically romance novels with usually witty dialogue set in England during the reign of King George III (think American Revolution through Napoleonic wars). The first book I read was Pride and Predjudice. I fell in love with her books and devoured every one I could. I have been tempted to re-read her books again. One event that occurs in every Jane Austen novel is a big trip. The middle class heroine, who has wealthy friends or relatives, is invited to mix with the upper class for a month or so. Yes, I said a month. Sometimes, they last several months. So inviting someone to visit you was a serious undertaking in those days.

I embarked on my own “Jane Austen” trip, though I did not stay in any one place for a month. The ultimate goal of the trip was to attend my sister-in-law’s wedding in the Twin Cities area. We knew we couldn’t afford to fly all of us out to Minneapolis and Eric couldn’t afford to take the extra days of driving both there and back. So, I started thinking about extending the trip for the kids and I and visit my family in Memphis, Tennessee. Since Chicago is roughly midpoint between the two cities, I would add even more time to see friends and some family before moving to the “final destination.” Eric would stay at home, take care of the animals for part of the time, then fly up in time for the wedding and stay a week with his family, driving home with us in two days. We would leave in the early morning hours of July 16 and not return until August 10. It meant missing Arizona friends, pets and, for two weeks, my husband. Some friends call me “brave” or “adventurous” for driving that distance with four kids without any assistance, though I wonder if some of them used those words as substitutes for “slightly crazy.” I was fully prepared however, for the trip. We had 16 hours of Focus on the Family Radio Theatre CDs, and 15 hours of movies not to mention activity bags with lots of books and doodling paper and even a quiz game.
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The first leg of the trip--going to Memphis--was uneventful. We listened to The Magician’s Nephew and part of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and watched four movies in the 2 ½ days of driving. I tried to have some extended outside play time in the middle of the trip to burn off energy, though the second day, it was so hot in Oklahoma that no one was interested in running for more than five minutes. The biggest challenge was, of course, potty breaks. However, once again, I am a traveling pro and have established the rule that if one person has to go, then every has to try and go. Every time we had to stop, the kids would wail and protest that “I don’t have to go, Mom!” or “Why are you making me go in when _____ is the one who has to go?” I was the worst culprit at needing potty stops due to drinking several cups of coffee during the morning to get myself going. The kids were really good in the car and even pretty good whenever we made stops, even the ones where the gas station only had one bathroom and there was a line of people waiting to use it. The end of the first day involved eating at a McDonalds with a playland to release some energy in the hopes that the kids would go to sleep early. It didn't work. They were still on Mountain Standard time, two hours difference from Amarillo, Texas. I really pitied the folks surrounding our hotel room on the second night in North Little Rock Arkansas. They were running up and down the stairs and hallways helping me unload the car and sounding like a pack of screeching monkeys riding on the backs of stampeding elephants. The guy staying in the room across from us actually poked his head out of the door to see what was making so much noise. I ended up taking them out to a grassy place behind the hotel to run races and tag for an hour before going inside to get ready for bed. We arrived in the Memphis area around lunch time after getting a really late start to the day. More on my “epic journey” on another day.

Having fun with backgrounds

2010-08-27T23:38:00.006-05:00

I am using Google Blogger and was getting bored with the plain, rather stark purple background, though royal purple is my favorite color. My love of purple started when I saw Donny Osmond, the cutest teenager in the whole world, reveal in "The Donny and Marie Show" that he wore sparkly purple socks. Even though I am no longer smitten by Donny, I still love the color because it is muted without being dull with a hint of sparkle to it. However, just like a little fresh paint makes a room look new, I thought I would play with the background for my blog.

I chose the book theme because I do love reading books. It is common for me to read three or four a time, usually out of necessity. Right now, I am reading John Adams by David McCullough and Voices of the French Revolution, which is a compilation of letters of people at the time and scholarly commentary. I am reading both as homeschool assignments, but I am enjoying getting to know John Adams in more detail. David McCullough does a great job of including the letters of John and Abigail Adams. There is something that I really like about John's stubborness and frankness, though, like all the Founding Fathers, he was a mixure of mud and glory. The book does not paint a complimentary picture of Benjamin Franklin. Apparently, he and King Soloman had shared the same weaknesses.

