Give Water

It's today! Hurry! Go!

tomorrow is water

Tomorrow is it! November 13. $10 for water.

Last year, the efforts of Water4Christmas built WELLS in Liberia, Jaso's birth country. Hundreds and hundreds of people will have clean water to drink because individuals gave - big gifts, small gifts - they gave.

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So let's do it again. Tomorrow. $10.

$10 will provide one person in Africa clean water for 10 years. It will literally change and possibly save someone's life. A mother. A child. A brother. A grandfather. Maybe another little girl named Jaso.

Go here to donate.

choosing who we model

I'm tired of Dave Ramsey. Really. I think it is a good thing for people to live without debt. But we don't need Dave Ramsey to do that. I have many friends who I respect deeply who love Dave. I just don't. Dave Ramsey makes a lot of money and looks successful. He makes us feel disciplined and obedient by teaching us to be careful with our money. It feeds our puritanical ethic. But he allows us to sit comfortably with what we accumulate. As long as we give some of it away. And I don't want to be comfortable with that.

I want to be very uncomfortable with what I have. Uncomfortable enough to feel responsible for meeting the needs of other people with my own resources. I want to be very uncomfortable accumulating - stuff and money. I don't want to have more than enough. I thought yesterday about how many miracle stories we hear of someone in a desperate situation praying for specific provision from God - and God providing! How often in those stories He provides through people - people who have been willing to let go of what has fallen into their hands and to put it into hands that are empty.

I'm not where I want to be. We have bills to pay. We feel stretched each month. We want to give things to our children. We want to take care of what we have. We want stuff. But I don't want Dave Ramsey mapping out a plan for me to work through all of that.

I think I need a little John Wesley, who said "When I die if I leave behind me ten pounds, you and all mankind can bear witness against me, that I have lived and died a thief and a robber."

He limited his living expenses to 28 pounds a year. The first year he did this, he earned 3o pounds and had 2 to give away. He did the same thing the year he made 1400 pounds. He lived on 28 pounds. And gave the rest away.

In 1776, English tax commissioners believed he was lying about his property. They said that a man of his income certainly must have some silver and were accusing him of failing to pay tax on it. Wesley wrote back: "I have two silver spoons at London and two at Bristol. This is all the plate I have at present, and I shall not buy any more while so many round me want bread."

When he died, the only money mentioned in his will to be dispersed were the coins in his pockets and his drawers. He had made over 30,000 pounds during his lifetime and had given most of it away.

John Wesley didn't let his standard of living rise as his income did. He didn't choose to live a certain way because everyone else in his income bracket did. He didn't shop Pottery Barn because he could. He didn't move to a larger house because he'd gotten a raise. He didn't buy a new car because he had a better job. He didn't reward himself for working so hard. He didn't tell himself lies about what he deserved. We don't deserve what we have. It is by the grace of God that we have anything. And it's all His. And if we're keeping it in our tight fists, there is someone going without.

Sunday evening

First, my apologies to anyone who is following me on Twitter. It's clearly an exercise in futility since I haven't twitted since I created my sign-in. I actually don't even know how to twit or tweet or twat or whatever it is. I don't think I even remember my sign-in info. Sorry.

Now I'm off to use my extra daylight savings hour to watch episode 4 of the John Adams miniseries - that Abigail sure put up with a lot of crap was really devoted. Husband takes off to Paris and Amsterdam for years? Phew. I think it's time to commemorate our founding wives.

ps - has anyone noticed that I learned to do strikethroughs in HTML?

baked goods - cheap

I think I've hit on something. Letting a child roll their hands around a food item that is to be shared with the family (and beyond) means they will most certainly turn up sick the next day. First there were those yummy popcorn balls featured below. This week it was Mia's snickerdoodles. Want one?

homebound

home again with the pox - Mia this time. reading more house blogs. I'm going to need a handyman and Greg's going to need a second job.

what happens when I can't leave my house

A little too much time was spent cooped up this week, reading creative, pretty blogs. So I got inspired to finally work on the boys' room (which I've been planning for a while) and to bring a little fall inside (my house is mostly fall colors anyway but I love to bring in more!). It started with Lisa's inspiration to let the kids create a centerpiece, so Mia made this beautiful bowl that is now sitting on our front porch....
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And this is the pretty new rug that we added to the living room last month. I'd had my eye on it for a long time - at Costco of all places - checked in every time I was there to make sure it wasn't gone yet! It gives the room a really cozy feeling and when the dog comes in from playing in the cold backyard, I can almost envision him curled on the rug with a fireplace along one wall (the fireplace is the imaginary bit).


















And now the boys' room - the beds used to be bunked and we just pulled them apart - mainly because Avi really likes to shake the bunk as he climbs down to "accidentally" wake up Noah. I'd had the paint waiting in the garage for a while but finally after being cooped up with Noah for a week had reached the point where there was clearly nothing more exciting to be done around here. This is the view as you enter....which also shows the rug that pulled the room together - a lucky find at Lowe's because I knew the colors I wanted to use (chocolate brown and fig) yet their bedding had lots of blue in it. All are here in this rug! We put rugs in the kids' rooms when we got the living room rug, as our whole house is hardwoods and it's so much easier to play on a rug. The boys love it because they can use the blocks as they play for islands, oceans, deserts, and on and on...

























And Noah's bed - with something from his birthplace (an England license plate)....


















