Disney had her first day at her new preschool last week, and she had a great time!  She really likes going to preschool every day!  Here are some pictures of her on her first day.  One picture features her little brother who wanted to go to preschool too, but he’s such a cool dude that he got right over it and is happy going to pick her up every day (despite his parents making him wear the Chicago Cubs shirt):

The weather has been wonderful. The visit with my daughter’s family delightful. The first meeting between grandpa and granddaughter fantastic.

There haven’t been any trips to major theme parks. Nothing special planned. Days come and go just like at home. I am enjoying my visit. I get to spend time with my family.

That was written back in August, during my visit with the Florida family. It has been almost a month since those words have been thought of. I really enjoyed my trip, and I miss everyone I saw when I was down there. I know my little granddaughter is growing quickly, it is usually a given for babies. The other grandchildren have slowed there growing pace, but they will be different the next time I see them. Families grow, change and develop at their own pace. A new pathway in life is open to them.

Here in NW Ohio, the changes in life usually happen at a slower pace. My children are grown, they have their lives, and I have been set in my ways for many years.

I’ve recently have written about change. Those who know me realize that I was taking a reflective approach to the changes occurring in my life. I’ve written about love and relationships. Those again, were posts reflecting things going on in my life. And here I am today, focused on changes that have occurred and will continue to occur. Today life is good, and the future is full of promise. In my opinion, it is good to be me. I haven’t said that often recently, but today I can say it. I’m looking forward to what life has in store for me.

My lesson was delayed an hour today as K had to take her youngest to his very first day of school.  I remember my mother taking me my first day every year up until the fifth grade after which I had to do more than walk out the front door.  I do not remember my first day of preschool; however, I do remember that it was in a church in B-own not far from my current lesson locale which itself is a converted place of worship now serving as the South Campus of the local Y.

The lesson itself was GREAT! much better than last week’s when  we only made it through 2 songs.  Today, we breezed through 6 of the 11 songs in 40 minutes (lost track of time and since none of us had anywhere pressing to we did not stop).  One piece still had some problems but was better than the last time we attempted it.  So, I think after we see how the remainder goes next week, I will be setting the date for the fruits of my labor to be put on display… no pun intended.  NOW if I can just get over this cold/allergies that seem to have latched onto me. 😉

Not mobile data- is that what you were thinking?  I have a 4G phone released this year that’s not really 4G if that says anything about how long we’ll be waiting.  No, our church has a regular meeting for all church leaders.  This year we had about 400…more leaders than last year attend.  One church, six campuses, 15,000 churchgoers.  Yes there were a lot of leaders in attendance.  Our thing for this year is five Gs.  Let’s see if I can remember- the literature is in the car.  Growing, giving/generosity, grace, gratitude, and…  Okay, four out of five isn’t bad (giving and generosity are the same g).  In addition to this upcoming series, our pastor announced a revisit of a past series done about 12 years ago and a new financial drive- no specific dollar amount goal, but something else.  We’ll hear more about it soon.

In other church news, I am no longer a Liferock leader but am now a 4th and 5th grade leader.  Did I ever name the ministry before?  Probably not, but since I have stopped blogging for the most part causing my readership to heavily dwindle, I feel it is now safe to write.  Back to topic, the kids ministry decided to dump all names and just refer to the classes by grade.  Gone is Rock Solid (preschool ministry) and their climbers, leapers, trekkers, sleepers, and whatnot.  Now it’s just nursery 1, nursery 2, preschool 1… (ten preschool classrooms if you can believe it- remember the number of churchgoers I mentioned above…?).  Likewise, the separate names for the K-3 and 4/5 ministries have been removed.  I’ll learn of whatever other changes they have in store in two weeks when we have are children’s ministry meeting.  What this change means is I may be the only one who has served in the complete run of Liferock.  The year I started doing kid’s drama at church they had a Friday night ministry for 4th and 5th grades which I did not serve in, but they called that Life on the Rock I just learned.  They didn’t change it to Liferock until the following year when they moved the program to the weekends, separating the K-5 ministry into the now current K-3 and 4/5 as referred to earlier.  Now that the name has been terminated, I have served from start to finish.  How many years was that?  Well, my nephew was in 4th grade at the time- he may have attended once or twice.  He is now the equivalent of 16th grade.  That’s right- a senior at a university.  That makes this, what?  My 12th year?  Yes, I started drama in 1998, so Liferock the following year.

