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    #17-6: Autumn Blessings and Kindness

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    #1 · September 24, 2014, 7:40 am

    Posted by: virginiaknowles <virginiaknowles@...>

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    ​The Hope Chest with
    Virginia Knowles

    #17-6: Autumn Blessings​ ​​and Kindness

    September 2014

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    Dear friends,

     

    Happy autumn! I'm wishing for cool
    weather, but here in Florida, it's still in the mid to upper 80's​ even after raining every
    day. I have to
    confess that I decorated for autumn on the last day of August, as you can see
    here: Ready
    for Autumn Decorating?    ​

    ​

    The big news here is the birth of my
    fourth grandson, Ezra, on August 24​, to my oldest daughter Mary and her
    husband Ryan. I think you'll
    like the pictures from his very creative Peter
    Rabbit baby shower!

    We're ​well into our school year, as you will read later in this
    edition of the Hope Chest. We won't do much more this week, since my dad and
    his friend Annie are arriving for a visit a little later today. The other kids
    also have off of school on Thursday for     Rosh Hashanah which will give them a little extra
    time to spend with Grandpa    . 


    ​

    I know that the
    topic of domestic violence has been ​all
    over the news lately. I have created a domestic violence resource page on
    one of my blogs with links to all of my articles as well as to other sites, as
    well as information on local (Central Florida) domestic violence shelters.
    Please pass it along to anyone who might need help​ with the​se issues, whether ​they are in a dangerous relationship or​ know someone who is. I recently ​added Lynn's Story: A Dangerous
    Engagement     ​as the third​ survivor interview. The others are Abigail's Story: Responses to
    Domestic Violence     and Elizabeth's Story: Domestic
    Violence in a Ministry Home    ​.

    ​​

    In this issue of the Hope Chest, you will find these three features, and then a lot of links:

    • "Your Kindness Gave Me Courage" 
    • Just a Few More Things to Do... (Getting It Done! series)
    • A Home School Day with Just One Child


    “Your Kindness Gave Me Courage”

    by Virginia Knowles

    Your kindness gave me courage 
    A gentle conversation
    A thought-filled gaze
    A good deed done 
    A warm embrace
    A place at your table  
    A long letter, short note, silent words
    A prayer for wisdom and strength
    A gift from the heart.

    Surely you did not fully know
    (How could you?)
    What that would do in me.
    Could you sense my soul’s burdens:
    The dark and doubt and defeat?

    Then, just then, your kindness came as
    Light: luminous
    Love: lifting and leading me with 
    Steady steps toward faith, hope, and joy.

    Even though you could not fathom
    Its deep reach and widening ripples 
    I knew then what I know now
    And what I live a little more each day.

    The very remembrance
    Keen and bittersweet
    Still fills me with dignity and wonder that
    I can see, speak, serve, sing and
    Bring light and love to others.

    I bless you, my friend, with all my heart.
    May the Lord Almighty bless you beyond
    Full measure, pouring over the rims, for
    Your kindness gives me courage.


    ~*~*~

    I wrote the first draft of this poem on my 51st birthday. The opening line has taken root in my heart for many months; now it has bloomed into a poem. I think back on myriad stunning kindnesses showered on me by family, friends and even strangers throughout the years. I have only just begun trying to thank each one personally, and I will continue.

    I had thought, on approaching my 50th last year, that I would compile a book of essays, poems, and photos as a memoir and call it Pilgrimage and Jubilee. I have not yet accomplished that, but I can at least share links to several of my free verse poems that reflect my life journey. Most of them already have photos and essays to go with them, so there's that. Here they are in reverse chronological order.


    More posts about kindness:

    And a few quotes:


    In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out.  It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being.  We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.  ~~ Albert Schweitzer

    The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares.  ~~ Henri Nouwen

    A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love. ~~ Saint Basil 


    Just a Few More Things to Do...


    I'm a busy mom. I bet you are, too.

    Lots of kids. Lots of driving kids places. Lots of shopping and cooking for hungry kids. Lots of organizing. Because kids.

    I try to rest before I get too exhausted, too crabby, too spaced out to be any good.  I know there is always something more I could be doing, but if I don't take a nap when I'm out of it, I won't be worth much.

    BUT!

    There are other times I am up and able. I can do stuff well enough, and there is always stuff to be done. I could blow that time away on nothingness. I'm not talking about reasonable hobbies and just plain sitting down. I write to stay sane. But there are times I should get up and get busy around the house. There's that much to do. 


    I could push myself to do a few more things in just a few minutes.

    • Fold a few towels and put them away.
    • Unload the dishwasher.
    • Rinse and stack the dishes.
    • Make my bed.
    • Fill my pill organizer or my CPAP water tank.
    • Pick out books to read with my daughter.
    • ​Categorize my expense receipts.

    • Write out a grocery list.
    • Wipe down a counter.
    • Take the meat out of the freezer for dinner.
    • Look up a new recipe.
    • Remind a child to do a chore.
    • Hunt for treasure in the couch cushions.
    • De-junk a drawer or shelf.
    • Jot down ideas for a blog post.


    Just a few more things to do. Sometimes I start out thinking I'll spend a few minutes. Then I get into it and want to keep going. Amazing how it works like that!

    When can I tuck in these little things? 

    Let's say I've got chicken cooking in my electric skillet and I need to stay in the kitchen. I notice a lot of crumbs an some sticky spots on the counter. So I get out a wet cloth and wipe up the mess. I tend the chicken, and then unload the dishwasher.

