Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back...

So I'm going through the stages of grief...apparently.

It would appear that I am caught up in stage 4...depression.  It's either that or denial and anger, which would be stages 1 and 2 combined.

Whatever.

Our house is still not on the market and with the stickler we have for a realtor (who is a great Christian guy but who has no kids, doesn't homeschool the kids he doesn't have, and has no concept of my life) it may never get there.

Actually, the house looks better than most he's shown us.  Far better.

Really good, for a homeschool house.

The kids rooms are immaculate.  Sweet!  How long will that last?

And yet, there are minute little details that prevent the official photographer from being able to take pics.

I can't even remember what they are - which is part of the problem.  They are so minor that my brain keeps going haywire on me.  I need to make a list.

Problem two:  I'm soooooooooo tired.  No really.  My body feels like a bag of water that sloshes around every time I move.

My arthritis is causing me screaming pain and sometimes I just want to cry because I feel so unable to tackle the things that need done.

School is somewhere in oblivion at the moment and I'm supposed to give a speech on diligence this weekend; I feel like the least diligent person alive right now.

I don't sleep at night.  I lay in bed until I can't anymore, get up and check on the kids, lie in the chair for a while, watch some internet TV, try to sleep again, take the youngest back to bed at 3 am after a bad dream.  Then, usually around 3:30 or 4 am, I doze off until morning.

I wake up feeling like the dead, assuming I have a vague idea of what that is (not really).  

I guess I thought moving would be for others in my family what it was originally for me; a great adventure.  Exciting.  

Now it has become this thing we have to do, and since we're just exchanging one cookie cutter suburban home for another I seem to have lost momentum.

I am not a mundane kind of girl.  I NEED MOMENTUM!  Whew!  That was exhausting.  See what I mean?  Even typing this is wearing.

So the photographer won't be coming tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day.  The flowers are all falling from the bushes and the intense heat may turn the beauty of Spring into a dull imitation of what was. and we'll have photos of that instead.  

But somewhere out there is someone who will love it all anyway and see that this is home, right?  

Right.  RIGHT!

Okay.  Okay.

The tears are welling - STOP!

I'm praying, it's the only thing I can do that gives me a sense of accomplishment.  It's powerful that way.  But it doesn't dust the furniture.  Or pack up the extra shampoo bottles and lotion and medicines so the closet looks like this is really a hotel.

But it is so comforting.  It is all I can do at the moment so I will continue.

I have a marathon day of kids lessons and activities ahead of me - no time for packing today.  And I must be diligent in my efforts to finish my speech on diligence before Friday.

Then I must summon the strength of Spartans to haul twenty tubs of books down to the homeschool conference friday night, set up, and be spic and span for my booth and customers.  They inspire me, these people who homeschool.  They are friends and acquaintances and strangers, but they are all on a mission from God, like me; to educate their children at home in a safe and wonderful environment of love and nurturing.  Yea us!

So now I am going to seek ibuprofen (if there's any medicine left in this house that I can find - oh, wait...I haven't packed it yet.  Good.) and then I am going to hope and pray that some energy seeps back in to my sloshy body to fuel my day.

I hope you are having a great day.  And if you happen to be moving, feel free to share your experiences with me.  Hopefully, we can encourage one another about how all this will eventually result in a wonderful home where our family will embrace the joy of living and serving God.

See ya!

When Your Dream Dies, Part 2

It was a rough night.  Tears.  Thoughts.  Prayers.

I almost deleted the previous post but the Giant stopped me (that's my DH.)

It's queer to seek refuge in a blog.  Yet it's cathartic.  Weird.

I keep thinking that someone out there gets it, understands exactly what I feel right this moment.  Even though only two people read my blog!

I hope someone in a similar situation who needs to know they are not alone reads it someday.  Maybe its one of you two, maybe not.

I woke up today thinking about simplicity.  I think God put that in my head.  Last night the kids and I watched a movie about St. Therese of Lisieux and her "little way."  She was a carmelite nun at the age of fifteen who dies from tuberculosis.  She and all of her sisters became nuns.  Theirs was a simple faith and their life's calling was simple - serve.

