January In Review

It's my goal to read 100 books in 2022.

In January, I finished reading:

Ourselves by Charlotte Mason

The Mistobrn Trilogy by Sanderson

The Silmarillion by Tolkien

Arcanum Unbounded by Sanderson

Sounding the Seasons by Guite

The Deep Places by Ross Douthat

The Fiddler's Gun by AS Peterson

I have started:

Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold

Daily, I am still listening to portions of the audio book of:

The City of God by Augustine

It is also a goal to walk 100 times and do 100 Bodypump workouts this year. 

So far, I have walked 6 times, completed 2 Bodypump workouts, and 2 Bodyflow workouts, too.  

That feels like major progress. 

Ten workouts in one month total is a lot more than I was doing for a long time. 

And I am actually enjoying the exercise while it is happening and after it is over, I am able to recover without days of debilitating pain and immobility. 

The joy while exercising and the quicker recovery are two big indicators that my body has actually recovered from Lyme disease. 

Praise God!  

Cooking Lessons Continued

 

My oldest made quiche for dinner this week. 

So another item on her "Stuff to learn to cook" before leaving for college list is marked through. 

Quiche proved interesting, since I don't actually have an exact recipe, and I hadn't realized how much I adapt recipes to ingredients and amounts. 

I stretched her by giving everything to her just as I think about it, in approximate amounts. Even cooking time was an estimate.  

This entire exercise is proving rewarding for the whole family. 

Her younger sisters express interest and respect and delight and appreciation over what she will make, is making, has made. 

And her dad, too, is encouraging her. 

And, of course, as I said before, I like having the night off from the kitchen! 

The Fiddler's Gun

Norah found out I was done with all the books I was reading, so she went and physically got this book and pushed this into my hands, saying for the hundredth time that had to read it. So I spent the last few days reading, and crying, and crying out, gasping, throwing arms up, making fists in the arm, saying, “No way!” or “Oh no!” I’m emotionally exhausted now, but that was non-stop fun and also really heartwarming. As soon as I closed this book and sighed, Norah was on hand and handed me “Fiddler’s Green,” the sequel, with a knowing grin. Norah assessment is, “It’s too much for the littles.” And I agree. It’s a bit too raw and real for my particular younger kids, but I think it’s great for older teens and even grown-ups.

The Deep Places

 

I read this in a day’s worth of free moments. This book uncovered so much anger and grief that I thought were gone. But it turns out the angers and griefs were only hiding just below the surface. I still have anger over having a child’s health wrecked by Lyme, grief over experiencing so much death of family and friends in the last few years, anger and grief over the betrayal of my own body falling so far to Lyme that I lost my will to care about my health anymore. Caring about health became a total luxury. God broke my fingers and pried that idol out of my bloody hands. It was like I had to let it go or just die, because I only had the energy to survive well enough to do the most essential things with my body as it now was: keep faith, care for family, teach my daughters… This book exposed that anger and grief and I cried many antiseptic, astringent tears. It is so well-written, researched, and balanced, and so painfully relevant. I can’t recommend it enough to anyone who lives around here where everyone has had Lyme or knows someone who has had it, where everyone is confused. Like most everyone on social media, I admit I usually only publish the good stuff, and I maintain that my Facebook page is not entirely fake, because I have countless blessings and I usually focus on those. But I’ve been quietly crawling through and up out of a physical hell for a while, and I’ve been on a spiritual journey, too, of course. I am an embodied soul, after all. But I figured out quickly that I could and would wear even my closest friends out with complaints or confusion, so I limit how much I talk about it even to Dwayne and even in the past-tense, since I am better. But this comes as another terrible mercy on the journey. The author balances his Faith with Reason well. He demonstrates how his story is both physical and spiritual, just like Reality. I now picture Sin as a burrowing spirochete and probably always will from now on with a shudder, because of what is actually in my body. But that’s just the imagery Scripture uses for Sin. The whole earth including our bodies is under a curse and groans for redemption. But my physical and spiritual hope remains the same: Jesus came into the actual, physical world and donated His body and transfused His blood and gave up His Spirit and then took it back. “Who will save us from this body of death?” Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ our Lord! He’s been as deep as Sin can ever go, and now He’s seated at the right hand of God.

