The berries are smashed and ooze red.  Sweet goodness mixing with sugar in the saucepan.  To make the jam, I bring it to a boil and follow the directions carefully.  Too many berries, or too little boiling might make the jam runny.  Too much boiling, or too much gelatin makes the jam too firm.  It is a tricky balance, this teetering on the edge of not enough and too much.  Our lives can be the same way - us wavering in the middle between awareness of abundance, and the desire for more.... I cut … [Read more...]

  I always thought I lived in a pretty small town.  My friends and I lamented over the fact that there was no shopping available, and that nothing happened in our "small town".  We always thought we needed to go to Phoenix or San Diego to do anything of real importance.  My friends from Yuma are nodding their heads (population 194,000).  But compared to the small town my husband grew up in, Yuma is a metropolis - full of traffic and the bustle of big city life.  (People in Yuma can now … [Read more...]

  Ok, ok, so I signed up for practicum mostly because I knew they were going to talk about Latin, and let's face it - I needed a new vision for Latin.  We stuck with memorizing it last year because I vaguely remembered that at one point in all of my homeschool research I had decided we should definitely study Latin, but in all the craziness of everyday life, and trying to keep up with our memory work, my eagerness for Latin somehow sizzled.  I figured practicum would either re-ignite my … [Read more...]

What a blessing it was to be able to be a part of a community-wide, multi-church effort in a tiny rural community who thought big, and trusted large.  When planners set out with the idea of having a "Go Fish" Vacation Bible School (VBS) curriculum followed by a REAL LIVE CONCERT from GO FISH, I have to admit, I was a skeptic.  How could they really make this happen.  Yet here it was, and IT WAS AWESOME!  We spent the last month doing the Ten COmmandment Boogie and singing about how the B-I-B-L-E … [Read more...]

. We say it every year.   "This summer we will spend more time at the lake." But we don't.   Time passes and pretty soon snow falls, and we yearn for a sunny day by the lake.  So we say it again.   Sometimes we do this with the true Light. "This year we will spend more time in the Light, more time in His Word." But we don't. Time passes, and pretty soon hardships come, and we yearn for a day filled with Light.  So we say it again.   But not this year.   This year, I have … [Read more...]

Sometimes life just knocks the wind right out of you. And leaves a deep scar. It's Father's Day, and we are at the park that the Farmer grew up in. He swung on those metal horse swings and they seemed old back then, and yet, they still swing to and fro - little ones laughing on their backs. We smile with the children, but in moments my smile drops as Little Gabriel walks behind his cousin's swing, and is knocked off his feet. I figured the wind got knocked out of him, and it did, but the drip of … [Read more...]

  Character study is such an important part of our homeschool studies. In fact, early in the school year last year, I had reduced the amount of other studies we were doing to focus on some character and habit training.  I just felt strongly that if we focused on character and habits, the rest would go more smoothly.  While my kids are still crazy bundles of energy and their sinful-nature is still in tow, I did feel like we had some great gains last year in the way our family works together … [Read more...]

There's this race that we all run.  And we start out even, toeing the same old line everyone else stands behind.  On the day of our birth, the pistol fires, and we run.  At the beginning, the race is easy.  We are oblivious to finish lines, and who is going faster than who, and what obstacles might lie ahead.  We just run.  We think it will always be this way - an easy gait, an able body.  But the race goes on, and the sun begins to set on that day, that season.  The darkness sets in.  Obstacles … [Read more...]