Think about people who find themselves in religious ruts. They discover a number of things about themselves. They will find that they are getting older but not getting any holier. Time is their enemy, not their friend. The time they trusted and looked to is betraying them, for they often said to themselves, "The passing of time will help me. I know some good old saints, so as I get older I'll get holier and better. Time will help me, purify me and revive me." They said that the year before last, but they were not helped any last year. Time betrayed them. They were not any better last year than they had been the year before.
A.W. Tozer

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#18-1: Moving Forward

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#1 · February 21, 2015, 1:11 pm

Posted by: virginiaknowles <virginiaknowles@...>

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​​The Hope Chest with Virginia Knowles

#18-1: Moving Forward

February 2015​​

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​Dear
friends,

This
month marks the 17th birthday of the Hope Chest e-magazine! I can't
believe it's been so long! I started when my oldest daughter was 10
(and now she has three boys of her own) and my oldest son was a baby
(and now he's a 6-foot-something high school senior).

It's
been a few months since I sent an issue out, and most everything is
pretty much the same here as it was in the fall. If you'd like to
read a recap and see a list of links to my favorite blog posts from
last year, you can click here: 2014
Family and Blog Recaps. Here's a Christmas day picture of my 10
children and four grandsons.

​​


The main news is that my dad and step-mom got married the day before Thanksgiving (only a few people were there, and I couldn't make it on short notice), and earlier this month my two youngest daughters and I flew up to Maryland for a belated celebration. You can find the photo posts of my trip here:

My daughter Naomi, who is in 8th grade, made it into the All State chorus, so we went to Tampa for a few days for the rehearsals and performance. I spent a lot of time walking around with my camera!

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You can hear my favorite piece from the mixed chorus concert here: "Tshotsholoza"​

​- a South African folk song.
​

You can see my Tampa Through My Lens

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series here:

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I'd like to feature two recent posts for this Hope Chest issue - one on letting go of whatever is holding us back, and the other on home schooling.

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​But first, here are the links to other recent posts:​


I wrote Move Forward in 2015 about setting goals and making progress in the new year. Yet at times, the way we move forward is tolet go of what is holding us back. I think of this often as I pinch off the dead blossoms on my marigold plants. Pruning allows new blooms to flourish.


I also think of it as I see the small stump in my flower beds. I can't remember why we cut down the holly tree so long ago, but the old stump has its own gray swirly charm and beauty right there in my garden. It's a reminder that we had to let something go, and that's just part of life.


I think also of the pioneers. We've all heard tales about piles of household goods left alongside the trail. Travelers had to make tough choices about what to haul along for future use or what to lay aside so they could even arrive at their destination at all. They had already had to let go of their old lives to prepare for their new adventures, but there was often more laying aside to do along the way. They had to let go to move forward. So do we.

I realize that letting go is not an "all or nothing" deal.  We can start by letting go of a little, and see what happens. Then we can let go of more as necessary.  That's the approach I am taking, and it seems to work for me.



I'm letting go of a lot of clutter - books, papers, clothes, stuff. The less I have, the less I need to shuffle, dust, reorganize, store... I'll have more time and space to LIVE. Not only that, but other people can really many of the items I don't need anymore. I sold several books to a used bookstore for store credit, passed along a bunch of them to my adult daughters (only what they could use), bagged up a huge pile of clothes for My Father's Closet (a free clothing source at a local church), and have started boxing up excess household items. I've just plain dumped a lot of other clutter like old papers and clothes with stains. The trash can and the giveaway box are my friends.  I need to repeat one of my new mantras, "I will not curate clutter!" Maybe you can't bear to part with a memory. You can take a photo of a sentimental item that you otherwise don't need - and then give it away. Sometimes I tell myself, "This was part of the old me. I don't identify with this anymore, and I don't need the reminder. Time to clear out, start fresh, and move along!" Let it go!


