It's that time of year. Schools are winding down. Here in South Carolina, seniors have graduated, private schools have ended, and parents and students are asking if attendance is truly necessary. So naturally as we venture out during school hours the people begin speaking. "School must be out." (There are many times my son is sitting with a binder open doing work while they say this.) My response is always, "Well, we're a homeschool family." Boy, oh boy, does that render a large quantity of responses.
Many times I am met with the response of, "Oh I couldn't do that!" And I tell them the truth, that I was never intending to homeschool. Let's face it. I was planning what I would be doing when both kids get into school. What could I do with a day to myself? What could I do with FIVE consecutive days to myself. And for 36 weeks! I was scheduling my life three years ago. I was planning when I could workout, write, and go shopping. I was thinking of the rest I would have. Yes, life was grand. And now I am gearing up to start my daughter as an official kindergartener. This was supposed to be my year! So how am I supposed to do it? How do I teach two students at two different grade levels and still have time to clean the house, cook meals, train clients, and successfully write books? Ok, here it is. This is the ultimate trade secret to my success. Planning. That seems a little stupid once I say it. Most people would say planning is a bit simplistic of a magic key to success, but it's the truth. My weekly planner says the same thing almost every week. Same schedule. Same clients. Same kids activities. Same chores. What changes? Not much. But when there is a difference, it goes on that planner and helps me immensely. There are things that get done early some weeks, like lesson plans or plans for my clients. There are things that get floated to further in the week if something unexpected comes up. But either way, it's on the planner and we don't need to worry about if we're missing things. You see, I figured out list making, planners, and such are lifesaving tools. I have a planner that tracks things I care about like what I've read, written, done for a workout, and consumed. Yes, I track my water intake, fruits, and vegetables. Why? Because it's important. And there are days when you will have to change your schedule, like visiting someone in the hospital, and you want to make sure you keep track of your water when you aren't home. Weekly planners keep us from having hiccups when there's an unexpected doctor's appointment and we have school work. We can pack a bag the night before and be ready to roll. I never planned on spending countless hours making sure my son knew how to write essays. I never planned on teaching my daughter to spell. But with proper planning, and a lot of work, I think I finally have it figured out. Just don't ask me in September- I might be living on coffee and my hair might be gray and falling out.
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I've been sitting on this one for quite some time. Every time I think I want to post this, well, sometime else comes up. So this is the day you get to read what I've been thinking on.
There are some violent waves thrashing the boat of society these days. Perhaps that is putting it lightly. Things are getting a bit scary out there. But let's be honest, this seems to just continue on on with each and every day. I think about my grandmother that has made the trip around the sun over 80 times. As a child she lived through the depression. She learned what it was like to have nothing. She lived through war, after war, after war. She lived in a home where she was made to feel wanted. I bet at the age of 18 she thought that nothing could be worse in the world. And yet here she is and she will tell you just how upside down the world is today. However, one thing I think my grandmother learned is something I learned at a young age. There is always another side to the story. I don't know when the turning point was for my grandmother, but I have been blessed to sit and talk with her often and know that she has learned through her years that we can't always jump to conclusions. I know when I learned this lesson. I remember being in my high school bathroom getting ready for practice. I avoided the locker room. I was trying to make heads and tails of my depression. I was trying to figure out what was happening in my family and my own life. I was struggling. I sought solitude in the bathroom that was not likely chosen. A teammate came in and decided to talk. I was just getting answers out and that led her to get upset. "What do you have to be upset about? You're life is easy." I thought - YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING. It was in that moment that I learned, people thought I was being rude with my succinct answers. If they had any idea of the pain I was in, would they have spoken to me like that? I don't know. I never will. But it was in that moment that I began looking for the other side of the stories. I began looking for others wearing masks. The person that makes a scene in school is making a scene because they too are in pain. The person with the loudest shout has the heart broken in the most pieces. I became an after-school special. I am completely and utterly thankful that someone was a jerk to me in high school. I wasn't at the time. In that bathroom I wanted to let the dam burst and spill everything that was going on in my life. Each and every detail was on my tongue on the ready just to put them in their place. But how would that be helpful? Sure, it would make me feel better to explode. That would be it. They would know more about me, but they wouldn't help me. They might feel bad, which would have made me feel good. Now, I see that interaction as so much more. I can look at others with understanding. I can see both sides, or four sides! I don't have to agree with the other side. I don't have to nod and smile and let the other sides win. However, I need to know the other side. Chances are there is a hurt underneath that opposition that needs to be dealt with. My goal is not to belittle what others believe. It's my goal to speak in a way that allows people to hear me. It's my goal to hear others. I have some deep roots. I doubt that people would change my mind on any major issues. But I can at least have a conversation with someone. It seems that common courtesy has long since left us as a society. Is common courtesy too much to ask? Perhaps it is. I'll just leave my favorite bit of history here. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Hmm... I need to dig out my baseball bat. Don't you love when God uses nature to show us the heart of man? No?! Oh, well, I do. As usual God showed me a nugget of truth while out and about earlier this week. I thought I'd share with you as well. You're welcome.
