Catching a Healing: Covid-19

 Our entire family has come down with covid...or at least we believe that to be true.  Only one of us has been tested and that was all we needed to know what it is we were dealing with.  

I haven't been tracking days, but I would guess we are around days 4-6 based on the first person's symptoms appearing.

It has been so long since I've been sick, that I forgot how miserable it can be.  The first few days I just had that sick sensation in my chest and had some slight congestion and sneezing.  Definitely different than the normal congestion and sneezing I have with my allergic rhinitis.  I could tell my body was fighting something.

Tonight has been the most miserable.  I have such pressure in my sinuses that my head hurts and if I bend down, it multiplies exponentially.  A steam and hot soak in the bath helped to clear some of it.  I had a slight fever prior to the soak, but afterwards it had gone down a little.  

Each of us takes turns helping with the responsibilities around the house.  For example, while my little guy takes his afternoon nap, my older kiddos will hang out and watch a movie while I try and take a nap.  My hubby has been stoically working full days at home still despite my pressure on him to take it easy.  He plans to...love my stubborn man!

We thankfully had a lot of leftovers from Thanksgiving to get us through the first few days, and I've been stocking up on our staples the last couple months so we are able to use what we have.  My friend has insisted on making us soup and salad, and bought us some fresh apples and cuties.  She doesn't take no for an answer sometimes, although she does it in the sweetest way.  She'll drop it off tomorrow and while she doesn't know the kids are already tired of soup (I had made some in the beginning and we've been drinking bone broth daily too), I am looking forward to not having to think about supper for one night, and very grateful for her.

We've also been taking our supplements that my mom gave us, she also told me how to make the bone broth.  I can't take the essential oil pill because it is made with olive oil, but I've been using the roller version of it on my lymph nodes where it hurts.  It has been helping.  Having family and friends who care for us is so nice.

Serving the Lord

 Tonight I was a bit bummed and weary from a busy day, so I decided to use my 'work night' as a 'me night' instead.  I treated myself to a hot soak and am now listening to some soothing instrumental music as I write to you.

God has been moving our focus more and more on Him these days.  With so much going on in the world around us, He is our hope, our source of joy and contentment.  Spiritual things and being intentional about them are recurring themes that run through my thoughts.

What can I do for Him?  What do I do with the time He's given me?  How do I honor Him in my daily, mundane activities?

My time is often consumed by my family, my role as 'mama' is quite a primary one.  Our conversations are often sprinkled with spiritual concepts and scripture.  Very rarely, do I have time to do much outside of our busy family life.  I try to treat others with kindness and act with humble integrity when we are out in our community.  Living out God's character is a goal, showing His love and grace through my imperfectness is something I aspire to do.

Recently, my daughter has joined the high school worship team at church, it's kind of like a worship team in-training, as they are only meeting on a temporary basis working towards leading worship on a specific day later this year.  Practices are an hour long so I don't have time to return home and accomplish anything before having to pick her up again.

I was using that hour to run errands or work on lesson plans.  But one day in church, it just seemed that our youth pastor looked burdened to me and I had the desire to help ease that burden.  We are to be the body of Christ, so I volunteered that hour to help out in any way needed.  For three practices now, I have spent time cleaning bathrooms.  

I cleaned a urinal for the first time.  So yucky!  I work hard and am usually quite tired and sore afterwards.  Before I go to volunteer, each time I wish I hadn't volunteered, and each time I long for a reason to just stay home or do my own thing for that hour.  But instead, I honor my commitment and each time, I end up finding joy in serving the Lord with the time and abilities He has given.

Last time, our youth pastor and associate pastor thanked me.  I was awkward with it since I am terrible at accepting compliments or gratitude.  I said that I hoped they noticed because I was trying to do the deeper cleaning that probably doesn't get done often. (I'd scrubbed things like the walls just getting off some of the grime and little stains here and there that you might not notice, but makes a difference in the long run).  The associate pastor said with wide eyes and eyebrows raised that yes, he had noticed, and no, those things didn't get cleaned often enough.  

Just that little bit of validation made me feel so happy and renewed my motivation to continue on next time, and to continue to improve my efforts.  I've always hesitated in making a volunteer commitment at church because my family has to come first and life has a way of being so unpredictable.  Being able to give this occasional hour, has been the perfect, God-supplied, way of serving Him without sacrificing my other God-given responsibilities.

If you're ever in the position to notice someone's service of sacrifice, thank them.  That small thanks stretches such a long way!  And if you are desiring to serve, ask God to show you where, when and how.  He will open the door that is best for you!

