Les

Moving!

2011-04-23T09:45:00.001-05:00

This blog is moving....

I will keep this one here for a while though, so change your google reader, mom!

Chiropractor Praise

2011-04-19T15:15:00.002-05:00

Look at this!!

Two posts in as many days!?

What is the world coming to....

Well, I'm on livechat with my budgeting program, Mvelopes and I'm having to wait (sort of like being on "hold") as they look into my issue. So I'm stuck here at the computer. So I might as well blog about another topic I've been meaning to address for a long while.

I didn't grow up going to a chiropractor. In fact, for a number of my adult years, I was one of those skeptical, suspicious believers of all the rumours you hear about chiropractors.

Then I got pregnant with Jairus, and by week 33 was measuring 40 weeks. I had too much amniotic fluid, due to his birth defects and this caused an incredible amount of pain. For about a month I was pretty much couch-ridden and had to quit work earlier than I had planned. It got to the point that I was desperate for any kind of relief. My midwife recommended a chiropractor in the city next to mine and so I went for my first visit.

He was nice, seemed competent, did his thing on my back but couldn't really fix things. Looking back, I don't think anyone could have helped me. This wasn't something out of place or strained--well, my muscles were strained, but there was no way to take that strain off, short of giving birth.

He was pretty 'natural health' oriented (as many chiropractors are) and gave me a book to read about vaccinations. I'm sure you can guess what that was about.

After Jairus was born, he came to see us in the hospital and gave him an adjustment with a teeny-tiny little pogo stick instrument. But shortly after he left the area and the next time I needed a chiropractor, I had to find someone else. Into the picture came Dr. Ferretti.

I don't think I've ever recommended any person, professional or service in my life as much as I have Dr. Ferretti. She's in Dundas and works out of a remodeled house clinic.

I don't remember my first visit with Dr. Ferretti or why. I remember taking at least 2 of my girls to her within 2 weeks of their birth. Now I take all four of my kids and of course, my husband and myself go regularly.

I remember being amazed when taking Verity to her shortly after birth. Verity had gotten a little stuck (just a little, honest) during birth and my midwife had had to step in and give some good tugs on her poor little head.

During your first visit, you'll always have some computer scans of your back and neck done. They can tell, I think with thermal technology, where your problem areas are. Dr. Ferretti doesn't actually need these, but I suppose they're good for the records. No, Dr. Ferretti has always had me lay the babies on my front and lay down on the bench (actually a cool motorized thing like being at the dentist, but the whole thing tilts up and down so you don't have to actually lower yourself). Then she closes her eyes and starts gently squeezing and feeling down the length of the babies body, and over the top of their heads as well.

With Verity, she practically described for me what had happened during birth before I'd even told her or shown her Verity's scan. She could tell just by what she felt in Verity's body, that she'd gotten stuck.

There's rarely any crick-crack with Dr. Ferretti. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever felt any crick-crack. And this isn't just about backs. My goodness no, Dr. Ferretti is about the whole body. Let me expand.

When Jairus was about 2ish or perhaps just before, a regular check at the doctors revealed a click in his hip. We were sent to a specialist in Brantford, and for the next few years had regular check ups. They said that his hip was uneven or something of the like, and was probably the reason why he didn't walk until 2 years of age. It was just slightly within the boundaries of 'not a huge concern'. It could slowly move into the 'concern' area so they kept an eye on him.

When we moved to Hamilton, we transferred specialists. Off we went for our first appointment at Mac, and the Dr. we saw checked him over and promptly started telling us the opposite of what the Brantford specialist had said. He didn't walk because of this problem, it was because he didn't walk that the problem occurred. Sounds like semantics, but it makes a big difference in the conscience of a mother. The dr. furthermore told me that Jairus would require surgery for this 'dysplastic' or malformed hip. I was quite upset.

It so happened that I had an appointment with Dr. Ferretti that afternoon. I told her what we had found out that morning and she very confidently told me to leave Jairus in her hands and not to let them get near him with a scalpel. (or laser?)

I did so and for about 6 months or perhaps a little longer, she saw Jairus regularly. She also began a therapy called Turner's on the bones of his skull. I had already taken Jairus for cranial-sacral therapy so I wasn't freaked out by it. Essentially she made sure that the plates of his head were all in place and encouraged proper blood flow around his brain, especially in the areas concerning speech.

At our next follow up appointment, that specialist had his intern see Jairus first. He carefully checked him over and I could tell by the look on his face that he was wondering what the issue was. When the specialist came in and the intern gave his report, he told him that he couldn't see any signs of the hip problem. The specialist checked himself and concurred, telling me that he didn't know what I was doing, but whatever it was, keep doing it.

By this point, Verity was starting to swing from the rafters--I mean, she was definitely showing signs of her gymnastic skill. I think the first time her elbow popped out of joint, she was about 18 months old.

It would leave her in considerable pain for a number of hours, often crying herself to sleep. By the time she woke up, it would usually be fine. But every 2-3 months, this would happen. The family doctor didn't have much to offer on the subject, just that this was not uncommon, it was just a matter of loose and still forming joints/ligaments/bones and she would grow out of it.

After about a year, my mom thought to mention it to Dr. Ferretti. Right away she knew what the problem was and told my mom to bring her in immediately the next time it happened. She even gave my mom her home number in case it was outside of office hours. Which of course it was the next time we needed her....

It was a Sunday just as our church service was ending. I remember the various nurses and health professionals at our church crowding around offering their advice, but I called up Dr. Ferretti and we headed off to Dundas. She came down and opened her clinic. She explained exactly what was going on and with a quick squeeze, rub and flick of her wrist (with no extra pain to Verity) things started to improve immediately. Within 10 minutes Verity was back to normal and I was amazed. From then on, we ran right over to Dr. Ferretti's whenever that happened. Interestingly, she grew out of it shortly after, which I think was due to the fact that Dr. Ferretti was not only correcting the problem each time it happened, but healing up the scar tissue from the other times, and allowing the arm to fully heal and strengthen.

Verity has continued to be a fairly constant source of pulled muscles, twisted joints and pinched nerves for Dr. Ferretti to ply her trade on, lol. With gymnastics class weekly, she often is complaining a day or two after that something is hurting, usually her legs. Time and time again, Dr. Ferretti will check and find that something has been jarred out of place (not dislocated, just not in the optimal position, and therefore causing pain) and with a few smoothing motions of her hands, puts everything aright once more. This is something I really appreciate about seeing Dr. Ferretti; she gets to the root of the problem. No Tylenol to mask the pain, or 'this is normal, she'll grow out of it'. No, when the girls have tummy troubles, she can tell me that their tummies are in the wrong position (for instance after having the stomach flu--did you know that your actual stomach can be wrenched up too high from vomiting?), or a bit of their intestines are pinched, or some other such malady. And then, she can FIX it. Not tell me it's a virus and it must run its' course, or it's a normal part of childhood and they must grow out of it. I detest band-aid solutions and Dr. Ferretti is really good at getting down to the bottom of things.

One of my favourite Dr. Ferretti accounts occurred when I was 37 weeks pregnant with my last baby, Afton. At 37 weeks, I was getting into bed one night. It was a Sunday. I had spent the day in a lazy fashion, sitting on my moms couch while family was visiting for something, likely Easter. I think that Afton didn't care for my lazy day, because as I tried unsuccessfully to get comfortable that night, I sat up with the strangest thought that something was not right. Sitting in the dark, I felt over my basketball of a belly and realized that I was feeling something rather hard and round at the top of my uterus. Are you getting the picture? Yes indeed, an emergency visit to the midwife the next morning, followed by an ultrasound showed that Afton was now breech. Panic ensued. I wouldn't be able to homebirth if she was breech.

The soonest I could get into Dr. Ferretti was the next morning, so I anxiously awaited that time and tried as many natural techniques to get a baby to turn as possible.

Dr. Ferretti found that my pelvis was not aligned, and things were quite cramped down in my lower right section as a result. She said she wasn't surprised that Afton had gotten herself out of there: babies go where there's room, she said. Sitting on a comfy couch for many hours that Sunday had not been wise. She quickly got things in order and I left with high hopes that all would be well.

By that evening I suspected things had changed. I called my midwife, who got me in for a quick ultrasound in the L&D ward around 10pm that night. It was confirmed; crisis was over.

There have been many other ailments and misalignments that Dr. Ferretti has worked her magic on, but we'd be here all day....

So if you are ever in need of a chiropractor, see this lady here!

Rather Exciting

2011-04-17T16:50:00.002-05:00

Of all the things I've thought of to blog about over the last few months, finally, I sit down to say a few words about this topic. I think it's because this is, as my title describes, rather exciting.

For a number of years now, I have dreamed about living "in the country". When I was a kid, I was fairly fascinated by that cheesy low budget set of films called "Wilderness family". Now, I'm not talking about country living like that. No, my friend, I need some semblance of society within a reasonable drive. But to have something more than a postage sized lot with houses farther than a stones-toss away (notice I didn't say throw....I have a pretty good arm, lol) is what I hope for. And I hope for it not just in the distant future, like when I'm retired. No, what I really want is to do it when my children are still young enough to enjoy the wide open space to run and explore and build and create. Young enough that we won't get sulky attitudes for moving out to "the middle of no-where".

About 6-8 years ago, we first spotted a lovely bit of land on the drive out to my parents place. Up on Tapleytown road, there was an old abandoned, ready to fall down farmhouse. But the land with it's mature trees and such, really appealed to me. To make a long story short, we kept tabs on this land: made a couple trips down to city hall to pull public records of it, talked to the real estate agent when it went up for sale, and even wrote the owners a letter last year. A final trip to the land development office a few months ago settled the matter: we couldn't afford the whole property (20 acres) and because of it's Greenbelt status, it couldn't be severed. Time to move on.

MLS searches for property in our area always produced slim pickings. Still, I'd do a search every few weeks.

Then, about a week and a half ago, I found this:

It's about 18 minutes drive south of us. Just under 1 acre. There's a well already drilled and registered, and utilities are ready to hook up at the edge of the property. They want $84, 900, which is the cheapest land I've ever seen around here. There are reasons for that, and I'm not going to go into why, but it's something we've investigated and decided is not going to dissuade us.

We don't want to be hasty or jump into something unprepared however (although there's always that pressure with real estate, that someone else could be considering it right now and make an offer before us. It's been on the market at least since last summer, perhaps longer, so I'm not too worried at the moment) so we've been seeking out advice and opinions from professionals and people we trust. I had gone out and taken panoramic shots of the land, and then showed it to my family. My inlaws came down for a visit early last week and we went out and saw it in person. We sent the pics to my BIL who is a house builder (and who'll be building our house if this goes through). I talked to a couple at church who live close to the property to get some insight about living there. We of course corresponded with both our current real estate agent, and the agent who helped us buy and sell the house before the one we live in now, as this property technically falls into her county.

I've been pretty impressed and encouraged by the responses from nearly all. So far, there appears to be nothing terribly wrong with this venture and no sense that anyone thinks we're unreasonable or nuts to think we could buy land and build our own house.

So later this past week, we contacted a broker and began the process to apply for the financing. I think once we have an idea if the financing will be adequate, we can think about putting in an offer on the land.

Then there's our own house to consider. Hooooo boy. Having just watched a good friend go through the listing of her house (still in the process actually) and have to keep a spotless household with four kids running around (and she's not even homeschooling any of them) while day in and day out, people traipse through and make judgemental comments.....I am NOT looking forward to this, nor all the work I suspect is involved in getting our house market ready.

Not that we haven't been preparing for this and doing a little bit along the way. We laid down new carpet in our bedroom a couple months ago and in our family room last spring. When we moved in, we replaced everything in the kitchen except the sink, painted nearly everywhere, pulled up 30 year old carpet in the combo dining room/living room and laid hardwood and 3 years ago when I was expecting Afton, we redid the upstairs bathroom completely. Still, there remains some large items that might need to be done before market time. The driveway is crumbling away. Our patio sliding doors are currently half in and half out....long story. The kitchen flooring was also not redone with the kitchen job and the linoleum is pretty sad looking....

Then there's all the repainting and cleaning and decluttering....wow...big job. Maybe the girls will start their summer break a little early this year....

Humiliation

2011-01-21T09:45:00.005-06:00

Is there any emotion in the human experience more gut wrenching than humiliation?

I am reminded of that classic Christmas movie, It's a Wonderful Life, when George is first seeing the life of the town of Bedford without him. Among many things, he sees Mr. Gower, the druggist he worked for as a lad, whiskery and decrepit, staggering into Nicks tavern in a stupor of damaged brain cells from a likely life of alcohol abuse and hardship in prison. George watches in horror as Nick takes out a bottle of soda water and sprays the old man in the face, while the patrons of the tavern look on in uproarious laughter.

Another favourite movie of mine is Never been Kissed with Drew Barrymore. Scenes of humiliation are common fodder in this flick, the pinnacle being when she is waiting out front her house for her crush to pick her up for prom. As he pulls up in the stretch limo, he rises up out of the skylight with a stunning blond on his arm. He pelts Drews character with raw eggs, while him and the chick snicker crassly. She crumples to the steps, horrified and bawling, and scurries out of sight when her mother opens the door, wondering about the sounds.

I always found it interesting that they wrote the script that way; having her escape her mothers discovery. Was she so humiliated that even a mothers comfort wouldn't suffice?

Of course, a close cousin to humiliation is simple embarrassment. I shouldn't say simple, because embarrassment and the events leading up to it can sometimes be far from simple. For this emotion, I think of Meg Ryan, sitting in an airplane frantically shoving peanuts into her mouth when the woman next to her says, "I just hate flying, don't you?". (Do I even need to say the movie this is from?). Meg, lost in her own tortured conscience responds, "Oh yes, I do, and I just told the worst one to the man I'm about to marry. Do you feel any lie is a betrayal?". To which the now befuddled seatmate says awkwardly, "I said....flying". "Ahhh, ohhhh", says Meg, nodding her head and acting for all the world like this embarrassment rolled right off her back.

And why is it that we are so drawn to other peoples embarrassments or humiliations? Why is it a common staple of teen mags to have a column about "My most embarrassing moment". Is there something cathartic about confessing our most shameful bloopers for the world to read? Or likewise to read about the mortifications of others?

Humiliation and embarrassment are such 'shut down' emotions. That's what they do; they just shut you right down. I don't know if I'm more sensitive to either of these than others, or it's just that we don't commonly talk about them, so I'm only left with the little world of my brain to consider if I overreact.

I was once told as a child that I was sensitive. I'm not sure now if that meant that I felt criticism, judgement and other negative emotions aimed at me quite deeply, or if I was sensitive towards the feelings and situations of others. The latter would be preferable, I suppose. Although inwardly I cringe that that: feeling things deeply is not a handicap, not to be scoffed at or belittled. I suppose alot of guys would feel that it is. Perhaps in macho circles, but in the world of families--wives and children, which most men wish to be a part of, it's definitely fodder for marriage counselling.

Perhaps somewhere along the line I learned that mythological lesson though. I fell for the rhetoric--subconsciously of course. And I stopped putting myself out there. A few people have noticed over the years. My voice teacher was one. When I chose a Cindy Morgan song for one of my recitals she once told me that I wasn't making myself as transparent as her--when I sang the song, she wasn't feeling the same depth of feeling as when Cindy sang it. I was a little offended at the time--of course I thought I was giving it all I had. Maybe not.

I joke about this little idiosyncrasy, but I pretty much refuse to ask a pregnant lady how far she is. The reason of course, is that I may be wrong. She may not be pregnant. And that would be horribly embarrassing.

Another source of painful embarrassment for me is what I call the "TMI attack". Perhaps there's already a label for this argument like those I remember learning about in philosophy--the ad hominem argument, the straw man argument. The TMI attack is used alot these days, and I despise it. You've seen it too, I know you have: two people are talking, joking, when all of a sudden one of them describes something they've recently gone through--perhaps an illness or something. They talk about the details of this illness and how it affected them and suddenly the other person is feeling uncomfortable, maybe grossed out. So what do they do? They chuckle awkwardly and say, "Hey man, that's TMI". Too much information. And what does that accomplish? It embarrasses the other person to death, that's what. They'll think twice about sharing such details again, that's for sure.

And that leads me to one of the worst and most common forms of embarrassment and humiliation to my mind. Think of that above example. Why did the first person feel it was ok to share the details of their illness? Because he had made assumptions about the relationship.

He had made the assumption that the relationship was strong enough, or close enough, or just generally able to withstand the sharing of a somewhat personal account.

It's part of our social conditioning to read the cues, non verbal and otherwise, to determine what level of friendship or relationship we are functioning at with those around us. This is a huge part of lives and I doubt any of us really consider it happening. It just happens. But we certainly do get knocked back off our foundations when we are slapped with the stunning realization that we made a vastly inaccurate read of anothers' cues.

And the shut down begins. The embarrassment and humiliation are the cornerstones of the wall that is quickly built. You determine that you will never go to that place of pain again. You will never put yourself out there. You will never make that assumption of relationship again and take the chance of further humiliation. Maybe that's cowardice. Maybe it's self-preservation.

To me, it's just reality.

It's not a PD Day,

2010-11-25T12:55:00.002-06:00

But I'm going to blog anyways.

It's actually a bit of a 'free' afternoon for me, as another little homeschooled girl comes over to play ("socialize". Gotta have that hs'er buzz word in there). The girls race all around the house in fairy princess costumes and leave me to....blog.

The past 7 days or so have left my . This is to say that I've had an on slaught of new and inspiring/stressful ideas to consider and also stressful events to add to it all.

Last week (on the actual PD day) I spent about 2 hours talking with two moms: one a homeschooler like myself and the other a mom who's had some experience with homeschooling, but generally is sending her kids to public school. She's also got a son with a number of challenges beyond the 'norm' so she had a good handle on where I'm coming from with Jairus.

By no means should you picture me having a with two friends. Hoohooo no, my friends. We made the grande error of scheduling this visit at the local . On a PD day. What were we thinking. Well, we weren't; we didn't have a PD day so we didn't think about the rest of Hamilton having one. So it was a . Just keeping an eye on my four while trying to talk was enough of a challenge, busting-at-the-seams full playland or not. About three times I had to take off at a full speed run down the length of the restaurant to snatch Afton from the brink of the parking lot, her giggling wildly all the way and making the drinking their coffee chuckle.

Anyways, it was a very interesting conversation which yielded some ideas I'm going to try or at least look into. One of those ideas was for us to learn sign language to help Jairus. At first I was rather horrified at the thought. We send him to speech therapy every week, and keep his augmentative communication device charged, and search out funding to send him to Tomatis training because....we want him to talk. With his mouth.

But here he is, 9 years old, and....can't really talk. His comm device, small amount of signed english, miming/acting out and inflected murmurs do not always do the trick. There are sometimes when we just don't know what he is trying to say. And those are moments indeed.

So I allowed the thought to for a bit. And it really started to. And I am rather excited at the possibility. Now just to find out where this can be done, how much it will cost and whether 2.5 year olds can learn too. Because if we're going to do this, we're all going to do it.

In comes the stressful event. Now, remembering that Jairus at one time in his life (for 3.5 years) could not even eat through his mouth, that when he did start eating he preferred yogurt and pudding and anything else of that consistency (and still does prefer them to this day; more the pudding), that he's undergone 2 previous x-ray swallow studies (one at about 6 weeks old) and that while he looks "normal", his dentist is still quick to remind me that his jaw is still quite small, Jairus choked on his food the other night.

As usual, I've berated myself for not keeping records on this sort of thing, but it's happened before. The first time was when he was about 9 months old and I was trying to put an ng-tube down his nose. He gagged and brought up phlegm, only to have it block his airway. I'll never forget the terror of that moment.

Jump ahead a number of years. We had bought one of those . Little did we know that hidden among the thin slices of tender beef was one big, thick, gristly piece. Which unbeknownst to us ended up on Jairus' plate. In his bid for independence, Jairus was attempting to take care of his own cutting, and somehow this piece ended up lodged in his throat. He of course managed to clear it and an extremely terse letter to Maple Leaf followed.

The incident repeated this past summer with a piece of chicken skin. And now Tuesday night while we were eating tacos. Tacos?

Yes. The only thing I can figure was that a piece of shell was caught, causing a traffic jam with what was swallowed after. After managing to clear his airway, Jairus spent the rest of the evening huddled on my lap. And I was happy to have him there.

The next morning I launched on my journey to get this looked into. Stop A was with the . Why is it that we can never actually speak to our doctors? The receptionist, seemingly used to parents using urgent language, did not seem at all concerned that I connect with the doctor. She insisted that I'd have to make an appointment and it would like not happen until January. I wanted to pull my hair out. She suggested I talk to my family doctor.

So that was stop B. This included pitstop B1 to call my phone company for the second time to ask them to figure out why suddenly the automated phone system at my doctors clinic does not recognize my phone. I've been racking up long distance charges (my dr. is in Brantford) on my cell phone (which it strangely recognizes) because it doesn't matter if I push 1#, 2# or 3#, nothing happens. I've been assured from both ends that it is not their problem.

Again, the receptionist wouldn't let me talk to my doctor, but I could talk to his . Oh, but wait, better yet, I could talk to her voice mail. At this point I insisted on talking to a real person and gave her a brief explanation of why. With a seemingly sympathetic tone, she connected to me to what I thought would be the nurse. But no. It was her voicemail. I left a message using slightly more buzzwords of an urgent nature then probably necessary and insisted she call me immediately. I heard nothing the rest of the day.

Stop C was to call Jairus' old Occupational Therapist to ask her to look at her notes and determine if we had dealt with this issue before and when. This kind of ammunition is good when heading into doctor territory. Again, I left a voicemail. She only works Wednesday and Thursday mornings but alas, I did not hear from her yesterday or today. Double

Pitstop C1 was to talk to James to see if he could do anything in person from the Mac side of things. He tried calling the pediatricians offices but got the same snippy-snip as I did. He went down to the doctors academic offices and discovered he was at another hospital for the day. Finally, we settled on an email that we knew would be delivered to the doctors blackberry. I wrote it up and James sent it from his Mac address so that it wouldn't be caught by some snippy-snip receptionist. We got a read receipt about 2pm yesterday. As of now, the doctor has not contacted us, and he apparently leaves the country tomorrow. Complete growl of

I called back the family doctor today to have the nurse tell me she tried to call back but got various messages of out of order, not available and other such crap. After I gave the receptionist a piece of my (nicely of course) (sorta) I had to argue my position with said nurse about whether or not a swallow study was in order. She insisted Jairus needed to come in and see the doctor (how much do I hateth that line? Let me count the ways....) but at least she got him in for Monday. I had her call my line directly back which of course worked perfectly.

This morning I had to wake Jairus up. I've probably had to do that, oh, never in his entire nine years of life, so I was understandably concerned. He just would not get out of bed, and said his throat hurt. My mind conjured up visions of an injury in his throat from the choking, or the start of aspiration pneumonia but his temp seemed fine. I was all set to keep him at home when suddenly he was hollering from the bathroom that he didn't like the bubbles Afton had left from her baby wash floating in the bathwater as he was trying to get in. Eewy bubbles.

How many of us truly anticipate the level of fear and stress that await us once we become parents.

Not I, said the .

I do love

2010-10-01T13:56:00.006-05:00

PA days.

