Tackling the sin problem in my life.. oof!

So funny story.. I am often called a transparent, honest open book person. People often think I am crazy (for that and other reasons) and my close friends and family laugh at me because this transparent and honest thing is accompanied with being easily completely mortified. So when my last blog post reached over a hundred people, I kinda wanted to die. And Chris laughs and says "When are you going to learn that is how social media works. You post stuff. People read it"   I responded with that I live in this la la land that you people have better things to do than to read my FB posts and certainly my long rambling blog posts. And my only explanation of why I continue is that insomnia is 1) boring and 2) makes me a crazy oblivious to reality person

So I titled this blog post something boring and am going to continue to think that maybe no one but a handful of people will read it.. ha ha!  Because seriously.. who wants to talk about sin?  Last I checked that was a topic that was avoided in most of my social circles unless of course, you wanted to spout off your beliefs about other people's sin by re-posting an article on FB.. that's okay. But a blog post about your own sin.. yeah I am a little quirky I admit.

In my new journey to draw closer to Christ, it quickly became apparent that I have a sin problem and in my new journey, I have a desire to not sin. Soo where does this leave me? It only leaves me with one choice.. doing something about my sin.  Hmm that is way harder than it sounds.. you see..I am old and I have been doing some of these sins for a longgg time.. I have had a long time to have these sins deeply ingrained in my being. So here is what I have discovered in my time with God.. He is willing to help me with my sin problem but I don't think it's as easy as saying a prayer in the morning "Lord help me" and thinking I am good to go.  I actually tried that and it didn't work.

Here is what I do know.. or at least pretend to know.. or at least at 3 AM in the morning am typing that I know.  1) Pray continually.. not just in the morning  2) Set your minds on things above...it is harder to sin if I am reading my Bible and memorizing it  3) Tell other people about my sins.

So that leaves me with #3... now if you are NOT crazy then you do #3 with your spouse and a close group of friends. And I AM going to do that because I am going to ask my close friends and family to keep me accountable but then I decided to go the crazy route and just tell everyone.. ha ha.. told you I was crazy.

I discovered that sin problems usually have a root problem. My root problem is that I have a lack of self control.  A multitude of sins falls in this category.  And through it, I decided that I don't love people enough... More self control will lead to showing those that I love that I love them. The sins I have don't have consequences that hit hard a lot.  No, my sins consequences are much more subtle.. so subtle that they are super easy to ignore when I am not walking with the Lord. And Lord help me that I don't ever see my sins as "lesser sins"..sin is sin..period.

So here we go.. I know you are waiting with baited breath for my deep dark secrets...I am laughing right now because I again assume that none of you are still reading this.. seriously people.. go find a good book!

1.  Laziness -  I really owe an apology to my family for this one. It's true.. I am lazy. I shy away from responsibilities. I don't use my time wisely. My homeschool is a big hot mess right now. I overcommit to things that keep me from doing the things I really need to be doing. There are five million chores that need to be done. I am not a good steward of my time. Ephesians 5;15- 16 Look carefully, then how you walk,, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

2. Addiction  -  I have an addiction to food. I won't get into the past but this is certainly not my first time around with addiction.  You know what is not easy about addictions.. breaking them.  I am addicted to sugar. This is a BAD thing to be addicted to when you are facing a diabetes diagnosis.
And I will be honest.. I am not really open to talking about this one.. because I feel like people are always trying to sell me on something.  It's not that I don't know HOW to lose weight and eat right.. it's that I choose not to do the things that I know I am supposed to do.  1 Corinthians 6:12  "Everything is permissible for me" but not everything is beneficial  "Everything is permissible for me" but I will not be mastered by anything

3.  Gossip - ouch.. Dear friends, I don't love you enough to not talk about you.  Isn't that what we are saying when we talk about other people?  And this is the one that I will ask my close friends to keep me accountable to because well, they are sometimes helping me out with this (sorry to throw you under the bus, friends, but it's true).  I remember in my younger days thinking that gossip is defined as saying things that you would not say if they were in the room or saying things that you don't want to get back to them. And also defined as "Is what I am saying about this person going to make the other person think more highly of the person or less highly?"  And what does God think about what I am saying.. it is easy to forget that God is right there with every conversation.. forget being embarrassed because the person you are talking about walked into the room, I should be embarrassed because God is already in the room and is not very pleased with my lack of tongue control..   Ephesians 4:29  Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth, but such as is good for edifying as the need may be, that it may give grace to to them that hear.

