I tried a new recipe!

When it comes to sweets, my husband prefers cake over just about anything. He likes cookies too, but something about a homemade cake makes him very happy.

I've started following this blog that gives tons of fantastic recipes. Last night while dinner (BBQ chicken and baked potatoes) was in the oven, I decided to throw a cake together.

I had printed out the recipe for Maple Fudge Sour Cream Cake a couple of weeks back. The only thing in the recipe that I don't always have in the house is sour cream. I had bought it during the last store trip, though, because I knew I wanted to make the cake at some point.

I love recipes that call for items that normal people who love to cook or bake would already have in their kitchen. That's one of the reasons I love this website so much. There are plenty of recipes I've found that I plan to try out in the next few months.

It took just a few minutes to put the cake together. The recipe states it should be baked in a 9x9 in. pan, but all I had was an 8x8 in. pan and it worked out just fine. The icing gave me a bit of trouble. I had to add a little bit more milk after the butter, milk, and brown sugar was boiled together and had cooled down. Adding that milk right after I put in the icing sugar made the icing just the right consistency, though.

This cake has a great taste. My husband liked that the cake part wasn't incredibly sweet. That's how he prefers his cake. The icing was sweet and had a great flavor. I liked that it made a small cake. Sometimes when I bake a cake in my regular cake pan (9x12) it's too much cake for our small family. This cake was perfect after our dinner with a cold glass of milk.

Check out the website for some great recipes. Those Mennonite girls can cook!

September

I'm borrowing --- okay, stealing! --- Amy's idea for a post. She wrote about what she's looking forward to this month.

September marks the beginning of my favorite time of year. Fall is my favorite season and there is lots to look forward to!

Here's what I'm looking forward to this September:

1. Gary's day off on Monday (Labor Day).

2. Gary's birthday on the 17th.

3. Our wedding anniversary on the the 25th ( 17 years and still in love :))

4. Trips to the lake during the week when everyone else is at school/work! Evan and I get our lake back to ourselves!

5. A new baseball season. First game a week from today. Love to watch Evan play baseball.

6. Settling in to our school routine, so everything becomes a little less harried.

7. Hoping for a short getaway to Blue Ridge, GA with hubby and son --- even if it's just for a day!


I know most people prefer spring, but I think this time of year is so renewing! It's the beginning of great things to come!

Sometimes homeschooling is lonely

I like homeschooling. I like being in charge of my child's education. I like the satisfaction of helping him over some learning hurdle. I like being able to tailor his education to his needs. Maybe a little more time spent on adverbs over here, a little less time spent on division here. Being able to see his strengths and weaknesses so clearly helps to make his education more successful.

But homeschooling has been one of the hardest experiences in my life. At times it can be so lonely, it's hard to handle.

I'm not simply talking about the loneliness of my son and I spending a good portion of our day cut off from other people. That can be lonely, but we're so busy during the actual school portion of our day, we don't always feel lonely. Sometimes we do, but most of the time we don't.

There are ways to combat that particular loneliness. We have before and will again participate in some type of homeschool co-op. We break things up by spending the afternoon at the lake or sometimes going to the park. Plus, 20 minutes after the school buses run through the neighborhood, some friend of my son's is calling or knocking on the door asking Evan to come out and play. So, while there are those lonely moments when it's just you and your child working on schoolwork (and that seems to be the part most people who worry about "socialization" focus on), that's really the least of it when it comes to loneliness and homeschooling.

The loneliness I'm talking about is focused more on how non-homeschoolers respond to homeschooling. My family will ask how school is going for my son, but my husband's family NEVER does. Sometimes it's as if they think if they ignore the fact that we homeschool, it will just go away. It bothers me to hear them say to one of Evan's cousins, "How's school?" and never checking in with Evan about his schoolwork. It's an isolating feeling and I don't know how to handle it.

I hate to think about what effect it has on Evan. I want to know if he feels like his education is "less" because it's not the norm, but how do you ask that question to an 11 year old? I really want to SCREAM at my husband's family. It's infuriating that we care so much about my child's education that we accrue additional expenses, plus spend untold amounts of time and energy to ensure he is excelling, but they think I don't care about his education because he's not in public school.

That same feeling happens just in normal circles of people too. When people find out you homeschool, they either say "I could never do that!" and think it's something they can't understand or they think you're some type of fanatical nut and stop the conversation. Of course, many of them think because we homeschool we sit in judgment of their educational choices and therefore we must believe they don't care about their kids because they send them to public school. It's no wonder homeschoolers flock together like we do. It's just such a relief to find someone who gets you!

Another lonely aspect of homeschooling is my son doesn't get the accolades he deserves. I know every parent thinks their child is a genius. It won't come as a shock that I think my kid is really smart too. Truly, though, he rocks at math. He has a natural inclination for writing. He reads way above his grade level. I praise him about that all the time, as does my husband, but he doesn't get the praise he would get from others if he was in public school.