The Epistles in English and Latin

I am reading the Epistles this year in my devotional time. 

I have started reading one chapter of an Epistle from my Bible each morning then reading the same chapter in my Vulgate. 

I usually choose one verse to copy in English. It is a way to track my progress through Scripture. It is also a way to record the words that the Lord has used to encourage me, convict me, or give me insight. 

I do the same thing in Latin now, too. If a verse in Latin strikes my interest or captures my imagination or is arranged really beautifully, I'll copy it down in another journal just for Latin verses and notes. 

In the case of the verse above, I have always liked the metaphor "jars of clay" or "earthen vessels." That was an idea that captured my imagination when I was a young Christian over twenty years ago, but I particularly like the Latin version of this verse now, since there were so many familiar English roots. 

Reading the Scriptures in Latin makes them new again. Words that usually just wash over me, since I have read them so much that I can quote them in English, now pop in Latin, and I have an opportunity to see them anew and contemplate them afresh. 

The surfaces of my tables often have piles of books leftover from the day's schoolwork. I do try to remind them to put them away before walking away for the day, but they often forget. And if I really need them to, the girls come clean the piles up when I ask. But this is something I quietly thank God for. These piles represent all the moments the girls spend thinking about and practicing worthwhile things. 

Science Fair Cont.

Arranging the Science Fair board has taken her hours. 

Hours! 

I am encouraging her to tape everything on first, so that way, she can move it if if she changes her mind about where things go. 

And she keeps making changes. 

And I suggest changes, too.

In the photo above, she's painting colorful, large numbers for the "Procedure" section of the board, something she determined the board would need once she placed all the original elements on. 

I am also having her practice her presentation for the judges fairly often, since most of the other work is done, and because she is is nervous about the presentation in particular. Rather than adding to her nerves, I think practicing her presentation will allow her to get so used to it that it becomes second nature even under pressure. 

Today, I had her shut the doors to the room she was in and film herself going through her presentation with my cell phone camera. I'll watch it with her later and we'll assess how she did, and I'll encourage her to suggest changes for herself, and I'll probably suggest some changes, too. 

For fun, her little sister created a "judge" from a stuffed animal. He's holding a pencil and clipboard, and he's wearing a lanyard from a college we visited with their older sister this year, making him very official looking. He also never blinks, making him a very intense critic. 

A Homeschool Day in the Life

8:30-9:00 Breakfast and chit-chat 

9-9:30 Silent reading in front of the fire with Mom on this wet, icy, blustery January morning 

9:30-10 Everyone’s daily chores, showers, etc. 

Somewhere between 10:00-10:30 Everyone’s various schoolwork will begin

11:30- …Physics and Pre-Cal and hot tea and chill music for the oldest while The Hobbits eat their Elevensies and sneak a game of chess. (The chess set always has a certain amount of grease and crumbs on it. It’s a travel set, so it’s wipeable.) The youngest is already done with math and handwriting for today. The middle has done her math, geography, and a portion of Latin.

11:50 Quick tutorial on refilling mechanical pencils from big sister

12 Noon- Helping the middle edit a letter to a penpal, another CC student she met at CC Practicum summer camp a few summers back, and English grammar/ composition with the youngest (She wants to physically write the words of her keyword outline in for herself today. She usually says the keywords to me aloud and I do the physical writing to save us time and labor, but today, she’s expressing a wish to take ownership, so now, I need to find something to do. I’m bored just watching her.)

12:15 Latin- The oldest is translating lines 1-33 of Book 1 of Virgil’s Aeneid with her classmates via Zoom

1:15 Finishing up this week’s essay for Essentials, adding dress-ups, etc. The oldest is still translating Latin with friends on Zoom. The middle has reviewed all Latin vocab and grammar rules using her flashcards.

