Were there no graves in Egypt...

I have known several people over the last few years who have suffered greatly for different reasons and to be truthful, my family has carried a cross I would much preferred to have traded for another. In the end, my own personal trial has highlighted just how blessed I am, not that I always see it. We had a conflict that I won't go into here but it has been achingly painful. Because I have seen some darkness, the light seems far more light than I would have thought before. The brightest light in my life is in my husband. I have done many stupid things in my life and made many bad decisions but thank God that he is the best decision I could have possibly made. He is better than I deserve.

Today my post is a (hopefully) coherent edit of something that I wrote to a far flung acquaintance who is feeling crushed by some heartbreaking losses. I hoped to apply what I have learned to her situation and see if it helped her. Then I thought that I would scoop it all together, clean it up, and put it here and see if helps anyone else. That is my prayer, anyway.

In terms of my own trials, I found myself thinking a great deal about the exodus of the Hebrews into Egypt. Moving clear across the country and away from my family and friends has a lot to do with that. I think this early history of the people of God is important to think about for those of us feeling crushed by our journeys. One of the most important things to remember is that God called the Hebrews out in to the desert and freed them from the Egyptians not because they were enslaved but so that they could worship more freely. Moses only asked for permission to go temporarily into the desert so that they might offer sacrifice. In the end, it was never about slavery per se. The yoke that bound them was not slavery but that which separated them from love and service to God, which is only superficially connected. When Pharaoh did not permit them to go away for a short while, God took them away forever. He cut the ties that bound them to their old lives and He lead them out in the desert. Once there, God fed and protected them but they did not see it because they focused only on what they thought they had left behind and not on what they were supposed to be doing and what they would be doing.

When you despair, remember that in

Egypt there were  graves but only

graves. In the desert is life...

Remember how the Hebrews pleaded with Moses, "Were there no graves in Egypt?" They believed that they were being lead to death and not just death, but a death with insult. They were exposed and frightened and they deeply wished to go back and fall into an easy and familiar death. This resonates with  me because I often wish that I could just go back and not have to deal with my current situation, whatever it might be. I, like the Hebrews, often cannot see what is actually happening. The Hebrews were being lead into life and but because they could not see the when or where the journey would end, they feared that were simply lost. I know that I have often felt this same crushing despair of thinking that there were graves a plenty back in the place I came from and wishing to not have to endure the journey.

That is not to say that the journey is the point or that the slavery of the Hebrews was not a problem. What it is to say is that whatever separates us from service to God needs to be stripped away and for each of us this is a different thing. What actually needs to be stripped away might not what is most immediately obvious. The things that stood between the Hebrews were not primarily the Egyptians and their slavery, but their own divided hearts, and that is what God was stripping away. This understanding can be lost when we look at the things we have had to give up. It might never have been that the things that we had or wanted or hoped for were problematic in and of themselves but they came with things that were and so all needed to be taken away.

Our lives are always a process of stripping away the layers of self to expose a properly ordered will that can serve God more faithfully once all the weight is shed. Lots of things will leave us over the course of our lives and not all of it was ever particularly bad or problematic but is also carried away. Learning to be at peace with the losses is a painful process.

No matter how dark it appears, God has not lead you into the desert and death but into life and it is coming. In the desert there is life, you just don't know where it is yet but once you find it, it will be as obvious to you as it is to us as a people of God reflecting on the restlessness of the Hebrews. We pity their shortsightedness and cannot understand how they did not see the greater work of the Hand of God in their lives. We know where their journey lead and that what they left behind was empty weight. They were lighter for the journey despite their suffering and perception that they were fading.

In the end, you will have to take comfort in knowing that though you may not know where you will be lead or how long it will take, but it will be to life. Take the small comfort of manna when and where you find it and try to accept that it is a pale foreshadowing of what is to come. When you despair, remember that in Egypt there were  graves but only graves. In the desert is life and He will lead you into it, into the heart of the land flowing with milk and honey.