Ever since realizing a few weeks ago that in a 7 day week I don't have a day off, I was pleasantly surprised to find that today was a PA day. Yes, I realized that before I took Jairus to school. :-P

I think I've used a PA day before to blog....interesting.

I decided that the girls would have a PA day too....although does that mean I need to be professionally improving myself?

But back to the day off thing. With starting the Musikgarten classes on Saturdays, doing the childrens program on Sundays, and choir, homeschooling, gymnastics, highland dancing, etc during the weekdays, this means that I don't have a regular (consistent), full day that I'm not obligated to be doing something. I mean, other then the obvious feeding and caring for my family. Until a PA day or other holiday, I no longer have a day that I can wake up to stretching out before me with no added stress already attached to it. Kinda depressing.

So I can see that it's been a number of months since I've blogged. I actually have a blogpost already composed, sitting on my computer just waiting for me to control C and send it out to ya'll. But somehow I'm not so interested in doing that right now. Maybe later. It was a post all about our summer trip up to Mr. Leeks cottage near Kingston. Fun times.

I have so much going on that I can't even think of where to start blogging about it. I probably shouldn't even be blogging.

I should have made a list of computer jobs before I even sat down, like my home manager coach suggested. But I sat down regardless and got an email that my SNAP Hamilton article and pictures were now published from my August 28th Open House. Cool. You can see them shortly over at my Musikgarten blog. So then I was purchasing the picture files from SNAP and downloading them, and posting them on FB and Twitter.

But before this I got 2 things done from my todo list: getting my license renewed and dropping off a proposal to the preschool at my church about maybe doing some regular Musikgarten classes for them. This was all quite an accomplishment with 4 kids in tow, one refusing to walk on his left foot after tumbling down the stairs this morning. I still think he's being a bit of a drama king.

Honour's hives have all but disappeared. She's got a few little spotties here and there, but I think we're past the worst. Sigh of relief.

This is my church's 20th anniversary this weekend. I should be making a large display about MountainKids to be put up tomorrow....guess I'll do that soon. The nice thing is that I get a week off of doing the kids program. Pretty pathetic to be happy about that when we've only done like 2 weeks of program so far.

An absolute swimming pool of laundry downstairs. Mostly clean. I have to get at least the washing/drying part caught up for tomorrow. I won't say why.

Finally got around to completing the funding application for Jairus to have tomatis therapy. Now just to send it off.

Also finally got some commercial general liability insurance set up for my Musikgarten classes. Blast that you need to have that stuff. It's costing me about 80% of my rent amount per month.

I had to sever my profile from my blogs. So if I comment somewhere, or otherwise make my profile seen, you can't click back to my blog. Hopefully I can change this soon, but it's a long story and for now, I can't have them connected. In case you were wondering. I'm sure you were.

I should be figuring out supper, maybe even starting it. And tidying up because were having friends over tonight. Not that tidying could really even help this place.

Ok, well there's my rambling update.

I do love PA days. :-)

Mountain Musikgarten!

2010-08-18T00:10:00.007-05:00

I've started a business. I didn't realize I would be starting a business....but I have. How crazy does that sound!?!

This is just a quick post, because it's freaking 1 o'clock in the morning and my eyes feel like they've been sucking onions (ok, yes, the only illustration coming to me at 1am). I just wanted to make a connection here from my blog. Hubby's been working like a dog getting a new website up for me (www.jksoundstudios.com/mountainmusikgarten.html) and tonight I just added a blog so that I've got a way to easily update things without having to wait for him to get home from work. (!!)

So do pay a visit...right now there's only one post, but take a look and become a 'follower' just so I don't have to keep seeing that "you have no followers yet" message. How depressing!

http://mountainmusikgarten.blogspot.com

Thanks, ya'll..... :-)

~Les

Really, this is an emergency!

2010-07-04T09:03:00.006-05:00

So a couple weeks ago, we dug into our newly attained emergency fund for...an emergency. Really.

What you see here, is the screen of our 37 inch LCD TV [that my brother Paul gave us for Christmas 2 or 3 years ago] after Verity flung a toy across the room at it. An accident, of course. The whole screen should be the same light blue as the left side is. The teeny spot of light blue in the midst of the black in the upper right quadrant is the location where the toy hit.

We were pretty upset. We never would have bought something like that for ourselves at that time; in fact the only reason my brother knew we wanted a new TV was because I posted on Facebook, asking if anyone had an old one lying around they wanted to gift to us, because our 15 year old second hand TV was dying. Him splurging on this for us for Christmas that year was a total shock and we were just amazed.

James got on the internet and started researching how to fix a broken LCD screen. The results were not encouraging. Jokes on TV repair forums ran the likes of "Now you've got a huge funky looking conversation piece for your family room". He did finally find a company that sold replacement screens in the States. 2-300$ for the screen and about an equal amount to ship it, plus duty to cross the boarder. Sigh.

So here was where we were faced with our first decision about whether to use our emergency fund. Yes, it's there for such situations where a major appliance breaks and needs to be replaced. But a stove or washer just feels like a more legitimate use of an emergency fund.

It didn't take long though, for James and I to agree that we wanted to replace it--replace it immediately and replace it with roughly what we had there. So we threw the kids in the van and went on over to TigerDirect where we found a Toshiba 40inch LCD for $599. It was discounted a fair bit because it was a web return (buyers remorse I think) and the box was munched during shipping. The TV itself was perfectly fine. We were pleased to get a good deal and a few more inches.

A couple days ago, I was on the Dave Ramsey forum and while asking for advice on a different issue concerning emergency funds, someone there posted a response that called into question our decision. To quote them exactly:

"And, I'm not requesting any information, but I will make a statement: if you used the emergency fund money for a non-emergency, I would look very hard at behavior and priorities. "

I'll admit, this fed a little on my doubts about spending that money. But then I really got thinking about it and talking to James. First of all, this person had no business or place to question our decision. It's our money. We worked hard to save it. If I had been asking for opinions about whether our decision had been reasonable, then they could have spoken up. But I didn't.

Furthermore, I was struck with what we had accomplished in having the money to buy a 500$ TV without going into debt. When I got past the guilt, it was great feeling. The bottom line is that this was completely our decision and we don't have to justify it to anyone except God. Since he owns it all, and we are just the caretakers, the three of us are the only ones involved in the semantics of it.

And we have so been enjoying our TV!

Getting Away

2010-07-01T07:54:00.005-05:00

For once I'm going to use my blog to spread the love instead of whining. :-)

Two weeks ago at this moment, I was waking up in a beautiful bed and breakfast at Niagara on the Lake. James and I got away for our 14th anniversary. It was heavenly.

I think I've figured out that this is the first time we've gotten away since we had kids. That would be 9 years! We did go away when I was 8 months pregnant with Verity (5 years ago) but I don't really count that. 8 months pregnant does not make for....well....a very romantic, relaxing time away.

So about a year and a half ago, Jamie's boss at Horizon gave him a Christmas gift of a $100 gift certificate to an organization that lets you choose from a number of Bed and Breakfasts. At the time I thought that was really nice, but not so thrilled about it, as Afton was only about 8 months old and I was still looking at at least a year of nursing. Our certificate would have to be saved for a while--good thing it didn't have an expiry date.

Then about 6 weeks ago James informed me that he had made the arrangements for us to use it for our anniversary. I weaned Afton back in March (as you might remember me triumphantly posting about here) so we were free and clear. I was so excited. I listen to 96.3 a fair bit and hear Libby Zymer with her Zoomer report and I recall one that talked about the excitement of anticipation when it comes to holidays. She said that basically, the anticipation almost becomes better than the holiday itself and makes the results of it last longer. I was happy to take part in

that!

Our actual anniversary date was on the 15th, the Tuesday before we were to go away. James surprised me (really, honestly surprised) with an amazing bouquet of roses.

Two weeks ago yesterday, James took the day off and we packed up some stuff. We got to my parents just before lunch. The four kids were extraordinarily excited to be sleeping over at Nana and Papa's. Then we headed of to NOTL.

An afternoon spend exploring NOTL is something James and I have made a special treat. About once a year we usually take a trip down there and poke in and around the shops for a few hours. Always a stop at Maple Leaf fudge, usually a Christmas ornament purchase at the Christmas Store, a wander through a few galleries. I love to eat at the Shaw Cafe, almost more for the decor than the food (although the food is fantastic too).

When it's just an afternoon though, there's always the subtle pressure that someone else is dealing with my four kids and we should really be getting back. How lovely it was to know that we had not just the afternoon, but the evening, the night and a bit of the next day too!

After our usual prowling up and down the main street, we got back to the van and made the short jaunt over to our B&B, the Duncan-Quinn House. I have to admit, I was a little unsure about what staying in a B&B was going to be like. I rather like the anonymity of a hotel. I worried that staying in a room of someones house, likely next to another couple staying in another room would be....awkward. The last and only time I stayed in a B&B was as a teenager, when my choir went down east and we were billeted in Lunenberg. My billet was a couple who were just about done renovating their house into a B&B. It was quite lovely I remember.

When we arrived, we were greeted by the hostess, Jane. I was a little surprised when she handed us a key to the house and our room---it was more like a hotel then I thought it would be. She showed us up to our room, which James had chosen; the nicest in the house. It had a large four poster bed and a few tables and bureaus and such. There was a sitting chair I believe and a walk in closet. Attached was a beautiful, very large ensuite, with a corner fitting jacuzzi tub. Everything was immaculately neat (a welcome escape from my own house) and clean and beautifully decorated. The bed was sooooo comfy....it started me thinking again about replacing our mattress which is who-knows-how-old and not even comfortable with a padded mattress cover.

Here's a few pictures of the house and our room.

After we registered, James slipped out to get a few things and I spread my scrapbooking stuff on the bed and worked on the choir album I wanted to get updated before the choir BBQ the next evening.

Then it was time to head out to supper. The restaurant James had made an reservation at was within walking distance from the B&B, The Cannery, which is in a resort/hotel type place called The Pillar and the Post. It was a really nice place (nicer than the picture on the website infers--I didn't even see pizza on the menu). They brought us each a little shrimp cocktail after we had ordered, which was really yummy. I had ordered the prime rib and James ordered a steak and both meals were superb. Jane, our host from the B&B, upon hearing where we were going for supper (and that this was our anniversary) gave us a certificate for complimentary deserts. I ordered a chocolate fudge mouse cake and James ordered tiramisu. We ended up taking them back to the room to eat later, as we were full up.

The only glich of the evening was poor James having to drive all the way back into St. Catherines when I needed some decongestant spray and the local pharmacies were all closed. What a man!

Breakfast the next morning was served at 9, and we then met the other guests. A couple from the Cambridge area sat to our left, newly engaged the previous evening out in the gardens at the house. (!!) They were older then us, and the woman talked about her adult daughter. The other 'couple' was a woman in her late forties I'd guess, with her almost elderly mother. The older lady was quite a charmer, with a bit of english accent. She regaled us with a story of how her and her husband were once caught skinny dipping by their daughter (the one present). She was cute (the way older ladies can be, you know).

Again, I hadn't been so keen about the idea of having to get up and eat breakfast with people I didn't know. But I was reminded of how sometimes I need to get out of my little comfortable bubble and interact with the world sometimes.

We were served muffins, lavender tea biscuits and toast by Jane and her husband Peter who went all out with a charming apron. We had a fruit salad, cut into teeny little pieces, which I decided is now my favourite way to eat fruit salad, with yogurt and granola.

The main course was served by plate; a mini baked quiche, a thick strip of bacon, a roasted half tomato topped with toasted bread crumbs, and two elegant looking asparagus stalks with lemon-herb butter.

The lavender tea biscuits, Jane explained, were baked using culinary lavender from The Lavender Boutique down the road from NOTL. She was so enthusiastic about the place that she talked all of us into visiting before we left the area.

So after packing up and saying goodbye, we hit the downtown for a few more trinkets to take back home to the kids, and then headed out to the boutique. As promised, the couple running the place were high energy, very knowledgeable and introduced us to the world of lavender. A quick tour of their greenhouse and a peruse through the various lavender product made for a pleasant morning.

We decided to use the last of our budget to stop for lunch in Grimsby, at the Judge and Jester, a place I've seen lots but never thought about eating at. Very yummy. Highly recommend.

So that was our trip! We decided that we definitely need to do that sort of thing more often and soon!

S-U-P-P-O-R-T-Find-out-what-it-means-to-me...

2010-06-15T10:15:00.004-05:00

A continuation of my thoughts of yesterday.

My point is not necessarily that we are wrong in this way of life we've cultivated. Sunday Schools exist, they likely always will. (I've often wondered what they did in the New Testament church....there were no basements to send the kids off to, and if there was another room, then who taught them? Knowing the community spirit, if they did send the kids elsewhere, I'm sure all the parents took turns. Which we dislike nowadays because we want kids to develop a relationship with a Sunday School teacher and you can't do that when they're here one week and not the other. But I think it would have been different in those days--they were more like families) (But again I digress)

Since we generally do accept that it's ok to let others instruct our children in spiritual matters, now begs the question, so then what responsibility should we be taking?

As one who has now been heavily into Children's Ministry for a couple years now, I can say, a heck of alot more than most do.

There's always the exceptions, the ones who are keenly interested in making sure their children are being sensitively and effectively ministered to. And so they're the ones being a part of that ministering. They're the ones taking on the lions share of this mammoth responsibility. But there are many who drop the kids off and rarely give the next hour or two a second thought.

I don't want to sound like a complainer. I'm doing what I'm called to be doing and that's not going to change until the call changes. But Children's Ministry is not like other ministries. We don't expect everyone to take their turn at being on the praise and worship team (after all, if you are benefiting from the singing, you should take your turn at it, right?) because, frankly, we don't want to hear from everyone in the church through a microphone. Many ministries require a specific talent or gifting. And Children's ministries is somewhat similar there...except that as you can read in my previous post, we get so desperate for people to teach that we have to dumb down the requirements to "love God and love kids". We've actually had to issue an ultimatum concerning our children's program; if we don't get 6 teachers by the end of June, there will be no program come September. So far, we've had no-one volunteer to teach for the year and only 2 or 3 who have said they would do a rotating thing "if you were desperate". 2 of those 2 or 3 have already taught with us sometime in the last two years. Oh and one teacher from this year intends to continue, no matter if the rest of the program runs or not. So at least one class of kids might continue getting something on Sunday mornings.

I wonder if any church has tried "co-op Sunday School"? I know that at the wonderful church in Brantford we attended for about 2 years, it was not very long after we started attending--maybe 2-3 months, before a new nursery schedule came out---and we were on it! (I didn't even realize they knew our names!) At that time we had 2 kids in nursery so this wasn't a huge surprise. I was surprised however that no-one had come and actually asked us to be on the rotation. I'll admit, I was slightly annoyed at this. But it seemed a pretty clear and fair concept to me: you use the nursery, you take your turn. Where else in our society do we involve our children in something at no cost to ourselves, and not expect to give back into it in some way? Even Verity's gymnastics, which was far from no cost to us, asked everyone to do some fundraising mid-year.

Even if, ok, you feel completely overwhelmed and uncomfortable with the idea of teaching a class of children (and by class, I mean around 4-6 children. Not 12). There are other things you can do. Allow me to list a few:

Substitute teach. Be on our list of people willing to take a class for one Sunday when a teacher is sick.
Buy presents: We like to recognize all our kids with a little something on their birthday. How would you like to go on a shopping spree without a single dent in your wallet? You're, right, it does sound like fun! Be our birthday lady/man.
Greet children: For 20 minutes every Sunday, you could create lasting and pleasant relationships by simply saying hello. Each child needs to be welcomed and greeted when they arrive for the program. This is a very important foundation for our program--the start of a positive experience at our church. You don't even need to do this every week--we'd be glad to make a rotating schedule.
Play an instrument or sing: We have a praise and worship time and normally rely on DVD's and CD's. It's really cool though, when someone can add a live instrument. And we always need singers. Again, this doesn't have to be weekly thing--we regularly rotate groups of kids through as junior p&w leaders, we can do the same for adults. It's important for the kids to see that their program matters--what they are experiencing is not a second-rate service just because they are young. Other adults in the church showing an interest and wanting to be involved will convey worth to the children.
Help technically: We attempt to put together an exciting multi-media component....well, it's not really a component, it's really the backbone of our service. From Powerpoint and Easyworship to Youtube and Yahoo video, we are looking to appeal to today's kids. Right now, one person programs this entire 1/2 hour long set-up. He also, with help from one other person, physically sets up our stage, sound and video system, runs the program and tears down afterwards. There are many parts of this that we could import to someone else:

Set up. Come to the children's ministry room and help set up. It takes about 20 minutes before the service.
Tear down. Takes slightly less time.
Create stuff: Videos, scripture presentations, whatever. We are open to creativity.
Fill in: Our tech guy has four kids and they've been known to be ill from time to time. We need people willing to fill in. Spend a Sunday or two observing and learning how our systems work. Then be willing to be on call if by chance he needs to be away on a Sunday.

Food: We're thinking of having a snack time in the fall. Having someone coordinate that, buy the food, serve it, clean up, whatever. That would be really great.
Miscellaneous talents: Puppetry? Magic tricks? Know a bunch of funny skits or games? Water glass playing? Breakdancing? We want to make our program fun and exciting. You come to us with some miscellaneous talent, skill or idea and we will find a way to use it.

Perhaps you've looked over this list and for whatever reasons, are still convinced you can't be a part. Alright. There is still a way to support us--those you've entrusted to, as we've established, teach your children the incomparable truths of God.

Be in relationship with us. Be our friend! We choose to miss out on the morning service to minister to the children of our church. We miss out on the before and after chit chatting, the general fellowship of being in an adult service, the sense of community that comes from corporate worship.So don't just gather your kids up and head out to the parking lot. Say hello, how did things go today? You're lookin' good, are you over that head cold? And....dare I say it....

Say thank you.

Last year I had one parent send a thank you card and small gift at the end of the year. In my choir work, out of about 35 kids in each choir, approximately 1/3 to 1/2 give me some token in appreciation for teaching their kids music once a week. Or at least an email.

I'm not looking for this. I'm not expecting this. Recognition is not why I do this.

But this year I didn't hear from any parents. Yes, a few other teachers said some words publically or by mass email. But that's different.

As I did last year, I went out and purchased something nice for each teacher and person who had contributed in a significant way to our program. Even at a modest cost per person, it adds up. I was actually a little scared to submit my receipts for these gifts. (Good thing my dad writes the cheques!)

But in working through this anxiety, the thought occurred to me....why am I scared? Do these people not deserve some token of gratitude for their time and sacrifice this year?

Absolutely they do.

And who is grateful to them? Well, yes, me and my mom, who co-directs with me. But who else?

Yes.....the parents.

But who went out and bought the gifts?

Yes.....me.

Again, I don't begrudge this. I enjoyed it actually. I was really excited about the gift we gave each teacher this year and I think they're all going to enjoy it immensely.

But the point is....not only are myself [and all these teachers] taking responsibility for the spiritual enrichment of these kids, I also took on the job of thanking them....for the families. You see my line of reasoning here?

This past year, we tried to organize a few events beyond the usual weekly program. We did Operation Christmas Child. We did a Christmas play. We had two movie events for missions fundraising--one involving a nice dinner. We did an end of year bbq.

Support our events. If you truly cannot give regular time in some capacity to your children's spiritual education, then show up when something is planned [to add to the Christian education they are already receiving for a short time weekly]. And if you can't come....then at least tell us you're not coming. There's nothing like buying 5 dozen hotdogs and hamburgers and only having 1/2 the expected amount of people show up.

I don't know why being a part of children's ministry is such an issue. I don't know why we don't get people willing to come out and teach the future generation of our churches. Maybe they feel they 'just don't have the gift of teaching'. This may be true. But my usual thoughts when hearing this run along the lines of, if you have kids, you teach. You teach them to drink from a cup, to pee in the toilet, to share their toys, to tie their shoes. Don't kid yourself. If you're a parent, you teach.

Maybe some feel they are too busy.

Need the time in church themselves.

Are involved in another ministry already.

My thoughts again? (and they are, just, my thoughts).

Make time for your children.

Your children need the time in church too.

Your children are your primary ministry.

Trust

2010-06-14T16:26:00.004-05:00

"Teach [my words] to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up."
Deuteronomy 11:19

"What good will it be for a child if he gains a whole world of knowledge,

yet forfeits his soul?"

Matthew 16:26, My paraphrase

In this day and age, parents are, well, paranoid. We require police checks and background checks, questionnaires and reference checks on every manner of person who comes within any contact of our children. This is both wise and insulting--wise from the parent and professional point of view and insulting, in many cases, from the viewpoint of the one being check, check and doubled checked.

We like to think we are very careful when it comes to who we allow to influence our children. Some of us send our kids to private school, or Christian school---because we are concerned that our children get the very best education, or a faith-based education. We shuttle them around to sports practices, music rehearsals, social and community clubs because we are convinced that they need to to have these opportunities to develop their gifts, find their niche, flourish, thrive...

And of course, we are trusting all the instructors that are teaching the classes, coaching the teams and running the programs. Or perhaps it's just that we trust the organization behind these leaders.

Let me just think through the people I entrust with my children:

Verity takes gymnastics. I trust her coach Sandy. I also sit and watch her every week for an hour and other than not really hearing the exact words Sandy is saying, (because I watch through a window) I'm trusting her ability to coach effectively, compassionately and with professionalism. Because I don't have any extensive gymnastics experience, I have to trust her in that. But I signed up Verity before I even met Sandy. I plunked down hundreds of dollars at the beginning of the season to put her under the influence of a woman I had never met. Who did I trust? The gymnastics club. How did they earn this trust? The website. Yeah. Pretty much their advertising. Which of course we all know is always truthful. (shnark). After the classes started, I was able to view Sandy's qualifications which were posted on a wall along with her picture. And who did I trust then? The letters that followed her name. The national gymnastics organization that deemed her qualified to instruct children. How do I know they are trustworthy? I have no earthly idea. I'd never heard of the organization before I got Verity into gymnastics. I suppose something that comes into play here is reputation. With some sleuthing, you can usually find out something about someone--or some organization's reputation. I didn't, really. But there was the general reputation that clubs of this type are trustworthy. This came through the experience of two people I can think of specifically--a friend and a family member.
Honour took a 10 week ballet course over at the Ancaster Rotary Centre. It was part of the programming offered by the city of Hamilton. I trusted her teacher Kristin. I also sat and peeked in the room (not watched quite as much as this was discouraged and during the whole second half of the 10 weeks there was paper over the doors so we couldn't see the wondrous choreography they were perfecting for the final recital) for 45 minutes every week. I trusted Kristin's ability to teach Honour effectively, compassionately and with professionalism. I have absolutely no experience in ballet, so I had to trust that Kristin knew what she was doing. Going to see her dance at Hamilton Place in a primary role of the ballet Hansel and Gretal helped that trust along significantly. But how did I trust her in the beginning, when I was signing Honour up and had never met Kristin? The city of Hamilton was who I trusted. I trusted that they had hired Kristin with full knowledge of her abilities and trustworthiness. I would imagine that they even have police checks done on all their instructors although I can't be sure, because, honestly, I didn't check that. And I'm trusting the city that even though they don't require instructors of this calibre to have some kind of teaching credential, Kristin has some idea of the pedagogy of ballet for children--likely just from the process of having gone through it herself. Which in alot of cases is fine, right?
I send Jairus to public school every day. Of all the things I've 'signed' my kids up for, this is the one that I did the most praying, the most investigating, the most in depth consideration. I was advised by trusted family members. I of course had my own experience of having come up through the public school system. There's a natural trust there. I met with the teachers, the principals, the special needs advisors. I walked that line carefully; waiting on , and listening to the Lord for guidance. Who did I trust? Well, yeah, God. (Who of course I also trust in the girls activities). But otherwise, I trusted those teachers, principals and advisors. Who was I trusting beyond that? The Hamilton Wentworth board of education, who hired these people. The province of Ontario, the nation of Canada who set in place the standards for school boards to follow.