I'm letting go of bad habits. One of my bad habits is not making the best use of my time. When I think of adding an activity, I need to ask, "What is this going to add to my life? Is it going to make me a better person or is it going to distract me from more important priorities? If I still need to do it, how can I minimize any negative impact on my schedule?" I also need to look at my current activities, even "little" ones that distract me. I installed StayFocusd on my laptop to set a limit on daily time spent on computer games. I like it because I can still play a reasonable amount to relieve stress, but I don't get sucked into it, so it's easier to get my work done and get to bed on time. Another of my bad habits has been not paying enough attention to what foods I eat. I can choose to stop eating unhealthy foods and start eating life-giving ones. Cutting out sugar wasn't as hard as I expected, and now I've got my sights set on some other reductions and eliminations. Hopefully, I'll be letting go of even more pounds than I already have! Let's move along to health and productivity one step at a time!


I've been letting go of my role in unhealthy relationships and influences. For some people this means cutting someone out of their lives entirely. That's not always possible or necessary, but I can still stop enabling toxic behavior. I can step back, set boundaries, limit time, guard the level of emotional intimacy, change the dynamics. I can let go of the need to fix every situation, and instead

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let people face their own consequences. I can let go of placating those who are trying to manipulate me. If I can't completely shut out the voices, I mentally reach for my emotional volume dial and tune it way down. Then I can think, "What would this message mean if it was properly expressed? Is it valid? Does it apply to me?" That way, I can let go of knee-jerk reactions and learn to respond thoughtfully and kindly. I also don't need to expose myself to toxic spew or read things that completely stress me out. I can choose the music I listen to, the videos I watch on YouTube, the blogs and books I read. I can ask myself, "Does this message empower me for progress - or does it take me back where I don't need to go?" I want to live wisely in who and what I allow to affect my life. Sometimes that means letting go.



I want to be a strong and healthy woman: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Like a pioneer, I need to move forward by letting go.

(Watch Pioneer by Honeytree for a great encouragement on moving forward.)

Here are the links to the other posts in the Moving Forward series.
A Week of Home School Third Grade

A Week of Home School Third Grade


[Please
note: This post contains affiliate links from Christian Book
Distributors.]

A
week of home schooling my active third grader often goes by like a
blur. This week was no exception. Her question every day is, “Where are
we going today?” So as usual we were out and about a good bit. She's pretty alert, and captured the picture of this egret while we were running errands one day.



I
look back and think about what we accomplished in each subject:

Math:


We
stopped using the Horizons workbook before Christmas since it was moving too fast for her. It assumed she
had all her multiplication tables down, and there wasn't much sense
in continuing with it until she did. I decided then to focus primarily on
the multiplication facts, and switch to a math workshop approach with
a variety of activities. So as this week started, we were using:

  • flash
    cards

  • oral
    practice (in the van)

  • on-line
    math activities such as     IXL
    and     Math Playground

  • Math Fact Master arithmetic app on my iPod

  • Horizons
    supplemental worksheets

  • best
    of all, a         Multiplication Rap DVD that I bought a few weeks ago at Lakeshore Learning

On
Thursday we were in Books-A-Million and she asked me if they had
anything for math. I bought the Spectrum Math Grade 3 workbook since it is not heavy on
multiplication, and will give her the opportunity to maintain her
other math skills like multi-digit addition and subtraction with
regrouping. I also just ordered her a new JLab tablet on sale (her old Asus broke) so we'll be downloading some math apps for that.

Language
Arts:

She
has several language arts workbooks, but the ones we used this week were Daily Grams 3rd Grade and Nonfiction Comprehension. When
we bought the math workbook, we also got the
Spectrum Spelling Grade 3.
We already had the Spectrum Word Study and
Phonics workbook
(free from a church rummage sale), but I think she needs more
targeted help with spelling instead of that.

We
took turns reading books out
loud every
day and
often in the evening. We brought books along to our therapy appointments on Wednesday to read while we waited. One night she read me a bedtime story until I
fell asleep! A few
times
she gave me oral narrations of what we had read.
As
we read, we pointed out homophones,
compound words, proper
nouns, and
other grammar concepts.
We
also discussed synonyms and antonyms.





