Confessions of A Hoarding Homeschooler

Posted on April 13, 2015December 11, 2017 by Donna Stone

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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Take the Road to Dreams

Posted on March 25, 2015November 28, 2017 by Donna Stone

No one else can live our dreams for us. To place what is in one’s heart, superimposing it on an another’s destiny, is a cowardly ambition. To allow people to use us in such a way is almost as bad.

Our dreams are our own. People will tell us that we are not good enough. They will say, “you are not an artist,” or “not educated enough,” or “the right kind,” and that they know better. They lie.

You are beautifully and wonderfully made, complete with a destiny, a fire in the belly. It’s your job to stoke it, regardless of how many wet blankets come along oh-so-eager to smother.

Forget nurturing the tiny spark with gentleness, hiding from naysayers. Make the fire roar so they don’t have a chance to extinguish the flame.

[tweet_this]Forget nurturing the tiny spark with gentleness, hiding from naysayers. Make the fire roar.[/tweet_this]

Some people disrespect you because their eyes are too full of their own failures to see beyond the smallness of themselves. Don’t be them. Tend to your own vision. Do this and you will recognize the greatness in fellow travelers.

There is no need to push others aside, because the road prepared for you is your own. The obstacles there are your own as well. It is your job to take them on.

Do not go against what God has prepared for you. Figure out what you are here for and get to it. Dreams can be quiet and simple, but must be large to your own eyes. Dig around in your soul and find them. Understand the uniqueness of your calling. Understand the value of your deepest hopes and why they are imbedded in your being.

There are prizes you will never receive. Goals unreachable and impossible. They all look that way from where you are standing right now. No one can say with the slightest speck of certainty what dreams are within your reach.

[tweet_this] No one can say with the slightest speck of certainty what dreams are within your reach.[/tweet_this]

Passion and destiny collide. With all the tears and bloody bruising, it’s not always pretty. But it is always exquisite, your beautiful dream, big and gorgeously audacious in the middle of ambition and grit.

The joy is in the pursuit of destiny, not in trophies or glittery accolades.

This is how we live a dream.

What will you do with your dreams today?

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Shall I Compare Thee

Posted on March 11, 2015March 13, 2015 by Donna Stone

Recently, I went to a writer’s conference. Since I am having some trouble with my eyes and have not gotten my eyeglass prescription quite right yet, my eldest son drove me. He is not a writer. He writes computer code, but that’s about it. His reading selections tend toward technical nonfiction, the Bible, and a little Sci-Fi.

We were chatting with a writer and I asked her what she wrote. The boy had no idea what Rom Com meant. It kind of rhymes with Comic Con, but he knew they were not otherwise related.

Later he asked me, “What did she say she writes?”

“Romantic Comedy.”

“”Oh,” he says. “Like A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Even though Shakespeare basically invented the genre, for some reason his answer tickled me to no end. Maybe I was fatigued, but for whatever reason it struck me funny.

“Well,” he said, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the only romantic comedy I can think of, except for The Taming of The Shrew.”

I promise, this guy has sat through some chick flicks, but apparently they didn’t cut the mustard.

Maybe all some guys need is Shakespeare. You know, a man could do worse than to borrow from The Bard. If your fella could sing Sonnet 18 to you at a key moment, it would impress.

Old fashioned is still romantic.

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The Book Nook

Just Visiting

Posted on February 27, 2015June 1, 2015 by Donna Stone

Every Friday bloggers and writers get together and write for five minutes on a one word prompt. Join us.

Today’s word

Visit

My boy finally got his paperwork on his first house in order yesterday. Soon he will pack the truck full and drive away to get settled in his new place. My house will not be his house anymore, but only mom’s. When he returns it will be for a visit and no longer the place he calls home.

Yesterday he told me, “I’m getting up in the morning and going to my house to shower.”

“No you are not,” I said. ”You will bathe before you leave. What if you get in a wreck?” He may be a homeowner now, but I am still mom.

He put new door locks on his house, and turned the water on. He needs a toolbox. I bought him tools years ago, but too many people in the house and not enough organization has rendered them community property.

He sent me pictures of the treasures the previous owner left behind. One picture of dogs and duck hunters, which he hung on the wall, several vinyl records, and some 33 cent stamps. He also sent me pics of his curtainless windows.

I have a chair matching the one beside my bed. It’s out in the shed. I think I will gift it to him. For when I visit.

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Five Minute Friday

Here and Now| When Five Minute Friday

Posted on February 13, 2015March 3, 2015 by Donna Stone

Five minutes, no edits, one word.

When.

When is such a strange word. A nothing word. A word that looks both backwards and forwards but not at the here and now.

When I was younger, she says, I was so happy. I didn’t feel like I had to be someone I’m not. She mourns. Her eyes take in the old self of what she once was and no matter what I say, she cannot see the beauty of who she is. I say, you are still you, and she nods. There is no sparkle.

