My Mind Is Cluttered

I’d really like to start writing again – fiction, that is. When I imagine myself as I really want to be, I am a writer. I have all of these story ideas, but I have trouble forming scenes from them. I’m guessing that’s just a matter of practice? I’ve read up on the subject, but I still have trouble. Maybe I need to do more exercises, but it feels like such a waste of time! On to my next problem:

I have an issue with taking the time to write. I have all kinds of time at my disposal, if only I could organize it properly to be productive. I’m constantly distracted. Every time I receive a text message, an email, or a FaceBook notification on my phone, I drop what I’m doing and respond. If you are my friend on FaceBook, you’ll see me popping on and off all day long, and somehow I can waste endless minutes doing meaningless tasks, responding to emails, and just trying to organize my thoughts so that I can progress through the day. So I have a hard time coming up with the block of time that I need to be able to think in peace.

Do I really need that huge chunk of time set aside in my day to write? I wonder if I could just write on the fly? Something like this blog post is not a problem. I only have a couple of minutes at my disposal, and I can hear Ian practicing his drums and the television from the living room, but none of that bothers me. I wonder if I could get to that point while writing fiction? I doubt it…

What do you all do?

Agenda-driven fiction

Six months ago, I read a post about agenda-driven fiction. And I must say, I love what the author had to say.

As Christians, reaching others for Christ should be our only agenda. Our education, our career, our relationships, every decision we make should be weighed against what we are accomplishing for the kingdom. We don’t see many Christians today who are living a life exclusively for God. We get too wrapped up in ourselves, in our aspirations. A part of me envies the missionaries and others who are doing nothing but serving. I want to be a light in the darkness, but too many times, I want to do it on my own terms. Because I am only here for a short while, I want to meet my goals that I have laid out for myself. But since we do have such a short sojourn in this world, all the more reason we should be spending our time reaching others. How am I spending my time? What am I writing? Am I too busy writing what I imagine myself publishing in five or ten years? Something that I imagine will be admired by the world? Or should all of my writing material point to Christ? I agree with the writer of this post: if something that I write reaches just one person, the time I spent writing it will be worth more than anything I can earn writing a parade of best-sellers.

Be the Mom

Earlier this month, I read Be the Mom, by Tracey Lanter Eyster. Tracey is a blogging mom who writes about what it’s like to also be a full-time mom. In her book, she describes the different traps that moms can easily fall into, how to recognize where you are in regard to those traps, and what to do should you discover that you’re in over your head. She gives very practical advice on how we should think about being a mom, as opposed to how others believe we should think.

This was a very helpful read. Lately, I’ve found myself encumbered by far too many things, mostly self-afflicted obligations, and I’ve lost track of how to truly enjoy motherhood. I’m so busy most days that I find it difficult to pull away from the things that I believe must be done, in order to make room for those moments that I truly desire to spend with my son. But I’m learning to reprioritize a bit, and instead of procrastinating when it comes to hanging out with my son, I’ve been pushing off the “important” things to carve out some quality time with him. I know I’ll get those things done; I’ll just make the time somehow, but I also know I’ll never get these few precious years of my son’s childhood back.

If you want to find out more, check out the product page for this book.

Note: In exchange for an honest review, Tyndale House Publishers provided a complimentary copy of this book.

Homeschool Empty Nest

Now what?

The other day, someone hit my blog by searching “homeschool empty nest.” I can’t say that I have any personal experience with this (my homeschooled son is only seven), but my heart went out to this searcher, and I thought I would brainstorm some things to help.

I do know a few people who have homeschooled their children, who are now empty nesters. My mother, for instance. Her life has always been all about her children. What does she do when they leave home? Why, she makes her life all about her grandchildren, of course! This week, she has been spending the evenings and nights with my brother and his family, and the days with my sister, who is a brand-new mother herself. She lives with my other sister and her family, and she will be visiting our home later this afternoon. She is very involved in the lives and happiness of her grandchildren, and you can tell how much they love her for it!

Another empty nester I know has opened a bowling alley. I can only assume that she had dreams of doing so before, but she has now found the time as well. Do you have any dreams of owning your own business? Perhaps now is the time!