A note to L & C- 4th and 5th grade are quite different from junior high, but it is a real joy to teach those grades and I am sure you will agree.  Not the handful younger grades are, but not adolescents pulling away from adult authority either.  A perfect age in my opinion.

Blah- 11:00, and I have to get up and drive to Chicago in the morning.  I detest driving over there.  30 minutes away in no traffic, so that means over an hour to get to where I need to be.  I really wish this job of mine didn’t do business in the City…

My little girl in Florida (along with her husband of course) got me the most wonderful present. It could have been for Father’s Day or maybe my birthday. They hadn’t shipped it, and I was last there at Christmas and I didn’t get it then. But anyway, this present was a wonderful collection of hot sauces. All well up on the scale of things hot and spicy. My son-in-law had to sign a waiver to buy them, good stuff that. I think I will try them out in different foods to determine which one I like best….

Hot Sauce Death Pack

First one in the package was Dave’s Insanity Sauce. My little family knows about this sauce, I’ve had it before and it is quite potent. I add a drop or so to my bowl of chili, just to liven things up a bit. I will write more on that one later.

Today I tried “Smack my ass and call me Sally” hot sauce. The bottle comes with a warning label on it.

WARNINGThis sauce is extremely hot. Keep away from children. Do not use if you have heart or respiratory problems. Wash hands after use.

I tried this in Florida on a cracker or something like that. Just one drop and it is VERY hot. I added some to my quick dinner tonight and found it extremely pleasant (for something that could very well light my lips on fire 😉 ) One or two drops does not seem to affect the flavor of the dish all that much, but it does increase the fire power. I imagine I could use this sauce on anything I wanted a bit of a kick with. 3 drops in a cup of chicken soup is about my limit of enjoyable heat. I think I could take more, but even for me there comes a point when the heat just doesn’t add anything to the dish. I will admit that there is even a point when I go. DANG that is just too spicy. I haven’t hit that one often, but I think I could with this sauce.

Good rehearsals and not so good rehearsals… all good just some better than others.  Yesterday was one of those “some better than others.” 😉 Only made it through two songs… the last 2 on my song list.  The first song was the one giving me all the headaches.  Probably concentrating to hard… relax! And the note I was having trouble with was a lot of bs … no really there were probably 10 of those little devils wrecking havoc, but they felt like a load of well… HEHEHE  However, I decided that instead of throwing the song out the window and not wanting anything more to do with it, I decided to go back for round number two.  Much improvement!

The second piece always had some problems for one big reason.  I had made a copy for myself and let K have the original.  Looking at both copies, I discovered that I had two pages in reverse order!  Fixed everything!  And not one flaw… THIS TIME! … “I AM my own worst critic”

I also purchased a copy of K’s new debut CD.  Kind of a folksy sound that I really like.  She wrote most (if not all of the 12 songs) herself and included her oldest son in one of my favorite pieces on the disc “1 Plus 1 Is Drew.”  Follow the link to the website to preview the effort and perhaps purchase the album digitally or a hard copy.

it was a good day.

I was able to talk to a very special lady today, even though we we not able to see each other. For me, just saying I was talking to someone special is a good thing. I guess that is the special part. 😉

Then I had a long talk with my little sister. We haven’t had a chance to talk for a whole, so it was nice to reconnect. Idle chitchat about things happening in our lives, a search for a wandering grumpy dog, talk of flip top noses, getting old, and new things in our lives. A nice time.

Then I did a chore I despise more than any other. I did laundry. Not having a working machine at home means a trip to the laundry mat. Usually a boring time, but as luck would have it I ran into another friend and we had wonderful conversation.

After that I talked to my youngest for just a bit, but it was nice to hear her voice on the phone.

Throw in a couple of quick updates on Facebook, and a Detroit tiger win tonight, yes it was a good day

Even before we were married and had kids, my husband and I have always liked the idea of homeschooling our children, but the time just hadn’t been right in the past so we put the idea on the back burner.  The idea resurfaced last spring, and we began to pray and meditate on it and to do some planning.  Over the summer we were able to visit with some of the families we know who homeschool, spending hours learning about resources, comparing curriculum, and getting to know their families better.  My worry-prone mind tells me it’s completely insane to take something like this on while expecting a new baby, but on the other hand, time keeps passing us by and our oldest is in 6th grade already.  Never being exactly sure about God’s plan for us ahead of time – how many children we will be blessed with or paths of service my husband might be called to in his career, etc – now seemed like as a good a time as any to try homeschooling our two oldest children.  Besides, I’ve been told that it’s easier to teach when there is a baby in the family rather than a troublesome toddler, which is all the more reason to start now instead of next year or the year after.  So in addition to “Mom of 5”, another new hat I will be trying on this fall is “Homeschool Teacher”.