In the library queue is Inkheart by Cornelia Caroline Funke, which my 11 year old daughter is encouraging me to read, A History of Germany from the Medieval Empire to the Present by Deither Raff , and Spain, 1469-1714: A Society in Conflict by Henry Kamen. I will be reading these after I finish the other two. Ever since I started homeschooling, I have become very interested in history. The new curriculum I am using for history and literature is called "Tapestry of Grace" and the theme is how history is like a tapestry with interconnecting threads. I like that visual.

Now that I have exhausted that stream of consiousness, I will be spending some time over the next few days deciding if I like the new layout or if it is too busy. Please let me know what you think.

Like being involved in a rear end accident

2010-08-12T09:36:00.007-05:00

Last week, after traveling 4,900 miles halfway across the United States and back without incident, a lady crashed into the back of my car as I sat at a light two miles from my home. There is minimal damage to the car and I have just a little pain in my neck, shoulders and back which will go away soon with a little bit of pampering. However, being struck from behind is the last thing anyone ever expects and part of the pain is the unexpectedness of the blow. One of the many ironies is that I was thinking about a couple who had just lost their child a day after she was born and thinking that losing a baby is a little bit like being involved in a rear end accident.

The fact that the woman was pregnant was somewhat of a miracle. Or maybe I should say, more miraculous than the usual conception under the circumstances. Why would God go to the trouble of miraculously creating life and preparing the couple for being parents and then give them so little time? I don't really expect an answer to that question because the One who has the power to create everything out of nothing isn't really answerable to me and, furthermore, it is not my story. For more of their story, go here.

I must confess that babies dying is a little blow to my faith, like a car accident is a little blow to one's confidence. I am tempted to cry out at the unfairness of it all. And yet, when I really think about it, if God is unfair, it is totally in our favor. We are faithless, greedy, self-centered, rebellious people and He has every right to give us the death we deserve. And yet, instead, he asked His Son to pay the penalty and offers those who follow Him an eternity with Him in a place where there is no more sorrow, no more pain and no more suffering. That is a totally unfair deal which I have gratefully accepted and I wish more people would join me in accepting.

To further buttress my faith in times like these, I remember that God is not just good, He is holy and righteous and love. If you think I should have said "loving", you might be right grammatically but in terms of God's character and makeup, my grammatically incorrect statement might be more better :-). Furthermore, Romans 8:28 says that "God works for the good of those who love him..." (I am required as a Christian to quote this under the circumstances). So this appalling situation is somehow, in some currently unfathomable way, meant for good of my friends, their friends and family, who do love God and seek His will.

These rocks of faith, while they take the edge off the pain, I am sure will not prevent the blackness of grief from overwhelming them at times, just as it hasn't always helped me from going over the edge in overwhelming circumstances. But it has in the past prevented me from completely falling into the abyss. About the time I figuratively feel my hands loosen from the end of the rope I am desperately clutching, I find that God has added a ledge just below my feet that allows me to rest before He pulls me back to safety. Therefore, I am certain that He will do the same thing for them because He is the Father of compassion and God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3).

And their faith in overwhelming grief is the stuff of true heros. Read Hebrews 11, sometimes referred to as the annals of God's heros, and then go back and read the actual stories of these list of heros. Most of them were pretty ordinary and had more than one belief/obedience issues with God. And yet, they persevered in their faith in spite of overwhelming circumstances, momentary doubts and backsliding.

"One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that you, O God, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving. . . Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul." Ps. 62:11 & Ps. 143:8 (Thanks to my AZ friend Lydia for posting this verse on Facebook when everything was happening.)

