Category Archives: Uncategorized

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It’s In My Blood….

I’ve been thinking lately about adventures, and about the life that my kids have before them. I am aware that the adventures are simply different now than they were a generation ago, and that has always been true. Things change, and the changes mean that kids grow up differently than we did.

The fact is that my kids life will be dominated by electronics and information, more so than my life was, and much more so than my parents. They understand computers instinctively and easily because they have grown up with them.

Where we live there are still lots of trails and wide open spaces and areas for exploring, but most of the conquering of the land has been done.

I have relatives who did conquer the land. 

That is my grandfather on the far left, and his brothers. They were in Nebraska, growing up on a farm with their father who was an immigrant from Switzerland. They worked hard and they conquered the land in that area…they were creative and had imaginations that spurred them. There was a river that ran right by the property, and in the winter it would freeze.  Of course, they would skate on this….but I think they did that with more style than I would:

They would take chunks of this ice and put in in their ice house…a building dug deep into the ground to stay cold, and they would insulate it with sawdust saved from cutting the wood to burn through the winter. Then, in the summer when no one had ice, the Mossman family would have a big barn dance on July 4th, complete with ice cream.

They worked hard, and from the stories they played hard as well. They danced and the skated and, if listening to my dad is a lesson…they told stories. They were adventurous souls and strong. One of my uncles bought a bi-plane so he could fly around and collect honey from different places around Nebraska. He ended up being a supplier for SueBee Honey, and I would write how much he delivered but I can’t remember and you would just think I was exaggerating.

Here’s the thing though…they had a sense of humor. It comes through in the pictures. There is a smile there in spite of…or maybe because of the…the harsh life they faced.

And their blood runs in my veins and my children’s veins.

I don’t know how the challenges my children face will form their strength and their humor. The fact is, they don’t face that many challenges right now…they have a pretty easy life. I like that in some ways, but I also am deeply aware that suffering forms us in ways that ease cannot.

Suffering, hardship, struggle…they bring out a character in us, and a humor, that is unique. There may not be lands to be conquered around us, but there ist still life to be conquered. There are fears and struggles around them that they will face that will give them the opportunity to conquer…to stand in the midst of difficulty and see that God works there.

I wonder how I would have fared on the farm in Nebraska…I wonder what those relatives would think of how I carry myself in the challenges I face. It may just be loads of laundry and keeping growing boys (and girl!) fed and cared for, and now also to educate them. I may not have fields to plow or things to invent, but even this easy life has its momentary challenges. I hope that the humor I see in the pictures of my father’s family will appear in the pictures of my family. I hope that it will tell that the adventurous spirit still is evident and that we still are able to stand strong in the midst of this life.  I hope my children carry on the strength of their fathers. They will face challenges and suffering and hardship, and that strength is there…it is part of them. It is in their blood.

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Messy Monday

Today truly feels like a Messy Monday. And only one kiddo is up so far.

I’m unsettled this morning. One of those days that are difficult to stay focused or to get thoughts together well.  It is not just the need for more coffee…it’s that unsettled, frustrated, foggy feeling. That feeling where it is hard to sit still in the chair, hard to keep my eyes on the page as I read…the kind of feeling where I seem to jump from activity to activity.

Actually, yesterday was a really good day…spent with family, spent sering in the nursery, and just a generally good day.

It ended with me doing something stupid…backed into someone at McDonald’s. Yes, in the car.

I haven’t had a car accident of any kind in 10 years, and that one was because someone turned illegally across traffic and hit me…before that I think I was 16 when I had the last accident. That’s part of what irritated me so much about last night…it was just an accident and I messed up. But, it frustrated me and it messed up someone else’s night. No major damage, and the insurance will take care of it, but this morning it has me irritated with myself.

We all do stupid things, of varying degrees of significance. It should unsettle us a little…it spotlights our inadequacies, our areas where we need growth.

It sets us up for Messy Mondays.

I can tell I’m on edge, and that could set up for a miserable day of homeschool. So, instead of getting all the lesson plans out and organized…I’m going to read. Reading some in Scripture, and reading some in Bonhoeffer’s biography. That settles me…it shows me that every single one of us humans do stupid things. We sometimes do more than stupid…we sin, we rebel, we fall short. And yet, God is not surprised, and He is able to take our inadequate abilities and lives and make something remarkable. The stories of what He does are amazing…thus, reading the stories of those who have walked with Him is vital in my life. It tells His Gospel again and again.

