Do I Stay or Do I Go?

This is from the archives, and was originally published by Faith & Family several years ago, but I think the topic is always worth revisiting. It's about listening to God's scheduling memos: When to volunteer? When to pull back? It's an ever-changing push-me-pull-you, but I find that when I pay close attention to the memos, the message is usually clear.

I'm reprinting the article in its entirety below, and you can go to this archived link to see the original and comments.

~~~~~

Memo From God 

“But that’s my birthday!” my daughter protested. “How can you go on my birthday?”

My husband and I taught baptism classes in our parish, and I’d signed us up for June, oblivious to a date that should have been uppermost in my mind: the day my second daughter would turn 13.

“Ummm,” I fumbled, “well, you know we never seem to do parties on the actual day. We already talked about having the slumber party Friday night, didn’t we?”

She murmured assent and slumped away, carrying on her shoulders the weight of a forgetful, busy mother who (even with a constantly consulted day planner) had failed her.

It’s true that we’ve always been flexible with birthday party plans. Really. But, we still make a big deal of the day, party day or not, so I felt terrible. And guilty.

Prayerful Discernment
I’d been praying about the classes, and whether to continue or not. We share the teaching load with several other couples, and Tom and I are called on only a few times a year. But, in the last couple of years, whenever our turn popped up, we encountered a conflict with our kids’ schedules. Still, I told myself, stick with it. Surely such a minimal time commitment isn’t a big deal. But somehow I couldn’t avoid feeling nudged to give up this particular commitment.

And now, here was yet another conflict. I’d asked God for confirmation about my gut feeling and it seemed to have arrived. We stepped down from the teaching team.

Focus on Vocation
This isn’t the first time I’ve needed to pull back from a commitment or a committee, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. My primary commitment—to being an at-home, homeschooling mom—means that Tom and I must regularly tweak our schedules to keep them in harmony with our family’s goals.

That doesn’t mean we won’t volunteer again. But it does mean that we do it with a discerning eye. We step up to the plate when we feel clearly called to, but we’re equally willing to pull back when we see the need. It’s all part of adapting to the ever-changing circumstances of our growing family.

When we began teaching the baptism classes, our children were young and the parish offered babysitting each week (for both teachers and attendees.) We took the kids with us and emphasized to them that helping with the program was our family’s way of serving the parish together. But, as the kids grew, and their schedules changed, we began to wonder if this particular form of service was still right for us.

Continual Reassessment
In the past, we’ve made similar adjustments. Shortly after I was received into the Catholic Church, I joined our parish RCIA team. At the time we had only one child, and I actually loved getting out of the house once a week. Yes, I was giving my time, but it felt more as if I were receiving—I loved the riches of teaching, spending time with other committed Catholics (my husband was not yet Catholic), and offering support to those on journeys of conversion.

So, although RCIA was an intense time commitment, it didn’t feel like one in that season of our lives. It worked for us, and worked well until sometime after we had two children, with a third on the way. At that point, the demands of RCIA began to clash with my family and our homeschooling life, and it was time to step away.

And so it goes with every consideration of my time. As I live out this vocation of motherhood, I find I must frequently reassess how everything fits into that, rather than shoehorning my family into something I want to do, however good the “something” may be.

Sometimes I fail—I become the forgetful, busy mother who has disappointed her almost-thirteen-year-old. When that happens, it’s time to pray. I ask for some heavenly scheduling help, and then I read God’s memos and tweak accordingly.

He’s even better than a planner.

Covering Subjects in a Non-Traditional Way: Part the Second

Image Chef

The original question was:

"Where can one find examples of how common, daily activities with kids fit into 'subjects'?"

So, let's start with the activities, rather than starting with the subjects, and we'll start with very young children, because we all have to start somewhere.

A few everyday activities and their relevance to education (and life):

Breakfast (home ec, nutrition, health)
Reading to the kids over breakfast (reading, reading comprehension, faith [if you read Bible stories or other faith related books], history [if you read historical works], English [hey, it's a book!], vocabulary)
Morning routine (personal hygiene = health ... threats about what will happen if we don't wash and brush teeth = science)
Morning chores (citizenship, faith and self-discipline as those relate to family cooperation)
Daily Mass (faith, history, recess if you go for donuts afterward)
Make cookies (math while measuring, home ec, science, kitchen chemistry)
Make lunch (home ec again ... lots of home ec)
Break up a fight among siblings (explaining interpersonal communications = psychology ... repentance and forgiveness = faith ... learning to get along = management and human resources skills)
Trip to the post office (social studies, community study, citizenship, how government works, art ... yes, art! Aren't you going to examine all those stamp designs?)
Drive home (point stuff out -- geography of your town)
Watch an episode of Magic School Bus (science)
Take a nap (health)
Wake up from nap (science: explain the necessity and importance of sleep, explain the difference between night mommies owls and insane morning people.)