So today I embark on a path of simplicity.  In the midst of all this cityness that I so despise, we will make it our goal to find simplicity in everything and to live simpler lives; employing a simple, childlike faith.  This is motivating and calming me in the whirlwind of recovery, which may take some time.

I know myself and I see days coming that are full of excitement about moving, and then days of despair when I recall what we didn't do.  As I often do, I will get wrapped up in making and creating, trying to "do" away the time I might spend longing for what I can't have.

I'm not practical, and I praise God for it.  I'm the kind who builds castles in the air and dreams far bigger than I have a right to.  I've been told on more than one occasion that I'm a snob or that I have no right to think I deserve such things when so many are in hopeless places with hopeless lives.

All I know is this; I can do far more for the hopeless when I feel I am following God's plan for me.  He made me to be a big dreamer, a big doer, and to think that no mountain is too high to climb.  Who am I to question Him?  He is the great Creator and His imagination and design in making me was not flawed, he knew me while I was yet in my mothers womb.

A few weeks ago I had a vision while sitting in church listening to a guest speaker.  I used to have visions often when I was younger.  This one caught me off guard because I haven't had one in so long.  It was simple.  I was thinking about all of my frailties that keep me from doing things and I was wishing I could do more.  I looked up and there was Jesus in Heaven; bright, shining, standing tall and glorious in white robes.  His arms were outstretched and He was laughing.

He was laughing.

It was a big thunderous laugh and yet He hardly moved.  His face lifted as He laughed, His chin elevated from the joy of it.

In that moment I realized He was laughing because I was there, ready to receive anything He was willing to give me in that moment.  He wanted me to ask for so much!  He wanted to heal every infirmity in my body, He wanted to show me that He's there and His gifts are free to those who believe and trust in Him.  "Ask!" He was saying, "ASK!"

I felt the Holy Spirit wash over me and cleanse me.  My hands, which hurt daily from cysts and arthritis suddenly felt strong and pain free, my knees ( a long time cause of suffering and pain) on which I knelt there with the throngs of others felt nothing but the soft pillow under them rather than the prickles of nerve damage and stiffness of arthritis.

I began to smile.  It was all I could do to keep from laughing myself.  He laughed, I smiled.  The moment lasted so long - truly it was five minutes or more.

I spoke of it a little to my husband, but these things are hard for others to understand.  The healing was not the kind to last beyond His time for me to have it, or maybe my faith is too weak to fully receive it.  But I feel remnants of it here and there.  And I still see Him in my head and I know He is so full of joy in the idea of us coming to Him with our troubles that it brings Him to a place of laughter when we say a feeble "yes" if even for a moment.

When we sing "Come to the Water" we have no idea what that means.  There He is, wanting to heal us, wanting to help us to change the world in grand ways with simple acts of love and there we are, gazing out over the Grand Canyon wondering how to get across.  He comes to us and shows us the bridge while we foolishly cling to the ledge crying out like spoiled children.  The table is before us, a feast unimaginable.

In my smallness I will remember to eat from His table, and then the loss of my dream here on earth may give way to something far bigger, and I may find myself transformed in ways even I have never dreamed.

When Your Dream Dies...

Today is a hard day.  It's been looming for a long time, but here it is smacking me square in the stomach and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

I've long known that some people don't speak my language.  Some people think my language is jibberish.

See, I speak a language that involves experiences that other people find silly, nostalgic, or highly impractical.  This kind of behavior was embedded in my soul by the Creator and as a child I fully embraced it.  As I got older folks would chide me for being too emotional or tell me to get my head out of the clouds.  God is in the clouds, why would I want to abandon them?

God is in a moonlit night.  God is in the stars.  He dwells among the quiet places where the wind whispers, tickling the trees and bending the daffodil.  He speaks to me in moments when I can do nothing but hear the thunder of His love in a garden where jasmine sends wafts of fragrance over me, or the chirp of the birds remind me how much care He took in creating an opera of natural music just for me.

I used to walk to places that seemed lost or forlorn to find Him.  I sought out the solemnity of quietude in places where the busyness of city could be forgotten.

