A Chosen Course

If our principal treasure be as we profess, in things spiritual and heavenly, and woe unto us if it be not so! on them will our affections, and consequently our desires and thoughts, be principally fixed.  -John Owen

Perhaps you may have noticed it's been a month since the last post here.  I, on occasion, have read blogs where the writer returns after days, weeks or months and apologizes for an absence.  While I (somewhat surprisingly) have missed the once daily writings myself, I make no apology.  

The new year always seems a time to refocus, to realign and to reset.  

Time has been taken here for just that.  The Advent and Christmas seasons have passed and the decorations are put away.  The house has been cleaned and a new semester of homeschool has begun.  

It seems often that we run along fulfilling our many roles and responsibilities and don't often evaluate where our time is being spent.  I often say that our time spent reflects our priorities.  Clearly, the computer (and this blog), while both things I enjoy, do not top my list.  They are not responsibilities I am tied to, or need to be burdened by.  

With three children to train (all of them boys - in January in New England mind you!  Oh how thankful we are for a mild winter!), a husband with a full and busy work schedule, a toddler having just switched from two naps to one, and two school age boys to teach, there is often simply not enough time in the day to accomplish all I hope to accomplish.  There is, however, enough time to do that which is in God's will that i do.

There are times when this machine is not meant to be used.  It's OK for it to sit idle for a while.  Aren't there many things in life like that - that start out as hobbies or things we enjoy that become burdensome as we increasingly feel tied.

I like the analogy of the rodent in the wheel.  Many folks spin their wheels as the hamster does, running without a finish line in sight, going nowhere.  Unlike the rodent, we have goals and a vision.  We know where we're going.  The challenge is to get there without getting sidetracked by the lure of the wheel.  Sometimes it looks fun, and sometimes we jump on enjoying the novelty for a time, only to be reminded of why we want to jump off... before the force of the endless motion consumes us.  

Our prayer beginning this year is that we will grow as we did in 2011.  While I must admit that I consistently add my own silent prayer, "...but Lord, it's gotta be easier than last year!", I know that our greatest times of growth have been in the greatest times of trial.  Should He choose to lead us through the flames yet again this year, we will follow.  I'm not waiting in line for that, as my mother would say, but if that's the direction the Lord leads we are, somewhat reluctantly if I'm being honest, willing.

Is your prayer for 2012 to be in His will?  Is your plan His plan?  Is He your focus?  Do your activities allow you to meditate on His word, to reflect on His work and seek His will, or do they - will they- leave you spinning on the wheel?  

“The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God…or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world.” - Elisabeth Elliot

The 89 Cent Treasure

With Thanksgiving around the corner, there is much talk of turkey.

The grocery stores are running sales on the popular thanksgiving bird.  The wild turkeys are still meandering about our backyard and they are remembered daily in prayer in our house as the two year old prays, "Dear Dog... Tank you for da turkeys backyard".

... Perhaps he understands more than we think as our oldest seems determined to one of these years provide the turkey, one he has hunted himself, for our Thanksgiving table.  Maybe Noah knows that the turkeys might need protection from his big brother.  That's beside the point...

Feeding five mouths is not always easy, and is never cheap.  I am always looking for ways to create easy, economical meals and all the talk about turkey prompted me to share this tip.
One of the best ways I have found to accomplish both easy and economical meals is to take advantage of the oven roaster chickens that go on sale for about $.89/lb. from time to time.

When that sale runs, I stock up.  These chickens freeze well.  I thaw one for a few days in the fridge and after it has had time to thaw, I place one in the crock pot early in the day.  No liquid needed (in fact, if your crock pot is small, adding liquid may cause the pot to spill over).  Simply add salt, pepper and perhaps some poultry seasoning is all.  Left on the low setting until dinner time the chicken cooks perfectly.

Though you certainly can, we do not often simply eat the chicken this way as I find I can stretch it further if we use it in other dishes.  I have, over the years, compiled a large collection of recipes involving cooked chicken.

After dinner (yes, after, as I rarely plan to use this bird for this meal so as to save time), I debone the chicken.  I separate the meat into meal sized freezer bags.  I find that I can get at least six meals out of a good sized chicken.  The skin, bones, and juice all get put back into the crock pot and are refrigerated until the following day.  The meat is refrigerated or frozen for future use.

