I've been busy.
I've been distracted.
I've been overwhelmed.
I've been avoiding writing.
Though we started the 2015-16 school year homeschooling only Will and Ben, we brought Maddie home in January, and Jon in the middle of February. Every time I thought about blogging, I was overwhelmed with all the unfinished tasks at home...
Shadow died a bit more than a year ago, and every time I sat down to consider blogging, I was overwhelmed with sadness...
Will and I went to Uganda a year ago, and every time I considered blogging, I was overwhelmed with how many stories I had not written...
It was not just the mission trip tales, but the homeschool stories, the nature-outside-our-window happenings, the end-of-the-school-year ceremonies, the summer vacation and summer camp narratives, the early morning adventures, the beginning-of-the-school-year pictures and the yarn that just kept going and going, but in a tangled ball. I was too frustrated to try to work through it.
And every time I tried to write, my dog's photo smiled at me...and I cried.
Now that it's been a year of yearning to get the stories written, I'm just jumping right in -- the last year of words is gone, and I'm not going to dwell on it. Instead, I am choosing to start with NOW.
What does NOW look like for us?
I am still overwhelmed with the unfinished home tasks...
I am still often overwhelmed with sadness without our loving furry family...
I am still overwhelmed that some really great stories are unwritten...
All four kids have been home schooling this year -- Will is in 7th grade, Jon is in 5th, and Ben and Maddie are in 4th. They go to Venture classes on Tuesdays, so I get a day "off," and they go for a couple hours on Wednesday afternoon. It has been a school year of ups and downs and learning to navigate uncharted waters (for us): growth spurts and the onset of pubescent attitude; curriculum that worked for some kids, but not all of them; figuring out how to empower our child with learning differences; finding the rhythms that work for our family.
Our family is still very involved in scouting. Allen is leading the Trail Life unit that Ben and Jon are in; Will is back in Trail Life with his buddies. Maddie is an Explorer with American Heritage Girls, and I am in a new role mentoring our troop board and four other troops. Both groups still meet weekly at the same time, and both have at least one activity per month on a weekend.
Ben, Jon, and Maddie are taking music lessons. Though Ben played guitar last semester, he switched to drums in January. Jon is also playing drums, and Maddie is playing ukelele. Will focused on speech this school year, and has spent many hours researching apologetics for competition. This competition season is over, but he is already working on next year's.
In our spare time, Allen and the kids play lots of games -- a few video games on the weekends, but lots of board games after dinner throughout the week. I've been painting (as a Christmas gift, Allen enrolled me in an online weekly art class). The kids and I read -- a lot! We read for school, but we all really like to read in our spare time, too. All the kids spend a lot of time outside and with neighborhood friends.
We have one not-cuddly cat, Pickles, about 16.5 years old, who has really enjoyed being the only pet. I have many times during the week when I wish we had a cuddly kitty or dog, but then I realize how much easier it is without the extra messes to clean up. The reasonable side of me tries hard to convince the other side that one cat is enough... but I still really miss what I had with Shadow, Ramses, and Tico...
Now...
I am writing about life again, but I will be okay with the times when living it is more of a priority than recording it.