Summer is behind us...

The last sunset swim of 2016

We are done with swimming at the beach for the year. Actually, we have been done for a couple of weeks. With lows in the low forties, evenings are too cold. Days in the upper fifties with the usual gloom and rain of September is also too cold. I have been pretty bad about getting my Christmas planning done and so I really need to start thinking about it. I like knitting and usually people like the knitted things that I give them for gifts, or at least I believe they do. I could be wrong. Anyway, I still like knitting. So I need to start thinking of quick and easy gifts to knit and I need to be vague since some of the people who read the words that I write also receive the knits that I stitch. So. That said.

I have some really lovely brightly colored sock yarn from my bestie. It is all pinks and purples and super cute. I am thinking this would be good for some tiny gift for my younger girls. I am thinking maybe some wristlets or something. But not matching. I have done a lot of that and then in the mornings, everyone fights over whose is whose. No more.

These look cute, thought the photograph isn't too great. I can see this being good in all kinds of sock yarn. Maybe a different pair for each little girl?

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/ruru

Those would be pretty quick but not too boring and still nice. I need to find something to knit my sons and godson. That is harder. Boy are hard on things and usually not terribly appreciative of knits. I can't figure it out. I did mittens for all of my children the year before last and I am not in the mood to do a dozen again. I have no ideas. And then there is my mother and sister who happen to appreciate knits. Maybe something from THIS amazing site?

http://littlechurchknits.com/

There is nothing there that I do not want to knit. Nada. It is all gorgeous but I am behind in my planning so Ima needing quick projects.

http://littlechurchknits.com/2016/03/11/free-pattern-friday-3-mrs-pickles-practically-jogless-cowl/

Wait! That could be good for all kinds of people. And it is striped which means I can use up all the yarns so it is a stashbuster, too. Hmm. Maybe I need more of this.

Any chance any of you have figure out what you are doing?

Projects, progress, and purpose...

I have been thinking a lot lately about the things that I could be writing and the things that I should be writing. Maybe these are the same and maybe they are not? I don't know. At any rate, it is month end and also quarter end so it happens to be the time when I look at my royalties. I know that in the end, sales and royalties are not necessarily indicators of the worth of my writing. I mean, really, if it were, those super crappy best sellers about angsty teen vampires or abusive May-December romance would not the tripe that they are and Homer would be in paperback at every newsstand. But since writing is my job and this is the metric I have, there it goes into play. When I negotiate with a website to produce content for a series, those sales and then the landing rate for other articles are how I am evaluated. 

I switched blogs despite having a solid following and some really amazing readers, some of whom turned into amazing friends despite the distance of hundreds, sometimes thousands, and even continents of distance away. I switched because I wanted to remind myself that the blog is for me. It is not about metrics. It is about putting words to the thoughts and then putting them down. Maybe they click with someone and maybe they don't but it gives me the space to write things and keep my wheels turning so I am working with a well maintained machine when it comes time to write on contract work.

Speaking of that lucrative contract work, I have been putting it off because I sold one book and then I have been working on turning some other ideas into another one. When I say lucrative, you should know that is tongue in cheek. My husband and I have a running joke with an old friend about his sister-in-law's freelance writing and mine. It brings in hundreds of dollars, hundreds. Think about that for a second. I am not an A-list pulp fiction writer buying a second home. I am just me and happy with one real Benjamin (my husband, by the way). When I think about the time I am spending working on potential projects it can be a bit frustrating because I think about the quicker return on work when writing for smaller publications. There is a big downside to it and it means crafting their voice and using their SEO criteria. My voice is muted. It is there but it is not exactly the same. Not that writing for sale, even if I am going to click publish or upload an eBook, is without some voice and audience considerations.It is just that it is about the volume of my voice in the final product and given that I am an author, frankly I like the sound of my own voice. That is how we work.

