A Lovely Day

Today was an awesome day. I'd been kind of down because we haven't had just a regular week in at least three weeks. I'm just missing some normalcy and routine. Anyway, I was checking on field trip stuff and e-mail and facebooking my cousin, and a friend, a Happy Birthday, when Ellie came down to say "It's time to start school!" We didn't start school just then and she wandered off back upstairs to her room. I should've stopped what I was doing and headed off to the school room right then, but I had "stuff" to do...that I thought couldn't wait.

Wyatt then came downstairs begging to do Math. I was basically done by that time, so I headed up to help him start Math (his Math books get carried everywhere...he has even taken them in the car). I took the opportunity to make my big announcement. I received the Pizza Hut Book It! Reading Program kit in the mail yesterday and for some reason was thinking today was the big kick off day (it's actually Thursday, October 1). This is the third year we've participated in Book It!, but we really only half-heatedly did the chart before. I was always left with useless coupons (past expiration).

Well, my announcement got every ones attention (all two of them!). Ellie asked how the program works and promptly got a paper set up to write down the books she reads to earn her Pizza Hut coupon for October. She got out a couple of books, while Wyatt began his Math. Shortly after, she declared that Reading was her new favorite subject! You can't imagine what a relief that was to hear. I LOVE READING! Honestly, I've been worried that I ruined reading for her. I know she loves books, and listening to me read, but after the torture of trying to teach her phonics with 100 Easy Lessons in Kindergarten...realizing that I was not teaching her using her learning style...finally seeing the pieces come together...much nerves when asked to read aloud (which I only asked her to do when it was just the two of us)...I'm just a worry-wort. We had many discussions on how it's okay to make mistakes...that making mistakes are a good learning experience. I'm afraid I bore a little perfectionist...much like myself before I had children. So, ah, I can breath now.

Today has many wonderful moments. Wyatt petitioned me to ask to move up a grade in our Co-op. He has always been a year ahead in Math, but I have been reluctant to say he is a grade ahead. He did wonderful with the 100 Easy Lessons (pre-pre-Kindergarten) at the same time I was trying to teach Ellie. The style made sense to him. He could sound letters out, but he had no idea what he was saying. They made a pretty good team, because then she knew what the word was. I have not worked too hard on reading with him, so I wasn't sure if I could really say he was in the next grade. I also hated to move him up a grade and keep Ellie in the same grade. They are two years and two weeks apart in age...they should be two grades apart...right? Anyway, he made a valid argument about Co-op...that he know how to sew (yet is stuck with the little kids doing crafts)...that he is a grade ahead in Math...that he can do most things his sister can...that he know the 50 States song her group is singing (and I think the younger group, too, but they didn't sing it this last class time). Anyway, I told him he would have to prove himself in Reading (which he tends to avoid when possible). Well, he did! With Sister tutoring him! Oh, if I could just capture that moment. Honestly, I don't think I'll ever forget it. The two of them on the couch. When he got stuck, she helped him sound the word out (she was sounding out words!!! out loud!!! and reading out loud today, with confidence!!!). Brother was really trying, doing well, and not getting frustrated either.

When we had group read aloud time today (when I read out loud to the kids and sometimes the Daddy, too), Ellie asked for me to read Moonlight on the Magic Flute, a Magic Tree House series book, by Mary Pope Osborne. Ellie interrupted me once, asking to read aloud one of her stories to count for the Book It! So, I stopped and let her read. As we continued the story, I realized we were reading about Mozart as a child. A little bit later, the kids realized who we were reading about. They were so excited and Wyatt asked if he was a real person. I said "Yes, and I might have a CD with his music on it." Oh, did they get excited then! I can't blame them, I love music almost as much as I love reading. So, I search a bit and found a CD with Mozart's Symphony No. 40 on it. Well, Wyatt just had to dance with me. What a little dancer he is. He is not quite 7, but he can actually lead! He was twirling me (well, having me twirl by his hand position, I still have to duck under his arm) and moving me around the floor. I was impressed. Ellie was dancing a bit herself, but mostly she was conducting (she learned about conducting from watching the new season of Fetch! on PBS kids).