Weight Loss update--weeks 11-15

2010-08-11T12:14:00.003-05:00

Contrary to the lack of postings about my weight, I have not given up my quest to lose 40 pounds, though it won't happen in 40 weeks as I originally desired. However, in the last four weeks, I spent a week getting ready for a 3+ week vacation visiting family and friends in the Midwest, which was NOT a good eating week and the rest of the time was spent on the vacation. While I was away, I didn't want to use another scale to measure my weight. My primary source of information were a pair of brown camping shorts that were just a titch snug starting out on the trip. If they loosened up, then I knew I was losing some weight and if they started getting snug again, then I knew I had been eating too much and needed to reduce my amount. That was my vacation eating plan. I exercised about two or three times a week during my vacation, either walking or running for 15 minutes followed by a 15 minute walk. Sometimes, I swam in a hotel pool for ten minutes. Most of the time, we were staying in someone's house, which meant that I didn't have to over-eat in order to clean my plate. In the past 24 days, we spent slightly more than six days in the car driving from Arizona to Memphis, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver and, finally, home. During the first of my driving days, I ate less, though some of my calories did come from caffeinated products, like Starbucks Double Shot and Rockstar, which was needed to keep me alert on the long driving days with little sleep. I found the McDonalds fruit and yogurt parfait breakfast to be a healthlier alternative to the bread/egg/breakfast meat alternatives. Sometimes, especially if I had a big dinner, I would skip breakfast or have a smoothy type alternative. I had good eating days and I had bad eating days. The worst time I had was at my mother-in-laws house. She had a bowl of chocolate candy that I hid on the second day in a cupboard. She also had cookies stashed in a couple of different places that were fairly easily accessible. Apparently, my "won't power" is not yet up and running when chocolate or sweets are involved. Then there were different beers available, which, of course, are high in calories. BTW, I am a beer snob, and the companies like Bush, Coors and Budweiser that sell beverages that they call "beer" is not real beer, in my not so humble opinion. I tend to like the darker beers, beers that you can almost chew. In spite of that, the brown camping pants, after becoming more snuggy after a particularly bad day, loosened up again. I weighed myself today, since it had been so long and the result is...

Total weight change: 2 pounds lost, 32 pounds to go.

Praise God to whom all blessings flow! Praise God all creatures here below. Praise God above you heavenly host. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Monsoon misery

2010-07-12T22:50:00.005-05:00

Last year about this time, people warned me when we started entering "monsoon season." They told me that we would get more rain and it would be 'humid.' I was a little skeptical since I had just come from Lake County, Illinois, which gets its name from the hundreds of lakes and ponds that add a lot of humidity to the air in the summer. Last summer, I would see thunderclouds forming by the mountain range every afternoon, but no rain and not much humidity. Natives told me that the monsoons skipped us, though we did have a record number of consecutive heat advisory warnings. We didn't get so "lucky" this year. I walked out with Jacques at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning to 38% humidity and near 90 degree temperatures. I could barely breathe, though that might have been due to a lingering cold, too. Now for those of you who think I am a total wimp to complain about 38% being "high", I went to a Heat Index Calculator to see how humidity affects how we perceive the temperature:

* 90 Deg F with 60% humidity (typical Chicago day) feels like 100 Deg F.
* 95 Deg F with 75% humidity (typical St.Louis/Memphis day) feels like 128 Deg F
* 110 Deg F with 20% humidity (typical monsoon Phoenix weather) feels like 122 Deg F.
(source: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/jkl/?n=heat_index_calculator).

I had to look up the term "monsoon" to see where all this humidity is being created, since we do live in a desert. Turns out, the wind changes course in the summer and comes from the south and south east, bringing humid air from the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of California (The strip of water between the Baja peninsula and Mexico). So this humid air comes traipsing into our area, gets hit with the intense heat eminating from the desert and blasts up to higher altitudes, congregates among the mountains, along with any Phoenix resident with a summer home along the Mogollan rim and forms splendid thunderclouds tens of thousands of feet high. Occasionally, it will actually rain in Phoenix. My cousin, who grew up south of Tuscon, said that in her neck of the woods, it would rain every afternoon. However, they are at a slightly higher elevation. Most of the time, it rains in the mountains, which is still good for Phoenix. There are huge cisterns up in the mountains collecting rainwater and snowmelt for the valley. The water is directed into canals that circle and criss-cross the valley so that we can have green lawns, water fountains, and swimming pools in the desert. Of course, the water is practically undrinkable without filtration. Eric can tell you more about the canal system in one of his posts since he and Kyle went to tour the Salt River Project that manages water needs for Mesa.

