Some Thoughtful Homeschooling Posts

Young Mom has a post about Why I'm not Sure if I'll Homeschool and I found a post at There is No Wealth but Life (also a k-12 homeschooling graduate) that also expresses strong reservations about homeschooling.   I think that these posts prompt an excellent conversation in the comments about the pros and cons of homeschooling, something that is hard to find as this can be an emotional topic.

Monday Musings

Right now...It is 7:20 and I need to get the kids up soon.  It's nice that they are relatively late sleepers in that I get them up around 8:00 for breakfast.  My older son is already out the door to catch the bus to high school.  He does a great job at getting himself up, getting breakfast, and making himself lunch. 

This weekend my husband worked all day on Saturday and he has been working all day on most days for the past three weeks.  He has not been home for supper for most days during this time and we all miss not having him around.  It looks like it may let up this week.  Thank Goodnness!  It makes me realize how good I have it when he is here to help.  Meanwhile we need tires and I got a chance to research and found some good ones for a fairly good price.

My husband managed to not work on Sunday and we finally got back to see my Dad and have a nice little one hour visit with him.  His 78th birthday was last week and I never got around to sending him a card.  Awful!  However we brought him cupcakes when we went to see him which he really appreciated. 

Some plans for the week Birthdays--My oldest will turn 15 on Saturday and I am going to be 41 the day after.  I still need to get him a present.  He loves music esp. Baroque, Irish, and Renaissance music so getting him a cd is a good bet.  He said he would like a basic mp3 player that doesn't cost a lot so maybe I'll check into that.  I better do something today if I want to order anyting online.  For our birthdays we may go to a park not so far from here with a lot of caves and hike around depending on the weather.   

If I find some time for myself I better make sure I practice as I am playing in a concert at the beginning of November and I haven't practiced in oh so long.  I also want to make sure I get at least four walks in this week. 

Prayer intentions for my husband to stay healthy despite his heavy work load and lack of sleep and that I may be able to give my children the attention they need as I tend to get distracted.

Something that makes me smile

My daughter turned three last week and we had a fun time despite all my worry about getting everything ready.

For more Monday Musings see Nadja at Patch O' Dirt Farm.

Embracing the cross means embracing...

Vulnerability. This means letting go of pride/ego; the things that you are using to protect yourself from hurt keep away love until all you have is pride which results in a hardened heart that is not able to give or receive love and keeps God at arms length.  Being vulnerable means being naked, helpless, open to hurt, abandoned, letting go of everything, giving up everything like Christ on the Cross.  When you are vulnerable your heart remains open and soft...physically your body is open for an embrace--a hug--or a punch in the gut. Your body and heart are open like Christ's were on the cross to pain and love.  "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."  "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Bread and Yogurt

Fall is in the air.  I've been making plans for beginning to make a few more things from scratch as I have done in the past.  Inspired by a friend who was making bread in her bread machine when I visited her last week I have started baking bread again.  I don't remember exactly when I stopped; but I think it was around last summer before or after my son was born in July.  I don't have a bread machine but I am seriously considering it for the first time.  Any suggestions?  I always see them at Good Will but I will have to look at them more closely next time I go.

I started making kefir a few years a go when my now almost three year old was a baby but probably haven't made it in at least two years.  It's nice because you can just make it at room temperature unlike yogurt where you need the right amount of heat and possibly a yogurt maker. I would like to try making yogurt however, as we would probably eat it more readily than kefir.   Here and here are a couple of posts with ideas for making it without a yogurt maker.   This article has some helpful information and kind of combines the two ways mentioned in the last two links.  They pour water of the right temperature into a small cooler and have canning jars full of the yogurt sit in that for the designated time.  It would really be a lot cheaper to make our own yogurt as milk from the store is much cheaper than buying yogurt from the store.

Bad Day

My cross today was two screaming children.  I didn't do very well at accepting this cross as I was overwhelmed and frustrated with my almost 3 year old daughter's tendency to have a fit it seems like everytime I want her to do something that she is not used to.  This time it was giving her a bath before afternoon nap instead of before bed. Due to my frustration, I wasn't as gentle about trying not to get water in her eyes when washing her hair as I could have been.
 At the same time my one year old little boy has picked up the tendency to scream "mama" whenever I don't get his food to him fast enough or when I have food that is different from what he has, or whenever he is not happy in general.  He has just started to say the word "mama;" unfortunately he usually screams it when he is unhappy.  When my daughter was throwing a fit about her bath my son was simultaneously screaming Mama.  He reminded me if the demonic children that torment Judas in the movie The Passion.

Cat Stevens for a Tuesday Afternoon

St. Francis De Sales on Obedience, Chastity, and Poverty

Charity alone places us in perfection.  But the three great means of attaining to it are obedience, chastity, and poverty.  Obedience consecrates our heart, chastity our body, and poverty our worldly means to the love and service of God.  These are the three branches of the spiritual cross, and all have their foundation in the fourth, which is humility...Let us try, then to practice these virtues, each according to his vocation; for if they do not place us in the state of perfection, they will nevertheless give us perfection itself.  Moreover, we are all bound to practice these three virtues, although not all to practice them in the same way.  --From the chapter entitled "Obedience" from An Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis  De Sales

I came across the above quote yesterday which gives me a much better understanding of the virtues of obedience, chastity, and poverty that I attempted to write about in my last post.  St. Francis De Sales puts it so beautifully and simply doesn't he?  I am especially drawn to the statement about obedience, chastity, and poverty consecrating our heart, body, and worldy means to the love and service of God.  It is a reminder to me that practicing virtue isn't an end in itself to satisfy my pride, but is supposed to lead me to love of God and neighbor.