Breast Cancer in the Time of COVID-19 Part 4: The Support of Family and Friends

In my last post, Part 3 of this series, I mentioned that when I got my diagnosis I was at lunch with three friends, who immediately prayed for me. That was just the beginning of the incredible amount of support I have received from both family and friends. I don't know how anyone goes through a cancer battle alone, without supportive friends and family members. I have been supported, from the very beginning, in a variety of ways by many, many people. Let me tell you about my social media support, my Amazon Wish List, the Meal Train, the random acts of kindness and gifts, the #WeRunForAlice movement, the constant prayer support, and the cards, letters, texts, and messages from friends. 

The first thing I did after my friends prayed with me was to call my husband, Eric. We then told our children that same day, and both my parents and his parents. My next step was to tell my five siblings and Eric' sister. Once we had told family, I began to tell close friends through phone calls and text messages. Finally, I posted on Facebook. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Immediately the responses flooded in, with words of comfort, support, and prayer. Within a day or two, nearly 400 people had commented, and I saw my prayer warriors enjoin the battle by my side, I created a page just for my cancer journey, and a crowd of people signed up to get the updates that way. A few friends, in particular, have already gone through breast cancer, or are still in treatment for it, and they reached out immediately to give me advice and support. My college friend, Holly, snet me a list right away of things that might help my battle be a little easier, things to help along the way. I can't remember if she suggested this, or somebody else did, (I think Holly did,) but somebody told me I should make a Wish List on Amazon, and let people know about it. Holly kicked things off by sending me a few things that she knew would come in handy.

When somebody is diagnosed with cancer, or if one of their loved ones dies, most of us want to help in some way, but it's quite hard to figure out exactly how to help. In my case, there was really nothing anybody could do at first except pray. I hadn't started chemo yet, and I was just trying to keep teaching and handle all the emotional upheaval that comes with a cancer diagnosis. But I took the time to make a Wish List on Amazon, and my daughter Caroline and I published it on Facebook. What happened next really took my breath away. Within a DAY the Wish List items had all been bought! How incredible is that? We're talking about a fairly big list, with a lot of stuff on it: hats and beanies for when I lost my hair, a heating pad, a video camera to make vlogs, slippers, socks, an ice beanie, stomach settling drops, lotions, blankets, hand sanitizer, sanitizing wipes, shirts to wear during chemo, books about breast cancer, acupressure bands to fight nausea, and much more. Within an incredibly short time, they had all been purchased and sent my way. Several people encouraged me to add some more things to the list, so I did. Again, they were bought up quickly. We spent the next couple of weeks making Unboxing Videos for my YouTube channel, showing all the things I had gotten. It was overwhelming. Everyone provided for my needs, which would have cost our family a LOT of money. This was a tangible way they could help.

Next, my daughter set up a Meal Train site so that we could have people volunteer to provide meals twice a week, and Eric's mom would bring a meal another night a week (with leftovers and soup to provide one or two more meals!)  Once again, my frriends and family offered their love and support. Signups for meals, gifts cards to restaurants, and digital gift cards for apps like GrubHub, Seamless, and UberEats came pouring in. My mother-in-law committed to cooking for us every Thursday while I have my chemo treaments. Friends in the area have brought over delicious home-cooked meals. Other friends have sent gift cards or money, once again providing for our family. I love to cook, and usually cook almost every night for our family. During the semesters, when I'm teaching, I do a crockpot meal once or twice a week and cook the other nights. Sometimes we plan to have leftovers ("bonus food!") one night a week. But now, during chemo, I don't have the energy to do this. The amount of standing involved, and the quick moving around the kitchen from task to task, makes me tired and dizzy. Eric, Mary, and Bobby can all cook various things, and are learning to cook more and more during this time. But it's nice to have three days a week taken care of by other people. In fact, nice is not a powerful enough word. It's a major, monumental help to us.

Along with meals, we have had many people show us acts of kindness, randomly, out of the goodness of their hearts. Hand-made lap quilts, hand-sewn little pillows for the shoulder strap on my seatbelt (they protect my port, and once I have surgery they will be soft on my surgical site,) flowers, candy, other gifts of food, hydration powder, meat (grass-fed beef!), custom-made T-shirts, baskets full of fun goodies, encouraging sayings on home decor, random gifts like the running recovery sandals one dear friend just gave me...all of these cheer me up and show me that people truly care. 

Another group of people that has shown me incredible love and support is the local running community. Our Run Family, as we call them, is a wonderful group of people who always encourage and support one another, no matter what happens. At fun runs and races this means cheering everyone else on, no matter their level of running ability. Fast or slow, walker or runner, it doesn't matter. We are all just happy that everyone showed up and is doing something to be healthy. When our Run Family members move away, they are still part of our family. It's like a relative has moved to another state. We stay in touch as well as we can on social media, and when they come back to town for something, it's a family reunion. One of our Run Family members who lives in Virginia now came up with the idea of using the hashtags #IRunForAlice and #WeRunForAlice so that the runners can tag me on social media, and I can enjoy seeing their runs during this time when I cannot go running or go to races. This has been fantastic for me to see! Just before I started treatment, I ran a 10K race, and a whole bunch of the runners, particular the Stroller Strong young women, showed up decked out in pink, with signs and even paper copies of my face/head, to cheer me on in my last race for a while.

