Home School/New Special Ed School/Gratefulness

Last night was the first local LEAH meeting (Loving Education At Home), and it was nice to see everyone and get encouraged for the upcoming year.  I've been going through our curriculum, working to get the first few weeks planned out.  We use Math U See , All About Reading, All About Spelling, which are all multi-sensory programs that use concrete methods to teach abstract concepts. We also use My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures, and Explode the Code. Explode the Code follows the same sequence as All About Reading, but doesn't teach each step explicitly; so we use it to reinforce the concepts we've covered.   It also includes all the books we need.   I love My Father's World because it plans out everything for me and schedules when everything should be done. It gives spaces for Math, Spelling, and Reading, which are the subjects that need to be supplemented.  I tried in first grade working without a curriculum and just doing unit studies, but it really was a disaster.  So, now as we approach 4th grade, we're just sticking with what works.  We started out with a strict schedule, a uniform, a room decorated like a classroom, and a very structured environment.  I wanted to give DD a private education experience because I couldn't afford to give it to her, but I could give it to her myself.  It was a complete fiasco.  My daughter craves freedom, and over the years I've tailored our home school to suit her.  That's the beauty of home school.  When math comes easy, we speed through the mastery program.  When reading and writing are slow, we are pokey through those subjects and approach the other academic areas using oral methods so that the intellect is the same but the process is different.  We start a little later in the morning, or not until the afternoon, sometimes wear pajamas, sometimes get dressed, sometimes do school at home on the couch, in the dining room, in the kitchen, on the porch, or away from home in a park or someplace like Panera.  She can get up and walk around while she does her work.  She can attach her work to the fridge with magnets and work upside down.  Sometimes I put on music and sometimes it's quiet.  Whatever works is what we do.  We also belong to a co-op that offers art, music, and gym, which is great because those are my weak spots.  So, now that we're starting year 5, I'm confident with what will work, what not to worry about, and that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.

DS is also starting a new school in September.  Last year was horrible, so I'm truly hoping that this year will be much better.  It's a tiny school with very small classes.  There is a regular gym and a sensory gym full fo swings and other stuff to stimulate the senses.  There's a brand new playground.  There are toys in the classrooms.  There is a dining area with  a stoves and sinks and a washer and dryer for activities of daily living.  The people there seem to be very nice.  It's a not for profit organization for kids with lots of needs.  DS will also be getting physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, feeding therapy, and behavioral therapy.  I'm just praying that he is where he is meant to be.  We all had a good feeling when we went to visit the school.  It's in God's hands.

So, today DS is feeling better, so we went out to the park to get some sunshine and fresh air.  I feel better, and the kids are happier.

Today's gratefulness challenge is to think of three things I'm grateful for that are hole, whole, and half.  Hmmmm.  I have to think about this one.  A hole...we have groundhog holes in the yard, wasp nest holes, and we have holes in the walls of our home from DS banging his head...I'm not really grateful for any of those...I have no idea.  I'm going to have to really think about this one...I'll get back.

New Blog Title? No. Gratefulness.

I'm thinking it's time to change the name of my blog to Dr. Mom's Whining Spot.  Ugh.
No.  It's time to be grateful.  There is no snapping out of a stinky state of mind, but this is where to start.  Always.  Ann Voskamp asks us to take the Joy Dare.  Every day we have to think of three things for which we are grateful in the categories she gives.  You can find it here:
http://annvoskamp.com/joy-dares/
Today it is three things summer...So:
!. Watching my parent bluebirds feeding their babies in their bluebird house.
2. Being home and getting to enjoy the change of seasons instead of being stuck inside a corporate environment all day.
3. The sound of insects singing at night.

4 am Bathroom Cleaning/Making a Plan

DS gets sick very often.  He doesn't make it to the toilet many times, and that results in me cleaning the bathroom and him in the middle of the night very often.  I am a horrible mother at 4 am.  I am impatient and unhappy about having to clean everything up and get my son changed and knowing that I am now up for the rest of the night/morning.  Either it's sprayed feces or urine depending on what doesn't make it into the toilet.  There always seems to be something new too.  As of today, my DS either turns around while getting on the toilet or doesn't direct the urine into the toilet when he is sitting...I don't know.  But at 4 am today, I stepped into a puddle on my way to take care of him and was not patient because he wanted me to take care of him, but I really need to clean the floor first so that he doesn't get messier than he already is.  I wish I were more patient.  I wish I could be fresh and sweet and not mind.  He can't help it.  I'm pretty good when it's not the middle of the night woken from a dead sleep, but the poor kid can't help it.  So, that's another prayer for me to be more patient.  Of course, praying for patience just gets you more things to have to be patient about.  This also interrupts any plans for the rest of the day that I may have because then DS is home from school.  In the summer, it doesn't matter as much, but during the year I hesitate to make any plans because I know that they can be cancelled at any moment.  I've even had to leave a funeral.

