The last few days I’ve had more guests in my home than usual. That means that I’ve been keeping things a little more picked up than usual too! But even though I’ve put extra effort into making our home look a little more tidy, I still have a long way to go before anyone would ever declare me a good housekeeper.

Yesterday, as I was hurrying around picking things up and trying to at least clear a spot on the couch, I was rehearsing in my mind the excuses and apologies I would use when my guest arrived.

“Welcome to our construction zone!”

“I’m sorry for the clutter. I know you’re such a good housekeeper!”

“I always feel intimidated when you come over to visit, since you keep such a clean house.”

“You know, with the building project going on, it’s hard to keep things clean around here.”

“I’m sorry things aren’t as picked up as I would like them to be.”

…and then there’s that old line that the visiting gospel singing group might use right before they sing… “Ya’ll pray for us now, we ain’t practiced much!”

Then I realized how each of these excuses and apologies would sound to my guest. What I would really be saying is this:

“You make me uncomfortable.”

“I wish you hadn’t come over today.”

“When we have a building project going on, God doesn’t give me the gift of hospitality.”

“I need you to compliment me so I won’t feel so insecure.”

Is that really what I wanted to communicate to my guest??? Of course not! So I grabbed myself by the shoulders and gave myself a firm shake. Then I used a very stern voice and made myself promise that I would NOT give one single apology or excuse for anything. Not one. Nope, not even a tiny one. I would simply do what I could do to make my home look welcoming, and then I would greet my guest with a relaxed smile and offer my hospitality to her and her children.

And do you know what? We had a wonderful time! My guest seemed to be completely at ease in our home. I served popcorn and iced tea for a snack. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. We showed off our little of six-week-old Siamese kittens. We talked about remodeling. I got her opinion on whether to paint my cabinets or keep them wood-colored. Our conversation wandered from one topic to another. My baby dozed in my arms; something he almost never does! The children went out into the back yard and had a marvellous time jumping on the trampoline, examining our dirt pit and picking red raspberries. By the time they left, I felt so refreshed from our delightful visit.

So the next time you’re tempted to make apologies for your housekeeping or your cooking or any other thing, first ask yourself exactly what your motivation is for those apologies. And then try skipping the apologies. You’ll be glad you did.

Here is an e-mail I wrote tonight regarding our kitchen.  I thought you might enjoy “eavesdropping” just a little…

I wanted to give you a progress report on our kitchen project, since you’ve invested in the work here.

I subscribe to several different e-mail groups, and quite often people join up and submit a little “blurb” about themselves by way of introduction. Usually these things are fairly boring. For example, here’s what I wrote to introduce myself to the “ACE” group:

My name is Christie, and I grew up using the ACE curriculum. Now, as the mother of six children, I am using ACE to teach them.

Since my only exposure to schooling has been ACE, I’m curious to know how others view it compared to other curriculums.

Also, I’m curious to hear ideas for creatively applying the curriculum for use with kids with ADD.

Thanks,

Christie

Yes, I know. Stifle those yawns. Most folks write something quite forgettable like I did. But every now and then someone writes an introduction that is worth re-reading. When I read this one that I’m going to share with you, I was so intrigued that I sent it to my sister. She agreed that it would be fun to post it on the website, so I asked permission from Cindy to share it here. I hope you enjoy meeting her as much as I did!

Hi everyone, My name is Cindy. I am new to this group. My hubbies name is Mark. We have been married 14 years. We have 7 children, Logan -13, Wyatt - 11, Sierra -9, Trevor -7, Ariel -5, Cameo -2, and Garrett -9 mo. None of them have had birthdays yet this year, so they all go up throughout the year.

We have homeschooled them all since birth (my husband’s favorite line when asked how long we have homeschooled). We plan to homeschool them all through highschool. We live in Sacramento, CA. There are actually a lot of conservative Christians here in CA, contrary to what you hear in the news, but I am ashamed to say we are out numbered most of the time. I am blessed to have a husband that takes his job as Husband and Father very serious. He reads the Bible to our family and we worship together. He also reads other literature to us after Bible Time when its not too late. He spends lots of time with us at home and helps with homeschooling. He reads out loud to me also during our own devotions together. I guess one would call him a homebody. I am blessed beyond measure!

After watching our first son being born, my husband wanted only that 1 child. I wanted 5, thinking we would settle somewhere in
between. Around pregnancy 4, he asked me what I thought about
having 6 … I said I would have as many as he wanted. I never thought he would take me up on it. Our growing family is because of his vision of what he knows God wants for us. Again, I am blessed beyond measure.