They continue to support me like this. Our friend Brittany carries my paper face with her, so that I can "be" there for things, and sometimes they call me on FaceTime so I can be involved, like when a whole group of runners from Savannah went to Atlanta to watch a lady we know (Dawn Grunnagle) run at the Olympic Marathon trials. There I was, in the group picture, with my run family. Look at the right-hand side of the picture, at the phone in my daughter Mary's hand:

We also have a big ultra-runner/trail runner group here in Savannah, and although I'm not either of those things, Eric loves to run the trails and has done several of the runs and races with the group.  In January, Eric and I volunteered  a race they direct, the Daufuskie They have decided to bless our family with the proceeds of one of their races, the Savannah Stone Stairs of Death. The ultra runners like the Rough Runners and other race director companies like Endurance Race Services and Fleet Feet, often use races to fundraise for people and organizations in our community. In fact, just last year several of our local run family members partnered with ERS to raise funds for us to help pay Mary's medical bills from when she had thyroid cancer. It's incredibly humbling to ask for help, and equally humbling when a group of people suddenly asks if they can help you out like this. The running community takes care of its own.

Finally, I receive a constant stream of support from both family and friends in the forms of phone calls, cards, letters, texts, emails, Facebook posts and messages, and sometimes showing up at our door while on a run or walk. These things help more than anybody can ever know. It helps me to maintain contact with all of my friends, even when I'm isolating myself from most of the world because of my compromised immune system. The threat of COVID-19 heightens the level of caution and the acccompanying anxiety as I contemplate possibly becoming infected with it. I have to be extremely careful, so I am, in effect, cut off from most of my aqcuaintances and friends and most normal activities. When people remember to text or call, it means the world to me. 

As I said at the beginning of this post, I don't know how anybody goes through cancer treatment without a virtual battalion of fighters coming alongside them, fighting the battle with them. God has provided me with an amazing group of friends, both here in Savannah and all over the world, and the most wonderful family ever. How can I not be thankful?

 

Thoughts on Hurricane Matthew

Last Friday night, October 7th, was quite possibly the most frightening night of my life. As Hurricane Matthew barreled up the coast, we hunkered down in our living room.We had been in the "cone of uncertainty" for several days, but all the weather forecasts predicted that the storm would turn east and be pretty much a big nothing here in Savannah. Just a tropical storm, they said.  Toward the end of the week they began telling people they could evacuate voluntarily, just in case. Then on Thursday it became a mandatory evacuation for certain parts of the county. We decided to stay because all of the forecasts continued to be favorable for us.

They were wrong. The storm did not turn east. It continued inexorably northward as the evening wore on. What had begun as an almost-pleasant rain and some wind earlier in the day became a torrential downpour and strong gusts. We watched the weather reports, tooled around online, talked, and drank coffee, expecting the storm to turn at any time. Soon it became apparent that this wouldn't happen. We stayed up later, hearing the wind howl. Our neighbor came over, freaked out because the pond that is about 30 or 40 yards behind our house was rising rapidly as the storm surge came in ahead of the Matthew, at high tide. This led to Eric (and a couple of times, Bobby and me, too) going out multiple times during the storm to check the pond. We began praying that our house would not flood. I even went and moved some picture albums up higher, onto my dresser, from the lower shelf where they usually reside. My stomach felt sick. By about 2:00 a.m., just after high tide, the pond was only a couple of feet from spilling over its banks. Eric checked it again at 3:00 and it had stabilized. At this point the rain slackened some (we found out later that Hunter Army Airfield received 17 inches in about a 12-hour period!) and the wind speed increased. Gust after gust sounded like it would tear off our roof. Several times we heard thumps outside. I curled up on our loveseat, and Mary was on our couch. Eric went and got in our bed, but I couldn't sleep in there. Bobby had gone to bed at about 2:00 a.m. and slept through the worst part of the storm. I prayed, then prayed, and prayed some more, asking God if it was His will to please spare our house from major damage, and to protect our loved ones, neighbors, and friends. I finally fell asleep at about 4:00 or 4:30 in the morning.

