Spellcheck, please!

I have a makeshift chalkboard in my house. My husband made it from a piece of pegboard (the kind without holes, of course) and that chalkboard paint you buy at Home Depot. I think the board is about 4 feet by six feet. We chose a very sophisticated dark coffee shade of paint. It took a lot of effort to cover the board in the required 5 coats of paint. Then I had to take a piece of chalk and, holding the chalk on its side, cover the entire board with chalk dust and then wipe it off.

that is the theory, anyway.

The chalk never really comes off. What a drag. I truly adored the way the dark coffee colour accented the other things in my therapy room.

but I digress.

Last week I casually mentioned to my husband that I missed the most excellent slate chalkboard we left in the firehall. It was superb. I am convinced that all the things I wrote on that board were far superior than any I have etched onto my makeshift one, and it wasn't even dark coffee coloured.

I want a better chalkboard.

Well, didn't my man find one outside the junk shop, on Sunday? Yes indeed! The owner of the shop knows us well so he allowed my husband to bring it home, without paying, to see if it worked or not. You see, it was raining pretty heavily that day and a lot of the junk is outside. The board was soaking wet on front but not on the back, since it was laying on an angle. Everyone knows you don't write on wet chalkboards, so the board was left in the garage, to dry.

Imagine my thoughts when my husband came into the therapy room, Monday, to let me know that we would not be using the "new and improved" chalkboard. It seems that someone had penned what appears to be a rather permanent message on it:

LIVE - TONIGHT
NO CLEEVAGE!

yes, this town needs my therapy.

looking for the exit signs

One thing I decided to do this year is math. I am currently renewing my love/hate relationship with Algebra. So far, however, I am winning. I am actually "getting it" this time around, or at least remembering what I thought I had forgotten. Not so bad.

But I have a headache. I have felt it, off and, mostly on, for almost two weeks now. I am not sure if it is the same headache or if some of its relatives have come to visit. I also have some big stressful things on my mind as of late.
I *do* belive the headache and the stressful things are related.

In any case, as I was checking over my Algebra, on the handy DVD (wouldn't even consider teaching math without one), I started thinking.
Wouldn't it be handy if, in a pressing situation, all one had to do was look for the exit sign? Imagine yourself trapped in an akward conversation. All you have to do is quickly glance up and, perhaps, to the left and there it would be ... the relief of an exit sign, pointing the way like a beacon. You simply run toward the light and your is anxiety ended.
Easy.
I do, in fact, literally picture these scenarios in my colourful mind. The panic striken look on my face, the subtle "I am no longer listening to you at all and am, in fact, desperately seeking a way out" glance and, voila, my exit sign appears.

I even know where to order one.

THEN I started thinking if I am going to begin blogging regularly again, and all I come up with are random reflection type writings, do I need to change my blog name to Deep Thoughts With Jack Handy?

Reality Bites

I have been told by many people over the years that my kids need a dose of reality. I have usually just laughed and carried on with the conversation. Eventually it gets steered in a different direction and no one is offended. But today I got to thinking, while washing lettuce for supper, that there is no such thing as a definitive “reality”.

Think about it. I am not talking about Quantum Physics here. I always put sugar and milk in my tea.


A few of my friends homeschool, like me, but most of my friends do not. In many ways, I have much more in common with my non-homeschooling friends than I do with the homeschooling ones. I have been a missionary, artist, singer, musician, song-writer, performer, poet, therapist, student and various other interesting things, but most of my friends have a more level playing field, if you will, and don't feel the need to be so gypsy-like in their endevours.
What got me curious, though, was the word reality, in and of itself.
I decided to look it up in the dictionary:

Reality: Property of being real; resemblance to original; real existence, what is real, what underlies appearances, existent thing; real nature of

Not sure what aspect of my life, in particular, is outside of real existence or doesn't resemble the original. Seems to me I am being pretty true to myself. Another reason we are choosing to go back to homeschooling in the fall. I think part of the incongruence lies in the fact that what I feel most comfortable with and most compelled to undertake isn't standard reality.

maybe I should have called this post Reality Can Bite Me

happy (honestly it cannot suck more than 2009) NEW year

On Sunday night I said to Neal:
"you know, this time at home with you has been amazing. What I could really use is another week, though, because there is just so much I still want to do before I get back to regular life"

God must have been listening, because this is our second snow day, which means that I haven't really had to start up homeschooling with Evan yet, and Jonam has been able to hang out with us.
Currently, Jonam is attempting to learn to crochet because he found a cool book at the library last night. Before you get too excited and either warn me against the dangers of said son going "soft" or infringing on "womanly arts", let me tell you the title of the book, Creepy Cute Crochet.
You can learn how to make zombies, vampires and other sundry ghouls.
good times.

This last year is something I am more than happy to move away from, speaking of "good times". They were far and few between. For one thing, I am still supposed to be in PNG, not frigid Canada. For two, I am back in the throws of not being sure where I am supposed to be doing church. I thought I had found a solution almost two years ago, but things are just plain not right. So, we search our hearts again, trusting that we will know what to do and when to do it.

I re-evaluated where I was spending most of my time and decided to get back to more guitar playing/songwriting as well as writing rather than serving on a thousand and one committees that had me out of the home more than in it. While it was all good and it was a fantastic feeling to be able to serve in my community and in church, it will be even better to be knitting, painting, reading novels (what a concept) and fine-tuning my tutoring and therapy skills.

This new year, I choose to be true to myself, even if that means some people do not understand my choices. Even if they try to talk me out of some of my choices. Like sending Jonam to high school. That was a really, really good choice. We have enjoyed much of the experience, but the grass is truly greener on the homeschool side of the fence, and we are prepared to simply smile instead of defend that choice. The older I get (which isn't that old, I know, but still) the more convinced I become that I already know what it is I am supposed to be doing and I absolutely love that.

So, even though we started out New Year's day with actual tears, over having to choose to euthanize our kitten, for 2010, I am thinking there are going to be more good times, only sans sarcasm.
... like today, Sonlight box day again! We made the decision last week, as a whole family, to go back to homeschooling next year. Jonam will be in grade 10, at 15, and Evan will be in grade 9, at 14. Yep, things are definitely looking up.

Now, if only I had a camera so I could help you visualize ...