I have longed my entire life to live in a place where this could be my daily experience.  No neighbors whose phone could interrupt my solitude.  No dogs barking from too close proximity to break the reverie of prayer and meditation.

It was so close.

I will never see it this side of Heaven.

My destiny seems to be a plot in suburbia where I will dwell among the many of us who only dream of such a life.  Mary Engelbreit says to "Bloom where you're planted."  I get the theology behind it and I embrace that, but I don't want to be planted just anywhere.

I want to bloom to my fullest potential in a place that feeds my soul.  I will always embrace the gifts I have been given; a lovely family and home, a husband with a great job and all that goes with that.  But I've wanted this for so long that the realization that it isn't to be is...well... heart rending.

So many people accept that to commune with nature is to go to a park and carve out a little space in the crowd to call your own for 30 minutes.  I don't think that's how God meant it to be for us.  Jesus himself went away at times to be alone in nature to pray and hear God's voice.

I have heard the voice of God.  I have lain on the grass and been overcome by His immensity.  It's so much easier to do when no one is watching.

Scott Hahn talks about these things in a book I'm reading and how he sought out a place in the city in the middle of the night and prostrated himself at the foot of a cross and wept.  How many people would do this?  So few.

I would do it if I had that place in the country because that's what feeds my soul and makes me open to those experiences.  I'm weak around too many people.  I second guess everything I do.  I feel shackled among the throngs of people whose eyes judge and mouths voice opinion.  Who am I to do things to upset the balance of life.

I'm just so fragile and weak.

It's not an excuse and while many of you will think I'm whining, it's far different than that.  It's a loss that I am mourning.

I am mourning.

I am torn from the place where I can find Him so easily.  My soul is breaking open in despair.  I long for Him to nurture me and I see cars speeding by, fast food chains, and shopping malls.  Will my children ever know what it means to "Be still and know that I am God?"

Not in a once-in-a-while kind of experience like some people are satisfied with but DAILY!  Can I learn to teach them to do that when my own soul is screaming from the noise and can't hear anything?  I am drowning in this vacuum of come and go.  I'm like a child fallen in a well screaming at the top of my lungs whom no one can hear because it just blends into all the other sounds that make up a day.

I know friends will say if you can't do it here you won't do it there.  I also know that's completely wrong.  I know myself.  I know my past.  I know the desires of my heart.  I know the me God made and I know this ache stems from more than just a misguided desire for something different.

This isn't something that just popped up recently.  It's a lifelong passion.  A hunger.  A longing.

Yes, there's some anger rising up because as much as I love and respect those who give me advice, I wish I had the nerve to really take them on in this argument.  No one knows me like He does.  And no one will ever know the pain that has come from this dream being abandoned for the sake of...convenience?  I can't explain any more of this, it's not for a blog.

I will always love too deeply and be far too passionate in all my endeavors.  But that is who I am.  Healing will come in time, and Jesus is my refuge in the time that it will take to mend (and beyond.)

I am destined to read the blogs of those who daily post about how they are nurtured by nature, fresh air, and the slow pace of country life.

I will read them and my soul will cry a little each time I feel the tug on my heart.  But I'll read on.

God bless you for blogging, keep me in your prayers.

Like Mary, I will cry out,

"My soul doth magnify the Lord.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."    ...wherever I am.

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

I just signed Jamie Oliver's petition for the food revolution.  While watching episode 1 of season 2 I began to cry as the loads of sugar overwhelmed the fake poster board kids inside that school bus.  I don't know what got me more, the vast amounts of sugar or the tiny crowd that showed up to watch it.

After watching season 1, I changed some things about my kids' diet.  First I eliminated the choice of chocolate milk that was sitting on every shelf in every restaurant at which we ate.  I simply told my kids that they could have the white milk, not the chocolate.  At first they would say, "But why?  I like this better."  I replied that it was loaded with extra sugar and would make them really excited and then really tired and that that wasn't good for them.  You know what?  They didn't balk.  Nope.  They reached their rosy little hands up and grabbed that white milk and drank it down, no more questions asked.

Since then we are white milk only and no regrets.

