More Change, Seriously?

It has been a summer of change.  I really don't enjoy change.  I'm not the adventurous sort, I'm a total stick in the mud...an oak tree in a raging river.  God keeps giving me opportunities to become more of a flexible willow.

And this is another one of those opportunities...darn it!  Tomorrow my daughter begins her senior year of high school.  Let the empty nest approach.  Actually, I'm not too worried about that, the scrap heap will keep me busy for years!

Cindy @ 6 weeks

But...tomorrow my daughter will attend her first college class.  That will be a BIG change for both of us.  Cindy is used to having support when she struggles in a class.  I won't be there.  I know she can handle it.  I'm not completely sure that I can handle it.   But I'll still be here as proofreader and listener.

One of the really big challenges of college life is that it is much less flexible than homeschool. For example, she may not be able to attend my mom's funeral because she may not be able to miss class.  Oh her instructor would tell her to go, but I don't want her to struggle to get caught up.  We'll have to see how hard the class is before we make that decision.

But it's not all work.  We have a ton of high school activities planned this year.  For DJ's senior year we didn't participate in everything.  Since I'm arranging both the high school and senior activities, I think we'll be there this time!  And we have the amazing Grand Finale 18th birthday party mystery.

OK, Lord, I'm ready now...wait...OK...yup, I can do this.  Phillipians 4:13, right!  Bring on the senior year!
Feeling blessed, how about you?

Just tell me where to go...

Last week we went to visit my MIL for her 84th birthday.  We had a rental car, and we ended up driving to lots of places we had never been to before. Fortunately , SIL had a Garmin which she loaned to us.  It was fantastic!  Not too many directions, just enough chatter to keep us on the road we needed to be on.  In fact, we only ticked "Carmen Garmin" off once (in case you haven't used one, "she" gets a little testy if she has to repeat herself).

I realized again, how much I LIKE (love, need) to know what is going to happen next.  I only do jigsaw puzzles if I have a pair of scissors.  Of course, there is much in life that doesn't cooperate.  For example, I had blood work done this morning.  If my triglycerides aren't still low, we may end up paying more for our health insurance.  But I did the best I could, so hopefully it will be good.

Which reminded me that I need to set up my lesson plans for homeschool and for co-op.  Finally after 13 years of homeschooling, I have a lesson plan grid that includes Cindy's chores.  I wish I though of designing it a few years ago, but at least I have it now.

I've also started using "baby" post-it notes on my calendar.  There are so many things that I need to remember every month/week.  I can move the post-it note to the next bring up every time.  It's amazing how much that has helped.  I can even post bring-ups for things happening at my dad's house.

Which reminds me of another reminder I need to improve on using.  Yup...you guessed it!  My Bible study.  I need to get back to basics.  Yup, summer is over, long live the routine!

Feeling blessed, how about you?

Knowing where you came from...but not necessarily where you're going...

About a week before my mother died, I signed up for Ancestry.com.  I wanted to create a family tree of all 4 branches of the family.  In fact the day before Mother collapsed, I had called her and told her that I had finally located my mother-in-law's mother's name on a ship manifest (she went through Ellis Island in 1921).  I also asked my mom for a few details about her--where was she born anyway? The joys of a military family...

Ancestry.com makes wonderful family trees.  You can even insert pictures for each family member.  Wish I had one for everybody!  They also have the option to print the tree into a book...for a price.

Fortunately...or not, depending on which side of the bank account you're on; I'm into scrapbooking.  Not digitally, I like playing with paper.  And yes, I probably run with scissors, too!  So I have started converting what I've learned into scrapbook pages.  Two branches of the family had narratives written by family members.  So, how do you scrapbook the pictures and the narratives, without taking up oodles of pages in the scrapbook? Here's what I came up with:  I created a pocket page and glued the pictures to the front of the pocket.  The narrative, of course, goes in the pocket with any pictures that don't fit on the page.

I frequently post about working on my "scrap-heap".  Most of my friends seems to think that is just a cute term.  No, good citizens, it REALLY is a heap...although it works for me!

Feeling blessed, how about you?  If you need me, I'll be on the scrap-heap!