So why am I going on like this?

I see a glaring inconsistency here. And I will be the first to admit that I've likely fallen into that glare in my child-raising up until now.

One of my underlying principles in educational philosophy is that my children's spiritual welfare is more important than their general schooling education. Alot of people might raise their hands to their mouths in horror over this one. Take a look again at the second verse I quote/paraphrase up at the beginning. What will it matter if my daughters can read years ahead of their age, do multiplication tables at 5 years old or tell me the capitals of all the provinces....if all the "recommended reading" they've done results in an eternity spent separated from God? If all the math equations they've mastered far outnumber the principles of God they've committed to their hearts? If they can tell me where countries are, but not about how much God loves the people in them? I am convinced that while the Lord wants us to educate ourselves, certainly, when we stand before him at the finish of our earthly lives, it will all be as Solomon discovered--'vanity' compared to the riches of knowing and growing in Jesus Christ. All the success our world has to offer cannot hold a candle to that.

As well as a general educational philosophy, I also have some opinions concerning Christian Education. Since the advent of public or community schools, we've been quite willing to hand over the education of our children to other people. (It would be quite interesting to see why this ever came about. Was it just a matter of some having higher education than others? Did Ma Ingalls really think that Mrs. Garby or Liza Jane could teach Laura and Mary and Carrie better than she could? But I digress) I don't think scripture really has much to say on this idea. But I could be wrong.

Christian education however....I think scripture has alot to say about that, starting with the first verse up there--God's direction to the Hebrew parents on teaching their children scripture. I think it's mighty clear that we as parents are responsible for our children's spiritual instruction. This is why we have baby dedication ceremonies; because we recognize that raising our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord is highly important.

And then came D.L. Moody and his Sunday Schools.

I'm just kidding, he didn't start Sunday School, but his were well known. I do think it's interesting that Robert Raikes, credited as really getting the Sunday School idea off the ground apparently started it because he saw children from less fortunate families getting into trouble with the law. How to prevent that? Instruct them in the Bible and introduce them to Jesus. The ugly underside of this premise is that he realized that the parents were failing.He took over the job of Christian education--and these families handed him that reign.

Now, I'm not slamming Sunday Schools, because, well, that would be like shooting myself in the foot. I'm not willing to go as far as to say that Sunday School is a usurption of our parental responsibility as handed down to us by God. It may be true. But I'm not going there.

I'm back to the trust issue. So here we have this situation of Sunday School--a place where we deposit our children every week and trust that the teachers are doing an adequate job in our place of teaching our children the most important truths known to man.

And where again are we putting our trust?

In the teachers. Whom we may or may not know. (Yeah, go ahead, ask yourself if you know your children's Sunday School teacher. Do you even know their name? Do you know anything about their spiritual walk or comittment to the Lord? Just a little something to chew on there.)

But like the hierarchy of trust we see in public school and extra-curricular activities, we ultimately trust in those higher than the teachers. We trust the Sunday School superintendent. The Children's Ministry Co-ordinators. The Deacons, the Elders, the Mission Boards....whatever all those higher-uppers are called in your church. The Pastor. The church as a whole. The Denomination.

So you might not know a darn thing about your children's Sunday School teacher except that she's got brown hair and glasses, but you are trusting that those in authority over her put her in that position because....why?

Because she's got a teaching degree?
Because she's got graduate or doctorate level training?
Because she says she loves God and has accepted Jesus as Saviour?
Because she's a natural-born teacher and the children love her?

Maybe.

Yes.

Maybe.

I find it interesting that one web source says the following about Sunday School teachers:

Sunday school teachers are usually lay people who are selected for their role in the church by a designated coordinator, board, or a committee. Normally, the selection is based on a perception of character and ability to teach the Bible rather than formal training in education.

No degrees. No training necessarily. Perception of Character. What's that? Yeah, our gut.

And this is who we trust to instruct our children in the most valuable lessons on the planet.

Hmmm.

My son, the athlete

2010-05-31T21:27:00.003-05:00

Last week Jairus went to the Special Olympics that were held at Saltfleet Highschool. I have to admit that I've not had the best impression of athletic events for special needs kids in the past. I've shied away from sports that were adapted for Jairus, preferring that he be involved with regular kids. There comes a point though, that I can recognize that he likely won't be getting on a school soccer team, or winning track and field awards like the rest of the boys. When this Special Olympics opportunity came up, I didn't really think twice. The thought of Jairus being able to do some sports and have fun and be recognized for it was a no-brainer. While never wanting to underestimate his perception of things, I think he really did enjoy it and felt good about 'winning' lots of events. Here's some pics and a little video. The slide show seems to be moving a little quickly so you might want to just click the forward arrows yourself when you want.

Hopes and Endings

2010-05-15T14:58:00.004-05:00

For I while I've been intending to blog about a certain topic. (I say that alot, don't I?)

I alluded to it two posts ago when talking about our financial plans. That I had a feeling just after Christmas that I wouldn't be getting my HCC pay in the fall.

Well, it's happened.

I've been conducting with the Hamilton Children's Choir since 2001. My son was still in hospital when I left one evening to go and interview for the brand new position of Prelude Choir conductor (at that time simply called the Preparatory choir). I've spoken of my long association with the HCC before--you can see it here.

After David Davis left the HCC, we were blessed with an amazing new artistic director, a woman new to our country only a few years before. Zimfira Poloz hailed from Russia and was/is world reknowned in choral music for her skill with young voices. She became both our AD and AD of the High Park Children's Choirs of Toronto.

It didn't take long until changes started coming down the pike. We soon discovered that we now needed a 'middle step' choir to bridge the age and skill gap between Prelude and the Concert Choir, which Zimfira conducted. So the Concert choir became the Chamber Choir and a new conductor was hired for this new bridge choir, now labeled the Concert Choir. Around the same time, we sought to fill the gap we saw with older choristers and boys who's voices had changed. The Youth Choir was formed, conducted in part by another of our former choristers. All through this, a 5th ensemble, originally called the Chamber Choir when David formed it many years ago, was renamed and refocused as the Girls Choir. For a short time I also took on a boys choir, called Allmen. Our original goal there was a soprano boys group, but the numbers didn't support that, so I had both changed and unchanged voices. They were a great bunch.

I had interviewed for the Concert Choir conducting position but was passed over for another very qualified woman, former AD and founder of the Oakville Children's Choir, Glenda Crawford. Glenda went on to doctoral studies after only a year with us, so the following year, Gerald Yun of University of Waterloo took over. He too only worked with us for a year before moving on. The current conductor is another Russian musician, with doctorate level training. She's doing a fabulous job with them.

Not getting that job in the first place had been a little hard to swallow. I had recently (well, within a couple years previous) interviewed for the Artistic Directorship for both the Brantford Children's Choir and the newly formed Children's chorus of Chorus Niagara and while not being awarded these positions, had received very positive and encouraging feedback in both situations. However, 'failing' in this way within my own organization was pretty discouraging. I think that was when the first seeds were planted that perhaps my future with the HCC was going to be limited.

In the February of 2007, I began homeschooling the kids. In the spring of 2008, I took on the co-leadership of MountainKids, my church's children's program. In the fall I started conducting with Strings, Etc!, a music organization based in Ancaster, made up mostly of homeschooled children. I took on their youngest choir of children the same age as Prelude, 8-10. In the May of 2008 I welcomed my fourth (and last) child.

Numerous times a week, friends, family and perfect strangers tell me "I have my hands full".

Well, I can't deny it.

Things with the HCC continued to subtly ebb and flow. Some days/weeks I was happy and encouraged, feeling that I was doing a good job. Other days I would be discouraged and confused. Christmas of 2007 was one of those down ebbs. I tend to be fairly sensitive to verbal and body language cues. (Some might call it paranoia). After the Christmas concert, I noticed that Zimfira came back to the green room and didn't have her usual positive feedback....she kinda glossed over that. A few days later she had a list of criticisms for me. I was so discouraged over the holidays that I very nearly quit right then.

Perhaps that was why I was taken with the idea 2 months later to pursue my masters degree. I started researching and talking with a few knowledgeable people. In early April, at 8 months pregnant, I took a trip to London to speak with the professor that would, if I went through with the whole thing, be my advisor or at least a prof I would spend alot of time learning under. She was quite helpful and extremely gracious. She helped me see that working on such a degree at this time of my life--about to have my fourth baby, homeschooling my children, etc, etc, was really not feasible. We would have had to move to London, as the course is 3 years long, full time, completely on campus. Nothing by correspondence or other long distance means. I left both assured that I was on the right path and depressed that further degrees were not likely in the cards for me.

And so I continued feeling from time to time that I was not measuring up. When having to cancel out on a staff meeting due to babysitting failure (I think actually my own failure at setting it up on time) I felt a bit of a sting that I was the only artistic staff member that had to do so--and I don't just mean at that time--that I was the only artistic staff member that ever needed to do that. Invitations to concerts or ads for seminars sent to my inbox were consistently ignored, largely because I would have another commitment that night--usually family related, or the thought of dragging myself out on one of my free evenings was unbearable. These days, post-eight o'clock pm is sacred time and I look forward to it all day. It's not just my time to have a few vegging-out-thoughts-for-myself-actually not moving my body moments, but the only time to talk to my husband. When books talk about how difficult it is to maintain and grow a marriage relationship when the kids are young, they ain't kiddin'.

I've often heard however, that when the Lord is directing you down a certain path, he doesn't use discouragement. Now, I don't think there's any scripture supporting this, (if you know of any, please let me know), but it does seem in line with God's personality.

After this past Christmas concert, I sat down and wrote out my letter of resignation. I'll admit, it was 80% fueled by discouragement and feelings of ineptitude, and 20% fueled by the recognition that I'm too busy and need to cut things out of my life to be able to manage what's left. But of course, being busy is a western-world wide problem and totally acceptable for a reason to resign a position, so my resignation reflected close to the opposite percentages.

I didn't hand it in. I 'sat' on it and prayed and pondered.

Then in February, Zimfira asked me to have a meeting. I won't go into the details of the meeting, but she made it clear that she was expecting me to make a choice about staying or leaving. It was mostly clear that if I felt I was able to give more time, energy, creativity, etc, and do alot more in terms of professional development (go back to school, take workshops/seminars, go to lots of concerts, etc.) that they would be willing to let me do that, and stay on as conductor.

I had had a gut feeling from the moment she had set up the meeting that something was going to come to a head, so I had actually printed out my resignation and had it in my purse. I didn't pull it out at that moment, as I realized I needed to edit it a bit. I went home and did that and had it emailed to the board before the day was done.

In alot of ways, it was a very sad day.

And so this weekend marks the end. We have a massive concert planned, taking place at Hamilton Place. It's really the hugest deal we've ever undertaken. It seems that these past few weeks have been fraught with political, personal and choral pickles. In alot of ways, Sunday night cannot come quickly enough for me.

But even sitting here writing...I stop for a moment to grit my teeth and swallow. I blink a little faster and wonder if I'll make it through Sunday afternoon without a few tears.

I suppose that's ok.

My Baby turns 2

2010-05-07T13:16:00.004-05:00

Afton is 2! Take a look at my little girl!

Here she is opening presents and blowing out the candles. Auntie Lauren is such a spoiler!!

Baby Step #3: DONE!!

2010-04-21T13:41:00.006-05:00

Indeed it is!!

We saw yet another blessing [with the delivery of our tax return], of Jairus' tax disability status. With this extra money, we finished off Baby Step #3, which is 3-6 months of emergency savings. Yeah, ok. We're just doing 3 months.

So that means it took us one month to do Baby Step #1, 5 months to do Baby Step #2 and nearly 8 months to do Baby Step #3. A little more than a year in total!

This Friday, if we find a sitter, we'll head off to see our financial planner to get Baby Step #4 (retirement savings) and Baby Step #5 (college savings) underway. With James' new job, #3 is going to be nicer to consider, as I'm sure the university has some options to help in this manner. #4 we've actually already started, but don't contribute to regularly.

I still have to admit being a little concerned about how we'll manage after this though. Baby Step #6 is to start paying off our house. For a long time, I didn't even think about that; didn't even imagine we'd get this far. And then sometime in the past year, when it seemed attainable, I was gripped with the exciting thought that perhaps we really could do it. I've come down a few notches since then...

I just can't see us going right on to Baby Step #6 anytime soon. With leftover from our tax refund we're able to replace the carpet in the family room (hallelujah!!) but that's only the first of a long list of expensive repairs our house needs before we could think about putting it on the market. Extra money after #4 and #5 are in place will be going to that. And then we really need to be establishing what they call 'sinking funds' for the repair and replacement of our vehicles. I drive a 2000 Odyssey that needs brake work (among lots of other stuff I'm sure) and James drives a 97 civic that has all manner of things going wrong with it.

Never mind the fact that we've been pretty much living in scrounge mode for the last 14 months. At Christmastime we sat down with the budget to see where we'd start allocating the extra money coming in from James' change of job. We made a 'wish' list of things like: more money to the grocery budget, money for a date night for the two of us, vehicle repairs, setting aside money to have enough in the fall for Verity to continue with gymnastics, Christmas savings. We got all that done and then within a few days I was struck with the thought that there seemed to me a good possibility that I might be losing my HCC pay by the fall....so we wiped out all those plans and started funneling it all towards Baby Step #3. We had planned to be done by the end of August....so we're ahead of schedule!! Awesome. But still...for us to reasonably live within the budget we've created, we need to have some wiggle room or we'll just keep overdrawing our envelopes. Someone on the facebook group I created about saving on the grocery budget insists that by going to cash for groceries, we'll never overspend. I think about this when for some reason the 5-6 boxes of cereal I buy don't make it past one week and the food budget is gone. Sooo, we would do what for breakfast? Maybe I need to get more creative....

But sometimes I just can't get any more creative. I just want my Lucky charms. Oh for the day we can afford Lucky Charms without the guilt. :-)

I don't often do this...

2010-04-08T11:27:00.002-05:00

....but this is amazing....

It's not often you hear a guy with such a strong control over his falsetto. It always surprises my choir kids when I tell them the "secret"....that boys can sing higher than girls (!!!).

The Credit Card Dilemma

2010-04-03T15:30:00.005-05:00

I've been meaning to make a post for a while related to our credit card philosophy. It's of course related to our Financial Peace journey of which I blogged most recently about here.

Dave Ramsey is completely opposed to credit card use and we have come to agree with this. Not because of any noble reason, but pretty much because we just really suck at controlling it. We've heard of families that can use their credit card wisely and with much deliberation, and pay off their balance every month. We would not be such a family.

But not only do we lack the self control to keep credit cards from getting the better of us, we just sorta despise them. Even if we were paying off our balance every month and getting all sorts of perks (points, trips, whatever) we just hate the thought of supporting a huge industry that is destroying our society on so many fronts.

Dave has alot of good arguments about credit card use, even for those people who feel they use it wisely. One that I think is quite pertinent is the evidence that when you use a credit card, you don't feel anything. When you lay down a wad of cash for that TV you've saved for, it hurts. I don't remember the numbers, but apparently you spend a significant percentage more when you use credit, because it doesn't hurt. This is why McDonalds started accepting credit cards---'cuz they knew they'd snag more business.

I got my first credit card when I was in university, although I'm pretty sure it was a credit/debit card. It was in Chicago with 1st Chicago Bank and I remember trying to explain to my dad that it wasn't really a credit card even though it had the Visa logo on it, and the purchases just debited out of my account. I think sometime soon after though I was offered a real credit card with maybe a 500$ limit.

We've fortunately never had more than 2 or 3 cards at one time. James had one for his business and a couple times I've opened one for reimbursement purposes either for a job or church. It always ended up being more annoying than helpful.

So, at some point in our Dave Ramsey journey the last few years, we came to the conclusion that we wanted to live without a credit card. Dave regularly advises this, and insists that it's completely possible. We believed it.

One small issue however, is that in the States, credit/debit cards like the one I had in Chicago are fairly common. They can be used anywhere a credit card can. Having come from a culture where our Interac system was spreading like wildfire (around 1995), having a credit card that wasn't really a credit card was awesome, as the States didn't have our debit system, or any, really, apart from the credit/debit cards. Because we have Interac, a credit/debit card is not nearly so common. None of the major banks carry them in Canada. For a while I did copious research on the reloadable Visa cards, but I was quickly disenchanted with them. So many fees....the inconvenience of reloading...I didn't even go as far as trying one.

About 3 years ago or so, I was searching for someone (some bank, that is) that carried the credit/debit cards. We had paid off and gotten rid of our Visa and we were feeling the inconvenient pinch of not having any credit card. Hotel and flight reservations. Ordering online. Car rentals, and a few other situations...it was annoying and we'd have to sometimes call upon my parents to help. We didn't like being in that situation.

Someone in a forum I believe mentioned a credit union near them in Ontario that carried the credit/debit card. They were too far away from us to be helpful, but it gave me an idea; what if other credit unions had the same? There was a Teachers Credit Union not too far from us. I gave them a call....and was very pleased to find out that they indeed had a credit/debit card. It was called a Global Payment Card and it has the MasterCard logo on it.

To get it, I had to open an account with TCU and put a small amount of money in a side account for "shares". It's a credit union thing, I believe. Then I applied for the card (oddly, just like a credit card, even though there's no credit involved) and I was of course approved. Bingo! Problem solved!

Our intent at first was just to transfer money into this account only when we needed to make a purchase using the Global Payment card. This didn't end up being terribly successful. It was a bit of a pain, because I couldn't transfer online. I had to physically go over to the branch and make a deposit. If I deposited a cheque, I had to wait 5 days for it to clear. If I didn't want to wait 5 days to make my purchase, I had to go over to our bank and take out the money, then go deposit it in the TCU.

So for about 2-3 years we did this and while it was better than having a credit card (now a banned word in our house) it did have it's annoying times.

The answer, we decided, was to switch our banking over to TCU. That way we'd never have to mess with transferring money over. Plus, Dave Ramsey often recommends credit unions because they are usually smaller and give more personalized business. It's the small town touch.

It's been great so far. I love having the convenience of a credit card, yet it comes right out of my account. The services of the credit union have been good, although there's been a few small gliches--nothing I've been ready to turn my back on them for and they've been very good at fixing problems quick.

So this has been my personal recommendation for going credit-card-less with the help of Teachers Credit Union!

What?! Another post?

2010-03-20T14:33:00.006-05:00

Yes, I know I'm usually a once a week poster gal (or...once every two weeks....once a month?) but I've just got something big on the brain that I wanted to get down on paper, er, screen.

I don't remember quite when I started hearing about City Kidz. I recall that someone from City Kidz came to our church on their big promotional day, called Miracle Sunday, last year. That might have been in February. And I remember that a little girl down the road that was coming over to play frequently for a while there talked about going to City Kidz. I was really surprised when she came to MountainKids with us and when we started our songs, she knew most of them. She learned them at City Kidz.

So slowly I picked up impressions here and there and had an idea of what they were about. I've been thinking for a number of months that I wanted to get over (down, actually) and see the program they run on Saturday mornings, but since September, Saturday mornings have been taken up with KinderSing.

Last Saturday and today however, have been a bit of an extended break for KinderSing until their 3rd season starts so last week I emailed City Kidz to see if they were running their program and if I could come observe.

I got a very perky email back with a very organized sounding response, pdf invitation attached, about their official tours. I was intrigued...but hoped that I'd get to see alot of the actual program in action. I was most interested in seeing how they did their singing and stage stuff, lighting, sound, that sort of thing.

So this morning we got ourselves up and ready and left the house around 9:30. City Kidz runs their big Saturday program out of an old-style theatre on Sherman Avenue, near Barton. A small room above the theatre at the back (maybe the old projection room?) served as the meeting place for the start of the tour. Two very energetic and enthusiastic women began with a bit of history and mission/goals/why we're doing this kind of information. Soon the program started and we could hear the booming sound system and the start of a praise and worship song that I recognized.

After this, we were led down to their parking lot where 6 vibrant red school buses were carefully finding their places. These buses go out to (I think) 24 neighbourhoods to pick up children and bring them back to the theatre. They run 3 of these service/programs on Saturday and are seeing a total of over 1000 children attend.

Then we came in the main doors and learned some more about the building and how they manage the program. I later asked how many volunteers they need to run their Saturdays and was told about 200. Wowsers.

City Kidz 2004 Promo from City Kidz on Vimeo.

We spent about 20 minutes actually sitting in the theatre and observing the program. I hadn't been 100% sure what their program consisted of before today--I figured it was some kind of kids club/Sunday School/VBS hybrid. I wasn't far off.

In a nutshell (my nutshell), City Kidz is a program aimed at inner-city kids to connect them with a safe, fun place, and with people that care about them. Their social goal is to break the cycle of poverty, which for some reason is especially high in Hamilton--specifically these children. Apparently the national statistic says that 1 in 9 children live at or below the poverty line. In Hamilton, this is much worse; about 1 in 4 (although maybe I misheard or the tour guides misspoke because their website info says 1/4 nationally and 1/3 in Hamilton). Still, it's worse here, a very curious situation.

They do all this through 2 main services: The vibrant, exciting and active Saturday programs, and a dedicated system of volunteers that are matched up with every kid and go visit them in their homes every week. It's a Sunday School administrators follow-up dream.

So, like I said before, the Saturday program was what I was really interested in seeing. Every Sunday, we (James and I) put together the MountainKids program. This is just a 1/2 hour and we've got it to the point where the preparation of it is fairly streamlined. I pick out about 5 praise and worship songs. I used to have to find/type out all the lyrics for my small team of kid leaders (I call them JP Crew), but I wizened up and last summer made a master list of all the songs from all the CD/DVD's we use and pre-prepared all the lyric sheets. So now I just have to pull it up from the file. AND, I've been trying to have a big rehearsal with JP Crew once every 2 months or thereabouts and then usually only sing from what we rehearsed until the next big rehearsal. But I'm getting off topic.

We plug in announcements, the taking up of offering, recognition of birthdays, a scripture presentation and that's pretty much it. Time to send the kiddies off to their classes.

The City Kidz program has the songs, complete with 3 media screens and lots of additional power point-type stuff flashing across. Each segment of the program has it's own title screen and slides identifying who's up there doing what. They've got a pretty significant sound and lighting system--just enough bells and whistles to make it bright and exciting for the kids. Some of the leaders wore mics on headbands (I could just ask James for the right terminology but he's elsewhere in the house at the moment) which I was very jealous of.