In the "olden days", people used swamp coolers to keep their houses cool. Air would blow through a tank of water into the house and the extra humidity would cool the house down as the water vapor evaporated. Swamp coolers become useless during monsoon season, which is why I am glad that I have a real air conditioner. The current practice is for restaurants to have misters on the perimeter of their outdoor seating with some sort of overhang to keep the sun off of their guests. Outdoor malls have misters throughout the walkways pouring out mist to help keep people cool in the summer as they walk around in the daytime*. It uses the same concept as the swamp cooler and works okay in the early summer, before monsoon season.

* This is a theory and probably only happens in the morning. Most people I know, if they can help it, stay inside during the afternoon, including me.

So basically, I am telling you that Phoenix is no place to be in July or August and anyone with a summer home in the mountains or elsewhere in the country or a camper will flee town for higher elevations, which are a minimum of 2 hours away heading generally north. Here are some additional statistics:
> Our pool water was a balmy 94 deg this evening. It felt good compared to the 100+ temperature outside.
> At 10 p.m., it is still 95 deg F. Jacques does not get an evening walk until the sun sets.
> The low tonight is supposed to be 85 deg F.
> Tomorrow we are expected to experience a "cool spell" lasting a day in which the temperature is not expected to reach 110. Woo hoo!

The kids and I have an escape plan, too, which was hatched with my sister-in-law Michelle's help (Knitting in Transit). She is getting married at the end of July and all the family is gathering to celebrate. The kids and I are taking a four-week Tour de Midwest visiting family in Memphis for almost a week, stopping for a few days in the Chicago area to have reunions with family and friends and rest up for the next leg of the journey to the Twin Cities area, where Eric will join us for the wedding and some time with his side of the family before we head back to the Oven state, I mean the Grand Canyon state. By then, we should only have a few weeks of extreme heat before it starts cooling off in September. Thanks, Michelle!

Week 10: ZZZZZZZZZ

2010-07-08T22:56:00.003-05:00

This week, I was hit with the cold that my children received. Looking back, it was starting to creep into my system on Sunday, but I was too much in denial to recognize it. Once again, my exercise has been minimal this week. as my cold symptoms ramped up, Eric left for three days to attend his Grandpa's funeral, which is never good for any kind of diet. I tend to get more stressed out, have less sleep and rely on food as my comfort. Seriously, in the past, I have consumed a half gallon of ice cream in two days when he has been gone. This time was not as bad, but I did overdo it on the sweets during a swim lesson party hosted by the kid's swim coach. She is a really nice woman who teaches lessons from her pool around the corner, making swim lessons at two different times tres convenient for me. There were a LOT of sweets and I was feeling tired and harassed by children who have been quick to take offense, slow to listen and slow to forgive. I blame it on the heat, which is another factor in weaknesses. I had to wait until the kids were awake in the mornings before I felt comfortable walking Jacques with Eric gone. By 7 a.m., it is in the 90's. By 8 a.m. the temperature usually is around 100. The heat sucks any energy you have, so most of my walks with Jacques have been very short and not very fast. The heat also creates cravings for cold, sweet dairy products, especially around 3 p.m. I have moved my orange-banana protein shake as a lunch meal, adding a little bit more ice to make it a smoothie rather than breakfast because it is so refreshing.

Good news:
* I didn't gain weight.
* I didn't really binge at any time. I am getting full with smaller portions.
* A pair of shorts that Eric bought for my birthday two years ago that I couldn't snap are now snug. I am wearing them this week to remind myself to bypass hunger a bit and leave the table not satisfied (as opposed to hungry).

The result for this week: no weight loss, 34 to go.

Week 9: Getting extra luggage from our flight

2010-07-01T10:37:00.002-05:00

Apparently, everyone except Eric took on some extra, unwanted luggage on our six plus hour flights from Philadelphia to Phoenix: cold bugs. Three of the kids picked up sore throat/coughing bugs, an additional child withstood that attack only to succumb to 24 hour stomach flu and I picked up some kind of intestinal disorder bug that hung around for a week. The result is that my workout schedule involved walking the dog. Slowly. For short distances. Actually, our first day back, I managed to jog 1.5 miles with the dog before stomach issues eliminated workouts. I am having to walk the dog both times during the day because Eric aggravated some foot problems with all the walking we did while on vacation and is on crutches right now with doctor's orders to stay off the foot for a few days. While I wasn't eating much because of pains that would eventually send me to bed in a fetal position, I think the lack of exercise was also not great. I ended up sleeping a lot during the week and eating a B.R.A.T. diet (Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and Toast) to help my stomach recover. At this point, we are mostly fit as a fiddle. However, illness did not contribute to weight loss, which is okay anyway because illness-induced weight loss is always temporary.