Take a walk (a nature walk! Science! Charlotte Mason is so happy with you right now!)
Tell children to play while you check email (play is serious business, people!)
Check email some more or call your best friend (hey, your sanity is important ... explain to children that social contact is vital. This is psychology and sociology.)
Start dinner (home ec! Again! Lots of home ec!)

You get the the idea. This is the easy stuff. When they're little, you really don't have to worry about record-keeping the subjects but do it if it makes you feel better, as it often made me feel better, or if you need to report on your schooling in your state. And do it for practice, for later days.

And as they get older, the connections, the overlap of subjects, the science of relations becomes clearer in so much of what we do with our children, and in what they do on their own.

More to come.

Homeschooling Just One

That's what I'm doing this year for the first time ever.

Yeah, sure, in a way I had just one "student" when we first started homeschooling. Anne-with-an-e was seven years old, Betsy just four. Anne was (I'm sorry, sweetie) my experimental student. I tried out different methods on her, tinkered with ideas, approaches, math curricula.  But Betsy was always there, soaking in the atmosphere, listening to the books, playing with the manipulatives, eating the cookies. I never felt that I was homeschooling only one daughter -- we were living a homeschooling life together.

But, now that my older daughters are out in the world, taking classes from other people, I am finally, truly, homeschooling just one child. Anne and Betsy don't need me, which is really great in its way. There's real fulfillment in knowing that my daughters were well prepared for the stage of life they're living now. And, there's relief in knowing that their academic work is their business. (I couldn't answer a Chemistry question if you paid me in chocolate and coffee. Truly, Anne's Chemistry homework is a mystery to me on a par with the Trinity. Intricacies unseen, combinations that produce whole new entities ... it boggles my mind. If it isn't explained on a Jesse Pinkman level, I don't understand it.)

And that leads me to the present, in which I am homeschooling only one daughter. Over the summer, I wondered about how this year would proceed: What would it be like for the two of us to be on our own? Would we get bored with each other? Would we feel as if we were rattling around the house, waiting for others to join us? Or would we dig in, full of anticipation and excitement, ready to tackle hundreds of projects and take on every academic challenge?

The answer is (as it always seems to for me) in the middle. Yes, we miss Anne and Betsy, but Ramona and I have settled into The New Normal and we are loving it. There's a delightful balance to our days. There are outside activities (a weekly art class, another monthly art class, piano lessons, choir), as well as group activities that we both participate in (her writing group, swimming weekly with other homeschoolers.) And then there are the treasured days when we don't have to leave the house -- we tackle math, read aloud, read aloud, read aloud, write, read poetry, participate in NaNoWriMo, watch Food Network together, make carrot cake, learn about extracting DNA from saliva (hmmm, was it deliberate that I followed up the food references to the saliva reference?), create art, and crafts, and minions.

Sometimes we can even plan activities or outings that work with Anne and Betsy's schedules as we did last Friday when we made a last-minute plan to see Big Hero 6 together (review from Ramona coming soon), or getting to daily Mass together.

Yes, I'm homeschooling just one. But it's a rich, full life.

And we love it.

Ramona, at the end of summer. 

Something to Remember As We Head Into the School Year

from an old post called "Cruisin' Down the Homeschooling Superighway":

Jennifer ... was looking for ways to reassure her husband (and herself) that she was actually spending enough time doing school work with their daughter. He was thinking that perhaps "school" should take from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

I put it this way:

Tell your husband to compare it to driving down the freeway at rush hour vs. off hours -- you reach your destination so much more quickly without all that added traffic. 

Getting Organized (In Which I Consider New Planning Systems and Just as Quickly Discard Them)

I like organization.

Yeah, yeah, I'm unschoolish and flexible but I need a plan. If I don't have a plan from which to deviate, how can I know where I began, where the deviation occurred, and where we are or will be when it's all over? (Atticus used to tease me that I was great at being spontaneous as long as I had some notice.)

I'm the Planning Unschooler, the Unschooler With a Plan, and I don't usually worry about how others go about doing stuff, I just do what works for us. I ponder, and make book lists, and put together a basic game plan for our year. Then I sit back and see what unpredictable stuff life has in store for us.

Though I have long-standing methods of organization, when it comes to systems, I occasionally start flitting around the internet and suddenly the planning grass looks startlingly green over the fence.

I peek over that fence, see something sprouting, and think I should try it out. The latest planner? "Oooh! It looks all-encompassingly perfect." All-Digital-All-the-Time organization? "That's an intriguing idea! Maybe it's time to try that." (Except that when I did, I ended up having my phone beep at me just as dinner guests were arriving. Guess what it was telling me? "Dinner Guests tonight!")

I don't know...whatever it is, whatever attraction I have to Planners-and-Their-Ilk, the sickness hits me the same way the Siren Song of Curriculum Catalogs seems to attack. It makes me want to window shop, dabble, and consider...sometimes I even try something new.