Today was just lovely. We didn't go anywhere! That was lovely in itself. I just got to enjoy my kids and homeschooling. I didn't get all the chores done today that are behind, but I don't care. The dishes can be done anytime; my kids will be a whole day older tomorrow. If Jesus comes back and we all leave this earth tonight, I will not be taking my dirty dishes with me, but I will be taking my beautiful children. We had a fabulous day.

So, now we're working on baths, switching laundry, and getting ready for bed. Tomorrow's another crazy day. Sometime before 3:30pm, we need to head to the library to pick up borrowed period clothing for Saturday (they joined the Civil War Kid's Club...but that's a whole other post!), go to the Poppy Seed health food store to pick up my special soap and Wyatt's favorite toothpaste, and pick up the ice cream cake that I'm buying myself for my birthday...and I get to work tomorrow evening at my part-time job (yes, on my birthday). Sigh. Thank you, Lord, for another day.

Hmm, titling this just reminded me of the song Lovely Day, by Out of Eden, which is so appropriate: "When I wake up in the morning, Lord, and the sunlight hurts my eyes, and something without warning, Lord, bears heavy on my mind. When the day that lies ahead of me seems impossible to face and when someone else instead of me always seems to know the way....then I look to you and the world is alright...just one look to you and the world is alright with me....just one look to you and I know it's gonna be...a Lovely Day!" We've just got to get the right focus, and it's gonna be a Lovely Day!

Ten Years

Ten years ago, July 4, 1999 Thomas and I were wed in holy matrimony. We wrote our own vows. This year, July 4, 2009, we renewed our vows. Both ceremonies were held at my parents' house. Many people who've seen these pictures have asked, "Do you think you've changed much since then?"

In case you can't tell when we were ten years younger, the lower picture is from 1999 and the above picture is from this year. I can see the passing of youth, but I will take the compliments of those who say my appearance has barely changed. I will also tell you that those two people have changed very much. We are not the same people we were ten years ago. I'm not saying, "the honeymoon is over" dunt, dunt, dunt, dunn (that's the bad music...I'm not so good at sounds in writing). Ten years have passed, how could we be the same people? We've both grown and changed...in many more ways than the physical.

These are the vows we wrote more than ten years ago:

Bride: I promise to love, encourage you, and help you achieve your full potential as God's creation.

Groom: I promise to love, encourage you, and help you achieve your full potential as God's creation.

Bride: I vow to take time to share with you, communicate, respect and care for you.

Groom: I vow to listen to, care for, respect you, and be conscious of your needs.

Bride: We will share our burdens and they will seem lighter.

Groom: We will share our joys together, so they will be multiplied.

Bride: I give myself to you as I am and as I will be.

Groom: I give myself to you as I am and as I will be.

Bride: I promise to be your best friend and lover for all eternity.

Groom: I promise to be your best friend and lover for all eternity.

We worked on those vows for quite a long time. We checked out books at the library. I will admit I come from a family of poets (including my dad and his mom). I think we got a bit poetic on that last line about eternity...not exactly Biblical, but it sounds really good.

You can see that we really thought about what we needed from each other when we wrote these. In retrospect, I should have asked Thomas to vow to love me, not respect me. That's one of the things that have changed though, I realize the place God gave to me in our relationship.

We dated for nearly four years before we were married. We met in high school and went to Senior Prom together. We dated through most of college (different universities). We talked a lot about our desires and expectations. We had a lot of time to get to know each other.

I recently had someone tell me that God uses the marriage relationship more than any other to grow and shape us into the people he wants us to be. I definitely agree with that. I like the first line of our vows, because I think we're both really fulfilling that vow: to help you achieve your full potential as God's creation.

I have learned so much in the last ten years. One of the most important is that even if I think my husband is not being "the man" I think he is supposed to be, it is not my job to take over his! Oh, the pitfalls of being inoculated with the feminazi propaganda. I grew up with "Girl's can do anything boys can do, only better!" and the like. I thank the Lord that he gave me a Mr. Steady Man (from Debi Pearl's book: Created To Be His Help Meet), because any other man would have probably left me long ago. I'm not saying that my dear husband is or was perfect, but I was not either.

When I read the teaser for Debi Pearl's book, Created To Be His Help Meet, I was in tears. I knew I had done wrong against my husband and my God. Something I learned from her, and was reiterated in our recent Fireproof Couples Study is that when we make our wedding vows, we are accountable to God for those vows. That means that no matter how my spouse messes up, I am still responsible for keeping my vows. I am answerable to God for not keeping my vows, just as my husband is accountable to God for his vows. My job is not to be a scorekeeper, or to punish my husband.

