Our first of day of school!

            When I was a kid, I used to start anticipating the first day of school a few weeks before it was actually upon me.   My anticipation was not full of joy or excitement but instead, dread and anxiety.  I remember quite clearly, the butterflies that filled my stomach and the “what ifs?” that filled my mind as the day drew nearer and nearer.  What if I don’t like my new teacher?  What if I don’t have any friends in my class?  What if I can’t to rise to the standards of a new grade with greater expectations and a more difficult workload than ever before?

            

            I always did well in school.  I got good grades and I got along with all my teachers.   My fears were proven irrational and remained unsubstantiated year after year.  Yet, each new year, I fretted all over again. 

Following my graduation from high school, I thought that my first day anxieties were finally behind me forever.   And until this year, that has been true. 

I’ve home schooled my children fairly successfully for eight years now.  And like in my youth, I’ve anticipated the beginning of every year starting a few weeks before the first day was actually upon us.  Thankfully, I have anticipated each home school year with optimism and excitement.  Until now….

This year is the first year I have felt reminiscent of my old attitude towards the first day of school.  This year I have been nervous and worried about home schooling.  I have worried I could not rise to challenge again.  I have worried that my lingering feelings of burn out from last year would prevent me from being patient and motivated.  I have worried I just don’t have it in me to face third grade again, and fifth grade again, and seventh grade again, and pre-school (at home with me) and high school for the first time.

Today the first day is upon us though!  For weeks, I have been praying and praying and praying for this school year to be successful and peaceful.

In the past, like for New Year’s Day, I have made resolutions for the beginning of the school year.  This year, instead of resolutions, I am focusing on one word as a theme for our new school year.  My word for this school year is “balance.”  I will pray for and seek a balance

• between structure –and- flexibility,
• between projects and activities that are enjoyable and uncomplicated –and- hard work that challenges and stretches us,
• between time devoted to and focused completely on educating my children –and- time for myself, to catch my breath, to sit in silence before the Lord and allow my soul to be fed, to do the things I enjoy (like blogging!). 

So far, so good!  Our first day went well.  We achieved our goals for the day and found the balance we needed today.   We'll tackle tomorrow when it comes.  :)  

             My plan is to take things one day at a time and to continue to rely more on prayer this year.  I’m very hopeful that, like in my youth, my anxiety for the past few weeks will prove completely unfounded and my worry-filled “what ifs” will never materialize.

A Bit Burnt Out

           I had high hopes for this summer and big plans.  Most of them did not come to fruition and the past two months have not been what I expected, but it was still summer.  I have always enjoyed summer break and when I realized the other day that ours is practically over now, I was sadly shocked to realize the time had gone by so quickly.  

We will be starting our 9^th year of home schooling in less than two weeks!   And I hate to admit it but I am feeling a tad bit burnt out.  I had hoped that summer would be refreshing and relaxing and that fall would find me renewed and excited for a new year.  But…. the struggle to keep up with all the different grades and different learning styles and different personalities of my beautiful children while attempting to educate them each properly and patiently is just not always easy.  And after 8 years, home schooling just doesn’t excite me like it used to.  

I still love the family friendliness of it and the flexibility and the wonderful blessing of being able to be together every day.  I still appreciate the opportunity to give my children a truly Catholic education in the loving environment of our home.  But, the thought of the actual work of lesson planning and teaching and grading and record keeping and just plain juggling exhausts me a bit.  

I still feel called to home schooling.  Without a doubt, I know this is still where God wants our family to be.  So, I realize, as I did in our early years, that I must trust that if He calls us to it, He will see us through it.  The more I feel burnt out, the more it is an opportunity to turn it all over to Him and to rely even more on His strength.  Right?!?!?

As a family, we have been praying a nine week novena to St. Martha perpetually for nearly a year now.  We started it last September and at the end of each nine weeks, we start it anew for another intention.  St. Martha has been awesome in interceding for our every intention so far.  So when we realized last night that our next nine weeks was just beginning, we decided to offer this novena up for a successful home school year- for motivation and positive attitudes to make this year a great one.  

I’m still feeling a little unprepared for another year of home schooling but it is nice to know, it doesn’t all rest on my shoulders.  Through St. Martha’s intercession, I know God will see me through.  And maybe this will be our best year yet?!?!?!?!?!?!

St. Martha, pray for us.

Time Flies!

            This afternoon my beautiful nieces were picked up and their weeklong stay with us came to an end.  At least one of my children has been in tears since their departure.  We were all very sad to say good-bye and see the end of our week of cousin fun.  The week was loud and crazy and full of wound up, over-the-top excitement.  It was seven days of non-stop giggles and late night chats and lots and lots and lots of memory-making.  And it went w-a-a-a-a-y too fast.

