Homegrown Thoughts

Is that title random enough?

We have ‘officially’ finished the legally required number of school days for this year.  Since we school year-round, this isn’t really that big of a deal, but for some reason I’m feeling a sense of accomplishment.  We’ve also just finished my older son’s grammar book, the math book we were working on (taking time from Math-U-See to establish a bit more mastery in a tricky area before moving on) and the Capitalization & Punctuation workbook we were also using for Language Arts.  Things seem to be wrapping up all at the same time here without me planning it that way.  Funny how that happens.

We’re going back to Math-U-See now.  I back-tracked a few lessons to make sure we get a running start at it, and so far things are going much more smoothly than they did the last time we were here.  I’m glad I seem to have made the right decision to step back and work on the tough stuff more before moving on to new skills.

We’ll also be diving back in to The Mystery of History and our timeline notebook.  We’re learning about Africa in general and Tanzania in particular since we started sponsoring Selina.  I haven’t yet decided what will go into our Selina notebook and what will be made into a lapbook.  We’ll be continuing our Language Arts by using the Total Language Plus guide for Charlotte’s Web.  Just a small problem there.  I can’t find our copy of the book!  I’ve been almost literally tripping over the thing since I bought it last year and of course now that I need it, I can’t find it anywhere.  ARGH!  Good thing I’m in spring cleaning mode.  I’ll find that thing one way or another.  Or buy a new one, LOL.

My younger son has a new pet - a ladybug.  I got him a bug pod for Christmas and he’s had to wait all this time for a bug to put in it.  Poor child.  I suppose it was a little mean to give it to him so far ahead of time, but he managed to play with it in the meantime - treating it like Tinker Toys, mostly.  My older son found the first ladybug of the season (or a ‘leftover’ from last year) in the kitchen yesterday, so we now have it imprisoned comfortable in its new home.  Which my younger son is carrying around the house like it’s a pet carrier.  I’m just waiting for one of the tubes to fall off and the ladybug escape.  We’ve warned him but he doesn’t care.  He wants his ladybug with him so he can keep an eye on it. I’ve armed him with a magnifying glass in the hopes he’ll be happy watching it that way and not decide to take it out and ‘play’ with it.  We’ve given it water and some raisins so it should be good for now.  It’s currently napping on top of one of the raisins. :-)

So, that about does it for the excitement around here today.  Our heavy rainfall of earlier today has now turned into snow of the very fat and fluffy piling up quickly kind.  It should melt by tomorrow, though.  I’m so sick of snow, but at least we’re getting to the time of year when any snow we get can’t stay long.  Hopefully this will be the last of it for this season!

We no longer hold the title of “Last Christian Homeschooling Family With Children Over the Age of Six Who Have Not Read or Seen The Chronicles of Narnia.” That’s LCHFWCOASWHNRSTCON, for short. Please, hold your applause and do not faint. It is true.

We have owned the movie probably since it first came out on DVD and never watched it. I also have the entire set of Chronicles of Narnia and it had not been cracked open. Well, we watched the movie tonight (even the 7 year old who claimed he did not want to watch it, but couldn’t stay away!) and said 7 year old has now requested that I read him part of the book, starting with the Magician’s Nephew, every day. Oh, yes he did!

Part of my hesitation was that I thought it might be too deep or that the boys (or me) wouldn’t like it, but we were all glued to it. That was a fast 2 hours! Tomorrow, I think my older son will be watching EVERY bonus feature on the DVD. I think the boys are officially hooked. Whew! :-)

So, I can now stop cringing in fear whenever the topic of Narnia comes up lest my total ignorance be revealed to the world. And yes, I did cry. A couple of times.

I must go now. He who wants to be read to is insisting we start NOW because he just can’t wait until tomorrow.

I have this habit of blogging about things that are going to happen and then forgetting to post about how they turned out. So I’ll try to tie up some loose ends here and hopefully I won’t forget any.

