I don't think much of them, frankly.  Oh, sure, there's the get-away-from-your-house-and-your-usual-routine-and-do-some-stuff-you-wouldn't-get-to-do-every-day part of it that is...interesting...but all of that, I believe, comes at a price.   This vacation, that price was...vacation.

Truthfully, we can look back on our time away and comment that we had fun.  We did so much...in the midst of all of that, we have to be able to extract some fun from the memory banks.  And please understand me here...I know that we were so blessed to be able to do what we did.  I think we could have done it better.  That's all.  We have never done vacation like this before.  We've almost never done vacation before, frankly.  It's all new.  There's an art to it.  We haven't learned it yet.

High Points:

: : The kids not figuring out that we were "doing Disney" until we had pulled the van into the resort where we stayed and Seth said to them, "Guys.  Do you understand that we're in Disney World?  That we're here for four days?  That you're going to Disney World?"  I have video of us going under the "Welcome to Walt Disney World" sign with absolutely no reaction from the children.  I guess we played that one a bit too well. 

: : The beach.  Gosh, I love the beach.  I need a beach.

: : Moments at Disney.  I so enjoy Disney.  Seth made the comment that he realized as we were walking through Epcot that much of this Disney vacation was really about me.  Hmm.  I don't know that I would go that far...I just expected that the kids would love it as much as I do.  

: : Spending time with my in-laws and nephews.  It's a tangled web there...but they love us so much.  We can't walk into that house without knowing how much they love us.  And we so love them.

: : The feeling that we were spoiling our kids.  Honestly, it is one of my favorite feelings. 

: : My nephew was born last night while I was driving through Virginia.  He's beautiful!  And perfect.

: : Driving from Zephyrhills, FL to Williamsport, PA with six stops for food, bathrooms, and gasoline in 19 hours flat.

: : Unexpectedly great hotel rooms on the ride down and back.  Love last minute travelocity finds!!  Especially with good continental breakfast plans.

: : Safe travel.  My van.  Which had adequate space for 5 and all their necessities for 11 days even with 140 pounds of wild boar in a cooler next to the back seat and hanging over the rear stow and go space.  I don't love my van yet...but I'm thankful for her.

: : Chelsea, still alive--and the fact that my parents brought the dogs to us today.

We are grateful to be home.  Grateful to have had my parents with us for the afternoon/evening today.  Grateful for the experience of Florida again after 7 years away.  Grateful for the blessing of vacation and a break...and glad to be back from it.  Soooo much more to say about the trip.  So not going to tonight.  If you're planning a trip to Disney soon, call me.  Our week was a pretty good example of what not to do.  We will do it better next time.

I

can't

wait.

I will have my camera ready for the moment they realize where we are going and what we're doing there...maybe I'll have to post it tonight.  And right now I am reminding myself that tonight...will come very quickly if I don't stop looking at all of the places we could eat and the things we could do over the next four days and go to bed.  My brain just won't seem to turn off.  I probably should have done this before the night before we started driving to Orlando...but that would just take some of the fun right out of the situation, wouldn't it??  Thank goodness for my dear friend and travel agent Rich and his trip planning expertise!!  If you need someone to hook you up with a great vacation package...I can definitely give you his number!! 

OK, OK, really.  I'm going to bed now.  I might not sleep, but I'm going to bed.

*giggle*

So.  I moved on.  After those moments of really, really angry, of course.  And after I cleaned up the red Faygo from every single surface of my in-law's beautiful, perfect, white-walled, glass-tabled, Halloween-decorated kitchen.  And fought to keep an internet connection in their house (after fighting to even have a connection at the hotel) for long enough to reserve a new hotel room (because, you see, I had to move the kids and myself out of the hotel we were in this morning.  It was simply the most repulsive, irritating room I had ever, ever stayed in.  Ever.  And that includes that interesting room we slept in for two nights in Myrtle Beach in 1993, Melissa.  And the cabins and dorms at all of those camps during my summer on Heirborne tour.  And the houses we stayed in through my 4 years of Believers.).   When those things were over...and Seth gave me directions (from the car on his way home from wild boar hunting with his Dad) to get to the beach...we headed out and spent a couple of wonderful hours at Indian Rock beach.  Came back and checked into our new hotel (I've decided we're just going to choose Best Western every time from now on), had dinner with my in-laws, spent an hour at their house while the kids played guitar hero, and then crashed at the hotel.