The content of the program was what surprised me a little. The songs I knew--Shout Praises Kids stuff, Hillsongs--popular, contemporary praise and worship. The rest of the program was comprised mainly of game show style games where volunteers were chosen from the audience to come up and do something fun/silly/wacky. The stage has two large tree sets, complete with spiraling yellow slides coming out of them. I noticed two "junior" leaders up at the top of each one, no doubt keeping an eye on any kid who had earned the right to go for a ride. Kids seemed to be randomly running up and having a turn on the slides, but I figured some system was in place or else they'd all be running up there at once. Two smaller blue slides also connected the 3-4 foot high stage to the floor, making the trip back to your seat even more fun.

They divided the room into two groups (with much screaming and yelling to prove team spirit) and the rest of the morning was spent in competition through the various crazy games the leaders had put together. Once in a while a serious moment was encouraged and the current theme was emphasized; this week being "Dream big Dreams". I heard about the "Memory Moment" that is usually slipped in at a moment when the kids are especially apt to be paying attention. The thing that surprised me was that it wasn't scripture. Perhaps sometimes it is. But today it was not. And somehow that niggled at me a bit.

I'm often reminded of something my mom said when I once remarked that after seeing a favourite Christian artist in concert a number of times, he seemed to be spending less time doing his funny comedy routines and more time doing the serious, contemplative material. Mom suggested that perhaps as he matured and got older, he was becoming more sensitive to how much he was entertaining his audiences rather than providing the truths of scripture.

I'm not making any judgement calls on City Kidz. It was just an observation. I mentioned it to the tour guide afterwards and she was happy to chat a bit about it. A couple things were made clear: They are not a church and don't operate like one. While alot of their leaders are Christians, they welcome anyone who passes the usual tests (police check, etc). Their goal is not to have a bunch of leaders who could walk a kid down the Roman's Road but rather who can build a relationship--a strong one. One that will stick in a kids life for a very long time. There's alot on their website about the process of building relationships and the long term aspects of that. She also made a couple good points I'll mention here: programs do not make a difference in a persons life, relationships do. This is a hard hitting one that I think I'll be musing about for a while. On the practical side, City Kidz specifically makes their program very fun because alot of the children come from situations where fun is not happening. I'm quite familiar with kids who've taken on adult responsibilities, even caring for their troubled parents and bypass their childhood altogether. At City Kidz, they can leave that all behind for an hour and a half every Saturday morning.

I have a feeling that City Kidz have been able to garner so much community support and corporate sponsors because of their child poverty goal. If they had gone out into the community telling one and all that they were established to see children won over to Christ, you can bet Canadian Tire wouldn't have touched them with a ten foot pole. But child poverty....that's a really hot button. I'm sounding cynical I know, but I'm really not. I think it's brilliant. It's, I guess, a little like the apostle Paul and tentmaking. He had to do something to bring in the money, while meanwhile his heart was chasing after people for the Kingdom.

The bottom line is I'm not sure why the Lord perked my interest in this organization. Maybe it was just to get some ideas for MountainKids. Maybe sometime in the future, I/we may be involved more with City Kidz. I just don't know.

Finito

2010-03-19T22:12:00.004-05:00

Funny to read my last post, which I wrote on Monday and just finished editing now and posted.

Yep, VBS 2010 is DONE. Well, all except the final program. We did manage to do a few other things this week, and some were rather fun! So here's a taste....

K, first thing, not so much fun. Honour finally had her allergist appointment to be tested. Turns out (as you can tell by her arm) that she does indeed have some allergies. Grass, dust, dust mites, blah, blah. While she was waiting for the test spots to show up, I let her pass the time with my cell phone camera. Behold my eldest daughters photographic skills....

The kids were yammering all week to get their bikes out, so we caved and headed over to the school parking lot on Wednesday night. I tell you, I'm in for elevated blood pressure this summer for sure. Verity figured out how to ride without training wheels, and we pulled out a tricycle for Afton. She's a wee bit small for it yet, but I think she'll get the hang of it by summer. Jairus is still happy with his training wheels, but as the oldest, I'm hoping we can get him off them this summer. This all means that any request for bike riding immediately causes my heart rate to increase, unless James is home and we take them over to the school together. I tried to let them go out on the sidewalk with just me, but I was a wreck trying to help Verity keep her balance, keep Afton off the road and out of Honour's way and keep a corner of an eye at least on Jairus. At least he's happy to cruise in a rather docile fashion up and down the flat section of sidewalk out the side of our house....Honour and Verity enjoy using the part that has an incline so that they can break some sound barriers. Sigh. I was awfully proud of Verity though. It took all of 10 minutes for her to get the hang of a two wheeler. I hope Honour doesn't figure out that Verity is a year ahead of her schedule.

And here's my girl....

Today was an exciting day for my kiddies. Remember the God Rocks concert a few weeks ago? The one we couldn't stay and meet the band because Verity was sick? Well....I had seen on their schedule that they were doing an event at the Burlington Christian Bookstore this afternoon. They were showing the God Rocks Live in Miami movie, and then two of the band members, "Gem" and "Chip" were going to make an appearance to meet and sign autographs. It sounded like a great March Break activity and I knew Honour especially would be up for it.

I broke one of my cardinal "event" rules and actually told the kids what we were planning to do as we were leaving the church to go home and grab lunch before leaving again. This nearly came back to bite me.

We arrived at the bookstore just as it was beginning only to hear that the advertising had not been accurate and tickets were actually required to get in. When I came up to the front counter, another mom had just been told the same thing and was really annoyed as she had driven from Brantford (or maybe Brampton?). The God Rocks website had definitely said it was Free Admission, but the women at the counter insisted that all their advertising had indicated that tickets were 3$. In any case, the room was full and they would not let anyone in. I thought my heart was going to break as Honour took this in and her face just crumbled....

Well, they had been bugging me this week to go to the beach. Yes, the beach. In March. Uhuh, just shut up. So, I pulled that card out and little faces brightened at the promise of going over to our fav beach spot there in Burlington. I was still rather annoyed about the whole thing.

Even more annoying was that I had invited my friend Jenn and her two girls who are good friends of my four. She hadn't arrived so I waited out front to break the bad news. She came along shortly, having brought another friend with her two kids, plus as we were waiting, a truck pulled up and out popped a little guy who to my great surprise started excitedly calling Jairus' name. It was a friend from school. His mom and two brothers plus a friend of hers with 3 kids were about to head in and I cut them off at the pass. I didn't want their poor kiddies to have to be even more disappointed after actually getting into the store. Annoyance was rampant all around.

After some discussion however, we all decided to head into the bookstore and do some looking around anyway. The kids headed right for the play corner, with a Veggie Tales movie playing on the little TV. I went over to the audio/video section to see how much the Live in Miami movie cost, thinking about picking it up and perhaps heading home after beaching to have our own little God Rocks event. Then Jenn got a great idea; she talked the store manager into opening up a copy of the God Rocks movie and playing it in the play corner. There was a pretty good sized crew of kiddies there at this point. By now, it was quarter/twenty after 2pm (when the event started) and the God Rocks members were going to be arriving at 3pm for the meet and greet. Perhaps this would turn out after all....

Yeehaw!!

And then we went to the beach. Yes, the beach. Shut up I tell ya.

A Plethora of Thoughts

2010-03-15T15:07:00.004-05:00

That's my version of the oft-used "Random thoughts" post title.

Sigh. So, it's March Break. I was debating with myself earlier today about whether I'd keep doing school with Honour this week. I'd say the girls, but really, Verity is not so much doing anything pressing. I really should keep up with Honour, as we're behind one week I think in the total curriculum and many pages behind in reading. She finished her first Math-U-See book last week and I thought I had ordered the new one in plenty of time, but it hasn't arrived yet.

The other consideration is that we're doing VBS. By "doing" I mean the kids are attending and I am running one of the four stations. The music, of course. I think this is about the 14th or 15th March Break VBS I've done in my life. There's always a bit of a love/hate relationship with VBS. I love the kids. I love teaching them the songs. I love that I get a great response, as opposed to the response I normally get most Sundays in MountainKids, which is rather dismal. I hate that I have to bundle four kids out the door all 5 mornings of March break, so my "break" from getting Jairus to school is nullified. I hate that I expend about 125% of my daily ration of energy all in 3 hours of the morning, leaving me useless and yearning for a nap all afternoon. I hate that this also makes me rather resistant to doing anything special with the kids for the rest of each day. I am planning to take them to the GodRocks event on Friday at the Burlington Christian Bookstore though. Honour was especially bummed that we couldn't stay the night of the concert a few weeks ago to get an autograph because Verity was sick.

Honour is sitting at the top of the family room steps (actually lying on her back at this moment), talking to one of her little friends on the phone. 6 going on 16 I'm tellin' ya.

I've been musing recently about a pet peeve. Maybe you can relate to this one....

I hate it when other people parent my child in public. It's especially irksome if they are strangers. It seems to have happened a couple times recently which is probably why I'm complaining about it.

Every once in a while, it's merited. Like a couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to get some ballet tickets at a great discount, so I took the girls to see Hansel and Gretal at Hamilton Place. Our seats were down on the left wing of the first balcony. We sat down and I was looking through the program. There weren't many people sitting near us and no one in our row. I was somewhat engrossed in reading the program and didn't notice that Verity had snuck over to the inside end of the row, which looked over the balcony towards the centre of the auditorium. As Verity is prone to doing these days, she hiked herself up on her tummy, under the railing, to peak over the edge. The wall she was peaking over was quite thick, probably 2-2.5 feet wide. Suddenly I hear a woman a few rows up speaking sharply to Verity and looked over. Truly, it was probably a good thing that she noticed, although I'd like to think her actions would have caught my eye shortly after anyways. She barked something fierce though and Verity scurried back to me like a wounded kitten, nearly starting to cry. She crawled on my lap and stayed there nearly the rest of the performance and started complaining not long after about an upset tummy.

I'll admit, I give my kids probably more leaway than alot of parents. I positively despise the supermarket check-out workers reprimanding my kids (mostly Verity) for spinning and climbing on the chrome bars that separate the check-out lines. I was just like Verity and bars like that were just a siren song to me to climb and turn somersaults on. I don't see anything wrong with letting her do it after a long grocery trip. I figure they are probably just concerned about liability and that if Verity should fall and clunk or head or worse, break a bone, that I would go screaming to a lawyer. That's pathetic. If my kid is climbing on something and I've allowed her to, and she falls and hurts herself, it's no ones fault but my own. Ridiculous. And she's not going to fall. Like I said, I was just like her as a kid, turning cartwheels where ever I went, climbing anything that had footholds....I never fell in those situations and I'm pretty confident she won't either.

I said above that it was especially irksome if the person "helping" me parent was a stranger, but I take that back. It's more irksome if they are someone I know. This is differentiated by a very good friend speaking to my kids. I have a few friends that I'm close enough with that I don't mind them reprimanding my kids when I'm around. But there's not many. So what gets my goat is when an acquaintance or casual friend tries to discipline my kids, especially when I'm right there in the room. Um, hello? Parent right here?

Now, this can turn on me as I know I've been in situations where some kid is acting up and the parent is in the room but not doing anything about it. It's always a hard call because you don't know if the parent is just ignoring it...not noticing it....not bothered by it. Afterall, like I just said, my parenting standards are looser than alot in some ways. If my kid is being hurt I would for sure speak up, parent in the room or not. But I'd like to think that otherwise, I let parents be parents and mind my own business. Anyway, have I complained enough?

This is the way WE homeschool......

2010-03-05T10:31:00.003-06:00

Ohhh, I'm just kiddin'. :)

Notice the break-dance-ish attempts courtesy of the GodRocks concert we attended last Saturday. It was really great!

Hello Friday, I'm glad to see you here. Although, I don't know why. My weekends usually bring just as much, if not more, work. Honour has ballet tonight, the girls have KinderSing all tomorrow morning and than of course MountainKids on Sunday.

I have to tell you though, something quite miraculous has happened around our house. It's now been about 3.5 weeks since I last nursed Afton. Maybe 4.5. And in that time....she has started sleeping through the night. That's right!!! A complete miracle!! (Here's where all you non or yet-to-be parents kinda shake your head and roll your eyes slightly) For a bit she was still waking up 2-3 times a night but James took night duty (well after 21 months I would say so) and within a week or 2 she had figured out that 'moyee' was not forthcoming. She kept asking me during the day about every other day and that's probably spread out just this past week. I thought I'd be kinda sad, what with her being my last and all, but....not so much. I'm just starting to enjoy not being pregnant or nursing for the first time in more than seven years. And sleeping through the night for the first time in about as long. (Jairus was a great sleeper, so I can't say almost 9 years) I wonder how long it takes for a body to recover from that kind of sleep deprivation?

Speaking of sleep, I've just got Afton down for a nap (and she appears to be actually staying down for it) so it's lunch for me and then reading with Honour.

Later!

Slave or Child?

2010-02-26T09:31:00.003-06:00

Well I got myself a T-shirt that says what I believe
I got letters on my bracelet to serve as my ID
I got the necklace and the key chain
And almost everything a good Christian needs, yeah
I got the little Bible magnets on my refrigerator door
And a welcome mat to bless you before you walk across my floor
I got a Jesus bumper sticker
And the outline of a fish stuck on my car
And even though this stuff's all well and good, yeah
I cannot help but ask myself--

What about the change?
What about the difference?
What about the grace?
What about forgiveness?
What about a life that's showing
I'm undergoing the change, yeah
I'm undergoing the change

Well I've got this way of thinking that comes so naturally
Where I believe the whole world is revolving around me
And I got this way of living that I have to die to every single day
'Cause if God's Spirit lives inside of me, yeah
I'm gonna live life differently

I'm gonna have the change
I'm gonna have the difference
I'm gonna have the grace
I'm gonna have forgiveness
I'm gonna live a life that's showing
I'm undergoing the change

--Steven Curtis Chapman, "The Change", 1999

You are all sons/daughters of God through faith in Jesus Christ....God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts and the Spirit calls out Abba, Father...since you are no longer a slave...God has made you an heir. [Don't turn back to those weak and miserable principles and be enslaved by them all over again!]

Galations 4: 1-9

[my paraphrase]

This one's winning so far....

2010-02-23T17:11:00.000-06:00

I like night time.....

Summertime!

2010-02-22T11:21:00.002-06:00

As I sit at my dining room table and (ahem) enjoy....the blizzard-like conditions descending on my city, I've decided that it's time to revisit the summer! I never did get the last of my Summer of Fun photo albums posted (I'm sure you've been impatiently hanging on that cliff wondering when the rest would come ;-)

Part of the problem was that our camera's both bit the dust and I had to start taking pics with my phone. Near the end of the summer I discovered that LG was no longer supporting the program I had been using to transfer my photos from phone to computer. I had to get a micro-sd card and then manually transfer all the photos from the phone memory to the sd card....one...by....one. Do you know how many photos I took last summer!?!!?

It became one of those projects I was never getting around to...until last night. So, finally, here they are!

This was a previously unplanned trip that our good friends Jenn and Troy invited us to on the spur of the moment. They have passes to all the parks around here and had a bonus of a day long canoe rental. So we headed out to Valens and enjoyed an afternoon paddling around the water.....

One of our originally planned trips was to the Hamilton Children's Museum and then to the Gage Park splash pad right next to it. Unfortunately we took our sweet time that day and didn't get out to the Museum until about 2:30 or 2:45. When we went to the front desk, we were sadly informed that they were only open until 3pm. So the kids only got about 15 minutes around the museum, but the bonus was that we didn't have to pay. We figured we'd come back another day, but we never did. They still liked it though and we snapped lots of pictures.

Then over to the splash pad which is alway a hit with my kids. I love a splash pad because it's so fun for them, and I don't have to get my suit on! (I never thought I'd be one of those mummies).

I'm pretty sure it was after Gage Park that we hopped on the QE and headed over to the beach. The kids had been whining about supper and a real water feature, so we got some supper at Hutch's and sat on a blanket on the beach to eat it. I love to go down to the beach and even with sand kicked on my food, spilled drinks because there was no hard place to set them down on, and James rapidly losing his cool because of all this....I still have a lovely peaceful feeling when I think of that trip.

And....I think this is the last one....on Labour Day weekend, we took our last Summer of fun trip. We went to Spencer Gorge. It was a half nice and half sucky trip. First of all, there was plenty-o-whining going on with the amount of hiking that it required. If the place hadn't been packed out, I very likely would have left Verity standing in the middle of one of the paths, shrieking her head off because "her legs hurt". We borrowed a hiking back-pack and James carried Afton in it...which she was not completely thrilled with. So that was a stressor. I had never been here before; I only picked it because of the pictures and description on the website, so I didn't realize that there was a tremendously steep, somewhat rickety, crumbling away in places stairway to get from the top where the falls start, down to the bottom where you'd get the amazing view. Jairus had a bit of a hard time with that climb and I have to admit, I was pretty nervous trying to coax them all down it.

And then came the event that Verity talks about even to this very day (this morning when she put the same Dora boots on she was wearing that day). We had gotten down to the bottom and were climbing around on the rocks trying to get closer to the waterfall. Like I said, the place was crawling with vacationers like ourselves. I left James and the kids on one large rock and hopped over a few until I was nearly in the middle of the creek that the falls drain into. It was a great view to get a picture of. Well, Verity, ever the brave and daring one, followed me before we could stop her. And to tell you the truth, I wasn't too worried because she's such a climber and very sure footed. Until she tried to hop one rock farther than me...and it was a slippery one. She fell hard and slipped right into the water. A number of people saw, and many more heard her yell. I had many eyes on me as I quickly grabbed her arm and hoisted her up with me....but not before I'm sure many of them had decided I was indeed an irresponsible mummy to have brought my wee little girl way out onto these rocks. Verity was pretty upset, a little bumped and bruised, but her pride was surprisingly the most damaged. She was mighty embarrassed at what had happened.

Anyways, in some ways it was still a nice trip. The park and falls are quite beautiful and I made some mental plans to come back on a day when there might not be so many throngs of people about. I think we stopped for ice cream on the way home and that covered a multitude of complaints. :-)

Nostalgic

2010-02-19T10:47:00.004-06:00

Sometimes I wonder if too much wandering down memory lane can be a not-so-good thing.

I think there are alot of things I'm quite nostalgic about. As you can see, I've changed my template again. I held the same one for quite a long time and really liked it, but then started having technical difficulties with it. I tried to get the designer, Isnaini, to help me, but I didn't hear back from him after numerous tries. So with great sadness, I found another--the red one. I liked it...but it didn't hit me the way my old one did. And for some reason, the last couple days, I've been surfing around looking at others. I found a completely beautiful one here but when I went to download it, I had to jump through hoops to get it for free. I started jumping, but was suddenly exasperated and decided not to. I kept looking here and found many really good ones, but with over 160 pages to look at, I cut things short.

This one's nice. Not sure if it's hitting me either though. I'm still kind of yearning for my beautiful girl template, but strangely when I looked back on Isnaini's site and saw it (The Future)....I didn't try downloading it again.

Timotei. There's another random thing I'm nostalgic for. I used Timotei shampoo for years, much of high school....well, the end of high school that is. Then they stopped making it. I have yet to find another shampoo that I like nearly as well as Timotei. I think it's a girl thing. Or a scent thing.

I don't know if everyone is like this, but my nose has this amazing memory. I can remember smells from way back, but it's not like I can conjure the scent up again....it's more the way I felt when I smelt it. If I smell Safari cologne (I think it's Safari), I can immediately remember the nervous/excited way I felt when I sang with an opera and the maestro kept kissing me on both sides of my face whenever he saw me (he was from Europe). There's a couple other colognes that bring back memories; Drakar, polo and some blue sailboat stuff.

Music does a similar thing. The soundtrack to Stealing Home, a movie I've never seen, is a huge memory-unearther for me. Peter Cetera/Chicago. Sting. Phil Collins. Some wacky song about a pencil case.

I was reading some old journals earlier this week--maybe that's what started all this. Sometimes it's completely amazing to see stuff I wrote when I was 17--even hopes for having a family and career--and compare it to now. Sometimes the stuff I wrote was quite sweet. Sometimes it was really dorky.

And sometimes it's rather heartbreaking.

I have journals of each of my kids through their pregnancies and births and some after as well. I have journals of highschool plays and university classes, boyfriends and break-ups, engagements (....ok, just one of those). I have a journal of all my wedding plans. I have a journal with autographs of most of my camp co-workers from each year. I have journals that talk about my siblings, my parents, my friends, my failures, my dreams and expectations.

I was going to say that I don't really journal anymore, but then I realized I just got high-tech about it. You're reading it! Although, it's not quite the same. It might seem that I tell the whole world some rather in depth details about my life, [some say] but...really? You really think?

Uh-uh. Sorry if that's disappointing.

There are just some things you don't want to hear about.

The Frustrations of Life

2010-02-15T13:17:00.004-06:00

It seems like the older I get, the more things I run across in life that just seem completely frustrating. Why is that?

Let's talk about events. I am involved in a few organizations/activities/whatever that have required me to be a part of the planning or execution of various events. My involvement has included pretty much everything from advertising all the way through to sweeping the floor after it was all done.

Tell me, when you see an event advertised, what makes you want to attend it?

It looks like fun?
It's cheap?
It's at a time you are available?
It's for a cause you feel strongly about?
Someone personally invited you and you felt good about that? You knew others were going that you know?
You knew the organizers and felt obligated?

That's just a few reasons that come to mind. Likewise, what reasons cause you to decide not to go?

It looks cheesy.
It's too expensive.
You're busy that night.
The reason for the event doesn't turn your crank.
You didn't know anyone else going to it.

I've never really thought of myself as a negative person. But...maybe I'm getting that way. I say this because throughout my involvement with these various events, I would often turn the tables and put myself in the shoes of the people we were trying to reach in order to advertise most effectively. And often my thoughts would be..."Would I go to this if I got an email about it? Would I be a part of this if I got a Facebook invite? Would I just plain go to this if I wasn't part of the leadership of it?".

And often my answer is no. And I think to myself, "Why do I feel this way? What would change that?".

Well, all the reasons I listed above. If I was available. If it wasn't too expensive. (Although these days my automatic answer to any 'extras' is usually no). If I knew I could get someone to watch my kids, if that was necessary. If it was a cause I felt strongly about. If someone personally invited me---I think that's a huge one. I can think of specific times that I've not planned to attend something, and then did when I was personally invited. That nice warm feeling that someone likes me and wants to see me at the event was a huge motivation. I think that's a better way to get people out to an event than any amount of glossy advertising.

But I digress. My point is the frustration. Recently, I was doing some advertising for an event through Facebook. Now, it's my understanding that generally there's a "rule" of 10%. Roughly 10% return on your investment. So, back when I was doing Creative Memories, they'd say that for every 10 people you asked to host a get-together, you'd get one yes. Pretty depressing.

Well, I invited about 250 people through Facebook. In the end, this resulted in about half the people turning it down, a little less than half not even responding and about 4 people rsvping positively.

But maybe that's what you can expect from free advertising? I'd say my success rate through email was about the same.

My point here is....why do we do these? Why do we even bother to create events, fundraisers, fun get-togethers when it seems like most people are just too busy? Time and time again, this is another extremely common reason for not being a part of something. We all just have so many other things we're involved in that someone asking us to give another evening out or whatever is just too much. And so, as an organizer, it's extremely frustrating...and depressing. And it makes you wonder why you're doing any of it to begin with. Why bother putting yourself through that?

Another frustration of life has become email and/or internet based communication.