So I'm whining again, and the whole purpose of today's post is supposed to be about making a plan about all the stuff we need to do.  So, I wrote down all the stuff we need to fix in the house, tried to form a budget of approximately how much each thing will cost, and then looking for information about how to do it.  My sister redid a whole bathroom on her own.  There are all sorts of women on television who tackle entire house flips on their own...so I should be able to do it too.  It looks awfully daunting to me, though.  I'm hoping DH will be able to take some time off to help, and than DS will actually be in school and not sick.

Other things I am doing are reading the Bible every day and praying all the time.  I'm trying very hard to trust in God's plan, His timing, His way of doing things.  I surrender to Him over and over, wanting Him to make me into who He wants me to be.  And then I fail over and over and over again.  I ate too much yesterday, I was impatient yesterday and already today, and it's only 5:53 am.  I'm not active enough.  My house is messy despite working at it every day.  I keep underestimating things that I need to budget and feel absolutely overwhelmed because no matter how well I try to budget, we keep getting all these wonderful surprise bills, car problems, stuff that happens in life to everyone, I guess.  I get tired of having all the neighborhood kids over all the time because I feel like I can't keep up with what I need to do myself, and then I have extra kids to watch and feed.  Of course, if God is sending them to me, then this must be a ministry, and I should be practicing hospitality.  The truth is, I often keep the shades down and avoid going outside to try to hide from them.  It's awful, I know.  Two of them are also ADD/Autistic on top of my own kid, and I feel like I'm giving their parents respite all the time and I don't get any myself.  There are days when I send them away, and then I feel guilty because I'm sure that's not what God wants me to do.  So, I'm still whining.

My husband and I are always so stressed and tired...we have no babysitter, we have no real time alone.  There is no door on the bathroom and our bedroom door is broken.  There is no privacy.  I'm sure people lived that way for eons, but I still wish I at least had a door I could lock for a little while.  DH is exhausted too, and feeling just as down as I am.  We were hoping for at least a restful vacation, and we didn't.

Also, my son is all over me all the time when he's home.  Constantly snuggling, which I know is a wonderful thing.  But I just want to not be touched all the time.  I want him to not touch my nose and ear, and flick my hair into my face over and over and over and over and over and over and over again...and lay on me, and drool on me all day... to dive onto me, to lay across me, to interrupt me constantly.  Even now I've been up and down getting this or that for him, and his elbow is dug deep into my upper arm.

Nobody wants to hear this, and I have it much better than many, many people, but this is just how I feel right now and pray that God will help me to readjust my attitude.  Where is my gratefulness?  Where is my worship?  This is not who He wants me to be.  This is not how I should be.

Monday Weigh In

Well, I was hoping to lose more weight in the first week, but I lost 2 lbs.  So, now I only have 113.4 lbs more to lose.  At least I didn't stay the same and I didn't gain, so I'm grateful for that.  I have not eaten processed sugar for 7 days now.
Today's weather is much like that of Tuesday two weeks ago when I was camping...rainy and a high only in the 60's.
My main goal is not to feel discouraged.  This is going to be a long, slow process.  The truth is, this whole past year has been discouraging.  A little over a year ago, my husband left his job and got another job that paid much less and had terrible benefits.  So, for that whole year, we really didn't have enough money to pay the bills.  We had no more savings, and the medical bills keep coming because the medical insurance was dismal.  The furnace doesn't work, our shades are broken and need to be replaced, the hall bathroom is gutted with no plan of repair right now, the porch needs to be repaired and painted, the side stairs need to be repaired, wasps moved into the sandbox in the yard, our kitchen is not finished, our walls are full of holes from my son putting his head through them, all the doors inside our house are broken and need to be replaced, we have what was gutted from the bathroom lying in the side yard because we have no bulk pickup and no way to get the stuff to the dump, and we still have an autistic kid who has meltdowns often, who has been sick for months at at time over the past year, and we are just so very tired.  My husband did finally get a better job...his old job with a raise, but to catch up on everything from the past year is seeming impossible.  I finally saved some money, but we needed nearly $3,000 worth of work on our cars, so there went all that money.  Our tax returns went to one weekend away at at B&B for Jeff and me to try to keep our relationship strong, and then to paying for bills we'd been sitting on, buying stuff for the kids that they'd needed, and I don't remember what else...some to the cars.  I send lunch in for Jeff and Jeffrey every day.  We have Tracfones and one step above basic cable.  We are on budget payments for oil blend, propane, and electricity.  We go camping once a year for $144 for the week.  I shop at Aldi's and have a very limited food budget and meal plans.  I'm just not sure where to shave anything else off.  We've got pretty much everything at a bare minimum and still can't seem to keep our heads above water...right now I'd settle for just our nostrils or at least a snorkel.
I am trying not to think about how unfair things seem and how it seems like everyone else has it easier, because everyone has their own set of problems.  To covet is a sin.  I am trying to be grateful for all we do have, and not to worry, because God knows what we need, and he promises to provide us with what we need.  He says do not be discouraged, do not be afraid.  So, I"m going to just trust him and keep plodding along.

