gratituesday #213

SPRING. Finally! Warmer temps, longer days, color and life everywhere you look. Ahhhhhhh.

My healthy body.

A Teddy Roosevelt re-enactor (?) told his life story this morning, and afterwards, he insisted on recreating Mount Rushmore with the kids.



I guess you have to squint in your imagination.

The Edmond art show.

Rain.

Visit from the Kelloggs.

Dining out.

Spring semester ending with three weeks until the summer term.

Home study work.

Summer plans - camps, VBSs, and vacation. YAY!

Hazel's fun season at soccer; she's had the most fun.

The Gathering Place at Tulsa. Playing there for the day with co-op friends.

The backyard hammock.

The kind stranger who picked up Hazel's Snoopy (who had fallen into the SAMs parking lot unbeknownst to us) and wedged him into our car mirror.



Phew. That was a close one.

gratituesday #212

For the first time in 2018, I am caught up on work.  WOOT WOOT  This is obviously the lifting of a huge back-of-the-mind weight off my shoulders.  Sure, that's a mixed metaphor of body parts, but you get my drift.

Our co-op is going exceedingly well.  Every mother is responsible, positive, and kind. In my years of co-op observation/participation, the truest measure of the co-op is its mothers, not its children.  Good mothers usually have good children, both of which make for a good co-op.

Our local library is such a rich resource.  I use a library book almost every week at co-op; we read physical books daily; we access audiobooks via overdrive every day; and "books on tape" narrate most minutes spent in the car. Just this week I used the new scanner for the first time - how easy and fast!  13 pages with the push of a button sure beats 1 page/minute on my machine at home! Even if I went to the library just to scan, I'm convinced it would be faster than one page at a time at home. :)

Hazel got to play her first 2 games of soccer 2 Saturdays ago.  Of the 4 Saturdays scheduled for soccer, only 1 has actually happened due to the rain.  It looks like we'll be bunching up double headers for the remainder of the season.  She has a great coach (knowledgeable, kind, encouraging), she had 3 friends on the same team, and she's enjoying the opportunity to meet new girls.

Rain.  We've had so much of it in Sept/Oct, and it's amazingly green around here.  In years past I've heard that a wet autumn means brighter colors on the falling leaves.  Wouldn't that be beautiful?

I had a "personal" meeting last night with a student who is struggling in life and confused about her educational pursuits.  I'm thankful for the opportunity to speak honestly and faithfully into the lives of students at crossroads.  It's a trust I don't want to waste.

We're going through a couple of great studies right now: Praying the Names of Jesus and The Hole in Our Holiness.  Both have provided great weekly small group discussions and truths to ponder daily.

The windows and doors are open right now letting in the delicious cool air.

Wes and Zeke are planning a camping trip soon. I'm excited for the memories they'll make outside and the memories the girls and I will make while they're away. Those BOGO Dairy Queen coupons we got in the paper this morning will come in pretty handy, I think. ;)

Unlike last time, Betty neither pooped nor peed in Petsmart this afternoon while there to get her nails trimmed.  Phew.

gratituesday #211

Carolyn passed this afternoon.  Her health actually worked against her in the end because it took longer for her body to yield.  Throughout her final week on this old earth, she mainly rested in peace; now she lives in true Peace for all eternity.

Of course it is sad to lose a loved one, but it reminds me of that old cliche - better to have loved and lost and all... It's a cliche b/c it's true, I guess.  I'm thankful for a close family who loves one another.  It's harder to say goodbye, but I keep reminding myself that hard goodbyes usually follow a greater gift.

The kids are sad - one maybe inappropriately so given the nature of their relationship - but I think the sadness points to a couple of things for which I give thanks: 1) a tender heart, and 2) a life fairly void of hardship/loss.  Wes once scoffed at the strong sadness the kids sometimes felt in response to what we know as adults are pretty frivolous issues, but I was stopped in my tracks when I realized they've had so little "real" loss that their "small" issues seem pretty big.

Speaking of, we've been listening through the Lemony Snicket's Unfortunate Events series, and I was talking about it with another mom who loves to read and listen to books with her kids.  I began to recommend it to her as our kids have loved it but realized it would actually be a fully terrible read/listen for her 4 kids as they are adopted and would not love to listen to a story of 3 orphans who suffer one loss after another.  I realized I've never had to question things like that - stories that revolve around sadness (like orphans AKA most every Disney cartoon movie ever made).  Our kids are so secure (and therefore oblivious), they can listen to hard things in a state of blissful ignorance. 

This gratituesday is rather dark.

Mountaintops are beautiful because of valleys, though, right?  Both the journey through them and the view across them?

gratituesday #210

So I realized - not that it really matters - that it might be better - for what reason, I'm not sure - that it might be helpful to distinguish one gratituesday from the next.  I tried the date last time, but that's to clunky to my easily distracted brain, so I've decided to number them instead.  Taking the 154 thank You thursdays (antecedent posts) + 55 gratituesdays makes this #210.