For the most part, we have all become very technologically based when it comes to our communication. Sure, the old fashioned phone is still up there, but email, texting, facebook messaging, msning, going to a website for info and tweeting have become huge. But how effective is it really?

We're starting to see reports and studies coming out that talk about how much email we're all getting--and how much spam. I just discovered that I had over 1000 unread emails in some folder of Microsoft Outlook. Suddenly my email wasn't working and I was getting some 'capacity reached' message. Couldn't figure it out and then James helped me find this folder that I'd never noticed. It's RSS feeds from msnbc. I have NO idea how it got there....NO idea how I got signed up to receive them.....and NO interest in getting it at all. Over a thousand!!

I only go on Facebook about once a week---just too much info there for my brain to handle. I have a Tweet page (is that what you call it?) but I'm never on it, only made about half a dozen posts to it.

And I myself have a number of blogs and websites that I try to keep updated, especially the ones that are integral to the communication in some of my jobs. Time and time again though, I am terribly frustrated to find that people are:

Not reading my emails
Not reading my blog/website posts
Not thoroughly reading either of the above and only understanding half of what is going on.

And so, I again try to put myself in their shoes. Why is it so difficult for some people to make the best use of these forms of communication?

They're too busy--they just don't think of it.
They read the stuff and then forget about it.
They don't have time to read thoroughly.
They don't know/understand how to access the info--maybe their computer is dated or throwing up some firewall--this is a reason I've been given before.

And so I'm constantly wondering--is this really working? Is this really effective? Am I annoying the heck out of people?

Related to this is another phenomenon of the 21st century that I've been butting heads with.

Privacy.

I find it intensely frustrating that I see us as a society slowly turning so far inward that someday we'll surely be to the point of dressing all our children in head to toe veils and not allowing them outside the house.

Ok, maybe I'm going overboard.

But, lets take the example of posting pictures on the internet. Now, you can obviously see that I have no problem with that. I'm sure alot of people think I'm nuts that I don't have a problem with that, but really, I'm just not seeing it.

Everywhere I go, people see my face. I am not of some religion that requires me to cover up, so I am fully visible.

At school
At church
At work
At the grocery store
Through the front window of my house, on which there is no curtain
On TV when my choir concerts are taped
Driving on the highway
Walking in my neighbourhood
I could go on, ad nauseum!

So please, enlighten my poor dull brain, what is the sudden and tremendous difference if someone was to take my picture?!

I'm suddenly not moving. Ok......

And if said picture was then (gasp) put on a website or blog or something, what has now become the difference?

Maybe a few more people would see it? Yes, yes, I do realize that www stands for WORLD WIDE WEB. But really, who is looking at this or the other blogs/websites I upkeep? Perhaps a few other people might stumble across it, but mostly, it's people that know me, people that come visiting from another blog or facebook. People I've invited to come see, people who are a part of my organizations. Friends. Family.

And so what if someone who doesn't know me, and I don't know them, sees my picture?

SO WHAT!?

Why is my face worthy of such privacy? No one's going to make any money off of it by selling it to People magazine. My children are not the offspring of two famous movie stars that I feel they needed to be shielded from papparazzi.

The whole issue of pedophiles has been mentioned to me. Maybe I'm REALLY naive but I'm just not figuring that one out. So some pedophile is scanning the internet and sees some picture of my four year old blowing out her birthday candles. How exactly is that endangering my kid? Really now, are the chances that this creep would read my entire blog and put together clues and figure out where I live and come kidnap my daughter and molest her REALLY all the more than if I didn't put her picture on my blog? I have a sneaky suspicion that if some statistician worked up some numbers, we'd find similar results as the chances of being killed in Afghanistan. (Higher if you are walking in downtown Toronto--especially these days). Or being killed by a handgun (greater chance of drowning in a backyard pool). Or dying in an airplane crash (greater chance driving on the 401). What do these have in common? People more likely believe the first of each example. Because they're scarier sounding.

I suppose some would say that ANY chance of that occurring is enough to keep their children's pictures off the internet. I say that in 10 years time we'll be living in a veil covered bubble if we keep thinking like that.

We are PEOPLE.

We need to CONNECT with other PEOPLE.

This is why we are LIVING on this EARTH.

And my kids are gorgeous. Look at them all you want.

;-)

Me

2010-02-04T00:12:00.004-06:00

Summer, 2009

April, 2008

It's a PD day

2010-01-29T08:40:00.003-06:00

I do enjoy PD days. It's so nice not to have to rush around and go out in the cold to take Jairus to school. The girls thinks it's a rip that they don't get a pd day too.

I've wanted to update for a while. I've composed innumerable blog posts in my head over the last few months, but never feel I have the time to sit down and write them out. And I don't really now, either. The girls are in the schoolroom, which is a disgusting mess. It's a perpetual problem. Jairus is in the bath, probably quite prunish by now, so I need to go find him some undies. He seems to have regressed in his toilet training over the last week or two and I can't keep up. I'm still in pj's and robe...so...I'm just stopping by quickly here to post this pic my brother sent me. Jenn posted many of these shots on her blog, so I'm sure they won't mind me putting it up here.

Mama bear is proud

2009-11-16T13:52:00.002-06:00

I'll warn you right now, this is going to be a "my little girl is such a great kid" kind of post. :-)

We just finished Operation Christmas Child at church. As a family, we've done OCC (you know, those shoeboxes filled with goodies) for a number of years. In Novembers past, I've gathered the kids around my computer and showed them the videos that can be seen on the Samaritans Purse website. We would head over to Zellers and the dollar store to fill up shoeboxes with all manner of exciting things (exciting, because we knew they would be going to some little one who likely owned nothing like any of our bounty). I was always really pleased with the effect on my kids and felt it was building a great sense of compassion and sacrifice in them. It's hard for 2 and 3 year olds to pick things out of a store and not get to keep them!

Well, last year and this, mom and I brought OCC to the MountainKids. I won't get into how it went here and now, but instead I wanted to tell you about something Honour did.

2 or 3 weekends ago, we were over at my parents house on a Sunday afternoon, a common ritual. Sometime in the afternoon, Honour started talking about a ballet show she wanted to put on for all of us. This is also a common ritual in our family, although she'd never done it at my moms, in front of all the family.
So she schemed and planned all afternoon and once in a while I heard rumblings that she was going to be asking us all to pay to see the show. I didn't give this alot of attention--I'm usually trying to catch up on MountainKids planning on Sunday afternoons.

Sure enough, after supper she finagled the menfolk to move the furniture in the living room aside and tada! Her dance floor was ready. As everyone came in and found a place to sit, she tripped about the room, flashing her pearlies and holding out her hand for "donations". She asked for a minimum of a dime. Of course everyone dug deep and acquiesced.

And then, as I tootled some made-up tune (at her request), she waltzed about the room and performed, to the best of her memory, some of what she learned at a 10 week ballet class over a year ago. She was, of course, adorable.

After a grand total of 4 minutes, the show was done and we all clapped enthusiastically. When she had me help her count her proceeds, I was surprised that she had raised nearly 2$.

It was then that she told me that "Now she had enough to buy something for the kids who only get one egg for breakfast!". I was SO touched and pleased at this. I had been a little concerned at her "hornswaggling" this money off my parents and siblings, but to hear what her little heart had been intending....it just made my heart melt.

You might be wondering what in the world the one egg for breakfast thing is....

A couple months ago, I read this blog about a remarkable young woman who is making a difference in the world in a way most of us only dream of. You can read about her here.

One story she tells is about how she provides breakfast for about 200 needy kids in Uganda--a hard boiled egg. Now, truthfully, she might give them more than just one egg, but one day when I was trying to help my daughters understand how wasteful it was not to finish the food on their plate, I told them about Katie, and these children she provides for. I told them that these poor kids only got 1 egg for breakfast and that was a word picture that really stuck in their heads.

Honour had decided that these kids who only get one egg for breakfast were one and the same as those we were packing shoeboxes for. And who knows, they just might be.

So a few days after the ballet for charity show, I took her and Verity over to the dollar store and she picked out 2 items to go in her OCC box.

I won't pretend she was still single-mindedly committed to buying this stuff for her box...I had to keep her on track a couple times. But in the end, the items were bought, and she was ready to pack them in the shoebox and see them go off to a child who would appreciate them--in the end---more than she.

One of those...maybe-we-are-doing-a-half-decent-parenting-job-after-all moments....

We've been Dave Ramsey-fied

2009-11-04T13:33:00.006-06:00

So here's an update on our Mvelopes/Dave Ramsey journey.

It's started quite a while ago really. I think we've just passed the 3 year mark for using Mvelopes. I first talked about it on my blog here and here. I'm still a huge fan of the service. I'm even considering a new offer they're advertising about a life-long membership for a reasonable price. I really do think I'll be using this for a looong time...or at least as long as it would take to spend the same amount yearly as I would in one shot for the lifetime membership.

Crown, where I first learned of Mvelopes through their Money Matters radio show, (it may be called something different--I haven't been able to listen to WDCX for months, ever since some dumb station from Kitchener horned in on their signal) and Dave Ramsey have alot in common. Crown has their Money Map with it's 6 or 7 steps to managing your money; Dave has his Baby Steps. Crown has the Debt Rollover. Dave has his Debt Snowball. The two mesh nicely and rarely does one contradict the other. I also pay attention to Mary Hunt. I read one of her books a few years ago; I think it was the Financially Confident Woman. I was impressed with her story of working her way out of massive credit and consumer debt, but I've been just slightly less impressed with some of her philosophies. Plus I thought when I read it that she was an outspoken Christian, but none of her emails or stuff I read now seems to indicate that at all. Not that I wouldn't listen to her if she wasn't a Christian...good money sense is good money sense no matter where it comes from.

But Dave Ramsey and I just click. I love listening to his show. I love his dry, sarcastic humour and his southern drawl; how he can get away with calling the ladies 'darlin'. I love the simple, straightforward common sense way he has about him. I don't doubt that he understands the ins and outs of real estate, investing, economics and all that, but he 'puts the cookies on the bottom shelf'. I said in one of the previous posts (now a few years ago) that I first read his Total Money Makeover about 5-6 years ago. We were living in Brantford and I think it was part of our big wake-up call that we had been completely botching our finances. I borrowed books from all over and I believe that one came from my parents' shelves.

It was a good book, really liked the ideas and principles. Talked to James about it, read him parts of the book. He agreed and so we decided to go for it. We were going to start the Baby Steps. I think they're fairly well known, so I'll list them here:

1. Save $1000 quickly for an emergency fund.

2. Get out of debt, except for your house, using the Debt Snowball

3. Save a larger emergency fund: 3-6 months of expenses

4. Start contributing to your retirement

5. Start contributing to kids college fund, you if have kids

6. Pay off your house

7. Enjoy and give away your wealth!

This is where we're at!

So back to our first try: It was pretty much a complete bust. A combination of things I think...one was that we didn't follow the steps. We thought we were, but really, we didn't and so it didn't work. We didn't think we could save the $1000 bucks, that seemed unreasonable and unnecessary and so we...shhhh...skipped that one. Number two was that James was with me on it, but he wasn't with me on it. Dave talks about getting mad and zealous about getting rid of your debt--gazelle intensity he calls it. We didn't get that. So it petered out.

Jump ahead to our move to Hamilton and the discovery of Mvelopes. I wouldn't say that Dave Ramsey's material was completely ineffective in our lives. I think alot of the principles and ideas permeated our thoughts and beliefs and slowly we became more mad at our debt and more serious about doing something to get rid of it.

The Mvelopes was a great step. For the first time, we had a way to follow up on our budget and really track where everything was going. It's one thing to sit down and make a budget and say, "OK, we're going to spend 40$ on milk and bread for the next two weeks". But how do you make sure you do that? 5 trips to the variety store later, you've spent more than $40 bucks. But you need the bread and milk, right? It's that follow up step that most people lose out on when they live on a budget. You can get really fastidious and keep every receipt and go back to your budget sheet and subtract each one, keeping a running total. I did that for a while...back when I was still doing everything on paper with a pencil. But Mvelopes makes all that nice and streamlined.

The Mvelopes was working really nicely for us, but it hadn't solved all our problems. The beginning of this year rolled around and I sat down to run some reports (another nice Mvelopes feature) to see how we'd done over the previous year. The most valuable part of this is I can see accurately how much is actually getting spent in each category. We might budget $180 for groceries every two weeks, but what do we really spend? Do we go over and pull from other envelopes, or let the envelope sit in the negative until payday and fill it up with overtime? Then I have a goal to aim for. One of my little money goals is to be able to fill each envelope with the actual amount we spend. It gets awfully tiresome to always be putting the bare minimum into, let's say, the food envelope and than overspending it much of the time because it's simply not enough money to feed my family. Then I might actually get to the point of having money left over in an envelope and be able to 'sweep' it into a savings envelope at the end of the month.

My financial assessment, as it usually is, was not pretty. We were just consistently overspending, relying on a cushion in the account to take the fall. Well, the cushion had sprung a leak and now it was flat and useless. Gone, in fact.

I actually had to reset the Mvelopes system. We had so many negatives that it was like being in the middle of an endless maze. It was a depressing and pride-busting day.

We decided that we needed to do something more. We needed more help, more information....more something. So I started looking at Dave Ramseys material again on his website. His Financial Peace University looked like just what we needed.

I'll boil this down so as not to make this too long (too late!). We found an FPU class in the area and started attending. It was awesome. It totally kickstarted us on the path to our financial hopes. Within a month we had our 'baby' emergency fund. I really think that the only way we were able to do it was using the Mvelopes. Let me expand a little.

Have you ever had a time where you knew you'd be saving money on something in particular? Or maybe some extra money came in for something. For instance, when we first read DR, we decided that instead of James getting a second job, we were going to take all his overtime and put that towards the Baby Steps. Every pay, I saw that overtime come in but do you think it actually went towards the Steps? No way. It frittered away into nothing.

With using Mvelopes, we were able to see any extra money in black and white, and immediately put it towards our goal. When the gas bill arrived, $26 less than the usual equal payment amount (we're on equal installments for all our bills that offer it), that $26 went right into the Emergency Fund envelope and then transferred to our ING account soon after. I regularly sat down and went through the envelopes, scraping off amounts as few as 4 cents, transferring it to the EF envelope. The night we got to $1000, we celebrated with a bottle of sparkling juice that we had bought for Valentines day and not used. It was Jamie's birthday too! It was such an amazing feeling. We'd never saved that much money in our whole lives.

Onward to Step 2. I guess it wouldn't be kosher to say how much we were in debt. But I'll say that we had about 3 debts that were all around the same size. And they seemed pretty big to us. I knew it was going to take us quite a bit longer than one month to get it taken care of, snowball or not.

Just in case you're not familiar with the Snowball concept, here's a quick lesson: You list all your debts from smallest to largest. Include in this list who it's to, what your monthly payment is, what your interest rate is and the total amount owed. Since this is Baby Step #2, you're likely already in search-under-the-couch-cushions-for-extra-money mode, so keep that up and start applying ANY extra money towards debt #1. Keep paying the minimums on all the rest. Do crazy things like work extra jobs delivering pizzas or something to get extra money--remember, it's only for a short time. As Dave says constantly, Live like no one else....so that later you can live like no one else. Then when you've got debt #1 paid off (celebrate!) and move on to #2, applying the minimum from #1 to #2...and keep scraping and delivering those pies.

This is again where the Mvelopes were indispensable. This is again, where we failed when we tried the first time. Because we didn't have a plan for how each household paycheque was used, there was no way to put our hands on that minimum from debt #1 in a consistent way. With Mvelopes, when a paycheque comes in, a 'profile' is applied to it: a list of all the financial obligations that we've pre-determined will always come out of it. For instance, my paycheque from one of my choirs pays for:
Phone bill
Babysitter
Savings
Gas bill
Some groceries

In the Mvelopes program, the deposit from this paycheque comes through automatically (Mvelopes connects with your bank and downloads all your recent transactions). I click on it and drag it to the Income Cash Pool (the screen where you decide what envelopes it will be dispersed to). I found it easiest to use their profiling option which with one click, fills in the amounts for me.
So when Debt#1 got paid off, when I clicked on 'profile', however much we were paying towards it was filled in....but now it didn't need to be there! I could very happily delete that box and clearly see from my totals at the bottom of the screen that we now had $X to apply to somewhere else. So I put it in the envelope for Debt #2. Small victory...but felt great.

Since the spring when we finished FPU, we were able, through the blessings and grace of God, to finish Baby Step #2, and as you can see from my ticker, get about halfway through step #3. It's an amazing feeling! Especially when I think back to the frustration and despondency of our first attempt 5-6 years ago. I never thought we'd make it this far!---and maybe that was part of the problem.

So that's my novel..er, um, update. I hope maybe there was something informative or inspiring for you!

The Lowdown

2009-10-29T13:38:00.006-05:00

We're still somewhat in a state of shock that this is all happening. For a number of days James kept texting me with variations of "I'VE GOT A NEW JOB!!".

Most people reading this are family that know what we've been living with the last 8 years. But, just for the odd person that perhaps stumbles upon this blog, or some friends from facebook that perhaps are taking a peek here, I'm going to talk a bit about it.

I say 'living with' like it's been some kind of horrendous ordeal. I wouldn't say that at all. People who have lost their jobs are in a horrendous ordeal. But, we have been putting up with a situation that a lot of people would have gotten themselves out of a LONG time ago.

When we moved back from Chicago, James left a good job in the AV department of Moody. Because of our decision to move back to Ontario, he also turned down what likely would have been a really excellent job with a recording studio in Wheaton. But, for many reasons we wanted to get back to Canada.

We had a detailed plan about how James was going to send out resumes all spring, schedule interviews for March Break when we were home for a week and come home the end of May with a job waiting. Now that we've lived in the real world for a few years, I can clearly see how deluded that was.

Things didn't work out too much worse than that however. While he didn't get any interviews during March Break, he did land a job at a local AV Production company within about 6 weeks of our move back home.

Unfortunately, that job was somewhat short lived, and about a year later he decided to go freelance. Freelance in Chicago had served him well. Freelance in Southern Ontario....slightly different dynamic. Things were pretty sketchy and when I got pregnant with Jairus, I started pushing James to find full time work. One of his freelance jobs was working with my uncles AV company in London and sometime around Jairus' birth, he was able to start working full time there. It was an hour and a half commute from our little house in Stoney Creek which James was quite willing to do if it meant a steady paycheque and some security.

After about a year though, with the boss suggesting we move closer, we decided to try a halfway point and considered Brantford. To make a long story short, we spent 4 years in Brantford. Honour and Verity were both born there. James' commute was still on the long side though.

In 2006 we moved back to Hamilton for a number of reasons, one being that James wanted to develop his recording business and felt that the closer to Toronto the better. And so the commute continued. James would leave the house about 6:45 and get home at 6pm, at the earliest. With three children that only periodically sleep all night without waking for some reason, and a fourth that regularly wakes numerous times in the night, it was no surprise that James called often during his drive home, needing my help to stay awake. Sometimes he'd arrive home late, or told me of getting to work late because of pulling over and dozing for 10 minutes. Sometimes the 10 turned into 20....30....45 minutes?!

Overtime was not unusual. James would get home closer to 6:30, 7 or even 8 or 9 o'clock at least once a week. Regularly there were installation jobs that took him away to a far off town or city for 2 or 3 days to a week a number of times a year.

It was those long days I would dread....days of being with 4 small children for 10+ hours on my own.

The company he worked for was small. A few years ago, my uncle sold it to a young guy with a good business head. Still, the employees could be counted on one hand. Up until a year and a half ago or so, we did not have any health benefits at all. We had looked into arranging our own insurance, but the cost was crazy. Finally, the new boss was able to put a plan in place.
After 8+ years of working for this company we really had to take a serious look at James' future there. Through a period of restructuring and the new boss coming on, James' responsibilities had gone from a simple install tech to a manager in charge of overseeing the jobs. Unfortunately, his pay had not seen the same increase, a situation I regularly groused about. What was more disturbing however, was that there didn't seem to be any potential to move into a position where an increase in salary was possible. The next rung on the ladder was the owner of the company. I was becoming increasingly concerned as I watched our kids grow out of clothes and shoes that the costs of raising four children was only going to get more expensive. Being a virtually single income family is incredibly difficult these days. Add homeschooling to the situation--the costs of which we saw approximately quadruple this year as Honour moved into Grade 1 work....well, I think you're getting the idea.

It was shortly after we moved back to Hamilton that I first started talking seriously to James---and God, about finding a new job. He agreed with me (James, that is), but I sensed a reluctance on some level. Perhaps it was just the immensity of it all. They do say that changing jobs is a stressor right up there with losing a loved one or divorcing.

Nevertheless he did start looking. He regularly searched a number of job sites online but was usually unsuccessful at even finding a job that interested him or that he qualified for. When this situation dragged on through months and into years, I became more frustrated. Every once in a while he would find a good listing and we would work on his resume and write a cover letter. Every time, he failed to even hear about an interview. We both became more and more discouraged. In the spring of 2008 I reached a point where I felt James needed to consider finding some help in this venture. I remember sitting down one Monday morning to my computer and doing a search for career coaches. Alan Kearnes of Careerjoy seemed to jump out at me and when I later that same day received a postcard from Fair Havens advertising a seminar with him as a keynote speaker, I was convinced it was a sign that James should make an appointment with him. His $1000.00 price tag later convinced me that it wasn't to be.

Fast forward to this fall. After a wonderful "Kent Summer of Fun" with our kids, James for a few reasons that will remain nameless became inspired to start looking again. Within four days, he found the McMaster listing and we were gripped with a hope that we hadn't felt for a long time. Of all the jobs he'd ever found online, this one seemed to fit him more perfectly than any other we'd looked at. It was in an area he had specific experience with. Not only had he worked in the same department at Moody, but he'd had a few installation jobs that had put him into close contact with some of the new technologies being used in education today ("Smart" classrooms). Making a move into the world of academia was appealing to James. Working for a huge institution with the security and weight behind it that a university can offer was inviting. The vastly shortened commute was simply inconceivable. At times, I was just plain scared to hope that this could happen for us. And I don't think I've prayed as hard as I have since I was carrying Afton.

Well, you know the rest of the story now. It's really going to happen. One week from Monday, James will start his new job at McMaster University. He is SO excited! We got his 'package' from Human Resources yesterday in the mail and he sat down and read through every word of it, and than got online to check out the sites he was directed to. There's still some loose ends to work through: this past week we've been debating what to do about a computer for him. The one he uses belongs to his current job. While usually I'd be the first to say that a computer isn't a "need", James had already taken on two recording jobs in the next 6 weeks and so a laptop is a necessity. His cell phone will also have to go back to the company. We're not sure if McMaster would supply such a thing, or perhaps they just use radios on campus, like James did at Moody.

Then there's been some concern about reconciling the vacation days he's already used, but now will not work the last 2 months of the year to earn. Something we never considered when this new job search was underway.

I'm not going to worry though, because, well to be honest, I'm still basking in the glow and certainty that God answers prayer. I know, that doesn't sound very faithful--that I'm feeling confident now, implying that other times I don't?

{Shrug}

What can I say....it's true. And I don't think I'm all that different from most other Christians. We're still just human after all, and our confidence wavers. Sometimes when the answer from God time and time again is "wait", your faith starts to flag. And than you have an amazing experience like this to renew your strength.

