School

I was at school last night until almost midnight, but I am pretty much prepped for my new student and I changed my bulletin board. I can't believe how quickly Monday is approaching!! Now off to paint the hallway, 4 days until the open house!

Some pictures of my new bulletin board.

Finally, an accomplishment

Finally got the girl's room cleaned up and rearranged!

Her book nook.

Day O Cleaning Fun!

Wow, I hated these kinds of days as a kid, can't say I'm overly fond of them now either... 5 days until the open house!

A Home Day

That's what we used to call it when I was growing up. A home day was one of those rare days where you didnt have to step a toe outside (except for the outdoor chores, of course). We had a fun home day here at our place today. We all slept in, spent a good part of the day relaxing and then the kids and I worked together to tidy up the place a bit before Daddy got home from work. Christmas vacation is heavenly! It's too bad these precious days spent together in our home are so few and far between. I think that I could really get used to having so much time to spend together - like it used to be. Like it should be.

Butter

I was reading online about how to make butter. I thought, that looks easy enough! Butter is so expensive, I will give it a try...

I took two cups of heavy whipping cream and it put it in my food processor along with about a teaspoon of kosher salt. Why kosher salt? Why not?! I ran the food processor for about three minutes. That's what the recipie called for, really I just ran it until it looked like this.

After the butter had separated, I used a very thin and worn out towel to separate the butter from the buttermilk.

I just dumped the contents of the food processor into the towel which I had already laid out over a bowl.

I squeezed the liquid off (buttermilk) and put it aside to make buttermilk brownies. Then I measured out the butter into cups. Two cups of heavy whipping cream seems to make about 1 and 1/4 cups of butter.

The butter is a bit more waxy than I am used to, but I think it will be especially good for baking.

Side note: While I was in the kitchen, it began snowing heavily. What a view!!

Christmas Present

In the past, we have celebrated Christmas in our extended family by slaving for days over an extremely gluttonous meal followed by hours of cleanup and topping off with a week of leftovers. This year we did things differently! My cousin brought her kids over early and we made Christmas cookies. (This part would have gone better had my oven been working, but we managed by taking the cookies to church and baking them there.). After we got back from church with the cookies, we found that my husband had a nice big batch of icing already made up, so we colored it different colors and let the kids go to town on icing the cookies. Our batch wasn't very big, but each of the kids got 7-8 cookies to ice so I think it went pretty well. Some of them were mountainous globs of icing with many sprinkles and M&Ms on top while others were truly labored over works of art. I'm speaking here to the difference between the baby (4) and the boy (6- almost 7), the boy went with the bigger is better theory

while the baby was very meticulous about making designs on his cookies.

As the kids finished up their decorating, the other guests began to arrive including one very special guest who was in charge of bringing the pizza. We sat around all evening talking, laughing eating pizza and drinking Lutheran beverages until it was deemed time to get the children to bed (as some schools don't get out until halfway through Thursday, so some children had to get up for school today). I think this was one of the most fun Christmas celebrations that our family has had since the celebrations were held at Grandma's. I hope we have made a new tradition for the Christmases yet to come.

Christmas Raven

Once upon a midnight dreary,
While I pondered weak and weary
Over many a large and un-enveloped
Pile of presents from the store.
While I nodded, nearly napping
Suddenly there came a snapping
As of someone gently stepping
On bubble wrap upon the floor.
" 'Tis some visitor" I muttered
"Come to help me with my chore."
Merely this and nothing more.

Oh how vaguely I remember
Waking in the cold December
To hear each whining, crying member
Of my children at my door
Eagerly I wished the morrow-
Vainly I had sought to borrow
From the night lessened harrow
Harrow, headaches, even more
From the loudly weeping children
Who were screeching at my door
Standing there forevermore.

And the soft and sad uncertain
Rustling of the bathroom curtain
Stilled me filled me with
A deep foreboding felt before
So that now to still the beating
Of my heart I stood repeating
"Why now visitor entreating
Entrance at my chamber door?"
Too late now to be now entreating
Entrance at my chamber door."
Darkness there and nothing more.