            We had balance beam contests, fashion shows, a bubble gum blowing contest, kid-directed home-made movies (including the first ever kid “horror” film- a not-really-so-scary take on Frankenstein), craft projects, art projects, water play, an unusual one of a kind picnic, cooking fun, a silly photo contest, an even sillier lullaby (that never seemed to end), bedtime stories, face painting, too much junk food, and just such a good time together!

When I was young, I read Cheaper by the Dozen and for a week or so after that I remember thinking it might be fun to have a dozen children myself someday.  It seems God’s plans for my family are not quite as bounteous as that.  Thankfully, He has blessed me with lots of nieces and nephews, in addition to my own 5 children.  And this week of having the house full of kids was truly as much fun as I envisioned in my youth.  It was a wonderful opportunity to really spend some time with my nieces and to get to know them even better too.  

At one point, I looked at Tim and said, “I know it sounds crazy but I love the chaos because inherent in it is so much joy and love.”  That really sums up our week-- chaotic but full of joy and love.

My sister and brother-in-law (who also had a great week) have suggested maybe making this an annual tradition- I can honestly say- I LOVE that idea and I’m ready to start making the plans for next year’s visit.....

Dozens of cousins-- almost!

Back in January, when my sister first asked if I’d be willing to keep her three girls for a week this summer so she and her husband could vacation without them, I didn’t hesitate to agree.  My children immediately started coming up with ideas of all sorts of great things they could do with their cousins.  For seven long months we looked forward to it but finally....

This week has arrived!

On Saturday at 9 a.m. their minivan pulled up and my nieces jumped out ready for fun!  As a last minute change in plans, we also got my other sister’s 2 children for a couple of days.   So, I write these words to the joyful, heart-warming sounds of 10 happy cousins playing together.  They are: a 14 year old, a 12 year old, a 10 year old, two 9 year olds, three 8 year olds, a 4 year old, and an almost 4 year old.  Only my brother's two boys are missing.  At 18 and 13, they are probably not too sad to miss out on the "little" kid fun though.  

Watching the kids together reminds me of some of my best childhood memories.  I have SO many memories of playing with my own cousins as a child.  We would only get together once or twice a year but whenever we did, we would play made up games and elaborate pretend scenarios.  The time would fly by so fast as we had the times of our lives (with only a few little tiffs and disagreements popping up here and there).

My sisters both wished me luck and thanked me profusely as they drove away childless for the week, but, really- I feel like I should be thanking them for this chance to spend time with my nieces and nephew.  I absolutely love seeing all the kids playing so well together.  I actually love joining in their silly games and their crazy, fun ideas too.  :)  It's been two years since we have had ALL the kids all together like this and two years is a long time when you’re a kid.

Last week, I went to Pinterest and pinned tons of fun activities to do at home with a crowd of kids because I knew we would be housebound this week.  I can only fit 7 people in my minivan, so there is no way to go out to the park or the beach or even the store with the 10 children.  But, I have yet to use even one of those great ideas I pinned because the children are too busy making their own fun.  So far, there haven't been any tiffs or disagreements- just lots of giggling, lots of running around and wrestling, lots of happy screeching, and TONS and TONS of fun!  I’m afraid this week is going to go so quickly the kids will not fit in all they want to do together.....

Here are just a few of the 200 pictures I've taken so far!

Working on a picture showing the trip from Missouri to Florida

Playing bandits (in p.j.'s, right before bed)

Learning to crochet together

Vacation- the good, the bad, and the anxiety

The good—

So much good it is hard to include it all!  In addition to the train ride, we loved—

• ·        Visiting the Amicalola Waterfall- the tallest cascading falls east of the Mississippi River.  We had to descend over 600 steps to get the full experience, but it was worth it-- gorgeous!

• ·         Driving the “tail of the dragon”- a road famous (amongst motorcyclists, at least) for its 318 turns in 11 miles.  Even in a minivan, Tim said it was fun to drive.

• ·         Hiking the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest and seeing the amazing old growth forest.  This was one of the 101 Things You Gotta See Before You’re 12 from one of our favorite books, so we added it to our vacation itinerary just so we could say we did it.  It turned out to be a really cool opportunity to see some very majestic trees.  It was also a nearly perfect mountain hike for a family- not too strenuous, not too long and we were blessed with absolutely beautiful weather to enjoy the sights all along the way.

hiking through the old growth forest

• ·         Strawberry picking- We could go strawberry picking at home in Florida but we never have and this was a sort of spur of the moment decision on a day we had other plans but weren’t sure the weather was going to cooperate.   Looking at the cloudy gray sky, we scrapped the original plan and set off for the biggest apple orchard in Georgia.   Since, it was waaaay too early in the year for apples, the orchard was offering strawberry picking along with a tour of the farm.  The day turned out to be ideal- the clouds blew over and the sun came out and we thoroughly enjoyed tasting and picking strawberries in the bright green fields.  Then we got the chance to visit the tasting room where Tim and I sampled some hard cider and the kids sampled some regular cider.  We spent lots of money on treats and souvenirs and took a million pictures and a few days later, I made some delicious strawberry quick bread out of what was left of our bounty.