Creating Unit Studies for Kindergarten through Highschool

Creating lesson plans are a passion of mine.  I love to learn and I love making learning fun.  It just takes a lot of time and effort, so I haven't done much of the creative lesson planning in the last couple years.  Something about having littles makes it that much more challenging.

For our science curriculum this year we are going a non-traditional route.  I'm taking the perks of homeschooling and running with the flexibility to customize our learning!  My girls gave me a list of what they wanted to learn and how they wanted to learn it.  So I've taken their input and am putting together a unit study.  We are going to be studying Marine Science/Oceans, Zoology, Weather, and Historical Geology.

We're going to start with Marine Science and Oceans.  I've purchased two books as "spines" for our foundation.  The "spine" of a unit study is often a reference/text book that acts as a guide for the course of the unit study.  We're young earth creationists and in the realm of science, finding non-evolution based information can be a challenge.  Our two spine books focus mostly on the current knowledge of the oceans and creatures therein, with very little said about the "history" of where they came from.  A few of our supplemental books do have some evolution in them, but it is a good thing for the kids to know that there are other viewpoints to a degree.  

Our first book focuses on information and separates the different ocean zones, creatures and ecosystems with beautiful pictures.  Our second book is full of hands-on activities (crafts, science experiments, and cooking projects).  I am putting together a lesson plan using these two books and taking into consideration that I have a kindergartener, middle schooler, and high schooler to teach.

As we cover the information to learn, I am incorporating hands-on activities.  For example, when I introduce the different oceans, I have a full page coloring sheet of the world for my kindergartener either to color or paint as I read about the different oceans.  He will get to listen to the information that I'm reading as he decorates his map.  For my older kiddos, they have the same map on a smaller scale that they can label with space below to take notes about each specific ocean.  We'll get out our globe and find the oceans and use post-it notes to label the oceans.  We'll build a water molecule, do a water density experiment, and bake some cookies to decorate as our earth to show the percentage of land vs water.  And that is just the 4 lessons!

I've found documentaries I can stream and fun educational tv series that teach about ocean animals and ecosystems too.  I want to do some sort of field trip, but I'm waiting to see what homeschool field trips come up this fall since regular entry prices are so high these days. 

Lesson planning is so much fun.  I hope the kids enjoy our learning as much as I'm enjoying putting it together!

I cried today.

 A fellow homeschooling, Jesus-loving, mama lost her two-year-old son this week.  It was sudden, unexpected, and heart-breaking.  I can't begin to imagine the heartache and pain she and her family are feeling.  Even more, is the humility and hope she shares in her posts about what happened.

She remains positively minded in her writing, firmly placing her faith in God despite the painful circumstances she is in.  She encourages me and inspires me to seek that perspective in my own faith.  Her very first communication after announcing her son's death, invited others to salvation in Christ.  What a powerful witness for the Lord her words are.

My daughter and I had a good conversation today.  I shared the sadness I was feeling and she shared a struggle she was dealing with and how God answered her prayer with a scripture verse earlier that day.  Later, she had a short conversation about hearing from God with our nutritionist, a topic she's been searching for understanding with lately.  It's so amazing the many little things that God uses to touch our hearts and teach us about Himself and who we are in Him.

It also reminds me how important prayer is.  I don't know this fellow mama, other than the unusual commonalities in our lives.  But I know I can pray for her and that is a tangible way I can be the body of Christ to her.   Her mother in law was my 8th grade English teacher.  She has four kids with a big gap between the oldest two and youngest two, also due to a cancer battle like ours.  And, she loves the Lord with all her heart.  So, I have been praying for her, her living children, and her hubby...for their journey in grief, for their spiritual protection, for their marriage and family relationships.  It's a hard road ahead.

It's Okay.

Sometimes it is okay to not look for that next thing to keep yourself busy or productive.

Sometimes it is okay to just stop.

Stop the process.  

Stop the mental pressures.

Grant yourself the grace and permission to put it all away for the night.

Pick yourself up.

Put yourself to bed at a decent time.

Maybe not because you want to.

But because you can.

UGH.

Whatever can go wrong....no, it isn't truly that bad.  It just gets overwhelming.  We've had a lot going on this past couple months and to top it all off, we got sick too.  The whole family.

It seems to be just a yucky cold virus with lots of snot.  I called to see what to do if it was the dreaded CO- VID, and the doctor's office didn't seem to be concerned.  They just said we could go to their Urgent Care for testing if we wanted, but there wasn't any specific protocol to follow.  So, we figured as long as none of us were needing medical help, we would just stay home and weather whatever this is out.  