I'm also not worried because of another journey the Lord has been taking us through....stay tuned for my long overdue Dave Ramsey update!

HE GOT THE JOB!!!

2009-10-22T09:38:00.003-05:00

PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW

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PRAISE HIM ALL CREATURES HERE BELOW

PRAISE HIM ABOVE, YE HEAVENLY HOSTS

PRAISE FATHER, SON AND HOLY GHOST!

AMEN!

HE DID GREAT!

2009-10-20T09:17:00.003-05:00

James came home pretty much beaming after his interview. He did just awesome. He felt that he answered questions well, asked questions well and overall made an excellent impression. The 3 interviewers assured him that we would know--yay or nay, by the end of the week.

Thank you so much for all the prayers. Lots of you emailed, and I'm confident many more were praying too. Please keep it up!

HE GOT AN INTERVIEW!

2009-10-16T09:20:00.002-05:00

Look at that, I even restrained myself from putting many exclamation points after the title.

Yes indeed, Monday at 12:30, James will be interviewing at McMaster. I was going to ask you all to pray for today as well, as he had to break the news to his boss and ask for the time off to go to the interview, but it's all taken care of. His boss was understanding and has agreed to be a reference too. Yay!!
James and I were hoping he might be able to squeeze in his A+ Certification test before an interview, but after more research on it last night, it's not going to be possible. Little bit of a bummer, but hopefully if he can speak intelligently about it and his concrete plans to obtain it, they will see that positively.

Soo, mark your calendar, set your blackberry, put it in your computer with an alarm....pray on Monday for us!!

Holy Sick

2009-10-12T16:45:00.003-05:00

I've been sick.

Usually, my sick the last, oh 15 years, has been colds. Sinus colds, strep throat maybe. Might have had an ear infection or two.

Have I ever mentioned how much I despise being nauseous? (Or is it, nauseated?) I would frankly rather go through labour than throw up. Pain, I can handle that. Vomiting, not so much. If I had been so blessed as to have morning sickness, you can bet that I would not have four children at this moment. If I should ever get cancer, God forbid, I'm going to be one sad and pathetic chemo patient.

Seriously, it's been more than 17 years since I last had the stomach flu. I can remember specifically when it last happened.

Last Tuesday, Wednesday-ish, I had been having the odd queasy feeling that would prompt me to take a reeeaally big breath. One of my coping mechanisms for nausea.

And then on Thursday morning after taking Jairus to school, I hit this wall. Suddenly all my energy was gone. It was time to put the baby down for a nap and I told the girls that I needed to lie down with her. They were thrilled to postpone school for a few episodes of Scooby Doo. When I woke up with the baby about an hour and a half later, I felt no better, in fact, worse.

I managed to get the girls some lunch and then things took a turn for the really worse, prompting a series of texts to James to hightail it home, in no uncertain terms. Fortunately he was able to do this. He got home just in time to get Jairus from school.

I'll spare you the details of the following 12 hours.

And of course, the best time of year to have the stomach flu is leading into Thanksgiving. I thought I'd be fine by Saturday, but by noon, I was still incredibly energy-less (effects of the Gravol I think), dizzy and lots of other negative type stuff. (yeah, I'm still sparing you). So James took the kids and went off to my side of the family's dinner.

Sunday was somewhat better but I was still rather dizzy and had no strength. Still, I packed pillows around myself and we went up north for James' side of things.

By Monday I could honestly say "almost", when the girls asked me if I was better yet. Almost was good enough to get up and put the house back in order....

Hhyyeah.

You know, a while back my very good friend introduced me to Flylady. But even before that, I had read Managers of their Homes, a home-organization-while-you're-homeschooling book. It showed how to lay out a week of activities and schooling on a nice big colourful schedule, ensuring that everything needed to be done had a time and a time for everything that needed to be done. (Sorry, that's my wordy variation of a place for everything....)

Many proponents of this kind of scheduling insist that with all of your life on a lovely clockwork schedule, clearly laid out with a colour for each kid, if you should fall ill, anyone could pick up your schedule and fall into place, directing all the little soldiers into their proper order. Likewise with Flylady, although she of course focuses on keeping your house clean. With a schedule of cleaning tasks laid out in your 'control journal', hubby or MIL, or whomever can easily take over the running of the household and keep all in order while you are sick or away.

It just sounds SOOO....organized? Coordinated? OCD???!

Well, whatever it is, I wish I was it. For the state of my house after a few days of being incapacitated was truly frightening. After our marathon of cleaning yesterday, things feel MUCH better but somewhere deep still lurks that nasty pessimism that it's only a matter of time.....I like to think about a statement I read somewhere that trying to keep a clean house when you have young children is about as sensible as shoveling while it's still snowing outside.

******************JOB UPDATE**********************

It's now been a week since the job listing closed and I'll admit, we were a little discouraged not to hear anything by last weeks end. But discussing this with James' brother and father yesterday yielded a fresh batch of ENcouragement as it was well agreed that they might not have everything ready to start contacting possible interviewees. They both agreed that James should call, even though there's no contact person on the listing and it might amount to talking to an HR Dept. Administrative assistant.

Sooo, this is just what he did today. He called the department and spoke to said AA who gave him the name of the person in charge of hiring for the job. He left a message for this person who called him back shortly after and said that they were still organizing the resumes and hadn't yet started contacting people. This person (he, she? dunno) invited him to call back in a week if he hadn't heard anything. Yay!

Meanwhile James is considering starting the process of getting his A+ Certification. This was one of the "would be an asset" notes in the job listing. It's a basic computer knowledge/IT kind of training. James did a little research and found some sample questions....put it this way, I was answering some of the questions. We figure it would look really good if he could get the first of the two tests that make up the certification under his belt and be able to say that he was well into the process of getting the whole thing during an interview.

You'll never guess what I did today. I reactivated my Facebook account. I started thinking of it a few weeks ago when a friend announced a serious health crisis concerning one of her kids on FB and my mom had to tell me after reading it there. And, there have been a few situations over the past almost two years since I got off that I kinda wished I was still on. Mostly seeing photos of friends and events. So, I'm giving it a try again....my first status update was that "I caved....but I won't be here much, so email me if you really want to talk". I really hope to stick to that because I really truly can't take another thing in my life that needs to be done. I'm still thinking it's kindof a big thing that I'm doing any blogging.

And often still feel guilty that I'm doing that.....

Kentlife

2009-10-02T17:10:00.006-05:00

So, a little update on the job. James checked the listing on Tuesday as that was supposed to be the last day it was posted, only to find out that it had been extended for a week. This brought a bunch of feelings...mostly negative I'm afraid to say.
It was first off a bummer because it just delays everything. The sooner James is into a new job, the better. Another week....sigh.

And my first thought was that even though they had James resume, they still wanted to keep looking. That just doesn't sound good from any perspective. But, James had a few side thoughts on this, and another friend had a twist on it as well.

Perhaps it was the union. This will be a union job, so James would have to join, which at this point I don't think we are concerned with at all. Maybe the HR dept were ready to move on this but the union applied some pressure to keep the listing open, to give 'their' people more time. It was only up for a week. That doesn't seem long to me.

And my aforementioned friend thought that perhaps this indicates they are not going with an internal applicant after all. It's a possibility, I think.

So, the door's not closed. We're still praying.

It's Friday and I'm done Week 1 of my new Sonlight homeschooling curriculum. It's been quite a week.

I started on Monday because, I really had to. I ordered it a few weeks ago; the Friday before public school started. Let me just tell you a little about Sonlight. I don't remember exactly how I heard of them a number of years ago. A good friend who homeschools uses their stuff, and I ordered my Handwriting without Tears program through them after seeing the OT use it with Jairus at Lansdowne in Brantford.

I'm not sure where they fall in the 'philosophies' of homeschooling spectrum. They promote alot of reading and literature and I'm all for that, so they found a niche in my heart quickly. Still, I went though two large bags of resources gleaned from two separate years of OCHEC (Christian homeschooling) conventions and carefully considered all the catalogues and companies. The other two runners up were Alpha Omega and Christian Light.

I ordered a set of curriculum that's based around Kindergarten, but suitable up to 7 years of age, with a few grade 1 additives for Honour. When my big box came a few days later, it weighed about 50 pounds and had about 40 books. I was all set to teach: read aloud books (ie. The Boxcar Children), Bible, memory verses, Poetry, History, Geography, Science, Reading and Language Arts. I already had a math program (Math-U-See) and a Printing program (the Handwriting without Tears) and had been using a Hooked on Phonics kit that some friends gave us.

They forgot to send the big binder with tabs to organize all the teaching guides so that was one small delay. I was determined to start even without the binder, but it was rather difficult since I was so new to the curriculum. Then Honour got sick for a whole week, so we were delayed.

Sonlight puts the year together in 36 weeks. I mapped it out on my Google calendar, and with starting week one this week, taking 2 weeks off a Christmas and another in March, we'll finish about a week or two before public school. Sounded good.

Taking an idea from a homeschooler blog my mom probably sent me, I found a clipboard for each of the girls and printed out a table with their subjects down the left and the days of the week across the top. I found a few sheets of smiley stickers and stuck them in the clipboard too. As they finished that subject for the day, they got to put a sticker in the box. I told them if they had all the boxes full of stickers by the end of the week, they'd get a treat.

So, Monday.

I don't remember when we started in the morning, probably around 10 or a little later. I've always had it in my head that I need to get started by 9, but with taking Jairus to school for 8:45, it's pretty much impossible. I try my best to get up by 7 because I really need an hour and a half to get us all dressed, breakfasted, Jairus bathed, his lunch made, myself showered and out the door.

****We interrupt this sad little re-telling to bring you an important announcement:
The job has "gone external".

We're SOO excited!

So back to my week.

I attempted to start working through our curriculum on Monday but only got a few things done. Monday is my choir day so I have to leave the house about 3:30 and a babysitter comes until James gets home.

Tuesday I started again, determined to get through all eight subjects for Honour and seven for Verity.

We started around 10ish and stopped around 11:30, as Verity has gymnastics at 1pm on Tuesdays and we needed to get lunch. We got Read alouds, Bible, memory verse, history/geography and Honour got her math done, Verity her workbook. I gathered up Honours reader, language arts and writing practice to take with us to the gym. It was a bit of a crazy hour while I tried to help Honour, keep Afton from running into the gym area and take in some of Verity's activities. (More later on just how talented my little girl is in gymnastics, after only 3 classes) I missed a back walkover to my chagrin.

When we got back, we had all of 20 minutes to get a little more done before going to get Jairus. We get back from that around 3:20 and still had stuff to do, though I don't remember exactly what now. Science, at least.

I didn't finish until 5:30, at which time I came up and gazed in despair at the kitchen. I had 1/2 an hour to get the kids something to eat before we left for the church for junior choir. I decided to put together a lasagne and we would eat when we got back. I had that about 1/2 done by 6 when James got home and I left him to finish layering.

The rest of the day was a bit of a daze. I couldn't believe it had taken so long to get through it all. I had the feeling I remembered having the morning of the second night after Jairus was born. I was in the hospital, he was in the NICU. I was pumping every 3 hours, even through the night. Since I didn't have a baby waking me to feed, I had to have the nurses wake me. The second night, they forgot and I woke up around 4am, sore and upset. I was overwhelmed with (hormones I'm sure) but, the sheer constancy of what I had to do for my child for the next...year? Two? Who knew.

Wednesday morning I tried to get started earlier and managed about 10 minutes before the morning before. Again, it took until after 5 to get everything done, and that was even with keeping Jairus at home due to an ear infection.

By Wednesday night I knew I needed to get some advice. I thought about my friend Karen who's using the same curriculum with her four, but by the time I knew I needed help, it was quite late. I went to the Sonlight forums instead and poured out the whole pathetic story.

I had about 10 responses by the next morning. What a relief. And such wonderful responses they were. I could tell that these ladies were mature and caring.

The advice given most often was: relax. They are only 4 and 6. Keep reading and math for the year old and drop the rest, they will learn what they need just by living, playing, reading books with me.

After I read some of those responses, I walked into the homeschool room and Verity asked me if she could get out her puzzlemaker, a gift she got for her birthday that would require my direct intervention and I hadn't gotten around to it. She was supposed to do her workbook....but I immediately decided that figuring out a puzzlemaker and making her very own puzzles would be just as good. It was so fun!

One good idea I put into practice right away were to transfer some of our subjects to another time; we already read at night so instead of whatever books the kids pull from the shelves, we now do Boxcar children and the Ergermeier Bible at night. Just that adjustment made a huge difference on Friday. We pretty much finished by 2ish on Friday.

I'm hesitant to drop things like science and history. We really enjoyed it this week and Honour is chomping at the bit to get out 'those boxes' (the science kits). Being the completely right brained person I am, I'm not confident that scientific processes will just present themselves in everyday life and I will immediately notice and expound upon them with my kids. I think I even learned a thing or two from Kindergarten science this week. (I kid you not). So, I will continue to try and fit them in in some form...maybe not every day. But enough.

And so ends week one with Sonlight....on to week 2!

Con-templating

2009-09-25T08:13:00.004-05:00

So, as you can see again, I'm trying out another template. So far I think I like this one the best. It's pretty snazzy and dramatic. Don't you think that's me? ;-)

The script column appears to be narrower than my others however, so if you're taking a look at our summer adventures, the pics are slightly cut off, but you can still see them fine. I may attempt to get into picasa and resize them today.

I also changed up templates in the kids blog and Haydens blog. I checked on them and found that my old templates had somehow expired. Could that be because...I've not posted on them in over a year?! Yes, I'll admit it. But it's been purposeful. I don't post on Haydens because it stays static, and I took a break from blogging last summer and that included the kids blog. I'm actually thinking about having the kids blog printed up and then I'll delete it.

Today is a PD day. It's nice to have my boy home. It's nice to not race around getting him ready and the girls ready and a lunch made and, and, and...
We're all still in our pj's----me blogging, the kids watching Scooby Doo even though our rule is no TV until we're all dressed.
This is the first morning Honour hasn't thrown up since Monday. That's nice too. I think she's finally on the mend from her tummy flu.

So, this is just a little filler post, really. Wanted to comment on the templates.

Wanted to mention an important prayer request.

I'm taking a chance that Jamie's boss or anyone at his current work does not read my blog. It's a pretty low risk, I'm confident.

James found a job at McMaster University yesterday. We were SO excited. James needs to find a job in Hamilton. The commute to London is literally going to kill him any day now. I know that sounds dramatic, but, it's actually true.
This job is an AV Technician, and looks extremely similar to what he did at Moody when we were there. Probably slightly more technology as it's now been (gulp) ten years since we moved home.
There have been a few other jobs he's found over the last few years and applied for and to tell you the truth, it's been pretty discouraging. He's never even gotten a call for an interview, which was always so perplexing. Most often, the jobs seemed tailor made for him. I started to wonder if perhaps his resume or cover letters were substandard.
Well, last night we spent more than 2 hours tweaking his resume and crafting a cover letter. I thought the results were exemplary...but I guess the proof will be in the pudding.
The one hurdle is that they are giving priority to internal applications right now. So, please pray a door would open that he can get his foot in. Thanks.

And they'll know we are Christians by our Love

2009-09-20T23:12:00.005-05:00

This fall marks the start of my second year co-directing the children's program at church. My mom is the other director. We had a good first year I think. We made alot of changes to the program, which of course a few people in the church had issues with, but by and large, people responded well to all our ideas.

One change we made was to move the children's program from before the church service to during it. This made it a little hard to get teachers willing to miss church all the time. We were very grateful for those sacrificing souls who did so.

At the end of June we held a BBQ lunch for all the kids and parents, and, of course, leaders. We took that opportunity to shower our wonderful support crew with gifts. The teens and children who were in leadership roles recieved a 'cool' gift: a music download of the new Hillsong Kids cd (we love Hillsong Kids :-) Other leaders and helpers recieved flowers or gift cards. So then we had our teachers. What could we say to express our thankfulness?

I enjoy giving unique gifts. Usually, I shy away from traditional, typical gifts. No plaques or books or cutsy little figurines. I wanted to find something different and meaningful. I mused about the teachers and what being a part of our program had cost them during the year. I imagined that their husbands were likely also on the recieving end of this cost factor. As strengthening marriages has been both a personally important thing to me, and something we focused on at church with the showing of the Fireproof movie, I decided to pull a unique gift idea from my gift-giving past and give each teacher a 'date in a basket'.

Now, we had about 12 teachers so I knew this could get costly. So, to keep expenses down, the first thing I did was hit the dollar store. I bought each teacher a woven basket and picked up some lace placemats in packages of 2 to lay inside. Then 2 long stemmed glasses, a lovely frosted votive candle holder (embossed with virtues) and a tea light started out the goodies. A trip to the grocery store yielded a personal favourite for celebrating events in my house: sparkling grape juice.
What else would create a romantic and relaxing night for our most appreciated teachers? Oh yes, can't forget some chocolate. The boxes I found were cheap but yummy.
Finally, tucked in the midst of all these items in each teachers basket was a 10$ gift card to the local video store. Sparkling juice to sip by candlelight, chocolate to share while watching a romantic movie...ahhh, sounded wonderful to me!
Judging from the delighted looks on our teachers faces, I think they all agreed. I was so pleased.

Until....last week.

See, one teacher didn't make the BBQ when we handed these out and publically announced our thankfulness to all the teachers. Try as I might, we never crossed paths ALL summer.

Last Sunday, we had the new team up onto the platform for the pastor to pray over us all and bless our upcoming year. I spoke a few words at that time and took the opportunity to thank that last teacher and hand her her basket. It was important to me that she be recognized in front of the congregation as the other teachers had been. As the others, her faced glowed and I was so glad that she seemed to be pleased.

I thought nothing more of it all until nearly a week later when I learned that our pastor had been dealing with repercussions. It seemed that a number of people had been highly offended by the gift.
After reading my description, I'm sure you're wondering, "What in the world is offensive about a lovely little basket of goodies for a romantic evening with your hubby?"

Well, first off, my church doesn't do drinking. At all. The sparkling grape juice was of course in a bottle that from far off, looked like wine. That people from my congregation could have watched me co-directing the children's program all year, have seen me in various roles over the years as a soloist and musician, choir director and generally devoted member of the church, and think that my mom and I would have the gall to present a teacher with a bottle of wine in the middle of a church service...now that is offensive.
But no, apparently the phrase "above reproach" was even batted around. My goodness, don't let them read about what Jesus did at that wedding in Cana.

I also heard that some objected to the money spent on such a 'lavish' gift. Yeah, those dollar stores are getting more and more lavish all the time. I think I even have to pay $1.25....$1.50....even $2.00 for some items! Even if the gift 'looked' lavish from afar...it truly astounds me that a church expects a group of people to voluntarily give of their time and energy to do something that is often a thankless job--challenging, frustrating, tiring...teaching children is HARD, especially these days when 1 in 5 has some kind of delay, learning disability or condition....and then criticizes a lousy $20 gift basket.
They didn't limit themselves to complaints and criticisms however. There were even threats that "if this is what our money is being used for"....you can imagine the implication there. That really stung. I'm just stunned that people in our church would be so hung up on such a tiny thing, after a wonderful year of successful ministry to the children of the church. They would actually withdraw their support over this? They would hit our ministry where it hurts the most, to the detriment of the children?

I tell you, that was a heart-wounding blow. I had to ask the Lord to deal with some strong feelings towards these people. I knew I couldn't go into the weekend, kicking off our first Sunday back in the children's program with such resentment inside. And He did.

That didn't mean it wasn't difficult to go into the church this weekend and face everyone. I was there all day Saturday and all Sunday morning until about 1pm. When I wasn't completely occupied with everything that needed to be set up, rehearsed, designed, put in place and so many other tasks, I had to fight my growing suspicion. I didn't know who it was that complained....was it that lady walking by the office door? Was it the old guy with the cane? That young mom with the handful of kids? I had no idea. Were they all secretly disapproving of everything I did? Who knows what they might target next...my clothes, my hair...too much make-up!?!

I know, sounds a little over the top. Brains do funny things when their hearts are wounded.

But...the Lord could see all that. And he sent reinforcement.

First off, it was a great morning with hardly any problems. Kids were happy and seemed to enjoy the program. Teachers did great.

After the service, I was out in the foyer when an older lady stopped me. She looked familiar but I didn't know her name. She wanted to tell me that she had met a mutual acquaintance of myself and my husband last week. After that, she said such a wonderful thing. She told me that I had a beautiful spirit. She said that her and her husband have watched me in the church and said again about my beautiful spirit.

You know, I realize that we will never please all the people all the time....but it's SO nice when the pleased ones say so.

Blasted Bureaucracy

2009-09-06T17:52:00.007-05:00

Well, I'm having trouble getting pics for our last trip up. Since both our cameras are pooched, I've been using my cell phone, or dad's camera. For this past Friday's trip, I used the cell phone, and I discovered last weekend after trying to download the pics after an impromptu Saturday adventure, that my cell phone is suddenly encountering a problem communicating with my computer.

Meanwhile, I've been meaning to tell you all about a couple situations from this past week.

On the last Friday of VBS, James and I tried to get downtown to the police station to get my background check, which I apparently need for both choir and church. I say apparently because I'm not nearly convinced that in the grand scheme of it all, that these things are really worth anything. My administrator with choir tells me that really, it's for my own protection. How is that, exactly? Because if some kid accuses me of something, I just hold up my clear police check and all is well? I think not. Clear police check or not, if someone suspected me of something inappropriate, the exact same series of events would fall into place, regardless of my blightless history. Let's face it, we all know that just because you've not been caught, it doesn't mean you are innocent. How many stories have we heard, and are reported every year about that much admired hockey coach or school teacher who everyone looked up to...and suddenly late in their careers we find out that they were secretly molesting kids or running a kiddy porno ring or something. People can hide things. They can hide them really well.

Nope, what I'd like to know is, who decided that we all needed police checks to work with kids, who is benefitting financially from every $40 that comes in from the checks...and how are those two groups connected?

Anyways, the last time I had my check done, it was a matter of walking in and signing a form and waiting a couple weeks until they call you. Since 4 years ago, they've set up a whole waiting room, with ticker tape numbers and four windows that service all the people. I arrived around 10:15am, and was number 21. They were on number 14 when I sat down. By 10:30 I knew I had to get back out to the van to make it back up to the VBS for the 'final program'. So I handed my ticket to some other lucky soul and beat it out of there.

So last week I went back....with all four kids....armed with a book bag full of colouring books and crayons. I was number 45 and they were serving number 15 or there abouts. The colouring books and crayons lasted about 2 numbers and then I was chasing Afton up and down a nearby hallway. Visions of nasty passport office security guards still in my head, I shushed and hissed and plunked them back at my feet over and over again. Overall it didn't take nearly as long as I thought, maybe 45 minutes.

When we came out, we walked back to the van which I had parked a few blocks away to avoid paying a meter. Directly across from the van was a playpark which the kids had of course asked to play in when we returned. They had been fairly good in the police station so I agreed. As we came upon the park sign, I read that it was Beasley Park. This jogged my memory....I recalled that the Beasley neighbourhood was the subject of a friends photography exhibit. It had been displayed at the Freeway coffeehouse and I remembered that she reported that the Beasley neighbourhood was the poorest in all of Canada. Right here in the middle of Hamilton. And here I was about to let my kids play at the Beasley Park.