Messy Monday. Nope. I’m not going to let it be…it is going to be a bit more humble Monday, but it is going to be laced with Gospel and with grace.

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Reading and Conversation

I took the name of this Blog from one of my favorite books. Books have always, and will always, play an important part in my life. Lately I’ve been longing for that space to have conversations about what I’m reading…and as busy as life is, it is difficult to find the space and time to carve out those conversations. I have been for some time wanting to have a book club again. I have been part of a few, and have tried having some online, but they have all come and gone, so I’m looking for a different format. I have not done a book club since starting the blog…so, I thought it might be worth giving a try here.

Here’s the thought for the moment…stolen from a Reading Contest group on FB. We could start with simply listing what we’ve been reading. We’ll see if there is any overlap, and maybe in a month or so we’ll see if there might be a book we would want to read more or less as a group and have some conversation.

At this start, though, I’m hoping just to pull some of my friends in from various places. Everyone I sent an invitation to are people I would love to sit and talk with…and they represent a pretty wide spectrum of thought. We could have some fun with discussion! Everyone on the list, however, are able to carry on a conversation with respect.

So…lemme know what you think. More than anything it would be a page devoted to popping in and talking about what we are being moved by, challenged by, comforted by….what is impacting us through our reading.

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More Lessons from the Homeschool Table

Momma told me there would be days like this….

Actually, today began really well. I slept in because I had a bad night, thank you to restless legs. I came down to be greeted by a cheerful Nate who asked how I had slept, then showed me that he had already completed a fair bit of his work for the day. I have a calendar on the wall with all the work listed out for the week. The kids are able to see what they have to do on their own and check it off as they go, then see what we will be doing together. The system has worked well, and especially today when he got to work before I even got up!

Somehow, between that point four hours ago and now things have gone downhill.

I feel like I’m repeating myself, and I have a feeling a lot of days will be like this, but I am slightly stunned by how the day can turn so quickly. I have one moping and hanging his head. One on the couch who suddenly doesn’t feel well. And one little man who is cheerfully working on his math problems on the ipad.

Here is what struck me today, though….home school is at its very root different than regular school because there is this link between the teacher and the student that is inherently different.

There is emotion and history and relationship that is different.  There is also love and care and all the button-pushing and the things that set us off.

There is not the objectivity and separation that a “regular” teacher has with the kids. When the teacher at school loses their temper (and we all do) and hollers at the kids or comes down on them, there is the break of a night away and a fresh start in the morning.

There is not that break for the homeschooler, and there is not the space when dad comes home to talk at the table about how frustrated they were that day at school…because the teacher is sitting right there.

The fact is that I am going to frustrate the boys and they are going to frustrate me. Today I was the one who ended up in tears because I felt inept in trying to get them all to pay attention and to stay on task and to get something from what we were doing. We took a break…they rode scooters for a bit (although only Sammy actually did the whole two laps I asked for), and we tried coming at it differently, but it just didn’t work.

There is, I think, in all of us a fear of being inadequate to the task that is before us. That fear can be brought out by our kids more than any other person. When the task is not only parenting but teaching and educating, there are lines I am not sure how I blend and which ones to cross or others that need to be made bold and clear. I am not sure how to make it clear always that it is the teacher-mom and not just the parenting-mom at the moment.

This doesn’t mean that we are failing. It means that we are interacting and there is always friction when we interact….sometimes the friction is good and healthy, and sometimes it hurts a bit.

The lessons we are learning in homeschool are far more than just the knowledge, and I knew that would be true. We are learning that you don’t give up.  Now, I know this is true in regular school as well…but this is a little different.

The teacher is mom and the students are my children. I am invested in them in so many ways; my hopes and expectations for them are far more nuanced than a regular teacher. And I will have them every year, not just for one year.  That means that when we frustrate one another or when we make the other cry….we have to find a way to resolve the issue and to move forward and do better. We have to learn to communicate better and to respect each other. Those are lessons that will take us to much richer places as a family whole.  So, even on the not-so-fun days, I’m finding that this homeschool adventure is precisely where God wants me to be for the moment.