When our 5th child was born in Oct 2000, we were doing Unit Studies. I really loved Unit Studies, but now I had 5 children 8 and under. My 2 school aged children did Math and Spelling that that school year, but nothing else until our first Unit Study in May. My husband advised me to contact all the other large families we know and find out what they were using for school. I have several friends that have large families, and one was using School of Tomorrow. She had 10 children (2 had already graduated using SofT, and her youngest child was a new baby just like mine at the time). She told me all about SofT. I was sold as soon as I heard about “no Teachers Manuals” and how Christian based it was. I had some of these teachers manuals already and that was a nightmare and I was piecing curriculum together from lots of sources that weren’t all Christian based. I started the next school year with a 4th, 2nd, and K (I did buy the manuals for K and then later 1st). It was answer to prayer. We now actually get school done, and all the time. We plan
to use it always, especially with our growing family. It works and
we love it.

As for myself, I enjoy being a stay at home mom. When people ask me what I do, I tell them I am blessed to be able to stay at home and raise our children and teach them at home … this is usually good for a shocker and some conversation and sometimes opens the door for me to share about God. It is a daily challenge to be a good wife and mother and require lots of God’s help. I like to cook and bake, but don’t sew, iron, or dust. The one chore that I like the least is laundry, and so it is always covering the whole washroom floor. I have used cloth diapers for all of my kids (I use disposables when we leave the house). And yes, My dear hubby changes a lot of cloth diapers also. I love a good steak that someone else has cooked. I also love good conversation with other women. Well, I can get carried away when someone asks me to tell them about myself in an intro … I start talking about my husband, my kids, God, or homeschooling, 4 things I am passionate about, and before long so much time has passed. I look forward to getting to know you all.
God Bless you all.
Have a Better than Great Day in the Lord ! Cindy

I hope you’ve enjoyed meeting Cindy as much as I did. I’m off to start my day!

For several days Laura has been collecting raspberries and cherries.  She keeps talking about making a pie.  Pies are one thing I do not like to make.  However, I can usually be talked into it, unless of course, preparing for said pie means sitting for hours pitting drippy red cherries.  In that case, I really don’t enjoy the pie process.  But last year when Laura wanted to make a pie, she and the other children so enjoyed the process that I had to admit it was worth while.  So this year I won’t put up much of a struggle.  But I will be glad when the cherry tree is done bearing its fruit. 

Many of you know that we are involved in remodeling our kitchen.  This project is taking such a long time, and seems to be dragging on and on.

Just yesterday we finally resolved to make a new effort to work more diligently on the project, so today Michael spent some time sorting through our finances to make sure we could afford the next round of supplies needed for the next steps.  What he found was that while we should be able to meet our regular expenses, we really didn’t have money left over for building projects right now.  We felt we were faced with two options:  borrow money, or delay the project.  We discussed it back and forth, but hadn’t really come to a very definite conclusion.  One of the hazards of having lots of children is that conversations are often interrupted and sometimes never finished.

But tonight God stepped into our little situation and reminded us that we needn’t be so worried about it.  We were given a gift of $1,000 towards materials needed for our building project.  The donor indicated that they would like to help us with our house remodeling, but they really didn’t want to come over and join the work party, so they wondered if some money to help pay for building supplies would help.

We humbly and gratefully accepted the gift, scolding ourselves inwardly for not trusting in our Heavenly Father just a little more.

Now we’re really excited to see how much we can accomplish over the next few weeks.  I’ll keep you posted!

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

Praise Him all creatures here below,

Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts,

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  Amen!

Here is a photo taken just today of one of our kittens.

They are about six weeks old.

If you are interested in purchasing one, contact me at Christie@iAmTheTeacher.com.

Buy Crocs!

My good friend, Janie, told me that she loves the Crocs she has purchased for their family, so I decided to check them out. Turns out, I like them too! They are super-lightweight, they are non-slip, they come in lots of colors, and they are comfortable. But best of all, they are washable! That is so handy in this big family that includes puddle-jumping children and a pooping dog. We can get shoes washed and dried and back into business in two shakes of a lamb’s tail!

Today I took a photo of the largest and smallest Crocs in our family. The largest belong to ME, and the smallest belong to Little Mike. Aren’t they cute???

So far our family owns the following colors: turquoise, medium blue, hot pink, lime green, white, black, and red, in a grand total of five different sizes. I’m already wishing for a second color for myself, but at $30 apiece, I’ve decided that my one color goes very nicely with just about everything.