My mom just called to say that after suffering some sort of cataclysmic brain event and being rushed to the city, her sister Carolyn has been given less than 48 hours to live.  She's been suffering with dementia of some sort for awhile now, but it is still a shock to my system.  She is the first blood aunt to die on that side.  It's not that I expected my aunts and uncles to live forever, but I'm still somehow surprised.

When I think of Carolyn, what great memories flood my mind!  Christmas Day (and later Easter as well) was spent at her house.  She never failed to greet me with a hug and then pinch my (southern) cheeks at some point during the visit.  She's one of the most physically affectionate people I know.  Even in her messed memory state, she never failed to love me with her body - hugs, squeezes, and the like.  The last time we visited her she didn't fully know who we were, but she did know she wanted at least some of on her lap.

At that last visit, I asked her about the photograph of a strikingly colorful bird included in a collection of many beautiful photographs she had taken throughout life which had been brought in to decorate her small apartment.  She told me she has snapped out her front window, and I knew this just had to be another crossed memory because there was no way an animal that beautiful could be found in her woody Western Oklahoma front yard.  I assumed she had snapped it on one of her many visits to her son's home in Alaska. When we got home later that day, I pulled out a book on Oklahoma birds, and sure enough, there was the painted bunting - known to hale from the woods of Western Oklahoma. :)

Beyond photography, Carolyn loved to paint as well.  She painted landscapes in oil and hosted craft painting parties at her house for sister and nieces.  Usually the projects were reserved for those old enough to paint without ruining something, but she usually had some other sort of paint project set aside for those of us who did not fit that category.

One of the great ironies of Carolyn's life was that although she was the local home ec teacher, she was only asked to bring the practically-impossible-to-mess-up ham to Thanksgiving dinner.  The rest of the meal was provided by non home ec teaching family members who somehow had a better skill set in the kitchen.

Carolyn Patten
Smallest of her tribe of six
Feistiest of all

Carolyn Sanders
Still the shortest in stature
Beloved big, not small

gratituesday 8/28/2018

Warm and affectionate dog curled up in my lap.

Walks in the early morning hours.

Time with the folks and the always fun Rodeo Parade this weekend.

Time with the "other folks" coming into town the day after. :)

Slow but steady progress through the MASSIVE online class I'm taking.  I'm 56% finished with a month to go.

Great first week of class at UCO.  Man, I really love doing what I do.

Repeat students.

Getting the notification that The Path Between Us is finally mine to borrow from the library.

The opportunity to vote today.

Lots of women on the ballot.

The gift of an hour at a local ninja gym for the kids this morning.

Hazel's knowledgeable, encouraging, and and head-in-the-right-place soccer coach.

Kids who play together well.

Pearl's insatiable desire to read.  This is especially sweet considering a year ago she pledged to avoid learning to read until she was 11.

She also decided yesterday that she was going to teach herself to tie her shoes using a interactive book we have.  She was so determined that she had it mostly figured out by last night.  The laces may not stay tied for more than a few minutes, but she's getting closer.  :)

A ladies' event at church over the weekend with a guest who shared passionately about how to view our time in God's word as a feast.

More August rain than we've seen in years.  Having green grass this late in the summer is sort of stunning!

Zinnias, my official favorite of 2018.

Unexpected lunch with a friend who shared our table at McAlisters on Sunday.

McAlisters tea by the gallon - one tall glass each afternoon.

Two (sometimes three) mugs of Irish Breakfast tea with honey and half and half each morning.

Sunglasses.

BBC's dance mat typing.  All the kids have tried it, and 2 have finished.  They love it, and it's a great intro to keyboarding.

Speaking of keyboards, Pearl started piano last week.  All 3 go together.  While one takes her lesson, the other two play with the teacher's similarly-aged daughter.  That gives me 1.5 hours to work in silence while they're gone!

Friends bravely trying new things because they believe in its "rightness."

Easy/close Goodwill donation sites.

As of tomorrow, we will have completed 12.5% of our school year.

Great read alouds so far.

We're reading a photobiography (which I didn't even know that word existed) of Abraham Lincoln, and the kids were all disappointed when we read about how he was a very superstitious person - believing in signs, omens, etc.  They had built him into a mythic figure and equated his goodness with perfection, I guess literally.  It was a great opportunity to talk about how only One was perfect and we can't put our eggs in any basket that's not His.

AWANA starts tomorrow night.

Zeke's affection for a corny joke such as "Did you hear about the drummer who had twins?  Yeah!  He named them Anna 1 Anna 2." :)

gratituesday

My intention is to keep gratituesday-ing.  I think it's an important practice/pause.  We'll see...