1. Lapbooking and Notebooking presentation for our homeschool group - This went pretty well. My co-presenter and I have different approaches (I’m all about colored paper and customization and she is all about simple, easy and basic), so we were a good match. We didn’t have nearly enough time to cover both lapbooking and notebooking (and mini-offices, for that matter), but we tried! I had an outline of things to cover and we didn’t use it much at all - we just kind of went with the flow and answered questions. If anyone is interested in seeing some of what we were teaching about lapbooks, you can see my page on lapbooking here. :-)
2. My son’s MRI - He did have to be sedated for the MRIs. This wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be and he’s actually glad that’s how it worked out because he wasn’t scared that way. Well, once the iv was in. That was an ordeal. The worst part was getting the bill - it was almost 3 times as much as I’d been led to believe it would be. And we get to pay most of it out-of-pocket. Ouch. But the good news is that it ruled out any neurological or spinal conditions and he got a completely clean report. The next step is getting approval from the insurance company for leg braces that he will wear at night to stretch out the tendons in his calves to where they should be. Homeschooling bonus: I was able to save copies of his x-ray images on my computer for future use in science lessons. How many people get to use their own body for anatomy?!?
3. Our Compassion child - We got our packet this week, so we’re officially official. There wasn’t a lot of additional information in it, but we are able to write to her now. I’ll be doing that very soon. I’ve been learning some Swahili, which is fun! It’s an interesting language. It’s fun to say “good night”. Lala salama! From what I can tell, the words for airplane and bird are the same - ndege. That’s fun to say, too. I don’t have a lot of need for this knowledge in everyday life, but I tend to make a habit of storing information with limited use in my noggin. Every once in awhile it comes in handy or at least surprises people.
4. My exercise program - I’m about to the end of my 10 week program. We have final testing next week. I’m testing early so that will be next Wednesday night. I did see improvement at my 5 week evaluation, although I haven’t really lost weight. I have lost inches and I can tell that I have more energy and endurance. So I would say I’m more ‘fit’ even if it doesn’t really look like it so much. I’m not sure how the testing will go this week. I don’t feel like I’ve improved as much in this 2nd five weeks, but we’ll see. I did my own mile walk/run test this week and I took a couple minutes off of my time, so that was better. I’m opting out of the group run because my legs just can’t take it. I think I have issues with my calves, too, and I simply can’t do a lot of running or even fast walking without serious pain, even after all this exercise I’ve been doing. And I’m fine with that. There are plenty of other things I can do with pretty much the same results. I’ll try to remember to report in with my final numbers next week.
5. Mission: Self-Control is going pretty well. I don’t think I’ve really bought too much ‘extra’ stuff. I try not to look too closely at the ads in the newspaper and delete the ones I get via e-mail without even looking at them, most of the time. Removing that temptation has helped a lot. I’m still working on clearing out the accumulated ’stuff’. Our spring cleanup day is coming up soon and hopefully I’ll have a lot to put at the curb that day!

I think that’s about it. Feel free to remind me, my faithful handful of readers, if I’ve forgotten anything.

Here she is!

Meet Selina, a 4 year old little girl from northern Tanzania! She has 2 siblings, attends church activities and Bible class and likes playing with dolls and group games. Isn’t she cute? So solemn. We hope to put a smile on that precious little face.

I guess I may have to start learning some Swahili. Unless she uses some other local dialect, of course. Good thing they have interpreters for the letters!

We should receive our information packet in a couple of weeks, then we can start writing to her. It says she is in kindergarten, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate, given her age. She is almost 5. Someone will read our letters to her and write to her for us until she can do it on her own, so no worries.

I’m so grateful for this opportunity to reach out and touch a child on the other side of the world in Jesus’ name. I pray her life will be blessed by our love.

Selina is 9 hours ahead of us and about 8,233 miles away. It would take us more than 16 hours of actual flight time to reach her. Here are the current weather conditions near Selina’s home:

We’re going to sponsor a child through Compassion International!

I need to back up here a little bit and begin at the beginning. Ever since I was pretty young (late grade school, I’m guessing), I’ve wanted to sponsor a child through one of the charitable organizations out there. Now that’s been a lot of years that I’ve waited to do it! For one reason or another, it just never happened.

Fast forward to this last week, when I began reading about the trip some bloggers took to Uganda with Compassion. They rounded up a group of bloggers (some of whom I read somewhat regularly) and took them to see the work Compassion does in Africa. The bloggers posted about their experiences even as they were still in Uganda. I didn’t read these until after they were back (they went in February), but once I started I couldn’t stop! Some met the children they sponsor. There are blog entries, photos, videos… I almost feel like I was there with them - you know, other than the fact I was in my comfortable home surrounded by snow. I was really struck by the quality of the Compassion program and their commitment to transparency in their finances and showing these children the love of Jesus.

I’m convicted in a much stronger way than ever before that I NEED to do this! No more excuses, no more putting it off until I could think about it… I would have signed up right away if it were up to me, but there was a little hitch in that plan. I’m a married woman who needs to run these things by her husband first. A husband who does NOT make quick decisions. A husband who needs details and time to think and think and think…

So I gave him information to look at and tried to wait patiently. I tried very hard to only ask him about it once a day. I prayed about it. And I waited some more.

Today my husband asked me to print out information for several children and that we could pray together about it tonight. I am taking this to mean that we will decide *which* child we will sponsor, not *if* we will sponsor. And this will be a very difficult decision, one that will certainly require prayer. There are so many children in need, how do you pick just one? I’ve looked through the photos and stories of the available children for several days and have chosen 6 ‘finalists’ for us to choose from. How I wish we could sponsor them all!

So I’m rather excited! I’ll share our experiences with this here, for sure!

I urge you to prayerfully consider sponsoring a child. If you’d like to read and see some of the things I’ve been watching, visit Boomama’s blog and look in the left sidebar for the blue Blog Compassion Uganda box - click on the options there to see Uganda through these bloggers’ eyes. Your heart will break, but if you are like me, you will also be struck by the hope shining from these children’s eyes. A small sacrifice in your lifestyle can greatly improve the life of an impoverished child on the other side of the world - even into the realms of eternity. And I believe your life and heart will be richer for it.