The following day, I add water and vegetable scraps to the carcass that has sat in the fridge.  This is left to simmer, again on low, all day in the crock pot.  At the end of the day, the liquid is strained.  The solids are tossed in the garbage and the broth that remains is saved and frozen for future use as stock, or broth for soup.
This stock is separated into several tupperware containers to be later used as soup broth.  Smaller, one-cup amounts, are saved in recycled yogurt or margarine containers to be used as stock or broth for casseroles, etc.  This all freezes perfectly.

Not only do I eliminate the need to buy broth or bouillon, but also I am able to very quickly thaw already cooked chicken and whip up a quick casserole, chicken pie, or stir fry.  It is also leaves me little excuse to be unprepared for dinner.

"She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens."  Proverbs 31:15

"It is good to give thanks to the Lord..." Psalm 92:1

The Meal Plan

It saves us tremendous amounts of time and money.  It wastes less, and makes us better stewards.

It's the weekly meal plan.

I write it out on Sunday and begin by using what I have in the house.   I add to that what's advertised on sale at the local grocery shop and make my weekly grocery list accordingly.  

I plan dinners first, and plan them based on Dan's schedule.  If he will be home for the evening, I plan meals that may take a bit longer to prepare or that require more clean time to clean up.  If he is home for a quick dinner and has to head back to work, I plan something quicker and easier.

Our kids are picky eaters.  If they won't like what we're having for dinner I try to plan a breakfast they will enjoy.  Lunch is planned last and is usually a meal that is easily prepared and requires little clean up.

By having our meals planned, there is little temptation to eat out.  There is far less food wasted because there is a plan for all that is purchased.

We buy what we need and use what we buy.

I don't find myself dragging my feet at dinner time because I don't yet know what to prepare, and I'm rarely caught without what is needed to prepare a meal.  Grocery trips are kept to once a week at most, therefore saving tremendous amounts of time running in for this or that.

When planning the weeks meals at one time, it really only takes a matter of minutes.  I go through the recipe binder that contains only the recipes that have been tried and tested - and have passed the test.  Included there is a list of easy meals for which no recipe is needed.

Trying something new is easy when it can be fit into the week on a day with extra time, and all ingredients can be planned on and purchased in the regular weekly grocery trip.

It may seem that to be planned requires additional time, but that ten minutes spent on Sunday afternoon saves perhaps hours of time during the week, and oodles of cash for the week to come.  We find that by planning ahead, we enjoy a greater variety and we eat healthier too...

It's the Little Things

It's the little things that make the biggest difference, isn't it?  

It's number two in the kids task packs, their version of a chore chart, that is completed each and every day.

  

The beds are made.  

All of them.  

Always.  

Without fail.  

The bed, typically the largest piece of furniture in a bedroom, can make a whole room look so much cleaner by just being made.  Immediately at the start of each day everyone accomplishes a task.  A quick and simple task that brings the first sense of accomplishment.  It begins the day with order.  

At the end of the day, how inviting it is to enter into the bedroom to a neatly made bed.  

But, you may be thinking, it just gets messed up and needs to be made all over again.  

Yup.  That's life.  

There's always a bed to be made in the morning, more laundry to be done, more dishes to do.  There are children who need training.   

Should the laundry and dishes go undone simply because they'll need doing again tomorrow?  Should children not be trained because they'll need training again tomorrow?   

Certainly some of these things are more important than others, but it's the simple things.  

It's the little things, the daily and routine.  Even the mundane, that often remind us of Christ's love.  

Making the bed each morning serves as a reminder that His mercies are new every morning.  

We mess up each day, yet the Lord God is forever faithful. 

To all of us.

Always.

Without fail.

As the bed is made each day, each new day... morning by morning, new mercies I see.

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end; 
they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."  Lamentations 3:22-23 

A Time For Every Season

Can it be that summer has ended?

Can the long days of endless rays have passed?  Can autumn have arrived, that time of year when all things so lush and lovely die - or simply lie dormant for the coming frigid months?   The season, the months marked by illness, by silence, by darkness.  A stark contrast to the hot and hazy days at the lake.  Blowing bubbles, boys warming under the sun, sprawled on hot sand.

I recently read in a wonderful little book, One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, that all new life is birthed out of darkness.  How true!  Don't I think the same every spring as new life emerges from the dark?  The days lengthen, the clouds make way for the gleaming sun.  Crocuses peek out from under the snow, the trees bud anew with the freshness of new life stemming from what appear to be lifeless limbs.  Newborns emerging from the darkness of a womb, lambs, piglets - tiny little people!

