Author: Angela

I write so my family will always have letters from home.

Goals and patterns

I don’t think of myself as a goal-oriented person because I don’t make New Year’s resolutions and if I make a goal, I rarely write it down. However, I do try to establish patterns in my life. One of those patterns is to read a book a week. Oh, snap. Now it’s written down.

I made this goal after I learned that President Bush read a book a week. If he could do it, so could I. (You can read whatever you want into that comment.) I’ve never made it to 52 books a year (and I mean grown-up books!), but it doesn’t matter. Sometimes I pick up a 900 page novel and that’s just not going to be finished in a week… unless it’s Tolstoy. Sometimes life gets too busy, but I don’t scold myself.

With my schedule, I can only read little bits here and there when I am waiting in the car and this doesn’t amount to a lot of progress. I also don’t have a lot of evenings available. What this means is that I usually have to dedicate a day each week to reading. It’s a pajama day. It’s the day we have a meal from the freezer for dinner. It’s usually a Monday or a Tuesday. I still teach and oversee school, but I do minimal housework. It’s one of my favorite days of the week. It brings me into focus. It makes me feel spoiled. The kids like it, too, because they have a little more freedom.

Do you have a goal or pattern of living that feeds your soul?

Frontier

Each of us lives to forge a path through a frontier, a place no one has traveled. I don’t count myself as unique in my feelings, but it feels a bit lonely in my frontier today. Motherhood has always felt like parting curtain after curtain over vistas I could barely imagine. Paige has been the little pioneer who has borne the task of living the results of my reactions to each new vista.

I realized this week that my vision for my children during the past few years hasn’t stretched much past the age of 15. We’ve passed that ridge and now I feel more than a little suspended. I don’t want Paige to feel as suspended as I do. To whom can I talk? I worked for years to build a community among home educators here, but as the years have passed, Paige and Daniel’s age group has dwindled.  In our church congregation I am one of the oldest mothers. Paige has no one her age who attends church. She never complains. I just keep telling her that Heavenly Father knows where she lives and that it will all work out. My question, through my certain knowledge of God’s hand in our lives is, “What do we do now?”

I feel a little jump of excitement inside for whatever is next. We’ll figure it out like we always do, remembering that Heavenly Father knows where we are.

Celebrate

Do you keep a treasure box of precious notes? I have a box in my closet filled with sweet gifts and cards from my children. My favorite are the spontaneous, misspelled notes which they obviously created themselves with no editor overstepping the bounds of their devotion.

It seems that only children have the courage to try to put their love into poetry. Should it be this way? Shouldn’t we be braver as we age, matching our growing appreciation with a little bit of sentiment? I believe that mothers’ acts of love help give us the capacity to love others because they are the best messengers to carry a portion of God’s love for us.

Let’s celebrate that, and be courageous in our gestures of gratitude.

Wedding Day

We were married before most people in this picture had an email address.

Our first home didn’t have a computer and we couldn’t imagine a need for cell phones.

Obviously, when we were engaged, we didn’t make it “Facebook official.”

We have no digital photos of our wedding day and the only video footage we have is on VHS.

Our car had no air conditioning and I had still not had braces or my wisdom teeth pulled.

Gasoline was $1.30 a gallon. I think stamps were $0.34.

Four of the six children in the front row are now married, two are parents, one has a mission call, and the youngest graduates from high school this month.

Several of our relatives in this picture have passed away.

At this time, neither Richard nor I had earned a college degree. Only one of us had a job for the summer. We moved to a new state and our important belongings easily fit in the trunk.

In many ways, it doesn’t seem like 17 years have passed, but when I look at the life we have now, I see how much has changed. It’s true that the most important choice you ever make is the person you marry, and I appreciate the impact of the decision more each year. I am so grateful that he asked and that I said yes.

We didn’t have much, but we had each other, and that was and has always been everything I wanted.

You’ve got to have fun

I teach Newton’s Laws of motion using a hovercraft. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to teach a large group of elementary age children. One of the parents snapped these photos and I am so glad to have them. It was just a fun day. Daniel was my helper.

 We had a father and a grandfather there and I was so glad that they were willing to help. Timothy, Mark, and Daniel all took rides, but I don’t have photos of all of them.

I think this picture is hilarious. My favorite part of the class was after the kids left and all of the adults took a turn on the hovercraft.

The villain speaks truth

Claudius in Hamlet has some of the best lines. To hide my nerdy nature, I had to hold myself back from quoting him last night to my friend who had just told me about all her troubles.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,

But in battalions. (Hamlet, 4.5)

 

I think about this quote as I try to juggle all of my responsibilities (and do a poor job of it):

 And, like a man to double business bound,

I stand in pause where I shall first begin,

And both neglect. (Hamlet, 3.3)

Claudius also knows what women like to hear. To Ophelia, who was too crazy at the time to appreciate it:

How do you, pretty lady?

 

Pretty Ophelia–

 

And a little reminder to me to be more purposeful in my prayers,

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

(Hamlet, 3.3)

Do you have any Shakespeare in your pocket that you can draw from now and then? If not, then you should. There is something comforting in being understood. And that guy understood people.

 

The Bunker after battle

This is a picture of what I saw when I walked into the school room this morning. It’s such a messy, useful room! I keep meaning to take a picture of it when it’s clean, but it doesn’t happen very often. I’m okay with that. I’ve discovered that most of us in this family like to arrange our projects about us and hunker down for battle within our book bunkers.

I have one person who has abandoned the school room altogether. He does his work in his bedroom where it’s quiet. He wears his pajamas while doing his math facts, his pillows arranged carefully behind him. What a life.

Spring term Shakespeare

These last few weeks Paige has been studying Shakespeare. We began with tragedy.

And then we needed a break from tragedy.

Next, we read A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

She wrote and illustrated a children’s version of the story.

Then we watched the play.

It was a good time and now we’re studying Hamlet. She’s an old pro at Hamlet because we studied a children’s version several years ago when we performed the play with friends.

I’m a believer in helping kids discover simplified versions of the classics when they are young so they already know the plots and they can enjoy the language of the originals when they get older.

Good preparatory Shakespeare materials:

A picture book: A Midsummer Night’s Dream retold by Bruce Coville, illustrated by Dennis Nolan

For elementary grades: The Shakespeare Can Be Fun Series by Lois Burdett

For 5-7th grade: Shakespeare Stories by Leon Garfield and Michael Foreman

More here and here.