I stopped putting out fires & started kindling them
I’m not a patient person by nature. I’m more of a go in, see the problem, fix it the quickest/most efficient way, take a deep breath, carry on, rinse, repeat. My husband calls it being a fire put-er outer.
Resurrection week series
God knew we wouldn’t understand joy until we experienced sadness. We wouldn’t understand the beauty of a mountain view if we hadn’t learned how to climb out of valleys. We wouldn’t understand our soul’s need for communion until we experienced the ache of separation.
Our cries. Our tears. They’re our roaming calls looking for Home.
Let the light in
Did you already know the day would feel long, before you even pulled yourself up out of bed this morning? You aren’t the first to feel this way and you likely won’t be the last either. You aren’t alone. Motherhood is indeed a marathon, a long haul journey. Even in neutral, you still flux backward or forward. Without this perspective, we will end up drifting through our days instead of walking with purpose.
Sometimes narration needs help
FREEBIE Narration card printable: When I first asked our oldest son to give a narration on our first ever homeschool read aloud, he just stared at me. He was/is a voracious reader. I thought maybe I just needed to explain what narration was and we’d assuredly be set.
Still, blank stare.
I gave my narration about the reading, assuming it’d inspire him to expand and elaborate on the reading.
Eyes wide open, “mom, it was good.”
My newbie homeschooling mom fears welled up. I was convinced I was doing something wrong. And I was.
The gorge & the feast
When we first started homeschooling, I followed a “list”. I knew I wanted to do the absolute best job I could at this crazy homeschooling adventure and a list felt safe. While I personally had been an avid reader as a child, it was mainly an eclectic mix of what was required at school and whatever else I could get my hands on.
When planets stop
These past few Olympic weeks, we’ve seen that the person with the fastest pace is the one who wins the race, or at least the medals. What we’ve also seen is that if the pace gets out of control, it can give you twisties-and twisties will break more than our hearts if they aren’t stopped. It had me thinking quite a bit, about the paces we keep in our lives.
Review: Tom Brown’s Field Guide: Nature & Survival for Children
In an online homeschool group years ago, this book and the complementing book series were recommended. I noted them, placed them on a list of future homeschool reads. This spring, I found that list and started looking to which books would be good resources to glean from for this upcoming school year.
I’ve held off for months on writing this review and almost skipped writing it altogether-mainly because I needed to digest it a bit more. Quite a bit of the material was familiar territory to us from our homesteading years. The first half of the book would have been a fabulous reference all those years ago(like, you know, if I’d purchased it when I originally put it on our list?).
review: Charlotte Mason Summaries by Leslie Noelani Laurio
𝗖𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘮𝘯?
No time to completely read all the CM home education series before this next school year or need a refresher?
𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗱𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘧𝘺 𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵?
THIS BOOK MAY JUST BE WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR.
just 5 minutes
You’ll notice I write A LOT about nature. There’s a reason why.
In 2012, I read a blog post that shared the physical and emotional benefits of being outside in fresh open air. The post was moving and convincing. At the end of the post, the author challenged to go outside for five minutes, that it could change my life. That was it. Just five minutes.
Those five minutes did indeed change my life and the lives of my children as well.
review: Growing Slow by Jennifer Dukes Lee
2021 was going to be the year that I put my nose into my own writing-not in a “this is my year” kind of way, more of an intentional forcing out of my comfort zone. I knew I needed to dust my editing hat more, prepare the oldest for university, school the younger guys. I thought the easiest way to do that would be to cut out all the extras and staunchly stay on task to complete multiple to do lists. I’d spent month of stacking journals into chronological order, color-coding themes with post it notes, trying to ignore the stomach churning over two areas that I just couldn’t put the soulwise words into yet.
don’t quit
I spent the greater part of Good Friday compressing four years of education onto three printed pages. As I thumbed through the syllabi we used, I spotted a few classes that…
Eve, if only you knew…
〰️𝑂ℎ 𝐸𝑣𝑒, 𝑠𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟, 𝑖𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑘𝑛𝑒𝑤. 𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝’𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐠𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡, 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑑𝑑𝑒𝑛?
〰️If you could have seen a scared teen girl trudging to Bethlehem to birth in an animal dwelling, 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒?
God is in the details
For most of Israel, that Friday had nothing to do with the the King of Kings-it was about preparing the Passover.…
glorious goodness and grace
Living like a Christian defies odds.
Living more like Jesus is audacious and goes against the flow of the stream.
Your faith in the glorious goodness and grace of God-despite your feelings-will look like madness.
If faith is madness, so be it.
May it be the most glorious madness.
where to find Peace
I remember a year where my word of the year was 🅟🅔🅐🅒🅔- because 𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙘𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙖 𝙥𝙞𝙚𝙘𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙥𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙚𝙡𝙨𝙚.
I remember looking for calms within the storms.
I remember hunting down places for quiet stillness, places to become the foot of the cross.
I remember so 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘯𝘭𝘺, so 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺, so 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 wanting something inside of my chest to feel whole again.
And what I found? 𝙄𝙣𝙨𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙢𝙮 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙣. Peace isn’t a place-it’s a Person.
in my experience, fear will try to drown you
I can’t even begin to tell you how many conversations with my husband have started with the phrase “𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘨𝘰 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮.”
I’m not talking about sitting in there elaborately fixing hair and make up. I’m talking about just a really quick, just a second, kind of deal. At the time, we had no TV to babysit the children and they really were happily swinging on a swing set (𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 5-13). It felt harmless-big words for this helicopter mama.
𝙄 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙗𝙚 𝙤𝙠𝙖𝙮.
Book review: Porch Chair Prayers by Becky Sims
In the early hours of the morning, before the pitter patter of growing feet can be heard, you’ll most likely find me hidden in the living room with an animal (or two) curled up on the couch. The coffee pot will be heating up, the sun will be rising, and I’ll be on the Youversion Bible app. It’s one way I streamline my days to insure the Word gets in. It keeps me consistent and helps me focus my thoughts and plan my approach to the day