Some homeschool moms have gone on to teach in private schools. This is something that I am seriously considering for myself. Others go to college and learn a new skill, or begin a new career.

What if you don’t have grandchildren yet? Or what if you wish to remain a keeper at home? What do you do with all of that free time?

I know what I would do: write like crazy! Homeschool moms everywhere could benefit from your knowledge and experience. You’ve already been there and know what the rest of us are facing. You could help us answer questions about routine, curriculum, and college.

If you don’t particularly enjoy writing, perhaps you could think back to your youth. What hobbies and projects did you enjoy as a child? A teenager? A young adult? Perhaps you could get started in photography or refinishing furniture.

What about volunteering? Nursing homes are lonely places and can always benefit from a happy face. What are you good at? Is there anyone who would benefit from your services?

Perhaps you could stay involved with a homeschool coop, and teach Spanish, creative writing, or advanced math. Or maybe they just need someone who will be content to entertain the littles while other classes are meeting.

At any rate, set some goals for yourself, and try to meet them. Where do you want to be in 5 years? 10?

Anyway, these are just a few ideas off the top of my head. Feel free to add your own ideas! If there’s an empty nester out there, please let us know what you did to keep your sanity!

 

Learning to Live

Use each new challenge you face to improve your perspective on life. I just finished a pretty good book called Learning to Live by Shamarion Whitaker. It reminded me a lot of another book I just read, If I Knew Then What I Know Now. Basically, both authors encourage their readers to learn life’s little lessons from each experience in their lives. Never allow a trial to go by without taking something positive away from it. Something that will change and improve you as a person.

I could really identify with this book because there are times when I feel that I am my own worst enemy. I know that it’s really up to me to work on becoming the person I want to be. I can’t blame anyone for holding me back, just myself. I have fought over-sleeping almost my entire life, and am just now beginning to reap the benefits of getting up early every day, thanks to my husband. This book will help you pinpoint the areas in your not-so-perfect life that need addressed. Once you can identify your own personality defects, you can begin to do something to change them, by the grace of God. But until you acknowledge that you are in charge of your own growth, you will be stuck in your current state.

I truly enjoyed the fact that Ms. Whitaker didn’t coddle her readers. She pointed out several situations that people tend to create for themselves, and gave practical ideas about what they should do if they are wreaking havoc in their own lives. This book is great because it helps us take the responsibility off of others and learn to shoulder it ourselves. As long as we are waiting on others to change or our situation to change, we will be powerless to move forward. If, however, we choose to take steps to develop as people and citizens, we will truly begin to understand what it means to “fly.”

If you want to find out more, check out the product page for this book. You can also download a Kindle sample here.

Note: In exchange for an honest review, the publisher provided a complimentary copy of this book through BookCrash®.

Approaching Healthy

This is my year for getting healthy. Admittedly, I think that every year, but I really mean it this time! I decided to quite buying anything unhealthy, so at this point, almost everything in the house is good for us. If I don’t buy it, I can’t eat it, right? Anyway, it’s a little more expensive to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, and healthier meats, but in the long run, I figure it should be worth it. It’ll mean fewer trips to the doctor, and hopefully it’ll keep us from dying of heart disease and possibly even cancer. Eating better combined with exercising is helping me to keep my cold at bay (I’ve been able to keep working and moving in spite of my cold), helping me lose unwanted inches (3 in my waistline since the new year!), and helping me feel better about myself overall. At the very least, I can rest knowing that I’m doing my part to get God’s temple in good shape and keep it there. Anyway, to help me achieve “good shape” again, I researched “What to Eat When You’re Expecting.” I’m not expecting (let’s make that abundantly clear), but when we were trying to conceive Ian, back in 2003, I was following the diet guidelines in that book; it was the healthiest summer of my entire life. Basically, instead of counting calories, I made sure I ate foods from all of the right categories every day. By the time I had done that, I barely had room for anything too sweet or fattening. So this time, I researched what I should be eating since I’m not trying to conceive (there are guidelines in the book for non-pregnant women), and this is what I came up with (all of the files are Word documents):

Weekly Best Odds Food Chart

The file contains a week’s worth of check-boxes to make sure I am getting what I need each day. I’ve also included a place to keep track of calories on the opposite side of the page.  I just write the foods in the margin, and record the calories for each appropriate day. The calorie counter is for my husband, but I’m mostly just concerned about types of food for myself.

