Daybook: Reorientation

Outside my window…

An Indian summer, after about a week straight of rain. I think it's the last hurrah before winter settles down in earnest.

I am thinking…

Sometimes homeschooling mothers give and give and give and then they
crash and burn. They look up and say, "I'm serving, I'm giving, I'm
loving…I'm utterly depleted." Why? Because we are not called to love
from the depths of our being.
We are called to love as He loved. We fill ourselves with Him, first,
and then that love  overflows. We know that He is God and that He loves us,infinitely.

So, we love our families and our friends and our seemingly unlovable
acquaintances. We love them with His love. We've drunk deep from the
well of Him and it bubbles up and out. That love is not going to burn
out. Instead, it will be like candle flames. Light one candle after
another and it just gets lighter. Brighter. Even warmer. 

~Elizabeth Foss, Sing A New Song, In the Heart of My Home

I am thankful for…

For my husband, whose strength, wisdom, and calm ways balance out my not-so-much ways…*grins*

From the learning rooms…

We are really moving away from formal "curriculum". Part of my burn out was my "rule-following" nature, thinking that if every lesson wasn't done, every book read, every "i" dotted…*ahem* We're headed down a more open, whole-books, narration sort of approach and moving more intuitively through the day. It's going much better for us all. Math has ceased to be an hours-long ordeal. Thank goodness!

From the kitchen…

Pumpkin Spice Pancakes, Sweet Potato and Hominy Soup, Apple Cornbread Bake…lots of fall flavors and colors. All, very, very yummy. Although, I did ruin a pan while making the pancakes…

I am wearing…

Jeans. Black sweatshirt. My favorite necklace, finally fixed. (Three diamond pendant James gave to me four years ago.) Hair up in a mess. My old green glasses. My hair is driving me batty. I have really thick, sorta wavy hair that is beyond sensitive to shampoo. I get the wrong formulation and my hair turns into an oil slick or a pile of hay, but nowhere in between. And I do not have time to fuss with weirdo hair. *sighs* The weather change always messes it up.

I am creating…

Calm places. Within, without. Seeking the balance.

I am going…

Severely cut back on all outings, trips out and about. Our homeschool co-op ends this Friday, so that obligation will be finished as well. We need to spend most of our days at home plain and simple.

I am reading…

The Mitford Chronicles. Again. Up to "The High Green Hills" (#5). Two more to go. I find sometimes that certain fiction helps me to calm down, de-stress. Focus in the right place. Jan Karon's novels definitely do that for me. Grace Livingston Hill is another. The Ann of Green Gables series. Little Women.

I am hoping…

That my burnout recovery continues in a fruitful way. I do not want to land in this overwhelmed, stressed out state every three to four months. That is unsustainable. I agreed with my husband that I really needed to pull back this time and truly evaluate everything that was going on. Part of that was time spent in council with close friends who know our family (and me) well. There's been a lot to think about.

I am hearing…

Piano concerti. Pandora. It was tuned there for schoolwork, and I have yet to turn it off. It's lovely. The vroom-y growls of David running his cars along the window sill.

Around the house…

The fact is, my house is too small. My husband and I both know that. BUT, it's not going to change any time soon, so we are doing some serious re-evaluations of how we use all of our space. What it is going to take to make it all work- school, business concerns. We're going to flip flop around our downstairs basement space again. Thank goodness for rough and tumble Ikea furniture that can take on a million different interpretations…it has served us well these last two years. Trying to do what we can to dampen noise, too, which has become a significant problem of late!

One of my favorite things…

The smell of freshly made bread. Oooh boy. Thank goodness bread doesn't have milk in it, or I'd be in trouble….pile it high with homemade jam, and you've got a slice of heaven, pun intended.

A few plans for the rest of the week:

Burnout recovery. Which is to say, the less the better. As much time as possible spent with the children. 

Here is picture for thought I am sharing…

 
You can find more daybooks, here, at Peggy's.