When I get in to my house, he says, and begins to tell of all the adventures and plans that will happen then. In his imagination of when he has already paid of a mortgage and saddled himself with more debt, buying things. In his future when there is not rust or rot. Then he will be happy, he thinks, when a shiny red pickup and a garden and fences and a hundred other things litter his paid for kingdom.

When school is done, the other one says, then I will get a job I like. His days will be spent on worthwhile pursuits and he will drink life and be satisfied, when that happens.

I used to dwell on the mountain top between the whens and never know it. Too busy looking backward and forwards I missed the view, the joy of being between the whens.

Today I do not think of the whens of the past or the future. Today I want to live in the now.

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Grownups Need Coasters

Posted on January 27, 2015June 24, 2021 by Donna Stone

My son has been nudging me, poking at me with his behavior and mess.

Every day he leaves a greasy frying pan full of egg bits, knowing he’s breaking the rules. Dirty dishes and clutter on the counter. When he walks through my house he doesn’t walk, he tromps. Almost yelling, he talks too loud. Way too loud. He is getting on my last nerve.

I know what he’s doing. You can count on one hand the weeks he has left in this house.

It was exciting, buying his own home. Three bedrooms, two baths, and property lines marked by barbed wire. There are woods. He has already found the perfect spot for a someday fort. Not the usual first home.

He has stayed here, at my place, to help with things out of necessity. Meantime, he has saved his money, for the most part. As a momma I confess, anytime saving is brought up I tell him he could save more. He can.

It bewilders him that he can easily afford this home he has signed on.

He decided early what he wanted in a house and this one is it. It’s funny. The location is highly desired, the property in demand, and yet there it sat for six months. Waiting on him. I used to go to Bible study at that house. I told him, “That’s a good house. Plenty of praying’s been going on there for years.”

Everything worked out perfectly. Inspections, papers, appraisal, homeowner checklists, maintenance charts, budget. All that is left is the waiting.

Now he follows me into my room and sits in the chair across from mine, his form settling down into it with an odd deflation.

“It’s a big house,” he says.

“Yes, it is.”

He sighs.

He looks at me with those eyes. They are a bit too shiny. I do not tear up. Mother’s hearts are elastic and hold in things that are of no use at the time. I can mull this over later, take this emotion out of its gilded locked-tight box and hold it close.

I lift my head and firm my chin. In my packet of mother wisdom, I rummage around, searching for the words he needs to hear on this last leg of our present journey.

The heater kicks on, the warm air whooshing quiet dryness into the space between us.

“You know, your siblings will probably stay with you quite a bit.”

He nods.

I know this is not the same.

He sighs again. It will have to do. His spine bones straighten a bit, taller in the chair.

“I was online, reading a list of what I need to buy to set up house, and it said I need coasters.” He frowns. “I’m not sure I need coasters.”

By seven months of age he had commandeered my coasters. They ended up in his mouth, gummed, sloppy with baby drool. In his hands, my coasters did more harm to tabletops than good. A favorite thing he liked to do was use them to scrape back and forth on the varnished wood. He would bang, bang, bang them against the furniture. The lovely sound made him pause, cocking his head to one side and crowing before he began again, a wonderful endless game.

A blink later, coasters were used as mini Frisbees, flying through the living room. You could put an eye out with one of those missiles. Too busy trying to keep him off the counter tops, I had little time to worry about the damage small rings of water could do. The coasters went into a drawer somewhere a long time ago.

We generally use bits of junk mail or magazines that are lying about, maybe a potholder. More than a few times, a clean sock from the laundry pile conveniently located on the couch would do. Strange how family habits take over and proper niceties are forgotten.

“Yes.” I affirm. “Grownups need coasters.”

“I’ll use a towels.”

I grunt. “You don’t have any towels, either.”

“Yes I do,” he protests, pouting. “I have two.”

I laugh, missing him already, and take today.

We’ll think about coasters tomorrow.

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Celebrate: My Word for 2015

Posted on January 2, 2015November 28, 2017 by Donna Stone

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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Beautifully Fragile

Posted on November 28, 2013June 24, 2021 by Donna Stone

I feel very fragile lately.

I have been fragile for years, but it was a moment of clarity and surprise when a medical assistant shook her head and said so to me.

You’re so fragile.

The idea was foreign to me. I was the girl who dug trenches in hard, red clay to bury water lines, planted gardens and carried heavy loads. The girl who bathed dogs and people and wiped up vomit from the floor.

When she told me I was fragile, I laughed.

Who has time for that?

Now I have time. I’m not a girl anymore.

It’s a strange place, but not bad. Tears dampen my cheeks almost daily. But what days they are.

My daughter comes in from a trip to the movies.

“Bree asked me if I was a daddy’s girl.” She bites her bottom lip, trying to hide a smile. She looks at me from underneath her lashes but I can see her eyes, the way they shine. “I told her yes.”

