That Is, After All, The Title of This Blog

No, no, you're right. I haven't been here in almost a million years. Forgive me my silence. There are reasons I've been quiet. They're affectionately known around here as, Paper Lanterns.

Dissecting cow eyes for the eyes and seeing unit in our KONOS co-op.
(I think he's watching you.)

Really, it wasn't as disgusting as you'd think. We learned a lot about the eye, and even the grossed-out members of our co-op were encouraged/forced to participate.( And they learned something new and valuable as well. )

A VERY cold day for tracking! Snow flurries, freezing temperatures... but perfect slightly frozen mud for finding footprints. Deer, dog and human. We're paying close attention so we can catch our prey.

Paper Lanterns of the Etsy kind.

I sewed up a few pillowcase dresses from vintage pillowcases. I just love the charm of these dresses. And the models make them oh-so-much-more charming to me.

Frolicking kittens.

A blushing Southern Belle.

A poodle. Oo la la!

Crowning the baby as our four-year old birthday princess.
Ravishing.

SoulPerSuit in Proverbs

"The reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If any of you lacks wisdom let him ask God who gives generously without reproach, and it will be given. " (Proverbs and James)
The One who created wisdom is the One I ought to ask for wisdom. Then I will be like a tree planted by streams of Living Water, and send out my roots by the stream. I will not fear when heat comes; my leaves will be always green. I will have no worries in a year of drought. (Jeremiah)

Go to the ant, you sluggard! Proverbs 6:6
Where there are no boundaries, the horses stampede.

Sometimes I'm a lazy sluggard, and sometimes I'm just tired out. I'm tired out though, as a result of having poor boundaries with my children. Homeschooling and not being involved in a lot of outside activities means we are all together A LOT. I am also a bit of a micro-manager in our home-- a leftover from the days when I had nothing but little ones who needed a lot of supervision. They don't need nearly as much input from me these days, but I have been very slow to understand that and to loosen up.

What that has translated into though, is that I've led my children to believe that they CAN'T do most things without their Mom. They can't move on from spelling to math until I check their work. They can't fold their clothes and put them away unless I'm standing there over them. They can't get a library book back in the basket without a direct command from me. (I think some of that is their own laziness.)

So as a result of this Proverbs study, I am determining which areas of life my 9 year old needs to mature in and learn to function without me. I'm looking at what my 7 year old can do on her own. I'm thinking about how the 4 year old can be helpful and grown-up. How all the girls can help each other and take responsibility for their own welfare as well as each other's. I'm not hanging up the "Off Duty" sign, but I am going to try to draw some better boundaries so that I don't feel like I'm overseeing every iota of life around here. Wisdom tells me I'll be less tired that way.

Wisdom Ice Cream Cone

Eat honey, my son, for it is good;
honey from the comb is sweet to your taste.

Know also that wisdom is sweet to your soul;
if you find it, there is a future hope for you,
and your hope will not be cut off. Prov. 24:13-14

My contemporary equivalent to a honey comb- the ice cream shoppe.
How awesome to have the opportunity as a parent to teach your kids the delight and anticipation of wisdom... just like you look forward to going to the ice cream shoppe.

The kids and I are studying Attentiveness in our homeschool right now, and specifically The American Frontiersmen. We're learning about how they needed to pay attention to animal tracks in order to hunt for food, how they needed to pay close attention to how much food/supplies they had before they started on the Oregon Trail, how closely they observed the signs of changing weather to indicate an early winter or the soil conditions to know if certain areas were good to set up a permanent homestead. One activity my girls and I wanted to try was quilting, and specifically doing our own in-house quilting bee like the pioneer women might have done.

This quilt square represents a lot more than an ice cream cone to me now.
It is the attractiveness of wisdom, the sweetness it adds to our lives.
It is the generosity and enthusiasm with which I'm supposed to be offering sweet wisdom to my children.
It is the instruction and teaching (of sewing, of pioneers and American history, of attentiveness, and ultimately of the wise ways of the Lord) that I desire to take place in our household.
It is mentoring- a couple of the ice cream scraps were taken from my mom's scrap bin, I pieced the quilt square together, and my 8 year old is going to embroider the edges. A lineage of sewing. (Though some of us were not so interested to begin with.) A lineage of Christ-followers.
Whew! That's a lot for a little 8 X 8 quilt square to live up to!!

House of Cards

Fools build a house of cards on shifting sands. Nothing a fool "establishes" will actually remain established because the foundation is flawed from the first day... and everything from the building materials to the choice of building site show a lack of insight and eternal security.

Two weeks I labored over a really brilliant blog entry. I mean LABORED. (I even wrote with a western accent if you can believe that.)
Blogger is a free service.
Trusting Blogger is my house of cards.
It ate my brilliant blog entry. Gone without a trace.
I tried to establish a portion of my creative life on Blogger and was met with frustration, disappointment, and grief.

I WAS HAVING A MAJISCULE DAY!!!

But I'm over that now.