I also typed up a list of foods that I personally like to eat that fall within each category. Here it is:

Best Odds Food Categories

Of course, there are more foods in these categories, but either they didn’t show up in the book, or I figured I wouldn’t eat them in a million years.

To aid in shopping, I also typed up a healthy shopping list. I haven’t researched all the prices yet, but I’m sure they’re different in your area anyway, so I will go ahead and post it, just in case you want to get started:

Healthy Grocery Checklist

Here’s to our health!

Do you believe in life after debt?

Imprisoned by Debt:

We lived just like most Americans for years and years. Paid our debts first, then our bills, and we spent (more than) the rest every week. We kept going further and further into debt. No saving, and very little giving.

Climbing Out of the Pit:

Just last month, we sold tons of our furniture, including a baby grand and other instruments, and we are looking to sell two of our cars. We dejunked a lot, and now we are trying to live more simply as well. The biggest differences to our budget though, were discontinuing use of our credit cards, and reducing our grocery budget. (I all but stopped buying prepackaged foods, including breakfast cereals.) We are slowly but surely coming out of debt. I figure in about four years (Lord willing), we will have our mortgage and student loans paid off and be completely debt-free. Three years, if we are able to sell both cars. After that, then what? We haven’t completely decided. We know we want to continue living frugally. But beyond that…

Life After Debt:

How much should we give away, how much should we save? Should all of our money go into banks, or property, or what? In this economy, is it a gamble to invest? I sort of want to buy some property and learn how to be self-sufficient, but another part of me wants to travel first. Should I feel guilty about traveling though? I don’t want to blow money when I could be helping others. My husband is up in the air with me.

A Call for Help:

Should we work less because we need less, or accumulate the extra? What do you think about investing? Do you have any ideas?

No Internet Thursdays

The problem:

Our internet service has been getting slower and slower over the course of several months. Sometimes it is so slow that it won’t load up any pages at all! We called the cable company once before, and they said they would come out and take a look, but if the problem was on our end (aka, our router), then they would charge us a service fee for coming out when it wasn’t their problem. And we would still have to buy a new router.

The solution:

A few days ago, my husband had the grand idea to plug the laptop directly into the modem to see where the problem lay, and sure enough, it was the modem and not the router. When he called again, they said he could bring the old modem in and switch it for a new one. Our cable company is a half-hour from home, but it’s near where Jesse works, so we packed up the modem Sunday night and he took it to work with him on Monday.

The other problem:

To tell you the truth, I was actually excited about an internet-less day. You see, I have a problem constantly checking my email, my blog stats, and tag surfer. I am forever looking for more blogs to comment on, and any time I find myself with a spare minute, I check out Twitter or Facebook as well. Then those spare minutes turn into minutes that I could be using to get things done around the house. They aren’t spare anymore; they’re wasted. Now I know I need to be social and network and all that, but not every single day!

The experiment:

So with an internet-less Monday looming, I just knew I would get all sorts of odds and ends accomplished, and do you know what? I did! I won’t go into detail (I always skim those posts where women brag on every single detail of their day), but I finished up several projects that had been on the back burner for awhile and got a good chunk of another one out of the way. And writing! Boy did I write!

The resolution:

So, thanks to such a wonderful, blessed Monday, I hereby proclaim Thursdays my NO INTERNET day. (I picked Thursdays because I don’t have to be anywhere on those days, and I will have absolutely no excuse for not having a productive day.) So, in preparation, I am typing this post up ahead of time (Wednesday afternoon), and I will schedule to have it posted for me on Thursday. I am so looking forward to this mini-vacation every week!

The challenge:

Take a break, and tell us how it went! Or let us know your method of coping with all of this insanity!

More than One

I’ve entered a new era in my homeschooling experience. It’s called: more than one child. While most of you would laugh at my naiveté, I am both excited and scared. I’ve been homeschooling my son for all of about two years (at least officially). Now my niece has moved in part-time, and her schooling has become my responsibility. I get to teach another child to read! I’m so happy! Yet, I’ve only ever had to manage one child at a time, so I’m a little nervous as well. How will I find time for everything?