Positives: My husband told me that my waist looked smaller. He is so great at encouraging me! When I returned to working out, I hadn't lost as much flexibility/endurance as I was afraid I had due to traveling/sickness.

The result for this week: no weight loss, 34 to go.

Week 8: An additional blessing

2010-06-24T09:00:00.002-05:00

I knew something was up when I put on my dress for the wedding and it was loose, even when I sat down. The last time I wore it, it was not loose and when I sat down, I could hear the seams begging for mercy. Generally speaking, God gave me a lot of opportunity to not eat a lot of food, hardly eat any sweets and gave me LOTS of opportunity to exercise, even if it was not always aerobic exercise.

The result for the last two weeks: down 1 pounds total, 34 to go.

All glory to God, who, with his might power is able to do infinitely more than we can ask or think. Glory to Him in the church, in Christ Jesus through all generations, forever and ever. Amen!
Ephesians 3:20-21 (NLT).

New England Vacation Part 3: Remaining highlights

2010-06-23T11:44:00.002-05:00

Here is a continuation of my highlights:

12. Best house tour: The Orchard House, childhood home of Louisa May Alcott. It was the best preserved house, followed closely by Paul Revere's house. You could tell the woman giving the tour was a really big fan of the Alcott family.

13. Biggest suprise: Elizabeth demonstrating a hammer she had made using a forked stick, a stone and long stems of grasses twined together. Thanks goes to "Sneaky Uses for Everyday Objects" for supplying her with that information. I think I am going to have to read that book as well as it's two follow-ups so that I can be more like "MacGuyver."

14. Best non-family interaction: Meeting up with old friends from Trinity Community Church.

15. Most informative NPS employee: This is a toss up between the woman who was hanging around the Old North Bridge in Concord, the man portraying Mr. Hartwell at Hartwell's tavern along the Paul Revere route and the gentleman at Valley Forge describing some of the issues surrounding the army and Von Stuben's work in making them a United States's Army rather than a collection of state militias. Very few NPS guides lacked knowledge or enthusiasm for their subject matter.

16. Worst tour: I am sorry to say that it is Constitution hall in Philadelphia. There is a tour every 15 minutes that takes you to three different rooms in Constitution hall. It is too rushed and with crowds, it is almost impossible to really look at the rooms.

17. Loudest moment: This is a toss up between the times the kids became embroiled in arguements and the time at Valley Forge when they shot off the cannon. Kyle, in particular has three volume levels--off, loud and screaming. I think this will change as he gets older, at least I hope so.

18. Most annoying situation: This is another toss up. On the one hand, the teenage couple trying to go up the extremely narrow staircase in the Bunker Hill memorial arm in arm as if they were attached at the hip was very annoying since there is only one staircase for both directions that barely allows two people to pass. They were obviously passing people who were going down as they were trying to reach the top. I asked them to please go single file and they obeyed immediately. I must have been using my "mother's voice" on them. On the other hand, there was the CNN extensive advertisement-disguised-as-a-news-program discussing the upcoming "Woman's Viagra" pill during breakfast at the Residence Inn while my family and I were trying to eat. I am hoping that the subject matter was so foreign to them that the program might as well have been spoken in a different language.

19. Best place to stay for a family of six: Hands down, Residence Inn is wonderful. Eric and I had a room with a door which allowed us to watch a movie or talk after putting the kids to bed (though they rarely fell asleep right away.) They have free breakfasts and offer dinner meals which are free, though they are not always the best tasting food. The Marlborough, MA Residence Inn is much better than the Cherry Hills, NJ Residence Inn.

