This week is a planning week.

I am getting the kids’ notebooks and schedules in order for the next school year. Even though we school year round, the big sales are going on, so we stock up on most of our supplies, now. I also have to order many of our math books and science things, since the kids go at their own pace and are going to finish earlier than expected.

I’ve got to decide what I’m doing with the Sarge for science this year. (Probably Biology I…. but maybe Chemistry) He’s also going to be in a speech/writing class (Yay, someone else gets to force encourage him to write something!)

The Gremlin is flying through his math books and will be moving beyond his grade soon. The kid blows my mind with his math skills! He definitely got his math genes from his daddy.

The Imp is doing much better this year. Reading for fun all summer has helped her confidence and sight word skills. She isn’t sure what subjects she likes best yet, but seems to be doing well over all. Yay, we have made it past the reading hurdle!

Lesson plans for my co-op history class are in the works too. I try to make history fun, since I HATED it as a kid. This week we will be trying some medieval recipes and looking for more props and activities with fire and weapons to use throughout the year.

Last night we ate mostly from our garden. We had fresh sugar baby watermelons, sweet corn, and a zucchini and squash dish….all from the garden. We’ve had problems with something munching the leaves and caterpillars attacked the tomatoes, but everything else is coming along and we’ve learned what to do differently, next year. My tomatoes are making a comeback. The little bunny we are pet-sitting is enjoying the garden too, his favorite treat is a slice of cucumber or zucchini.

This is Xerxes (Zerk-seez), we adopted him from animal control.

1st day home

He is about 6 weeks old and very small and wobbly.

Exploring yard

The neighbor puppy came over to play

My Husband affectionately calls me the “destroyer of all living things,” when it comes to any living plant that requires tending. The only thing I have successfully grown is grass. I know nothing about gardening. It was my job to weed my mom’s garden with my sisters, and I decided that I didn’t like gardening then. I DO NOT GARDEN……until this year.

I was supposed to plant a garden about 2 years ago. God has been working on my heart and told me that I needed to learn to garden. I argued in my head with Him, gave every example of my failures as a gardener, and promptly put it off.

Last summer, I KNEW I was supposed to start my garden, but I was stubborn. Instead, I checked out a few books at the library and read about gardening. Still feeling compelled, I talked to a few friends about gardening. (”I’m learning God, I need a foundation before I jump in, right. You don’t expect me just to trash the yard for a project that I don’t even want to do…..do you?!)

To look like I was obeying, I even planted a little container garden in pots that I had to drag inside every night for several months. The result was less than reassuring, everything but the garlic died in a disaster of too much water, bad soil, not enough sun, and tamping off, plus we had a plague of fruit flies that came in every time the pots came inside. (”See Lord, I tried. I failed. I am not a gardener. I don’t want to can’t do this. And WHAT is up with these fruit flies!?! Lord, please smite them, dead!”)

This spring, I was told to garden again. I had my doubts that it mattered in the grand scheme of things. Why does God want me to garden. Doesn’t He tell people to be missionaries, not once, have I ever heard that God told someone to, “Arise and go garden!” God was persistent. I was finally convicted strongly enough to realize I just needed to obey. This is what happened next.

The boys and I dug up strips of sod with our bare hands and 1 shovel for 3 days. Hubby wasn’t entirely thrilled that I was trashing the yard because I had not proved my gardening prowess with the whole container-garden, thing. Hubby and Grandpa came home with some garden tools. This made everything a LOT easier.

Once we got the sod pulled, we treated the entire yard for bugs, because we had found all manner of nasties as we pulled up the sod and I feared for my children after seeing the ticks and other evil vermin that were under my grass.

Now we had 270 square feet in 3 dirt strips and not a clue what to do next. I remembered a friend had given me a book on gardening and a few packets of seeds. I pulled those out and drew up a plan. My mother in law was a little bit baffled as to why I was doing this, but she was very a great source of help at the gardening center when I started to get overwhelmed.

I prayed about the dirt. It was very sandy and I knew that Hubby wasn’t wanting to spend a bunch of money on my doomed project. God worked that out and Hubby had the compost dirt delivered to my driveway. The boys and I started carting wheelbarrows of compost dirt to my strips of sand. As a surprise, hubby carted close to 4 tons of compost to my garden in 1 day. (He’s awesome!)