Without the darkness of the crucifixion there is no resurrection, no ascension.  Without darkness, there is no contrast of light.
There is a time for every season.

Oh to embrace the autumns of life, the assurance that we who believe, who trust in the One, will be delivered.

Looking back on the many autumns of life, how they seem to have brightened in time.  Seeing how the Lord has used them for good, for growth.  How those times of storms, of illness, of cold have been used to strengthen us  - our faith- in the One who hears and answers each and every request, every utterance made in His name.

Once upon a time, a dark time (or was it?), I was told by a college advisor at the completion of my junior year that I would not be accepted into the education program.  The lowest grade earned in an education class a B+.  A well known Christian college on the north shore of Boston, the advisor's only explanation, "We don't think you will pass the state teacher exam.  You don't test well and you will bring down our national ranking, therefore we won't have you in our program".   End of discussion.

What of the thousands of dollars spent on that "education"?  Never mind the money, when did national rankings become more important than an individual!?
When did test scores come to mean more than 
evidence of a job well done?
Did they not have a responsibility, as a Christian institution, as elders, mentors, professors and advisors, to teach me well?  To offer grace?  To let me try... and even fail?

Today, eleven years later... how different may my life have been had I received the degree that I'd earned and put it to use?  Would I have learned what it means to be submissive to my husband?  To be a wife, a help-meet, a keeper at home, a woman?  Would I have upheld my vows to him - for worse, for poorer... in sickness?

Would I have invested as much of my life, of myself, in raising Godly young men, or would I have gone the way of the vast majority...
...the luke-warm way?  

Would I have placed a higher priority on career had it been an option?

Would I have opted to go against the grain, teaching my own children at home, following the biblical directive to train them 24 hours a day seven days a week.  Would I have taken my responsibility as a wife and as a mother as seriously as I have or would I have delegated my responsibility to others more "qualified" by the world's standards.

Perhaps I would have.  Perhaps not.  Perhaps my convictions would have led me to do and be what God requires.  Regardless, that particular autumn has brought about spring.  I can now see a glimpse, in hindsight, of how God used that particular darkness.

That year as a college junior was filled with mixed emotions - autumn, winter, spring, and summer- rolled into one!  Dan and I engaged to be married, my being forced out of college - the only option to begin all over again with a different major- panic attacks, wedding plans, Dan's college graduation, me - a failure - without having failed.

How that autumn has shaped me.  My worldview, my thoughts on marriage, child training, parenting.  My thoughts on gender roles, feminism, women in the workplace.  My thoughts on education, on school, on intelligence, on life.

The autumn, the winter, beckons us to draw nearer to the warmth, to the light. The Light that is Christ.

The summer is past, autumn is upon us.

May I see His hand this season in ALL things - in the clouds, the snow, the bitter cold, the gray.  May I not only revel in His power and glory in the spring, but may I see, feel, His hand always upon us in autumn, in winter, in the seemingly dormant times of life as well.  If only I could have eyes to see, to find the light in the dark and to see more than the step just ahead.  

If only I could learn to look ahead and look beyond, to the spring that inevitably lies 
just on the other side of winter.

How do you do it all?

Very simply.... I don't.

I'm often asked this question, particularly when people hear that we homeschool our three children.  There are three reasons I don't do it all.

The first is that everyone helps.  All five of us live in our house and all five of us care for it and for each other.  Everyone must contribute.

The second is that my husband takes an active role in our home.  He is the spiritual head, the protector, the provider... and the principal.

The third, and the focus of this particular post, is that we follow a schedule.  We stay home a lot.  We sign up for very little.  We do not feel that we're missing anything, nor do our children.  Our lives are rich and the time saved in not rushing here, there and everywhere allows us to more greatly enjoy God, and each other.

We weigh very carefully what is important to us and what helps us to accomplish our life goals and the goals we have for our children.

Those goals, I might add, have changed drastically in the last ten years.  The goals that once included picket fences and private colleges have been replaced.  Replaced with things such as servanthood and selflessness.

We have learned- we have had to learn- we are still learning, to delight in the simple, the everyday, the ordinary.  We have learned that having a schedule helps tremendously to accomplish that which does need doing.

The schedule is a guide that we do our best to follow, but contrary to popular belief it is not our master. Instead, it gives freedom in each day.  We accomplish far more with a schedule than without, and still have hours of the day left for play and for exploration.

Just today, our first day of school and two boys with fevers, our language arts lesson was interrupted by a flock of wild turkeys in the backyard.