Ecclesiastes 5: 4-5 says, "When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; For he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed-- Better not to vow than to vow and not pay." The Fireproof Couples study used that verse, and the verse really made me think. I went into our marriage ten years ago thinking a marriage was 50-50. I now realize a marriage is 100% me, and whatever I get back is whatever I get back.

Within a week of reading Created to be His Help Meet, and implementing some of the things she teaches in the book, Thomas said to me, "What happened? You're fun again." Wow! Sigh. I want my husband to always think I'm fun. I took an interest in my husband again, the things he enjoys, and I made myself and our home a joyful place to be. I responded to him in a positive manner in all things. You'd be amazed how God can work a change in your spouse when you let God work a change in you first. My dear hubby learned that we he started doing the Love Dare on me!

There was another verse used in the couples study that keeps popping up. Funny, when we were working on this part of the study, I was using the first Bible that my parents gave Thomas before we were married. In that Bible, which he seldom uses now, was underlined Ephesians 5:22-33, "Wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,...let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." There is a lot more in between the dots there, but the main point is that the wife respect her husband (whether he deserves respect or not), and the husband must love the wife (even if she is unlovable). Again, the most important thing to remember is that I am responsible only for myself! I also want to note that thanks to Created To Be His Help Meet, I understand that the only man God has ordered me to submit to is my own husband.

Our pastor (the same one who married us ten years ago) used that verse in our renewal vows. We let him write them this time. Here is the vow portion of the ceremony:

Thomas do you vow to continue to take this woman, whose hands you hold as your wife, as your own flesh, to love her even as Christ loves the Church, to protect her and care for her the rest of your lives? (Answer I Do)

Turn to her and make this profession of your faith: I, Thomas, according to the Word of God, vow before God and these witnesses, to continue to be joined to you, to be husband to you and we two are of one flesh.

Misty do you vow to continue to take this man, whose hands you hold as your husband, loving him as unto the Lord, showing him respect and tenderness for the rest of your lives? (Answer I Do)

Turn to him and make this profession of your faith: I, Misty, according to the Word of God, vow before God and these witnesses to continue to be joined with you, to be a wife to you and we two are of one flesh.

This is a bit of a spoiler for the Fireproof Couples Study, at the end of the Third Session, the Fireproofing Couples Challenge for the Week was to consider renewing your vows to each other. I had already decided that I wanted to take pictures in our wedding clothes for our tenth anniversary. When Thomas offered to renew our vows, I heartily agreed.

So, here we are ten years, two kids, some hard work, and a lot of God shaping later. We have changed. We have changed for the better. Thanks be to God. Without His love, we have no love to give. With God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26).

The Joys of a Typical Day of Homeschooling

Okay, first, there is no typical day of homeschooling...at least not in my book. We have good days, okay days, and not so good days. Most days are good days, especially when we stick with our BASIC SCHEDULE:

Wake up 8:30-9:00am

Breakfast 9:00-9:15am

Clean up

Make bed(s)

Get dressed

Brush Teeth

Get glass of water for school

Class time 10:00am-Noon

Lunch time Noon or 12:30

Cooking and Clean up

Class time 1pm-3pm

Tea Time 3:00-3:30pm

PBS Kids TV time ok till 5:30pm

Dinner time 6:00-6:30pm

Chore time

Free time/play time/family read time

Bedtime Routine & snack 9:00pm

Yes, I do need reminded to brush our teeth, etc. There is a whole other "schedule" for the Bedtime Routine. The weirdest things get my family off schedule...like when the time changes so that you would expect everyone to get up earlier...we somehow get up later.... I don't get it. Anyway, we have been way off schedule lately, but slowly working ourselves back to getting to bed on time & getting up on time.