It has been a week  and we are on the mend.  It didn't last long and was mostly all contained within the sinuses as far as symptoms go.  The only coughing we had was because of drainage, and the only headaches came from sinus pressure.  So we are doubtful it was that scary stuff.  God has been good to us.

Our oldest was diagnosed with anxiety.  It was a harder pill to swallow than I expected.  I knew she had some anxiety, she always has had fear, but it's been getting worse the past few years to where it interferes with her everyday life.  I guess I just didn't think that anxiety could be the lone cause for everything we have struggled through.  

She is learning to recognize what anxiety is and how it manifests in her life.  She's also learning how to deal with it as well.  Her emotions have a significant impact with her symptoms.  It makes me wonder if the anxiety causes the emotions or if they instigate some of her struggles.  

Girls are often misdiagnosed, or underdiagnosed, when it comes to mental health.  I'm hoping that working on this area will help and perhaps shed light on if there is anything more to pay attention to.

Learning about my daughter's anxiety, I am also recognizing my own anxieties.  I'm tough, independent and stubborn.  But I'm also quite cautious and insecure in a lot of ways.  

Them there is the parent-guilt that comes along with a child's diagnosis.  The typical, how much of this did I cause?  What did I do wrong in parenting her?  Etc.  I know I have done my best and I know parents mess up.  Knowing helps. It's normal for parents to feel guilty, but it still isn't fun to feel.

Goal Adjustments

Back in October, I posted about striving to wake up earlier to have some "me" time.  Five months later, and I have still not figured out how to get to bed earlier.  It happens on occasion, but I'm realizing in this season, it just isn't going to happen.  My time is not my own with young children in the house.

The Lord has been good to remind me that the ultimate goal is to spend time with Him on a daily basis, to spend more time seeking Him.  It doesn't necessarily have to fit my idealistic bible time to myself where I can cuddle up on the couch with a warm blanket, bible, and journal.  In truth, the last time I was able to do that regularly was before I had children.

So, I am trying to be flexible and give myself grace.  I am doing pretty good at making time to read my bible and pray every morning.  Sometimes I get up 15 minutes earlier than I expect my kids to be up, other times I bring it out to the living room with me while my boys climb over me as they play.  Sometimes I have the opportunity to have extended prayer time and other days I write a sentence or two before motherhood calls.

My kids get to see me reading my bible and writing in my prayer journal.  They know that it is something I do every day.  If kids truly learn by watching, perhaps the Lord is using these moments to impact them for eternity.

He makes me new, He is making me new.

 Lyrics from a song.  My New Year's post a little late, I suppose.  Happiest of New Year's to you!

The thrill of new beginnings and letting go of the past is something New Year always brings for me.  As much as I love getting out the decorations for the Christmas season, I also love packing it all up and clearing the clutter when it is over.  It's like a fresh start each year.

When baby Jesus came into the world, He brought with Him a fresh start for all those who believed in Him.  I typically try to rededicate myself to prioritizing my relationship with Him each year, since the chaos of the season can easily throw me off my game.

My current projects are simply cumulative from last year's chaos.  I can't say it is a "resolution" because I have been working towards this goal for a while now.  I just had to wait for Christmas for some of the tools I needed to help me get more organized.  

I've prayed a lot about how best to organize my life.  My prayer life is in the midst of learning what it means to "pray without ceasing."  There are things I feel that God wants me to pay better attention to, and I have struggled because of the constant distractions in our crazy lives.  

I don't have a special place to pray.  I don't have a dedicated time set aside for prayer each day either.  Depending on the day, I often pray on the fly and try to fit in a short bible reading in between responsibilities.  So, I am learning the art of 'praying without ceasing' by keeping my mind on the Lord.  Even when I miss my morning devotions, I remain conscious of my need for time with my Lord.  I talk to him, sometimes out loud, sometimes in my head.  It's a mental humility, recognizing my need for Him, and keeping that in mind even as life requires my attention on other things too.

I am beginning to implement small changes for a hopeful big impact on my daily chaos.

One change is a morning routine.  I set my alarm early to get up before the kids, so I can get dressed, read my bible, and get ready for the day mentally.  When I keep my routine, the stress and mental focus I have is so much better.  On days when I don't make it, the day feels like a mess, and I start it stressed.  

Another change is buying myself a planner.  I have one already that I use specifically to track our homeschool activities, but I realized I needed a separate one to help me in organizing my days better.  I found one for a great price on amazon, and am excitedly waiting for it to arrive!

Small changes and, God willing, a big impact! :0)