It did make me a little nervous, but it was a bright sunny day, in the middle of the afternoon, and there were not many people there; just a family of 3-4 adults watching some kids, and two young moms with 2-3 kids between them as far as I could tell. I don't know the ethnic makeup of this area, but I was surprised to realize as I walked back to van that a Native housing project was located right next to the police station. I hadn't realized there was such a strong Native presence in downtown Hamilton and suddenly I noticed that many people I was passing on the street were Native. This has no particular relevance to my story: it's just what I noticed that afternoon. I've actually been long interested in Native culture and did a few projects in highschool about Native history in Canada. I once named a fish after a character in a CBC movie about the residential schools as a teenager. The family in Beasley Park were native. One of the young moms was darker skinned, perhaps Hispanic, and the other just looked white.

Looking over the rather grungy splash pad, I instructed the kids to leave their sandals on as they played. The baby as usual, did not have any shoes on. I checked the diaper bag but only found a single sandal. As I searched, it became obvious that the two moms and the family were in the middle of a verbal sparring session. The two moms, the white one in particular were quickly becoming very angry and curses were starting to fly. My anxiety began to rise and I gauged how my kids were fielding this....they seemed to not notice. The fight rose and fell and seemed to be calming down. Remembering that there was a pair of baby sandals on the van floor, I took stock of where the kids were at and walked back over to the van, which I mentioned before was right across from the park, about a stones throw from where I had parked the stroller. It took all of 30 seconds to walk over and back, with about 10 seconds to open the door and grab the sandals.

When I returned, I sat and put the sandals on Afton and let her go to it. I was sitting on a small meandering wall that sectioned off the playpark section from the splashpad. The Native family and the two moms were at the south end; I was on the north end. I was probably 25 feet away.
I did a head check on the kids and saw that Jairus was now sitting on the wall too, about halfway between myself and the other people. He was looking dejected and I stood and called to him, asking what was wrong.

As I did this, the angry mom stood and walked over. "Is that your son?" she asked, in a slightly hostile tone. I said it was.
"Well, he grabbed my daughter and shook her", she announced. My eyes grew wide and I covered my mouth.
"She's only two you know, that's just not right", she continued in an annoyed manner. I immediately started to apologize, but she was completely uninterested in apologies. She turned around and walked back to where her girlfriend was sitting and I crouched down in front of Jairus. I asked him what he did hoping maybe he could show me with some actions, but he just sat, sad and droopy. I tried to get him to get up with me so we could find this girl and apologize but he wouldn't stand up.
Finally I picked him up, and long and heavy as he is (ok, not so heavy), I put him on my hip. I walked over to the mom and tried to start apologizing again but she was just clearly not accepting any apologies. She didn't seem all that angry, more annoyed than anything. She just kept blabbering and gesturing to the Native family, saying that she'd been having enough trouble and didn't want any more. I tried to explain that he couldn't speak, hoping to suggest that perhaps there had just been some kind of misunderstanding. She could have cared less.
You know that type? The type who has probably heard a million sorry's that mean absolutely nothing to her throughout her life. She was young, probably not yet 20, with jet-bottle-black straightened hair and dark black eye make-up against her rather pale skin. She wore low, slim fitting black jeans cinched at the ankle, as I've noticed is the new trend with teens.

I decided that despite what she was spouting off, Jairus needed to apologize. I walked a few steps towards the playpark with Jairus still on my hip and found the only white girl besides my kids. She was a big, stocky 2, with curly brown ringlets and I caught up with her at the bottom of the slide. I checked with the mom that this was indeed her kid, the only thing she co-operated with me about, and I had Jairus say sorry, which amounted to a murmur and a loose hug. The girl seemed clueless and showed absolutely no sign of such a trauma as being shaken.

We stayed another 5-10 minutes because I wasn't about to go running off with my tail between my legs. During that time, the family left and as they filed past me, looking disgruntled, I harboured a hope that one might tuck their head in my direction as they left and whisper that she'd made it up, or her kid had provoked him, or something that would exonerate Jairus. But they didn't.

When I had decided that we'd stayed enough time to look brave, I gathered the kids up and got back into the van. I questioned the girls as they buckled up whether they had seen anything. At first they said no, and then seemed to 'remember' when I asked in more detail. Sigh. I wasn't getting anywhere with that.

And so I fretted all the way home, so much that I turned into a wrong lane and got a good honking. It seemed that I was never going to truly know what had happened. While grabbing and shaking a kid is something I've seen Jairus do, it just didn't completely fit this situation. We'd only just arrived at this park, a brand new place we'd never been to before. Jairus usually takes a bit to warm up and become comfortable enough to run around a new place. And he would never approach another kid. Especially not to physically grab them....unless like in the previous instance of grabbing and shaking I can recall...it was to protect his sisters. Which if that was the case the girls would have known something about it. I just couldn't completely deny in my brain that Jairus would have done this....but I couldn't see him grabbing a little girl out of the blue either. It's made me quite nervous and watchful of him now when we are out.

It just makes my heart sad.

Puddicombe Farms...at long last.

2009-08-30T18:46:00.003-05:00

I think Puddicombe Farms was supposed to be our second or third trip, but due to inclement weather, we put it off, figuring that another Friday in the summer would be nicer. Well, that Friday came, and we made a day in Winona of it, since the Peach Festival started Friday night.

The morning however was full of finishing off a VBS that the oldest three attended at Mountain Church of the Nazarene. SUCH as nice little church with VERY nice people there. I had had the thought weeks ago that it would be fun for the kids to go to a VBS [that wasn't at our church]. It wasn't until I was going to bed on Monday night that I remembered and figured that this would likely be the last week any church would be running a VBS. So I fired up my computer and took a look around Hamilton....kijiji did not reveal any...not many at all actually--only 2 or 3 from July. But then I went to the Hamilton Mountain News site and looked through there. Lo and behold, there was the Church of the Nazarene holding one this week. I was hoping to find a small one...with older ladies running it...you know, the kind you went to as a kid in someones backyard. I had a feeling it might be like that....

And it was. The kids had a great time, and more reassuringly, all those older ladies helping were not concerned in the least to have Jairus. You would have thought they'd known him his whole life the way they took to him, and rejoiced over every little thing he did independently. They seemed to know almost instinctively what was an accomplishment for him, whether going the whole morning without a toileting accident, or joining into the games and crafts.

So on Friday we had a little informal final program where the kids said their verses: The Ten Commandments, and sang their songs. It was a small group, about 25 kids, which was just how big I'd hoped it would be.

We came home and grabbed some lunch, and then left for Winona. The weather was overcast, cool and threatening, so I wasn't sure this was going to work, but the sun made just enough appearances to last us through until we were heading back home that night.

Puddicombe Farms was....nice....but not quite what we were thinking it would be. Well, not what James was expecting anyways. The whole time we were there, we saw only 2 other moms with a small handful of kids between them, and then one mom later on with her 2. When we arrived, we went into their gift/cafe shop and bought tickets for the train ride. Once we went through the gate into the main area, we discovered that the train ran at specific times and we were about 45 minutes away from the next one. So we kept ourselves and the kids amused with the little play section (which I'm afraid to say, could use a huge facelift) and the petting farm (which...didn't actually seem to have anything we could pet). They had an emu that kept snapping at us through the fence, a very friendly cow that licked Afton's face, some bunnies in cages that we weren't sure if we could take out to pet--so we didn't, a peacock that was molting, and a bunch of pygmy goats that were very cute, but again, we were unsure if petting was a good idea.
Despite its' state of dilapidation, the kids enjoyed the play area however, so we spent most of the time there until the train was ready to pull out.

The train ride was the most enjoyable part, in my opinion. They've got lots of acreage there with some ponds and huge weeping willows--my favourite kind of tree. The ride took about 20 minutes and then we took a closer look around the cafe/gift shop. We resisted the impulse to pick up some sparkling cider or square butter tarts, but couldn't resist the kids' pleas for lollipops...which I don't think any of them finished.

It was a nice trip, although the kids seemed a little disappointed that we didn't spend as long there as we had at our other destinations....but like I explained to them, we did everything there that there was to do. We made up for it however by promising to hit the Peach festival after supper....pics and story to come next!

Kent Family Summer of Fun: Earl Haig Family Fun Park

2009-08-24T16:38:00.003-05:00

We used to live in Brantford, and a short drive down the road from us was the Earl Haig Family Fun Park. It's a nice little water park, not too flashy, not too expensive soooo, when I wanted to include one fun water park activity, I thought of Earl Haig. We were supposed to do Earl Haig on the last Friday of July, as you can see from our calendar, but we were up at Fair Havens instead. So when this past Friday looked like nice weather, and we had freed up a Friday from doubling up the week before, off we went to Brantford.

After spending a frustrating morning trying to apply for our passports however. A quick side story here. We're thinking about taking a cross-border trip on the Labour Day weekend, but suddenly realized that would require passports. So last week I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off to get my photos taken, find a guarantor, get all the paperwork filled out and find a place to drop it all off. Thought I could do it at a Canada Post outlet. Turns out that would take 4 weeks. Eeek...not enough time. So on Friday morning we went downtown to the actual government passport office.
We parked at a lot kiddy-corner from the building we needed to get into. James went to get a parking reciept to leave in the dash, but found that both the machines had OUT OF ORDER signs on them. So we shrugged and left. Mistake #1.
Up we went and got a number with an advised wait of about 1/2 an hour. We of course had all four kids and it took Afton about 7.5 seconds to insist on getting out of her stroller. It was a large room with many chairs, lots of people--maybe 30-40 waiting. All the Passport personel were behind partitions that went around two walls of the room. I followed Afton around as she toddled about. Soon my other three were hot on our trail.
They found a short ramped hallway in the back corner that led to some windows, a fire exit door and, with a quick turn to the left, ended with a steel door leading to the office area. I warned them all profusely about not touching the door and they were all very good about staying away and keeping Afton away too. I stood at the bottom of the gentle ramp and kept an eye on them all. Amazing what can keep kids occupied when there's absolutely nothing else to do.
Well after about 15-20 minutes, the security guard who had been so nice when we walked in and didn't know where to go first, comes over and asks me to keep the kids out of this hallway because "people were trying to work back there and the noise would bother them". Hhyeah.
Those steel doors are so darn flimsy, eh?
I rounded them all up and out, but Afton's attention was caught by a couple chrome posts standing in a nearby corner. You know, those kind that they string chains or belts inbetween to create a line, like at the bank? So she stops to investigate. Now, these things are heavy, weighted at the bottom and Afton was merely touching them.
The security guard was apparently not satisfied that he had rid the room of excess noise, so he heads toward her, speaking to her like you might a 10 year old, about how she shouldn't touch those and they might fall on her, etcetera.
I was so annoyed at that point that I scooped her up and said in a rather testy tone, "She's one. She doesn't understand you".

Shortly after our number came up and we had our paperwork processed.

Back down we went, having spent about 45 minutes at this task. And what should be awaiting us at our van? Of course...a ticket. A $19 parking ticket.

We were pretty much beyond frustrated at this point and I examined the ticket thoroughly as we got in the van. James tried to go back to the machines and get a picture, but of course, the signs were gone now. I noticed that the office for disputing tickets was not far, so even though it was lunchtime, we headed over to the address.

I went in, since the van is registered to me, and after filling out a form and waiting about 20-25 minutes, a woman called me into her office. I had stated on the form what the problem had been and so after clarifying it verbally, she called the manager for that lot. He told her in no uncertain terms that the machines were working fine. She gets off the phone and tells me this like she expected me to break down and admit we were totally trying to scam her. I just sat there and shook my head, suggesting that perhaps someone was playing some grand trick? I went over the story again, filling in as many details as I could. She called the manager back and tried again. Nope. Still nothing wrong. I could tell she was feeling the squeeze of the rock and the hard place. I wasn't giving anything though. Finally she scrawls a line across the ticket and says, "Ok, well, he's sending someone over to look (pointless, as I had told her the signs were gone), but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt".
I had thought I would feel triumphant and relieved, but instead I just felt....like a delinquent. I live in a world where people don't question my honesty and integrity. It's a real slap in the face when I encounter someone who is accustomed to assuming the worst about people.

All that washed away however, in the gentle current of the lazy river....here's the pics of our enjoyable afternoon at Earl Haig.

For a mere 7 dollars more, we got the Splash and Putt pass, so the kids all had their first experience with mini-golf. (I had to convince Honour that the mini-putt at Fair Havens DOESN'T COUNT).

Extra Kent Fun

2009-08-24T12:50:00.004-05:00

There's this little park I've spotted many a time on my way down the Wellington Street mountain access. I've always wanted to stop and explore it but never could of course. I told myself at the beginning of the summer that one warm evening after supper we'd get in the car and go see it.
So we did just that last week, on Saturday night. We stopped at a variety store and got giant freezies for the kids...truthfully I wasn't sure they'd find this all that interesting so I was trying to add some perk to the evening. I needn't have worried.
So this is Sam Lawrence park. About three times at least, Honour exclaimed "This park is SOO beautiful mummy, thank you SOO much for bringing us here". Look at that. I get good ideas once in a while.

Another first for the Kents this summer was a wee cruise around Hamilton Harbour. Well, this time it was just for the grown-up Kents. I spotted the information for this cruise when I was planning the summer trips and thought it sounded like a nice date night. It turned out to be slightly more expensive than I first thought, but in the end, I think it was worth it. The weather was not so helpful, so my pics are a little dim, and....I gotta be honest, Hamilton Harbour is not so much a good looking waterfront what with the steel factories belching away, but I don't get much of a chance to get on a boat of any kind, not to mention much of a chance to do something just with James, so I can overlook belching smokestacks. It was good food too!

Hamilton Waterfront Trolley

2009-08-23T22:51:00.006-05:00

For last Friday's trip we went down to the waterfront here in Hamilton and took the trolley. It was nice, if a bit long for the kids, but overall they enjoyed it.

We decided to combine two trips on one day, because we realized that on their own, they wouldn't take very long or make for a satisfying day. So after the trolley ride, we headed a short ways down the waterfront to Bayfront Park where there's a Tugboat embedded in the ground and turned into a play structure for kids. Next to it is a nice splashpad and the usual climbing apparatuses (apparati?). There are picnic tables in the tugboat so we ate our lunches there and then found a wee bit of grass to lay out on while the kids frolicked nearby.

As you can see, Leslife is under construction. Alas, Isnaini, the designer of my old blog did not respond to my calls for help to restore my graphics, so I have moved on to grander templates. I'm still tweaking this one and possibly might replace it all together if I can't get it quite the way I want so hang on with me.

Another Kent Fun Week

2009-08-05T16:41:00.004-05:00

As our tradition for about the last 30 years, we spent some time up at Fair Havens Bible Conference. Well, they've been calling it Fair Havens Ministries for a while now, but what can I say: I'm an old timer. They tried to change the Tuck shop to "Connexion Cafe" but you still hear many people calling it the Tuck. Including my 5 year old. Who's been listening to me. (rock on, girl).

I do love Fair Havens. My parents and Ryan and I started camping there when I was about 4. I have grand memories too numerous to go into here. We would borrow my Grandparent Wettlaufers trailer (a Prowler, I believe) and what a thrill it was to sleep on the fold out bunk. Somewhere along the line my other grandparents secured a permanent site and made a summer home there with their trailer. There was a certain security in knowing that Grandma and Papa were always there, at #511.

Then in 1990 I worked my first summer there, in the children's ministry. It was called Children's Chapel, as it had been for decades and we serviced about 80-100 kids aged 2-10 each week for a 3 hour morning and another hour and a half at night. We did songs, crafts, games: all the usual kid VBS/Sunday School type stuff. I did this for 6 summers. The last 3 I was the coordinator of the program. The last summer or two we started to see changes. Some parents were not happy that their 2 year olds were in the same group as the 10 year olds (we'd start the morning together before splitting into age appropriate classes and some evening activities (movie night) had all the kids together). So the segregation began. This splintering has continued so that now, there is a 'class' for babies, another for 2 and 3 year olds, another for 4 and 5 year olds, another group for grades 1-3 and then I'm not sure what happens after that. My kids aren't old enough yet.

To my knowledge and observation, it doesn't appear the children do anything terribly different than we did 15 years ago. They still sing. (the same songs. I know, because I hear them and I was the one who led the singing those 6 summers). They still do crafts. (The girls brought a couple things home from their week. Jairus didn't bring anything home I don't think). They still have 'pool' morning, although now for the girls' class, it was 'water' morning which didn't happen due to inclement weather. Jairus' class went to the splash pad and may have gone in the pool.
They still sing in big chapel on Friday night and say their memory verse. Jairus declined to participate. :-( They still have some form of dress-up night (still expecting parents to pull costumes out of their meager camping supplies) and pajama night. They still traipse all over the camp finding interesting spots to play their games and explore. They still call all the leaders Miss or Mr. [first name].
This generation of Children's Chapel workers don't even have to go an hour and a half or more at night. Adult chapel has been truncated recently and if it runs for an hour, that's generous. Another difference is the need to tag each kid and outfit each parent with a corresponding bracelet. Other than that....it would seem that no one's done any huge reinventing of the wheel.

I'm not complaining about this. I enjoyed attending Children's Chapel. I enjoyed teaching Children's Chapel. If someone along the line decided that what we were all doing was vastly inferior and instituted an overhaul, I'm not sure how I'd feel about that. The point of my jaunt down memory lane has to do with...well, the memories.

James was of course a big part of all this. I met him my first summer there. We started dating and did the long distance thing for the following year. We broke up the next summer upon returning to FH and spent the next two years apart. The summer of 1994 saw us get back together again, summer of 1995 we were engaged---at Fair Havens, and summer of 1996 we were married---at Fair Havens. Yup, that's right, out on the path in front of ol' Irwin Chapel.

Once James and I got married, that spelled the end of my working summers at FH. Naturally. We've made a point however, of getting up there at least once a summer, if even just for a long weekend. I recall we tried actual tent camping (I believe we gave up midweek and moved into my grandparents trailer that my aunt and uncle had just finished with).

Not long after we got married, my parents were able to buy their first trailer. For a few years they hauled it back and forth, or might have left it in storage there over the winter. Then my grandparents decided to pass their permanent site on, so my parents were the excited recipients. Now my kids can always remember their Nana and Papa at #511. Our habit the last 2-3 years is for me to bring up the kids for a week and James to join us on the weekend. To take a whole week of vacation and join my parents (and up to 4 siblings) in their trailer is...a bit crowded.

So with this short history of my affiliation with Fair Havens in mind, perhaps now I can explain why I find myself becoming increasingly annoyed with the place.

I was talking about it some with another staff alumnus whom I usually run into every year. Her parents also have a permanent site not far from my parents. She's a great friend whom I cherish and I feel I can talk to concerning just about anything. Her and I both gave many summers of our teenage lives to Fair Havens for a fairly pathetic financial remuneration. I don't think that was a huge deal to me at the time, although I do remember waiting and hoping to be old enough to join their college student program, so that I could work there during the summers in between years at university. I was pretty disappointed when they terminated that program before I could get to it.
Now as an adult with a better handle on the cost of wages, living and quality employees, it's pretty astounding to me how much they got away with paying us. I've worked it out, remembering how much I brought home at the end of the summer and how many hours I worked during the weeks there....yep, it was pretty 'poverty' as my sister would say.

$1.51/hr.

And even if my memory is completely wrong, and I brought home twice as much....that's still only $3.00 an hour. Sure, they provided room and board. Still highway robbery I think. And consider the years I was coordinating. I spent untold hours planning and preparing for the summer....and I don't remember getting a significant amount more.

Again, I'm not complaining about that, particularly. When it seems to burn the most however, is when I return there with my family and can barely afford to stay with my parents.
Fair Havens doesn't have any kind of alumni recognition. That's probably not very common among conference/camping grounds anyway, but I just feel like there should be something. Like I've explained, I kept up my connection with FH because I love it. The place. Some of the people.
But when I show up to pay for the programs my children will attend while we're there, I can't help but shake my head to think I'm now paying no small amount for my kids to do exactly what I used to teach....and never charged a penny for. That's right, 15 years ago, there were no "program fees".
It didn't help that the woman registering me at the counter was an old time staffer whom I clearly remember from my time working there, and I'm willing to bet she was working there when I was a lowly camper too. She asks my name, which, ok, I probably couldn't have remembered her name either, but the kicker was when she couldn't find me in the computer and asks "Have you been here before?". Sigh.
When I found out how much it was going to be costing me, I seriously considered saying that, ok, I wouldn't be sending them to their programs. I actually stood there thinking about how I was going to tell the kids they weren't going to 'Kinder Kids' and 'The Rock'. I began a short list in my head of the stuff I could do with them instead, with an underlying current of disappointment running through the whole mess that I wouldn't be able to work on the scrapbooking I brought up.
But that wasn't an option. When she included Afton, I quickly told her that I wouldn't be sending Afton to the nursery, thinking I wouldn't have to pay the program fee for her. After all, she wouldn't be getting any program. But no....the fee is to cover "her use of the grounds". Like the pool and....the ground she walks on. "For a 14 month old?" I said incredulously. They were going to charge me $50 so Afton could get her feet wet in the pool?

Indeed.

So on top of my wounded pride that this lady had to ask if I'd ever BEEN there before, the exorbitant fee for my kids to do precisely what's been happening there for at least 30 years at no cost, now my one year old had to pay for me to push her in a stroller around the campgrounds.

Is it too much to ask for a little recognition? A small token of gratitude for sacrifices made to the growth and prosperity of Fair Havens Ministries? Apparently not.

Now, as I'm a person to tries to look at things from the other side's perspective, I can understand that since the new director came on board a few years ago, he's put in place huge changes in order to improve the place. And improvements have happened. The Tuck shop and offices have been completely redone since I was a staffer. The playground is much larger, with new play apparatuses. The children's program now has two large portable classrooms to extend their classes into, with accompanying playlot. There's a beautiful new splashpad (as you can see). There's a more impressive line-up of special musical guests and events like the showing of the "Fireproof" movie. Every Friday night there's fireworks (as you can see) and every Saturday night they hold a BBQ for all the campers. I've heard that financially, Fair Havens is doing much better, and all due to this new director.

But this year, as I paid my left arm for my kids to attend one week of program and for me and Afton to....be on the grounds, I started considering that sometime soon, arrangements will likely have to change. As my kids get bigger, they won't be able to share the table that turns into a bed, and we will quite simply run out of room. We'll either have to start coming up during a week when my family is not there (no fun), or we're going to have to start making our own arrangements (like....grown-ups would, I guess). We'd have to get our own site...and get our own tent or tent trailer or trailer or something. But quite honestly, since we've always been on the receiving end of the perks of my parents' season site, and not had to pay very much at all for our times at Fair Havens, the costs to do such a thing seem pretty outrageous. And that just burns me. That both James and I once gave so much of our time and energy to a place that now we can't even afford to bring our family to. Yes, I know they are a business. Yes, I know they need to make money to make the place better, to bring up the standard and be able to compete with the likes of MBC.

But really, is that their goal? What is their goal? It would be nice to know. Because I think it should be to provide a beautiful, restful place where families can come and recharge, spend time with friends and hear some good bible teaching, trusting that their children are receiving the same---at a price the average family can afford.

Perhaps Fair Havens needs to take a look at what the average family is pulling in.

Kent Fun Day: Carousels, Butterflies and Rainbows

2009-07-24T21:57:00.003-05:00

Sounds divine, doesn't it?!