It's vacation.  So, it's fine.  But it really has to get better tomorrow.  No more broken, too small showers, bathroom fans so loud they scare your afraid-of-the-dark children who then choose to use the bathroom in the dark instead of turning on the light, exploding soda bottles, stupid boar hunts, floors so dirty you won't let your children sit on them, unreachable sisters-in-law, in-law parents who feel terrible about all of the stuff going wrong, fighting over the condition of the van after spending the majority of three days in it...none of that.  Tomorrow, we head to the Tampa Aquarium.  Tomorrow we spend the whole day as a family.  Tomorrow...we start our vacation.  

The end.  

Our studies of ancient Egypt have come at a wonderful time for us...we always struggle at this time of year to find good costume ideas, and then I waste about two weeks thinking about how I should definitely get started on costumes and buy fabric and get organized, only to cram costume preparation into the last three days before Halloween.  This year...things become even more complicated as we leave for 11 days in Florida on the 20th of October...meaning that I don't even have the last two weeks before Halloween to lose my mind.  And, umm, unfortunately, I now have less than a week to pull it all together in order to have it done before we leave. 

We started looking at costume ideas yesterday.  Sigh.

One of the (many, many) things I love about My Father's World is that when you learn about a subject, especially in history, you read about it in three or four different places before you ever open a book from the book basket.  The book basket expands upon what you've read even further.  By the time you finish studying a topic, you've read it in so many different ways and from so many different perspectives, you literally have no choice but to remember it!  Don't you wish you had learned history in that way??  I hated history growing up.  I am nearly certain I hated it because I despised reading textbooks. Do you remember sitting at your desk in grade four, reading the information about...let's say, New York State...from your textbook, then answering 10 comprehension questions at the end of the section in proper question/answer form??   I truly don't remember rich literature experiences in elementary school regarding...well, much of anything...but certainly not history.  If you ask my kids what subject they love...they'll tell you history.  I am sure things have changed in the public schools in terms of how literature is used.  I can say that because I know what I did in the classroom after I started teaching.  But...I know that my kids will remember ancient Egypt from their Fifth Grade studies.  

Their Halloween costumes this year will remind them too. :)  During our research, Bryson decided that mummies are disgusting.  When you're a 7-year-old boy...that is so cool. He will be King Tut's mummy, of course.  Lainie?  An Egyptian Princess (which will look an awful lot like a Greek Goddess...but we'll get to Greek culture this year too...).  All that bling!!  And Reasa...she has been thinking Cleopatra.  Today, she saw a cowgirl costume...I'm trying to talk her out of it.  We'll see.

Can I just mention how glad I am that this year marks the first Halloween completely devoid of frilly princess or fairy costumes??!  Hooray for Creation to the Greeks!!

 

I delivered a wedding cake today.  This is not particularly newsworthy.  I do this on occasion.  I would like to do this on more frequent occasions.  If you need a cake, please call me.  I love making cakes.  Wedding cakes, birthday cakes, shower cakes, cakes for absolutely no reason whatsoever...I love making cakes.  

K.  So.  The cake.  And more importantly, the story of the cake.

First off...the process of making this cake was pretty great.  I have made cakes that, overall, stressed me out more than anything...and occasionally, cakes that have made me feel like, hey, I might actually kind of know what I'm doing.  I proved to myself that I could paint a King and Queen of hearts and a "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada" sign with a toothpick and gel paste colors.  Yes, it took me three hours to do those things, but I did it.  And I was relatively pleased with the outcome.  I also proved to myself that I could make semi-realistic looking poker chips out of fondant.  I kind of got my groove back with my marshmallow fondant--I'm pretty sure it had just been so long since I seriously made fondant that I forgot all the tricks I had learned before.  After all of this, I was pretty confident that something would go incredibly wrong with the cake before the day ended.  I had to deliver it to Horseheads, NY...so I had plenty of time for things to go wrong.  I stacked and decorated the cake minus the poker chips, cards and sign on Friday night, with plans to finish decorating once I arrived at the reception site. Other than an irritatingly flawed yellow frosting line above the red fondant-ribbon border...the cake itself made me pretty happy.  I headed out this morning...and even had time for a 15 minute stop to visit my mom on the way through town.

