Some issues worth blogging...

*******Note: This is a long post about some issues I'm having that a friend's blog prompted me to bare my heart and sould to just get it out. However, should you want to know what I'm really like, reading it will give you much insight to my life. Let's see: moving, finances, homeschool, being overweight, and my relationship with Christ. I am hurting currently from these things. I hope and pray as I'm sharing this that I can maybe give someone else perspective because I know my friend and I are not the only ones to struggle with these types of things.

Moving/finances: 3 1/2 years ago, Curt and I moved to Northeast Ohio in pursuit of a job and a better life for us. We thought God was giving us a chance to "start over" and things could only get better. Which they did, for awhile, but we are still not studious or wise with our money, and our lifestyle has adapted to however much Curt makes. We are still barely getting by day to day, and I feel that the Lord has led me to create a budget and yet I'm scared to death to do so. My parents admit they never have been good with money, and yet they still were able to provide reasonably well for my brother and I. My mom babysat until Robbie and I were in school full-time and then she got a job within the school so that she could be present when we left for school and when we got home. So I didn’t have an example of being a wise steward of money. My parents had their “issues” with tithing, so I also didn’t “get” (and still don’t) the real need for tithing. Its in my head, but far from my heart. I know I should, but we too experience hardship whenever we do it. Logically, it doesn’t make sense, and I haven’t found anyone who can make sense of it spiritually, either.
God can and will meet you where you are at. You can rest assured that He will care for you whether you are in MI or TX. I have learned that to be true because my heart longs to move back to MI to be with my family and the friends we have there. It has taken me all this time, and I’m still learning each day to be content where He has me right now – penniless, 250 miles away from what I know, overweight and perplexed about my daughter’s school. Am I satisfied or settling for this place? No. I believe that God has something better for me. But I can say I’m content most of the time. I can totally relate to your line of thinking “If only I can get out of here and move to ______, (you fill in the blank) then I know I’ll be happy.” The grass always looks greener on the other side. I mean, hey. I thought grass in Ohio looked pretty green, and wouldn’t you know, after we were here for about 2 years, the grass in Michigan started looking pretty good again! Funny, isn’t it? I know that unless I allow God to make changes in my heart/spiritual life, if and when I ever get back to Michigan, pretty soon, I’ll be saying the same thing about another place.

We have decided to homeschool Felecia!!! I am soooo very excited about this! For many reasons: 1) I have been praying about homeschooling her since she was ½ way through preschool and the decision to enroll her in public school rolled around. (*note: I have always wanted and felt that God wanted me to homeschool my children since back when I was a teenager.) What I failed to realize was that although I wanted to do it, and felt that God wanted me to do it, was that God’s timing was that we would have Felecia in public school for a short time first. 2) I have felt the Lord’s hand in this especially since the **conference. (**See blog below) 3) It has been awesome to see God using circumstances to change Curt’s mind on the homeschooling thing. He has always supported it, but said that our apartment would be much too small to do it in. Well, due to the circumstances, we are left with no other choice, and I think he is beginning to see that it will work after all. One of the hardest things I’ve had to do yet was to pray for a long time (we’re talking its been almost 2 years!) for either us to move or God to change Curt’s mind!!! And, I had to do all of this without pestering the snot out of Curt about it. Sometimes I know I failed miserably at that, but I can tell you for sure and for certain that there were many times that I controlled my tongue and said nothing despite the fact that I never wanted Felecia to go to that horrid school in the first place! 4) I can already feel my family coming closer together. 5) The homeschool program seems to be one of the most awesome I’ve ever heard of! 6) Despite being severely mistreated by her 1st grade teacher, Felecia did awesome in the placement tests. In my heart, I was preparing myself emotionally because both her first grade teacher and her kindergarten teacher said she was the slowest in the class and behind. I was trying to prepare myself for the fact that she may test low and be placed in kindergarten. Guess what?? She tested 1st grade in both math and reading!!! I am sooo proud of her!

