A Pot of Tea

I love to celebrate little blessings!

When your thrifted, but beloved china is missing its teapot and a friend's mother-in-law finds a near perfect match at a thrift store for you.  

Tea, anyone?

Day to Day Steps

I feel ready for the day to day book work again.  

I can only say that after days of preparation.  

Hours of cleaning out the school room.

Hours of sorting through curricula and supplies and paper and notes.  

Hours of clearing out the clutter.

I feel like I've cleared the clutter from my brain though.

I'm enjoying that the whole room is fresh and ready for regular occupancy again.  

I took a few moments to write down our basic schedule.  Interestingly enough, it seems we follow the same skeleton routine no matter the time of year.  The rise time varies, as in the summer I allow the Blossoms to rise later and stay up later.  In summer, the school work is replaced by more homestead work and the afternoons are where we squeeze in our fun.

We rise, have devotions, eat breakfast and discuss devotions.  

We tackle outside chores, slay inside chores and start school work.  

We have a mid-morning snack break.  Then, more school work until lunch and read aloud time.  

Rest time follows and then an afternoon of finishing up school work.  

Following that, I turn my attention elsewhere to my other housework and demands.

I need to feed the hungry people again!  

After supper cleanup, we work and hang out together.  

This seems to be the rhythm of our days.  It helps us prioritize the things that matter to our family.

I find this basic routine is a bit like a baby steps approach.  

Every day we're moving forward just a little more, making pint-sized investments in blossoming people.

Dominique

In the Throes (of Noise)

We're deep in the throes of many things over here ~

Last minute "summering"...

A few more get-togethers...

Canning, canning, canning...

School room cleaning and organization...

First day of book work preparations...

For those not as familiar with the homeschool mindset, school started July 1st here and many days have been logged already, but spending every day in the school room doing book work is slated to start this Monday.

I was reflecting on some of the hard things about last year and the noise level was definitely something that I struggled with.  It reached a level we'd never experienced. 

With four Blossoms learning, interacting and growing, plus three who practice multiple instruments.  Plus, working on the Blossom4's reading skills, plus later bed times for the older Blossoms, I found that I didn't have those essential times of quiet that I was used to.  Through much trial and error, we did learn a few things to help keep things peaceful and manageable for all of us. 

~ We bought a keyboard, because sometimes, piano practice just needs to be quieter for the good of the whole family.  This tip came from a trusted mama friend in a musical family. 

~ We bought headphones for during song or video use on the computers.  I am also researching higher quality headphones, so that this even less of a problem.

~ We learned to relocate some activities.  If a girlie was practicing piano, another girlie was on the keyboard and I was working on something with Blossom3 or Blossom4 that required better concentration, I moved to the living room, which is on the other side of the house.  'Twas a good decision in almost every case!

~ We reinstated our hard fast rule that rest time is QUIET time for reading and resting.  Nothing else.  No "quiet" play with each other.  This helped some of our introverts to recharge better.  This also helped mama to get a few minutes to collect her thoughts.

From year to year, not every problem is perfectly "solved," but we keep working toward solutions.  It IS beautiful and pleasant when we dwell together in unity!

And now, back to the organization and preparation for me,

Dominique

Truly, What is Rest?

Having recently returned from a week of vacation after a jam-packed summer, I was pondering true rest.

Rarely do we have fully restful circumstances.  I do well when I remember this.  Even planning for annual vacations still require oodles of packing, countless loose ends to tie up and once you actually arrive at your destination, who knows what will go right or wrong. 

Will the weather cooperate?  Will you remember everything necessary?  Will your kids get sick?  Will things explode at work?  Will something happen in your extended family? 

Yes, many times those things just go wonky.  Does that mean I can't rest? 

Nope. 

That's what came to me.  

Circumstances don't have to be perfectly restful for me to rest.  

Rest has more to do with me trusting God. 

Rest has more to do with my attitude of not letting the everyday details of living in this world determine my level of happiness. 

Rest has more to do with choosing to be happy and content in the good that I see every day in our life. 

Rest is really more of a choice, than an experience. 

Rest is more about me walking with God and letting the things that are big to Him, be big to me and letting the things that are small to Him, be small to me. 

Rest is more about counting my blessings and letting tomorrow take care of itself. 

Yes, I had that kind of rest on vacation.

Mooooove

Moooooooove over summer, here comes school time!!! 

Pardon the pun.  That seems to be what this bossy is saying to me.  (Bossies are what we called dairy cows on the dairy farm my Dad grew up on.)

We sighted her on our recent early morning road trip. 

Later on, we bumped into a Bible Quiz friend at a gas station a ways from our home.  It's funny how small the world is.

On the Barn

An early morning Pennsylvania countryside road trip uncovered this little gem. 

I've always want to sight a barn quilt!  Believe me, I'm now pinning barn quilts on Pinterest, so my sister in law and I can tackle creating one at some point.  That sounds like a fabulous fall project to me!

What She Found

Blossom2 came tearing into the house today, tickled pink to have discovered this four leaf clover. 

The only good luck we believe in is God's providence and our own hard work and obedience, but still, something so unique is worth celebrating.  Plus, I know for certain she was ecstatic to find the 4-H clover out in nature.

Moments of Beauty

One evening when returning from the Fair, it finally dawned on us that every day, a cardinal flew out of a bush near our parked truck.  Upon further investigation, we discovered her secret!  Since we've never seen cardinal eggs before, we were ecstatic!

Another evening, we were loading up to leave the Fair and admired God's handiwork in the sky.  Truly, the sky declares His glory.  

These are the moments of beauty that I savor amidst it all.