I could list many more probably but those are the ones that the Lord has laid upon my heart at this time.  And the ones that I will be asking my friends to help keep me accountable.  You will never see me pretending like I have it altogether.. I will be the first to admit that my life is crazy out of control. But I recognize that and I truly believe that the Lord is going to help me put this crazy thing called life together. I will never be perfect and thank goodness there is grace for that. But I do recognize that my life is not as honoring to Christ as it should be. One day at a time, one prayer at a time, one foot in the front of the other.. Holy Spirit helping me every step of the way..God's got this

My new faith journey

My new faith journey

God has spoken to me recently and I have discovered this.. I need three things to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.. 1) Jesus Christ because He is the Son of God that came to Earth to die for our sins and it is only through Him that we can be cleansed from our sins and be right with God  2) The Bible which will is the only truth source that can show me how to trust in Christ as my Lord and Savior and 3) Prayer by which I can communicate to Christ and God the Father

Everything else is a tool that can be a help or a hindrance in the relationship with Christ and it is through Christ, the Bible and prayer that I need to recognize what is what.  

The past:  In the past 37 years, I have let my experiences, the church and people be both a help and a hindrance. In the end though, the hindering overpowered and I unconsciously walked away from Jesus about 5 years ago. I didn’t realize I was doing it and I didn’t really care until recently

Recent events:  Desperate to get back to the relationship that I once had with the Lord or what I thought I had with the Lord or what I saw other people have with the Lord, I decided I needed to leave the church that I grew up. I had 30 years of baggage and felt like I was in the middle of spiritual warfare when trying to deal with it all. And with both my husband and I, we had some differences with the church that even if we had met with church leaders to gain clarity on their position, we felt confident that we would still leave for what I can only describe as “irreconcilable differences”.  I still hold the church in high esteem. It is an amazing church but it was no longer right for our family.

Past 3 months:  In August of 2014, we began attending Grace Community Church in Marietta. I had visited several times. Already knew a couple of people that attended. And I immediately fell in love with the Biblical teaching and the people there. We started attending the Connections class and we decided that we would like to be members. I can’t see us attending any other church at this point.

Membership application.. page one.. all going great. Got to page 2 and it said something like If you died and went to Heaven would Jesus let you in? My immediate thought.. I have no idea.. And then it had a huge blank section for me to talk about my faith in Christ.  I shut the application feeling overwhelmed and knowing that I was in trouble if I couldn’t answer those questions.  I decided to hold off on the whole membership thing.

About 2 weeks ago, I was walking in the church on my way to meet the church secretary. (Note: that was my ONLY plan for walking down the hallway)... The senior pastor, John Harris, stops and asks me if he can help me with anything. Now I come from a mega church.. 1) you don’t just run into the senior pastor in the hallway and 2) if you did, you wouldn’t stop and talk to him.  So this is a little surreal and even more surreal if you know me and know that I am TERRIFIED of pastors.  So I later joked with my friends that it must have been the Spirit of God talking through me because the next thing out of my mouth was me not only speaking to the senior pastor but requesting a meeting with him to talk about the membership application and my relationship with Jesus..  Wait? What?  We decided I could meet with him and the discipleship pastor, Randy.  Okay deep breaths.. I can do this. I NEED to do this because I have no idea what Christianity is all about. And I am determined to not be in a church for the next 30 years with a stamp on my membership application and feeling like a complete fraud.

Then something happened.. I discovered that I don’t need a meeting with pastors to tell me how to have a relationship with Jesus. It’s all right in front in me. It’s all right there in this book..the Bible.  I discovered that I needed Jesus and I needed him right then and I needed to read the Bible.  So I have started.. I have started my new faith journey.  I don’t have it all figured it out and I still plan on meeting with the pastors. But I have left the baggage on the side of the road. And man, there was a lot of it. And I am looking forward to the future. The future that is filled with Christ’s love for me and my love for Him and a lifetime of learning daily how to trust and follow Him in all that I do.  I am excited. I am beyond excited. And a little scared.. so maybe I do have a little baggage left.. the baggage of “I don’t want to screw this up again”  but maybe that’s not baggage.. maybe that is me wanting to make a commitment to not walk away again. To not let things or people or the church take my focus away from Christ.  Cause if there is one thing that I have learned from all of this, it is DO NOT TAKE YOUR EYES OFF JESUS.. not for a second.

