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Being Thankful

Nov19

freedictionary.com defines thankful as:  Aware and appreciative of a benefit; grateful. 2. Expressive of gratitude So, I was thinking this would be a good time to just state some things that I am thankful for:

  • God- Where would I be without Him?
  • Family- I have an amazing husband who loves me and two wonderful sons. I will be adding a daughter-in-law to the list next year! 🙂
  • Sisters- Aren’t sisters family? Well, of course they are, but in another sense they are not. I think of my sisters as a separate category- Superfriends. They know you like no one else and they still love you.
  • America- I think this is the greatest place to be, even with all of its warts and blemishes.
  • Freedom- We have so many freedoms: speech, religion, and assembly are just a few that come to mind. Thank you to all of our servicemen!
  • Health- I am so appreciative of being healthy. I am grateful to be alive and kickin’.
  • Marriage- I am blessed to have married my college sweetheart. I must say that I chose well with God’s help!
  • Girlfriends- I have two gals who have known me for over 20 years and they still want to hang out with me. Bless you!
  • Homeschooling- I know I am strongly opinionated when it comes to homeschooling, but I am glad we did it. My relationship with my sons is strong and healthy because we homeschooled. The academics were fantastic as well, not because I taught them everything, I didn’t. I found wonderful teachers who were passionate about content matter and made subjects come alive. Who would think that math is fun? Not me, but my neighbor and friend does. I love her for teaching my children that math makes sense.
  • Provision- I am appreciative of the food we eat, clothing I wear, and the house we call our home.
  • Employment- My husband and I are both employed and I am so glad to be able to go to work. Of course, I love what I do so the days that I see my class doesn’t seem like work at all! I teach 7th and 8th grade students who make me laugh every week.
  • Electricity and Technology – Yep, I am extremely grateful for all of the appliances and gadgets that I can use to make my life easier. I am glad I am not down at the creek beating my clothes on a rock or boiling water on an outdoor fire to cook food for my family. I am happy to not have to write my lesson plans by hand, or via a typewriter, or even mimeograph paper! If you don’t know what that is, be glad. It’s an ancient form of making duplicate copies.

My list could go on for quite a while, but before I stop I ‘d like to say I am thankful for you!

What about taking a few minutes to think of all of the things you are thankful for this year? How about writing them down and reflecting over all the blessings you have in your life? I am sure your list will be equally as long as mine.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

~Lisa

Doing Something Good

Oct15

DO SOMETHING GOOD FOR SOMEONE 🙂

This week my sisters, dad, some nieces and nephews and I walked in memory of my mother at the Leukemia/Lymphoma walk. It was a beautiful evening to all get together to celebrate the life of our wonderful mother and grandmother. I bought helium balloons for all of us and we set off on our two-mile trek across Cincinnati with a ton of other walkers. I was proud of my family as we all had some obstacle we had to overcome in order to be there.

I have noticed that doing something good takes a lot of effort at times. I am not sure the cause, but I believe one reason is it takes some perseverance and inconvenience. I believe the result of helping others is well worth it though. Jesus talks about feeding the poor and helping those in need in Matthew 25 so I try to find ways to help where I can.  Here are some ideas for doing something good for someone else. How about trying to do one kind thing as a family for the month of October? I bet you will like it so much you’ll want to continue.

Make cards for:

  • Grandparents
  • Nursing homes
  • Soldiers
  • Your pastor, Sunday School teachers

Make a meal for someone. A person doesn’t have to be sick in order to receive a meal. 🙂 You can make extra of whatever you are serving to your family and it won’t take all that much extra to put it in a dish and drop it off.

Pack a lunch for Dad and put a love note in it from each of the children and you.

Find a 5k walk/run event to attend that supports a worthy cause or sponsor someone if you don’t care to do it yourself.

Volunteer at a soup kitchen or a food bank. Here in town we have several places that need volunteers. Matthew 25 Ministries and the Drop Inn Center are just two places I am acquainted with personally.

Kids Against Hunger is a national organization that feeds children a nutritious meal for .25 a serving. You can volunteer to make the rice packets or you can raise money and send the funds to the organization. We have helped several times with one locally and it is a great way to give to others in need.

Takin’ It Easy

Sep3

Welcome to a brand new school year! I love buying school supplies, opening up the textbooks, and planning. How about you? As you begin, I would like to offer some suggestions for consideration in helping you begin your school year.

1. Teach Short Lessons I have learned from experience that it takes much longer for subjects and concepts to be taught and completed when they are new. The first one or two weeks consider making your lessons shorter than you normally would allow. For example, if you are teaching about maps to a primary student, one day’s lesson could be exploring the globe and looking at how much of the world is water in comparison to how much land there is on our planet. Instead of a spending 30-45 minutes on a lesson,  discuss it for 20-30 minutes. If you plan for this then you won’t feel anxious in cutting down on the amount of time you would usually spend.

2. Keeping short lessons in mind, plan out your week. Life is more relaxed when you know what you are doing. 🙂 Start with the required subjects and add any extra curricular activities in which your children are involved. For instance, Monday and Wednesday can be language arts, math, social studies, and health (remember to include safety and first aid  somewhere in your school year). Tuesday and Thursday’s schedule would be to study language arts, math, science reading and an experiment. Friday you can plan to wrap up the week with language arts, math, social studies or science, and add art, fine arts, physical education or a field trip.

3. Begin with fewer subjects At the beginning of the year you can start with reading, math, and perhaps science or social studies and add the other subjects.

4. Consider starting earlier. I loved starting school early as I felt this gave me and my sons time to get into the swing of things. August is usually very warm, the boys were more inclined to stay indoors and were in need of some structure. We would have a light schedule of math and reading and either art or science experiments since they usually required more set-up and clean-up time throughout the year.