1:30 Trying to squeeze in an analytical task sheet or two before we have to leave for piano lessons (Confession: I’m still adjusting to a regular pace after Christmas break. We are not getting as much done as quickly as we used to before the break. I like to be done with the majority of our Essentials work days before community meets, but here we are, grinding it out the day before… We will find a better rhythm after a few more weeks.)

2:15 A lesson in what I am calling “Adulting 101” -I sent the oldest into the drug store alone for an errand I would usually just do myself. She goes away to college this year, so in addition to working part-time and driver’s ed, we have been making her do literally everything like this that she can possibly do. 

2:45 Piano lessons- specifically, the bigs are drilling scales with their piano teacher (Their faces-

They’ve had enough of their mom’s shenanigans for one day.)

4:30-5 Home ec? Note: My youngest is an incredible helper in the kitchen for her age. The other girls are certainly willing to help me and very capable, but they’d always rather not help. My youngest, on the other hand, will be there with apron on before you even ask. And we really do just click in the kitchen together. It’s already like we are dancing in synch around each other.

6:30- 7:00 Presentation practice- We usually read aloud as a family after dinner, but tomorrow is our community day, so the girls often practice any presentations they have to give or read any essays they are turning in. We do not put a ton of pressure on them or emphasis on perfection. Of course, they benefit from this practice, but this is mostly to give Dad a chance to be a part of what we do and allow him to share in the ongoing conversation and fellowship. Bookbags and lunches are packed. Now an hour or two of quiet reading or drawing or conversation before bed, that’s a pretty typical homeschool day in our life.

Another Rite of Passage

Another rite of passage is taking place over here: Driver's Ed. 

She's got hours of online classes and in-person practice with an instructor lined up. 

And we're trying to find opportunities for her to get extra driving practice with us alone in the car, too. 

She can't drive siblings yet. 

That's understandable. 

But it makes finding enough practice opportunities more difficult. 

Hopefully, she'll become a competent driver in good time. 

Science Fair Cont.

The final stages of my daughter's Science Fair project are coming together now. 

Last night, we sat together and made a checklist of all the specific, little things left "to-do" between now and the actual Science Fair. 

The list included things like "Label the pages in your Lab Journal" and "Make your Table of Contents in your Lab Journal" and "Make notes cards for your presentation" and "Plan your outfit."

That way, she will have some guidance for working independently as much as possible, and she won't depend on me for every step that's left in the process. 

Science Fair may require a lot of support from Mom or Dad, because they've never done this before, but finding ways (like this checklist) to put an appropriate amount of responsibility back on the student is important. 

My daughter has ideas for at least three different directions that she wants to take off this finished experiment. She wants to change different variables and see what happens, etc. As we near the end of the project, she actually wants to keep going, instead of just being so glad it's over. 

She's done a great job.

But what about me, as a homeschooling Mom?

How did I do leading another kid through Science Fair?

I am calling the fact that my daughter wants to keep tweaking her experiment a "win" and I'm officially giving myself a "passing grade."

“An aviar raised around humans never quite fit back in among their own kind. The same could be said of a man raised around Aviar.” -Brandon Sanderson, Sixth of the Dusk

Bone Broth Cont.

We buy a portion of a grass fed cow each year. 

We ask the butcher to give us the bones for making broth.

This year, we had a huge box of some of the gnarliest looking bones including marrow bones and knuckles. 

First, I took half the bones and roasted them on rimmed baking sheets at 425 for 35-40 minutes. 

Then I divided them between two crock pots with water, onion, carrot, celery, wine, garlic. 

I let the bones simmer for 12-18 hours on low. 

After everything cooled for a little while in the crock pot on the counter, I strained the broth from both crock pots through a wire mesh strainer into various pitchers, and threw out the leftover bones and meat scarps. 

Then I let these pitchers of broth sit on the counter until they were around room temp. 

