Take a Chance Challenge #5--Phone an Author

5.  Phoning an Author.  Pick a random last name out of the phone book.  Find an author with the same last name and read a book by them.  Write about it.

The last name I chose out of the phone book was Eldredge.  I was thrilled when I did a search of authors with the last name Eldredge to find John Eldredge.  He is the author of the book "Wild at Heart," a book all about men.  If you have a man in your life or you are a man I highly recommend reading this book.  "Wild at Heart" is not the book I read for this challenge though.  For this challenge I read, "Walking With God"  (BTW--it bugs me to put book titles in quotation marks instead of underlining them but I don't have the option of underlining in my blog--sorry to all you grammar people).  The beginning of the summary on the back cover says, "This is a series of stories of what it looks like to walk with God, over the course of about a year."  Eldredge basically published his journal from a year when he was consciously walking with God.  Consulting God on every decision and where it took him.  How things went when he listened and obeyed and how things went when he didn't.  I enjoyed the book for the most part but my walk with God looks very different and at times I thought I should be more like Eldredge in my relationship with God but at other times I disagreed with some things he did and said.  Overall though it was a good book and it certainly made me think and evaluate.  I could relate to much of Eldredge's struggles.  He struggles with trying to do too much and not being able to sit still and just listen to God.  He is always trying to do the next thing.  I am the queen of that.  I have a very hard time just sitting and doing nothing of consequence.  Unless you consider reading but I even make that something to cross off my list.  I'm always in a hurry to get to the next book because I might die and not get to read every book I want to read.   I am overproductive all the time and it is exhausting!  I fall into bed every night spent and worn out.  Sure, I accomplish a lot but at what cost.  Being still with God and listening is close to impossible with me but I'm working on it and God is working on me and I'm so thankful for His grace and mercy.  Here are some highlights that I marked...(I kept tearing little pieces off my bookmark to mark pages)

• "God wants us to be happy.  But he knows that we cannot be truly happy until we are completely His and until He is our all.  And the weaning process is hard.  The sorrows of our lives are in great part his weaning process.  We give our hearts over to so many things other than God.  We look to so many other things for life.  I know I do.  Especially the very gifts that he himself gives to us--they become more important to us than he is.  That's not the way it is supposed to be.  As long as our happiness is tied to the things we can lose, we are vulnerable."  
• "In learning to hear the voice of God, one thing is certain--if you cannot hear a 'no,' you will have a hard time hearing God at all or believing that what you think you've heard is in fact from God.  This is crucial--hearing God requires surrender, giving all things over into His hands. Not abandoning your desires, but yielding them to God.
• Each day ask God, "How am I doing, God? How do I think I'm doing, and how do You think I'm doing?"  and then LISTEN.
• "To come to Chist and realign yourself with Him at the end of your day when you are utterly spent and don't want to pray has a deeply sanctifying effect."

Worn Out!

Wow--this day off seriously wore me out. I am in the "industrious" few days of my month and I have been seriously busy, busy, busy!! I did decide to do some school today--about half a day's worth and tomorrow we'll do the other half instead of cooking. I also did laundry and cleaned up and unpacked. Then--I went looking for sports shirts so that we could go and have a free Chick-fil-a sandwich for lunch. Since we are not big sports fans I could only come up with two sports shirts. So, I put a call in to Uncle Billy and he came through for us on one condition--I had to wear a Georgia Tech shirt. That seems like no big deal but I come from a family of Georgia Bulldog fans and I went to University of Georgia for one year and Dawg fans don't wear Tech shirts. But--like the sign below says--sometimes we do.