Presently my soul grew stronger;
hesitating then no longer,
"Kate," said I "or Andrew
truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was sleeping
and so gently you came creeping,
And such a late hour you were keeping
tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"-
here I opened wide the door; -
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Out on the town

The baby came with me to buy a couple of crafty projects to make as presents for my parents for Christmas. After shopping, we decided to grab some supper. He wanted pizza. I took him to Red Robin. Yum!

He was very focused on getting the coloring done before his pizza came.

He wanted me to take a picture of his drawing also.

It was very nice to have some one-on-one time with him. :-)

Done!!

The Christmas shopping is pretty well done. We had planned on a lighter Christmas this year and we did spend less money, but I think we got just as much "stuff" as usual... The problem came in when I was trying to even out the number of packages to open... Not an easy task!! At least it is done and most of it is wrapped and under the tree... New this year, I ordered a free month trial of Amazon Prime with the free two-day shipping. That way I was able to ship out to our family all over the country and not have to pay extra for it. I did almost all my shopping through Amazon this year. I even skipped the lines and craziness of the stores and did the shopping for my kids online. Now I just have to remember to cancel it in January before we have to pay for a year long membership...

Wednesday and Thursday

Sadly Wednesday was a wash. I didn't even get home from church until close to 10. Today wasn't much better since I had two meetings after school. I guess there will be much cleaning on Saturday...

At least the cantata was a success!! The children were very well-behaved. They stood up at the front with no fighting and a minimum of chatter. Victory!! If you spent a day in my classroom, you would understand what a sacrifice that truly was.

For a couple of our students, it was their first time in church. One family transferred in right before Thanksgiving. They have three students in our school- one of which is in my class. It made me feel good about the sacrifice my family is making for me to have this job when- the day after his first church service - he comes up to me and says, "I know what Christmas is all about! It's about Jesus!". Yes, yes it is.

Tuesday

Handwriting class, my favorite time of day. I love the sweet silence of freshly sharpened pencils working hard AND independently. There are no questions about handwriting. There is nothing to ask your neighbor about. The only time of day when all 18 (soon to be 19) can sit silently and work on their own. :-) I know I keep saying silent, but seriously, it's the only part of my day that no one is demanding something from me. Ahhh, that's nice.... I think we'll do two pages today...

The fiddler crab decided to be acrobatic last night and climbed all the way to the top of a very skinny plant. He just sat there for quite a while before climbing back down.

I had an earlier evening last night without extra evening meetings, this made it possible to accomplish my goal of getting the dining room cleaned up. I was even finished before the kids went to bed!! I also got the dishes done. Sadly the laundry is being run but not folded... This doesn't bode well for the weekend as we have church tonight (the kids have their Christmas program for school tonight) and weekly meeting tomorrow night. I think the kiddos are going to spend the night at Mom's on Friday, maybe that will be my Friday evening/Saturday morning project...

The baby was very anxious to be helpful. He vacuumed for about 10 to 15 minutes right before bed and was very upset that it was bedtime...

Monday, Monday...

Finally figured out how to get pictures off my phone!! Here is a couple pictures of my Monday efforts.

Christmas countdown

One more week of school left before Christmas vacation! I don't recall being this excited for break to get here last year. Two weeks seems like a good long time on this side of break, but I know it will go so fast and before we are ready it will be gone. I need to make a list of things that I want to get done so that I don't forget something.

Monday

It may have taken until almost 11, but I did get the kitchen cleaned up last night. We had our last FPU class last night which threw me off in that it took a three hour chunk of time in the prime part of the evening during which time I would have been able to clean. It helped that my husband had run a load of dishes befor I got home from school and when the dog tracked mud in, the boys begged for wet washcloths to scrub the floor. They didn't do a perfect job on the floor, but I still counted it as done because I frankly didn't want to scrub the floor at that time of night.

Of course the dishes were also done. I got a load of laundry washed, but not dried or folded. So not perfectly done, but I think that it was close enough to check Monday off as an accomplishment. Whew! Now on to Tuesday...

