When life hands you lemons

Pray, pray, pray......

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
"Rejoice always;
pray without ceasing;
in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

My husband was laid off almost a year ago.  29 days before the birth of our youngest, in fact.  He is still looking for employment.   We moved 3 months ago to a small town where we have no family, and are 90 minutes from all our friends since the cost of living was more suitable for our situation.  It is a nice area, but we are far from our support network and from those we love.  We found out today my husband has skin cancer.  That was a tough pill to swallow.  Fortunately, it is basal carcinoma.  The 'better' one to have.  Not likely to metasticize.  'Easy' to treat.  Also, it was a dreary, rainy, grey day outside, and I tend to get a little down anyway when there is no sun or moon visible.....

Homeschool did not happen today.  We read another chapter of our current read-aloud - The Return of the King by Tolkein (Lord of the Rings Trilogy finall book).  That was it.  Really, that was all I had it in me to do. 

I KNOW God has a plan, and I fully accept His will for me and my family.  It's just that sometimes I wonder what this is all going to lead to...  We went from a 6 figure salary to below the poverty level...  Looks like this Lent is going to last just a little longer..... 

Praise God for all His wonders and blessings.  No matter what your situation is, He loves you!  Every cross is a blessing - our crosses are our opportunity to share in Christ's passion.  We can share in His act of salvation through a free acceptance of our own suffering.  Paragraph 272 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "Faith in God the Father Almighty can be put to the test by the experience of evil and suffering. God can sometimes seem to be absent and incapable of stopping evil. But in the most mysterious way God the Father has revealed his almighty power in the voluntary humiliation and resurrection of his Son, by which he conquered evil. . . . "    Suffering can be sanctifying.  I am so very thankful to know this...

Tomorrow is a new day.  Praise be to God for giving me a tomorrow to look forward to!  I am going to go kiss the kids and get some sleep!  God Bless you!

They do the darndest things......

My 2 year old, Taz,  is certainly a handful.  Today at Mass after Communion, when the communion hymn was over and the congregation was all quiet, he was in the pew (front one, mind you...  we sit up fron so the kids can see) singing Know Your Enemy by Green Day.  I am so thankful that his little two year old mouth cannot articulate so well.  It could have been a little more embarassing.  As it was, people just thought he liked the hymn som much that he continued singing.....  Thankfully, he was also singing all of the other songs, so that was plausible...

We listen to the classics.  I have the Music Masters Cds as well as Leonard Bernsteins Young People's Concerts but I also let them listen to things like Green Day, which they, of course, prefer.... We discuss the songs, and I love that the kids will remind me to turn off a song they know has a bad word in it.  That being said, my 7 year old has a very strong preference for hard rock.  He knows what button on the car radio that station is, and he asks me to stop on that one before he even hears the song that's on it.....  And I know the kids don't really listen to the words, they just like a good beat - like I did until I was about.....  um.....  well, I guess I still do...........

Sometimes I wonder if I am corrupting them with a bad "diet" of music.  I suppose the bottom line is as long as their music diet is balanced, and they feel like they can talk to me about things, we're in pretty good shape............  Now I need to go try to plan for tomorrow a little before bed.

HAPPY AND BLESSED EASTER!!!!

Finally... One on Homeschooling

OK, so this will be quick, but I was perusing through some old magalogs and articles I printed out to determine which ones I need to purge, and which to keep because one or more of the articles 'speaks' to me.  The unfortunate (or fortunate?) thing is if I kept it in my file/pile, it already 'spoke' to me and thus I was loathe to part with it. 

Anyway, after Mass tonight (Happy and Blessed Holy Week and Easter, by the way!) I was reading through an old issue of Magnum Opus (November 2008 issue, the article was "How to Think") and came accross a gem of a quote that hit me square in the face.....  "Great teaching isn't based on knowing how to ask good questions, but rather in training students to ask themselves good questions." 

I LOVE this quote.  I hope to chew on it frequently....  As frequently as I may lose sight of the truth it offers.  My children are 10, 7, 2 and almost 1.  I do NOT want to raise lemmings.  One of my foremost goals in the education of my children is to arm them with the tools necessary to know HOW to think and to learn.  To that end...  I am following the classical model of education and doing my best to instill a love of learning...  And praying - A LOT!