The garden was ready to go in. The kids and I planted the garden according to the plan we had drawn up. It wasn’t perfect and some things got changed a bit, but it was in. We prayed over the little seedlings as we watered the dirt dirt strips each day, for several weeks. If this was going to work, God had to make it happen, because I knew I didn’t know what I was doing.

The plants began to come up. God’s garden is doing well. We’ve survived a couple bouts of leaf eaters (using dish soap sprayed on the leaves), and some other nasties that are trying to eat the stalks. We prayed about them, and most of them left and I only lost a few stalks of beans. We’ve eaten 2 tomatoes and 2 potatoes, so far.

I’m still not sure why it was important to God that I garden. I’m not sure if it was about learning to garden or learning to obey, either way, the kids and I have learned a lot already, this summer.

Below are pictures of God’s garden today: We have planted 42 stalks of corn, 6 cucumber plants, 6 pumpkin, 9 yellow squash, 36 peas, 4 regular watermelon, 4 sugar baby watermelon, 4 zucchini, 8 cantaloupe, 3 fancy gourds, 2 cherry tomatoes, 4 large tomatoes, 2 red sweet peppers, and a bunch of potatoes.
God’s Garden

Cherry Tomatoes

Corn is already getting tall

We traveled to Texas with Hubby on a business trip and visited the Fort Worth Zoo. The favorites were the little monkeys and the rock climbing station.

The boys did their 1st dissection in Zoology class at co-op. Here’s the Gremlin with his shark.

We went to a wild cat sanctuary in Florida and the 10 month old “baby” bobcat took a liking to Sarge’s shampoo.

It was gray and windy outside today. Colder than we Southerners are used too. We shrugged a little deeper into our sweatshirts and cranked the car heater as we drove home from the dentist, chatting happily and rocking out to Christmas tunes. The rain began to drizzle lightly, when we pulled up to the red light at the intersection.

There next to the road, huddled near the bus stop shelter, stood wizened old man. His eyes shone blue from a pink and wrinkled face. He wore a shabby jacket that was made for a frame much larger than his. He had layers of clothing pulled together under the jacket to shut out the chill. A clean white beard distracted only briefly from his bright orange hunting beanie, which he had pulled down close to his eyes to help shut out the rain. His eyes were haunting and they told worlds that his sign did not. His sign read simply, “Please help, I’m very hungry.” The neatly trimmed beard, the dashed pride, the worn clothing from a charity, the cane he leaned on, the arthritic limp as he held his head up and met onlookers gaze told that he was a new to his circumstances…… but his frail frame evidenced that he’d needed help for awhile.

His eyes were clear and lucid, not the blurred or holding the frantic look of one under the influence. He was trying to maintain his dignity as he peered humbly from behind his sign. An elderly gentleman that could have been a father or grandfather, turned to begging because of life’s circumstances, unable to compete for jobs with younger men, too late in life to start over. My heart went out to him, and God gave me a nudge.

Then my daughter read his sign out loud, the words hanging in the car. The Gremlin squirmed uncomfortably. The Christmas tunes seemed to blare through the silence. “What do you think we should do?” I asked quietly. Sarge piped up, “Can’t we help him?” I handed the Gremlin my purse, “Dig through and look for dollars and change.”

We had left the stop light, but we eased our way across the lanes of traffic and turned the car around. Bouncing excitedly, my daughter pointed to a Wendy’s sign, “We can get him food from there!” The Gremlin waved seven dollars, dug up from the recesses of my purse, “We’ve got enough…..look Mom, he’s still there! I can see his orange beannie!” The Imp continued to bounce in her seat, “We’re coming, Beanie Man! We’re coming!” The Imp and I quickly went in and ordered a meal for the man and a large hot coffee. The Imp gathered napkins, ketchup packets, creams, and sugars to lay carefully in his bag, before bounding back out to the car. We pulled out of the Wendy’s and headed towards the bus stop shelter scanning. The children were very excited. I began to wonder what to say, how would we get to him on such a busy road and what circumstances had put him here? We reached the bus stop area and the rain poured steadily now. The Beanie Man was no where to be seen. We saw a figure walking away and drove in that direction. The Imp bouncing and calling, “We’re coming, Beanie Man…..We’ve got your lunch and coffee!” The pedestrian looked up and smiled and the Imp’s face fell. It was a young business man in a longer jacket. “Over there mom!” pointed the Gremlin, “Lets go that way and look for him.” And so it went. For the next 20 minutes we hunted all over for the Beanie Man, driving up and down the road. Checking the parking lot behind the bus stop. The kids even had me drive slowly along the ditch with the bridge, thinking he might have taken shelter. The Beanie man disappeared without a trace in less than 7 minutes.