My neighborhood has five ponds within its borders. In my nine years of residency here, I have found those ponds to be beautiful and also a nuisance. At first we had a nice variety of ducks and a few geese here and there. Now we have far too many geese and the ducks are dwindling. Our neighbors bring up making us a gated community every once in a while and I say I'd rather have a net than a wall and keep those immigrant geese out! I usually get a chuckle from some, and some misunderstanding by others. Well, a few years ago I noticed that the ducks would all hang out in front of a certain house near a pond twice a day. The resident of the home had purchased seed for the ducks and would toss it out to them and feed them. They still gather twice a day, but now across the street on the grass near the path. There is now a worn patch of grass where she tosses her seed to them. And now there is only a family of ducks and far too many geese. Recently I was out as they were waiting for their breakfast. I was forced to scurry some geese off the path as I passed by. The path took me past the pond and over towards another pond. At this smaller pond was a family of geese. Two adults and about eight goslings. They weren't milling around waiting on a human hand to feed them. They were doing what geese do - pecking through the grass to get some bugs and whatnot. I almost stopped to take it all in. The vast majority of geese were waiting and expecting the human to feed them. The small family was working for their food. Today there is a big rift between millennials and EVERYONE else. Why? Because of expectations. The older generations cry out, "Get up and get to work. 9-5 like we did it. Get your hands dirty. Fix it, don't replace it!" The youngens shout back, "Shut up, you old fools. We have technology that makes you obsolete!" Okay, I may have exaggerated, but I felt like it needed that extra push. I see many people from my generation and younger waiting for something. Waiting for an apology. Waiting for someone to feed them. Waiting for someone to do the work for them. People sit around and expect something to be given to them just because they showed up. (Thank you, participation trophy!) Personally, I'm caught. There are some of us that are in this awkward area of being tail end of generation X and start of millennials. I, for one, remember wearing jeans with the label stating "GenX" and thinking that was where I belonged. But that rift between generations occurred because of the people in my age group. We drew a line and picked a side. On the one side we had the work hard, respect your elders, save, try, do group. On the other side we had the my mom will do it for me, but I don't feel well, you're not the boss of me, just get me a new one group. It was the group of kids being parented by the influence of Spock - either with or against. I knew this among my classmates. I watched kids not work for anything and just not care. I was the odd ball for spending hours in the gym and working for what I wanted to badly. I was okay being the odd ball because I thought they were nuts! Today we have so many people hanging out waiting for someone else to do what they are more than capable of doing. And it made me think. So many of us are believed that we are owed something for our contribution of creating more carbon dioxide. What? What do we deserve? We will not always get what we deserve. This can be a blessing and a curse. I will never get the apology I so hoped for. But I will also not receive the wrath of God. The husband that cheats on his wife won't always get what he deserves. What does he deserve? The wife that was cheated on won't always get what she deserves. What does she deserve? We probably already have a mindset as to what they both deserve. He deserves a life of misery and loneliness while she should remarry and live happily ever after. But that doesn't happen often. Usually the husband continues escapades whether married to the woman or not. The wife will end up broken and beaten trying to overcome the self doubt and loneliness. We do not get what we deserve. So I have to ask: What are you waiting for? What is it that you think you deserve? There is a very good chance that we are not going to get what we deserve, so what are we doing despite it? Sometimes I look at people and just wonder what they feel I owe them. Is there a divide in relationships because one person is just sitting around waiting for the other person to .... apologize, love, respect, say hello first, reciprocate a gift.... the possibilities are endless. There are things that I feel I deserve. Some I will hold on to, like respect from my children. Some I will let go of. But at least I can stop and recognize where I am sitting around with the other geese just waiting for some seeds, and other times I'm teaching my children to find their own food and be responsible little beings. What do you deserve? Seasons are interesting. This past winter we had an awful lot of rain. I just couldn't stand it after a while. We were becoming cramped within the house. Too much time together. We attempted to go outside but the rain kept sending us back. Rain isn't terrible. But cold rain is the worst thing ever. I'd rather it just snow. Down here, though, the April showers that bring May flowers is not a fun rhyme. It is life.