I woke up at about 7:00 a.m. and realized that the wind had died down significantly. It was raining lightly, and the cloudy sky was getting lighter. We still had a few bands of wind and rain come through that morning, but by afternoon it was cool and sunny as everybody started to clean up their yards. Our neighborhood looked like a green leaf monster had regurgitated all over everything. Small limbs and twigs were everywhere. Our house was plastered with tiny bits of green on the two sides that had faced the wind. Across the street, our neighbor's pine tree's top had cracked off and fallen on his yard. Further down the street many trees were down on a house's roof and deck, destroying the deck. The main road out of our neighborhood was blocked by two gigantic trees that had fallen across it. It was this way all over the city.

Our power was out until Monday night, about 65 hours total. Many friends of ours were without power for 5, 6, and even 7 days.  For us, it wasn't that big of a deal. We own a camp stove and an old-fashioned stove-top coffee percolator. We had plenty of food and water, lanterns, flashlights, and batteries. But for some of our friends this storm was a big deal. One family had to be rescued in a boat during the storm as their house flooded. Another family had more than a dozen trees fall on their property, several on their house and garage. One man (whom we did not know) was killed here in Savannah when a tree fell on him in his bedroom. This storm has changed life for many residents.

What did I learn?
1. The Lord is near to us in times of distress. I could feel His presence during the storm, and He kept bringing various verses to mind to comfort me.
2. My kids play the piano a lot more when electronics are not an option.
3. It is strangely fun to camp out in your own home, with solid walls and a roof. It brought our family together. I think this is also a side-effect of going through something traumatic.
4. Next time we are in the cone of uncertainly I will evacuate, and to a pretty good distance away. A lot of people only went 30-50 miles inland to friends' houses, and they got really high winds and tree damage, too.

We are praying that Savannah will not get hit again with a storm like this for very long time.

Homeschooling, Year 13

This is our thirteenth year of homeschooling. We began when Caroline was in the 3rd grade and Mary was in Kindergarten. Now Caroline is a college graduate, as of December 13th, and Mary is a Senior in high school and taking college courses, too. Bobby is in the 10th grade, and will most likely take a college course or two next year. That makes this my last year of full-time homeschooling. It's a very strange feeling to look back at the years gone by and see just how fast they flew. Even weirder is the feeling I get as I look ahead, realizing that in about two and a half years I will no longer be a homeschooling mom.

Caroline graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Criminal Justice. She did it in three and ahalf years, and I'm so proud of her! She worked hard at her academics, and worked equally hard at her job at Chick-fil-A during the whole time she was in school. Now she has transitioned into working nearly-full-time at the restaurant while pondering whether or not to seek a job with her degree. She is planning her June 6th wedding to Shane Farrar. Or maybe I should say "we" are planning because I don't want her to have to do it all by herself!

Mary is taking three college courses each semester this year. There is a program in Georgia called Dual-Enrollment through the state university system. Since Armstrong State University is about ten minutes away from our house, it makes sense for her to go there. Student who score high enough on their SAT can take up to three courses each semester. She could have started doing this her junior year, but she really didn't want to. Last school year she just took one course, College Algebra. This year she took three courses first semester along with studying Advanced Biology: Human Anatomy and Physiology at home. At Armstrong she took Pre-Calculus, Civilization I, and Intro to Psychology. I'm happy to report she got As in all three! This coming semester she'll be taking Civ II, Intro to Sociology, and English 1101 (a required Freshman English course.) She wants to be a Physical Therapist, and Armstrong has a really good Rehabilitation Sciences major and then a doctoral program in PT, so she has set her sights high. Also, in addition to playing the piano, she has taken up the violin (as of summer 2013) and is progressing nicely with that.

Bobby is studying Teaching Textbooks Algebra 2, Bob Jones University Press World History, BJUP British Literature, my co-op class on Advanced Composition, Apologia Biology, Switched-on-Schoolhouse Health and S.O.S. Physical Fitness this year.  He's doing very well in everything! He's also learning to play the piano now.

As the kids have gotten older homeschooling has gotten easier in a lot of ways and harder in others.

It's easier because they are much more self-motivated and do not require much assistance with the actual work. With Mary this year I have only had to help when she has asked me to assist her in studying for exams in her college classes or in reviewing her science with her before a test here at home. Bobby, too, does not need me to help him understand things very much any more, with the exception of the occasional math problem. It's also easier because we've been homeschooling for so long that many things are now habitual and ingrained, so we aren't having to reinvent the wheel.

It's harder because we have to keep track of all the requirements they need for graduation here in Georgia, and we have to be thinking ahead to their college years, to be sure we're not missing anything.

I praise God that things are going well academically for us this year, and pray that we will continue to enjoy our school year!

Life Marches Inexorably On...

I haven't written on here in a over a year and a half. I don't know if anybody will even read this, but I suddenly felt the urge to write again. The last year has been fairly normal for us, with a few exciting things happening:

Caroline got engaged and will be getting married next June. She's graduating from college in a little over a week.
Mary began dual-enrolling in college, taking one course last year during her junior year in high school, and now three courses a semester this year. She will graduate from high school next May. She also started learning how to play the violin a little over a year ago, and is doing well with it.
Bobby grew about five inches and is now taller than all three of us girls. He likes this.
Eric is still working at JCB, and I'm still homeschooling, teaching piano, tutoring, and teaching at the homeschool co-op.
Eric edited a book for which he wrote two chapters, and I wrote one, and it was published two days ago. We are excited about this.