And yet, I always go back to my tried and true methods. I live and die by:

• the white board in the kitchen
• the wall calendar that the whole family can see
• the To Do list that sits on the kitchen counter
• A small notebook in my purse at all times (anything that is scribbled on it while I'm out is transferred, upon arrival home, to the board, the calendar, or the To Do list.)

Organization Central is the dry erase board in the kitchen. For years, my girls have known that this is the place to go to get the scoop for the day.

This isn't my board, but it looks just like my board looked once upon a time. Clean, shiny, and new. 

Here's a past image of our white board in action on a snow day:

A more typical list on the white board might look like this: 

The left side of the board holds the daily stuff, the expectations, a class, some errands. "Behold, daughters: the plan for the day!" We all love this kind of stuff. It satisfies our OCDishness and helps us with our forgetfulness. The white board keeps me on track and gives me a place to send people when they say, "What are we doing today?" or, "What is someone else doing today?" 

The right hand side of the board is for those bigger "To Do" things that I'd forget if I didn't jot them down. These things sometimes end up in two places -- on the board (if, for example, I am trying to flag someone's attention ... ahem, Atticus) and on my paper To-do list on the counter. 

The other thing that keeps me organized is the wall calendar. It sits right next to my laptop and it holds everyone's appointments, meetings, book clubs, and library due dates. It's also where I make note of upcoming radio interviews, writing deadlines, and work-related tasks for me. The wall calendar satisifies my need to see the big picture. I like seeing the whole month at once, for a couple of reasons. One, I like to be able to see if I am overscheduling us, and two, I like to have a central location that shows me everyone's schedule (and where those schedules might overlap or conflict.) 

The white board and the wall calendar are Grand Central Stations, but the To-Do list on the counter is just for me. It's really a combination of short-term goals (errands, chores, appointments I need to make, school-related prep/thoughts, writing ideas, phone calls, emails to compose and send) and long-term planning (notes to myself for "Next Month" or "Before December" ... that sort of thing.) I love the wall calendar, but I need my own space, too! 

The little notebook in my purse is a substitute planner (and idea catcher) for me. I've found that it serves two purposes. It allows me to avoid carrying a master planner with me, and I like not having to haul my entire schedule with me wherever I go. If something comes up while I'm out, I jot it down in the notebook and promise the person I'm talking to (whether that's myself or someone else) that I will check my calendar at home and get back to them. That brings me to the second purpose of the notebook -- this method keeps me mindful of what I'm saying yes or no to. If I must wait until I get home to make a decision, I have granted myself time to think about a request or an opportunity, and I've given myself the space to see how it really fits into my schedule, my family, my life. I love my little notebook. 

Wow, this post got away from me. More than you ever wanted to know about my planning methods, methinks. 

She's So Sane

Don't you love the Love2Learn Mom?

Check out this post: "How Do You Do It All?" for a little bit of quick wisdom.

And that one reminded me of this very quick, very wise little Latin reminder from Alicia, too, to "do what you're doing."

Now, I'm off to do what I'm doing today, and to stick to it.

Two things guaranteed to make my day better

1. Get myself ready for the day before the kids get up.

This makes a huge difference for me. Huge. If I'm behind on this, I feel behind on everything.  Atticus gets up first (which I admit makes it easier for me) but then I'm next ... I drag myself out of bed, head straight to the shower, and then have time to get a couple things done (and a cup or two of coffee) before I wake up the girls. Then, everything -- really, everything -- goes so much better for me. For us. 

St. Josemaria Escriva said:

The heroic minute. It is the time fixed for getting up. Without hesitation: a supernatural reflection and... up! The heroic minute: here you have a mortification that strengthens your will and does no harm to your body.

I'm no hero, but I know that, for me, it's a mortification I need. That may not be true for everyone, or for every schedule, or every homeschooling household. But it helps me. 

And, please, please, please remember, if you are tempted to compare anything with anything, I'm in this season of life: kids who are 15, 13 and 7.  No baby, no toddler, no pregnancy here ... you get me, don't you?  If you've been up all night with the baby, nothing about "getting up before the kids" applies to you.  Go catch a nap.

2. The Liturgy of the Hours

This is one of the things I get done before the kids are awake. 


From today's Morning Prayer:

When I found your words, I devoured them; they became my joy and the happiness of my heart, Because I bore your name, O LORD, God of hosts. ~~ Jeremiah 15:16


I started praying the Liturgy of the Hours a couple of years after becoming a Catholic. (I would have bet all three of my children that I've written extensively about the Liturgy of the Hours before on this blog. But, I just did a search and I cannot find a thing. How is that possible?)

It was the Office of Readings that really captured me -- both the Psalms and the second reading of the day (usually some treasure from one of the fathers of the Church.)