Life
Skills:

On Monday, we decided to take
a little extra effort planning dinner meals for the week. Leafing
through recipe books was a lot of fun for her. She wrote down what we
intended to make each night, and we discussed how to balance out the meat entrees and side dishes. Then we decided what ingredients we needed and wrote out a
shopping list. It was all out of order, so we rewrote it according to
grocery aisles. I reminded her to use more legible handwriting, which
took a few tries. Then we went shopping, looked at nutrition labels
and unit pricing, and talked about how to choose the best products.


On Tuesday and Thursday
afternoons, her baby nephew came to visit. She couldn't touch him
since she had just gotten over a case of impetigo, so she did a
little puppet show and sang songs for him instead.


On Thursday, we shopped
on-line for a new tablet for her. We read reviews and compared
features before we picked one.


Since
we will be flying to
Maryland next
week, and she doesn't remember her one air trip as a baby, we
prepared a little by reading the book If
You Were a Pilot
by Virginia Schomp. Also
in the career realm,
she picked out A
Day in the Life of a Musician
by Linda Hayward.

History
and Science:


Our current unit study is on
early pioneers and farming, though we don't confine our reading
strictly to that. We have also been reading biographies and short
stories about notable women of the 19th century, such as
author Louisa May Alcott, teacher Ann Sullivan, and first female physician Elizabeth
Blackwell.


We tried starting Caddie
Woodlawn a few weeks ago (see my
free study guide), but didn't get too far with that
yet. I had hoped to be done with this unit by now, but we've still
got a lot of great books to finish. My goal is to have at least the
library books read before we go out of town next week. I will save
Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series for after we study the Civil War.


  • A Pioneer Sampler: The Daily Life of a Pioneer Family in 1840
    by Barbara Greenwood (my favorite resource for this unit - part fiction, with lots
    of factual and practical sidebars)

  • The Bears on Hemlock Mountain by Alice Dalgliesh –
    an easy and fun read

  • A is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing American Women by Lynn Cheney (wife of Dick Cheney, VP under G.W. Bush)

  • Hooray for Beekeeping!
    and Hooray for Sheep Farming! published by
    Bobbie Kalman – great for science!

  • Pioneer Bear by
    Joan Sandin

  • Westward Ho! The Story
    of the Pioneers     by Lucille Recht Penner (Landmark Picture)

  • An American Pioneer
    Family     – How They Lived by Robin May

  • The Value of Friendship:
    The Story of Jane Addams
    by Ann Donegan Johnson – the story of the Hull House settlement
    house in Chicago is one of my favorites, and Addams is a wonderful
    role model of justice and mercy

On
Monday, we went to Brightlight,
my favorite used bookstore. I had about $30 store credit, and we blew it all on
books and a DVD for her. 


​​


Some of the books
from Brightlight

Among other titles, I bought A is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing American Women by Lynn Cheney, Kirsten Learns a Lesson American Girl book for our current
unit study, Dust for Dinner (easy reader on the dust bowl for a later unit study),
and the Kit Kittredge American Girl DVD on the Depression Era. She watched the DVD that
afternoon, and I watched it with her the next day. Very educational!








On Thursday, while waiting for
my iPod battery replacement, we went to the nearby Adjectives Market antique and art store. The two floors are full
of historical and beautiful things, so it made a great impromptu
field trip for an hour. How vintage typewriters worked definitely piqued her interest.




On Friday morning, I
remembered getting an e-mail about a Civil War reenactment about 25
miles from here. Prior to the main weekend events and full battles,
they were having a home school day with some of the historical
exhibits and cannon firing. Though I wasn't feeling very well, we
decided to go on the spur of the moment. We arrived late but still
had plenty of time to see what was there and to visit with friends we
had called to join us. 


Cannon fired
(no live ammo - flour mixed with the
gunpowder made the "smoke")


Our friends with a re

​​

enactor


Here we are!

Jacob's Ladder
at the toy table

Wood working booth

Fry bread and lemonade -
the perfect end to the day


That's the main stuff we did
for school this week! What does your typical week look like?

​~~~
Well, that's it for this edition of the Hope Chest! Let me know what you think! Also, if you'd like to give me ideas for future articles, I love to see them!

Virginia Knowles
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