So I am getting back to regular blogging and I am putting few limitations on it right now so that I can get my machine humming again. It will put me in a better position for deciding what project I am going to pull out, put on, and run with. I have some ideas and they need a little cultivation right now. We had a difficult summer with some stresses that I allowed to eat into my writing and knitting time and that means that I was turning down my own voice. Putting limits on somethings and some people will give me the space I need right now to find my balance again. I think I will then figure out what I want to write and how to do it.

Proudest moments...

My lovely daughter.

There are those days as a mother when I am insanely proud of my children. I want to tell you about it today.

My oldest daughter had noticed the quiet suffering of a fellow student in one of her online classes. He was just struggling with lots of little things and they were building up and he just was feeling defeated. She took the opportunity to reach out to him because she wanted him to feel less alone. She told me that she wanted to find the right words to use in an email to him to let him know that she appreciated him and the contributions he makes. While she talked about it with me, I never read the email. Later, this young man's mother sent me a message to let me know what a difference it had made for him. She said he had smiled for the first time in many days. She wanted to let me know that Maria's tender little note had ultimately not only for her classmate but for his mother as well.

As mothers, our hearts are forever tied to our children.

Their happiness is our happiness and their grief

is the most profound grief we ever feel.

Maria reached out to this other student because of her own suffering. When we moved here to the farm, she was starting high school. We pulled her away from the only home she had ever known, and all her Colorado friends and family, and set her down her. That is a high challenge for a young teen aged girl. Moving to a small, rural, isolated place is just harder. Friendships here are generations old and grudges are carried around in corners of hearts for a lifetime. I mean that sincerely. I met a lovely mother in one of my children's activities and I think we could have been good friends but a relative of my husband's had been incredibly hurtful to this woman's mother-in-law almost sixty years ago when they were both reckless children. What happened had nothing to do with me but it hung over my head and we were not able to be friends. Friendly, but not really friends.

My children also had a hard time breaking into the inner circle here. We were very actively involved in a specific activity here and my kids were trying very hard to make friends. They were in fact encouraged by the directress, who is a very kind and lovely person. It wasn't going well but I wasn't sure if it was a matter of self-consciousness or a reality. We thought there was a push back from the other children. It turned out to be incredibly real. One of the parents in that group actually had the gall to send me an email telling me to ask my children to stop talking hers and to her child's friends because mine were intrusive. She wanted to let me know that they were long time friends and not interested in my children. To say I was incensed is to underestimate my feelings. To say that I wanted to throat punch somebody behind the Walmart is more accurate. To tell our children what happened was one of the worst moments of my life. I cried telling them and then I cried when they cried.

I can tell you that we have moved past this to the point at which I can pass this family in said Walmart without incident though I may never speak to her again. Ever. It is better this way. From a distance I can pity her children for the harm she causes them by encouraging them to so mean. In the end, it is their loss. Their children will never know the warmth and comfort that my children bring into friendship.

In the end, the incident left wounds on my children but rather than allowing these to fester and make them bitter, they have become very sensitive scars, ones which attune them to the needs of others. If nothing else, I should be grateful for the whole series of events because I have these incredibly kind and compassionate children now. If this other mother reads this, she should know that. Her cruelty has made my children more gentle. Her bitterness has made my children more sweet. The children they rejected are far finer people now than ever before despite her; really, because of her. The world is a better place for that.

Maria told me that because of what happened, she promised herself she would not only never do that to another person ever. Because of what happened to her, she would look for opportunities to reach out and show love and warmth to other people. Because of the horrible way we were treated, she sought out this fellow student and extended such warmth to him that it radiated out to his mother. 

Somewhere out there is someone who is loved

better because someone else was hated more.

When I received that message from his mother, the relief and the comfort was palpable. My daughter may partially understand what she did for this student and his mother but she might never understand what it did for me. My hurt over my children's broken hearts melted in that warmth of her love for her fellow man. If I see that other mother in the store in the future, I  might even smile. I know what she did but she never will see how far it extended. I know the love that radiates out from that point in space. I can feel it and I am not alone.