This new school year, we have been studying the Revolutionary War. This week, I've followed up with a lapbook and some other activities on Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere. So, yesterday, we are working on the Benjamin Franklin Lapbook and my dear darling daughter says, "Benjamin Franklin is so dreamy." And she says it just exactly like some young girl mooning over a steamy heartthrob. I was both amused and a little thrilled (because she is not mooning over some teenage heartthrob at the tender age of almost nine), but I asked her about it later. She explained that he is dreamy because he dreamed up such cool inventions (she LOVES Science); she also informed me that she would rather dream about Eragon, not an old guy. Both of the kids are very much into the Inheritance Cycle written by Christopher Paolini (homeschool graduate at age 15), but that's a story for a whole other post.

That explained, one of the other things we are working on with ol' Ben Franklin is his Chart of 13 Virtues from www.HomeschoolPatriot.com. A couple of those virtues being Order and Industry, which reminded us how badly we needed to get serious about getting back to our Basic Schedule. So, last night everyone got ready for bed on time, but we still didn't quite make it to bed on time.

This morning, I decided to set my alarm for 9:30, instead of 8:30 or 9:00am. I thought, "We don't really take that long to ready." Well, yes we do....so, we started school late. Which means we'll finish up after the kids get done watching their favorite PBS shows. Which is not a big deal, because those four scheduled hours of school are just what they are "scheduled hours," we generally have at least two more hours of school and up to six more hours of school on any given day. How many additional hours, depends on what we're studying and how into things the kids get. I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but it is not uncommon at my house for the kids to come to me in the evening and say, "We're ready!". To which I respond with, "Ready for what?" (I'm usually in the middle of something and truly have no clue!). The answer is then: "School!". Well, how can you deny a child who wants to learn? Just to keep it real, I must say there have been plenty of times that the children have whined and complained and dragged their feet, saying things like "Do we have to do school today?".

I have to tell another cute one from this week. Yesterday, Ellie asked if she could save her copywork for "homework." I said, "All of your schoolwork is homework, but if you want to save it for later, that's fine." Too adorable.

My dear Wyatt learned a good lesson yesterday. He was messing around and not doing what I instructed him to do with the Benjamin Franklin Lapbook. I really thought he would be excited about the lapbook, because he would get to cut and paste, and we haven't done lapbooks since Co-op the year before last. He was too excited that he'd figured out how to make a balloon out of a big black trash bag. I admit I have been pretty lax on him, but this is first grade now, Mister! So, he had to stay "after school" to finish his lapbook and missed all but thirty seconds (according to Wyatt) of Arthur (which Ellie got to watch all of, because she listened and finished her work). He was wonderfully on task today, with just a little reminder of yesterday.

I am constantly trying to figure out new things to do for Spelling, Reading and Math...things to make them interesting and enticing. They seem to be the subjects that cause the most groans and complaints (though Wyatt loves Math himself...unless he hears Ellie start complaining). So, today I tried something completely different for Spelling. I printed off some spelling words which I figured would be doable for both of them and we had a Sort-of Spelling Bee. We had a little trouble with taking turns, because one would start spelling a word they knew, even if it wasn't their turn. They were VERY excited. So excited this went on for an hour! Ellie knew quite a few of the words, and Wyatt sounded them out to spell them like a little champ.

Both kids can be very brother and sister competitive and argumentative (though they can also be the best of friends). They both got really upset when the other one started spelling a word that didn't belong to them, so this is something you wouldn't see in a regular classroom, but we took mmm....four, I think, Scream Breaks. When they started to yell at each other, I yelled, "I think we've all got a mark in Moderation!" (In our Franklin Virtue Charts, you put a mark when you "transgressed the virtue."). Then I said, "I think we all need to scream for a minute." So, we plugged our ears and screamed our heads off for a minute (good thing we live out in the country!). Then everyone was smiles and giggles. It wasn't long before they were doing very well at taking turns and keeping their mouths shut when it wasn't their turn. Thanks to the scream breaks I didn't have to break up any fights, yell, or punish anyone! When I was growing up and working on my temper, I used to go to my room and scream in my pillow. I'm sure one of the scream breaks was just for the fun of being allowed to scream, but I went along with it anyway.

