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Here’s to Reading Dead Authors and Being Less Grumpy!!

“Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.” 

G.K. Chesterton

I cannot remember when I first began reading Chesterton, but it has been years and years. When I first stumbled upon his writings I devoured him. I loved his wit and then I found out I loved his wisdom as well. He doesn’t know everything, but he has this way of refreshing my soul on days when I need refreshment. There is something about his humor and wonder that draws me in, but he is no slouch; he makes me work when I read him.

I get sloppy in my reading.

I get sloppy in life, to be honest.

Days are a bit full with a husband, four children, a dog, two cats and four fish living in the house. The laundry piles up, the dishes pile up, the dust piles up…the duties pile up. It is easy to come downstairs, get my cup of coffee and sit down at the computer and be lulled into catching up on everything on FaceBook as the start to my day. There’s nothing wrong with that; I like seeing what is happening with my friends and I do find things happening I can pray for and folks I can catch up with in real time. Still, I am not a disciplined person and I too easily find that I have spent far too long in front of the computer and the children have appeared and the day is rolling and the duties are getting ahead of me…and things are getting sloppy.

And I am getting grumpy.

I am behind the day and trying to catch up.

I need, and I use that word intentionally, the space and time to read and to think. I need the sanity of those like Chesterton and Frederich Buechner and C. S. Lewis and Madeleine L’Engle and Henri Nouwen and Tim Keller and Sally Lloyd-Jones and … Scripture.  I need the time and the space and the discipline to turn my face and my attention toward God before the duties and the demands of the day start getting ahead of me.

Now that the school schedule is about to come into swing, I need that all the more.

Or else, I begin to feel grumpy.

No, not just grumpy.

I begin to feel physically like I am going to explode.

I begin to feel like I need to run around the house and straighten things and get everything in order, RIGHT NOW.  And the kids can tell that I am on edge, and everything goes downhill. Not a good environment for learning.

So. Tradition.

Not FaceBook.

Tradition.

Turning off the superfluous noises. Those things that are okay, but are not necessary, so that I can turn to the necessary. Quieting the mornings so I can have that space and time to be silent and turn my attention toward God. I need the help of the authors I mentioned sometimes because I need help focusing my thoughts. They help me narrow my focus and quiet my spirit.  FaceBook, internet…feeds my distraction. The lesson is not just for me. The season is for the boys as well; it is time for them to turn off the iPods and the Xbox and turn their attention to their studies.  We have to make the space for silence and then introduce them to the those who can be our guides in learning how to think well in training our thoughts to think on God.

Turning off the superfluous.

Listening to tradition.

Feeding not only my mind with something worthwhile, but feeding my soul.

That doesn’t mean I’ll never turn on FaceBook again, but it does mean it is time to be intentional again. Setting up the day for a more peaceful start instead of irritation. The duties still have to be done, but I sure find they are easier when my spirit is not so agitated. There is time to simply catch up on the computer and sneak a peak at friends’ lives and play a game, but I know myself well enough to know I let it get the best of me and a little time ends up being far too long.

So here’s to a school year of intention, of reading from wise writers and being much less grumpy!!!

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Get ready….get set…..GO!

I love this time of year. I loved it when I was a kid because it meant I was able to buy new notebooks and pens and paper. New backpacks. I can get in lots of trouble at office supply stores.

I love school.

I am jealous of the kids heading off to college for the first time.  I love the environment and I love the chance to read and to take in new things.

I love what we are doing now with our kids…the chance to learn at home with them and to be part of the education process. I love picking out the curriculum and this year I am enjoying developing our own Bible curriculum. I have learned a few things from our first year of homeschool last year, and I am eager to see what we learn this year.

So, as we are just about to jump back in…it is time to open up the discussion once again. I’d love to hear from friends about what has worked and about what you have learned in the last year. What worked, and what did not work. You can share about big things like curriculum or little things like tweaks you made to your schedule.

A couple things I learned this last year:

1. I’m going to mess up.  There are going to be days I simply am going to be irritated and we are not going to get through the material. There are going to be days where I cannot get all the kids on the same page, and that will be okay. Some times we have to just chalk it up to a bad day and move on; other times we have to pull it together and redeem the day.  Either way we have, myself and the kids, have to learn to have grace for one another and for ourselves.