Cleaning schedule

I am challenging myself to begin following the excellent cleaning schedule that I set up several years ago. I have the intention of following it at the beginning of every week and by Tuesday or Wednesday I have become too busy or lazy to continue to follow through on it. If I would just motivate myself for about an hour every night my weekends would be so much better.

Monday - kitchen
Tuesday - dining room
Wednesday - living room
Thursday - bathrooms
Friday - bedrooms (this is to be a group effort by everyone who has a bedroom at this house)
Saturday - touch up a bit, finish the laundry and clean out the fridge

In addition, I would like to run at least one load of laundry every day and keep up with the dishes

We took the boys around to look at Christmas lights tonight. I love how excited and joyful they become at even the most simple of displays. The loudest cheers were for the nativity scenes. We cranked the Christmas music and drove around for about an hour. I think it was the first time this year that I have felt like it is time for Christmas. Things at school have been very difficult this year and I have been focusing so much on that that I haven't been able to get into the "spirit of Christmas". A baby born in a manger in order to save mankind from itself... I'm not sure what I was missing...

I love my husband! After over 10 years of marriage, he still amazes me with his kind thoughtfulness and sweet compassion.

Decision

I'm about 90% sure about what I will do about my job for next year. Does a person talk to someone about things if you still have a nagging 10% doubt?

Amended

Five friends over for the girl, three friends for the boy, the baby is at Grandmas... I am going to enforce a strict 10 pm bedtime...

Friday night fun?

The Girl is having four friends over for a slumber party tonight. The boy is having one friend. The baby will be either having a friend or staying at Grandmas- we haven't gotten confirmation on the friend yet... What was I thinking?!?!

Laura

Am I The only one out there that would love to live in the world of Little House on the Prairie? I mean sure the mortality rate was a bit high, but peoples moral compasses were aligned. Want to stay at home with your children? Why wouldn't you want to stay at home with your children? You are their mother, if you don't raise them who will? When did a job start to become a more important legacy to leave than the legacy that we can leave through our children? Why is it the accepted norm that you will spend much time, money, and energy to have children and then make the conscious decision to pay someone else to be with them more that you are with them? How is it that a woman who chooses family over career has no meaning in her life?

As a teacher, it is easy to lose focus and forget that the most important thing we pass on to the next generation is not in a reader or a math book. The most important thing we give to the next generation is found in the Bible. This is not just a direct instruction course, the lessons vital to their earthly AND eternal well being are also to be taught day by day in the way that we live our lives and in the small moral decisions that we make continuously.

And you know what? I think it's okay to do a direct, intense small group session consisting of only my children. So what if I don't have a spectacularly fabulous career? I will have something better, I will have children who know and love Jesus. I will not only get to spend more time with them in this life, I will also get to spend time with them in eternity. And I can't wait to introduce them to my Grandparents, two of the many hard-working, "simple" people who sacrificed some of their own ambitions to give that kind of upbringing to me.

Sick Again

This is just one of those weeks... The "baby" was in the Doctor's office on Monday, so I had to take a half day to take him in. (He had strep and a double ear infection.) This morning I took the boy in to the same office, he 'likely' has the same thing as the baby. *Sigh* Having had a sore throat, I asked them to run a test on me even though I just had strep a couple weeks ago. Yep, it was positive... *Sigh*

A full day off of school. Why is it that if I had an office job, I would feel absolutely no guilt taking a sick day to take care of my kids; but, being a teacher, I feel immense guilt taking a sick day? I think that this is part of my problem with teaching. I cannot seem to do things halfway.

Tidy up the closet? No, rip it out and start over or pile it up until it falls out on someone. We either have dust bunnies running rampant or I am scrubbing the floor every other day. I struggle to divide myself appropriately between what I want to do for my own children and what I want to do for my students. Where does the happy medium lie? Is there a happy medium?

Math

Whose bright idea was it to put Algebra into a first grade curriculum?! I'd like to have them teach my class a couple days... And really? do we have to do English measurement conversions in second grade? How is it vital that they learn how many cups are in a gallon before they know how to do two digit subtraction? Ugh! Two hours of math and I just had to be done for the day!!! I'm sure that the kids felt the same way...