After our lunch we were headed to the mall to do the last of Hannah's birthday shopping and I just kept my shirt on because.....there's a Chick-fil-a at the mall. I also carried the girls' shirts in my purse. We picked up Madi Y on the way to the mall and she brought a shirt too. Shopping was fun and our free sandwiches at the mall hit the spot. After the mall we went to Play it Again Sports to buy a ball glove for Ollie and I so we can practice less painfully with Grace and Joe. Right across the street from the shopping center was a Chick-fil-a. Yes, we stopped again. I was full and so was Grace so we "donated" our sandwiches to Madi's brothers but Hannah and Madi both ate another sandwich! Thank you Chick-fil-a!
Since my day wasn't busy enough I decided to make a big ol' Russian dinner with Hannah's help. She has been studying Russia (Weeks 29 and 30 in My Father's World--only 4 weeks to go!!) and I like to make a meal from whatever country we are studying. The week is going to get busy so tonight was the night. We made Pirozhki (little meat turnovers), Borscht, and cabbage and Russian apple pie (not very pielike at all!). The food was really good. I've never had Borscht before. I always assumed that I wouldn't like it since I don't really like beets but I was wrong. It was really good. Actually, we all liked it. After this busy day I am completely worn out and ready for bed. Unfortunately, my work is not yet done. Hannah bought herself a mix stick today (kind of like an ipod shuffle) and she's waiting for me to help her put songs on it. I'm off to get that started and then I get to go to bed!

To Do or Not To Do...

...School tomorrow of course.  On one hand, it's a holiday and public school is not in session so why should we be.  On the other hand, we just got started and two of our subjects have lessons that are 5 days long--meant to be completed in a week.  I didn't start them last week with everything else because we had an abbreviated week.  I don't want to wait another week nor do I want to rush through them because we took a day off.  On the other hand, Ollie has the day off so he will be here and everyone knows you can't have a normal day when the hubby is home.  On the other hand, we could just do a half school day--chores and a few subjects.  On the other hand, we could just do regular school on Tuesday instead of our home economics (clean the house and learn to cook) day--that would make up for missing tomorrow.  On the other hand, Ollie will be home to help deal with any uncooperativeness on Joe's part so I could probably get an easy school day out of Joe.  On the other hand, it's Labor Day and I want a break from labor. 

These are the crazy thoughts swirling in my mind tonight.  So, you homeschoolies out there--is it school tomorrow or a holiday for you?  I'll let you know what my day turns out to be.  Right now it's anybody's guess.

A Little Beach Fun

We were blessed to get to spend a day at the beach with some family on Saturday. It was a perfect beach day and we all had a great time. This picture above is my new favorite picture of my kids. I will have to find some place to put it on my sidebar.
Before we went to the beach Hannah did some roller blading. Is she cool or what with her shades?
Grammy and her grandkids enjoying the morning.

Grammy decided she needed to try out the roller blades too.

Grace had a turn as well.

Here's Uncle Ronnie on the beach with his sweet grandbaby Lily.

And Lily and her sweet momma, Ashley.

We had plenty of time for practicing baseball and softball. Pop gave them some pointers and they both really caught on fast. They both are already getting really good at throwing and catching. Randy, Ashley's husband, was telling Joe that he would have no trouble with throwing and catching and I said that he was worried about hitting. Then Joe said, "and the people mom, I'm also worried about the people." He's referring to the people who will be watching, he hates to be watched. I've told him that the people watching will be mostly watching their own kids and that seems to comfort him some.

Homeschooling

I am happy to report that school is going so much better after our rocky start on Monday. I got myself organized, we took a day off from academics to do our home ec day and then had our "do over" day on Wednesday. So far, so good. The kids are adjusting and so am I. It's always such a juggling act to school three kids but I'm getting used to it. Hannah now does most of her work on her own. I make her an assignment list and she just does it. She has a lot of reading every day for My Father's World and I think she retains it better when she reads it to herself as opposed to me reading it to her. She's learning about Russia this week. We are on Week 30 out of 34 weeks and then we get to start Creation to Greeks. Doing the eclectic school thing with Grace and Joe is going okay but I don't think it's going to work long term. I really like a curriculum and a plan. I feel kind of lost without one. This week we did three of the science kits. One was on seeds, one was on eggs, and one was on the food chain and included an owl pellet to dissect. The experiments were interesting and easy and the kit came with almost everything we needed. I looked over the next box and the three subjects are "Bones and Muscles," "The Five Senses," and "Light." So, I'm going to use my favorite Evan Moor science books and do a unit on the body and do the kits to supplement. Ahhh, a plan. I feel much better now. After that we will probably do the next kit as a stand alone like we did this week and just fly through the experiments. I think that one is more of an earth science kit. And, after that--we are going to do Apologia's "Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day." Grace is begging to learn all about birds and that will be our bird study and I will most likely do a lapbook with them as well. I loved the bird lapbook Crispy did last year and will probably copy most of her ideas. Now if I could come up with a better plan for our Social Studies/History. I know I want to do American History with them and I have lots of books but I would like to have a plan to work off of, for now we may just read, "A Child's Story of America," and "Stories of the Pilgrims." That should get us started. Here are some pictures from our first week--