We're 4 weeks + 1 day into 2018/19 school year, and things seem to be going well.  Starting in August means we really love ourselves in April when we can surrender to Spring Fever without regret.

While we really just homeschool, we're technically enrolled in Epic online charter school.  This only works because we have an amazing teacher who believes learning should be mostly hands on for littler learners.  She's vetted our system and trusts our process (because she can track our growth on quarterly tests).  Essentially, we're doing minimally more work for maximum rewards; for us, that's objective measures (those tests) which reassure me that we're on track and - what's really the driving factor for me - the learning fund which pays for piano lessons and the occasional art class.  A free day at Frontier City or Dodgers game is just the icing on the cake.

This year will be our 6th as homeschoolers.  I'm glad to be more certain and confident in the steps we're taking.  Listening to newbs who're trying to figure everything out reminds me of the mental exhaustion that comes with uncertainty.  It's not like we've got it all figured out, but it's much less a mystery these days, and that is so nice.

The kids are at such fun ages!  They can do so many things that make life easier (e.g., make a sandwich, put away their laundry, wipe their own hineys, etc), but they're still so easily amused and easy going.  I love how they are usually up for most anything.  Maybe it's because they realize they don't really have a choice and so they just go with it???  Not sure, but that's a good skill too. :)

Although I changed my schedule at UCO this semester this year resulting in one class not "making," I have plenty of work to do right now.  Out of nowhere home studies and updates keep me busy enough to make up for the lost income.

I was up late trying to knock out some semester preparations when I lifted a book that had my phone inside which was plugged into the charger whose cord was behind a glass that got knocked over ONTO MY KEYBOARD spilling tea everywhere.  Panic stricken, I turned my laptop sideways to drain the liquid off the keyboard and used my robe to wipe off/mop up what I could.  I had just read a story about a lady who had spilled her drink on her laptop and how everything seemed to be A-OK until 10 minutes later when she got the blue screen of death.  I immediately backed up the stuff I was working on and started copying everything most important over ASAP before going to bed with thoughts of "...bet that won't be working in the morning..." rolling around on repeat while I fell asleep.  Thankfully, here I sit 4 or 5 days later on that very computer having lost nothing.  Some of the keys were a bit gritchy the first day or two, but even that seems to have straightened itself out.  Whew!  That was a close one!

Oklahoma therapists/counselors are privy to a national pilot program resulting in 28 free continuing ed credits, and the training is actually really informative.  The goal is to increase adoptive/foster competent professionals across the nation, and the material is just so good.  I'm so glad it's worth the time invested.

Perennials.  I'm hoping our investment this year will pay off next spring.

Hazel had her first soccer practice last night.  This is our first foray into team sports, and it should be an interesting experience. :)  The beauty is that we're playing at the Y (hoping to avoid the most serious club team-type play), our coach is a close friend, and Hazel has 3 good buddies on the team.

I'm reading through 66 Love Letters by Larry Crabb, and it's providing an interesting walk through the 66 books of the Bible and the themes that run throughout.  I love just about anything that highlights God's creative ability to intricately weave His inerrant word using 40ish humans over thousands of years that is as applicable today as it has been at every point of history.  Incredible.

Our neighbor calls us when her mobile pet service is calling on them so that Betty can jump in and get her nails trimmed in a trailer across the street.  Not only is it convenient, it's proven very helpful in figuring out that Betty's nails had remained too long before we got her and now we can course-correct the issue (that would otherwise lead to skeletal issues in her legs) by getting her nails trimmed every 2-3 weeks.  We've already got her back feet in good shape, and her front paws are on their way.

The Stallings, some dear friends of 20 years, are moving to Wisconsin tomorrow.  It has been a possibility for years, but it has all actually happened in a startlingly short amount of time - 8 days from accepting the job to actually leaving.  40+ friends were able to gather Saturday for a "see ya later" party, and I was doing just fine (not really thinking about it) until the end of the night when Rachel hugged me long and hard and then pulled away with tears in her eyes.  I know it won't change MY day-to-day interaction with her since we haven't lived in the same city since college, but it's hard to see a good friend do hard things so far away.  Rachel said she'd told Monty that she'd be back in OK for our shared birthday in a few months, and I'm looking forward to it already.

Speaking of looking forward to it, after not having flown anywhere since 2013, I've made plans that include flying TWICE in the next two months!  I'm beyond excited.  I'm headed to Chicago with a couple friends in September to catch a live recording of a podcast and eat a good meal or 2.  That's literally all we'll have time for as we leave town Saturday morning and will be able to eat lunch with our families after church Sunday morning!  Wes and I have booked an anniversary trip to Oregon in October, and I'm beside myself with anticipation.

early Christmas

We let the kids open their "big gift" a little early so they could make use of their new Kindles on the family ski trip tomorrow.