Rest Is Not Death

We started easing back into our regular homeschool routine all of last week. The girls did the majority of their schoolwork everyday, though this week and for many more weeks, there will be even more schoolwork each day. 

We are still beginning school days by listening to Scripture and drawing. I've illustrated another Sertillanges quote. See the picture above. I'm thinking of making a calendar of quotes once I have twelve or more. 

The youth group and 56ers, the fifth and sixth grade group at church, started up again last week. This week, both our co-ops, art classes, piano lessons, and dodgeball also start up, so we will be back into a fuller than full swing of things by week's end. 

I spent the majority of Friday and Saturday, and even a few hours Sunday, quietly building the spring schedule for one of our co-ops where I serve as their Coverage Coordinator. At this particular co-op, there are between ten and twenty classes for three hours in a row, approximately forty parents to place each hour, and we survey parents for their preferences, so the schedule took several hours of intense focus. I did basic housework, planned meals for the coming week, made meals each day, supervised the girls' chores and schooling, had several conversations with Dwayne, but the schedule took the best of my energies the last few days. I was pleased to send the schedule to everyone this morning complete, and I'm pleased that every parent is in at least one class where he or she most wanted to serve.  

It was a mild winter day yesterday, so after church, we made a fire in our fire pit with wood collected from the yard over the last several weeks. It's incredible how much wood falls from the trees each fall and winter! The trees literally throw off limbs, big and small, that no longer serve them. There is a lesson there. 

But it was still winter in Connecticut, so we all got on our real coats, picked up yard debris in the gentle sunshine, fed the sticks to the fire and/or poked the fire with them, sat around, soaked in warmth till our shins and cheeks burned red hot, read another portion of The Hobbit aloud, and made Smores, of course. 

After everyone else grew tired of sitting and went on to other tasks, I remained, and rested there. Rest is not death, after all. I prayed about the coming week, the coming weeks, the season. It was the Sabbath and the day before the beginning of the first day of the first week of another busy season. So it was time given for prayer.