That might be a good thing, because it encourages him to do well for the sake of doing well and not to constantly seek the approval of others. Still everybody wants to hear they are doing a good job. Evan only has 2 people who consistently know how well he is doing. I don't know how to handle that for him.

Frankly, I don't know where this homeschooling journey will lead us. We re-evaluate every year. We are constantly open to Evan's input. If he felt like he wanted to go back to public school, we would more than likely let him go. I constantly remind myself this is his education, not mine. We do the best we can, but we can't always make up for the deficiencies.

The loneliness and, I suppose, alienation has been hard to handle. Most days it seems more than worth the effort, but sometimes it's an uphill battle and it feels like we're slipping back.

Memories and connections

While I was in West Virginia visiting my family, my dad had me go through books that belonged to my Aunt Fran. She was quite a reader and left hundreds of books behind when she died. She had probably given away even more, supplying friends at work and probably some family members with reading material for countless years.

It was the same when I was growing up. I don't know how it started, but she must have noticed I liked to read. From then on, whenever I was at her house, she would give me dozens of books. Often she would just let me go through them and take what I liked.

It's funny how I had forgotten some of that.

Fran and I hadn't been close for a long time. It makes me sad to admit it. Gary and I moved to Georgia in 1993. I wasn't always around for family get togethers. She was a busy career woman. I was busy being a wife and working and then being a mom. We lost touch.

I heard about her life the same way she heard about mine --- through other family members. My grandma would tell me about her. My parents would let me know what was going on with her. Once in a while she'd answer the phone when I was calling my grandma. We'd catch up for a few minutes. A couple of times I sent her an email. That was really the extent of our adult relationship.

The distance --- both physical and emotional --- over the years made it easy for me to forget how very much alike we were. I usually heard from someone in my family when I went back home that I was "just like Fran." It bugged me. Fran was tough, sarcastic, sometimes hard to get along with. I wanted to be the saintly sort of wife and mother that everyone speaks about in angelic tones.

But Fran had a more complex personality than I gave her credit for. She wasn't just tough. She was also very kind. She wasn't just sarcastic. She was incredibly funny. She wasn't always hard to get along with. In fact, many, many people at her funeral talked about what a great friend she was. Loyal. Trustworthy. Giving.

Just a couple of weeks before she died, I was in her room. She was in a lot of pain, so I would try to distract her by talking. Sometimes I would just sit in the room with her. I said something to her about myself, something I never really talked about with other people and she said she was exactly the same way.

She died on January 3rd of this year and I have thought about that moment for months. It was a quick moment of connection, but it left me with a strong sense of family with regards to my aunt. I recognized something in her that was also a part of me and it made me know that we were, in many ways, cut from the same cloth.

In the past six months, I've often wished I could have known her more. I've wished I could go back in time and fight harder to have a friendship with her. I've wished I would have made more of an effort and I've wished she would have too.

I lost my grandma just a few weeks after my aunt died and I knew losing my grandma would be hard. Walking into my grandmother's house (where Fran also lived and where we went to go through Fran's books) and my grandma not being there just felt completely wrong. Looking at my grandma's things made me sad. I miss my grandma. I miss that relationship that I know will never be replaced or recovered.

Mourning Fran has been a different experience. I have so much regret associated with her passing. It feels like part of me that should have grown didn't grow. I feel like I missed out on knowing someone. Even though she had always been part of my life, I feel like I missed out on getting to truly know her. And I missed out on getting to know someone with whom I had so much in common.


Going through Fran's books was harder than I thought it would be. I kept many more than I intended to. Some, like her recipe books, I just had to take. I may never open them again, but I couldn't leave them behind. She had such a love and passion for cooking. I knew she held them in high regard.

One book I didn't hesitate to take was a copy of Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I have always loved the movie, even years before I moved to Georgia. In fact, I wrote a paper in college about Scarlett O'Hara! As soon as I saw the hardbound copy of the book tucked away in some of my aunt's things, I knew I was going to take it home.

I got it out tonight. It is the first time I've opened the huge tote of books in the 2 weeks I've been home from my trip to West Virginia. I turned to the first page and started reading.

I was surprised by the memory that came to me. This book used to be in my aunt's living room when she lived at Maxwell Hill, years before she moved in with my grandma. I had completely forgotten that. I remembered being at her house, sitting in her living room that she had decorated so nicely. She had worked hard for that home of her own and she was so very proud of it.

The book was on the coffee table. I had walked into the living room during a family get together at my aunt's. I was the only person in there. Everyone else was scattered throughout the house --- some in the dining room, some in the kitchen, others in the TV room. I clearly remember picking up the book, opening to the first chapter and starting to read it. I sat there for quite some time before one of my younger cousins distracted me. I remember putting the book down where my aunt kept it and going off to play.