2. The kids will learn something. We will not get to the end of the year and find out that they didn’t learn anything. They’ll pick up something, and probably a lot. We have to do our best and set the table well, but we also have to not stress too much.  They are getting loads of individual attention, and are getting opportunities to investigate things they are interested in and excited about. Those things are going to sink in. Let them chase those things some. Along those lines, my middle boy is taking conversational Italian on Rosetta. No, we do not know anyone who speaks conversational Italian, but I bet he’ll find someone one of these days!

3. Find people smarter than I am and ask them lots of questions. I do not know everything I need to know to educate my children. I do not know all I need to know to keep Zachary on track for entering Middle School and High School. There are a lot of people who do know. I can find them. I can ask them questions, and they are more than willing to answer my questions. That helps me immensely, and in turn helps my kids out. This also shows my kids I’m willing to learn and not afraid to show that I have areas where I need to learn.

4. When I am excited the kids get excited.  The days when I whipped the books out, was irritated and just wanted to get through the material, everyone was miserable. We griped and we yelled at each other and none of us learned anything. The days when we were interested and when I was excited about what we were learning we laughed and we had a good time and we were relaxed. This usually happened on the days when I was able to get up early enough to have a cup of coffee in silence and spend some time in prayer and in quiet before the day began. I have more to write about this, but that will be in another post.

5. This season will be gone to quickly. We all say it, we all know, but we need to repeat it. Again. And again. It’s a privilege to be around these kids. Every day. Even the crappy days. Spending the day reading together and learning…is a pretty great thing.  I hope I can keep that at the forefront of my thoughts this year.

6. I am not, and probably never will, be crafty. Pinterest does not help this.  I love the stuff I find on Pinterest. I’ll go a week and do a bunch of the stuff. Then I get tired.  Then I feel slightly guilty and life goes back to a bit of a routine of laundry and cleaning up after kids and kittens and dogs and fish. That keeps me busy enough to not get to the painting with salt and baking soda and food coloring. Still..I do hope to do some of the creative things this year…I just won’t get too carried away.

7. Books, and especially novels, are fantastic. Reading aloud to children is one of the best things in the world and can never be rushed.  One of the curriculums we used, Sonlight, is heavy on reading. I love this. We did a lot of reading, and a lot of reading out loud. I love this. The kids love this. It never gets old. This will always be part of our structure.

8. I have to be a little bit mean. I realized this first after coming back from vacation in California. This was the one thing about home school I didn’t realize. Because you are not going away to school there has to be some sense of structure that separates the school day from the play of vacation or weekend (I have some friends who don’t do this and who incorporate school into all of life…I haven’t been able to get there, but that is awesome if you can make that work). So, for us, I have to be a bit mean and a bit structured to get the kids attention and then we can have fun. There’s a spiritual lesson in there somewhere…first discipline, then freedom…..

Okay…those are a few of my ‘lessons’. Tell me yours. Tell me your hints. Tell me your ideas. Tell dreads and your hopes for the coming years. I know I have a few friends diving in for the first time this year…ask questions if you have them. I’d love to hear some discussion here. Or are we all old hats at this with nothing new to say?

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And that….is privilege.

I have to confess that I grew up with a fair amount of privilege.

We had some pretty great toys as kids, and we grew up able to to hang out on this great space in Colorado in the summers especially…riding horses and motorcycles and exploring.

Most all of that was due to having a Dad and a grand father who were diligent in their work and who were wise and who blessed us. We didn’t always know how blessed we were, and we didn’t always appreciate it…and we didn’t always know the sacrifices that were made so we could enjoy these adventures and this life.

Now, when I’m a little older and hopefully a little wiser, and more importantly now that I am a parent as well, I am aware of how special my life has been. I am also aware of the privilege we are in the midst of now. This privilege is different, and yet it is also the fruit of my Dad’s diligence and his sacrifices.

grandmagrandpa

This is the privilege of watching my mother age in the care of those who love her, and I am aware that it is a privilege. There are so many who are simply not able to keep their loved ones at home because of the need for constant supervision…but we have been able to do so because my Dad has made that sacrifice and my brothers have as well, along with my nephews. These men take great care of this lady.

CadeGrandma

That is pretty remarkable.  