Try as I might to discourage weapons, boys are born hunters.  The older sons ran to the yard - one wielding jack-knife and the other a trash can lid (yes, a trash can lid.  Apparently he was the designated protector, to protect brother-hunter in case the plan went awry).

They didn't do much but upset the flock and cause a ruffle of feathers.  They returned to their language arts lessons having blown off some steam, excitement building until lunch when they could fill me in on the details of their hunt, upset only that they'd failed to provide the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.

God is a God of order.  He is not a God of chaos or disorganization.  We have just completed our schedule for our school year, and today began it's implementation.  Even with a mid-morning backyard hunt, we were able to stay on task and school was done by noon, excepting reading (silent and read aloud) which we all prefer to do in the latter part of the day.

Our schedule is organized so that when appointments need to be made, I make them for just after lunch, whenever possible.  The window of free time each afternoon allows for grocery shopping, appointments, errands, visits to Grandma and Grandpa, excursions, adventures, and occasional play dates.

When we are home - which is most days- the boys can play, read, do nature study, ride bikes...  I can join them or catch up on house chores, computer work, or my own reading.

Our schedule will obviously not work for every family.  In fact, our schedule is ever-changing.  I imagine that by the end of the calendar year I will need to make a new one when Noah begins to take fewer and shorter naps.

Please use our schedule as a guide in making your own if you wish.  A schedule, for many reasons, helps drastically in making life more intentional.  You cannot live an intentional life if you're flying by the seat of your pants, living from moment to moment.  How does your daily routine reflect your end goal?  Where are you going?  What are you doing?  To where and how are you leading your children?

When used as a tool to make your daily actions reflect your priorities and point you in a direction toward accomplishing your goals, the Lord's goals, for your children, for your life, it's invaluable.

	Daniel	Lisa	Isaiah	Elijah	Noah
7:00 am		Laundry/ Shower	Clean Room Dress Teeth Clean and vacuum “J”	Clean Room Dress/ Teeth/ Family Room
7:30	Chore Check Shower	Noah Up/ Dishwasher/ Breakfast Prep.	Devotions/ Dishwasher/ Laundry/ Breakfast Helper	Devotions/ Set Table/ Read to Noah	Up and Dressed/ Read with Eli
8:00	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast
8:30		Kitchen Clean Up/ Clean Room/ Do Laundry	Kitchen Clean Up/ Daily Chore	Dining Room Clean Up/ Daily Chore	Play/ Water Helper
9:00		Bible Work with Eli	Bible First Task	Bible Work with Mom	Bible Preschool
9:30		Email Blog	Language Arts	Language Arts	Nap
10:00		Daily Chore	Math	Math	Nap
10:30		Spelling Geography	Spelling Geography	Spelling Geography	Nap
11:00		Science Desk Work	Science/Art	Science/Art	Nap
11:30		Lunch Prep.	11:40-11:50 Math Drill 11:50 Help Mom	11:40-11:50 Math Drill 11:50 Help Mom	Nap
12:00pm		Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch
12:30		Clean Up until 12:50	Kitchen Clean Up until 12:50	Dining Room Clean Up until 12:50	Help Eli Clean Up until 12:50
1:00		FREE	FREE	FREE	FREE
1:30		FREE	FREE	FREE	FREE
2:00		FREE	FREE	FREE	NAP
2:30		FREE	FREE	FREE	NAP
3:00		FREE	Math	FREE	NAP
3:30		Read Aloud	Read with Mom	Read with Mom	FREE
4:00	Settle/ Help Lisa	Dinner Prep	Book Basket	Book Basket	FREE
4:30	Help Lisa or Play with Boys	Dinner Prep	Dinner Helper/Set Table	Clean up Yard & Toys/Play with Noah	Clean up Yard & Toys/Play with Eli
5:00	Dinner	Dinner	Dinner	Dinner	Dinner
5:30	Dinner	Dinner	Dinner	Dinner	Dinner
6:00	Bath & Chore oversight	Dinner  Clean Up	Dinner  Clean Up/ Trash Out	Bath Put Away Laundry	Bath
6:30	6:45 Family Time	Laundry 6:45  Family time	Bath 6:45 Family Time	Clean Bathroom 6:45 Family time	Play 6:45 Family Time
7:00	Family Time/ Kids to Bed	Family Time/ Kids to Bed	Family Time/ Read	Family Time/ Bed	Family Time/ Bed
7:30	Last Minute Clean Up	Last Minute Clean Up	7:45 Bed