Happy Box...

I have been over committed and under a lot of stress and I have been ignoring everything except critical things. That means that I end up ignoring things that will ultimately give me some balance. I am not writing. I am not filming. I am not doing the things that I love. My grandmother even told me that she missed me keeping up on a blog because she felt like I was not keeping people in the loop anymore. So. I am back.

Let's start small, shall we?

I am starting with this happy box.

I missed a Yarn Crawl in Denver and I shed many fat tears over it but there was nothing to be done. Yarn. Wine. Bestie. So much good and I missed it. I was so sad over it. So she went and had to give my ticket to another super amazing person and I chalked it up to a missed experience that I would not miss again next year. I went on not as merry way and comforted myself that they had a great time and that they both also deserved some time out. We all do. And with wine and yarn, it is even better.

Then, the happy box arrived. It was a box full of little samples and stickers and trinkets and even little wine glasses with the Knit and Nosh logo on it and I was thrilled.

It was all the best things ever. If I could not be there with here, she sent it to me in a lovely little box with a lovely little card and brightly colored tissue paper. It came on this cold, rainy, windy day that was already just a bit rocky and following some serious stresses. Perfect timing. God is good. Hanna is pretty good, too.

Home Schooling in a Large Family

Home schooling is always a challenge, there are no two ways around that, but there are particular challenges to home schooling many children at the same time with younger children in tow. The most children I have schooled at one time is eight (between kindergarten and sophomore) with a baby and many years I gave birth to a baby mid-year. Here is how I kept my head above water and hopefully it will help you do the same.

School Toys

First of all, it is important to some unexpected prep-work. When you have younger children or even babies, you need to make a plan for them to be entertained. Our children have had a large plastic bin known as the “school toys” which have always only been available during school time. Because the dynamics in my own family, with the exception of one lone girl, I had my five boys first who were followed by five girls. I know, know. I have no idea how it happened. My school toys bin started out as Brio train tracks with lots of accessories. When the shift to more and more girls happened, they added more things. The girls have dress up clothes. We have always had a very large bin of Megabloks that comes out at the same time. Babies often need small things that they can play with, too, but they are often don’t need them to be special the way toddlers and preschoolers need them to be. The youngest of my eleven children is three right now but when I still had babies, they always had a basket of things.

Secondly, the best way to keep the younger children under control and happy while you do school is the have someone older with them. I always schedule my children in half hour blocks to do their “babysitting turn”. It does not have to be stressful. In my notebook, I keep chart that is a list of all the older kid’ names down the side and a space to write dates across the top. As I go through my day, each child has to take a turn with the younger children and once they have done their turn, I put a check next to their name so that I know who had already gone. It is tempting to have some kids babysit more than others but everyone both needs to do school and learn how to take care of younger children. I try to plan it so that kids who are more reliable students start babysitting so I can make sure that the ones who are less reliable have me with them to make sure they get their work done. You can use a timer on your phone or on the oven or any other timer. Switching the kids out regularly makes sure that they kids never get tired of the babysitter.

Lastly, I think it is really important to segregate the learners. I group the older kids (who often listen to music with headphones while they study) and the younger kids who need a lot of talking back and forth to do their school work. This means that the youngest ones and the babysitter need to be elsewhere and not mingled in with the other children. If you keep everyone together, this means that you will have more interruptions and more frustrated teenagers who need to do a lot of reading. Carving out space does not need to be tricky. I have ten children at home still and we live in a 1640 sqft house. Center study areas around the dinner table, a coffee table, even a picnic table on the patio. Wherever a child sit, they can learn.

Daily Check-In Time

I have another list in my notebook that consists of a daily check in with my children. Every day they need to sit next to me and go through their work and get help and have questions answered and concepts taught so that they can move on. I make a check-list of names and any notes on things I need to check. It might look like below:

Maria 11/15·         Math: Differential Equations, stuck on lesson 12
·         Eng: Paragraph check in
·         Vocab: flash cards made?