As I walked into the reception site...something suddenly looked very wrong.  My bride and groom got married in Las Vegas last month...and their reception was being held for friends and family who weren't there with them to celebrate.  The theme...you guessed it...Vegas!!  The cake reflected their theme.  The site I walked into...very elegant, very formal, very wedding, very purple.  As I walked with the bartender to the cake table, I knew something was wrong...and looked at the table to read "Amanda and Caleb Drake" on the centerpiece...yeah.  I explained to the girl that I definitely was not in the correct location...and rushed back to my car, where I attempted to reach someone who would know where I needed to deliver the cake.  Thank God my aunt knew where to go...I had written down Elk's Lodge.  Nope.  American Legion.  

Sigh.

7 minutes later, I arrived at the correct reception location...where my bride waited impatiently for me to arrive (about 20 minutes late)...and she definitely liked the cake.  That might be an understatement.  She couldn't believe it looked so much like the picture she sent me, which made me...hmm...ecstatic would be a good word.  I threw in some things that made her cake a little different from the one in the picture she found...but it was definitely "inspired" by someone else's creativity. :)  All of the girls from the kitchen had to come check out the cake (and I have to tell you...having people stand there and go on and on...it's flattering, don't get me wrong...but dang...how embarrassing!  I definitely prefer the drop-off/set-ups where I'm the only one there other than waiters setting up tables.).  One of the women went into the kitchen just raving about the cake.  In the kitchen stood a woman attending her aunt's funeral dinner...held in the room next to the reception room.  She asked if she could come in and see the cake, and they wandered in.  She introduced herself as Lisa, I think, and it came up that she worked for Ace of Cakes.  I kind of brushed it off (as I stuck on poker chips, gold coins, and all the paint-work), figuring more than just Duff Goldman's show on TLC probably went by that name, and she asked me about details--what kind of fondant, how I made the cards and sign, etc.  We talked tips of the trade for the next 5 or 6 minutes...and it suddenly became apparent (as she told me about the Cricut machine for cutting gumpaste, and a machine for rolling fondant evenly, and the $16,000, 8-tier cake for which she and 8 other people spent the past six months making sugar flowers...) that she worked for Ace of Cakes, behind the scenes, not on the show.  Her specialty is calligraphy.  I think it was that moment that I started feeling...completely inadequate.  She pulled out her camera phone and took a picture of my cake, telling me repeatedly how great she thought it was.  Then she took a picture of me with my cake, and took my webpage address, and told me she was going to get my cake and picture put on the website. 

Nothing may come of this.  I realize that.  She may not have that kind of pull.  

But wow.  Was I flattered.

Today might be the best day ever with my cake business.  And even if nothing comes of it ever...it was still pretty great.  And if the worst thing that happens with a cake I'm thrilled with is that I almost deliver it to the wrong location...I think I'll take it.

Hey.  Need a cake?  Call me.  I make 'em.

 

 

Help me out here.