Today he exposed some disgusting habits the USDA uses to add filler to hamburger meat used in school lunches and packaged in grocery stores.  It made me sick.  Let's just say ammonia is not an ingredient I would expect to be in my meat purchases.  Surprise, surprise, surprise. Ugh.

I am now going to lobby that all grocery stores supply free wifi so that I can take my laptop and google info on everything I want to purchase.  Seriously.

I won't even mention the high fructose corn syrup issue in this post, but I will say we need to take back our government and our rights.  Whether it's schools, food, or pharmaceuticals Americans have let these big companies gain far too strong a foothold inside our government and they are killing us using a weapon that is almost impossible to fight:  our own ignorance.

I'm mad as a hornet that my government thinks I'm dumb enough to fall for this nonsense.

I want full disclosure from the FDA, the USDA, the Health Department, on food labels and everything I purchase that MIGHT EVEN SLIGHTLY cause harm to my family if I bring it home.  Then I have no one to blame but myself.

Come on moms, get mad with me and join Jamie's food revolution.  Then let's band together and take on city hall, Congress, and more!

Here's to fresh food and healthy eating, God bless.

I Have a Follower!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, it's those little things in life that make it grand and today I discovered that I have a follower on my blog!  Yeah, it's my best friend and yeah, she's totally awesome to be the first.  Thanks so much MW, you just made my day!

Moving Jitters

Okay, weird things happening in my brain.  After two years of wanting to move the realtor is finally coming next week to list the house.  The painting will be done, the stuff is all packed up in storage, and my house is now available for strangers to enter and critique for better or worse.

Little butterflies are starting to cause nausea in my tummy.  Is this really happening?  For real?  No joke...I mean you're not going to holler "April Fools!" or anything like that, right?

Where are these crazy feelings coming from!  I want to move, I've been praying and wishing and hoping and dreaming.  So now the what if's begin...what if we can't find a house after ours is under contract?  What if we get to the country and decide we're really city people after all?  What if...

Oh boy, this is a bad line of reasoning.

I have a very dear friend who is very sad that we are moving.  She is afraid that we won't see each other much.  It's the one thing I'm not worried about.  Strange, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that some things you just make happen because they are necessary.

I think for part of me this move is about having faith in myself.  I am a good mom, a good teacher, and a good wife.  I need a place to stretch out and be those things on my own terms.  I'm a pretty big personality and apparently, I need a little more room than the average person.  I'm not boasting; I consider it a hindrance that needs an outlet for healing.  Room to run, space to yell and holler, no one peeking in my windows or driving down my street unless they have reason to visit me and mine.

How sweet would that be?

The butterflies are settling down.

I have a destiny with the sunset, with the garden I haven't planted yet, with watching my kids tame the land, with shearing sheep and spinning wool, with milking the goats and fetching the eggs.

The butterflies are gone.

My one room school house is out there somewhere, waiting for us to inhabit it with love and learning.  I long to hear my husband come home from work and holler, "I'm home!" knowing the neighbors can't hear and aren't sneaking a peek to see who just drove up the street.

I know my hubby will thrill to the idea of tractor mowing, fence building, and teaching our kids everything there is to know about farming - even if it will be on the small side.

I see ruddy faces, muddy boots, and a few dead snakes in my future.  Oops, the butterflies woke up.

Well, life doesn't come with guarantees, so I'll just keep the Pepto Bismol handy and go for it.

Love to you all and blessings!

Coughing up the night...

Well, it's 4:24 am and here I am, sitting at my computer because I've been coughing all night and finally gave up on sleep.

I decided to check my email and found several more papers to grade from students who I'll see tomorrow in class at co-op.

This was not a banner week for essay writing, apparently.

These are great students and really great people.  I like them a lot and look forward each week to seeing them in class and discussing the material they are learning.

I teach writing.  Grades 5-12.  Whew!

I love it.  I mean...I LOVE it.

That said, I worry a lot.  We use a great program.  It's so great I decided to sell it myself through my business where I also sell curricula that I've written.  You can visit my website here.