Just keep a list of subject and make sure there is a dividing line down the center of the paper. Then keep what you need to check on one side and what needs to done the next day on the column next to it. Then you can keep the dates over the column. At the end of the day, you can transfer (no more than a half sheet, from top to bottom), of instructions into each child’s notebook. They know that you will check those items and they need to be responsible for checking them off. Once they are in fifth grade or so, make them responsible for copying it over. You have enough to do.

Grading

I used to have each child grade the English and Math of the child down in the level below their own. Now that I use Khan math, it means that they have less to grade. I like Khan because I get a weekly email that lets me know how many minutes they have spent and in what areas and where they are succeeding and where they are have problems. The children need to do 300 minutes of math a week but the upper limit is 400 (yes, I have kids who need that limit). If anyone does not get his minutes in, he gets to clean the bathroom. If you are using workbooks or texts for math, ask the child grading the work to help a younger child work through the problem. If they can correct it together, I do not count it as wrong. Helping someone learn a skill helps both children.

I can take a look at the work during the daily check ins but I also only have children do math and reading on the first Friday of the month to give me a chance to really look at where each kid is in each subject. I put on a movie and the kids come up one at a time and we really look at everything so I can make sure that each child is making the progress that they need to make. This is a great time to keep track of the reading list for high school kids. Work on their transcripts at the end of each and every semester so that it is not a gargantuan task at the end of high school.

Also, a big tip: flashcards. If it can go on flashcards, do it. I have cut apart vocab books and used them to make flashcards. The children have to make a flashcards for every term in every chapter in the science books. Group kids as much as possible and have them quiz each other every day. I check that the flashcards are made and then I quiz them weekly in groups. I go through hundreds of index cards a year and we have boxes and boxes of them. You can often use them with younger kids who do not have to go through the process of making them for themselves.(Almost) Free curriculum. Score.

Interruptions

All of my children have their own pad of colored or decorative Post-It notes. I love these things. If they have a question, and I am busy, they have to write that question down. It might look like this: Math, lesson 6, #14. They are to come put it on my notebook and not interrupt. I know immediately who needs me and what they need help with and they do not need to tell me and disturb me. This happens when I am helping a child with school, or making lunch, or changing a diaper, or even using the bathroom.

When they come to a place where they can’t solve a problem or answer a question, they are told that they skip that are and keep going. Just skip it. If it means going to the next subject, fine. They need to keep going. Now, if they have nothing else to do, then they need to work on their “Just Right Book”, that is a book they can read with no help whatsoever, or a smaller project. In the kids notebooks, I keep an area for a list of things that they need to do that are open ended like practice classical guitar, practice tying shoes, working on a model, or things of that nature. This means that they keep busy and can even account for their time when I get back to them.

When I have something that they need to get to, I write it on my Post-its. When they seem them on the first page of their notebooks, they know they need to do it. I will often post chores and things like that. By the way, there should always be a punishment attached to losing or destroying these notes. Something productive but unpleasant like rinsing out garbage cans or changing the cat litter.

Nap Time

If you have younger children or babies then someone needs a daily nap; sometimes it’s mom. So, after lunch, we have quiet time. This is a time when everyone needs to quietly read a book. I do not care if you are fifteen. Too bad. This hour is sacred. Little ones go down with an audiobook or a CD. If someone is inclined to ask repeatedly if they can get up, my solution is a CD about an hour long. When it is over, you can get up. If they fall asleep, great. Anyone who is disruptive during this time loses privileges. I have been known to give the good children ice cream at the end of the day in order to teach a child to not misbehave at this time of the day. My children know that I am dead serious about this.

End of the Day Ritual

One of the most important things that I learned about a decade in, is that we just need to stop at some point, even if we were unproductive. You will lack the strength to keep going if you don’t take breaks. We have a set time to stop every day and I don’t go more than half an hour over it. Then we have tea. We stop and have tea and put things away. It helps us switch gears. I think having a ritual is so important because we need to remind ourselves that this is behind us. Now we can be a wife and mother and not a teacher. That said, children might still need to finish work.