Hebrews 2: 1-2  Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Ramblings.. Teaching my kids how to deal with "b" word.. boredom

**Disclaimer: The opinions in this post are my own and are ramblings concerning MY children and how I choose to deal with them. They are not meant to make anyone defensive or make anyone feel judged. Everyone is different and this is one of those topics where my way is not the highway but well I was bored and decided to write a blog post about what I was thinking. :)**

A wiser older mother was giving me advice the other day on an issue with my son and she mentioned that parents spend a lot of time telling their kids what not to do instead of telling them what to do. It was related to a different issue but it came back to me while I had insomnia tonight when I started thinking about my kids and boredom. 

My kids rarely say that they are bored. But when they do, I have previously done what many other moms before me have done.. I make them clean. Seems reasonable, right? Ohh you're bored... let's clean! Now cleaning to combat boredom is not necessarily such a bad thing. I mean it does give them something to do and it's productive and well, depending on what I give them, they actually enjoy it. 

But the other day when my child was bored and stated the problem to me, I hesitated... see paragraph #1.. It was a "do not" moment. My first instinct was to say (in not these exact words) "No, you are not allowed to have the emotion of boredom".. Wikipedia says "Boredom is an emotional state experienced when an individual is left without anything in particular to do, and not interested in their surroundings. "  Well  is that really such a bad thing? If they view cleaning as punishment, do they really need to be punished for being bored and stating so?  Because yeah, sometimes I am punishing them. Sometimes it is the forbidden "b" word. 

I decided no.  Because truth be told.. I was bored. It was a boring day. It was raining. I had reached the end of the internet. I didn't feel like cleaning. I had no idea what to do. So I just sat there and was bored. And I decided that sometimes my kids need to learn to just be bored.  Because life is filled with boring things.  And spending 15 hours in a house is a long time to come up with things to do so it's actually kind of understandable that they were bored. 

Furthermore, I don't want my kids to view our house work as something that we do when we don't have anything else to do. I don't want them to think that we wouldn't have washed the mirrors if they hadn't stated they were bored. So really all this thinking made me think that I should never use cleaning as a consequence. 

So here's what I came up..   I am sorry that you are bored but there are a lot things to do in this house. You might even need to use your imagination to come up with them.  If you don't want to do any of them, that is fine but if you want to whine about it then you need to whine by yourself in your room.  I have a list of things that I need to get done today and you can help me with the list if you want to. 

Ideas from around the internet that also sounded interesting 

• Have child or help child make a "What to do when I am bored" list and refer to it when needed. 
• Maybe child is bored and needs adult interaction (gulp.. guess I should play that board game) 
• Some children need to be taught how to entertain themselves - I have zero suggestions on how to do this but to all the moms out there that are tripping over their child who is following them around, I feel for you.. It's a hard stage! 
• TV/video game exposure will increase boredom at other times. Being bored in a 15 hour rainy day is one thing but being bored 5 minutes after they turn off the TV would probably lead to a TV ban in my house. 
• Have a boredom contest.. Sit facing each other and see who can be the most bored for longest.  Depending on your child and their age, this will either erupt in scowls or giggles. :) 

So there we have it.. new rules .. my kids are allowed to be bored. They are allowed to state that they are bored.  No whining allowed but that is a house rule.  And many houses have a you are not allowed to say you are bored rule.. And I totally respect that!! 

Oh and suggesting they take a nap.. always appropriate. :) 

A Year of Adventures - Part 1 (Aug 2012 - Nov 2012)

A Year of Adventures - Part 1 - August 2012 - November 2012

I don't think there will be another year quite like this one. I am pretty sure that this will be known as the year that we went on ALLL those field trips. Sadly, I don't have pictures for all our adventures but here is the first part of our year in review.

August 23, 2012 - Kicked off the year at Morgan Falls Park with JFBC Homeschool group. Met some new moms and a dad!  Beautiful park! Alas, no pictures.

August 25, 2012 - Bike Rodeo with Pack 710. Andrew is a Wolf this year.

September 3rd - September 9th - Make up date for our summer trip to Hunting Island (canceled due to Tropical Storm Beryl)

September 10th -  Chattahoochee Nature - Membership this year.. the first of many trips with a lot of great friends! 

Wed September 26th - Etowah Indian Mounds - Trip 1 of 2.. we went back in the spring.  Etowah Mounds was a great field trip. We learned about the mounds where the chiefs lived, the fields which was a burial grounds, their use of the gorgeous Etowah River,  and the favorite part by most - the weapons demonstration!! 