Overall we are doing well, and I plan to get back into writing on here at least once a week. My next post will be about this school year and how our homeschooling is changing now that we are nearing the end.

We Survived Camping!

Mary and I got back about an hour and a half ago from our camping trip. It was a great weekend, but I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own comfortable bed tonight instead of in a sleeping bag on a tent floor. I've been unpacking and putting things away ever since we got home, and still have a few loads of laundry to do, but I decided to take a break and write. Here is how the weekend went:

We left immediately after our homeschool co-op on Friday, which gets out at 2:30, and came home to finish packing the van. Our goal was to leave the house at 4:00, and we pulled out at 4:03.  Yay.
We had Mary's friend Kylynn with us, who is also part of the AHG troop. Another young lady was supposed to be with us, but she was sick. We stopped for gasoline and snacks, then hit the road. At about 5:45 we arrived at Black Creek Scout Reservation, the local Boy Scout council's camping area. It's a beautiful facility that is still under development and construction. It has a small lake, tent camping areas, and a swimming area that is still not finished (and in any case, it wasn't warm enough to swim yet.) It even has an excellent bathroom building with 12 individual bathrooms with toilet, sink, and shower! All the comforts of home, which we don't always get on AHG campouts. (Sometimes we have to use pit toilet/outhouse things...)

We set up our tents and kitchen gear, and got acquainted with the campsite. By the way, scout rules are that a parent cannot sleep in a tent with a child who is not related to them, so we had to take two tents. Mary, Kylynn, and a couple of other girls who had come with their dads all slept in our family's big tent, and I slept in our little tent by myself. A perfect setup, in my opinion! The girls were a huge help setting up the tents since by now they are old hands at it.

We went on to have a wonderful time. The weather was perfect; it was in the 70s during the day and down into the 50s at night. It didn't rain at all, there was a nice breeze, and it was sunny and warm enough that some of us got pink on our noses and cheeks! We did a lot of walking around the lake, exploring, cooking yummy meals, hanging out with friends (I had several homeschool-mom-friends who were there) and sitting around campfires. The girls made s'mores each night; well, actually, Mary doesn't eat s'mores but she hung out with all the girls while they made them. She and her friends also spent hours playing games and laughing.  I got to meet several homeschool moms I had never met before because along with our American Heritage troop, the Boy Scout troop and Cub Scout pack were camping, too, and I didn't know some of the moms. There were about 75 people, total, so it was a large group!

I love everything about camping except the sleeping bag part. And before you ask, yes, we own an air mattress, but #1) it's a double-bed size and won't fit in our little tent, and #2) it has a leak and you wind up on the ground anyway. This time I took two foam mats and an extra sleeping bag, but still had trouble with back and hip pain each morning. Also, I tend to sleep on my stomach with one knee up, or on my side, rolling back and forth during the night; both are nearly impossible in a sleeping bag.

Sleeping difficulties aside, I love being out in the fresh air (as long as I've taken my allergy meds,) cooking on a camp stove or over a fire, sitting around with friends talking and laughing, walking in the woods or around a lake, playing games, singing, and everything else that goes along with camping. This morning our Pioneer/Patriot unit (the girls I help lead) assisted in leading the whole group in "Holy, Holy, Holy," "Amazing Grace," and "And, Can it Be?" during the worship time.

So we had a nice weekend, although we missed Eric, Caroline, and Bobby. We're glad to be home!

Time for Bed

I got almost everything done today. Things actually went very well all day long, thanks to the Lord's wonderful grace and mercy, and the blessings He has given me in my husband and kids. The only thing I didn't manage to do yet is pack my clothing; I can do that in the morning before co-op. Cooking, cleaning, schooling, teaching lessons, grocery shopping, loading up the van with camping gear, packing food and cooking gear, and even the laundry are all completed. Eric and the kids helped a lot. Oh, and I prepared to teach tomorrow, too.

I just remembered another thing I didn't have time to do: write up next week's lesson plans. Not a big deal; I got all of their lessons from today graded, so I'll just do the plans Sunday evening or better yet, early Monday morning.

Please pray for me, if you read this, as I drive to the camping area tomorrow and set up two tents. It's not my favorite thing to do.

If any of you prayed for Caroline, thank you. She is starting to feel better.

Off to bed.

Too Many Things to Do

Yesterday was a much better day weather-wise here in Savannah. It was sunny and breezy, and fairly warm. Last night it went down into the 30s and today is supposed to be cooler, but still sunny.  I can handle this sort of weather!