Let me know if you decide to try Crocs!

This week we have VBS at our church. Every morning we arrive at church by a few minutes before 9 a.m. and we leave there right before lunch time. Our church does a fantastic job with VBS every year, so we feel it’s worthwhile to make an effort to be there. Still, it’s a big effort to get everyone up and fed and ready and out the door and to the church on time. Then at the end of the morning it’s another effort to load everyone up and get them home, ignoring the pleas to stop for snacks on the way home. By the time everyone has eaten lunch, I’m ready to check out for the rest of the afternoon. But then if I do take a nap, I sleep so soundly that I’m disoriented and behind schedule when I wake up. That doesn’t do much to get laundry done or supper made.

Fortunately, we all love VBS. So I figure it’s worthwhile. But we’re behind on our regular morning routines. We haven’t had the kids practice violin or anything else for that matter. Chores are behind. But the good news is that I’m still managing to get lunch and supper made each day. That keeps us from being tempted to spend money eating out. And I’ve done enough laundry to keep us in clean undies this week.

VBS comes once a year, and we look forward to it. We also survive it.

You’d think I’d be used to it now, but it still hits me hard. Last Saturday we moved the “baby” to a “big bed”. Somehow a baby looks so much more grown up when he’s not sleeping in his crib any more. Little Judah still isn’t quite sure what’s going on, but whether he likes it or not, he is officially in a regular bed.

It all started with a brainstorm to make our house a bit more efficient. I suggested that perhaps we could move Laura into the nursery with the three youngest children. Michael liked the idea, so that’s what we did on Saturday. Well, we didn’t really DO it all on Saturday, but we got part way there. We took down the crib and set up a second set of bunkbeds, then assigned Laura and Amelia the new set of beds, and Mike and Judah are in the “toddler” bunk beds. (Three years ago, a friend custom-built a smaller set of bunk beds that holds crib-size mattresses.)

It’s been a good exercise for me to think through exactly what clothes and items are needed for each child. I keep reminding myself that we don’t need lots of things… just enough to keep people clothed between loads of laundry. It’s so hard for a clutterbug like me to prioritize and simplify, but it’s a good exercise.

In other news… this week is VBS week at church. So every morning we will need to get up early and get out the door in time to be at church by 9:00 a.m. This morning we needed to be early in order to help with registration, so it was an extra scramble. But in spite of the tighter schedule, I still managed to make sandwiches ahead of time for our lunch. (Sure was nice to walk in the door at lunchtime and have everything ready to serve!) Much to my surprise, our neighbor accepted our invitation to attend VBS, and she sent along SEVEN children! Today was the first time that we’ve filled every seat in our 15-passenger van. I’m eager to see if they’re going to come every day this week.

This afternoon, as I was trying to juggle baby and laundry and organizing and supper, I felt a little stressed and I said aloud, “I just can’t DO everything!” Right away I felt the Spirit of God whispering, “You’re right. You can’t. So rely on Me. And don’t take the credit for what you DO accomplish.”

It’s a deal! I’ll do my best this week, get to VBS every morning, try to get lunch made and maybe even supper, see if I can catch up on laundry, keep working on all the organizing and rearranging, and through it all, l’ll keep pointing to my Heavenly Father. Cuz’ He’s right… I can’t DO this by myself!

Michael is home! And we had such fun revealing our surprises for him. First, Laura showed off her new hair cut. It looks much like her old one, but it’s just down to her shoulders instead of going to the middle of her back.

The second surprise was that Judah is now walking! While Michael was gone, Judah was inspired to learn to walk, and he did! Now he is walking all over everywhere. He’s still unsteady, but he keeps practicing.

The third surprise is that we had cleaned the house very nicely to welcome Michael home. I am not a good housekeeper, so it was really a true surprise to Michael to have everything looking so nice. Now we’re just trying to keep it looking good.

The fourth surprise was that I installed a shower surround in our bathroom around the clawfoot bathtub. I did it all by myself!!! Last Friday morning I purchased the kit from a local plumbing supply place, and then that afternoon I got all the pieces spread out and figured out. I had to cut some stuff to fit, and I even used plumbers tape to connect the joints! Now when we wash our dishes in the bathtub (while we wait for a kitchen sink) we can admire the fun fishy shower curtain.

We are so glad to have Michael home again. Being apart makes us appreciate each other in ways we had forgotten to appreciate.

On that note, I’ll close this post. We are hurrying off to the pool today!

Love,

Christie