School Year and Jalais Hill 1867

 We are three weeks into the school year, and I have just been so enjoying it so far.  I tried some new things this year, and I think I'm going to love it.  We have settled into using Masterbooks as the core of our curriculum for the main subjects, although there tends to be some adjustments tweaked along the way.  That probably would be true no matter what.  I've always appreciated the way Masterbooks keeps everything simple and in manageable portions.  Sometimes I just need to add in extra practice or games.

I have always sort of jumped around with using Masterbooks, Good and the Beautiful, and a variety of library books for science and history.  I love the textbooks we have, but my kids always enjoy the deep dive history and science units (mainly from Good and Beautiful) as well.  Last year, I discovered Generations Taking the World for Jesus series, which is essentially history through the eyes of gospel advancement, so we use those for various units as well.  On a typical month, we rotate through the Masterbooks core workbooks and one deep dive unit.  I don't always finish the textbooks within the school year, but we for sure have done over 180 days of study in the general subject areas. 

Avie age 9

What is making this year different though, is that I am focused mostly on notebooking through the subjects instead of worksheets combined with using amblesideonline.org for various Charlotte Mason components.  I started with the literary resources for 1st grade from ambleside, but I am doing them as a group with my kids.  We just kind of loop through what we can- I have no expectation of finishing all their activities within the year.  I love that homeschooling allows us to just go as we go, especially with the extra things.  We always finish math and language for the year, but everything else we just plug along knowing we Are doing that much learning.  Just never in the same continuous resource.

Lily, age 5

I have just been delighted though with the bits of notebooking we have done.  It is just precious!  It holds all their copywork, which can be anything from a line from Aesop to our hymn lyric.  So many sweet little drawings in these notebooks, and we are only 3 weeks in!  But the most touching for me thus far happened this week- we are currently studying Camille Pissarro's work via the ambleside suggestion.  The first picture we studied of his was Jalais Hill, Pontoise, 1867.  I had each child try to draw the painting as they see it in their notebooks.  It is amazing to me how each child focused on different parts, but all saw the same painting.  I love how it is accessible to all 3 children who are 5, 6, and 9 currently.  It was one of those moments where you glimpse the good and beautiful foundations being laid and you are so thankful that you get to be here in this moment with these precious children.  So thankful that our days are spent together.  Not every moment together is sweet.  But the moments that are that sweet, are treasures forever.  Thank you Jesus!

Will, age 6

On Sundays

 I recently read that sometimes you need to just schedule time to create, show up at that time, and see what happens.  I have waited around for the last decade seeing if inspiration would show up, and between the last 10 years of pregnancy, diapers, coloring outside the lines, homeschooling *shockingly* that inspiration never came or I was too tired to acknowledge it.

So I am starting a new thing- Blogging on Sundays.  Maybe I will be inspired.  Maybe I won't.  But I am going to try to show up anyway.  I probably won't post many of these "officially" on fb which is the only social media platform I even attempt to use anymore, but it's fine.  I'm showing up.  For nothing else but to continue doing something I used to love.

I recently posted about how I thought I changed a lot more than I have over the years.  And going to California taught me I was really just the old me with a Texas coating.  Like an old house and you find out it has some really vintage wallpaper behind the paint.  I still don't have any idea what that means for life when you live where you live.  But at least I can admit it to myself now.

I've been mourning the loss of what was, acknowledging what is, and trying to find out what my place is in its midst.  California was a spiritual awakening for me.  I was so undistracted for the first time, probably in a decade, that I heard God so much more clearly than I had in certain ways.  I saw so many hearts on fire for Jesus from so many different walks of life, viewing certain verses somewhat differently than I do, yet The Spirit was still there in our midst.  It was a powerful lesson on the importance of looking for where the Spirit is for there is where Life and Truth are.  And not looking at the rules people follow.  That's not necessarily where the Spirit is.  (To be fair there Are some very real important truths that require true faith, but most of what we major on are not those important truths.)  The Lord really shattered my perspective, shifted my values, and upended my own Christian posts.  I have to confess that I valued some things more than I needed.  

The tricky part to both of these facets- both realizing I am still a New Orleans girl living in Texas and that I am more interested in where the Spirit is moving than I am in doctrinal nuances- is that coming home feels confusing.  What do I even do with myself now that I am back home?  To everyone around me I look the same more or less, but I'm just not.  My entire way of viewing the world has really shifted.  

One thing I did learn very deeply through California due to just the lack of uniform living situations is "Be Here Now".  And this statement is profound in the manner of ways it can be applied.  But one way is that I have learned I don't actually have to understand today how I fit back into the world around me. Being here now lets me wait until God shows me what to do next.  If He hasn't shown me something to do, it's not really in my control anyway, so just be here now.  Be who I am, but be it here, now.

So for now this looks like acknowledging that our family schedule changed, so we go to a different church on Sundays because it better fits the kids schedule, we get to go with Jude, etc.  It means we go to our regular church on Wednesday because that still works for our schedule.  And it doens't have to look pretty or make sense yet.  It will in time.

Today its early-mid August and we are going to rest and go to work and do school and celebrate Lily Fay's birthday and just generally live life as authentically as we can while we are here now.

Becoming who I was to begin with

 

They say life is a journey and 2025 has had me walking that out quite literally.  In February, we found out Jimmy had the opportunity to go be part of a team working on the LA fires.  It was rumored to take up to 9 months, although it ended up only being 5.  Going into it, we knew it would be a great experience for the kids.  But I didn't expect it to totally reorient me so completely.  Journeys change you certainly.  But in the wandering, suddenly I was able to see things so much more clearly.  

This has shown up in so many surprising ways.  The most unusual was realizing how much NOLA still resides deep in me.  I've been in Texas now for 23 years.  New Orleans hasn't been at the forefront of my mind since grieving for my friends during Katrina really.  And yet LA felt like home in ways I didn't realize I had missed so much.  I forgot how wonderful diversity everywhere you look is.  I forgot how I feel so much more at ease with a variety of cultures.  It feels like home- because I didn't grow up in a monotone world.  The lightness and freeness and happiness that bubbled up in me just surprised me.  I had no idea how that was just lying dormant in me.  

I had forgotten how much I just like to take it slow.  LA is so easy going and relaxed.  I forgot how nice it is to live without any real plan, any real schedule, any real concern.  Growing up in New Orleans, this was absolutely the mentality.  Life just meandered its way through the day like a slow going bayou.  I have been living 23 years cranking out schedules that make me grumpy in mimicry of a world I didn't really grow up in.  And I had just completely forgotten who I once was.  But in LA I met myself again.

Jimmy and I joked often about "be here now" and its become a bit of a family tag line for us.  How did I live in a hotel room with 3 kids for 7 weeks- I chose be here now.  How did I regroup when all our clothes got stolen (after crying)- be here now.  It became a looking at what is- and not what isn't.  Be Here Now is so freeing.  I don't know anything about my future.  To this day we are still walking through a whole lot of questions.  But I can be here today.  I have a house today, food today, tasks to accomplish today.  Tomorrow will be here when it gets here.  New Orleans taught me to enjoy today.  I can dance to a song I love right here now.  I can eat a delicious meal right here now.  I can laugh with a friend or a stranger right here now.  And California reminded me so much of those truths I had long forgotten in the midst of 80mph speed limits and mega lanes of traffic and hyper scheduled activities.

It's funny to me that of all the things I learned when I went away, the biggest was Remember who you were.  Take off these heavy articles of clothing that never fit who you were.  Be here now.