Back To School, Back To A Schedule!

This summer was so wonderful! We relaxed - a lot, went swimming in the neighborhood pool and at the lake, stayed with friends in the "mountains", and took a 3 day vacation. It has been so good to just hang out this summer, especially after the past 2 years. Between unemployment, my husband's job changes, keeping a toddler, and then two moves we definitely needed a break!
As good as summer was, I am excited to get back to a schedule. Exercise and home school in the morning, lunch, chores, free time, dinner. Things just seem to work better around here when we have a schedule in place!
The schedule went pretty much as planned this morning, our first day back to school, although neither of the kids wanted to get out of bed. They were up at the crack of dawn all summer but now that they HAVE to get up they want to sleep in!

Fasting

Joe and I are currently doing a "partial fast". We bought a book entitled "The Daniel Fast" and have been fasting for almost two weeks now! We are eating fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains and drinking only water. We are not eating any sugar, dairy, meat, fruit juices, caffeine or highly processed foods. No coffee or tea.
The first week was tough, we both had headaches that lasted about three days. Once we got all of the sugar, caffeine and chemicals out of our systems we have felt really great. I have had a lot of energy and we have both been sleeping really well!
The main benefit has been the time of prayer that I have been involved in. I have prayed for many, many people and have had meaningful conversations with my Creator/Healer/Father/Savior. It has been such a wonderful time of fellowship with my God!
We are about to begin our third, and last, week and I have mixed feelings! I hope to continue to pray faithfully and bring everything I have to the Lord when we finish this time of fasting.
I really want 4 Double Stuf Oreos and a glass of milk.

Rite of Passage

My oldest daughter will turn 13 in December and I have been thinking about a "rite of passage" for her. Things got a little mixed up when we moved to Georgia 2 months ago but here is what I came up with.

Since we are training our girls to be self-sufficient I figured the best rite of passage would be for her to use the home-making skills she has learned. So, for the next month she will be doing things like meal planning and shopping, cooking (breakfast, lunch and dinner for a week), laundry (sorting, washing, drying, folding), cleaning her bathroom, sewing, knitting, changing the batteries in the smoke detectors, and other household duties. We feel that it will be good for her to know that at the age of thirteen she is completely capable of running a household. So far she has been pretty excited and feels good about her accomplishments in the home.

Tennessee Flood

I heard yesterday that 11,000 "parcels", I am assuming that means homes, restaurants, businesses, etc., in and around Nashville were negatively affected by the flooding two weeks ago. Please continue to pray for all of those who lost so much over the course of one weekend. Most of them were not in flood plains so they did not have flood insurance.

High School

As I have recently reconnected with friends from elementary school, junior high , and high school on Facebook, it really got me thinking. I am SO glad that God helps us grow and mature after high school. I don't know about you , but I am not even remotely the same person I was was when I graduated!

My "old" friends have a hard time believing that I homeschool because I was not a big fan of school back in the day! That is actually part of the reason I do homeschool. I want my kids to enjoy learning! I also want to be able to spend extra time, if needed, to be sure they really "get" the information and I want them to be able to fly through material that they have a good grasp on.

It is so cool to reconnect because I get to see the kinds of people my friends have grown up to be. It helps me realize how much I have changed and that God keeps forgiving me as I mess up and then He lets me start again with a clean slate!

So, thanks to all of my Facebook friends who were my friends back then and still wanted to be my friends now!

Garden Again

We have started up the garden again. I am using our raised bed from last year for my early spring & late summer gardens. In these we have: sugar snap peas, Alaska peas, winter squash, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and spinach.
My dear husband has made 2 more raised beds, which we spent an entire day filling with dirt, that measure 6 feet by 16 feet each. Needless to say, we will have TONS of veggies this year!
We also are experimenting with strawberries, blackberries and grapes this year. I will keep you posted on those!
For those of you wanting to plant this year you still have plenty of time. Feel free to search my site for other postings under the label "garden".

Flashback

Random thoughts from my childhood:

• Camping with my parents - the primitive type, not the camper type
• Getting carsick - a LOT
• My bologna has a first name...
• Riding my bike with the banana seat
• Playing hide and seek with my brother
• Going to Pensacola Beach with my family and friends
• Skiing - snow
• Racing crawfish with my cousins then throwing them in the pot (the crawfish, not my cousins)
• Playing in my treehouse
• Hanging out at our neighborhood pool
• Getting chased and stung by a swarm of bees