Wordy Wednesday...

W is for:

What a terrible night. Miracle if today turns out ok.

Wish I had followed my instinct and not given Little Miss August 2009 something for tea that I thought might  cause problems... and it SO did...

Words - poetry, poetry set to music (John Taverner and Greta Bradman)...

William Blake - "Tyger Tyger" & "The Lamb"

Wow. All of a sudden, a cross-curricular unit study has sprung up out of nowhere, and bringing a number of strands together

Working hard. The children have done maths (Little H#1 and LittleH#2) and Little H#3 some self-starting phonics. I am so pleased with how he is getting on. We have also done music and movement to the Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens, drawing to that same music (Little H#2 drew the correct animal for each movement - his idea) and then we had processions of lions, jumping kangaroos, graceful fish, and some fantastic elephants. We ate our lunch to the Aquarium on repeat. ;) We also listened to the William Blake poem Tyger Tyger set to music by Greta Bradman and sung by her and a dear friend of ours. Need to look out The Lamb from Little H#2's Baptism recording. They can hear mummy and daddy singing that one!

Washing. Actually it isn't. W is not for Washing because I can't do any. All week. Machine broke (burned out rather nicely) on Monday, and a man is coming to either mend or condemn it tomorrow (Thursday). So actually W is for "Washing free Week". If school turns out this much better because I am also not trying to do washing, maybe I need to come up with a different plan for laundry.

Welcome Home. W is for welcome home because Matthew will be very welcome home tonight to a productive and happy house, much achievement, a happy mummy (miracle) and home made soup and cheese scones.

Oh, and Welcome Back Creativity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woilla! (sorry couldn't resist!!).

Keeping the Wrapper...

About 10 years ago Matthew and I, when we'd been married about 6 months, went to Bulgaria with Saltmine, a Christian charity who at the time did much work in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe. Our church sent a group each year, to two orphanages. The main purpose of the trip was to paint and renovate, build new dormitories, and support the work of the orphanages practically. There were also ways the charity could support the orphanages financially, and provide the children with food and clothing, that did not interfere with the income they received from the State. Matthew and I went predominantly because we wanted to take musical instruments over, that we'd raised money to buy, and we wanted to use his skills (he was still at that point training to be a music therapist) to do music with the children, to connect with them, and then leave something behind at the orphanages for them to use when we'd gone. (You just don't know with that kind of thing whether there was a difference behind the scenes when the charity weren't visiting or sending groups, but there was a good relationship with the management of the orphanages, the Directors, and also the local Baptist churches had input and mission into the institutions as well). Oh and I left my own 'blessing' behind - took some recorders, and taught a group of the children how to play them!!!

The last thing Matthew and I intended to be were "Christian tourists". One trip to an orphanage, talk about it for a while, then move on to something else. We had a real heart for the children, felt a calling to go (and put up with the painting, and put up with the fact that we were oldest in the group (at 25!) and the only married couple. It was an education itself, going with young adults still in study, late teens early twenties, totally different mindset ).

Anyway. There were certain things that the leader of the group organised for the children every year. One of them was a day at the seaside, followed (dare I say it) by buying them all tea at Mcdonalds. Matthew and I really struggled with that idea, didn't seem right, imposing Western "good times" onto the lives that they led the rest of the year, but we had no say and we were simply going along for our own reasons. What was so heartbreaking was how these kids just loved the Mcdonalds trip, like it was one of the best things that could happen to them (while we struggled with our own ethics of taking them there in the first place). The trip meant so much to them that they kept all the packaging that their fast food came in.

They ate the food and kept the wrapper.

They had to hold on to the leftovers of this treat that reminded them of us; that crumpled fast food packaging was a symbol of the hope that our visit gave them, the love we showed, the friendships we made, the good times we had together that were coming to an end.

I've seen the same thing in my own children. We went to a Colin Buchanan concert, and at the end my children (particularly Little H#1) collected the scraps of coloured paper that came out of the party poppers and streamers that Colin fired over the audience at the beginning. They had to hold on to as many scraps as they could gather up; taking a piece of Colin, a piece of the experience at home to keep as "treasure" of the moment. We still have those papers 2 years later. And we've added to them since.

The background's important (I think!) to understanding the realisation we had on the weekend. We had our own "keep the wrapper" moment. A rare trip out. Grandma babysat all the children while we escaped 2 hrs on Saturday to go and watch The King's Speech at the cinema. Matthew commented on the way in to the complex that he felt like keeping the wrapper.  The experience (cinema, being away from the children in the daytime - or any time - to do something together) is rare if not totally unprecedented in living memory. So much so that we both realised just like those dear children keeping the cheeseburger wrappers and fries boxes (and even the shake cup and straw)... we needed to hold on to the tickets as a reminder of such a great blessing, and lovely time together. Not so different from the Bulgarian orphans perhaps.

Counting my blessings, and keeping the wrappers...