Sat Sept 29th - Peter turned 5 on September 21st and we celebrated his birthday the following Saturday with a party at East Cobb Park with a bunch of our friends. We made him a Lego Ninjago cake. 

Saturday October 6th - We went to Berry Patch Farms to get photos in the pumpkin patch. The kids enjoy all getting to take home one baby pumpkin. The boys cousin, Evelyn, is only 2 months old in this picture and the boys feel pretty special that they get to hold her and touch her. 

Tues October 9th - We grabbed our cousin Pearl and headed to Carlton Farms with the JFBC Homeschool group and had a fun fall day. We saw the cows out in the field and fed them hay, a baby cow getting milked, other animals in the petting area. Josh got bit by a donkey..he didn't like that part.  We split into groups and did the corn maze. They love the giant PVC pipe slide. There was a big bale of hale that the kids had fun running and jumping off. 

The "gang" 

October 19th - 21st- Chris is "camp masto" at Bert Adams Scout Reservation the same weekend at Atlanta Area Council's "Spooky-Ree". He was off telling parents to move their cars back to the parking lot while the boys and I enjoyed fall festival type events.  For this weekend, we get to stay in the camp master cabin which the boys love. 

October 26th - 28th - The very next weekend, we went back to BASR.. this time as campers with Pack 710 for Foothills Fall family camping. We stayed in a canvas platform tent which was fun and different. We made survival bracelets, hung out with a lot of new Cub Scout families in our pack, participated in an outdoor worship service, viewed the stars with Mr. Ellis' cool telescope, played tug of war.  Peter's favorite part is collecting all the trading cards. 

 





Saturday November 10th - Andrew celebrated his 8th birthday with a spy party. Many friends were able to come - James, Jordan, Jayden, Kyle, Isaiah and Christopher (np) and of course, the brothers - Peter and Josh.

Monday November 12th - Our play group had a joint birthday party for Kaley Savasuk and Josh. Kaley turned 4 on November 9th and Josh turned 4 on November 12th. I have know Kaley's mom, Tina, since she was Andrew's Sunday School teacher when he was 1.  Since then, I have been blessed with an amazing friend for both myself and my boys.  Josh is starting to get into being friends with boys now (esp cool older ones) but he still likes Kaley a lot. She is a super cutie! I don't have a pic from that party but here's a pic of our birthday buddy, Kaley. 

Thursday - November 29th - Southern Museum with GCA We met up with the Rowans and toured the Southern Museum in Kennesaw with other GCA families.  The coolest part is when they got to practice being in a line and holding a musket on their shoulder like the soldiers in the Civil War. I also enjoyed learning about their uniforms. As part of the field trip, they also shot off a musket. It was loud but not too bad. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera this day. 

December is pretty busy so it can get its own post. And then there is January through May 2013 where we were just as busy or even more busy than we were in the fall! 

Our 2nd 1st Day of School and Andrew's schedule

It's funny to see that one of my last posts was why I am leaving GCA. I have said that every year and then somehow I manage to justify another year. So we are doing it another year but I swear it's the last because I don't want to do CRCT but the good news is that next year Peter will be in GCA. It has its flaws but I really do like GCA.

So tomorrow is our 2nd 1st day of School because it's the 1st day of school for GCA. But we as a family started last Monday and despite being really sick all week, we did pretty well.

Decided to organize a little bit different thanks to tips from my friend Victoria. I have a hanging file folder for all boys and for the older boys, I have 5 folders labeled Monday - Friday. For half the night, I have been printing and copying the worksheets that they need for each day.

So that Andrew knows what he needs to do each day, I printed him out a daily schedule. This will work well for him because sometimes he needs to do things with me before he can do a worksheet.  For Peter, he mostly just sits and does worksheets all day long. My challenge with him is to convince him to not do the whole week in one day.

So here is Andrew's schedule for tomorrow. I hope we get it all done and smoothly. It's 10 PM and I am going to bed. Alarm clock (for me) is going off at 6:45 AM. Kids roll out of bed around 7:30 AM.

Today's date: Monday August 13^th

Today is the first day of school of GCA!!!

