For all the beautiful wallflowers.
joy
Confessions of A Hoarding Homeschooler
It all started when I went to look for a literary analysis book. One trash bag full and three boxes into the job, I started finding things. Treasures, really.
We must keep the carousal horse and other drawings, and the book Drawing With Children. I would be happy with only the drawings, but my daughter insists. What if she needs that book for her kids?
This binder says right on the cover Mind Twisting Stories which means it is a titled work, so it cannot be discarded.
Little sister even decorated it.
Most of our materials and assignments come with decorations of some sort, be they toddler explorations with marker, coffee rings, important reminders (reschedule dentist, pay water bill, need 27 styrofoam cups and toothpicks for gumballs) or even teeth marks. My youngest literally teethed on Shakespeare for Young People: A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
I like to think that makes her sound smart.
I tossed that chewed on copy, but when my middle son came by to visit he noticed the boxes. “But mom, I was in this play! TWICE.” Since he has his own house now he was welcome to dig through the boxes to his heart’s content.
When I was in the midst of the juggling act, I never realized how precious all those spills and scribbles would be someday.
We must keep the Book of Jokes. This is slap full of things nine year old boys find hilarious. Or HE-larry-US.
Obviously, these cannot be tossed out.
I adore reading his jokes and remembering that boy laugh. You know the one. The one that makes you laugh along even when nothing is funny. For a second I hear it again. I picture that grin and tousled up hair. It’s so present I can practically smell the little boy smell.
Also making the cut we have a songbook and cassette tape of Down By The Creekbank, a few original one of a kind, hand-designed space themed board games, and a smattering of materials we may actually need sometime next year.
I offered to keep the dissection kit (It’s in perfectly good shape) and order some extra specimens to do for fun.
The girl said, “No, thanks. I’m good.”
Party pooper. Truthfully, I am not so sad to say goodbye to that stage of my homeschooling mom career. Frog guts. Ugh.
Eventually, I loaded up boxes with a bunch of materials, some brand new. I think you may be able to discern why sometimes busy moms end up with duplicate unused workbooks.
My cabinet looks better now, but some old books are still firmly entrenched in the Stone Family Collection. Yes, those are ancient Abeka and National Geographic books. My kids loved them. Old books are friends.
I did find the book I was hunting, but after I skimmed through it I discovered it was not exactly what I was looking for.
I found something better. Messy, hoarded memories and plenty of room for more.
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Celebrate: My Word for 2015
My word for this year is CELEBRATE.
Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Psalm 150: 1-6 ESV
I’m fixing to get loud up in here.
I will celebrate the Lord’s goodness to me. His faithfulness and constant love. I will celebrate the results of pruning and pushing, until I can celebrate the actual thorn, keeping trust that He is faithful to work it out. One way or another. Knowing that He will provide me the faith to believe even when I don’t feel it at all and I say, “I just can’t even” not even able to complete articulating what it is I can’t.
Before, I have always earnestly chosen high sounding words that smacked of self-improvement. An action certainly commendable and always sorely needed in my case, but I do believe it is time for me to take a moment or a year to simply be. A time to celebrate.
I will celebrate my existence on this earth, and the fact of my well-earned age. Healthy indulgences will not be denied. Naps will be taken. Songs will be sung. Loudly.
Citing the rights endowed me by experience of years; I will try to not let protocol keep me from expressing what I think. Already I sometimes say things that I am not sure I really meant to. They pop out of my mouth, thoughts leaping out of my cranial cavity to dance across my tongue before they gleefully escape into the open to cavort. And get this; they are words that only mildly surprise me. Did I say that out loud? And instead of being embarrassed, I laugh.
I have become more fully me and this I will celebrate with extreme stubbornness.
I will celebrate milestones reached and hurdles overcome. There’s been a bunch. There’s more ahead. Might as well practice celebrating now.
I will not ignore or deny the hard and terrible days that pound against flesh and crease the soul, leaving worn places, but in the midst I will search out and celebrate things no one else notices. Things that those blinded by high clouds think are inconsequential. I will turn the glass around and upside down to get a clearer view of truth. The smallest hill is a mountain when you have to crawl on your hands and knees. Every step forward deserves recognition.
On the darkest of days and nights, I will determine to remember and celebrate that He celebrates me, imparting life where there was none, reviving and restoring what was lost.
And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate. Luke 15:23-24 ESV
I will celebrate all these gifts and more.
What about you? What will you celebrate?
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