We have what we call “Stay Up Late Time”, which is the evening when we play games, watch movies, and things like that. If you are an older child, and what that means is flexible, then you might need to spend finishing thing you did not do during the day. Didn’t write that paragraph? See you later.

Final Thoughts

If there is nothing else that I can impart, I think the most important thing I can say is to remember that sometimes you need to be off. If you are always schooling, always thinking about school, running long days because your morning was unproductive, then you are going to feel strained and stressed. I have done that far too many times. Treat it like a job and be there all day but end it and leave it behind. Get up in the morning and get going as if you were going to a job. At the end of the day, leave it behind. You might not like getting up and staying on task but really, you will be so grateful if you do because you will be able to stop in the afternoon. There are a few ways to make that easier.

• Put an out-going message on your machine saying that you are unavailable during the day and that you will return calls after 3 or so.
• Put your phone on silent and only check social media during lunch and after school.
• If you really need to be available to certain people during the day, use a special ring tone or a “push app” so that they can always reach you without being available to everyone.
• If you have close neighbors with children who interrupt during school, put up a sign. Yes, I have done this. If you just print up something with some pictures that looks school like, even non-readers can understand it. Laminate it or cover it with clear Contact paper and use a hole punch and ribbon to make something that can hang from the knob.
• More on signs: when I was a kid my mother had signs like this for dinner time and chore time. It hung outside and our friends knew that we were not available until the sign came off the door. This is another great tip.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any

great tips or ideas or even questions I can answer.

Running...

There was a time when I joked that I was just waiting for all my children to be old enough to put on their own shoes and use the bathroom by themselves. I am almost there and it is far less appealing than I thought it would be. It is not so much a matter of not liking who they are becoming or not wanting the additional freedom but more or less the rapid onset of the awareness that these days are passing. A much wiser older mother than me once warned me that when our children are born in rapid fire succession, they leave in the same way.

I can see the dominoes starting to fall. It is more than a bit sobering. In a way it is like summer here. These days are hot (for here) and busy and it seems like I am just keeping my head above water with all the preparations for winter. I always remember that winter is coming but I need to remember that summer is here, now. I need to make sure we take some opportunities to enjoy these rare and fleeting days. 

We took all the kids to the beach by the farmhouse the night before last. On the Keweenaw, August is getting colder. The water is not really swim temperatures and usually only the children of the locals get into the water. When the water is 60F or less, it is physically painful to go in, at least at first. I watched my kids go in, even the ones who are older are really remember Colorado. The younger ones just take this cold water as a given. I decided that I live here now, and this is the only summer that I will get, and that there are an average of 200 days between 70F days here, so I best just get in it. So I did. I went into the frigid water with my children. It was so hard but in the end I enjoyed and the kids were both surprised and thrilled.

Afterwards, as I was gathering together the kids and their piles of things that they take to the beach, a woman passed by my blanket. Claudia lured her in by my pointing at me and telling her that I was Mama. She stopped and visited for a few minutes. We chatted about my kids coming out of the lake and silly, casual things like her polka dot swim dress. While looking out at my screaming and splashing kids, she said to me, "You will have grandchildren." It was more of a statement of fact than anything else. I always get uncomfortable when people start commenting on my family size so I put on my best saccharine smile and steeled myself.

"I hope so!" I chirped cheerfully.

She turned to me said, "I don't. I only had one child so it's my own fault. But you, you will have grandchildren."

We wished each other goodnight (it was ten in the evening) and we left the beach before it got dark. I married very young and I was hassled a great deal about giving up so many opportunities and not living life to the fullest before I settled down, but I think what they really believed is that I was just settling. I was giving up. This woman in a gentle and unintentional way was reminding me that I never settled, I ran headlong into life.

..and I am still running.