MomDadFamily

So on this trip I was able to chip in some of the time and watch Mom, to take my part in caring for her. To be part of the privilege of seeing her in the moments of confusion and know that even though that look of lostness comes over her…to know that she in a place filled with laughter and with children. A place filled with memories and filled with thought and care…a place which she designed to be welcoming and hospitable to those who would come. A place made to be home. Sometimes that makes things all the more difficult because if she was in her “right” mind she would be rejoicing in these moments and she would delight in this laughter and the place would be alive with her touches of hospitality. There are times the awareness of her dementia makes that sting…and it should. Brokenness hurts and reminds us that this is not as it should be.   Still…in this imperfection, she is in a place where she is known.

grandma1

She may not know it, but she is in a place which embraces her, and in the moments when she is silent and does not have words, or when she is flooded with words that simply repeat and express confusion…she is still surrounded by laughter and life.  She is not left on her own or isolated, and when she has those moments where she is alert…there are those there to laugh with her and embrace her.

SammyGrandmaLaugh

And that is privilege.

GrandmaWatch

And the richness of that privilege is not lost.

I spent much time this trip with just Maddie and Mom. It always amazes me how children just accept things and Maddie never was troubled that there was something amiss with Grandma. She would light up and embrace her, kiss her, or scold her…whatever the situation called for…with great enthusiasm. And she drew Mom out.

GrandmaMaddie

That was privilege that could not happen in a “home”.

I think often of Madeleine L’Engle’s book, The Summer of The Great Grandmother where she talks of the last summer with her mother, and I think she would smile at our gatherings in Colorado. Our generations mix and aging happens in the midst of development.

The children learn that we are frail, and they learn that we have to not be afraid of that and sometimes life is hard…but it is a lot easier when we handle it as a family in the midst of a place filled with laughter and life and memories.

MomDad

And that is privilege. 

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3,000 Miles, Snakes and Memories…

We began at 4:00 am.  We picked our mascot the night before, a giant blue Puffle…a stuffed, well, puff-ball of sorts. We had snacks sorted and we had the cooler with water. We had little surprises wrapped and we had stops planned.

I had spent the required hours on Pinterest planning the Road Trip.

We planned for pictures like this.

Boysbehaving

Did you notice someone is missing. Yep.

That is because Maddie was running down the sidewalk at the rest stop and Steve was chasing her. The blue puffle, however is in the picture. After I stopped being stubborn and I let the boys pose how they wanted.

boysmisbehaving

Then we started having fun.

Honestly, I don’t need Pinterest. My kids are used to this. We do it every year. Nearly 3,000 miles of driving to get to our destination and get home, plus driving around while we are there. They know the drill, and they actually are really good at the adventure. On the way home Maddie, 2, and Sammy, 7, sat in the far back of the truck for the duration and Maddie only really fussed about 7 minutes of the whole trip. Not bad. We stopped a few times and found some cool stuff…like an old caboose we hadn’t seen before, and we even got Maddie to stop running long enough to get in the picture.

Caboose

Folks always think we are crazy to drive when we could fly, but with six of us it is still cheaper to drive, and honestly…you don’t get to just pull over and pee on bushes when you are flying. Or, when you are really desperate and pull into abandoned gas stations you might find things like this:

Seriously, though, you can’t see things like this from the airplane:

bayfield 9bayfield 12bayfield 11bayfield 5

Silo

I know there are great adventures in flying, and we loved our trip to California last Fall, but we love driving as well. Of course, the final destination is part of the adventure, and that is what makes the journey worthwhile. The objects we can find in the clouds and the snakes we can outrun and the cabooses we can climb on…they are fun, but we still have to climb back into a small confined space with sweaty siblings who annoy us after awhile.

We still have to listen to the Wiggles more than we want to keep the 2 year old happy, but we do it so we can end up in a place where we only get to be for a week out of the year.

BackPorch

A place that has a special hold on my kids, a hold it had on me when I was a kid.

GrantMaddie

We have had this place in Colorado since I was four years old. When my Dad built the house and garage that now stand there, we tore down an old barn that was built with wooden nails. I remember swinging from a rope in the hayloft and spraining my ankle.

Now my kids run around the place with their cousins and make their own memories. They never complain about making the road trip to go out there, and they always want to stay longer. When I ended up in the hospital with some complications after Madeleine was born there was a day Sammy had been shuffled around a few places and was feeling frustrated (he was 5). Someone asked him where he wanted to go, and without hesitation, this was the place he named.

CadeGrandmaThey hear about their history.

No wifi. No stereo.

Limited electronic games.

Limited noise.

Family.

Lots of stories.

Shooting guns.Boysshoot

Fishing.

grandmagranpa1

boat

Laughter.

Building rafts.NateTessa

Exploring.

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