I decided that I should keep my camera in the classroom, because I would've got the funniest pictures today. The kids were getting silly at the end the the Sort-of Spelling Bee. Ellie started writing her word on the chalkboard as she spelled it, so Wyatt wanted to write his, too. I asked them to each erase their word when they were done, so the board would be ready for the next person. Well, chalk dust got to flying and Ellie said she was going for some safety glasses. I figured she meant her reading glasses, and Wyatt took off for his glasses, too. They hurried back and Ellie had her Daddy's sunglass safety glasses that he uses for mowing and weed eating. Wyatt had his glasses with his sunglass clip. They were both full of giggles then. Ellie was pretending she couldn't see and feeling around for the chalk and eraser. But we made it through the last dozen words. Oh, and they dusted the chalkboard eraser on their shirts...picture that one...with sunglasses, on black and navy blue shirts.

Earlier today, the kids were doing some fill in the blank and I had to use the facilities. So, I told Ellie to help Wyatt with spelling the words. He started to pitch a fit. I hollered, "Ellie is my TA and you will let her help you!" I got back and she had helped him finish his fill in the blank and there was no trouble. That was a wonderful moment.

We've been reading the Kingdom Series by Chuck Black as a family. Many people call this Read Aloud Time. Anyway, my Hubby asked for some books to take with him on a plane ride and I took both of my Knights of Arrethrae books out to send with him. He only took one, but was raving about it when he got home. He then volunteered to buy all the other books available in the series. Awesome! Since I won my first book from the Heart of the Matter, I started with Sir Kendrick and the Castle of Bel Lione (the kids and I LOVED it!) and I did not realize what the Kingdom Series was until later. Anyway, everyone gets excited for reading the Kingdom Series at night. We are on book 3: Kingdom's Edge.

Ellie just interrupted me to ask me to help fix her bath! At 6:30pm! She is serious about keeping marks out of the Cleanliness line on the Franklin's 13 Virtues Chart. Which is great, because she's been at the point (which I remember around her age) where you practically begged her to take a bath. She said, "We need to get back on schedule! I want to be ready for bed early tonight...by 7 o'clock!"

Tea Time is our snack time. I do usually have my combination dandelion and mint or berry green tea (dandelion root has calcium and is also good for the liver). Ellie sometimes has
"Grandpa Dale Tea," which is instant Nestea with sugar. I used to watch Arthur with them. Now I use that time to try and go through my e-mail and freebie downloads at lightening speed. I finished at 3:35pm today...a personal record. I have been trying to do so much better about my computer time. That definitely goes along with some of the 13 Virtues we're working on.

Another thing I've done this year to make more good days is finally put a message on my cell phone which says "If you got this message, class is in session. Leave me a message, and I'll call you back." I can't tell you how many times I was in a session at the Homeschool Conferences, or read a blog post, or homeschool magazine article where someone recommended either putting a message like that on your voice mail or just turning off the phone during "school hours." We also got rid of our house phone over the summer, so all my calls have "caller id" on my cell phone and I don't have to wonder who didn't call and didn't leave a message. Even though we were on the "No Call List," we still got plenty of worthless calls during the day which interrupted school. I have such relief from putting that message on my phone. Why I couldn't just let it go to voice mail before, I don't know, but I say: whatever works!

I also have to say meal planning is my friend! If I plan the evening meals and Hubby's meals for his lunch with him, life is so much smoother. The kids and I eat whatever during the day; we all like the same simple things. Actually, I'm getting a chicken ready to put in the crockpot to make soup for tomorrow (that everyone, but Wyatt likes). I plan meals a week at a time. If we plan farther, it always seems like something happens and none of the meals work out.

Right now we're finishing listening to Listen My Children, an old time radio show about the life of Paul Revere that I downloaded from "Living Books for the Ears" aka homeschool radio shows. Ellie is especially excited about playing Rachel Revere now in her American Girls play: The Founding Daughters of America.

Well, I guess that's it for today. I have requests to read Berenstain Bears and Our 50 States. I just heard the washing machine beep, and I still need to get that chicken in the crockpot!

You can read more "Day-In-The-Life" Posts on the Not Back-to-School Blog at Darcy's Life with my 3 Boybarians. There's just one more week in her Blog Hop.

Walking to School in Socks

Today was our first official day in the new classroom. Ellie has been dying to have school in the new room. This morning she was so cute, as we were preparing to go downstairs. She had packed her backpack, because she has to have her art supplies with her wherever she goes. She was saying something about walking to school in her socks, or taking the bus, or just walking to school in general...I can't remember the exact thing she said, but we got into a whole conversation about the subject of school transportation.