I am 90-95% ecstatic and 5-10% terrified, depending on the day you ask me – but only because I’m worried about taking on all these responsibilities while enduring the lack of sleep that accompanies a new baby.  Other than that, I know we can do it – after all, we believe this is God’s plan for our family, so we can always appeal to Him through prayer for strength, endurance, and patience.  Also, I have tons of ideas; actually one of the main problems I came across when designing my daughters’ curricula was finding a way to include all of the subjects and ideas that I was so excited about.  I didn’t come close, but there are always future years.

Our 6th grade curriculum is complete: it’s designed and outlined, and we have the materials.  Our 6th grader is extremely excited about our adventure, and it helps to have an amazing support system through friends who homeschool – a good percentage of my daughter’s friends are homeschooled, and they are amazing kids.  Actually, ALL of the kids I know that are homeschooled are amazing kids, and the vast differences between the emotional maturity and the moral integrity of the homeschool kids and the public school kids in our church youth group was one of the leading contributors that led us to this decision.  As youth group leaders, my husband and I have gotten to know many of the kids in our small town.  They are all great kids, but seeing how distracted many of them are by all of the emotional dramas that are manufactured in the public school setting was both eye-opening and heart-breaking – another factor aiding our decision.

Tangent over – back to curriculum.  We are using A Beka curriculum for our 6th grader, and we found a complete set of workbooks and teacher guides on ebay for a great price – barely more than our school fees would have cost.  Taylor is extremely excited about her books; especially the art book which looks REALLY cool!!  And the great thing about A Beka curriculum is that it is Christian-based curriculum, which is very important to us and another key factor in our homeschool decision.  We also found a whole bunch of workbooks and textbooks the other day at Goodwill in mint condition and at a great price!  It’s incredible how many resources there are out there, and also surprising how fun it is to hunt, shop, and piece them together to make curricula!

I know it’s going to be a lot of work.  I know I’m prolonging indefinitely the things I might want to do for myself once my kids are old enough to take care of themselves – any hobby, job or career path I might have wanted to pursue when the time came to put all of my kids on the bus for the day is moot.  But I’m accepting that my career is Mom + Homeschool Mom, and right now, I can’t think of any better use of my time than the investment I’m making in our family and the futures of my children.

I catch the Newlywed Game on Game Show Network occasionally.  Tonight, I had the opportunity to watch a couple I actually know (well… the male participant, anyway) try to guess each other’s answers.  I came in midway but I thought to myself… “That looks a lot like Rich Binning.” Given that the wife’s name was Olivia convinced me even further.  I was still like… “NO WAY!”  Until a question that seemed almost tailor-made for the New York-based actor who grew up in this neck of the woods was asked.  When a commercial came on, I rewound to the beginning to learn that it was indeed Rich and Olivia.  Of course, the actor’s latest professional gig was well plugged… something about contorting his maleness in various… well, you get the point.

Rich’s mother has taught at my alma mater since I was in elementary school.  I also shared the stage with him when FCF performed The Sound of Music several summers ago.  I played a party guest at the home of Captain Von Trapp  as well as the Nazi guard who announces the escape of the family following the festival concert near the end of the show. Rich played Rolf, Liesl’s love interest.

Unfortunately, the couple did not win but they had points on the board so it was not all bad.

…or different location.  It has been three weeks since my last voice lesson.  The first week was due to the fact that I was needed at work earlier than usual and K was on vacation the last two.  To add even more confusion, we are now meeting Monday afternoons at an entirely new location.  A nice and cozy studio which harkens back to vocal lessons of the past.  For the most part, the three week hiatus did not hurt a bit.  There were two notable exceptions.  A few of the more character-driven pieces (from the same show mind you) were not exactly up to par.  UNHEARD OF!  I was not pleased with those two.  Ah, well… guess which two of the list will be pounded this week 😉  However, we plowed through most of my pieces leaving 3-4 to continue with next week.  In all, we made it through 6 in slightly more than half an hour.

I believe that I have mentioned that the songs I have chosen to perform will be very family-friendly to accommodate my many nieces, nephews, and other special little ones who may poppin.  Something for everyone to enjoy so no one needs to ponder whether or not to bring the little ones.