Life Nurturing Education

My goal is to create one flower bed a year. Some goals fizzle. We bought this home four years ago, but only one garden graces our property. Life, literally, interrupted my plans the year I gave birth to a sweet little girl. Then, last spring, we bought a new septic system. Heavy equipment squishing around the yard wasn’t conducive to planting. This year is different. My waist bends, and the plumbing works. So I’m adding another garden. Most people start in the front, but not me.

Massive magnolia trees fill our front yard. A few bushes cling to life. Monkey grass spreads around the porch. And a shovel doesn’t go more than two inches into the ground without hitting roots. The roots that destroyed our plumbing. The roots that cracked the foundation. The roots that suck up all the water. Our front yard remains barren. Until we get dirt for raised landscaping, I’m working in the backyard. It’s easier to restrain the dog than break my back and shovel.

I forgot how messy gardening is. Dirt is in my hair, under my fingernails, and on my clothes. I forgot how hard gardening is. The sod is shoveled scoop by scoop. My children help, but they want to plant the seeds without the work. They want to enjoy the harvest without the wait.

When Angel wrote of her desire for a clean house, I encouraged her,

We are preparing the soil in our children’s hearts. Pushing a plow and pulling weeds tends to make a mess.

Seeds of truth cannot take root and grow, unless our children’s hearts are pliable and sustentative. Scattering seeds upon impenetrable ground has little effect. With diligence, the ground is cultivated. With patience, the seeds sprout. The work we do sometimes seems invisible, but roots stretch beneath the surface giving life. Let’s continue preparing for the harvest, even though it involves daily scrubbing.

The Principle Approach uses a notebook methodology. As a student reasons through lessons, her thoughts are recorded in various, creative ways. Notebooks are a tool for preserving scholarship, but they can, also, be used outside of school.

Years ago, I typed and printed recipes in constant use and placed them in a plain, black binder. My intention was to make a crafty cover to transform this workhorse, but, instead, our waffle recipe is protected by clear plastic. This humble notebook is used almost every day. Pages are easily added, and recipes can be stuffed in the front pockets until we try them.

A post about a Homemaking Binder reminded me of another notebook I made. It was going to organize my plethora of responsibilities. At the beginning of August, I placed lesson plans, calendar, and schedule into a 3 ring binder. The idea was noble, but I haven’t used it much. With 2008 imminent, I am ready to try again.

My theory is this notebook sat on the shelf because of my lack of investment. The workbook-type system I copied was too restrictive. I didn’t like it from the beginning, but refused to take the time to create my own. In opposition to inexertion, the Principle Approach teaches the notebook is the effort of the individual. It is personal property reflecting productivity. Filling-in-the-blank will not bring the same sense of fulfillment, understanding, and practicality that thinking and responding will.

As I think through the pages of a new notebook for a new year, the reward will be a tool fit for my heart and hand. May it be fashioned in wisdom by the grace of God.

If you want more ideas for homemaking binders, Hadias linked to numerous examples. Use the link in the post above, or follow this one.

Walking through store aisles full of shiny new things, fuels my covetousness. We have a nice home and adequate furnishings, but those dishes are striking and these curtains so lovely. My gift card cannot buy it all. I shake my head, muttering under my breath, that our shabby couch is chic. It works. Sometimes. Rather than focusing on what I can’t or don’t have, I try to invest money and thoughts into things that last. You know, enduring things; things like food.

Currently, our food bill is higher than our mortgage. Lest you think we eat excessively every day, we were blessed with an unbelievable deal on our ramshackle house. In the past, I succeeded in shaving a few dollars off our grocery spending by shopping sales, but I am a bit apathetic about that these days. I do avoid most convenience food and make our meals from scratch. However, that is not my point. Feeding a family of five, plus a dog and cat, requires money, like it or not.

The need to eat, also, requires a cognitive response. Frequently, throughout the days, weeks, and months that plod by, I ponder what to feed my family. I plan meals, usually. I buy food. I cook food. I clean up food. Repeat this three times a day for life, and you glimpse why joy doesn’t always bubble out in sweet laughter when I hear, “I’m hungry,” or “What’s for dinner?”

Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and don’t mind cooking. It’s just that all this effort can seem for naught. Food doesn’t last. It is consumed all too quickly, or spoils. That is why I feed it to my kids. They will be around for a number of years yet.

Growing up, my family always decorated the house the day after Thanksgiving. My brother and I piled silver tinsel on each branch of the small pine. Then while we slept, Mom removed the mess and placed every handmade ornament perfectly. I snooped under the transformed tree while the colored lights glowed. Even if my gifts were trick-wrapped, I figured out what the boxes contained. Try as I might to wait for Christmas Day, my curiosity ruled me and ruined my surprise.

One family tradition involved an entire afternoon dedicated to powdered sugar. Every year we frosted too many sugar cookies. My conscience vividly remembers Mom saying, “Stop licking the knife,” and the sick, sugary feeling in my stomach afterwards. I dreaded frosting the double batch of cookies, but I persevered to enjoy the time with my mom.