Since then it has seemed close to dry. I have loved it. A rain storm of summer capacity is beautiful. It comes in with fury of the heat and then dissipates as if evaporating as quickly as it came. I love a good summer thunderstorm. This week we have had some rain. It looked ready to rain and I felt it in the air. It did, in fact, open up to shower. I walked out to get the mail and was hit with a cloud of humidity so thick my chest hurt. I went back in the house. It rained again. The next time I stepped outside, the rain had taken away the humidity. *happy sigh* The only time I do not welcome rain on hot days is when I am working at the farmer's market. Books plus rain equals damaged products. Typically, though, I enjoy the rain because they are just quick bursts of rain that dry up quickly. Even if it rains every day, I know we aren't in the season of continue precipitation. Here we are getting our first look at the summer heat that will inundate us and oppress us. And sure enough the rain is coming in. But in South Carolina, there is no reason to check the forecast. It's hot. It's humid. There is always at minimum at 20% chance of rain. Last night my husband asked if I was sleeping in today. See, Thursday is the only day in my schedule that I am allowed to sleep later than 5:00 and not lose out on something, like my workout. I told him I was not sleeping in, that I needed to get my stuff done before the children were awake . You know, before life wakes up. Well, my alarm went off. I turned it off. As I grumbled in disgust of how quickly the morning had come, I heard the rain. Oh man. My mind raced. I could get up and read while on the elliptical. Kill two birds with one stone mentality. Yes, that willll zzzzz..... Oops. I fell back asleep in the hum of the drops of rain. Well, I ended up getting up at 6:00. The rain had passed. I hopped up and got going on my day. I went outside to workout. Yes, a nice day. A little cooler from the morning's rain. I finished my strength training and went out to run. Less then one tenth of a mile some sprinkles came. I don't mind running in the rain, but I usually prefer to wear a visor to keep the drops from my eyes. I went back and forth, do I loop and grab my visor or keep going. I kept going. It sprinkled lightly until it cleared yet again less than half a mile in. Ah. Excellent. However before the first mile was completed, it began again. This time a little heavier than a spritzing. Ugh. At this point I got a little blah. I spent many fall and winter mornings running in the rain. One week it rained every morning of my running schedule. My shoes were beginning to stink of the wetness and my sweat. Nothing would dry. This morning that was all I could think about. There was that one morning that a car refused to go around me and forced me to run through the 3 inch deep puddle. My head began to go to blah. So I went back to my prayer time with a crappy attitude. "Seriously, God? More rain? I'm so tired of running in rain." But I was put in my place quickly. This time the rain didn't feel like it would freeze on my nose. This rain didn't bring the humidity. This rain wasn't hurtful. This rain was refreshing. Sometimes we forget that rain is sent to refresh. The rain makes the vegetables grow. The rain brings beautiful flowers. The rain is not a bad thing. The rain refreshed my body and my spirit as I ran. And my running was more efficient than it has been in weeks. We are sent so many things that we have had to deal with in not the best ways. So what do we do, we assume the worst. Children are a blessing. But so often we are so worn from the care taking, teaching, guiding, disciplining, playing, and whatever else that we forget our blessing. We own homes. We care for the homes. We are tired of cleaning, mowing, dusting, gardening, and on. But do we stop in the middle of cleaning our home to thank God for home? Over and over God gives and blesses and we can only see the negative. We forget to find the good. We love the summer rain because it breaks up the heat or because we love thunderstorms, but the continual rain of March and April becomes dreary and we forget the good it does for the land. Let's challenge ourselves to be thankful for the inconveniences that are truly blessings. I'll start. I'm thankful for my children that continually ask questions because that means they are so eager to learn and grow. I'm thankful that God sends rain after my son forgets to water his garden. I'm thankful for my home. I hate cleaning, but I'm thankful to have a place to clean. It's "too small" but has less to clean. We have too much which makes it feel smaller, but we have been blessed by so many that give so generously. I'm thankful for the pain that laces my body regularly. It keeps me humble and reminds me to rest. People often say that something was "a blessing in disguise." Maybe things aren't in disguise at all. Maybe it's just our perspective. Growing up, I cared little for word definitions and word choices. I cared nothing of vocabulary unless it was terminology related to basketball. I was pretty much pigeon holed and mainly by myself. My role in life was to be the jock that people expected of me and sleep through AP Biology (in my defense I did try and she hated my work so I eventually gave up). It was my job to be indifferent to education and only care about sports.