We use Spelling Power for our spelling program.  We love Spelling Power.  I absolutely hated spelling lists at the beginning of the week as a kid...and the concept of having 20 words handed to a child on Monday, with a test scheduled on Friday and then they write the words 10 times, write them in a sentence, and study them at home Thursday night...to be tested on Friday...and after that, more than likely never dealing with that word again even if they got it wrong on the test...just seems pointless to me.  As the kid who generally got the spelling words right on the pre-test on Monday...half the time, I didn't even learn new spellings in a week.  How silly!!  Spelling power introduces new words each day...if the child knows how to spell the word, you move on to the next.  If the child spells the word incorrectly, they cross it out, spell it correctly in the next column, and that becomes a study word.  For Reasa and Lainie, we'll go until we get to as many as 4 or 5 study words for that day, and then you stop giving new words, and they go through a 10-step study process (where they spell it, say it, write it, close their eyes and spell it and say it, and so on), then they write each word in a sentence.  Sometimes we follow this up with other practice techniques--making the words out of play doh, writing them in rice trays, making pancakes with the letter shapes...etc.  Basically, the kids get 15-20 new words a week.  This is wonderful!  Here's the rub:  my children turn into whimpering puddles of ridiculousness when they spell a word wrong.  The first missed word, it's a mild pout. The second word, they start fussing. The third word?  Oh, my gosh...it's like their little worlds came tumbling down and they feel like hopeless idiots who have been sentenced to a life of stupidity.  And I've made the girls go to 4 or 5 a day.  Just imagine the result.  This may sound strong to you.  Let me assure you...it's worse than that.  And it's every day.  Every day that they get words wrong (and the lists are getting harder, which is good!!  But it means more words wrong than they're used to).  Every single day, I assure their precious little heads that they have to get words wrong occasionally, otherwise there is absolutely no point in doing a spelling lesson.  They have to get words wrong in order to learn new spellings. If they already knew how to spell every word in the English language, as their teacher, I would not be a necessary part of their lives.  Now...if they want to learn the spellings of every single word in the English language on their own time and impress me with their knowledge when we do Spelling lessons...hey, have at it.  But I can guarantee you, this is not going to happen.

Today, I put my foot down.  I told them (Lainie specifically) that I would never again have this conversation with them.  They would get words wrong daily, that was the point, and I would never listen to them whine or fuss about it again.  If they did whine or fuss again, I would assign them the ominous task of writing 25 times, "I will not whine or fuss or pout about spelling words ever again. I need to learn to spell new words."  If it happened after that, I would increase that number by 10 each time it happened.  Or maybe more.  For Lainie, this would be a punishment pretty much worse than death.  And I told her it would happen during free time...that she would not hold the rest of us up while she pouted and whined about having to write sentences.  Plus, if she did that I would give her more.

It was not a good mommy moment.  That Homeschooling Mommy of the Year Award?  Yeah, I wasn't in the running for that anyway.

I want to believe that the reason they get so upset is because they just can't stand getting things wrong.  They want so desperately to do everything with excellence that the thought of missing a spelling word rocks their worlds.  I'm pretty sure this is not the reason most of the time.  With each misspelled word, the work load becomes greater.  Another word with which they must work through those 10 steps.  Another sentence to write.  More school to do.  For Lainie, this is definitely the case.  For Reasa...however...I think it's pride.  She hates the thought of being wrong.  I know this is true for her because it transfers to other areas of her life.  This is just another area where we need to deal with this.  These are the parts of parenting nobody tells you about.  And absolutely nobody tells you how to actually deal with them.

Time to bust out Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours again.  Maybe Kevin Leman mentioned something in there about this issue...I didn't read through to these ages...

So, tell me...how do you deal with pride issues or laziness in your child's schoolwork?  Other areas?  I wish I could tell you that I handle these things beautifully.  My reaction above would indicate...otherwise.  

Now, it's quarter-time.  And it's more like fun than work.  And I can mostly do it from home...

...but it's a job.  

I'm the Worship Arts Assistant/Director/Copy Maker/Organizer/Crazy Person Who Almost Sort Of Knows What She's Doing.  I had my first staff meeting tonight...more of a training session than anything, it was truly an opportunity to get to know the three other new staff people who came on with me this month, and our Lead Pastor.  

Life is good.  Life is a little nuts, but it's good.  

So, now that I've got the next three weeks' worship lineups planned, if you happen to know how to insert a video clip from wingclips.com into a powerpoint presentation...hey...I'm all ears.  

...but it was close.