I told her that her Daddy used to walk to school. He lived in a city and they didn't have a bus that took him to school. He also went to a private Catholic School, so I'm not even sure they had a bus at all. Anyway, she didn't know her Daddy used to walk to school (just a three or four blocks the way I remember him showing me). She was quite surprised.

On the other hand, I explained that I lived too many miles from school to walk. Walking to school would've been too dangerous where I had to walk, from our subdivision across the viaduct that crossed a major highway. I was the first one on the bus and the last one off the bus. Oh, that was the longest ride to my public school (and home!)!!

Wish I could've walked a couple minutes to school in my socks!

First Field Trip of the Year!

Yesterday we went on our first field trip of the new school year. We started doing the Kansas City Passport to Adventure last year. The Passport is a booklet that you pick up at one of the partipating locations and get stamped. Each location has a question to answer. After the child answers the question, they get a small prize, like sticker, a pin, a ruler, etc. The locations are all Museums, Living History Locales, or Nature Conservatories; which means they are all educational. If the child gets stamps at 15 of the 22 locations before the end of October, they send in their passport for a prize package. We tried to do the passport last year, but didn't complete the required stops to get the kids their prize package in time.

This year, we got in on the first day of the Passport to Adventure at our last Co-op field trip to Missouri Town. The summer did not go as planned, so until yesterday, the kids still just had one stamp on their passports. My friend, Colleen, and her kids are working on their passports, too. She suggested we go to two places yesterday. We agreed, so we all packed pinics and set out for Burr Oaks Woods Conservation Nature Center and Kemper Outdoor Education Center.

I think my kids were a little disappointed that the Conservation Center no longer had the giant log inside to play puppets, but that did have a cool giant frog that we took pictures on. We walked the Tree Trail at Burr Oaks, along with the Guide and Activity Sheet from the mailbox at the beginning of the trail. I think everyone had a great time; although we were all sticky and sweaty by the time we finished the trail. The worst part was the bugs that invaded our picnic: giant ants and daddy-long-legs spiders.

At Kemper Outdoor Center, the butterfly garden was gorgeous. There were quite a few interesting things to see inside, but the kids all like the black cat that was running around. The most interesting thing for me was the frogs and the GIANT tadpoles. These tadpoles "heads" were at least as big as a child's fist!! I'd never seen tadpoles that weren't smaller than my own fingers (at least not that I remember!). The tadpoles were inside of a beautiful goldfish pond.

I should've had Ellie take the waterbottle out of her scooter pocket. I do not look like myself. Those are my old glasses, but I wear them often with the kids. They are very sturdy.

Two field trips in one day, and more school when we got home (as requested, or rather begged, by the children) is my idea of a pretty good day of school!

Extreme Homeschool Room Makeover

Darcy, at Life with my 3 Boybarians, is hosting a "Not Back-to-School Blog Hop", and I noticed that this week is sharing classrooms. So, I just had to participate! For those of you reading that don't homeschool, it's Not Back-to-School for a couple of reasons, some of us never stop schooling and also we don't go "back" anywhere really, because we live at school. :)

I've been waiting to post these pictures. I so LOVE our new classroom! I can't believe I didn't think of re-arranging the basement and doing this years ago. Of course, I didn't have my cool library shelves until this year. Our garage is attached upstairs to our ranch style house, so we have a huge basement. The classroom got put in the area formerly used for the playroom, but it was a bad area for either use. It always has to have a sort of "hallway" to the bathroom in the basement (which you can see in at least one picture). Now I've moved our family room to that area, which naturally has a space between the furniture and the television and kitchenette are.

So, here are a couple of BEFORE pictures of our classroom and new/used shelves:

I know you're wondering how we schooled in the colorful trash pit. Well, we didn't. We did school on the kitchen table and the dining room coffee table last year. I would come down to the "pit" and collect what we needed. What we used all the time, I kept in this cool basket with a flip top lid that I got on clearance at Wal-mart. The year before, the classroom was lovely and we really enjoyed our time there. Then, well, life happens and that is how the "classroom" ended up.

The shelves look much better in this picture than they did in real life, so we (the kids & I) painted them star-gazer blue. Wyatt and I painted the ceiling of our basement (which is not a real ceiling, but just floor joices and floor boards, since we had termites that were found in the second year we lived here). The kids & I also painted the floor mallard green. I finally have almost all my books in one location (well, since I had my own bedroom; before marriage)! I've always wanted a library, so this is our library/classroom.