20. Most beautiful sight: All of the green trees, green grass, and budding flowers that I don't see in Arizona. I love the mountains of Arizona and ruddy rock I see in different places, the saguaro cactus standing tall and the smoke ash trees which bloom purple in the spring. However, it was so wonderful to see tall trees full of big, green leaves and so many flowers that would wilt within hours of being transported to the desert. I also loved seeing the fireflies twinkling around fields at the wedding reception, which was held outdoors. I miss them.

21. The one thing I don't miss from the east: humidity. Our last day in New England was the hottest and muggiest of our vacation. I loved the cool 70's of Boston and having to deal with rain. However, take that same humidity level and up the temperature by twenty degrees and I consider it as uncomfortable as Arizona in the 100s. I like to have my sweat evaporate rather than cling to my arm like two teenagers going steady.

22. Best way to end a vacation: a wedding party celebrating a commitment two different people are making to love and honor each other above all others, allowing distant family members to gather together and catch up on their lives.

New England Vacation Part 2: Half of the highlights

2010-06-22T09:23:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, I gave you a little summary of our trip to New England. For the next two days, I am listing highlights from our vacation in no particular order. In the spirit of "This is Spinal Tap", I am giving you an extra highlight a day because ten isn't quite enough.

1. Most like "The Amazing Race" moment: Running from one end of the Minneapolis airport to the other trying to catch our connecting flight to Philadelphia. Our flight from Phoenix to Minneapolis was delayed getting to the gate. The arriving gate was at the opposite corner of the Minneapolis airport from the departing gate and they were announcing the final boarding call for our Philadelphia flight as we emerged from the first plane. The kids were awesome, especially John. It helped my weight loss plan in two ways--I got exercise and my lunch ended up being a ciff bar and 1/3 of a snack case. Those snack cases are airway robbery but it is better than virtually nothing.

2. Funniest moment on our vacation that did not involve kids occured at Paul Revere's house. After slipping through a gaggle of teenagers hanging out in front of the gate, we had an interesting conversation with the ticket agent (TA).

Eric: Two adult tickets and four children's tickets, please.
TA: Sorry, no school groups allowed .
Me: We aren't a school group.
TA: Well they are all wearing the same colored T-shirt (same color, four
different designs with no school identification on any of them).
Me: That is a coincidence. We are a family, not a school. Four kids usually
does not make up a school, though these days it does seem to make a large
family. (thinking to myself-- now is NOT a good time to mention homeschooling).
TA: Oh, okay.
Note: There were probably about 20 school groups that day getting a tour of
the Boston Freedom trail, all wearing the same color shirt for each school with
the school logo prominently displayed. Paul Revere had sixteen children born to
two different wives . He probably wouldn't have been able to tour his own home
because he would have been mistaken for a school group.

3. Scariest moment of our vacation: Driving through the bad side of Camden, NJ when Eric made a wrong turn. Fortunately, it was daylight and we turned around pretty quickly and got back on the right road. If you ever end up in Camden, New Jersey, DON'T go down Federal Road.

4. Most enjoyable time with the kids: Walking along the path between Brook's house parking lot and Hartwell Tavern along the Paul Revere trail and watching our kids pretend to be Colonial Minutemen (or should it be Minutepersons since the girls were also participating?) shooting at the British regulars, which would be Eric and I.

5. Quotes from the kids:

* John, upon studying the Liberty Bell: "It looks like a real bell!"

* Jessi, after hours of seeing nothing but trees off of the interstate in Massachusettes on our way to Boston: "It's a good thing Massachusettes doesn't have many people. It sure makes traveling easier."

* Kyle: "Pow", "bang" and other various exploding noises. He is a man of few words, but many sounds. The most frequently repeated conversation with Kyle was the following: "I have to go to the bathroom!" Eric: "Why didn't you go to the bathroom five minutes ago before we left?"; Kyle: "I didn't have to THEN!" This conversation usually took place in the middle of nowhere with bathrooms at least a half hour away.

* Sad to say, I can't remember any particular memorable quotes from Elizabeth, but that could be because she is in a "face making" stage at this time. When she is upset, she will scowl and grimace and glower, sometimes combined with a "harumph". When she is excited, she will make all kinds of wonderful faces, usually involving smiles, and squeal and when I try to kiss or hug her, she will put on a look of mock horror and do her best to thwart me.

