motherhood
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reflections on 10 years of homeschooling.
This week on the Read-Aloud Revival Premium membership, I listened to Sarah McKenzie’s Monday podcast for mamas. She spoke of God’s grace, which is given in the exact moment we need it. Not a minute before. It’s the grace that enables us to do things we previously thought impossible. When we need to be ready to do something, God makes us ready. When our kids need to be ready to do something, God makes them ready. I think her words are a fitting way to sum up ten years of homeschooling my children (eleven, if you count 4K). Quite simply, my journey of homeschooling is a journey of “I could…
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what i learned this spring.
Happy Memorial Day and (for us) Happy Summer, dear blog friends! By way of catching up, I thought I’d share with you some bits and pieces of what I’m learning right now. I’ve learned that I spend a lot of time in the van. It’s the season, of life, I know. What blows my mind is that we played no sports this spring and my kids aren’t in traditional school, my mother-in-law helped me one day a week with various drop-offs, and I still felt like I spent gobs of time in the van all school year. I seriously don’t know how you do it, who juggle multiple sports…
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march 2023.
Happily, March was book-ended by trips. The first weekend, David and I spent a night at Lake Keowee (near Clemson) so he could help perform a wedding. He’d returned from Israel two days before, so the two of us were delighted for a little road trip to catch up from 10 days apart. It apparently takes a community to get me dressed up for any event, especially a black tie wedding. I borrowed a dress from my friend Maxine, and McKensie came over the night before I left to give me a make-up tutorial (she was horrified to learn that I never use toner or overnight facial moisturizer, so I…
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a year of kira.
This may sound ridiculous, but February 11th was truly one of the happiest days of my life. It was the day I met our pup, Kira. Don’t ask me how I transformed from a “We will never own a dog” person to an “I just really want a dog” person in just a few months; I think it baffles my husband to this day. At the risk of over-thinking the matter, I really believe it was the year-and-a-half of counseling we did, starting in summer 2021. I healed in some ways, discovered things about myself I hadn’t known. Like I think I’m in fact be an Enneagram 2 instead of…
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raising teenagers.
Since I’ve neglected the blog so often in 2022, I realize that I never documented Judah’s 15th birthday. I’m kicking myself for deleting my Instagram account before copying what I posted about him on September 8th, but here it is to the best of my memory: Judah is 15 years old today. He loves listening to classic rock on his record player, running, paddle-boarding, Mr. Blackwell’s high school co-op, Stranger Things, and reading. He’s working on his second novel. He has a gift for noticing people others don’t notice and welcoming them in. He tells his little brothers a bedtime story every single night, and prays aloud for me when…
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turning 40.
Well, I turned 40 last month. Can you believe it? My friends and family made it very special with fun food and gifts. Because you’re just dying to know, here are the books I got: The novel in the bottom center, Peach Blossom Spring, is from Book of the Month Club. My brother and his wife and another friend each gave me a 3-month subscription, which means I get to pick out a new book for 6 months. I’m very excited about this, especially because Book of the Month Club often features brand new writers or books that haven’t been released yet. It’s a very sweet…
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raising boys and girls.
You’ve probably heard me say before that how much I’m soaking up these days of parenting “big kids.” The baby/toddler/preschool years were hard for me. Part of it is the things that were happening in our lives (you know, seminary, support-raising, moving to India, getting sick, moving home from India, support-raising, planting a church, adopting two kids). But I’m convinced that even without those major life-upheavals, I still would’ve found that season difficult. I was just so tired all the time. That’s the main thing I remember from those years: tired. Punctuated by many bright and precious moments, of course, but all of it kind of a blur. Looking back,…
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the soul that’s wide and deep.
I sit here at my writing desk, laptop open, staring at a blank screen. David has taken three kids to the thrift shop to hunt for Halloween costume accessories, and another kid just wandered outside to the trampoline. For a few glorious minutes, silence has wrapped itself around my shoulders like my favorite green India-cotton blanket, easing the tension that bunches there. It’s a cool, golden fall day, but still I close my bedroom windows, because my body and soul long for stillness. It seems like that’s what I crave most these days. I want to be still. I want to be alone. I long for a refuge from voices…
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2019: a year of abundance.
I sit here on a sunshiney Christmas afternoon in the peace of our screened back porch. We had a morning of abundance as four kids tore through the house and piled onto our bed at 6:30 a.m. (the appointed wake-up time), coffee was ground and brewed by bleary-eyed parents, grandparents arrived, gifts opened, lights twinkled, homemade cinnamon rolls devoured, and Christmas toys played with and built and read. The house was filled with laughter this morning. It’s a fitting way to celebrate a whole year of abundance. We’ve had some lean years, some exhausted years, some illness-filled years. And some just plain sad years. All of it makes the abundant…
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procrastination and the lack of a 2019 bookshelf.
This month I realized a disheartening truth about myself: I’m a procrastinator. It’s taken me quite some time to admit to it, since the picture of the Julie in my head is assuredly not the type of person who procrastinates. How could I be a procrastinator when I’m organized and Type A? Also how does it explain the fact that I don’t procrastinate on everything, just on some things? Three things I don’t procrastinate on are making decisions for our renovation, meal planning for the week, and tidying up the house. Three things I do procrastinate on: entering my expenditures in our budget app, helping Amie with her weekly IEW…