So we have this great program we're using, but the older kids really struggle sometimes.  I know essay writing is not all sugar plums and sweet dreams, but it's not all that hard either if the proper foundation has been laid.  Therein lies the rub.

I've been reading lately about the state of education in America because I'm giving a presentation in three weeks and I'm beefing up on my facts.  Well, if you want to get really depressed Google 'the failures of education in America' and read what comes up.  Ugh.

We're currently ranked 23rd in the world in terms of being well educated.  23rd.  How many world powers are there?  Us, China, Russia, Europe...how can you be a world power if you're not well educated?  23rd?  Bear with me...

During WWII the thing that set us apart was that we were smart and we made exceptional decisions that won the war for us in the end.  Using the Cherokee language as code because it couldn't be broken, stealing German technology and scientists out from under the enemy, and other less well known strategies that defeated the enemy due to pure unadulterated intelligence.

I have to say, I hope our military men are better educated than the kids of the same age working at jobs where they can't even count back change with my receipt.  Does anyone else find this frustrating?  Do you notice when your child writes a run on sentence or uses a sentence fragment to express an idea on paper?

I read that many teachers in high schools today are not even trained in the area they are teaching.  Yep, you read that right, a math teacher was teaching high school and he had never taken college level math.  Think about it, a teaching degree is all about psychology and classroom management these days.  It has to be, no discipline allowed.  What a nightmare.

Remember one room schoolhouses?  No, not personally or in your own experience, but the things we read about them in Little Women and Little House on the Prairie and Anne of Green Gables.  What about self educated men like Abraham Lincoln and Ben Franklin?  Is that legacy lost forever?  Learning for the sake of learning; the ideal of being well spoken and a critical thinker, of being knowledgeable in all things - a renaissance person.

I have to go to class tomorrow and tell my students that their essays were poorly done this week.  They smack of "I did it last night" or "I only had an hour" or some other feeble excuse.  I know kids are busy these days; that's part of the problem.  Since we cut back on activities my kids' schoolwork has greatly improved.

Don't get me wrong, we still have times when things don't get done for one reason or another.  But they do have the benefit of a lighter schedule these days.

Just do me a favor as a fellow teacher and home school mom; raise the bar a little everyday.  My favorite boss said, "Inch by inch, it's a cinch!"  She was so right.  23rd?  That just won't do.

We may never displace China because their methods are corrupt and appalling, but we should set our sights on Belgium.  Google that and see what you think.

As for laying a better foundation, the problem lies in the curricula.  School is not about memorizing a set of facts to take a test on later.  Fact memory work only involves the short-term memory in the brain and the retention probabilities for that information is sketchy at best.  Can you name all the presidents?  Can you name all the capitals of all 50 states?  Probably some, but not all.  Yet I bet all of you can do your multiplication tables ( I won't ask about long division - is that a lost art too?)

You can do the multiplication tables because you used them repeatedly to do other things.  You didn't just memorize them and leave them alone.  A good foundation teaches skills that are used repeatedly from grade to grade and on into life. 

In English, grammar skills are no longer taught comprehensively.  Students don't learn phonics they learn sight words.  Tangent:  This is why we started homeschooling.  My daughter's Kindergarten teacher gave me a list of 150 words that she needed to memorize the spellings for.  I said, "When will she learn the phonics rules that apply to these spellings?"  They said that I should let them do their job and I should do mine.  I not so nicely replied that I had time time teach the phonics rules if they didn't and we came home to school.

Phonics are key.  They lay the foundation for understanding our language, and it's not an easy language to learn.  English spelling is a combination of Greek, Latin, French, and German words.  What a conglomeration.  Learn the phonics rules; make your life simpler (and theirs). 

Schools wouldn't dream of doing copywork - they'd probably call it plagiarism.  Yet when students actually commit plagiarism, or businessmen or women commit fraud, they get a light slap on the wrist.  What has the world come to?

I realize this is long and that I'm ranting some.  But it's a valid rant and I hope it finds an audience who will embrace it and rant with me.  Let's rant until our politicians rant and demand better schools and teachers and a better test score.  After all, a 23 is an "F" in anyone's book.

Good night, or...well, good morning!

