I Bring Those Whom I Love

by Ruth Bell Graham


I bring those whom I love to You,
commit each to
Your loving care:
then carry them away again
nor leave them there:
forgetting You
Who lived to die
(and rose again!)
care more than I.

So back I come
with my heart's load,
confessing
my lack of faith
in You alone,
addressing
all I cannot understand
to You
Who do.

You know each heart,
each hidden wound,
each scar,
each one who played a part
in making those
we bring to You
the ones they are
(and dearer each to You
than us, by far).

So---
now I give them
to Your loving care,
with thankful heart,
---and leave them there.

Excuse This House

(author unknown)


Some houses try to hide the fact
That children shelter there.
Ours boasts of it quite openly.
The signs are everywhere.

For smears are on the windows,
Little smudges on the doors;
I should apologize I guess
For toys strewn on the floor.

But I sat down with the children
And we played and laughted and read.
And if the doorbell doen't shine,
Their eyes will shine instead.

For when at times I'm forced to choose
The one job or the other,
I want to be a housewife---
But first I'll be a Mother.


(I ran across this poem while I was clearing out old, no longer needed, homeschool paperwork. I thought it was worth saving on here. It is the end of an era. Maybe I will get my priorities to look more like this poem by the time I have grandchildren, LOL!)

Update following week 6

We begin our 7th week Monday. The guys are settled into a good routine and seem to be getting their work done in plenty of time. It was a steep start, but they have gotten a handle on everything now I think. Throwing work into the mix was a challenge. They are getting used to it. Trig is still not a big deal. We are all doing well. They are doing great in their chosen sciences. Psych is an interesting read for the most part. Crash Course has a series on it as well, which is always entertaining. Isaac is just about done with his 1st paper in writing. He has worked hard to develop it using skills he learned this summer (Thank you, Glenn Storey!) and tips from Writers Inc. and Write for College by Write Source.

In addition to my school duties, I am still keeping the household running. I have also been working on fixing up the room Erik moved out of. I have all the multitudinous holes patched and prepped. I have cleaned the walls and windows. Today, I begin to paint! Woohoo!!! I LOVE TO PAINT! If I could figure out how to make a living at that, I would love to.

Middle of Quarter 1!

I can hardly believe we are already on our 5th week! Come Wednesday the quarter will be half over.

We are starting to hit our stride. We started with a tentative routine. It works most days. When it doesn't, we make adjustments. The guys are very good at ordering their time and accomplishing their daily work. They are working on not procrastinating on their writing projects. They start up their Spotify play lists and start to work, 'plowing through' as Isaac terms it. These Seniors don't require a ton of supervision. They also manage to get their chores done most of the time. I am very proud of their initiative and effort. I also really love the fact that they love to listen to Christian praise music primarily. It's so uplifting to work your way through your day to that!

I am participating in Trig and PreCalc and Seth's Homeschool Psychology class still.  We haven't hit anything difficult in math yet. Psych is very time consuming, so I'm looking at ways to get the most out of it without it being too overwhelming. Some of the work the author has set up is repetitive so, this week, we are cutting the repetition. Hopefully, that will help. I'm also being selective about our 'Further Study' selections.

Isaac is progressing quite nicely in his writing course. He wrote a very nice first draft on cross-stitching, his topic of choice. I was quite pleased. When he gets it fully revised, I think it will be quite interesting. He is taking a persuasive tack. I will show him how to publish it on here when he is finished. He says that his summer tutoring by Mr. Storey from PSU's Writing Lab really helped him. We are SO grateful!!!

I will post one of Seth's most recent papers on here as well, probably tomorrow.

Z

Son #2 Begins His Adult Life Out on His Own

Erik, our 21 year old, moved out today. He has grown up a lot over the past year. He has a good, full-time job. Now, he is starting his new venture of adulthood, taking care of himself and living with a roommate. We will miss him and his friends, but we know this will be a very rewarding step for him. (Besides, they have promised to come back and visit!)

Boxes are ready to go!

Still working on getting all the small parts packed.

Carrying it out to the truck. Shon Sturm is helping. Thanks Shon!

There's Dad!

All the helpers!  Isaac and Seth were helping too.

Mama and baby, err, I mean young man.