Back when my spiritual director was a priest here in our parish (he has since moved away) he mentioned the Liturgy of the Hours at an RCIA meeting (I was on the team at the time.)  I had never heard of it, but he talked about "praying in rhythm with the Church," and I thought, "Hmm ... that's intriguing." The next time I met with him, I asked about it and he showed me what it was, and how to use it.  I fell in love with it, and especially with the richness of the Office of Readings.  I didn't think the full set of books (rather pricey) was within grasp, so for awhile I used the free, online version at Universalis.com.  (Note that Universalis doesn't use the official Catholic translation, but it was still a nice way for me to break into using the prayers while I looked at other option.) Then, Atticus bought me set for my birthday/Mother's Day that year. Oh, I love that man.

It took a bit of time to learn how to navigate through the books, the ribbons, the feast days and Solemnities. I remember having Father over for dinner shortly after Atticus gave me the books and I said, "I am loving the Liturgy of the Hours!" and Father said, "So, you know that today is the feast of Charles Lwanga and Companions!" and I said, "Ummm ... no. Who?"

So, he gave me another navigation lesson and I finally caught on.

I don't pray all of the hours, and I don't do it every day, but I still love the Office and Atticus and I try to start every work day with Morning Prayer together.  It's amazing, fascinating and comforting to me to see how often something in the prayers applies to something that I'm praying, thinking or worrying about. 

I love Night Prayer, too. Every night there is the Nunc Dimittis:

Lord, now let your servant go in peace.
Your Word has been fulfilled:
my own eyes have seen the salvation
which you have prepared in the sight of every people:
a light to reveal You to the nations
and the glory of your people Israel.

And there are various other Scriptures -- this is from Tuesday night prayer:

Stay sober and alert. Your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, solid in your faith. ~~  1 Peter 5:8-9

And Evening Prayer gives us the Magnificat:

My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden,
For behold, henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. 
And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm:
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
and exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He has sent empty away.
He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy;
As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity forever.

Riches abound.


Awhile back, Melanie did some marvelous posts about the Liturgy of the Hours that I highly recommend. You can find them here and here (and the second one is full of links, details, recommendations, great stuff.) One other source (I can't remember if Melanie mentioned it)  is The Magnificat.  This little magazine/prayer book is an easy and beautiful way to start.

Like Melanie, I have fallen in and out of use of the Liturgy of the Hours, but I always come back to it. It's an anchor.

Keeping It Simple

This is a rerun from '06, but it nicely sums up where I am with much of our school planning this year -- aside from a few major items (Teaching Textbooks for the older girls, a lecture series from the Teaching Company, biology materials), I'm doing a lot of shopping on my own bookshelves, just as I mentioned here.

*****

In School-proof, Mary Pride reminds me of the things I love about homeschooling, and of what is possible: the simplicity, the directness of the teaching, the wonderful eschewing of all-things-clutter.

One of the reasons I love homeschooling is that the kids and I get to make decisions about what we do, what we study, what we read and when we read it. My standing joke in our first year at home (after having my eldest attend Kindergarten) was that I would never again be caught off-guard by a last-minute note requesting three large soda bottles for a "fun and educational craft project." Such notes inevitably left me whining, "But we don't even buy those big bottles!"

In a chapter entitled, "Educational Clutter's Last Stand," Mary reminds us that an awful lot of what passes for curriculum is just busy work. As homeschoolers, we can easily identify busy work when a child is in school. But sometimes we lose sight of it when we become the teachers. All those delicious curriculum catalogs, those exciting ideas, the fun-and-educational projects ... they're so tempting, aren't they? And before we know it, we're the bad-guy, sending ourselves a last-minute mental note to scrounge up three large soda bottles. Yikes.

I like rereading Mary's book because she keeps me grounded in a simple truth. She says,

The secret is out -- the better teacher you get to be, the less you will need expensive curriculum and supplies. A beginning teacher can teach all her children to read with a prepackaged curriculum and have them reading years ahead in six months or less. A good teacher can teach phonics with a few simple readers, flash cards and a chalkboard. A great teacher can do it with library books and a pencil and ten sheets of paper! The difference is simply that the great teacher knows exactly where she is going and how to handle each roadblock or opportunity along the way.

More fun book arrivals

I've found plenty on our shelves, but I have been busy with some book-orders, too ....

Thanks to the ever-resourceful and helpful Theresa at LaPaz, I found out about these record-keeping notebooks from the Notgrass Company. They could be used as planners, but for us (just as for the LaPaz gang) they'll work beautifully as an "after the fact" record of all that we're doing, reading, studying, and stumbling upon. I love the many categories, which include, as noted on the Notgrass website:

* Spiritual Life: Bible Study, Worship, and Christian Fellowship
* Learning to Work: Chores, Service, and Life Skills
* Relating to Others: Character and Relationships
* Learning About God's Creation: Science and Technology
* Learning About People and Places: Geography, Government, and Foreign Language
* Learning About the Events and People of the Past: History and Biography
* Learning About the Thoughts of Others: Reading and Literature
* Being Creative: Art, Crafts, Music, Drama, and Other Creative Activities
* Learning to Communicate: Letter Writing, Grammar, Handwriting, Creative Writing, and Journaling
* Caring for My Body: Exercise, Sports, and Health
* Learning Math, Problem Solving, and Thinking Skills.