In college I found a friend that made me feel like I was the one who grew up in some hillbilly shanty town and not the top notch Massachusetts education. And then I found myself caught. Do I dare care about my lack of vocabulary intellect and try to better myself, or do I stay the jock. I swayed between the two ideas all throughout college. It was no longer expected of me to be indifferent to my personal education. After all, this is costing quite a bit. I should be putting forth my best effort. Well, I just learned to nod and smile with that friend when I wasn't up to par, but also did the best I could through college, despite classes that weren't in my field. Educational indifference left me. I had to become better. Being indifferent is probably the worst thing for any human in any situation. I acquired the taste for indifference in high school as a coping mechanism. Indifference creates the ability to be numb. Why and how do people become indifferent? Usually it stems from the fact that they were previously invested. Then something happens. Failure, frustration, incompetence, sole propriaship (making up a word for you), or something else will trigger the spiral to mediocrity. Let's try this out: I wanted to be a smart, straight A student. I wanted to make my parents proud. In elementary school I began to struggle with reading assignments. What is the main idea? Oh, It's D! No. B? No. Aaaaa? No. Must be C then. And my grades began to match. However, we were not in the age of testing. We were in the generation of "you must not be trying hard enough" and in the grade where I needed help the most, I wasn't getting it. My parents just assumed I was getting lazy. Middle school I brought home my first ever C on a report card. Thought my parents were going to lose their ish on me. My father asked if I tried my hardest, and he believed I had and was therefore not upset. (I was shocked!!) I soon realized that my parents didn't care if I was the smartest - they had my brother for that. So I invested more in sports than school and became cynical. To this day I still have reading issues because nobody caught it. I was labeled as someone who didn't like to read (it's hard to like something you're terrible at and having grades reflect it). So, indifference brewed. Where else do we see this? Let's talk kids. If I have to work every Tuesday evening (the one night I never work) and my son's sporting events happen every Tuesday we end up in a pickle. Which do I choose? If I choose work, I am paying for the sport season. If I choose going to practices and games, we won't be able to afford it, but he's happy I'm there. Well, let's say I choose work. If I miss so many practices and so many games that when I have the chance to go, he won't care if I'm there or not. Sure, he might be excited I showed up, but he's fine if I don't. It's the breeding ground for an indifferent child. Don't we always want our children to be excited for us to be there? Indifference is found everywhere. Last week I discussed how if we stand for nothing we fall for anything. This is part of the indifference. If it doesn't affect us, who cares. If we tried and failed, no sense trying again. If things are close enough to being okay, then we can just live numbly. No feeling of joy or sorrow. No fight for or against. Just... there. Disaster comes when indifference settles in. If you don't believe me, find the things you feel indifferent about. See who and what is affected. Is it worthy of your time, money, emotions? Just yesterday, teachers across South Carolina called out the indifference of law makers and state officials on the subject of education. It has taken so long, that many became indifferent and simply left the field. Now there is a chance for change because people said, "No more!" Where will you shake off the indifference of your heart and mind to fight and say, "No more!" and move to action? |
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