6. Biggest disappointment: Philadelphia Cheesesteak. Maybe my mistake was in choosing cheese whiz instead of provolone because a native told me the original was made with cheese whiz. Chicago's Italien Beef sandwhiches taste much better, IMHO.

7. Biggest frustration: This was a tie between driving through the outskirts of New York and discovering that some of the state parks in New Jersey and Philadelphia were closed on Monday. We had to drive along the outskirts of New York City to get from NJ to Plymoth, MA. It took us two hours to drive 15 miles even though we were miles from downtown. Part of the delay, however, was the two bathroom stops required by Kyle, who drank most of his water in the first hour of the drive. When we planned our trip we were originally going to do a driving tour on Sunday and walk around Philadelphia on Monday, but, after spending more than six hours in a plane the previous day, Eric and I thought the kids would want to walk instead of sit in a car, even for brief periods. Unfortunately, two of the parks I wanted to visit--Brandywine Battlefield and Washington Crossing Park--are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays due to budget cuts. Arizona is not the only state to be cutting its state parks budget, apparently.

8. Most enjoyable time with Eric: snuggling with him after putting the kids to bed and watching "Young Frankenstein" for the first time and having conversations with him that were uninterrupted by the kids.

9. Best night: Without a doubt, my cousin's wedding reception. It was great to see cousins and aunts and uncles I hadn't seen for a while, and get to know their spouses. I also enjoyed dancing with Eric, dancing/cuddling with John and dancing/wrestling with Kyle. I also liked dressing up.

10. Best dinner: Yao's Chinese food in Princeton, NJ. It has been way too long (14 months) since I have had good Chinese food. I couldn't stop eating. The food at the wedding was fabulous, but it wasn't Chinese food.

11. Traveling statistics: We flew a total of twelve hours to get to Philadelphia and back. We drove a little more than 1000 miles between Philadelphia and environs, Boston and environs, and driving to the reception and back, which was another 12 or so hours in the car. The kids watched six movies during the travel days--one for each plane we rode, one on the way to Boston and one returning from Boston. They bought a momentos in each city and three of the kids chose books as one of their momentos. The kids earned four Junior ranger badges in four national parks, with the exception of John, who didn't want to work for the Minuteman Badge. We probably averaged walking 2 miles a day in each city.

Eric has posted pictures on Facebook that I have shared, since we don't necessarily share Facebook friends. We will be updating those pictures periodically.

Our New England Vacation--part 1

2010-06-20T22:42:00.007-05:00

We took a tour of Revolutionary War sites in Philadelphia and Boston, adding a couple of stops in places anchored in other times. We visited most of the historic places in Philadelphia one day, the USS New Jersey and the Aquarium next door on another day. We took a day to drive to Boston, taking a scenic route on the way there to stop at Plymoth. We walked the Freedom Trail in Boston, as well as a tour of MIT thanks to Eric's former co-worker, who is a professor there. The next day, we took Paul Revere's route backwards, which, coincidentally enough, is the path that the British regulars took after "the shot heard 'round the world" caused them to return to Boston after failing to secure Colonial munitions supplies and failing to arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams. We returned to the Philadelphia area, stopping at Morristown, NJ, which was one of the wintering spots of Washington's Army after Valley Forge. The morning of the reception, we went to Valley Forge, met some old friends who moved to the area a couple years ago and then left to get ready to go to the reception. It was a wonderful trip and I will be sharing highlights from our vacation over the next few days.