Here is what ANDREW is going to do today:

Bible Story – Simeon and Anna

• Read Luke 2: 25-38 in your Bible
• Do Bible worksheets in your file
• Memorize verse -Luke 2: 26 - And it has been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ

Story of the World

• With Mommy, read story from ch 40 Rome begins to weaken – The British Rebellion
• Mommy to copy down narration for the story (narration page in school file)

Handwriting – pg 14 (Capital Partners) and pg 15 ( T and t)

Math

• Work with Mommy on 4s flash cards
• Unit 4 Lesson 8 – Log onto K12 for online portion
• Skills Update – xGerms Subtraction
• Online – Get Ready Multilpication review & Recall 4s Facts
• Offline – pg 78 Practice Multiplication worksheet (in school file)

Science

• Color My Science Notebook worksheet. With M & P, make Science Notebook
• Participate in Peter's Science lesson
• Usborne's Our World – pg 4 -5 Our Planet, Narration & Pictures
• Experiment – Hot n Cold – worksheet in school file
• Memorize Vocab – Space – the region beyond the atmosphere of Earth

Language Arts

• Spelling – Go over new spelling words with Mommy. Then write heart words on index cards and practice.
• Grammar – Review subjects and predicates. Complete Subjects and Predicates worksheet in file.

Independent Reading – Continue reading The Mouse and the Motorcycle. If finished, choose a new book! 

Coconut Chocolate Chip Baked Oatmeal

If you have never been over to Lynn's Kitchen Adventures, you gotta check it out. She has a lot of great recipes over there including all the baked oatmeals I love to make- Peanut Butter, Pumpkin and now Coconut.

I made adjustments to her recipe and came up with the following. I make a lot of changes because I don't want it to taste like straight oatmeal but I still am guessing it's better for you than Cookie Crisp cereal. :)

Coconut Baked Oatmeal

3 cups quick oatmeal
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup milk
2 TB melted butter (Lynn's recipe calls for coconut oil which I couldn't find)
2 eggs
2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup yogurt - plain or vanilla - I used vanilla Greek yogurt
3/4 cup coconut (I used sweetened)
3/4 cups to 1 cup chocolate chips (I used semi sweet)
1/2 cup brown sugar (optional topping - gives it a crispier top)

Combine all ingredients from oatmeal to coconut. Then mix in chocolate chips. Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Sprinkle brown sugar on top. Bake in 350 oven for 20-25 minutes.

My kids and I will eat through a 9x13 pan of this and any of the other baked oatmeals in no time flat and I even have one kid who won't touch traditional oatmeal but likes this.

Next year's school decisions

I know that people will continue to ask me why I am leaving Georgia Cyber Academy which we have done for 2 years so I figured I would write a blog post. Now in Kindergarten, I wrote a similar blog post and then we ended up doing it in 1st Grade. I feel more confident that my decision is going to stick this time but don't hold me to it. :)

Pros of GCA - I like their Math and their Language Arts (sort of). And their History tied into what we were doing with Story of the World. Andrew really likes all of it. He likes the online math lessons, the reading room with audios. He didn't like phonics or grammar but he wouldn't like that with any curriculum. It's free.

Cons of GCA - teacher conferences, quarterly portfolios, remembering to enter attendance, health and PE hours, dealing with public school stuff, phonics. And for us, we were doing 2 curriculums since we were also doing classical education stuff and we also did Timothy Ministry on Fridays. So it was a lot for us.

What we are moving to..

Language Arts - Sonlight Grade 3 reading schedule and companion guide. Going to get most of the books from the library. Shurley Grammar - I like grammar but this is going to be a lot of work! No more phonics. Haven't decided on a Spelling program or whether or not to do Worldly Wise. Continue to read independently and suggested literature from Well Trained Mind. This by far is the MOST overwhelming subject because there are so many parts of it!

Science - Elemental Science - will be studying Earth Science and Astronomy. Excited about family membership to the Tellus Museum! This fits into the Well Trained Mind classical schedule.

History - Story of the World - Book 2 - Rome and Medieval times - Part of WTM classical schedule.

Math - Going to compare Saxon 3 with Horizons Math 3 and see which one I like better. Looked at online curriculums and not sure I liked anything except my kids are in love with Dreambox.com so we might use that as supplemental. Thought about k12.com since Andrew likes GCA math but it's not the same as what we are doing and repeats entire units in 3rd grade that we already did this year. Plus I don't want to spend $300 on a curriculum each year that I can't use on the next kid. So it's out.

Andrew will continue in Timothy Ministry and Peter will join him in the pre-K program. If there are any more curriculum decisions that I have to make, it's going to have to wait because my head is spinning right now!!