I don't know why I had forgotten that, but it feels so great to remember it! Maybe the reason I love the movie is because of that early experience reading the book. Maybe my aunt loved the movie too. Maybe that's just another way that we are so alike.

It's true that I'll never get to know her the way I should have when she was living, but I'm so thankful for the moments of connection I can still have that make me realize we were family and much more similar than I could have imagined!

Back to normal

We're done with vacations, back to baseball, and have started school.

Summer may still be around on the calendar, but the summer attitude has left the building.

And that's kind of okay with me.

My sister blessed me with lots of homeschool materials from BJU and so far it's been going pretty well. I miss Abeka, just because I was so used to it, but my son wants to segue into the online classes at BJU in the next year or so. We need to get used to how they do things.

Things on my plate right now:

1) Getting back on my diet/exercise plan, which I have blown off for the past month. I had 3 visits to King Tut's Drive In during my 2 weeks in WV. A personal best (or worst!). And that wasn't the only bad food I ate! And, even though we were busy the whole time I was there, I didn't exercise as much as I had planned to.

2) Making sure we stay on track with school. We are most successful with homeschooling when we have structure and order. I crave chaos, ergo complications arise. I am determined to stay on top of it this year.

3) Husband is head coaching Evan's baseball team. I am the Team Mom. Lots of extras to do that I have never been responsible for before. It's fun. I've always liked being involved with baseball, but it's just a different avenue. I'm liking it so far.

4) Fighting with our water heater. Such is life. We always have some little aggravation to contend with. Dealing with a leak in the water heater right now. Hoping to get it replaced in the next 2 weeks.

5) I'm playing with the idea of going back to school to get my Masters of Arts in Teaching. I am both excited and terrified of the idea. Found a school nearby that offers it. It's 2 evenings a week. It's something I'm thinking about for next fall. There are tons of opportunities to teach in homeschool-y ways around here. Groups (not co-ops) that offer actual credit for homeschoolers in certain subjects. Plus I am surrounded by private Christian schools that need teachers. I love the idea for the future, so am considering it. It would take me 2 years to get the degree. Again, excited and terrified, so I'm not sure where I'll go with this.

That's it for the time being. I hope to be more prolific with this blog this fall!

The best laid plans . . .

Last Friday I had planned to take on the task of organizing our upcoming school year, but that didn't happen.

Instead I ended up going to the World Series in Jefferson, GA with my son and husband. They left Thursday morning, but I went Saturday afternoon. I'm so glad I did!

We all had a great time. The kids played hard. They didn't win, but they won some games and had fun. My son met kids from Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and other parts of Georgia who all love playing baseball too. They traded pins, they participated in Opening Day ceremonies, they ate bad-for-you concession stand food, they swam in the hotel pool, and ran around the halls in the hotel more than they should have been allowed to. They asked the lady at the hotel desk to make chocolate chip cookies for them and she obliged every single night!

It must have been as close to paradise as you can get for an 11 year old boy!

It was kind of great for my husband and me too to see our son so happy and having so much fun. I'm glad I got the opportunity to go.

We got home Monday evening and the race is on to get everything in order to be ready for our trip to WV next Thursday.

But first --- I'm going to work on those school plans TODAY!

At least that's the plan for now. . .

My Friday plans

My husband and son just left about an hour ago to go to the Dizzy Dean World Series with my son's 11 year old All Star team. I'm not sure how long they'll be gone -- it'll depend on how many games the team wins -- but they'll be away at least 3 nights.

What on earth am I going to do with myself?

Cleaning is always an option. The house is in much better shape since we've had a break from baseball last weekend, but I could always find something to do like deep cleaning, decluttering, etc. So I plan to do a couple of little projects involving cleaning and decluttering.

Another thing I really need to do is work on our upcoming school year. I've been thinking about this a lot, so I was very excited to run across this post from Kris about having a Mom's Retreat.

Kris uses the time to get away from the house and make plans for her family's upcoming school year. I think this is a great idea, but I'm planning on doing this at home tomorrow. Because I'm a total geek, I'm really excited about it!

I don't always take enough time to plan ahead, think about where we want to go with our schooling for the year, or think through the things that are working well or not working at all. I need this time to focus and make some choices about curriculum for the upcoming year.

I can really see the benefit of getting away from the house to do this, but since my house is empty (except for me and our little pug, Smokey) I think sticking around here to plan out the details will work too.

I'll let you know how my Friday "at home" Retreat goes. I'm hoping to get some issues resolved for the upcoming school year so we can start off right.

I'm also checking out this post on planning tips by Kris. I'm getting some great inspiration from her blog!