Here are the AFTER pictures:

The welcome sign was made for the kids by their newest Aunt Connie, when we went to visit their Uncle Ed in D.C. for Thanksgiving 2008. She put the sign, along with their names on the door of the room they were sharing. The kids saved the sign, and we use it for our classroom now.

I got the vintage metal/wood desks at the Goodwill. I found the antique wood desks at a local antique mall.

This is my desk. Right next to Strawberry Shortcake Chalk Board. Best garage sale buy ever. My cousin is so jealous. The poster above my desk is autographed by Bryan Busby, a local weather forecaster. We got to see him at the library at a homeschool program a couple years ago.

Ah, my books. A collection of my lifetime. I love the look of a library. And the white ceiling is so bright and nice.

This is on the way out the door of our classroom. You can see the old fashioned school type pencil sharpener on the bookshelf to the right, just above the trash can. There is a close up picture of the supply shelf just a little below this. The lamp really is a working gumball machine. I haven't used it in years. I think I'll clean it up and put some candy in it for rewards. Next to the lamp is the former home of our caterpillar turned butterfly. The chrysalis still hangs on it's branch.

There hangs my Familyman Homeschool Cartoon Calendar. We have gotten, and will continue to get, lots of use out of the comb book binder that we have on loan from my parents. And there is that pencil sharpener again. I really do like having an old school pencil sharpener.

The supply shelf. I was hoping to have room for paper on here, too, but there is really not enough room, with all the other stuff. I did manage to fit on a roll of freezer paper for art and a small stack of writing paper.

Here are my cuties, playing school while I take pictures.

The other view of my scholars. Yes, they do raise their hands while we're having class. Although I don't make them.

Well, like I said, I LOVE our new classroom! I like to just sit in it, or look at it. The one thing I noticed today is that I need a clock somewhere that I can look at it from my desk, instead of hitting a button on my cell phone to check the time every little bit. Hope you enjoyed the virtual tour!

P.S.-There is still lots of work to do on our basement. I'll have to post again when the arts & crafts area, playroom, and family room are complete.

P.P.S.-This is not to say that we sit in desks for eight hours a day. The Academy of the Gospel is not limited to one room of our house, or even our whole house. Learning is a part of life, something we don't box in. I think the major point of having a Homeschool Classroom is to have a place to put all the Homeschool Stuff.

Witness

I've been wanting so badly to write about our Extreme Homeschool Room Makeover and our Renewal Ceremony for our ten year anniversary. Seems like things have been so busy, I just haven't had a spare moment. I should be in bed right now, but my mind is full...of other thoughts.

A former co-worker died today. I didn't know her for very long, but she seemed like such nice person. She had two children that she loved very much; that was easy to see. She was very kind to a lady (who she used to work with) who had a degenerative disease. She had little, but shared what she could. She was thankful for what she had and what she was given.

My husband asked me if she knew the Lord. I could only answer with something like, " I think so, maybe." We talked about God one day at work. I believe she told me she went to church growing up, but not recently.

I think the day we spoke about God and religion was the same day I remember a couple of older ladies came into the store one day that we were working. They were such sweet old ladies, full of smiles, with bright eyes. They asked if we'd make our reservations for when this life is through (or something to that effect). I knew what they meant right away. I smiled and nodded. The ladies I work with looked sort of funny, not sure how to answer. The older ladies went on to explain a bit about Jesus and heaven. The ladies I work with responded with a "Oh, yes, we know about that"-type answer...not really assuring, a little vague.

So, I don't know for sure if she knew our Lord and Savior. I wonder now if there was something else God wanted me to say to her, but I didn't listen to His urging. I wonder if I missed an important opportunity to witness to her. I won't get another one. I often think that I witness by my actions, what I say and do, how I treat others. I know that sometimes people need more. They need to hear the old story, the truth of salvation, hope, life everlasting. I pray for her poor children, left motherless.

I have known many people die before, but most of them I was assured that I would see them again in heaven. Their lives were a witness to me. This death is such a reminder to make every moment matter, to savor every precious minute with my loved ones, and to witness without fear.