We are going through Ohio Virtual Academy. It is an online charter school. Called “distance learning”. The totally awesome things that I know right now about it are: 1) Since it’s a charter school it works the same way – which means its free. (The only cost I have would be that for field trips and paper and ink for my printer.) 2) There’s a free computer that they loan you for every student although we have a laptop and a desktop so we opted out of that due to space limitations in the Apt. We can opt in for the comp if we decide to at a later time. 3) I am the type of person who can work very diligently alone, but do much better with someone checking in on me periodically which works very well with this program because her work gets turned into a teacher that we meet with about every quarter, and I talk to them on a weekly basis to turn in attendance, progress reports, and assignments. I also have them at my disposal if I have questions or if something’s not clicking with Felecia. 4) Since the curriculum is designed by teachers, they have suggestions for how to schedule your day, which will be wonderful for me! I’m also looking for simple suggestions on what to do with the other two children. (Noah (4), hasn’t really gotten the hang for how fun school is, and Elijah (2), is too little to join in on a lot of it, although he’s at that age that as long as he’s sitting with mommy, he doesn’t really care what we do. I am scared silly to think of being responsible for what my daughter has to know, but I feel better knowing that many moms like me have done it without a teaching degree, and I have a teacher to keep me accountable. It’s the same kind of scared that you are when you find out you are pregnant for the first time. At least that’s the closest I can come to explaining it. You have the same questions: What will it be like? Will I really like doing it? Will I hate it? Will it be as fun and rewarding as I hope it will? Will she listen and obey? Will I be able to teach her without yelling because she’s not understanding? Am I going to fail? Will she? And no amount of other’s homeschool stories whether encouraging to uplift me or horror stories to deter me will really help me feel any better. Its something I’m going to have to just do to experience for myself to see how it works for my family. Its such a thrilling fear!! J Anyone who desires to homeschool, do a google search to see what your state might have to offer. The curriculum is from the k12 company, and they do have other states that they do charter school in. (btw, Michigan isn’t one of them yet, nor does Michigan have any online free schools so that would be a major factor against us moving back – if we like the program, that is.)

Ahh. The last topic for my posting tonight. Being overweight. Similarly to hearing other’s stories about homeschool and having babies, hearing other’s success stories hasn’t done much for me personally on the “fat front”. I weigh about 185 lbs last time I checked and I have the desire to lose weight, but I can’t seem to stick with a time of day that works for me. Plus, to actually do my “routine” means taking time out of my very busy day from everyone else to spend on myself. If I’m totally honest here, which I’m trying to be, that’s why I don’t blog very much. I feel like I’m not worth my own time. Boy, that sounds and looks pretty dumb on paper!! Kinda pathetic, really. I often allow Satan to make me feel guilty for taking time for myself. So, its easier for me to play the part of a martyr and cater to everyone else’s needs and neglect my own. Yes, that makes for one unhappy Chalice. I understand that. But the guilt chokes any desire of “me time” right out of me. Last year when we got our tax return back, I got to be the recipient of a beautiful exercise bike. The safe kind that your kids can’t get hurt on, unless they try to use it without your permission or try to crawl under it while you are pedaling and end up with a concussion. (no, that didn’t really happen, but they have walked too close to me and gotten their shins whacked a couple of times!) The actual cost to our food budget to buy healthier foods scares me. Produce is expensive, and the stores I shop at are 25 minutes away, so I try to go once a month, except for bread and WIC items where I shop closer to home. (Those stores are soooooo expensive that I can’t buy regular groceries there.) Then there’s the “my kids are more important” thing that always ruins my appetite for healthy food when I do buy it. I feel like I should just not snack, or I reach for the stuff that’s bad for me instead of snacking like I should. I am doing much better on the portions I eat at mealtimes, however. And, I am buying much less of the junk food so if it’s not in the house, then I won’t be tempted by it. Like icecream. And chocolate. And cookies. Big weaknesses. I really want to boost my self-confidence with a lower weight, like, say, 150 would make me happy, 140 and I would be ecstatic! Hopefully, the homeschool thing will give me more structure to my day and I’ll be able to plan my workouts. When I ride right now, I ride for 30 minutes and get about 6.5 miles in, while keeping my heart rate up. If I could do just that 5 days a week consistently for even one month, I would be happy. The longest I’ve ever done it so far since I’ve gotten the bike is 4 days.

The last thing, not meant to be last, but an addition after I was done with the other topics. My relationship with Christ. Its there. Its existent. But its not all that I want it to be, and I know its not all that Christ wants it to be. Its that time/priority/schedule thing again. So maybe homeschool will help with that, too. It seems like a lot more is riding on homeschool than school itself. Perhaps that is why God is placing it in our lives right now….