I really want to make a habit of writing something every day, but it doesn't seem like a realistic goal. I simply have too many things to do each day to be able to carve out the time to sit down and write. Even now, I should be doing other things which I am neglecting to be able to write this. I need to figure out how to have guilt-free blogging time.

Today my to-do list is extensive since Mary and I are going camping this weekend with her American Heritage Girls troop. Here's my list:

1. Homeschool Mary and Bobby, making sure they are prepared for all their co-op classes tomorrow. Grade all of their daily work today, and write lesson plans for next week. I could put off the lesson-planning until Sunday night, but I'll probably be too tired.
2. Prepare to teach my two classes at the co-op tomorrow. This one is mostly done already!
3. Keep the house clean.
4. Cook meals. Assign clean-up duties in the kitchen.
5. Teach piano for two and a half hours.
6. Go shopping for the all the food for the campout, as well as easy-to-fix food for the rest of the family to eat while we are gone.
7. Laundry. (that's an every-day thing!)
8. Get all the camping gear out of the shed and load it in the van.
9. Pack up the food and all other needed items for camping in big Rubbermaid containers.
10. Pack my own clothing, etc. for camping; be sure Mary packs hers.

I hope I haven't forgotten anything. Also, let me admit that my children will help with a lot of these, and Eric will help with the camping gear when he gets home from work. I'm not a one-woman show; my family is wonderfully willing to assist in all these duties. But I'm the organizer and director, so I have to keep the list in mind.

One other thing: my oldest is suffering with a bad head cold. If you read this please pray for her. She's pretty miserable.

Off I go. I'll write later about how it all worked out.

Fighting something off...

Yesterday my husband felt sick all day (stomach issues) and now today both girls and I have been fighting something off.  Not fun.

I'll be back on here tomorrow. Time to get some sleep.

Father's Day: Lessons I've Learned

     On Mother's Day I wrote about my wonderful mom and mother-in-law and the things I have learned from them over the years. Today I would like to write about my father, John Putney, and my father-in-law, Vic Carpenter. Both have been wonderful blessings to me!

     I remember, when I was little, seeing Dad on his knees in his study praying. That image is burned into my mind; I never had to ask where my father got his guidance and wisdom. He led our family in daily devotions, and stressed the reading of the Word, the memorizing of verses, sharing of prayer needs, and praying together as a family. When I was little I took this all for granted; surely everyone had a family like this! But now that I'm older and wiser I realize how unusual it was, and thank God for it. Even now, my dad and mom pray for all of us kids, and all of our kids, every day. If I have any prayer request, from the most trivial thing to the highly urgent, I know that I can call my parents and ask them to pray.
    I learned many other things from my dad.  My dad taught us to work hard (one of these days I'll blog about the Chore List) and yet imbued our lives with a sense of fun, too.  He sang silly songs in the car (do you still do that, Dad?) as we drove along. My teenagers still enjoy "Mareseatoats" and other crazy songs. Dad made sure that we went to the beach together as a family for breakfast on the beach every once in a while (thanks, Mom, for all your work in that, too.)  We saw the beautiful sights of Puerto Rico along with living the daily grind of school, work, housework, and church activities.  Trips to El Yunque and Luquillo Beach were day-long adventures of fun; as an adult I now realize just how much work went into planning those trips, and it inspires me to do the same sort of things with my children.
     Dad taught all of us the importance of consistent, loving discipline. I will never forget being in his study, having been disciplined for some naughtiness or other, and Dad giving me a huge bear hug, telling me that he loved me very much and wanted me to be a grown-up who loves the Lord and lives to please Him. Through his loving discipline I learned self-control and self-discipline.
     I thank God every day for Dad, and realize just how blessed I am to have him as my daddy.
     When I met and married Eric, I gained another dad, Vic, my father-in-law. God has blessed me greatly through him, as well! Who knew, back in 1985 when I took French 1 at Houghton College, that my French professor would one day be my father-in-law? Vic has a great sense of humor, and has endured much goofing-off on my part over the years. He can make a pun out of nearly anything, much to the we're-groaning-but-we-love-it dismay of the kids. He and I can make cross-lingual jokes out of things, and while I help him learn Spanish, he can continue to help me learn French. Vic inspires me to keep learning throughout life; he has learned multiple languages as an adult and continues to both take and teach classes at a local senior center. He shares his knowledge with others and maintains a personal quest to learn more all the time. He plays tennis as his life-time sport, continuing to play despite having both hips replaced about fifteen years ago.

TO SUM UP:  I have been greatly blessed through my own parents, John and Ruth, and Eric's parents, Vic and Char. They have taught Eric and me by their example how to have a good marriage, how to raise our kids, how to manage our finances, and how to serve the Lord and keep Him first in our lives. I don't deserve any of these blessings; I consider them unmerited favor, or grace if you will.  I praise the Lord for His enduring kindness.

What Have We Been Doing?