    Or I'm ready for bed, and I see the basket of clean laundry I set there earlier. I have already put away half of it. Now I could either put the basket on the floor and go to sleep (sometimes I do), or I can take a few more minutes and hang up the rest of my clothes. 

    If I'm going to pick up a teen from an after school activity, I might get out my iPod, check my To Do list on my ToodleDo app, and see what other quick errands I could run in the same trip. 

    If I'm sitting at my desk to do some computer work, rather than shoving aside a pile of papers, I can take a few minutes to figure out where each one should go. Maybe I won't take the time to put them in the correct sections of my notebooks, but I can at least sort them into my three quick file folders (health, school, other) on my desk.

    My favorite strategy? It's called "Pick Ten." If I have a stray moment, I look for ten things to pick up and put away in whatever room I happen to be in. Maybe I'll do ten more after that if I'm in the groove.

    Though there is always more to do, and though there are regular times for many of my tasks, "just a few more things" is how a lot of what does get done gets done.

    And that's one way this mom grows up.

    More?


    This year, as I mentioned in my last post, My Ideal Plan for Elementary Home Education, I am only homeschooling one child, my nine year old daughter Melody, who is in third grade. While home schooling and juggling my other responsibilities is still quite a challenge, I have to say it is so much less complicated with only one to teach.

    We usually start school around 9 AM with math flash cards. I have found this is the ideal way to get her brain turned on for the day. She thinks it's fun, and it is a fairly easy review of what she already knows: addition and subtraction facts up to 20. We each take half of the deck of cards and take turns answering the problems. Then we switch piles. When she gets to the problems in her math workbook, she's got the facts fresh on her mind. If we start in straight with the workbook, she is likely to moan that she can't do it. So the math flash cards are a great way to start the day. 

    Unfortunately, I found when I opened my flash card box that our subtraction facts cards only had the easiest facts. So I got out a stack of index cards and a marker and completed the set, just like I made the addition set many years ago for a different child.  I keep the sets of math fact cards in a zip lock bag.

    She knocked out her math workbook - part of a test and one lesson - pretty quickly. We would normally move right on to Daily Grams, Wordly Wise, and other language arts skills after that, but she asked if we could read next. I like to be somewhat flexible with our schedule to keep her interested.

    So we gathered up a stack of history and science books from the shelf on her desk, and headed into the living room. We started school last month with unit studies on explorers and the oceans (they went together splendidly!), and now we are working on the Early Colonial Era and weather. We have a lot of books on our own shelves, and we find even more at the library. 

    We read several books about subjects like Pocahontas, colonial homes, and hurricanes that morning. We usually take turns reading, usually by page. I often remind her to read the words just as they are written, since sometimes she's in a hurry and leaves out or changes them. We don't just read for our unit studies. This day, we learned about the water cycle by boiling ice cubes until they turned into water vapor. I also have some colonial and weather activity books that we will be using this week.

    I took a few quick breaks to do laundry and other small tasks while she got out her Asus tablet, which was a birthday present from her siblings and me. She has games and educational apps on it, and it's great for all the times we're in the car running errands or picking up the other kids from after school activities.

    Melody asked if we could go somewhere. I've been planning to get a family membership at the Orlando Science Center and went on the web to check that out. I decided to wait on that a bit longer.  She suggested going to Lake Lily, and that sounded good to me since there are not only water birds to feed, but a lovely Victorian era home tour at the Waterhouse Residence Museum. 

    Instead of taking a picnic, we decided to eat lunch at home. A day or so before, I had fixed several containers of ready-to-eat salad with chunks of chicken, bacon bits, and hard-boiled egg. That was easy enough to grab.
    We also had a few errands to run - the bank, library, Redbox to return a DVD. I like to make the best use of teachable moments, so I asked her what route we should take based on all of our stops. We also talked about why people use the library book drop, how the book drop works (there is a cart inside that they can roll out), why they were building an overpass, what the big crane was doing, and all sorts of other ideas.


    We finally arrived at Lake Lily and decided to feed the birds first in case it started raining. The egrets were much more aggressive than the ducks at lunging for the bread bits we brought.


    Then we went to the museum and found that the tour started around 1:45. We had to wait a little bit on the porch and she took the time to read the informational placard.

    I was delighted to see that many of the items in the homewere similar to ones we had seen in our colonial homes book. Since both eras were pre-electricity, butter churns and other tools were pretty much the same. She paid attention during the tour and asked a lot of questions, which was fine since there were only two other people. We also went over to the adjacent carpentry shop before we left.

          
       
       
    By the time we finished up, I knew we weren't going to get any more school work done at home. I did have her try to recall some of the things she had seen. Maybe we'll write about them this week.

    All in all it was a great day of school! I liked the mix of skill drill, seat work, unit study reading, and activity.

    You can see a lot more photos from our field trip here: A Visit to the Waterhouse Residence Museum at Lake Lily

    You might also like to read: How to Plan a Unit Study

    ​My other blog posts since the last issue...



    Education:

    Inspiration:


      

    Home, Hospitality, and Family Issues:

    ​​I'd love to hear from you, so hit the reply button and let me know what you're up to!  To help me plan for future issues, could you also please let me know what you liked most about this one, and ideas of topics you'd like to see here?
    Thanks!

    Virginia Knowles

    --

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