*****
I've always ordered the handy Living is Learning Curriculum Guides from FUN Books each year. Now that Anne-with-an-e is in high school (egads ... can it be true?), my set is complete. The 9th-12th grade edition has lists of and ideas for subjects and projects to cover in high school, suggestions for resources and real life applications, and forms for record keeping.

FUN Books was also my resource for some audio versions of Romeo and Juliet, and Shakespeare for Children by Jim Weiss.

*****

Friends Lissa at Here in the Bonny Glen, and Faith of Two Thirds Unschooling and Dumb Ox Academy, both of whom are logical sorts of women, led me to detect and then order The Fallacy Detective.

*****

Betsy specifically requested that I order D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. I last ordered this book in July of 2004 (I know this because Amazon tracks my every move. Hey, Amazon ... how many chocolate chip cookies did I eat tonight?) We attempted to study Greek mythology that year, but my then-delicate daughters were so thoroughly disgusted, grossed-out, nauseated and otherwise repulsed by the first couple of stories that they couldn't bear to go on.

Clearly, we've grown less delicate in four years' time. The gross-out should arrive via UPS any day now.

Rerunning the Rhythms

Summer is here and everything is changing. So, I'm re-running an old-but-always-pertinent-to-me post about routines, lack of routines, and settling into the unsettling lack of routines.

Oh, happy summer days!
**********

Rhythms

I was complaining to my confessor that my summer routine was sorely inadequate. Everything (or so it seemed on that dark day) that I fashioned, constructed and implemented during the school year was slowly dismantled through the lazy days of summer. I whined that Atticus and I are both night owls by nature, but that when (post-summer school) we indulged such inclinations during his weeks off, our morning prayer routine suffered. I was looking for someone to blame ... if not Atticus, then I'd take the fall. I was sure I'd be told that our inexcusable sloth must be rectified and that we should strive for a more orderly and disciplined summer routine. Father questioned me:

"He's a teacher, right?"

"Yes."

"And so this happens every summer, right?"

"Yes."

He was silent for a moment and then he said,

"Why don't you just accept the rhythms of your life?"

Huh?

Accept the rhythms? There's a concept. I was so intent on flogging myself for falling off the routine wagon that I couldn't see the obvious. There was a predictable, recurrring "routine" of seasons in our lives. Accept them as such? What a novel idea. What a sound idea. What a sane idea.

I let the idea mill around my summertime head for awhile. Slowly, the beauty of it began to permeate not only my view of summer but my entire outlook.

"It's not as if we neglect our children, our home, and our duties in those languid days of July," I thought. "It's not that we metamorphose into spiritual slugs, incapable of maintaining any contact with our Creator. It isn't that we don't have a routine ... we just have a different routine," I realized.

And so my acceptance of the rhythms of our life took root and began to flourish. The outlook spilled over into the entire year, and I happily accepted all kinds of rhythms:

The anticipation of September, sharp pencils, and fresh plans

The rebirth of my energy in the fall

The slowing-down and waiting of Advent (made possible by observing the liturgical calendar, instead of trying to keep pace with the world, which is hurrying madly through December)

The long winter read-alouds and snuggling, the blahs that are inevitable in February, and the fact that dancing can obliterate the blues

The rebirth of my energy in the spring

The "Happy to see you come, happy to see you go" feeling at the end of another school year

Our summer life

When we admit it, we know that we all live in that ebb and flow. Much as we would like to control our lives -- to find the perfect schedule and put it into practice -- there is nothing real about that. Life is ever-changing. Anyone (and this would be those of you currently breathing) who has aged a year knows it. Every age, each new stage of life, every bit of growth, brings challenges, delights and overhauled routines. And the same is true of each week, month or season, with variations due to the circumstances of our lives and vocations. Teachers, farmers, tax accountants, work-at-home writers, caterers, retail managers, priests and pastors, mothers of new babies: they (we) live with certain rhythms and predictable-yet-ever-changing-and-unpredictable routines.

And, once I accepted that novel, sound and sane idea, I stopped complaining to my confessor.

(Correction: Lest it sound like I'm now the perfect non-complaining, non-whining confessee, I need to add that I no longer complain about our rhythms. I've moved on to complaining about other things.)

**********

May your summer be unpredictably happy.

Cruisin' down the Homeschooling Superhighway

Jennifer, at As Cozy as Spring was looking for ways to reassure her husband (and herself) that she was actually spending enough time doing school work with their daughter. He was thinking that perhaps "school" should take from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

I put it this way:

Tell your husband to compare it to driving down the freeway at rush hour vs. off hours -- you reach your destination so much more quickly without all that added traffic.