“What do we do now?” the Sarge asked. I admitted that I wasn’t really sure. The Sarge reminded me that maybe we could give the meal to the man that sits in front of the gas station sometimes. Frustrated, the Gremlin insisted that we check the road that led to 2 churches that were nearby. “If I didn’t have food, I would look for a church…..they would help! I think we should go home by the road that leads to the churches and see if he is going there.” I steered the car down the two lane road. The children were plastered to the windows looking for a glimpse of the orange beanie. He wasn’t on the road.

The Imp spoke up from the back, “Head home mom. God is going to bring him to us.” Her brother’s incredulously demanded an explanation. “Just have FAITH. I prayed about it and if we all pray, God will bring him to us on our way home,” her words allowed no argument. I prayed she was right and we all said a prayer for the Beanie Man. The older children became more sullen the closer we got to home. Sarge asked the Imp if we could give the meal to the man at the gas station, if the Beanie Man didn’t show up by then. The Imp said she was sure he would show up before then, but that we could do that if he didn’t. The Beanie Man didn’t show up. The gas station man wasn’t at his corner either. The children were upset.

We talked about various things that God might be trying to teach us. The Gremlin was the most frustrated. Sarge couldn’t think of anything that we could learn from this little adventure. The Imp wanted to know why God wouldn’t let us help him.

Update:
I’m not sure how we missed the Beanie Man. I didn’t know how to answer their questions either. I did the best I could. We decided that we should keep gift cards to food places or a bag of food in the car anytime we go into town. As an adult, I’m not sure what to tell the kids….I don’t really think this is something I can “make all better”. It is still bothering them and we all keep looking for the Beanie Man and worrying about him, when we are out.

As many know, I am just a little freaked out by Immunizations. I believe that many of them make sense and are good. On the other hand, I distrust the medical community and realize that they tend to “push” things before they are fully tested. I struggle often with the “God provided doctors to help us” vs. the “God designed our bodies to fight infections and we are interfering with that process.” Hubby does not share my struggle. Except for 1 or 2 vaccines, he thinks we should do what they tell us. The chances are very low that there will be any problems anyways.

With his blessing and having researched EVERY immunization that our children had due, I took the boys to the doctor last week. They sailed through their boosters with no problems. So far, so good……maybe it was just me being paranoid. I took the Imp in for her boosters and well check. She was good and the staff reinforced that we liked this new doctor.

Then it happened. The Imp woke up covered in a red bumpy rash that was spreading as we watched and waited for the doctors office to open. She itched everywhere and the site of her immunizations was the size of a baseball and a very angry red. Benadryl seemed to help a little. Her breathing was good, but her ears started to burn and she complained that her chest was getting tight. I took her in.

One and a half hours later, with $20 for a doctor visit and another $39 in prescriptions to fight the allergic reaction, I was given this little gem of wisdom. My daughter is allergic to the Chicken Pox vaccine, or the MMR vaccine, or egg products that were used to make them (she has no history of egg allergies), or something in her environment. Because they gave them both in the same arm and only millimeters apart from each other, they aren’t sure. This is very unusual and they wish they could tell me more, but since the child won’t have to have either vaccine again, her boosters are complete, they don’t see reason for concern. Also, the medications that they are giving her to stop the allergic reactions are very strong. As they wear off, I can watch the rashes return and see her arm swell up again. She is on them around the clock. They are “fairly certain” that us countering the immunizations with medications won’t totally make the shots pointless. Hmmm. Fairly certain. Great. Further, what are the chances of her reacting to another immunization made with egg products? Yeah……go figure….I’ll let you know when I’m on the other side of all the itching, swelling, and countering the vaccines with “rare” side effects with the additional meds that help keep her airway from shutting down. Yeah, I’ll get back to you on that. Grrrrr.