Then I transferred them to the fridge to cool down all the way.  

Once the broth sat in the fridge overnight, I took them out and rendered the solid block of tallow off the top of the broth, scraping the bottom of the block of tallow to get the bits of gristle off. 

I saved the tallow is a large zip lock. I plan to use it for certain recipes and maybe candle-making. 

You can see here how rich and gelatinous the finished broth was in this picture. 

Most of the broth was frozen in pint freezer containers for use in soups and recipes later this winter. 

I won't have to buy broth for a while, and it's rewarding to know for a fact that we are getting all the best nutrients possible from this homemade broth vs. the weakened store-bought varieties. 

I find that just one pint of homemade broth is so rich that it can be mixed with water and used a base for most large pots of soup or other recipes. 

Next, I made a second batch of broth in the same way, roasting the other half of the bones in the box, splitting them between the two crock pots, etc. 

But in that case, I added onion, carrots, celery, bay leaves, and apple cider vinegar in with the bones and water (instead of the garlic and red wine I used in the first batch.) 

Other than these few differences in ingredients, the second batch of broth was processed in the same way as the first. 

I set aside four cups of the batch of broth made with wine for a special dinner.  

In the end, I made approx. 20 pints of broth from the two batches of bones/ four crock pots of broth, and now I also have huge batch of homemade tallow to use. 

When all was said and done, I used the four cups of broth I saved to make French onion soup, my favorite soup, for the first time! 

It was a fitting reward for all the labor of processing an entire box of assorted bovine bones into four crock pots full of rich beef broth and beef tallow.  

Arcanum Unbounded and Sounding the Seasons

I finished Arcanum Unbounded and Sounding the Seasons both this morning. 

Neither of these are on my official list of books to read in 2022. 

That figures, because I like to read as the wind blows, going wheresoever the Spirit leadeth.

But I also want to try to be more strategic this year and get to some of those great books I keep meaning to read. 

But my husband and oldest daughter insisted I read Arcanum Unbounded as soon as I finished The Silmarillion last week. 

We all enjoy reading Sanderson's books and discussing his Cosmere as a family, and my loved ones were growing tired of trying to not to spoil the details in this book for me, so I agreed to read it. 

It was delightful and I am enchanted. 

It makes me want to read even more of the books in the Cosmere I wasn't planning to read before.  

And as soon as I finished that book, I looked up "Malcolm Guite" on Kindle, since I want to focus on his books this year, and I have several titles I know I want to read.  

But then I saw the title Sounding the Seasons and though it isn't on my official list, it was the most compelling title for some reason, so I chose to start there. 

I am so glad I did. 

I read the book in one sitting during the early hours of this morning. 

Wow! 

His poem "O Sapienta" is definitely a new favorite, and I know I will read this book through again soon. 

Birds Within and Birds Without

We have birds within our house and birds without. 

We have a pet button quail and a pet sun conure inside. 

We also live in the middle of the woods, so mixed flocks fly in and fill the trees around us at least once everyday. 

And seen in this picture are the turkeys that literally live in and around our yard all year long. 

We fill very blessed to have our lives filled with birds. 

They give us lots of opportunities to admire God's handiwork and laugh at their antics. 

Share Your Abundance

I made oatmeal cookies with Adele the other day. 

Adele loves to bake, and I love to bake with her... 

But there were far too many cookies when we we through.

And that's exactly why I usually don't make cookies, and that's why I went years not baking cookies. 

I don't want them sitting around tempting me for days and days. 

And the girls don't need that many sweets, either. 

But then again, not ever making cookies means we have far too few cookies...

So where's the balance?

One shouldn't have too many cookies or too few. 

Staring at these cookies the other day, I realized something.  

I have people I can share with!

So even as we enjoyed these cookies still warm from the oven, Adele and I set aside two bunches for people we know at church, people we'd been thinking about finding a way to encourage. 

So now I've finally figured out how I can ensure there will never be too many or too few cookies. 

