Morning Glories

In the past, I've shared pictures of my sunflowers. I did plant sunflowers this year, in a  different place, but this summer the flowers that were most captivating were my morning glories.

You can see that I started out with a very pretty bamboo place for my flowers to climb. We came home after a week away and the plants had literally dragged down the poles and kept the bamboo poles hidden until I cleaned the bed this fall and pulled them out of the woven trap.

The flowers were slow in growing, but when they came they were so abundant.

(I'm still learning iPhoto on my mac, after being a picassa girl for years. Anyone have any favorite easy mac photo software?)

16 years ago....

My friend Renee, who blogs at FIMBY, mentioned recently that she was getting ready to read A Circle of Quiet, by Madeleine L'Engle. L'Engle is probably my very favorite author. I have a very fond feeling toward this book. So I picked up my copy and began reading it again.

The first time I read this book was 16 years ago. I had been married all of two months to someone I had not yet known for a year. This book, actually the whole Crosswicks Journal series, helped me survive a very hard first few years of marriage. That was what I remember about this book.



Today, I read what may have been the Key for my young heart to not running away to Australia 16 years ago; and it is astonishing to me that this passage still gives me the same grace and hope and love for my marriage that it did all those years ago.

"When we were married we made promises, and we took them seriously. No relationship between two people which is worth anything is static. If a man and wife tell me they've never had a quarrel, I suspect that something is festering under the skin. There've been number of time in my marriage when - if I hadn't made promises - I'd have quit. I'm sure this is equally true of Hugh; I'm not an easy person to live with. 

I'm quite sure that Hugh and I would never have reached the relationship we have today if we hadn't made promises. Perhaps we made them youthfully, and blindly, no knowing all that was implied; but the very promises have been saving grace." 

M. L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet (p107 in my book)

Well, Why Not....

As I've been getting the kids going on their NaNoWriMo, it is very weird to to not have a writing project myself. But it really would be impossible for me to participate in NaNoWriMo while helping the kids with their own writing. (Not to mention our current life schedule.)

Last night I was visiting @lannalee 's blog (http://lannaleemaheux.com/) - I met her and @rurugby at the #smbme birthday party last month - and saw that she is participating in NaBloPoMo.

As I was blogging about the kids writing, I had thought, maybe I should just commit to blogging each day  - or nearly. So stumbling - it felt stumbling- across Lanna Lee's "in solidarity with her NaNoWriMo friends" line cemented it for me.

Then, I wondered if I should join the NaBloPoMo or just blog. Because, you know. I can't just do something without over thinking it.

And I remembered that last November was a big writing month for me, too. Anna and Marc were in NZ for most of the month and my part of their journey was to blog each day. So maybe November is a good writing month for me.

So, why not.



(Thanks, LannaLee!)

So much just happened....

I was writing a blog post, chatting on FB with a friend who has been on my mind for over a week - and Caleb came running out of his room.

"Guys! Come here! Quick!"

He ran to our patio door, opened it, and in came the cat who has been missing since Saturday afternoon.

I had just written to my friend on chat "I'm not sure at what point I tell Anna to change her prayers from 'bring Cleo home' to 'God please comfort me.'" Seriously. I'm sure FB must keep track of these things, if you want to check.

Seriously, I hadn't hit the period to that sentence when Caleb came out of his room.

As if that all isn't crazy enough, the phone rang and it was Marc - who we haven't talked to since Sunday night (something about his being in Mexico).

All of this happened at the same time.

And I am so overwhelmed by God's goodness and caring especially to my kids. Kids worried about the cat. Kids missing their Dad. Me worried about the cat and missing my husband.

And All at Once His love broke into my very cozy living room and gave me More than I could have hoped for, More even than I thought I needed.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, EPH3:20. 

NaNoWriMo

This month is NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. I think I would have been almost entirely unaware of it if a friend hadn't forwarded me a link to The Young Writers Program linked with NaNoWriMo. Almost as soon as I hit the home page, I was hooked. And the more I looked around, the more excited I got. There are some AMAZING writing resources.

So, this month Pitman Academy is participating in NaNoWriMo. My two challenges are the age spread of my students (1st, 4th, 7th) AND we didn't do any pre work last month.

On the website there are lesson plans, ideally presented in October, for every level. There is a treasure trove of resources! I printed out free lesson plans and free worksheets. There is an interactive online classroom - which we may or may not take advantage of.