Now that I am the mother, I wonder what my children will remember about Christmas. I strive to live purposefully, but it doesn’t always happen. As a result, our traditions are not well-defined. We decorate on a whim, or when the light strands are rekindled. Bug’s porcelain winter lighthouse is put out first to appease little elves. We arrange the nativity set I painted as a young girl and attend church service on Christmas Eve.

Our simple rituals do not match my ideal picture of sweet cherubs listening to their father recite the story of Jesus’ birth, in the original Greek, while I serve hot chocolate and prepare gift bags for all the neighbors. That image is unrealistic, but it does capture something important. A wise stranger told Four n’ Twenty,

Now that is what the Christmas season is about, parents spending time with their kids.

That is what I remember most fondly. Traditions need not be elaborate to be special. It is time to get the cookie dough ready.

The beautiful houses in glossy pages of magazines urge me to decorate. Curtains hide a few cracks, but they don’t cover bare concrete floor or holes in the wall. Our 1950s fixer-upper does not resemble Better Homes and Gardens or Pottery Barn. I am learning to accept it. Houses are just sticks and bricks embellished with fabric. Homes are made of something else entirely.

Home reminds me of frosting Christmas cookies with Mom, learning about car engines from Dad, and laughing during games of Monopoly with my brother. Love shines brightly even in misty memories of hateful words and wounded hearts. In family, hope endures and forgiveness stretches to cover most transgressions. These relationships forge early ideas of love for good or bad.

My children’s concept of home is forming in their hearts now. What am I communicating to them? That we live in a “fixer-upper full of roaches” as my son’s parody of Madeline stated, or that this is a place for us to live in peace creating sweet memories.

More than a remodeled kitchen, I want laughter to resound off the walls.

More than pristine flooring, I want peace to reign.

More than new furniture, I want love to engulf us.

Our house is far from finished, but our home is quite comfortable.

Proverbs 31 describes an excellent wife. Honestly, the list of noble qualities is overwhelming. This lady is active. She looks, works, brings, rises, gives, portions, considers, plants, stretches, grasps, extends, makes, and supplies. Whew! I barely keep the toys and dog hair off the floor and meals on the table.

“Her children rise up and bless her; her husband also…Give her the product of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.” What am I producing that will praise me? It certainly is not a clean, perfect house, art and crafts to sell, or prolific writings. The investment in my children profits for a lifetime and more, but increasing the financial stability of my family is also a commendable goal.

A praiseworthy wife “considers a field and buys it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard.” She plans for the future and smiles at it. This seems like freedom to me. I tend to worry and fret about tomorrow. Planning, considering, and working are a better use of my thoughts and energy.

Finding a lucrative job as a stay-at-home-mom is not easy. Substantial increase requires time that, right now, is devoted to making memories and teaching lessons. I save a lot of money by frugality and creativity. My desire is to add profitable industry.

There are many opportunities with which to be industrious. Numerous networks exist that sell beauty and cleaning supplies. However, I have no passion for that. Work does not have to be enjoyable to be profitable, but I would like to use the talents and interests God has given me.

Each month I clean a few houses. My perfectionist tendency contributes to my client’s happiness. While I don’t thoroughly enjoy this hard work, it pays well, and I am good at it. It fits my skills. Are there other interests that can be used for increase? (Besides eating, which only increases my waistline.)

For quite awhile, I’ve wondered if my love of books could provide for the future, or, at least, for more books. Becoming an affiliate of ChristianBook.com and YWAM Publishing may assist this dream. As an affiliate, I earn commissions for sales generated from links embedded on this website. The links have been in my sidebar for about three months. (Thank you to those who have used them!) Then I read, “If you are going to sell products, really sell them.”

A library of excellent books exists in my brain and on my overflowing shelves. Referrals to book sellers seem incomplete without adding my personal recommendations for you to consider. A few friends appreciate my suggestions, so I hope you will, too.

You are invited to view the new page, “The Best Books.” It contains a few of my favorites. Periodically, reviews of other books will be published on this site, and, of course, you are free to use or not to use the affiliate links at anytime.

What are your ideas for making money at home? What methods work well for you?

Sometimes I get frustrated by the sacrifices required to be a mother, wife, and home school teacher. I rarely get time to myself until after sunset, but staying up late to enjoy the quiet makes me tired with a propensity towards grumpiness no amount of coffee can remedy. My hobbies are stuffed in closets never to be seen. Most of my conversations begin with the question, “Why?” or “What?” and do not end until I say, “Let’s have a snack.” After serving apples slices, I clean up the salt my youngest used to “finger paint” the table while my son runs around asking questions again.

Living amid confusion and chaos is common for mothers; however, what we do has a higher purpose.

The most basic place of our sacramental living is in our marriages and homes and families. Here we live together in well-reasoned love for everyone around us. Here we experience the sacrament of the present moment…

C. S. Lewis wisely observed, ‘the great thing, if one can say it, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course what one calls interruptions are precisely one’s real life–the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination.’ Streams of Living Water by Richard J. Foster

This is my real life and it is good. Wiping little noses, answering questions all day every day, reading Winnie the Pooh over and over, and bringing cups of water to my children, after they have been put in bed, are privileges in the eyes of eternity.

Julie, thank you for sending me this quote.