The answer seems like it should have been more obvious and occurred to me sooner than this. 

But the moral of this story is: 

Share your abundance! 

 

I am trying to prevent the really foolish thing that people say about Him, “I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be a lunatic on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must take your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse… shut him up for a fool… spit at Him and kill Him as a demon… or fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. 

-CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, Chapter 3

If you do not take the distinction between good and bad very seriously, then it is easy to say that anything you find in this world is a part of God. But, of course, if you think some things really bad, and God really good, then you cannot talk like that. You must believe that God is separate from the world and that some things we see in it are contrary to His will. Confronted with cancer or a slum the Pantheist can say, "If you could only see it from the divine point of view, you would realize this also is God." The Christian replies, "Don't talked damned nonsense." 

-CS Lewis in Mere Christianity, Chapter 2 

Our Christmas Book 2021

I keep a Christmas scrapbook, of sorts. 

But I've simplified this scrapbook to the point that it's almost embarrassing. 

Step #1. I take pictures throughout December. 

Step #2. I upload the pictures to Shutterfly and make a collage with them.  

Step #3. I wait for the collage to come in the mail, then I label the back of the collage with the year (2021, etc.) and slide it into the clear scrapbook page along with that year's Christmas lists and other keepsakes like handmade cards or drawings my daughters make for me or each other.  

And that's it!

Note: It's not fancy, but it works really well for me, since I have no time or inclination to be more creative. 

And honestly, this scrapbook, simple as it is, still manages to be a real a family treasure. 
 

Cooking Lessons Continued

My oldest has asked to learn to cook before she leaves for college in the fall. 

She made a list of meals she wants to master. 

She's a huge fan of potato soup, so I let her make cheesy potato soup for dinner the other evening. 

She did a great job! 

I'm proud of the deliberate thought and effort she is putting into preparing practically for adulthood.

And it's so nice to have breaks on the evenings she cooks! 

In fact, I am seriously having the younger girls start learning to cook much sooner...

That way, I can enjoy years of help before they go off to school and that they can enjoy the benefit of more experience, of course. 

One Room Schoolhouse

My oldest was doing her 12th grade Physics 

while my middle daughter was doing her 7th grade Geography 

while my youngest was doing her 4th grade silent reading practice. 

They were sometimes chatting, 

but mostly working quietly together on their separate assignments in the same quiet, sunny room.  

This is what the homeschool "classroom" often looks like. 

 
 

Day Planner

I purchased a day planner for the first time in many years. 

Why would a homeschool mom need a day planner, you ask.

I asked the same thing for years until I realized I had started keeping not only an electronic calendar, but a few separate paper calendars, and several different lists for shopping and reminders and tasks, etc. 

I realized things could use some simplifying. 

Though this day planner takes time to fill in each week, the paybacks are immediate. 

Those obvious, little things I just couldn't seem to remember (like taking my vitamins, of all things) are listed here and with everything else that's "more important" and having everything in one place really helps me remember everything. 

By actually physically writing my schedule each week, I tend to remember what's happening better than before. I create a mental map for the week as I take the time to physically write things down. 

I still keep major appointments on an electronic calendar, so my husband can see them from work. 

But by also having this physical book in front of me, out on the kitchen table where I can reference it several times a day, I have reduced my anxiety levels exponentially. 

Note: I am not even sure I recognized that I had a lot of anxiety until I started "off loading" all the little tasks that I was trying to remember to this planner. 

Now that I can count on the reminder, things aren't being forgotten, and I find I have more margin to remember all the things that aren't getting written down here- and there are still a ton of things that aren't being written. 

There are truly hundreds of things a day that need to be remembered, checked on, etc. when you are talking about homeschooling three daughters and running a house. 

A day planner seems like such an obvious necessity now.  

It's making a huge difference already. 

My mental load is lightened and I am getting even more done with this support. 

Show Days

Because our co-op was cancelled this last week, we had more free time than usual. 

And we also had the first significant snowfall this winter. 