One of the beauties of homeschooling is that we get to do so much in the "off hours" ... and traveling can be so much more pleasant that way, can't it?

Thoughts at the End of a Busy Day

*Did all the children who got braces put on their teeth yesterday wake their mothers up at 6 a.m., complaining of bad dreams about alligators?

Did all the mothers click their teeth at their children, telling them they merely have their own choppers too much on their minds? Did they all enjoy snuggling up with said children and getting one more hour of sleep?


* I love my doctor. He delivered all of my babies, saw me through my many miscarriages, is pro-life, doesn't prescribe things a good Catholic shouldn't prescribe, and lets me sit there and ask my questions at a leisurely pace, as if no other patient in the world is waiting for him anywhere. He lets me talk and question and wonder before I have to don the lovely paper garments, when I'm still wearing my normal, dignified mom clothes. I so like that.

And, guess what else? As I'm lying on a table today, having my first bone density test, and thinking that I'm so very blessed to have this doctor, I glance over at the wall, and what do I see? A framed picture of the Blessed Mother. That is just too perfect.

*You know when they say "Some Assembly Required"? Why don't they just skip the Big Lie and say, "This thing will require so much assembly that you would rather be trussed up and tossed in the river than go through this torture. You will thrice swear that panel D does not belong anywhere on this thing, and that the way we've shown you to insert it has to be wrong, and that those dowels are decidedly in the wrong place. You will despise us. You will wonder why any company could find it morally acceptable to print instructions that consist of pictures and arrows instead of words. And, as you stifle mean and nasty thoughts about us, you and your husband will promise each other that you will never, ever, ever again buy a piece of 'assembly required' furniture. But, we know you will. Until we meet again .... "

*Ramona really, truly, oh-so-very-much needs the "five minute warning" before being told it's time to leave a friend's house. "Five minute warning" is my secret weapon and it often leads to happy and compliant children.

Today, I forgot my secret weapon. Moms ... take heed. Learn from my failures. Don't forget your secret weapons.

Getting back to that five-year plan ....

Or, "What's Rick Blaine doing now?"

A few days back, in this post, I talked about being cornered one day in the office in which I worked in another life, and being asked, "What's your five-year plan?" I didn't have a five-year plan, and I couldn't even begin to imagine one. And it turns out that my Blaine-ish ways weren't really so off the mark, because even if I'd drafted, proposed and attempted to execute a perfectly constructed five-year plan, it would have looked nothing like the way things eventually unfolded for me.

I ended the post with:

My point is that I can make all the plans my organized little heart desires, but God (as I now call Him) can force me into flexibility at a moment's notice.

So, given that reality, should we stop making plans altogether?

Then, in the comments, Willa beautifully summed up what I was leading up to. She said:

My thought is that you keep planning, but that like with everything else, you hold on to the plans loosely and keep in mind what the plans are for.

I always think of St Francis of Assisi, who planned to be a soldier, and planned to build a church. It wasn't that his plans became a joke, or irrelevant, it was that they were fulfilled -- consummated? -- in a unique way.

Karen, like your life, mine has been so full of unexpected, grace-filled twists and turns that I can relate to everything you say.

Yes! That's it!

I was thinking, too, of St. Therese of Lisieux, who wanted to be a missionary. As I wrote in the essay mentioned here (which I called "The Little Way of a Little Family"), St. Therese's dream was also fulfilled in a unique way. I wrote:

St. Therese had big dreams. She wanted to be a missionary, evangelizing the whole world. Instead, she was given a short, hidden life, full of mundane little tasks in the convent, tasks she learned to do with great love. And now, this Doctor of the Church is evangelizing the whole world through her intercession from heaven.

Most of the time, we don't have a clue, do we? God is too big, too cunning and crafty for us to outguess Him, dodge Him, or stay one step ahead of Him. Oh, sure, occasionally He lets us coast along, thinking we're in control, but it's usually a set-up. A grand one, I'll grant you, and a really well thought out one, too. And one with great results, because He's -- you know -- God. He's good like that. But it's still a set-up, because suddenly - bam! - we can't help but think, "Whoosh ... never saw that one coming."

And, so back to the question I asked myself: "Does that mean we should stop making plans altogether?"

If the answer were "yes" I'd have to get pretty irritated with God. After all, He's the one who gave me this affection for planning. To never be able to use it? That would be a cruel joke. Having left Rick Blaine in the dust, I do now plan beyond next week.

I plan ahead for a school year. I look vaguely ahead, two or three years, down the academic roads I expect us to travel. We plan for the kids' college and for our retirement (oooh, wait ... we may have to pick one or the other ... Sorry, kids.)

So, I plan. For things big and little, I plan.

But, what I strive not to do is to worry about the plans. Because, if God chooses to change them, or to allow them to change, I know -- I believe it down to my core -- that it will be for my good.