I haven't written on my blog since July. I've had several people ask me why. I figure the best way to explain is to write about what we are doing these days in our family, since I actually have a few minutes to sit down and write on here.

Eric is working about 65 hours a week at J.C. Bamford here in Savannah. They make skid steer vehicles, and he inspects them as they come off the line for defects. He's exhausted pretty much all the time. And yet he makes the effort to hang out with the kids and me in the evenings, and is keeping a good sense of humor about life in general. We try to keep our evenings fairly free so we can spend time with him.

Caroline just finished her first semester at Armstrong Atlantic State University. She's living at home while attending college, and working her same job at Chick-fil-A. I'm proud to say that she got a 4.0 GPA her first semester in college while working 15+ hours a week. Good girl!

I'm home schooling Mary (9th grade) and Bobby (7th grade); more about that in a minute. I'm also teaching 15 piano/1 voice students. I'm also teaching three classes of Spanish (2 classes of Spanish 1 and 1 class of Spanish 2--how's that for confusing?) at our home school co-operative every Friday. I'm also one of the leaders of Mary's unit in the local American Heritage Girls Troop 2007, which meets on Tuesday nights. This all adds up to not a whole lot of free time. It's all great stuff, and I'm enjoying it all, but it just means that time to spend online is limited.

About the home schooling:  a lot of people don't seem to realize that home schooling by itself, if being done diligently, is a full-time job. It involves selecting appropriate curriculum for each child, creating yearly goals, writing weekly lesson plans, and THEN spending time each day helping each child learn: math, language arts, history, science, etc. After they are done with each day's work it must be corrected and evaluated. These things don't just magically happen. A home schooling mom has to stay organized and persevere so that she and the kids do not fall behind. In addition, we have to plan extra-curricular activities so that our kids have some fun along with their hard academic work.

So why haven't I been blogging?  Well, I have a full-time job home schooling two of my kids, and a part-time job (8 hours a week)  teaching music, and another part-time job (approximately 5-6 hours a week) teaching at the co-op. With all of that and keeping the house clean, doing the laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, etc....well, blogging has not been a top priority.  And before anybody comments: yes, my children do help with household chores, and yes, I know that they are not toddlers anymore and can do a lot of their school work independently, and yes, I know that many people have extremely busy lives that are much harder than mine.  I'm not complaining about anything here; I really do love my life as it is right now.

And with  that, I'm off to wrap presents!

Next post:  what we are doing for home school this year.

Wii and Peaches-and-Cream

First, I said I would write more about the Wii game system we bought.  I have been using it (Wii Fit Plus) to exercise, and the whole family has enjoyed the Wii Fit and the Wii Sports.  The Wii Sports has baseball, tennis, bowling, golf, and boxing.  The Wii Fit has TONS of fitness activities:  hula-hoop, rhythm kung-fu, step aerobics, running, cycling, and so forth.  It also has fun games like Snowball Fight, Segway Circuite, and many more.  Eric and Bobby like to play doubles tennis, and last night I bowled a 277!  Woohoo, I'm a pro.  But perhaps the most fun part of the Wii is the little Mii characters that we can make.  Each of us in our family has made one, and we've made several others just for fun.
Here I am as a Mii:

And here are some we made for fun.  Do you recognize them?

Second, Mary's sweet little dwarf hamster, Lizzie, died yesterday.  I wrote about her when we first got her a year and a half ago.  She was a great little pet and we loved her, even though she bit me a few times.  God showed Mary yesterday that He even cares about her desire for a pet.  Before we even knew that Lizzie had died, (in fact, she was running on her little wheel in the morning,) we got an e-mail from some friends letting people know that they wanted to give away their guinea pig, Peaches-and-Cream, to a good home.  She is a 3-year-old guinea pig, very sweet and really beautiful.  I immediately called to talk to the mom of their family, my friend Cindy.  I discussed guinea pig care with her, and why they wanted to give her away (Cindy's boys have had guinea pigs for years and are just tired of taking care of them) and I mentioned to Cindy that I was afraid Lizzie was going to die any day because she was getting old for a dwarf hamster.  I arranged to adopt Peaches, which made Cindy and her boys happy.  A few minutes later I went to check on Lizzie.....and she was dead in her little cage.  How sad!  Mary was upset, but at the same time she was excited to be getting Peaches as a new pet.  We buried Lizzie in the back yard and thanked God for providing a new pet for Mary at just the right time.

Peaches is a lot smarter than Lizzie was.  She's also big enough to hold and pet---did you know guinea pigs purr?  I also learned that guinea pigs can get scurvy if they don't eat enough Vitamin C, so we have to feed her lots of leafy greens and broccoli in addition to her regular food.  While we are sad that Lizzie is gone, we are happy to have Peaches.  She's so cute!

On How Our School Year is Going...