Camping

This is the fourth year we've gone camping.  There's always something difficult...the first year, which was very new to my DS who has autism, was the most difficult.  That year he banged his head so hard into my car that he broke a headlight.  He also hit me in the head repeatedly so that I started to vomit.  The second year, DS urinated all over the inside of the tent including everything in the tent, so I had to spend one whole day at the laundromat.  The third year we were completely broke that I didn't bring many new activities for the kids to do, and we couldn't go and do things around the area.  The kids got bored, and we left a day early.  This year, it poured for four of the five days we were there.  On the fourth day, DS got his finger stuck in the car door, so we went home early again.  The day we packed was the nicest day all week.  We wound up missing the urgent care hours anyway, and by the next day his finger looked okay, so we left early for nothing.  We were tired from being wet and cold all week.  In fact, on Tuesday, the high only got up to 63, so we were wearing fleece on July 25.  But, we had some nice family time, and it was nice to be out in nature.  Also, they built a new playground at the campground, and that was the biggest hit.  In between rainstorms, we had some campfires and some snuggles.  DD's hippo Harry went everywhere with us.  Soon we are planning to visit his brother William at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
DS loves camping now, and is generally very relaxed the whole time, which in itself is a major blessing.  I hope next year is better.  It's a cheap vacation, and just about all that's in our budget for now.

Marathon

Well, once again I am embarking upon a marathon.  I have 115.4 lbs to lose.  That's a lot.  It's a daunting number.  I have no desire to undergo surgery.  Over the past year, I have tried to follow a 1200 calorie diet, and I have failed miserably.  I also started eating sugar again, which was a terrible idea.  I also haven't been to the gym.  True, this year has been really tough.  However, that's just an excuse.  So, I have decided that it's time to take care of myself.  All my joints hurt and I have no energy.

This first week I stopped eating sugar again.  The withdrawal was tough the first few days, but now I feel much better.  I upped my calories to 1600, which is a one pound per week loss, according to My Fitness Pal.  That is much more doable than the 1200 calorie level.  It's so discouraging to fail day after day at calorie intake, so then I give up.  That's a really bad idea. One pound per week would mean that in two years I will be ten pounds from my goal weight.

The only times I'm ever successful at losing weight is when I do it with God.  When I give Him my sugar addiction, when I pray for Him to help me with temptation, when I surrender to Him, then it works.  When I want to give in, I don't bother to pray because I don't want him to stop me.  Also, I don't want food to be my god.  I want to remember to always turn to Jesus when things are tough, and to pray instead of eat.  I am wearing my Fit Bit and trying to stay active and get the house clean.

Last year has been really hard.  However, it's time to stop looking back.  Right now, today, this minute...what is a healthy thing to do?  Just keep going one moment to another with God.  Praying for that lamp to my feet and that light to my path...a little circle of light as from a lantern.  Anything I come to He will get me through.

So, here I go again.

My Spot is Burning...Ellenville is on Fire

I haven't posted in ages. There is a wildfire burning in Ellenville, which is where Sam's Point is, which is the picture on my blog title.  I'm so sad about this.  I know it's natural, and that there will be renewal, but it was started by someone deciding to burn their own brush during a fire weather warning.  What an idiot.  Please God, protect the animals, all the babies in the trees who are dying because they can't get away from the fire.  Please God, protect the people and their homes.  Please let the fire go out quickly.  Please send some rain.
Amen.