Moving versus Spring

The house preparations are now continuing; the painting and patching and boxing up of life.

And outside there is a transformation that took place while we were gone for two weeks in Oklahoma.

The roses are all in bloom, as is everything!  It is so beautiful every time I pull into the driveway I stop and admire it.

Moving, ugh.  Spring?  Ahhhh.

Moving...stress.  Spring?  God's laughter exploding in my garden.

Moving...do I really have the energy to pack another box?   Spring?  Oh my!  Look at that!

Moving?...go take a big inhalation of the roses, let it fill you with the joy of Spring's energy, and yes, pack another box!

The realtor is coming to see the house tomorrow and there is so much to do.  This morning was blue sky beautiful and I was excited about the sunshine streaming into my living room through the now uncurtained wall of windows.  Then, while I casually answered some emails, the clouds had the nerve to roll in and a heavy thunderstorm came down and rocked every rose bush until a plethora of velvet petals newly littered the ground.

Of all the nerve!

All I wanted to do then was sit and wait for the blue sky to return and dissolve my muggy mood.  It hasn't so far.

The kids are cranky too - probably an offshoot of my mood.  Our schedule is a mess after two weeks of chaos and a funeral in Oklahoma.  That doesn't help.

And I'm sure a little of this is the let down from an absolutely amazing day at church yesterday.  I mean the kind that only happens once every few years.  I know it sounds odd to think that there's a let down, but I guess sometimes when you feel so close to Heaven and the joy is so impacting, reality just seems so ordinary.

I'm finding myself drifting back to those moments of prayer with my eyes shut tight and the sounds of praise and prayer all around me lifting us all to a beautiful place.  I came home knowing that we need to find joy in every small thing.  We need to invite the Lord into the most mundane task of the everyday.  It's not easy though.  Old habits die hard.

Routine will help - getting back into our old patterns so the kids don't think today's another holiday from regular responsibilities.

In the meantime, thanks Lord, for Spring.  And for the moving, and for the mundane.  Inhabit all of it today and forever so we never forget it is all about serving you.

Grandma's Passing

My Grandmother passed away March 23rd in the morning.

It was expected, and prayed for by some of us.

She was suffering.

Going home to be with family for the service was great and awful.  Those of us who are united in Christ shared our joys about her life and tried to cope with the bickering around us by comforting one another and smiling sincere encouragement across the room.

It was one of the hardest weeks of my life.

How do you continue to love in the midst of hate that is fueled by covetous desire and unbounded jealousy?

I don't really know.  I try not to speak too much, and I pray a lot.

I used to try to make it all right, but that is too far beyond my control.

There were many brief moments of boundless joy - listening to the choir sing at Broken Arrow's St. Benedict Parish where we attended Mass Sunday morning.  They sang "Come to the Water" and I just cried and cried.  It was as if the angels were singing to me from above.

I sang the first verse of "Amazing Grace" at the graveside service.  I wasn't sure I would be able, but just like at Papa's funeral, the Holy Spirit filled me and sang for me.  It was amazing!  The kids joined in on verse two and it became magical and wonderful.

I think my favorite moment was walking into the tent and seeing some of Grandma's sorority sisters standing across the back of the tent.  There were a number of them there and since she's been ill for so long they haven't seen her in more than ten years (she's been in Tulsa receiving her care).

But there they were and my heart leaped for joy when I saw them.  The remembered me and generously reminded me of their names and I recognized them in turn as they said it.

That made the service perfect as I knew Grama was in Heaven watching and smiling.  She loved these women and they loved her; I was so glad they came.

As for the bickering family?  I'm exhausted by them, yet I love them.  I wonder if they find me so exhausting as well?  I hope not.

It is good to be home and to relish the peace and routine of daily life.

To Grama; I recently blogged about your tea towels (see post).  I will probably never stop telling the world how wonderful you were while here and how you influenced my life giving me joy and confidence.  I will miss you like I have for the last ten years, but knowing you are in Heaven gives me a calm that I didn't have before.  My prayers are for Christ to embrace you and receive you wholly unto Himself.  I hope you will pray for us here from Heaven.

I love you.