So that meant hours spent out of doors playing in the snow. 

The girls have been outside on four separate occasions in three days, sledding, hiking, building igloos and snow people, literally while the sleet was falling one day and until the sun dropped below the horizon and I had to turn on porch lights to give them light to sled by on another day. 

I find that people can stay out for hours in cold weather as long as they are bundled correctly, keeping their hands, feet, and heads covered and warm and dry. 

You know what they say. 

"There is no such thing as bad weather only improper clothing." 

Or something like that is often said. 

The girls come in exhilarated with stories to tell about the beauty and wonder of God's world in winter. 

If you look closely in the photo, you can see them helping each other trudged up the hill, out of our woods, and into the yard. 

Sundays Are For Commonplacing

 

As I read, I highlight my favorite quotes. 

And then, once a week or as often as I can, I like to copy these quotes into a Commonplace book. 

I actually find Sunday afternoons a perfect time for doing this. 

Sundays are for worship and rest. 

And commonplacing is a restful activity that nourishes my mind and spirit. 

The Commonplace Book shown above is not my current commonplace book, but I'm looking forward to using it once the brown, leather journal I am using right now is totally full. 

This last Sunday I spent an hour copying quotes from Ourselves by Charlotte Mason. 

I have so many highlights from that book in particular I think I may be copying from it for several weeks! 

But taking the time to copy the words helps me meditate on the truth of them, digest them, and make them a part of myself and my life. 

Lego Organizing

We got a bunch of Lego Advent calendars from my brother this year. 

(Thank you, Uncle Donnie.)

The girls enjoyed opening those every day leading up to Christmas Day.

We also bought a Lego Gingerbread house to put together on Christmas Day. 

(It actually took a few days to put it together.)

So now that it is time to clean up from Christmas, the girls have an abundance of new Legos to add to the already abundant Lego collection, 

the Lego collection that is already creeping out its boundaries within the upstairs hall closet...

and into the upstairs hallway floor... 

We keep them in drawers according to colors and speciality and size, etc. 

The girls open the closet doors and sit on the floor and play with Legos at least once a week...

so once a year or more, the Legos that have been taken out of the storage containers start to outnumber those that are inside the storage containers... 

and the old projects pile up and pour out of the closet. 

So for the next few days at least, "10 minutes of organizing the Legos" goes on their chore list. 

And, after about a week of 10 minutes a day, everything is mostly back in order and back within the bounds of the Lego closet. 

This "Lego organizing" needs to happen once or twice a year. 

That way, the girls can actually enjoy their Legos more for the simple fact that they are organized when they are ready to play again. 

The Silmarillion

I finished The Silmarillion this morning!

Finally! 

I read it in earnest this time, so this time, it took me months. 

Some chapters, I read as many as six times! 

I read all of them at least twice. 

I actually took extensive notes until I had a firm handle on the types of characters and their family trees. 

I didn't go so far as to draw my own maps, but I did buy an Atlas of Middle Earth and I referenced it at times.

This was not at all an easy book for me to read, obviously. 

But I was determined not to leave Middle Earth, so to speak, until I had throughly explored its landscape and had a firm grasp on its people and places and events. 

Like the Greek myths, this books does not make things easy on the reader. 

It requires almost a physical effort to read forward. 

But, like the myths, it offers rewards that easy narratives can't even touch.

A passive reader will just slide right down the steep incline of Tolkien's English. 

And I slid like that when I got passive. 

I'd finish a paragraph and realize I had not understood anything of what had been said, so I'd have to go back and start over from where I could last remember leaving off. 

I was like Frodo climbing a steep mountain, slipping on the loose shale, falling back, and having to go forward again from wherever I could find firm footing again.

But there were moments when Tolkien's English shone as with the light of a Silmaril and those sentences were like getting a view from a high mountain or feeling a breeze that seems to be filled sweet music from another world. 

Tears came to my eyes unbidden in those moments and then I felt a sweet longing.