It has been an eventful August and September, and October is already shaping up to be busy as well.  I love the new planner I bought.  It has helped Mary and Bobby be a lot more self-directed in their work.  We've (I've) also done a lot better staying organized this year, and keeping up with all the corrections and grading I need to do.  Here is our each of us are doing:


I am still teaching all three kids at home.  I also teach piano two afternoons a week, and have more people interested, so that may increase to three afternoons a week.  In addition, I'm teaching two classes on Fridays at our home school co-operative, Kingdom Builders.  The two classes are Expository Writing and Biology; I have a dozen students in each class.   I challenge anyone who thinks home schooling isn't a full-time job to come spend a week with us!


Caroline is working about 15 hours a week now (Chick-Fil-A) in addition to doing her Senior year. At home she's taking Pre-Calculus, Advanced Chemistry, Health, and Literature/Language Arts/Grammar.  Through the co-op she's taking my writing class to supplement her language arts at home, Art, and Yearbook/Advanced Photography.  She is a very busy girl!  She will graduate from high school next May, and is already in the process of college applications.


Mary is an 8th grader this year.  At home she's studying Algebra I, Sonlight Core 7 World History and Literature, Human Anatomy, BJU Grammar & Writing;  through the co-op she's taking Geography, Cooking, and Art.  She's also teaching herself to write left-handed this year by using an elementary-level handwriting book to make herself write left-handed every day.  She draws ALL the time, too.  She has also just joined a local American Heritage Girls troop, and will begin to work on badges for that.


Bobby is in the 6th grade, and he's realizing that school doesn't get any easier as you get older.  He's taking Geography, American History, and Art through the co-op; at home he's doing Math 7, Zoology (Land Animals,) Handwriting, BJU Grammar & Writing, and for Literature (the pièce de résistance) he is doing Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings.  It's a great curriculum that incorporates Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Shakespeare as well as the LOTR trilogy.  Right up his alley.  He is also a Tenderfoot rank scout in Troop 47 and is working on merit badges for scouts.


Obviously, we are all pretty busy.  Our other current events:


#1    My sweet husband will be stepping down as pastor of our current church at the end of October.  He has explained this over at his blog, in the post I linked and in another called "Reasons for Resigning."  We love the people at Chevis Oaks!  We will continue to be friends with them and I hope we'll continue to sharpen and edify one another as Christians.


#2   We were able to buy a nice four-year-old van a couple of weeks ago, thanks to the incredible generosity of my in-laws as well as the dogged efforts of our friend Rickey Tyre, who found the van for us at an auction.  It's such a relief to have an newer vehicle and not be worried about breakdowns, A/C not cooling well, etc. The van is a Dodge Grand Caravan SXT.  Nice.


#3    Bobby is the Honored Hero for the Savannah Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Light the Night Walk on October 15th.  Our family has a team, creatively named Team Carpenter, and we'll be walking that night along with hundreds of other Savannahians who are trying to raise money for people with various blood cancers.  Our team page is here.


#4    A month ago we bought a Wii, with Wii Fit Plus.  I'll write a longer post about it later, but we are all loving getting off the couch and playing sports as well as other fitness games together.  I have started to lose weight and tone up, and I feel so much better.  More soon on that.

I Changed My Banner....

...to a beautiful shot I found, again from Puerto Rico.  The picture is taken from up on El Yunque mountain, in the tropical rain forest, looking down toward the north coast and beach.  El Yunque was another place I loved going as a child.  The waterfalls, mists, enormous ferns, and cool towers to climb were all great, and then our family would usually take a picnic lunch and eat it in one of the shelters on the mountain.  Fond memories.

Our Family

On Sunday evening we asked someone to snap a quick picture of our family.  Here it is:

Okay....So I'm the overweight one second from the left.... next to my handsome husband and surrounded by our three cute kids.  I think it's time to go back on a strict diet.

It's late at night....

...and I'm still up listening to Caroline and her friends giggle and laugh....but they are having such a good time! I'm going off to bed....

Today I made everyone breakfast, went to co-op, taught British Lit, taught Beginning ASL, helped in Chemistry class/lab, took Caroline and three of her friends to paint pottery and out to eat (late birthday celebration), came home and watched a movie with them, and now am definitely ready for a good night's sleep.  Hope they all go to bed and get a good night's sleep, too.

God is so good.  All day today I've been thinking about how blessed I am to have a Saviour!  And beyond that, to have a great husband and wonderful kids is just icing on the cake.

Pictorial Essay

The pies the kids and I made the day before Thanksgiving: (guess who made the apple pie?)

Our table set for the Thanksgiving meal:

I treasure the cornucopia that was always on our table when I was a kid:

Our Christmas tree!

Better Than Emeril....