Mercier Orchards

The bad—

Not too much to report, our vacation was mostly good.

• ·         We did find three scorpions in our cabin.  Only one of them was still alive at the time but it was still a little unnerving to know they were creeping about….

• ·         We did not see a bear- or much other wildlife for that matter.  This may have been probably was a very good thing really, but we were disappointed because the idea of coming face-to-face with a real live bear in his natural habitat sounded very cool.

• ·         On our last night, my oldest got a bit sick.  She turned green, threw up once, and then, soon after, started feeling better.  She was not quite back to normal when we left for home the next morning but as the day (and the drive) progressed she improved until she was feeling fine when we arrived home.

• ·         There was one other bad experience but I’ll share on that more later…..

And now, the anxiety—

Since everything on our week away was really pretty wonderful it seems there was no reason to have any anxiety at all and really, there wasn’t.   Yet…. for some reason, I was hit with overwhelming irrational anxiety on more than one occasion even as we explored and enjoyed and experienced all the Blue Ridge Mountains had to offer.  It was fun and I was joyful and grateful that we were on vacation but there was an unmistakable, unavoidable nagging feeling that something horrible could be lurking in our near future.

• It started with a casual conversation………..One day, as we walked in the woods with the children, Tim and I talked about a family he knew of who had recently lost their vacation cabin in the mountains of North Carolina to a fire.  Their cabin, according to Tim, was much like the one we were staying in- tucked far back in the mountains, only accessible through a sometimes steep, always winding, one lane gravel road. 

That cabin, once it started burning, had no hope.  Emergency vehicles would not even   attempt to get to it to extinguish the flames because it was not safe, or even possible, to get fire trucks out on those roads.  It burned to the ground, thankfully with no one in it.  Suddenly, our remote rental cabin seemed not quite so cozy. 

Our cabin- all made of wood!

The winding, one-lane, gravel road to our cabin

The steep driveway up to the cabin

• Then that afternoon, we checked the weather channel to see what the rest of our week would be like and we heard of the horrible tornados that ripped through Oklahoma, leveling whole neighborhoods and killing innocent people.   We saw footage from the storms’ aftermath and our hearts broke as we saw the devastation and destruction. 

• It was not too long after that that a wicked storm hit.  In the pitch black of the middle of the night, thunder boomed loudly overhead and streaks of lightning lit up the sky all around our little log house.  I lay in bed for a while with visions of lightning strikes and out-of-control forest fires raging through the woods around us filling my over active mind.  I pictured our van slowly rolling down the super steep driveway, gradually gaining momentum until it careened down the side of the mountain crashing violently into the creek at the bottom of the valley. 

After that I had to get up. 

I checked the car first, but it was sitting securely at the top of the driveway, not budging an inch even in the torrential rain and crazy thunder and lightning.   I still couldn’t calm my fears or get those horrific images out of my head though.  I turned the T.V. on and watched HGTV until the storm finally subsided and my heart stopped racing.  It was after 2 a.m. when I finally drifted off to sleep, only to be plagued by strange dreams the rest of the night.

• Another day just as we set off for a day of fun, I had a minor panic attack prompted by the thought, “What if I forgot to turn off the stove after heating the water for my hot chocolate?!?!?!?!?!”  There was no reason to believe that I had forgotten to turn off the stove but, for the life of me, I could not remember doing it.  Tim was sure we would have noticed the burner being left on and we were far enough away from the cabin at that point that it would have been terribly inconvenient to go back to double check, so we didn’t.  But the rest of that day, as we kept busy with touristy things, I had the nagging worry in the back of my mind—what if?!?!?!?!  (Incidentally, when we did return to the cabin that evening, all was fine, the stove was off, the house still stood solid and safe).

I’m not sure where the anxiety came from- was it really just a product of my over-active imagination?  Was it the devil attacking and trying to sabotage our week of family fun?  Whatever the cause, I did my best not to let it ruin everything.  After all, there was no reason to be worried, all was going so well…. 

at least, until our tubing adventure on the last day of our trip….(more on that tomorrow…)