Sometimes I feel a little guilty when I think of all the homeschooling mothers who focus solely on ministering to their families. I feel that I’ve put my own educational, musical, and writing goals ahead of my duties as wife and teacher. In an effort to “do better this time,” I’ve majorly cut back on my piano and voice students to make things easier. I’ve decided to write only when I have all of my other duties taken care of. Nobody told me I had to write; it’s just something I enjoy. But I don’t want to have any regrets when it comes to spending time with the children and teaching them to the best of my abilities.

I do have some advantages this year: my son is reading well enough to be able to follow instructions in his math and language books. And when he reads aloud to me, he doesn’t take an hour like he did last year. I’m thrilled at how much his reading skills have developed over the last couple of months. In addition to all that, my niece absolutely loves her schoolwork! She’s been looking forward to the day when she would begin schooling for quite some time now, so it’s a simple task to motivate her. I’m thinking I can teach Bible, art, home economics, science, and history together, and maybe have my son read a lesson aloud to my niece every once in a while.

I never imagined myself teaching more than one child, so I’m quite unprepared and open to any suggestions you all may have for me! One thing I’ve decided: I’m not going to push so hard with this one. My son loved reading - until I pushed him further than he could comprehend. He’s hated it ever since about the middle of kindergarten. He’s just now beginning to read for pleasure again. So with my niece, I’m going to make sure she completely understands everything each step of the way. If she has trouble with a new math or phonics concept, I think we’ll just keep redoing mastered things until she is mentally capable of understanding the new material.

Ten Minute To-Do List

Or maybe I should call it the Ten Minute Miracle Cure, since I have accomplished so much in the last two days.

My First Problem

I tell myself that I need to be relaxed in order to do a good job on a project. As a result, I feel that I can’t work on a project unless I have a immense span of free time in front of me. Since that never happens in real life, it seems like I’m always struggling to get things done. Sometimes I wait until the last minute, when I absolutely have to make time to get it done. But then other things get pushed out of the way, and I get behind on things like laundry or homeschooling.

My Second Problem

I have too much to do. I usually email myself reminders or leave messages from other people in my inbox so I won’t forget to go to a function or get something done. Since Christmas, my inbox has only been completely empty twice. Yesterday morning, I must have had fifteen messages that I was afraid to delete. Today I’m down to four, and I’m planning to mark all of those off by the end of the day. I generally have so many things that I have to do, I never even get around to the things that I want to do.

My Solution

I made a list of everything that I would like to do every day. It’s quite lengthy, and some of the things on it never even get considered since they aren’t important enough to take time from other projects. But then I told myself that I only had to spend ten minutes a day on each activity. Now usually, I need tons of time to even think about writing or playing the piano, but yesterday, I approached every activity as though I were only going to spend ten minutes doing it. To be honest, I didn’t expect to get much done. I figured that my brain wouldn’t even switch gears fast enough to accomplish any real work; but I was getting so far behind, that I needed to try something new.

The Twist

I did just fine. My brain kicked in immediately, and I was crossing things off my list left and right. I was that close to getting so many things done (within minutes), but all those weeks I kept telling myself I needed more time, so I never got started. Remember that old proverb, “Well begun is half done”? Well, it’s true! Also, I found that once I had started, I would continue a few extra minutes to finish up, especially when I could see the light at the end of the tunnel!

An Added Benefit

You know those things that never, ever get done? You know, like piano practice or teaching your son how to read an analog clock? Well, for things like this, a little goes a long way. Better to spend a few minutes a day reviewing than to try to teach everything all at once, and then dreading the next time you have to do it! (Your kids will appreciate it too!)

PS

I’ve also added a few limitations to my to-do list. A sort of “not to-do list,” for lack of a better term. I’ve limited myself on checking blog stats, checking email, and reading posts on Facebook. Speaking of which, I definitely need a new strategy for Facebook. I don’t want to miss anything, so I generally spend an hour or two a day reading through all of the status updates. Does anyone have a good method for staying caught up without wasting a bunch of time?

If anyone wants an example of my 10-minute to-do list, let me know, and I’ll upload it. I’ve arranged things according to priority, but I left off the things that I do everyday as a matter of course (such as Bible reading, chores, etc.)