Two weeks ago a member of our church blessed our family in a way we've never before experienced. While I taught my Tuesday afternoon piano lessons, a young man name Micah came and cooked a delicious meal for our family. Micah has gone to cooking school, and his skills are impressive. Here's how it worked:

Earlier in the week Micah sent us an ingredient list for a lemon-and-garlic themed meal. My only labor in the meal (besides grating some cheese....) was to go to the store and purchase the ingredients. At about 4:30 Micah arrived with a huge bag of his own cooking implements: utensils, a stand mixer, roasting pan, etc. He set to work in our kitchen, and soon the smell of roasting garlic permeated the air. My piano students were sniffing appreciatively as their lessons ended.

After a lot of work on Micah's part, and a teeny bit of effort on mine (the aforementioned grating of cheese,) we had delicious, better-than-restaurant-quality food: lemon-garlic-herb-roasted chicken, cheesy-parmesan-roasted garlic potatoes, wonderful lemon-garlic haricots vertes, and a citrus cake with lemon-cream cheese frosting for dessert. Eric and the kids and I were all wowed by the flavors of each dish. Bobby now thinks I should always use roasted garlic, parmesan cheese, and real cream to make mashed potatoes. Everything was seasoned perfectly, and we all ate too much! I should have taken pictures.

What a blessing this was to me and to our whole family. I know that Micah loves to cook, but he did so much work that night that I felt guilty for not helping out more. As a busy home-schooling mom and wife it was an incredible feeling to just sit back and let someone else do all the work. He even did most of the clean up! We are thankful to God that He has added Micah to our Christian family. Not only is he a good cook, but he's fun to hang out with, too. Bonus. Better still, he's planning on cooking for us again. But first I'm going to cook Indian food and have him over to eat with us. I'm already planning: dal makhani, naan, chole.....

Once again...

we are at my favorite place on earth, Seneca Lake. One reason why I love it here:

My older daughter took that picture last night as we sat around the fire talking, toasting marshmellows, eating s'mores, and drinking coffee.

Conventional Wisdom Says I Should Be Happy...

...but I'm sad. Google the word "mother-in-law" and you'll find these website gems:

"Mother-In-Law Stories and Mother-In-Law Jokes,"
"Mother-in-Law HELL » Mother-in-Law Advice and Mother-in-Law Stories,"
"Dealing with Mother-in-Law Conflicts - FamilyEducation.com," and
"I Hate My Mother In Law | An Anonymous Group with Personal Stories ...."
Lovely, isn't it?

Most people assume that I would be happy that my mother-in-law and father-in-law left today to go to Kenya for a year to teach at a boarding school for missionary kids and other American students in Africa. (I think they also have African students.) And while I'm happy for them that they have this incredible opportunity, I'm sad for myself, my husband, and our children. We have been blessed to live near them from 1996-2002, and now again from 2007-the present. My mother-in-law is one of my best friends, and I talk to her on the phone nearly every day. My children love going to "Mimi and Papa's" house, and are a teeny bit spoiled by their grandmother (not in a bad way at all---just a little bit of indulgence now and then.)
While we lived in North Carolina from 2002-2006 they frequently came for visits, even surprising the kids a couple of times, and Eric and me once! My heart is too heavy right now to write much more....this is going to be a weird year not having them around....

Our 18th Anniversary

Today is Eric's and my 18th anniversary. We met about 20 years ago, and I knew within a few weeks that he would be my husband. But that's a story for another time. What I want to write about today is the major events of our marriage. Just for fun.

July 5, 1991--married in Houghton, NY
May 1993--Eric graduates from Houghton College, I finish my Master's Degree from UB
February 17, 1994--Caroline Ruth born
May 1996--Eric completes Master's Degree from Alfred University
July 1996--we move to Springfield, GA
May 15, 1997--Mary Charlotte born
July 1998--we move to Rincon, GA
December 1, 1998--Robert James a.k.a.Bobby born
November 2000--Mary has cerebral aneurysm repaired successfully
July 2001--10th anniversary getaway at Jekyll Island
July 2002---we move to Wake Forest, NC
January 2005--trip to India
May 2006--Eric receives MDiv. from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
October 2006--we move to India
March 2007--we return from India
March-May 2007--Bobby undergoes chemotherapy for Diffuse Large B-cell lymphoma
May 15, 2007--Mary turns 10, and Bobby finishes chemo
June 18, 2008--Eric called to pastor Chevis Oaks Baptist Church
February 20, 2009--Caroline gets learner's driving permit
May 15, 2009--Mary turns 12, Bobby celebrates two years in remission
July 5, 2009---18 years of marriage!

You can surmise the many things I've left off this list, and the details of each story. This list is a bare-bones outline of major events in our lives over the last 18 years. Along the way we have grown in our love for each other and our trust in the Lord. We have learned more (not everything yet!) about patience, suffering, trust, and God's providence than we knew at the beginning of our marriage. I thank God every day for my wonderful husband. I pray that we will continue to grow older together, ministering to each other and to those around us. Deo volente....