This is Grace and Joe in the window with their various experiments with seeds. They've got a wheat seed growing, a garlic clove that is supposed to sprout and a little terrarium. And below, a brine shrimp habitat in a 7 UP bottle. I'm really hoping the brine shrimp don't grow into anything. We just dumped a bunch of little egg thingys into salt water and we are keeping it under a lamp. Supposedly little brine shrimp are going to hatch and start swimming around. The kit doesn't give any info about feeding them though. With any luck this experiment will be a dud.



Here's Hannah with her big stack of books, thankfully she's got a smile on her face. In addition to MFW (History and Science) Hannah is doing Horizons Math, The Language Mechanic, Wordly Wise, Writing With Ease, Spelling, and Handwriting.
Joe gets to play Jumpstart 1st grade after he finishes his bookwork. He is being a model student this year. I've been able to increase the amount of school he does. He does Math, Explode the Code, 100 Words Kids Need to Read by 1st grade, Handwriting, and he reads a story to me. And then science and history with Grace once she finishes her work.
And Grace, working on her Map Skills book. In addition to Science and History, Grace is doing Horizons Math, Language Smarts, Evan Moor Spelling, Writing With Ease, Cursive, Explode the Code and reading a story out of an Abeka reader every day. I am happy to report that I think Grace is on grade level for reading! Pretty amazing considering in about April she was reading at a kindergarten level. She has made a huge improvement. When it clicked for her, it really clicked.
One more day of school this week and then a long weekend--woohoo!!

Baseball and Softball

I've signed these two up for baseball and softball. I grew up playing softball and my brother played baseball, my dad coached, my mom ran the concession stand, my dad was the commissioner at one point, and I pretty much spent most of my summer evenings at the ball field. I've been wanting to get my kids involved in sports but it never seems like a good time. Since they are only getting older I decided that this was the year. Joe took some persuading and is still not completely convinced but I think he'll like it. Grace is getting excited. They should start next week I hope. I was a little worried how we would deal with three kids in three different activities (Hannah is in theatre) but I found out tonight that Grace and Joe will have practices and/or games both on Mondays and Saturdays. Hannah has theatre on Tuesday and Friday so that gives us three days with nothing. We played catch in the living room the other night and I taught them a thing or two about how to catch a ball.

Random Thoughts on a Tuesday Evening

I've got some fish marinating and nothing to do while I wait (HA!) so why not blog.  Joe should be thrilled to find fish on his plate tonight.  I've given him at least a week off from fish so he really shouldn't complain.  It could be much, much worse.  And, he got to eat at Friendly's for lunch.  Grace finished her bingo card and Hannah and Joe finished theirs last week so the reward when all the cards were done was lunch at Friendly's.  I made itthrough the whole meal without even a bite of anyone's ice cream.  It was a hard battle of my self control but I won out.  No dairy for me!!  

Our first day of school yesterday was a complete bust.  I was disorganized and a little spastic and Joe and Hannah both had some uncooperative, difficult moments.  I even gave my speech about, "I don't have to do this, I could put all of you in school right now."  Unfortunately, they know that is an empty threat.  Heck, at that point they probably wanted to go to school to get away from me.  I got my butt in gear last night and got organized (as organized as I get that is) and feel more ready.  Today was home economics day and we just made pancakes and cleaned the house before going out to lunch.  Tomorrow will be our "do over" day.  I anticipate a much smoother day.  At least I know what I'm doing and have looked at the curriculum.  I have a list and a plan.  

It's raining right now and I just love it, I wish I could lay on the couch (or is it lie?) with a book but instead I need to head to the kitchen and get some dinner made.

Peace out peeps!