For Pitman Academy participants, the first week of November is going to be spent doing a NaNoWriMo bootcamp - doing that work that would have ideally been done in October. We are going to get through as many of the lesson plans and worksheets as we can. I will be happy if the kids start writing next week. And even though the spirit of NaNoWriMo is to get it done in November, I can already see that I'm not going to cut off the kids' muses just because the calendar page changes.

I have been astonished by how hard the kids are willing to work on this. Not only do we sit together while I teach for about 40 minutes (NOT how we do homeschool, so this is a learning curve in and of itself), but will gladly do their 'homework' until bedtime. Even when I tell them they've put enough time in, they keep going.

Yesterday, we covered the basics about what is a novel and what is NaNoWriMo. Today, we talked about what makes us love or hate a book AND began developing Main Characters, Supporting Characters, and Villains.

I love that each night at supper the kids have asked each other about their NaNoWriMo work.

I am so excited and overwhelmed by this adventure.

Tomorrow, we work on plot.

Baby Clothes

These are the clothes Caleb wore home from the hospital. When he was born. 12 years ago.

These clothes have moved three times, and spent the majority of their life in a plastic bin in the basement.

But how cute are they?!

If the boy weren't now 12, I might post the million baby pictures we took in those first few months. (My in-laws had just gotten together and bought us our first digital camera - Sony Mavica that took a 3.5 inch floppy.)


Yeah, it's time to say good-bye to the clothes. How horrible would it be to hold on to them and give them to my (MAYBE, someday a long way away) daughter-in-law for my (MAYBE, even much longer away) grandchild. Creepy.

So, I'll take a picture and hold onto it for any of those things that might OR might not happen somewhere down the road.

Oh, and while I'm at it, I'll let go of some of my mama expectations. He's reaching the age of young adult before my eyes. Buh-bye, baby boy clothes. Buh-bye, baby boy. 

Fun with Psalm 139

Yesterday I posted this on Google+:

Caleb is memorizing Psalm 139 for school (taking the first 12 weeks to do it all).

Today, we were going over it and he confessed to me that whenever he says the first verse (You have searched me oh God, and know me) that he thinks of TSA or police officers giving someone a pat-down.

Doesn't that just make you grin?

Today the adventure continued:

This week we are working on verses 1-12. He's got it down pretty well, but verses 11 and 12 are quite a piece of poetry with repeating, twisting words and phrases, so we have had to work extra hard.

Cale memorizes best when he is moving so he paces and sways a lot as he gets going. So as we were working today he was pacing around the living room.

He sped through verses 1-4 and the first part of 5. He stopped. Stuck even though he has HAD it for weeks. He started patting his head in earnest and the pacing started back up.

"I know I know it." pat pat pace pace. "I know I know it."

I could only giggle as I watched him think and pat.

The rest of verse 5 is "You lay your hand upon me".

Sea Dragon

I have been afraid of this ride as long as it's been in my awareness. I have been afraid of heights for as long as they have been in my awareness.

At my first country fair - I was maybe 8 - a friend convinced me to go on the ferris wheel. (I still hate ferris wheels.)

My parents had entrusted me to carry my tickets. Getting on the ferris wheel, I became very concerned that they might fall out of my back pocket. Thinking carefully about how to keep them safe, I carefully put them into my mouth. (It worked for Wilbur, didn't it?)

The ride slowly rose. The ride stopped as others got on and off. I became more and more nervous. The ride stopped at the top. It was horrible.

As we got off the ride, I might have kissed the ground if it wasn't truly a country fair. I retrieved my tickets ... now a soggy wad of paper.

Since then, I've made careful choices about rides (and what I put into my mouth). 

I'd like to let you know that basing choices on the fear and experiences  of an 8 year old are not always our best guides.

Today, I went on this ride. Not only was it not bad, it was kind of fun. I felt pleased to face a thirty year fear next to my 11yo (who might or might not have been laughing at me the whole time). I also felt a little sad that the fear has held me captive this long.

As far as breakthroughs go, this WAS just a carnival ride. The real breakthrough comes when today's experience becomes an icon for freedom and courage in other places.

Peas...

... or Peace?

Growing

I came across these two pictures of our little front garden when I was sorting on Picassa last night.

It was quite surprising to look at these images, taken on May 30.
This is what it the flower patch looks like now.

I have faith that that is how my growth happens, too. Not seeing a big difference day to day, but sometimes getting snapshots of how different I am now from what I was then. Amen.