Week7: Vacation update

2010-06-19T06:54:00.002-05:00

First of all, I have no idea how much I weigh. All I can go by is the fact that my snug shorts are no longer snug. They are actually a bit loose. God has really been with me and helping me. The first day of our trip, traveling from Arizona to Philadelphia via Minneapolis, our plane to Minneapolis was so late that as soon as we got off our first plane, our second plane was in the process of final boarding. And, of course, the departing gate was almost as far as it could possible be from our arrival gate. We literally ran from one end to the other without any opportunity to pick up lunch. Lunch was a Cliff bar and 1/3 of a snack box and a bag of peanuts. The next day, we didn't each much either. With the exception of yesterday, we have been bringing sandwhich fixings, snack veggies and fruit with us and eating in the car. Because we are staying at a Residence Inn, several times we have either fixed dinner ourselves or eaten their dinner, which is buffet that allows a person to chose as little or as much as needed. Last night was my worst night in terms of eating because we stopped at a Chinese restaurant that ended up serving excellent food (Yao Chinese food in Princeton, NJ). It has been so long since I have eaten excellent Chinese food, I ended up binging and seriously regretting it. Our trip has also involved a lot of walking. Even our road trip between Philladelphia and Boston involved stops to tour historic sites. Our biggest day of walking was probably Boston, when we walked The Freedom Trail, roughly 2.5 miles, was given a tour around MIT by one of Eric's former co-workers who is now a professor there and climbed up 294 steps to the top of the Bunker Hill Memorial. That does not include steps we climbed up and down to get to various T stations going back and forth from the Freedom Trail and Cambridge. During our stay in Boston, we were on the 4th floor of a Residence Inn and the only time I used the elevator was at the end of that day, when I had to wash clothes. I was so tired, my feet were sore and I had no intention of carrying bags of dirty laundry down the stairs. So, it was good. I will be posting a blog about our trip soon. But now, it is on to Valley Forge before going to a wedding reception on our last day of the trip

Week 6: Back in the Saddle

2010-06-10T08:15:00.003-05:00

Weight loss is not an exercise in perfection. Thank you God for that small mercy. I had two days of what I would call “bad sweets days”. However, in the past, I would have described them as “good days”, so progress is being made. I have discovered that eating too many sweets have started to bring on feelings of nausea. Apparently, I can no longer drink a full bottle of I.B.C. root beer. Nor can I eat more than three chocolate chip cookies. I wonder how much ice cream will make me sick—just kidding! I think God has actually answered a prayer that I have only half seriously prayed for the last four years when I have told the story of my daughter’s problem with sugar. One night, when she was six, she ate seven or eight oreo cookies during small group Bible study in our home. That night, she threw up. She had one other incident of eating too many sweets and throwing up and now, she will start feeling sick as she is reaching the threshold of too much sugar and will stop and refuse to eat any more of a dessert. Whenever I have told the story, I usually end it with, “May God smite me with that affliction.” I am usually laughing after the last line because God usually does not answer those types of prayers. However, over the past four weeks, He has changed something in my body so that I feel the consequences of too much sugar pretty quickly. Or, maybe with eating fewer calories in general, sugar has more of an impact on my system than when I was eating excessive amounts of good food as well as more sugary foods. Even that, however is to His glory since He made the human body “fearfully and wonderfully” (Psalm 139).

I have developed some strategies for our upcoming trip. First of all, we aren’t always going to be eating dinner out. We are staying at a Residence Inn throughout our trip because they are cheaper than the two hotel rooms needed for a family of six, which especially add up in the Boston/Philly area. This means that we can cook meals there. I think part of vacation is getting to try new restaurants and not having to cook and clean. However, having a pot of spaghetti one night or something just as simple another night isn’t too much work. The second strategy is to bring a pair of shorts that are still snug. They are not as snug as they used to be, but I am sure that if I consistently eat too much, they will get snuggier (yes, I know that "snuggier" is not a word). I am also bringing some exercise shorts that Eric purchased for me last year that are a bit snug so that I can be reminded to not eat as much. I will also deliberately leave food on my plate. And of course, the strategy that I am continuing to work out imperfectly is to rely on God rather than on food when I am stressed or lonely or frustrated.

I am still exercising five times a week. I am jogging/shambling almost a mile now. For two days this week, I walked away from the dinner table still hungry after eating a little bit, which coincided with those two bad sweets days. I have imperfectly memorized Ephesians 3:16-21 and will be working on it more this week, as well as reviewing 2 Corinthians 3:18 and Ephesians 1:18-20. The real key is remembering and reciting the verses in Ephesians when some sort of sugary temptation is singing its siren song so that I can actually resist temptation. 2 Corinthians 3:18 is what I remember when I fail those temptations. I have to praise God for all He is doing and all that I know that He will continue to do to change me from the inside out.

The result for this week: down 2 pounds, 35 to go.