Staff reductions, pay cuts, AND more students... Really?!

Back to school...

It is with mixed emotions that I return to school today. I really don't want to go back. I have greatly enjoyed my break- if you can call it a break, I spent the whole time working on the house....

I am still very confused as to what I should do next year. Our finances would benefit greatly from my continuing to work. We would be much better able to afford things like high school and college. We are so close to out of debt and starting to tip things in the other direction!! My heart is telling me that the childhood of my children is starting to slip away and I am missing it!!

Several times this weekend, someone has suggested to me that I look into teaching at SP. Teaching there would definitely help to bring down the stress my job. I would only have one grade and might possibly even have the option of teaching special reading. (One of my long-term career goals.) I would be better able to go back and forth if I need to get some extra work done also the teachers there aren't expected to do extra tutoring and stuff like that which would limit my time after school. They actually find your subs for you, so one would most likely get off if you needed rather than having sick children sleeping in the back of the classroom.

Dan would be much better able to be involved with the kids' school as it is much closer AND it would really cut down on my mileage. It seems like a good compromise... But is it compromising too much...

No idleness bread here today!

There's a certain feeling of satisfaction at the end of a productive day. After many loads of laundry, much de-cluttering, cleaning the kitchen (twice!) and making homemade laundry soap - not to mention putting up Christmas decorations - I am tired. But I think I am still going to clean the kitchen (a third time) before bed and put on the new table cloth I picked up at the dollar store - after I clear off the dining room table again (those crayons keep getting themselves out!).

I am looking forward to my Sabboth rest tomorrow, having spent much productive time on my household today.

Laundry- How can only five people wear so many clothes in such a short time?

I have (momentarily) conquered the junk drawers! (Some of them...)

(Sigh) So much clutter, so little time...

Cleaning...

I have been fighting my floors for over three years now. I don't mind saying that much of that time I have spent passive-aggressively ignoring them and hoping they would just sort-of miraculously become clean. Between the excessive wear and tear on the hardwood and the never ending stream of dog hair it is just next thing to impossible to get the floor in our house to even begin to look clean.

Sweet victory, I have found something! Nothing to take care of the wear and tear, but I finally got something to make the floor shiny again. First I stripped the floor with a Mr. Clean/ammonia mix, then I spread Mop and Glow on it. It may look worn, but at least it is now shiny! :-)

Priorities...

As a Christian Mom and a fairly staunch traditionalist, I have long struggled with what my priority should be. Of course as a wife and the mother of three, I find my first and strongest loyalty to be my family. The question that I struggle with is "What is the most appropriate way to act on that loyalty on a day to day basis?" Should I concern myself first and foremost with the occupation of keeping house and maintaining the stability our home? Or do I concern myself with the financial stability of said home and continue my career?

During my husband's College and Seminary years, I maintained my status as a stay at home mom. I could never find myself completely at peace with my role due to nagging guilt over our financial situation. After eight years as a stay at home mom, I was offered a teaching job at a small Lutheran school teaching first and second grade. At the end of this school year, having taught two years, our financial situation is much improved. By the end of July, barring any unforeseen complications, we should be out of debt with the exception of our student loans.

The dilemma:
Should I stay at home and sacrifice our second income?

OR

Should I continue teaching and sacrifice family time?


Is there another option that will allow me to continue earning an income without sacrificing family time? Should the fact that my students and their families are largely unchurched enter into the decision?

In August I started a second part-time job working with a direct marketing company. As of right now, my income with this company is close to half of what I make as a teacher... To say that the Lord has blessed my work with this company would be an understatement as in only three months I have twenty-five distributors on my team. I could continue working with this company and still be home most of the time. BUT is that the Lord's will for my life? My husband questions whether two degrees in teaching would be going to waste if I am working a job that I wouldn't need a degree for at all...

Also, quitting my teaching job would mean that of course our children could no longer go for free to the Lutheran school where I teach. Because of the progression of age of our children, paying full tuition for all three of them at the school where the kids went to before I started teaching is not an affordable option. If I quit my job, my educational options for my children would be public school or home school.

Decisions, decisions, decisions...