I was thoroughly enchanted! 

And I believe I'll carry a piece of Middle Earth with me everywhere I go from now on. 

I've been marked by the journey for sure! 

 

Boredom Can Create Worlds

Don't structure every minute of your kids' time. 

They need a strict routine, but they also need long bouts of unstructured time,  

time enough to get bored

Boredom can be a good thing, 

no, 

a great thing even. 

It is not something to avoid. 

And don't give your kids an easy out by just letting them play video games or watch shows on their screens all day when they show signs of boredom. 

Your kids will pester you and you'll be tempted to just cave and let them have their way, but hold out a while longer. 

Once your kids figure out that you are actually serious about them finding others ways to entertain themselves besides screens, they will do so, because they can't stand being bored either.  

This week, we had to cancel our co-op because a majority of the families were ill. 

So we had more free time than usual, so the girls had time one afternoon to get really bored, bored enough to play with their stuffed animals for hours, 

literally, hours. 

Apparently, they used various items in their room to make a town. 

The town had commerce (baskets became stores with various Barbie doll items for sale inside).

And the town had citizens (various and sundry stuffed animals collected over generations. Great grandma's stuffed animals are in our collection. So are some of mine from when I was a kid).

And the town had a traffic cop- (a stuffed dragon with a police hat from the dress up box holding a dow rod from the cross stitch supplies as a symbol of his authority). 

Apparently, this dragon brought great order to what had been drama and chaos. 

(I don't see order in the picture they made me take, but they saw it there.)

It was delightful to hear their voices and laughter and footsteps from where I sat downstairs.

It was delightful to hear something of the world they had created together.  

It is a memory they'll have forever. 

And their imaginations are richer for the strong exercise. 

So don't make things so easy on your kids that they never have to make up their own fun. 

Let them grow bored enough to create entire worlds out of what's on hand and then travel there for hours. 

Putting Away Christmas and Reminiscing

Christmas is past and now it's time to put the decorations away until next year. 

So "Take Christmas boxes out of attic" is on today's to-do list. 

That way, little by little for the next week or so, I can methodically put the decorations away in my pockets of free time. 

I love to put the ornaments on the tree at the beginning of the season. 

That process often brings joyful memories to mind and we tell stories.  

The same goes for the process of "un-decorating." 

It can also be a process of giving thanks for what is past, what is now, and what is to come. 

Each year, we have new decorations to put away. They are made or given as gifts or we purchase them. 

(And we usually have some decorations I get rid of, too, because they are broken, or worn, or I don't like them anymore, etc.)

This year, we added some new homemade ornaments to our collection. 

My oldest also purchased me a new ornament. You can see it in the photo above.

She visited NYC with her best friend's family over Thanksgiving break, and they went into a shop there, and she spent a big chunk of her spending money on this gift for me. 

I was delighted and blessed by the gesture.  

She said, "I thought of you when I saw it, and I knew you'd love it."

I do love Nativity scenes. 

At this rate, I'll have entire tree's worth in a few years and that's fine by me. 

But this one will be special, because I will remember that Norah bought it for and it came in this season  of preparing for her to leave for college next year. 

It does and will continue to represent the fact that she and I have a growing friendship now, after so many years of homeschooling (and in spite of all the arguing that took place over the years of Latin grammar and other things like that.)

It feels like she was a preschooler learning phonics ten minutes ago. 

It feels like she was that preteen arguing with me over those Latin lessons only five minutes ago.  

So this ornament comes as a joyful reminder and comfort and will probably continue to come as a joyful reminder and comfort that by God's grace, I have used the time I was given with my daughter at home to the fullest. 

I know, I know... my relationship with her isn't ending. It's just changing. 

But as I put away the decorations, I recognize that time is precious and limited and perhaps it's so precious because it's so limited. 

I am thankful for God's calling to homeschool. That means that we were simply together everyday for years and years and we really know each other. 

And as the time continues to go by, that simple fact really comes to mean so much more than ever.