And here I go again, wiping my eyes with a tissue.

My middle boy, the one who drives me crazy, the one too much like me and too much like his father, says to his little brother who is now a man, “I am proud of you.”

Their conversation continues to flow around me while I am stayed, becalmed in the current, bathing in that singular moment, hardly able to breathe and not really caring if I ever do again.

I cry at the note taped to the television, “Watch anime with me,” and at the memory of how he always laughs at my lame joke about anime and anemone. An invitation into his world is a prize. This is not a carnival prize, but a gold medal prize to be carried and worn over the heart.

My husband comes in, weary from work but too stubborn to admit it. He stands, reading the endless to-do list on the refrigerator. When I see him with the youngest man-child and get a glimpse of the crazy, terrorizing love that comes with being this boy’s father, the wild rawness, the manliness of it, moves me.

Against such things it’s hard to keep fists clenched tight around the small threads of bitterness gathered up over days and years. Maybe that is where the salt for all these tears was being held, waiting for release.

There are always ready tears for my eldest, who does nothing to make me cry, and so I do. What can I say? Mothers understand.

It took a long time to get here. I always, always knew it was all worth it. All the books and articles and wise women said so.

So the fragile girl laughed and wiped up vomit and held tight to little (and not-so-little) hands whether they wanted it or not. She waited by the phone and did not yell. She saved her keening for another day and stood as tall as five foot something allowed. Love made her strong.

It’s not a bad place. Not a bad place at all.

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On Raising Conversational Men

Posted on August 9, 2013June 24, 2021 by Donna Stone

Talk to him.

Talk about everything. Talk about things in the news, and things he likes and things he reads about, and things his friends say and do and about his dreams and yours.

Listen as much as you speak. Never laugh at his opinions. Let him keep his voice. Do not give yours away either, but temper it when he needs you to. Always flavor the conversation with generous doses of love.

Never answer “Why?” with “Because I said so.” Explain yourself in concise words. If you don’t know, admit it. If it’s the best you can do, say so. If you are wrong, apologize.

Talk about hard things. Those things you’d rather not even think about but expect a man to know. He will not find his way alone, or maybe he will. Maybe he will take another, darker path than the one he should and cause your heart to shatter. The harder it is to speak of it, the more you need to speak of it. Do not wait for him to bring it up. Speak and wait and listen. Let him be quiet when he needs to be. Allow him time to process. Give him room and space to think, so his thoughts can find him.

Then bring it up again.

Teach him to respect all people. Teach him that allowing others to have an opinion does not invalidate his own deeply held convictions.

In time, reveal your fear and your anger. He needs to know you are you and he is himself. He needs to know how to speak, listen, and think. So do you. Let him see your cracked places, without breaking him. A grown up man-child can handle your unwatered, passionate views.

Talk to him often, and rest in the words, and in the inbetween.

Do this.

If you are blessed, one day he will come up beside you and, without thought, steady you with his words, spoken and silent. And you will weep at the kindness of your son.

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Meeting the Governor

Posted on March 1, 2013January 28, 2019 by Donna Stone

It’s not every day you get to meet the governor, but last week I did. I listened to him speak to a smallish group, wishing my daughter could be in the room. This is an important man.

He was very personable. I enjoyed his talk immensely and told him so. I got to shake his hand and have my picture taken with him. Right before the picture was snapped I wished I had worn something else, but was pleased just the same thinking about how I could say to my friends, “Guess what? I met the Governor!”

Here it is week later and I didn’t mention it to a soul. It’s been a hectic week. We are trying to get ready for a trip my daughter is taking. Performances are involved, so there are practices, costumes to get ready, hotel reservations to make, the list goes on. One of the boys is sick with some sort of virus again. It has been raining quite a bit lately and my car sprung a leak. A good six inches of water collected in the bottom of the trunk before we noticed it. There has been some upheaval in other areas of life as well. I think the most disrupting thing has been the addition of a new puppy to our family.

He is an eight week old mixed darling who came to us needing medical care and grooming. Now that he is feeling better we have discovered he obviously has some ADHD heritage. While our new pup Thunder is a joy, like some of the human boys in this family who also have ADHD heritage, he is an exhausting joy. He is going to be l a r g e. It is imperative that he learn commands like ‘down’ as soon as possible. Anyone who has ever had a pup knows there is a massive time investment in the cleaning and scooping areas as well. So I’ve been busy. Too busy to think about name dropping at all.

Yesterday my hands were in a sink of dirty dishes and I was day dreaming about being a famous novelist someday. Perhaps people would line up just to shake my hand and smile at me. That’s when I remembered meeting the Governor. If I ever do get famous I will certainly not be as important or vital as he is, and I had forgotten all about my big moment of meeting the governor.

Should my day in the spotlight ever come and my head start to swell, I will remind myself that people might have other things on their minds besides thinking about how great I am. Like getting on back to the house in hopes there won’t be extra puppy messes to clean up.