The redeeming factors?  Spending an hour helping a friend plan for her daughter's Tinkerbell 9th birthday party (seriously, some day, I'm going to run a party-planning business and I'm going to throw birthday parties for children.  no joke.  and i get to make the cakes.  i think i'll do this when my kids are in college and i need a kid fix before i have grandies.).  Talking to my pastor about what he expects of me for this weekend's services.  Watching Bryson wear his glasses and read like he's never read before.  I'm sure the novelty will wear off really, really soon...but for today, he read like a little maniac.  Did this mommy's heart good.

Yep.  That was it.

No, having my husband show up with a Contractor and his foreman without any notice and take a tour through my house was not a high point.  

No, having Reasa's trainer approach me about the possibility of leasing the horse she is currently riding as part of her general lesson fee was not a high point.

No, the discussion Seth and I had regarding this option was not a high point.

Nor was the conversation regarding another opportunity...

Having to tell a friend I just couldn't help her with her statistics of sociology homework because I didn't understand it any more than she did...nope.  Not a high point.

Fearing I had stepped on another friend's toes...heck no.

Tomorrow?  It wouldn't take much to make it a better day.  I don't want to tempt Murphy, though.  So, I'm going to say...it's going to be better.

Please, God.

...I get to teach my kids the science of pyramids.  How fun is that?

...I get to jump in headfirst into our next Singapore math curriculum with the girls.  If only they loved math as much as I do...

...I get to experience two of my littlies adjusting to everyday life with reading glasses.  So thankful that's all they need.

...I get to step into a role in my church I never expected I would have anywhere...but feel pretty stinking blessed to be trusted to tackle.

...I get to watch as the monkeys put together Greek root words and make sense of them...and watch lightbulbs pop over their heads.

...I get to listen as my kids learn the discipline of repenting...and accepting Grace and Forgiveness.

...I get to pray more.  And focus more.  And concentrate more directly.  

...I get to intensify my karate workout as my instructor prepares me for a tournament.  And I get to feel those competitive butterflies kick around in my stomach again.

...I get to design two cakes...one for my sweet niece's birthday, and one for her great aunt's wedding reception.

I love this week.  And it's only Tuesday.  

I just sat down for the first time (basically) since 7:30 this morning.  If you know anything about the Jewish practice of "Sabbath," you know that this 24 hours of rest begins at just about sundown on Friday evening, with all of the preparations for the evening meal and the next day (including house cleaning, meal preparation, etc.) complete by the time the evening meal and its blessings and traditions begin.  This is a beautiful theory.  I'm sure that if I had planned well for this before today, I may have been able to accomplish that.

OK, maybe not.

I have to say, though, amidst my crazy cake-for-125-decorating-and-delivering, sit-at-Munroe-Muffler-for-an-hour-and-a-half-waiting-for-a-diagnosis-and-an-oil-change-that-cost-me-over-$200, run-Lainie-to-the-gym-after-cake-delivery, make-another-cake-for-tomorrow-while-making-our-Sabbath-meal kind-of a day...my children cleaned this house till it shone.  And nearly without complaint.  Our curriculum planned this day as a "day of preparation" rather than a normal school day, and I'll tell you...if I ever needed a day planned to have them help me...today was the day.  Tomorrow may not be quiet (with a car scheduled for repairs at 9:00, two kids' eye doctor appointments at 10:20, a cake to finish for a trip to Elmira, a plan to hopefully buy a new car in the afternoon (we'll see about that), and that trip to Elmira...), and it may not foster reflection...but the preparation for tomorrow has helped me to appreciate my kids...the blessing they are, their willingness to help me when I need them, their sweet, gentle spirits during our celebration, and knowing that they can flex and stretch during craziness as well as restfulness.  

We need to find some restfulness. 

Maybe next month.  :)

...suck.

You start homeschooling thinking it's going to be this wonderful, schedule-free situation.  Oh, it's wonderful all right.  But the schedule...well, if you have a doctor's appointment in the morning, a car repair scheduled for the afternoon...no problem!!  You can work it in!  You can school around it.  In theory...this is true.  In reality...this sucks.  