Today was our fourth Kent Family Fun Day. Even though we didn't make it to Puddicombe Farms last week, we decided to maintain the schedule and go to the planned destinations for today.

Port Dalhousie

We got away from home around 11-11:30 am. I had neglected to plan for bagged lunches, so we decided to hit a grocery store and get those Snack pack lunches the kids beg for every time we go grocery shopping. By the time we got to St. Catherines however, we decided it would probably be just as cheap/expensive to get lunch for them all at Subway which is where James and I had planned to pick up our own food.
Or probably NOT!

Oh well, lesson learned. It was yummy anyways.

So we took our lunch to Port Dalhousie and ate under a bird nest infested covered patio. Yeah, that was kinda gross, but there weren't any other picnic tables nearby and we found a spot the birds seemed to have boycotted. We'd just gotten the food divied up when I realized we'd forgotten the drinks I'd bought for James and I at the Subway. Fortunately it wasn't far, so James went back for them.

After lunch we headed across the field for the Carousel and bought our tickets which came to a grand total of 60 cents. Love that!

The kids had a ball at this and thoroughly enjoyed it. After a quick romp on the playpark next to the carousel, we got back in the van to head to....

The Butterfly Conservatory

This stop had been in my plan, but not on our poster, so the kids didn't really know about it. They impatiently made the drive asking that classic question "Are we there yet?", about 37 times.
I was a little disappointed at how many people there were; I'd hoped that going on a weekday would make it less busy. Pushing a bulky stroller through the paths didn't help. But the kids didn't really seem to notice; they were pretty amazed at all the butterflies flitting about. At first it was a little creepy really! They might be beautiful, but you know what? They're still BUGS! Jairus was downright scared and I had to talk him through it. After a few minutes he was fine.

We didn't stay terribly long because it was really warm in there (James was pouring sweat) and we did still have one more stop....

Niagara Falls

I prepped the kids on the drive to the falls about what exactly they were seeing with talk about the seven wonders of the world and how amazing it was that we could go see the falls. We were a little shocked at the parking: twice what we had budgeted at 20$, and it meant a bit of a walk which I was annoyed at. I knew that at about 5pm, the kids were getting tired and wouldn't take the walking. I was also annoyed that we had to follow signs saying pedestrians had to follow a certain walkway to get to the railings--which conveniently led right through a large souvenir shop. ( I hate souvenir shops with small kids!). But once we got within view of the falls I forgot all about my petty annoyances. What a great thing to see with your family!

Honour was suitably excited to learn that she had been on the Maid of the Mist when she was 1 year old (on a trip with Auntie Lauren and Auntie Tatum). They begged to go on any form of transportation they could see (boats, buses, trams, ferris wheels, etc) but we were already over budget for the day.

Afton woke up just long enough for us to get pics of her admiring the water and then we hit the road. I was very proud of myself that I didn't try to talk James into stopping somewhere for supper....nope, we got home and I whipped something up as planned.

Another successful Kent Fun Day!

Kent Family Fun Day: Discovery Centre and HMCS Haida

2009-07-17T22:22:00.003-05:00

Today was Kent Family Fun Day #3, and again our plans were modified. I woke up this morning to hear the rain pouring down onto the veranda outside our window. Puddicombe Farms in the rain did not appeal, so we decided to backtrack and visit our choice for last Friday's outing, the Parks Canada Discovery Centre down on the waterfront here in Hamilton. This is a part of Hamilton I've not really seen much of....it's quite nice!

We started the day out however with a trip to Ikea to purchase some new dishes. I've been becoming increasingly concerned with the safety of our use of the plastic Walmart dishes I bought probably 5+ years ago. Ikea was having a sale on a set of plain chinaware and their sets of small glasses are quite inexpensive so for about 20$, we replaced all the the plastic. The kids were especially pleased about the change when we couched it in terms of them being 'old enough' now to use glass and ceramic dishes.

They were also thrilled to play in the ballroom there at Ikea....although I was not as thrilled as I thought I would be. I was trying to explain it to James: you'd think as a mom I'd be excited to shop at a place that offers to take care of my kids for free in a fun, safe environment. But there's just something about the staff there that rubs me the wrong way. James pointed out that they have alot of liability to consider. This is true, but how sad is it that the concept of liability causes the employees of a company to have to be so...cranky. I think it's just that they have to 'pete and repeat' the same stuff so often that they lose perspective on how to be tactful about it.

For instance, when we arrived and started to sign in, my kids were already getting their sandals off and socks on (the sock rule being one that I learned the hard way yesterday when Jairus and I went out to scope out the dishes) when the chick at the desk realizes that she's only got 2 slots left. It would be 20 minutes until there would be room for my three. So I agree to wait, but when I break the news to them, Verity is quite upset. They give me a pager to let me know when to come back and I hand it to her (it's got a lanyard attached to it) to placate her with the idea of getting to hold it and be the first to know when they can go back. The desk worker quite bluntly tells me that I need to hold onto it because "it's quite expensive" and she might drop it or lose it. I felt like a 10 year old.

And just the way they word the sign telling you that there's a 45 minute limit when it's busy. It doesn't ask nicely that you only leave your kids for 45 minutes when it's busy. It doesn't plainly ask or even state that the rules are that you only leave your kids for 45 minutes when it's busy. It tells you, yea orders you to only leave your kids for 45 minutes when it's busy. It irked me just to read that sign. At least now I can say that Jairus is toilet trained (they don't need to know that he has accidents, all kids do, right?). It downright angered me that they don't allow kids with pull-ups in the ballroom with no caveat for someone like Jairus. I've only let the kids in that playroom once before and it was quite a while ago. Back then I just let Jairus go in and didn't even tell them he was in pull-ups. They didn't suspect a kid his age so we didn't have any trouble, and let me tell you how ready I was to raise up a stink about discrimination towards a special needs child if they dared to.

Anyway, that's my gripe. Back to Kent Fun Day.

After we did our shopping, the kids talked James into staying for lunch at Ikea, so we then went straight to the Discovery Centre. I realized that I didn't have my camera so I had to make due with my cell phone. Some pics are not bad, but lots are kinda crappy....sorry! They'll do for the scrapbook, which we picked up tonight along with prints of the Storybook Garden pics. Can't wait to get started!

Though not in the plan, I should have known that if we were so close to the Haida, James would want to go see it. So for another 5$ added onto the Discovery Centre fee, we went over afterwards and romped around the old battleship.

Kent Family Summer of Fun: Week 2

2009-07-13T10:16:00.007-05:00

So this past week brought more fun than we had originally planned.

As you can see from our calendar, this week we were supposed to visit the Discovery Centre. A number of weeks ago, James told me that he had to do a job in Parry Sound and that we could all come with him and visit Ryan and Jenn. This sounded great to me!

The trip was scheduled for this past Tuesday through Thursday. We had already made plans to visit Tim and Rhonda in Barrie for Saturday....and it didn't make sense to drive all the way back to Hamilton for Friday's Fun Day and back to Barrie on Saturday. So we adjusted the plan and made use of our Ontario Fun Pass which had a free admission coupon for Discovery Harbour in Penetanguishine.

Little did the kids know until Tuesday morning, that this was going to be Kent Fun Week!

We got into Parry Sound just after lunch on Tuesday and went to Ryan and Jenn's first. Jenn had gotten the afternoon off. Ryan and James headed over to the job and worked until supper. We were treated to an excellent dinner that evening of BBQ pork loin, corn on the cob and seasoned baked potato.

After ice cream cones for dessert (do they know their nieces and nephew or what!) we went to the hotel (the kids were over the moon about this). The Georgian Inn and Suites didn't look nearly as nice as the photos, but there was a separate room for the kids (with a TV!! They were thrilled!) which I would not truly realize how great that was until our next hotel in Midland.

We passed Wednesday with a trip to the SA thrift shop to pick up a belt for myself and a few things for the kids to round out the debit minimum (hate that), a good long play at a nearby playpark, and an afternoon swim with Auntie Jenn at the hotel pool. It turned out that we were the first to use the pool after it's closure and renovation. In our attempt to keep to the budget on this trip, we brought a cooler and made sure both out hotels had fridges to keep enough food for lunches and suppers: breakfasts were provided by both hotels. I just love that our kids are young enough to find eating cereal from teeny-tiny boxes in disposable bowls with plastic spoons, in a hotel foyer, exciting!

After supper in our hotel room, we went back over the Ryan and Jenns and took a walk down around the water with Jenn's family who had arrived that afternoon. The day ended pleasantly with yummy pie on their deck.

Thursday was check out day with unexpected bonus free time for James as he finished his job a little early. He took the kids for a swim in the pool while I packed up and we requested a late check out so that we could put together lunch from our supplies while still in the hotel.

**Tip: Picassa seems to be a little erratic with the slide show timing, so you might just want to click it forward yourself. Also, some captions don't show up unless you mouse over the picture.

A little after 1pm we hit the road and got to Midland about 2. We were staying in a brand new, VERY nice Super 8 motel and they were nice enough to let us check in early. It was a relief that we didn't have to try and get into our bathing suits in the van.

After loading stuff into the room, we got ready for the beach. 10 minutes down the road (pretty much exactly, Honour had me counting down) was a nice waterfront called Balm Beach. Again, kiddies were thrilled to bits and we spent a nice afternoon making sand castles and waterslides and venturing out into the very cold water only a bit.

Another highlight was a special dinner out. Since we took care of James meals, he was able to use his work food budget to take us all out instead. We went to Boston pizza and ate out on the patio. Very yummy!

We had picked up a brochure from the hotel about Discovery Harbour. In the same brochure was information about Sainte Marie among the Hurons. I'd known about this place but hadn't been particularly interested because it was a historic location, which I've mentioned we were skirting this summer because of the kids' ages. However, after looking at the brochure, we decided that Sainte Marie actually looked more interesting than Discovery Harbour so we opted to change the plan again. The beauty of never quite telling your kids what you're up to.

After a yummy breakfast in Super 8's very nice breakfast cafe (make your own waffles!), James took the kids swimming yet again, and I headed downtown to pick up some groceries and hit the scrapbook store. Midland has these wonderful murals all over the place and Afton and I walked down one side of the street right down to the waterfront and back up the other, snapping pics of all we could find.

Then we rustled up some lunch at the hotel, with gratitude for another late checkout, and left just after noon for Sainte Marie.

I was really pleased with how the kids enjoyed it. A couple times Verity started wailing that 'she wanted to go home', but for the most part, they were enthusiastic and interested in everything. They made their own dipping candles, wrote with feather quills and made little clay charms which will likely stay hidden....I rely on far stronger means for keeping evil spirits away from my kids, thanks much.

After a long but good afternoon at Sainte Marie, we headed south once more for Barrie, and James brother and SIL's house. James' parents were there that evening so we got some visiting in with them. Saturday had us taking in cousin Elijah playing baseball with his Rep team, a lazy afternoon playing in the sprinkler and on the neighbours trampoline and a witnessing a wicked storm/mini hurricane around supper. We ended up staying one more night in Barrie to get a chance to actually visit with Tim and Rhonda without 8 kids racing around.

Finally, Sunday was headin' home day...which was nice after such a whirlwind week.

The girls are right now enjoying a "Flower Camp" that a homeschooling friend is hosting....another event that I sprung at them just last night. I'm hoping my friend will document with pics that I can nab off her.

Hope you're enjoying some Family Fun this summer too!

Kent Family Fun Day: Storybook Gardens

2009-07-01T21:38:00.005-05:00

We had a great day today at Storybook Gardens. My parents took Ryan and I here when I was a little kid and I remember with vague snapshots in my head. I plan to scrapbook all the pictures we took between now and our next Kent Family Fun Day so that perhaps it won't be a vague memory for my kids.

Kent Family Summer of Fun!!

2009-07-01T20:30:00.009-05:00

OK, so I'm not blogging again.

I've thought about it alot.....I may post a few things, but I don't think I could keep up with actually posting beyond the summer. I do feel like I have a bit more time right now, what with MountainKids, choirs (HCC and Strings Etc!) and homeschooling on hiatus.

So this is what our summer is looking like!!

I wanted to post an imbedded calendar that you could click on the links and go right to the site of what we're doing, but it would seem that neither Google nor Yahoo are capable of this. (Leave a comment if you know of one!) So here is a list of links to what we're doing this summer. We decided that instead of taking one or two weeks as a chunk, James would take his holidays one day per week, and that day would be Kent Family Fun Day! (KFFD on the calendar). Today was our first day (I'll post a Picasa show of the pics above!).

I also wanted to say that I got this idea from the Cheapskate lady, Mary Hunt. I looked specifically for activities that my kids would enjoy (not too many historical places, as they really wouldn't appreciate them yet) and things that weren't too expensive (so, Canada's Wonderland and even Ontario Place were out....another summer perhaps). I also got some Ontario Fun Passes sent out (learned of this through my homeschooling group) which has given us some good coupons. Perhaps later I'll post some of the budget I worked out so you can see what this whole summer is costing. Today's trip specifically I got a 10$ coupon just by signing up for their newsletter. Cool!

Storybook Gardens

Discovery Centre

Puddicombe Farms

Port Dalhousie, Butterfly Conservatory, Niagara Falls

Earl Haig Fun Park

Fair Havens Bible Conference

BayFront Park

Hamilton Waterfront Trolley

Hamilton Children's Museum

Spencer Gorge

For my Dad

2009-06-22T13:40:00.000-05:00

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Weaning

2008-09-25T12:36:00.005-05:00

No, not the baby.

Me.

I'm attempting to wean myself from the computer.

It's perfectly amazing how this little machine, that 5 years ago I didn't even own, has imersed itself so firmly and seemingly irreplacably in my life. It was about 5 years ago that James and I broke down and got the internet (at the time, the absolute cheapest dial-up service available). We had had it before, living in Stoney Creek, and before that in Chicago, but we had cut it for while to try and get a handle on our budget.
But people without the internet now are definitely in the minority. And considered weird. And are harassed by family, friends and co-workers until they give in and make the call to Rogers. Or whoever. It's true that one significant reason that we got the internet back then was because it was the chief way one of my jobs communicated to it's staff. So on came the email.

And then a few years ago I started this blog. And another. And another. Blogs need to be updated, and as you can see, I'm not so hot at it.....I'm getting to that.

Then there was the Facebook stint. I've had about 45 seconds of regret that I got away from that.

Recently I got into MSN. It was a quick little phase, still used sometimes, but man, that one is a real time snatcher. It's like the livechat function my budgeting program, Mvelopes uses. You can't just phone up a tech person if you're having problems, you have to do a live, msn-style, chat with a tech. I find that I'll be on for at least an hour, or a good part of one, and when I read back over the conversation, it takes me about 1/4 of the time it took to type it all. And I'm a pretty fast typer.

Tick, tick, tick.

Not that some of my time spent on the computer isn't completely useful. Like I said, there's the email for work purposes. And my budgeting on Mvelopes--completely online. There's always the odd google search for map directions or definitions of "eye twitch" to help me figure out if I have a brain tumor causing my eyebrow to quiver all the time. See? Useful stuff.

And who knows what powerful forces in my life would be non-existant if I didn't spend time on the computer. Like knowing about this Kirk Cameron movie that I'm dying to see and have woefully realized I'll have to wait until the dvd comes out. Or the many blogs my mom points me too about homeschooling or interesting devo's. Good stuff.

But here's the bottom line: I have four children. One is an infant. One is a tyrant. Ok, maybe that's a bit harsh. Let's just call her, "my adventurous one". One is, well, fairly normal. The other needs much more of my attention than he usually gets. He needs to get toilet trained. He needs to learn to speak more clearly. When he says grace it sounds like:

"Mm-mm-hmmm" (Dear Jesus)
"Mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm" (thank you for my food)
"Uh-men" (You can figure that one out)

I'm homeschooling them.
I teach 2, soon to be 3 choirs.
I'm helping run the children's program at church. (http://www.mountainkidsministry.blogspot.com/)
I have a horrendously messy house. I'm trying to get in with Flylady. (What constitutes 'trying'? Hmm, wishing? Thinking? Planning? Am I fooling myself?)
I have a husband. He needs....attention.
I have a Lord. I need my relationship with Him to be stronger.

I'm a big proponent of simplifying one's life. I plan to fight tooth and nail before I'm racing my 4 kids from activity to activity day in and day out. We'll see how that goes, eh?

And so, back to weaning.

I'm thinking of giving this blog up. And likely the kids' one too. This is kindof a hard decision. I love to write, love to have a creative outlet. But I scrapbook too---I could just pick that up again. And I can journal. As my mom would say, there you go.

I just feel like if I have one more thing hanging around my shoulders that's calling out, pay attention to me!! I need to be updated/cleaned/worked on/read/filed/putaway/wiped/changed/taught/corrected/run after/rescued/washed!---I might, well, to quote my SIL, jump out a window!?

I met my husband at the door yesterday and said, "Sometimes I wish we were still 17". He chuckled and asked why. "Simpler?"
I nodded.
"Then again", I added, "When we were 17, we couldn't imagine there would be a time in our lives with more stress and concerns than we had then". Such a vicious cycle.

So read and enjoy, if you commonly do. I don't think leslife-morelife will be here much longer.

:-(

One of those moments...

2008-09-03T07:46:00.002-05:00

There are some posts where I extol the virtures of my beautiful children. Like most families, we have many wonderful, exciting, happy times where I think "This is why we're doing this". You know those moments.
And then there are the moments where I want to crawl under the nearest table, or perhaps rush back out the door of the restaurant....

Yes indeed, I had one of those mortifying moments....much worse than Verity continually announcing that her bum hurts at the family dinner table (that would be my parents' dinner table, you know, with all the siblings and spouses and boyfriends sitting around...).

Yesterday was grocery day. When James got home, we needed to go out and get groceries, an adventure that the kids love and look forward to; a harrowing torturous experience that James and I are growing to dread every two weeks.
The biggest problem yesterday is that the larder was empty. I'm not sure what happened our last grocery trip because we horrifyingly went over our budget by fully a 1/3, but by yesterday there was absolutely NO food to prepare for supper. We couldn't even do pancakes because we had no eggs. I do plan a menu, but I never actually plan out 14 meals, usually about 10 and then leftovers and a few dinners at my mom and dad's takes care of the rest.
So when James got home, we sat and talked for a bit (mostly about how tired we had been all day from staying up until 1am watching Lord of the Rings the night before--go ahead, give my hand a slap) and then decided we would hit Pizza Hut for a quick dinner before we went to the grocery store. Truthfully, we didn't really have the money to do that, but we didn't have the time to make two trips to the grocery store for something to make up for supper and then head back out for the big haul.

Alas, the Pizza Hut was closed for renovations. So down the road we went and spotted the East Side Marios. I LOVE East Side Marios, but I always feel a little guilty going there because it's a little expensive. But we decided we'd order a pizza there and nothing extra (sigh, no salad or garlic bread) and then it would probably be no more than Pizza Hut would have been.

The kids were all very excited, especially Verity. In fact, she was a little off the wall. As we all walked in and the Hostess appeared, she immediately went running up to her and started screeching away about something in one of those so-excited tones of voice that you could hardly understand what she said.

But I understood what she said.

Our server was a beautiful, very dark skinned young woman with many braids. She was one of those black people who you can truly call black. To my horror, Verity looked at her and said something along the lines of "You're brown!! I don't like brown!".

At first I wasn't sure she actually said such a horrible thing. She came spinning around to me and I caught her by the chin. "Verity", I said, "WHAT did you just say?". But she was too excited to comprehend and I was trying to speak on the quiet side. I waited until we got to our table and then a got my face into hers.

I determined that yes, my ears had heard correctly. I was so stunned. Why in the WORLD would she come out with such a thing? How could MY child have said something like that?

When I sat back down, James and I looked at each other with concerned looks. We discussed whether I should take Verity over to apologize to the hostess. James thought yes, but I was unsure because frankly, I didn't think the woman had heard or comprehended what Verity had said. But after a minute, I decided that she needed too: even if the woman hadn't heard it, Verity had said it and she knew she had. This apology would be more for Verity's benefit than the hostess.

So I put Verity on my hip and explained what we were going to do. She seemed agreeable. I went over to where the hostess was setting a table and told her that my daughter needed to say something to her. She was gracious and smiling, clearly touched at the cutesy apology of a three year old. I don't think she had quite heard what Verity said originally, but that was ok.

It's still a mystery why she said that. I think it was a combination of typical not-thinking-before-she-put-her-mouth-in-gear, intense excitement and perhaps a little awe over being so close to someone with such dark colouring.

But jeepers I hope that doesn't happen again!

New from Kirk Cameron

2008-08-19T09:11:00.005-05:00

I HAVE to see this movie. It looks AMAZING. And so close to my birthday....(wink, wink, nudge nudge)....wait, my husband would have to read my blog to see that......

Not the Same

2008-07-08T19:33:00.004-05:00

I'm at camp and I miss Neesha.

...and Sarah and Phil and Melissa and Jeff and Karen and Ron and Josh and Greg and...

We live in Hondaworld

2008-06-28T12:32:00.008-05:00

Ever since we were expecting our fourth, I've been eyeing a new van. We got our first mini-van after Verity was born, in 2005. Before that we all fit into our Accord wagon. (We're somewhat fond of Hondas). (Ok, we're Honda fanatics). (Blame my uncle, he started it).

But when I had to ride squeezed into the 10 inch space between the girls' carseats in the back seat of the Accord, we realized we needed to give in and get a minivan. An Odyssey, of course. There didn't really seem to be any way we could afford that though. The Accord had come second hand from the aforementioned uncle who gave us a sweet deal. But I looked at the autotrader anyways. To my surprise and excitement, there were some old Odysseys out there that we could possibly handle purchasing. We went out to the Kitchener area to check out the cheapest. This 95' was going for about $3500 and once we got there it was obvious why. As I went to shift into gear during a test drive, the gear shift got stuck and wouldn't move. The salesguy nervously suggested that I just needed to really reef on it. Ok...buh-by now.

We ended up buying another 95' (earliest year Honda made the Odyssey) from some little place in TO for 5K. We were thrilled.

Now, this isn't actually our Odyssey. I realized when I went looking for a photo of big red, that we got our digital camera after that point, hence no pics of our first minivan. But google obliged me with this pic, quite close to ours. Except we didn't have a sunroof. Or those funky visors over the windows.

I'll bypass our unfortunate Hyundai experience...(You stray from the formula, you pay the consequences) and move onto the next Honda purchase, a little civic for James to take to work.

Unfortunately, we made the mistake of buying privately and that wasn't so rosy an experience. By now however, I would think you're starting to see our trend....

So back to the present. I got pregnant and we realized that our decision to buy a van with two bench seats was not so practical for 4 kids in carseats. Space overall became a bit of an issue, as the early Odyssey's were quite small. And I was having heartattacks in every parking lot with three kids trying out their independence on a four door (read: no sliders). So last week I started looking at Pilots. My brother had been razzing me that we should get a Pilot next, so I went to the Honda site to check them out. I clicked away, deciding that nope, I still liked the Odyssey better. On I clicked to autotrader and what did I find?

A mere 5 minute drive, over on Upper James, this 2000 (Yes!! Into the 2000's!!) Honda Odyssey was going for $5449. It wasn't red...but I didn't care...could we do it?

YES WE CAN!!