So, I happily plan away. And, I think God nods his wise head, full of affection for my silly attempts at control; I think He feels the same rush of love that I feel for my daughters when they do something that is immensely cute but utterly useless or destined to fail, something that I find so incredibly endearing that it makes me want to squash them with a hug. I don't love them any less for doing those things. I actually love them more, and I like to think that God loves us more, too, in the same way.

I picture God the Father nudging Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and saying, "Look! Aren't they cute, those little people We made? They're using all the faculties We gave them. Well, bless their little hearts. And prudence! Hey, they're actually putting it to use. Now, that's something a Father can be proud of. Huh. Sure will be hard to crush them when this plan falls apart [much nodding of Divine Heads at this] but, oh, well ... A God's gotta do what a God's gotta do, eh?"

And then, the Trinity shares a good laugh at my expense.

But, that's okay. It's a laugh that shakes me to the core and then somehow, every time, rebuilds me from the inside out.

Because that's what God is all about. Making me new.

"Behold, I make all things new." -- Revelation 21:5

And that includes my plans.

So ... what's my five year plan?

To keep planning, to keep letting go when I must, and to keep allowing God to make me new.

'Cause He's good like that.

What's Your Five Year Plan?

In this post, I mentioned that I wanted to get back to the subject of planning, being flexible, and changing direction.

Cliches crop up for a reason, and clearly the the cliche about telling God our plans resonates with most of us. We've all had carefully laid plans mercilessly dashed.

Of course, ultimately it's mercy-full, but we often cannot see that at the time.

When I was a young atheist, working in the business world (hmmm ... sounds like the title of something: "Young Atheism!") I already knew that God enjoyed dashing plans. Of course, I didn't call Him "God" back then. I called Him "fate" or "destiny" or "the forces at work in the universe" or "luck" or "karma" or "my crummy life."

I had never planned to work in the business world, you see, and yet that's where I'd ended up.

Backing up a bit, I hadn't planned to go to college, either, until my senior year of high school. But, since I didn't know what else to do, and I wanted to be an actress, I decided to go major in theater for awhile. Then I added on an English major and a philosophy minor. I stayed as far away from the business people as I could (no offense to you, Business People ... I was a bigoted thing back then.)

So, how did a Theater-English-Philosophy girl end up donning suits, working in business, traveling to New York, and visiting clients, all the while feeling she was an imposter playing dress-up?

I had to eat. And pay bills. And the acting jobs in Omaha, Nebraska weren't exactly rolling in. Neither were the novel-writing or philosophizing jobs.

And, so the fact that I enjoyed not starving forced me to take the first job that came along, and because I had nothing better to do than work hard (okay, my obsessive-compulsive tendencies were also at play, making me ultra-organized) I got promoted and ended up going on those business trips, marveling at things like seeing the Waldorf-Astoria from the inside.

And, while I was working and being promoted and going on business trips, I was asked by a colleague, "What's your five-year plan?"

I almost spat coffee all over my desk because the question sent me into a fit of laughter.

"My five-year plan?" I asked, recovering from the near choking. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, where do you see yourself in five years? Do you plan on working on an MBA? Do you still want to be here?"

Still laughing, I said, "I don't even know where I see myself next week. I certainly didn't plan, five years ago, to be doing this with my life. I can't imagine knowing where I'll be five years from now." And, because I regularly quoted lines from Casablanca, I added, "I never make plans that far ahead."

And, in a way, I still live by Rick Blaine's philosophy. When my colleague asked me where I'd be in five years, I would never have guessed that the answer would be, "In a small town, living the life of a newly baptized Christian."

Or, that five years after that, my answer would be, "I'm Catholic."

Five years after that? "I'm homeschooling now. And -- oh, get this! -- my husband is now Catholic, too."

Nope. Wouldn't have guessed a bit of that when I was sitting in my room at the Waldorf (that was only once, by the way ... business accommodations were usually a bit more humble) enjoying a drink from the fully stocked fridge.

My point is that I can make all the plans my organized little heart desires, but God (as I now call Him) can force me into flexibility at a moment's notice.

So, given that reality, should we stop making plans altogether?

To be continued ....

(ETA: The follow up post is here.) 

Tell Him. I dare you.

You know the old saying, "If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans"?

I keep going back to that, with my recent musings on planning, homeschooling, being flexible and changing directions.

I hope to write a real post about this in the next day or two, but for now, just think about this:

If, two years ago, you could have peeked into the future, would you have been able to predict everything that's happened in the last two years? What about five years? Ten?

Nope. I couldn't have.

Maybe the reason I don't stress too terribly (I do have my days, though ... please don't picture me serenely floating through each and every moment) about changes in our homeschool (style, curriculum, whatever) is that I've seen the many, many surprises God has sent our way. And, no matter how much they threw me for a loop at the time, they've been good.