Now, don't get me wrong.  I know that all you working moms...you have to fit this in around your work schedule, or during your lunch breaks, or on your weekends.  I get it.  I understand.  If I had to choose, of course I would choose what I have.  Flexibility is a wonderful thing.

Sometimes.

Some days, when I know that tomorrow, we have a dentist appointment in the morning and have to go look at a car in the afternoon, then we have gymnastics and karate and worship team rehearsal in the evening...and I need to change over my license and car registration and that tomorrow after the dentist would be the most convenient time to do that...I have to strategically plan school.  What can we take with us to the dentist's office so that we don't lose an entire morning of schooling?  What can we leave off tomorrow and pick up on Friday to make tomorrow a more realistic day when we're out of the house for hours?  Friday is a "day off" in preparation for our start of Rosh Hashanah celebration (yes, I know that started last weekend, but we're celebrating it to understand the biblical feasts, not because it's when they're really happening.  I do not mean to be sacreligious by any means...really.) and sabbath...and I have a cake to be delivered by 6, and one to begin for Saturday.  Couldn't we just do a couple of things on Friday morning that we're going to go crazy trying to fit in on Thursday??

UGH!!  

I always work it out.  Really.  But never without losing my mind a little bit.  And if you ask the kids...they probably don't even notice.  But when we're running around like maniacs, and school gets checked off as kind of an afterthought...

...I hate those days.  

You can pray for us tomorrow.  I'm going to fit it all in...but I'm going to slightly lose my mind in doing this.  

I love homeschooling.  Everything else...well, some days, it could all go away and I'd be ok with that.

I think my kids are "creationed" out.  

Don't get me wrong...it's a great topic for my kids to explore.  They still can't tell you exactly what happened on each day, or how the rest of Biblical history progresses in exact sequence...so there is always more to learn, always deeper to dig.  But they know the stories.  And therefore, they assume they are experts and shouldn't need to study this further.  This has become a sticking point in our schooling this year.  Because, you see, they aren't just applying this philosophy of "we've studied this before...we're over it" to History and Bible.  They have decided that anything we've covered in any subject shouldn't be revisited, and they currently plan to throw a fit about it if I bring it up.

It has been an interesting couple of math lessons, let me tell you.

I had the audacity to bust out a couple of review sheets on 2-digit multiplication and long division last week in the midst of our Singapore 3B review.  You would have thought I had told them they had to conjugate 30 greek verbs.  And when they suddenly realized they didn't remember how to correctly do these problems (because every problem of this type wound up with a big red box around it on each of their papers)...the meltdown began.  "We shouldn't have to do this again" was met with "But you don't know how to do it anymore" and the comeback? "But we already learned it! We shouldn't have to ever do it again!"  This led to a lengthy discussion (ok, so it was more like a lecture) about how all of the information you learn builds upon all of the stuff you already know...and how knowing how to do this type of problem will help them when they have to learn more difficult math, and might even help them with more complex science and so on...it pretty much went right over their heads.  They sat at their workstations and cried...but not because they were worried about that difficult math or complex science...they just didn't want to do long division or two-digit multiplication.  

So...tell me...how do you handle it when your kids meltdown over something they're doing for school (besides the repeated asking of yourself why on earth you chose to homeschool, or reminding them that if they were sitting in a classroom with 25 other students and their teacher, they wouldn't be crying over a multiplication problem)?  Especially when it's truly not too difficult for them?  Especially when it's a matter of plain-old-stubborn-refusal-to-want-to-work-at-something-that's-less-than-obvious?  Or am I the only one battling this??

In reading through one of those amazing homeschooling mom's blogs tonight (a friend who writes briefly about her schooling nearly every day), she linked to another friend who wanted to keep track of bloggers who blog about their experiences with My Father's World curriculum...I realized I almost never write about what goes on day-to-day in our schooling.  Almost never.  We currently use My Father's World Creation to the Greeks this year...with a smattering of other things (all recommended by MFW, with some additional read-alouds thanks to Sonlight's list for our grade levels), and we absolutely love it.  This is our third year with MFW, and if you were to ask me any given day, I would recommend it in a heartbeat.  With that said, at this point, my lack of writing regularly about school changes.  I write about everything else...with the goal of remembering things I know I will forget, and maybe helping my kids remember it some day when my memory is truly gone...because I haven't taken the time to write it down in any sort of journal.  I can't promise that anything we do in a given day will remotely interest any of you...I can't promise that I'll say anything inspiring about our schooling...but then, that won't be a big difference between that and what I already write.  