5. Remember to add fun into your planning.  Science doesn’t need to be confined to the house with a lab filled with beakers and concoctions. Take advantage of good-weather days and go on a nature walk or take a trip to the zoo to study animals and habitats.

Wishing you a great and relaxing year! 🙂

~Lisa

My Homeschool Grads

Jul16

I have a friend who reminds me from time to time that is important to let people know about what my sons are doing. Why? [I think] to encourage you to keep on goin’. Did I do everything perfectly? Of course not! But, in spite of me, they are happy, productive members of society and are pursuing their dreams.

Ian is 23 and is an alumnus of Asbury University. He got his BS in Communication Arts and has a minor in art. He is gainfully employed with a company using his degree here in Cincinnati and lives in a house with his cousin. While I am thrilled for him, I am sad that he isn’t here to keep us laughing and wondering. He has a crazy sense of humor which requires some explaining to me on a regular basis.  It is so nice to have him here locally and I selfishly hope he will stay in Cincinnati.

Malcolm is 20 and is living in eastern Germany.  He is in charge of starting a fair trade coffee shop/ art gallery in a small town called Herrnhut. How did he arrive at that? It’s a long story that I will share at a later date, but he is with a missions organization called Youth With A Mission (YWAM). This volunteer organization is focused  on helping people who are in need around the world. The money that the coffee shop will generate will help to support a ministry called Pick A Pocket. (No, not pickpockets!)

This particular ministry picks a pocket to fill, not from which to take. They help provide shelter and education to boys and girls in Ethiopia who live in deplorable conditions. These children sleep in the dumps and eat what they find. You can imagine how awful that would be! The other area of ministry that Malcolm’s wanting to help with  the proceeds from the shop is the plight of those who are caught in the chains of human trafficking.  The art gallery is going to be filled with photographs and art work that the students from YWAM’s Discipleship Training School’s Marriage of the Arts have created while on humanitarian trips to these dumps and red light districts of various countries.

One thing we have always stressed with our sons is to dream and go with what you think God is telling you. So, I shouldn’t be surprised that each of them are taking a different path than the other. That’s what I love about homeschooling, encouraging your children in the areas that you see are their strengths. You can be their cheerleader and provide opportunities for them to investigate.

Ian is a wonderful writer and artist, is extremely creative, and has an eye for design. I am glad I signed him up for various literature and writing classes and had him take art from several different instructors and programs while in junior high and high school. He is using these academic areas daily at his job as he edits manuals and books, creates magazine ads, works on social media projects, and sets up video conferences. He is fulfilling his dream of being a graphic designer.

Malcolm loves coffee, people, and is tender-hearted towards those who are victims of injustice. For his senior year we visited various coffee shops and he had to blog about them. He also did a 6 week internship with a fantastic homeschool dad who owned a coffee shop, learning from him about not only coffee, but life. He always wanted to start a coffee shop, it just happened sooner than we would have thought. I thought he’d take a “gap year” and return after 7 months, but he will be gone for at least 2 1/2 years at this point. He is pursuing his dream with all of his heart.

So, what do you see your child(ren) gravitating towards? What are things that interest them? Children have giftings and talents that begin to be evident early in their lives. Ian was constantly doodling on his papers  to the point that you could not see the math problems because of artwork. 🙂 Malcolm has had a tender heart and a desire to help others since he was young. I am not sure where the coffee aspect began, but I am going to blame it on the java that was readily available at our church on Sunday mornings.

Provide opportunities for your child(ren) to explore. It could be crafts, legos, online games, websites, clubs, scouts, AHG, 4-H, the possibilities are virtually limitless. Does that seem overwhelming? Just start with one area, explore that, and see what comes next. Remember to encourage the dreams they have as it will lead to more ideas and possibilities.

The picture I have here for my post is what I made for Malcolm when he was feeling discouraged about envisioning his dream of a coffee shop. An interesting thing occurred after he left to begin the coffee shop. Ian had to move back with us after he graduated from college and he ended up staying in that room! It was a reminder for him not to give up on his dream while he looked for a job in his major. I love when God does such things, don’t you?

The Toymaker

Jun17

How many people can say that their dad was a toy maker? Not many I suppose, but I can! My dad was an industrial toy designer at Kenner Toys and worked on products such as The Easy Bake Oven, Sit-N-Spin, Care Bears, Star Wars, GI-Joe, Nerf, Strawberry Shortcake, and play-doh. Pretty cool, huh?

I love my dad, not just because of those things, (although that helped! 🙂 )but because he cared about his family. He would take us on secret candy runs while we were out running errands and would tell us wild stories about a boy named Cedric. My dad always noticed if I got a new outfit or got my hair cut. In a house of five women and no other men, it might have been a matter of survival, but I don’t think so. He worked hard and played even harder with all of us girls.

I am truly blessed to have a dad who still cares.  He believes in me and has certainly done his share of showing me that over the years by moving furniture, teaching art classes to my sons, painting walls, and taking the boys on day trips to Wright Patterson Air Museum. I can call every week and he will listen to me as we discuss concerns and praises. He always prays for me and my family and there is no substitute for that.

He has been a great example to my sons about how to love someone through tough times. He was my mom’s caretaker and encourager when she was fighting cancer. He never once complained during her sickness and was with her throughout her ordeal.

I hope that you have had a great dad too. If not, I am sorry. I do know that even if you have had a dad who wasn’t like mine, you have a dad who loves you and is there for you. That dad is God the Father. He hears, He comforts, He is proud of you.

Happy Father’s Day to all of you. Happy Father’s Day to you, Dad. Thanks for everything! 🙂