Very, very good.

God has laughed at me so many times that I've lost count.

And, that's all I have time for right now -- bedtime stories are calling. Back soon.

It's starting again

Ok, so I meant it when I said I'm schizophrenic.

I'm the Planning Unschooler. The Unschooler with a Plan. The Scheduler without a Schedule, or the Unscheduler Who's Always looking at Her Watch.

Yes, I'm eclectic, unschoolish, and flexible. I like to allow my children to follow their interests, and explore things of their choosing.

But, I also love to browse curriculum catalogs. I love them. I love the nifty little packages, the clever resources, the tools and supplies neatly grouped together and offered as a sort of prize to the tuned-in, credit-card wielding, homeschooling mother. I love to come up with plans.

I love to browse and dream. But, that doesn't mean I purchase all that nifty stuff that I find within the pages of my beloved catalogs. As I confessed last year, I'm really just a nerd with a goofy hobby.

But, it's a hobby that bears fruit. Though I may not purchase every tempting tool or set of books that I crave, I do come away from those catalogs with ideas ... a few well-chosen purchases, and lots of ideas.

And, as I said in this post last summer:

Part of the fun of summer is planning our homeschooling journeys, even if we don't always end up at the originally intended destinations. In spite of our many side trips, planning keeps me aware of the big picture and accountable to the kids, my husband-the-principal, and myself.

Planning is the vision, the idea, which is a straight path (and, despite my flexible ways, I do have an overarching vision.) But, how can one be flexible (as in, "capable of being bent") if there's no straight line to begin with?

So, perhaps instead of the negative connotations associated with "schizophrenic" I will rename myself the Flexible Homeschooler.

Or, maybe I'll just plan to rename myself. But then, I'll deviate from the plan.

You know how it goes.

Ending, Beginning and In Between

Our "school year" is over. Although we tend to be unschoolish in some ways, we still have beginnings and endings, though not entirely (as noted in this post, in which I mention that learning never ends and is always beginning.) But, because we live with a public school teacher, we tend to live more "by the school year calendar" than some homeschooling families.

I arbitrarily declare "We're done!" at some point, then the kids run a victory lap around the house and proclaim that summer has begun.

But, it isn't really over for me. Because I haven't even begun to start planning next year yet.

What about you? Do you plan in the spring, before the school year ends (and then get to proclaim, "I'm done!")?

Or do you plan over the summer?

Or do you school year-round, and thus have various planning times interspersed throughout the year?

I'm known to plan and then discard the plan, so even if I plan over the summer, I end up planning at other times, too.

I'm suddenly quite tired of the word "plan" so I can only imagine how you feel. Must be time to sign off and dive in to what promises to be a busy day.

More on new year decluttering

Check out Mary Kochan's article on Catholic Exchange today. She has great ideas and observations about getting and/or keeping one's kitchen in working order.

Easing back into real life

Now that we're living in ordinary time, and the Christmas and Epiphany feasting have passed, it's time for "real life" again.

The holy days are over, the decorations have been packed away, and the realization hits that it's a frigid, January day. What's a homeschooling mother to do?

It's tempting to crack the whip:

"We're getting back into a routine! NOW."

But, experimentation and general cranky rebellion (from all of us) have taught me that the whip-cracking approach isn't the best for our family. I've found that easing back into the everyday works much better. Though dropping a routine can happen in an instant, picking it up again is a more meandering process, a reminder that routines are shaped and formed over time.

So, in the week (or two) after Christmas break, we creep back toward an ordered and more predictable life. We get on top of regular chore routines. We pull out math books (and remind ourselves that last month, we knew how to do this, therefore we shall not panic, knowing that a wee bit of review will cover a multitude of mistakes.) We think about science projects, and we hit the library for a new stack of great read-alouds.

We clean, we declutter and we sigh with contentment over newfound order.

For a few minutes, anyway -- after all, kids live here.

What I did with my little clan today

We made some Catechism Catchers (these can be ordered through Emmanuel Books) and the kids quizzed each other on deadly sins and commandments.






And, since we've been reading about invertebrates, we made some Jell-O fish.








We practiced our perspective and tried to draw Bethlehem.













It was all good. Good, good, good. Until dinner time. Ramona does not like spinach and mushroom quiche (or, "kwitchy" as she calls it. Where did she get that, Atticus?)

"No one can make me eat kwitchy!" she yelled.

She's right. No one can. No one will. That's not how we do food around here. Ah, well.

But all's right with the world again. Betsy and Ramona are now happily roller skating in the basement (it's finished living space ... don't ask....) and I'm looking back over what was basically a very, very good day. No rushing, no plans. But fun stuff. Good stuff.

How often can you say your kids had fun going over the Seven Deadly Sins?

And, hey, Atticus loved the kwitchy.