So, umm, consider yourselves warned.

By 11:00, the first load was off the trailer...and life got a little nuts again...but it was nuts inside a house that is ours.

*insert sigh of relief here*

Since then, we have discovered much about this wonderful place...how fabulous a clean, working pool is when your kids have been desperately wanting to swim every day of the summer.  How wonderfully said pool occupies them when mommy has a million boxes to sort and unpack.  How spoiled I was with the kitchen in the brown house...but how incredible my father is for restructuring the existing pantry (including knocking out a wall, pushing it back, and adding shelves) to make it more usable for me.  How huge and fanastic the classroom space is and how much more productive the school year will be as a result.  How yucky carpet can become when people don't remove their shoes or train their animals well.  How textured walls become when one applies faux finishes to them...and how interesting that is to cover.  How far you can stretch one can of chocolate brown paint in a 13'x21' room that started out light grey.  How much furniture it actually takes to fill a 2500 square foot home.  How long it takes to sweep, mop and vacuum a 2500 square foot home.  How quickly the floors in that home become...well, yucky.  How a little more than a third of an acre in a neighborhood where you already feel welcomed and at home seems a lot bigger than the little more than two acres in the middle of the woods that you thought you really wanted.  How great it is to be over the hump of "transition," and moving quickly into "settled."  

I have to tell you, though...I've been wandering around this house, going through the motions of "getting settled," and not quite sure how to feel at home here. I think that I have spent more than a year feeling not-at-home. We listed the house in Painted Post on August 20, 2008.  We sold the house and moved on October 24, knowing that the cabin was as temporary as three months, but more likely closer to six.  We lived in the cabin until May, but had an initial closing date on the brown house of March 13.  We actually moved to the brown house in May...but within a week of moving there, issues had come up...and we knew all was not well.  We moved out on August 13, and into my parents, then here on the 31st.  My brain is still swimming.  I keep feeling like, "Well, I'm going to paint this room, but I'm going to save the paint chip...I want this for the next house."  And, "I love this (fill-in-the-blank-feature), but I'm not going to get too attached."  It seems like there's a lot at stake this time...I love this house.  So much more than the last house.

It is ours.  Period.  The papers are signed.  The check was handed over.  The deal is done.  No turning back.  I keep having to remind myself.

So, in the midst of all of this "transition," we've torn out that pantry, painted two bedrooms and the classroom, gone to lessons and rehearsals, attended a neighbor's birthday party, groomed a horse, gone to a horse show (Reasa, as usual, did very well), found a wonderful ice cream place (that's open year-round and makes it's own ice cream...mmmmmmm), restructured a classroom, sorted curriculum, built desks, and had our first day of school.  

Which, I must add, rocked.

I love the classroom.  It is my favorite part of this house.  Seth kept coming into the room yesterday while I was working and saying things like, "You're going to love this room, aren't you, Mrs. Frazer?" and "You look like such a teacher in this room," and "Wait until your homeschooling friends see this room," and so on.  I even have a chalkboard painted on the wall that's the same color as the wall itself...this is the kids' favorite feature of the room, I think...and it was my last-minute addition.  Along with corkboards above each kid's desk.  One more addition of pretty white shelves above their desks, and a couple of coats of white paint on the now-wood bookshelves we already have, and it will literally be the perfect classroom...I can't wait to take pictures of it completed.  It made such a huge difference in our day today...everything in one place...everything where we need it...everything usable and accessible and organized.  

*insert sigh of relief here*

We're here.  We're getting settled.  We're loving it.  It's taking some adjusting...as usual...but...we'll get there.