A new habit begun this Lent...

I am using Lent in an unconventional way  I suppose, and I don't really want it compared to New Year Resolutions but in a way it's kind of that sort of idea. But the sacrifice of course is the difference - the focus of Lent being sacrifice and fasting, and I am doing both of those things in trying to be positive and fast negativity (almost got the better of me today but the sacrifice required from my bad day with sick children was overwhelming and the death of self was pretty much decided for me).

In addition, I've just been lost in a blog for ages trying to find a fantastic (I thought) post on this subject that I read last week, and have been inspired to "do different" ever since.

Have a look at this post: The one parenting habit that changes everything
It speaks for itself but I have several themes going on at once this Lent and one of them is reading more of the Bible, with the children, putting God right at the top of our list in a way we haven't done either before, or for a long time. So when I read this I was inspired to make a change, and do something after every meal that we have previously done only randomly, albeit quite often sometimes.

It comes on the back of the sermon series we've had at church recently, about God's word being our Spiritual food, and this post really takes that analogy again quite far.

One thing I also wanted to mention was that our pastor compared the price of a good Bible (life application or equivalent) with a new pan or piece of kitchen equipment. We'll spend on a new casserole dish or something similar, but we think a Bible, giving us Spiritual food is expensive... Just food for thought...

Anyway, last night I got a daily reading plan at a meeting I went to at church and the boys have been leading the way today reading and ticking off today's reading, and reminded me after dinner that we couldn't get down from the table till we'd read the Bible. Starting a reading plan in the middle of a month is a bit random but actually today's readings (a chapter from 1 Cor, and two from Deuteronomy) were brilliant and we all got something out of it.

I plan to equip the youngest 2 with pen and paper while the others of us share the reading, as I sometimes read to them in snack time in our school day. So tomorrow I will try that as well.

Amidst the baby with shingles, the broken things, the chaos of tripping over unpacked moving boxes, I feel we are finally getting a spiritual grip again. But wow it's hard work at the moment.

Blessings all mine and ten thousand besides!

I just have to share this, I am sure someone will find this as exciting as me.

Every new year, Matthew and I count our blessings of the year we are leaving / have left behind. This began one year when we felt so despondent about the year we had left behind - bad things had happened in that year. I had the God inspired (I believe) idea to count our blessings from that year, to overwrite the muscle memory of it having been a bad year.

That was a number of years ago now, and wasn't intended to be a tradition, but actually New Year is a time I can find myself lonely, a little lost, and sometimes discontent. But we enjoyed the list so much that year - and it definitely defied our muscle memory - it had actually been a very blessed year. :) We kept the list and have done it ever since.

I caught myself allowing discontent to move in today, actually. Just some stuff I saw on the internet, brought back memories of university, acquaitances gone by, and somehow a regret that my life had not been priviledged in the way others' lives were - those I was 'friends' with, studied with, knew vaguely... and looking in the mirror I just saw someone who had taken a completely different life course and had never had such a 'good' start. But this is where God put me... before I let the thoughts set in (and I'd like to say I had a spiritual moment and took those thoughts captive) I saw one or other (or maybe all) of the Little H's and realised that if I wasn't where I am, I wouldn't have them, and I am incredibly rich and blessed in far better ways than the superficial stuff that got my attention (and threatened my peace) temporarily. Maybe I did take the thoughts captive. But actually I just think the sight of real blessings was a stronger influence.

I had been surfing, anyway, for ideas for Lent. Want to make a Lenten lapbook of some sort, get some good H homeschooly activities underway to observe Lent and give us a kickstart back into how I like our homeschool to look. The Lent work isn't really fixed yet. I will have to do some more work tonight online for that. I have something at least I can do with them tomorrow.

For now, I have come across One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. It is very much like the New Year idea. Except it has a nice cover and a lot of followers!!!! ;)

Here are 2 you tube links of an interview with Ann Voskamp that is really inspiring and encouraging. Time to begin counting our blessings and getting to a thousand. To begin with...

Anway, our plans for Lent won't be that ambitious. But this morning I was going to read the scripture for the day from our calendar, and it was from 2 Corinthians. Little H#1 saw I was going to read from Corinthians and asked for the passage about Love. So I thought it was very appropriate, and changed readings.

My biggest fast for Lent (and something I don't intend to welcome back at the end of the Lenten period) is fasting negativity. Negative thoughts, and words. So appropriate today for that to have come from Little H#1's chosen reading. I will not keep a record of wrongs. This will be a bigger contribution to our family life than many other things I can think of for Lent.

So I will keep a record of Blessings instead. I feel happier calling them blessings rather than Gifts, though maybe they amount to one and the same.

I will attempt to do one with the children too. Maybe they will have a joint list, so that they have a sense of achievement instead of daunting thoughts about a thousand being too many! I think LittleH#1 may well managed doing it by himself in his journal though so I will see how that goes.