I'm Back....

As the Pioneer Woman recently blogged, you must tend to your blog as you would your garden. 

My garden is full of weeds and taken over by squash beetles.  I water it when the ground cracks and I am ready to let it go for the winter when it is still 94 degrees outside.  It has rained the last few days - so I have been very happy that I have not been needed in the watering department.  God has taken care of that.  Why won't he just write my blog? 

In my defense of bloglessness, the computer that holds our pictures will not connect to the Internet.  You may know that I love to blog about pictures and without them I feel lifeless, without direction and dramatic.  I realize that I could upload the photos to a jump drive and then download them to the laptop and then upload them again.....but that is too much loading and I just don't feel like it.  I would rather complain that the silly thing isn't working.

It would be a long night to catch up on all that has happened in the past month.  So I have a few points to bring things up to speed as well as my deep thoughts of the day.  In the great words of Princess Bride,  

"No, there is too much. Let me sum up..." 

• We had a fantastic time in Minnesota.  If you have never lived away from a town where all of your family lives, you can't imagine the insanity of trying to spread yourself between every dear person you want to see.  A joy and a challenge.  
• Jason's Grandma Naomi passed away.  We were able to see her in Minnesota while she was in hospice and Jason was able to fly back for her funeral to be with family.  
• We had a week of experiencing hand-foot-mouth disease at our house.  It was about as fantastic as it sounds.  I don't recommend it.  
• Despite the illness, we spent the Labor Day weekend moving in to our newly finished basement and moving Ella to her own room (she's been sleeping on our floor since the end of May).   It was much harder than moving in to the house the first time since we had to unpack every box that had been kept outside in our shed and search for poisonous spiders.  We didn't want them moving in to the basement with our children.   I love organizing, but this was a little intense.  
• Ella and Owen started violin lessons.  Sigh.  
• Ella started home school co-op classes and I meet some fantastic women who didn't care that I was completely overwhelmed the first day.  I feel so blessed by that.  
• I learned that communication and expectations are so very, very important.  I think I knew that before - but God drove it home again. 
• Jason has been working crazy long days at work.  We miss him lately.  
• I joined a wonderful new Bible Study group with other Mom's called Entrusted With a Child's Heart.  I am so excited to get to know the other women - just wish I could learn all the concepts in 15 minutes.  Patience....
 

Our big deal of the week is that I finally kicked off my "official" start to homeschooling for the year (better late than never..??).  Now, I struggle with this concept because we are teaching 24/7 and there is not anything official about it, except to say that I am more organized and documenting things that we cover each day.  Our late start is attributed to my inability to focus on school when the basement was in major transition.  I wanted our office desk back and books unpacked and the house to be a little more "in order" - whatever that means.  

The kids are loving a little more structure and I have come to a fantastic realization: I get more done when I don't multi-task.  Don't get me wrong, I still have to feed the baby while teaching math and putting Owen's pants on (he looses them with regularity).  But when I focus on one major item at a time, life goes on with many more smiles in our house.  

I read an article last year in The Homeschooling Today journal that talked about multi-tasking as a form of anxiety.  It makes sense.  When we can't give our all to one item at a time, we cannot give our best and we cannot enjoy the moments that are meant to be lived - like listening to Ella teach Jason all about volcanoes when he came home from work today, or playing with the kids in the mud after a really good thunderstorm.  

Despite the frequent insanity, I feel incredibly blessed to be at home with my kids all day to learn these lessons...together.