Pretty much only furniture now.

On our way to the new place.

New room in new place.

Garage.

Backyard.

Brothers are brothers for life!!!

Getting some lunch!

Erik's friend group came this afternoon and got all the furniture. Thank you all! (Isaac Humbard, Hannah Maus, Abby Normand, Noah Humbard, Shon Sturm)

Empty room.

Sigh! It echoes in here. Sniff, sniff!

We are so proud of him!

Good job, Erik!!!

Life Resumes with Plumbing Issues Repaired

You'll be happy to know the plumbing issues have been resolved! Praise the LORD!!! This episode was a commercial break brought to you from Lindsey Land and Wisdom Trackers Academy. Now back to regularly scheduled programming:

In addition to Trig with its 6 ratios and symmetry of parabolas and ellipses on x/y graphs, psych with its worldview questions, writing strategies and revisions, and the lesson planning and grading required in various subjects, we also must keep the house and our bodies running smoothly, not to mention serving at church. Some days I accomplish all those things; some days I don't.

I did take care of household business in addition to school business today. I started deep cleaning the oven yesterday in addition to dealing with the whole plumbing saga as it continued on. I got most of it clean then. After I was done for the day, I sprayed the oven for a third and final time and let it soak overnight. I finished it up this morning before breakfast.

I forgot to take 'before' pictures, but here is the fruit of my labor:

And, I'm pretty happy about it!!!

Today, I also did the laundry and made almond butter for Robert and I.

I LOVE that stuff on sliced apples!!!

The body business I accomplished today was going to the chiropractor. This is my fourth week in a row. I hadn't been since April before that. I knew I was having an issue with some of my ribs being out of place. Apparently, so was everything else. Today, it was A LOT better. I think, maybe, one more week after this and then I can cut down to every other week.  I have been trying to exercise and stretch more regularly and have been mostly successful until this week due to needing to stay in the house due to plumbers needs and some church activities. With greater consistency, I hope to be able to go to the chiropractor only once/month eventually. Maybe I'll be able to walk and do yoga after the boys and I go to take care of church business by helping to set-up the fellowship hall for an activity tomorrow night.

Seth had his second driving lesson this morning and is progressing quite nicely. 49 hours to go! Now that he has a driving permit, he can get his own bank account. We hope to accomplish that tomorrow.

And now, I need to go cook dinner. Sloppy Joes are on the menu.

Plumbing 8 - Lindseys 0

August is the month for plumbing problems this year. Due to leakages, Robert replaced the kitchen faucet and the boys' bathroom faucet. Then, yesterday, our shower handle broke off. (This is in addition to the boys' shower faucet handle that has been leaking profusely, and their tub hasn't been draining very well, in our opinion. Also, there was a minor drip under the kitchen sink and an outdoor faucet that is frozen shut.) When we went to shut off the water to the shower, we discovered that shower has no shut off valves! Arggghhhh! So, we shut the water off yesterday, except for the times when water was absolutely necessary.

My sweet husband has entered his busy season at work. Church has been busy lately. We've been doing other repairs around the house. He has a high endurance and has been very patient; but, when he found out about the shower yesterday, he finally said, "Let's call the plumber." So we did. AFTER we went to Home Depot yesterday afternoon to purchase what we thought we needed. So it still took up some of his time.

Today the plumber and his assistant came. They fixed the boys' shower and put shut off valves on the lines for our shower. In their opinions, the boys' tub drains fine, the kitchen sink simply needed the water line to be opened further than it was, and the outside faucet has been shut off by someone and been capped. (The last part is dead wrong. It is simply frozen and will not turn on.) They seemed to do a good job, from what I can tell, on the parts they actually fixed. They were unable to fix our shower due to the fact that we purchased the wrong type of product. Therefore, my husband is trying to decide whether or not to go ahead and squeeze fixing that part of the problem himself in 'all his spare time' or to call the plumber again.

Robert has saved us thousands of dollars over the years. He is so handy with fixing things. He HATES plumbing! But, even that, he tries his best to do. He is a servant-leader in our home. He is a treasure, and I appreciate him SO much! I try to assist him when I can, but I lack the skills to be truly helpful. I admire his keen mind and his skilled hands and his serving heart. What a guy!