And Avi's bed - with something from his birthplace (Ethiopian handmade animals)....you can see in this picture that one wall is a different color than the others - you can call it split pea soup or you can call it fig. I like to call it fig. We're going to hang a picture wire across that wall with clips for the boy's artwork.


















And now back out of the boy's room, I hung our "thankful" banner....













...and the kids made oak leaf wreaths. And we've have had a pot of cinnamon and allspice simmering on the stove. Doesn't feel like "chicken pox" house at all now!
























I've even planned my next "uh-oh, a kid is sick" project. This door. Mine is gonna be black. I was going to start it today, but the snow convinced me that I should wait.

what not to do

If you find yourself feeling really overwhelmed on a Friday afternoon, don't settle in for the evening with this blog. Because you might just spend your restful Friday evening rearranging your boys' bedroom, leaving you with a list of projects for Saturday. I'm just saying.

making popcorn balls

Last Friday, we had a fun family night - making popcorn balls with Grandma, Aunt Nicki, and cousin Micah - and then a game of Settlers of Catan. Put it out of your mind that as Noah was squeezing his hands around the popcorn ball that he was at his most contagious - before we ever knew he was sick. Yum. Don't ever let it be said that Friday nights at the Isaac house aren't exciting.

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And if you haven't met five-year-old Micah, you should. Here's why. He says things like this when asked by his teacher about a time-out: "I had to sit in the purple square of humiliation." He should really have his own show.

jealous?

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new do

We did some hair this weekend. I love the end results, but I've got to admit there were some tears in the process - hers and mine. Hers, cause it's no fun to sit through five hours of hair and hard to understand that you won't have to sit through hair for another 8 weeks or so. Mine, cause my cornrowing skills are pretty sad. Sad enough to make me cry. I thought I had cornrowing down for a little while - but then Jaso just got healthier and healthier, and her hair got thicker and thicker. And I just can't do it. Luckily, the terrible cornrows are covered by these pretty curls. But this mama needs some help!

I like the funny

I'm wasting entirely too much time reading through this blog today. So funny. She says a lot of thought-provoking things too. But I really like the funny.

Here are two of my favorites:
this one
and this one

I'm betting she would be up for getting on the "think about Hugh Grant each day" rotation.

camp

Family Camp was worth it! So glad we went! I'll post some pictures soon...

Also, feeling a little rest from the hard things last week (not stuff with the kids, health, etc. - just some very tough things with Greg's job) - another week ahead full of more, I'm sure. But pretty sure it's right where we're supposed to be.

the good, the bad, the ugly

The good. I found out yesterday that both Jaso and Avi get to take free Suzuki violin at their new school!

The bad. I realized today that I think we have entered a time that we will officially call "the hardest thing we have ever done."

The ugly. I have to go now and pack everyone up for a family camp weekend that I don't even want to go to upon coming to the above realization.

This is life, right?

fall

I love fall. Even though it's still going to be a high of 80 here today, the light is different. It's fall light. Something about the earth's axis shifting and all that - I don't get it (Greg could explain it) but I know it when it's happening, and I really like it. We are through with official schoolwork for the day and Mia and Noah are playing happily. I've got soup bubbling (the first soup of the season) and I'm thinking of words like saffron, pumpkin, nutmeg. Probably because I keep walking across our pretty new carpet - all spicy fall colors. Yummy.

school

School has officially begun around here! Loving the start to this year so far. Jaso and Avi are attending Greg's school, and Mia and Noah are homeschooling again.

At home, we're on day three of our Sonlight Curriculum which I think we're really going to love - lots of history from a literature-based approach - this year is US History. Also happy with how much of last years' math they retained. When they were in public school, the curriculum was a spiral approach (basically learning lots of different concepts in short bursts and revisiting them over and over through the years). Last year, we chose a mastery approach curriculum (working on one concept - such as multiplication, division, fractions, etc. - until mastery is achieved). Sometimes I feel a bit nervous, as they aren't always "up to speed" with all of the concepts they'd be covering in public school; but what they learn, they learn thoroughly. The timetable just looks different. I think it's a good approach for both of them. Mostly, we're loving the literature in Sonlight - it's an area where we were lacking last year, and we've already been drawn in by the first book selections for this year. The last piece to add in is their one-day-a-week school program that they attend on Mondays - they'll both take an instrument there again this year (Mia - violin, Noah - piano) so we have to get back on a practice schedule which did not happen this summer.

Jaso and Avi are doing great at school! I drive them at 8am, and we have breakfast there together (many of our district schools offer free breakfast). Jaso has already memorized her student ID number (on her own!) to be able to type into the keypad in the breakfast line. Then they're in their classrooms at about 8:20 and have generally already been able to wave to Greg once by this time. Their classrooms are next door to each other, and they both have the perfect teacher "type" for their personality. Jaso is already scheduled for the speech therapy/special ed sessions she needs each week and Avi will most likely be getting some ESL services (he learned English so quickly but still has a few residual pronunciation and grammatical leftovers of learning a second language). They ride the bus home and we pick them up from the stop at a neighborhood school.

We're also in the midst of the adjustment curve to Greg's new job. Not just a new job - but a new school - a big new school (700 students). So much work. And dealing with all of the district "stuff" at a much closer level. He's doing well, but I'll be happy for him when this first year is done and everything isn't new and needing to be done from scratch.

Overall, I'm liking the shape this year is taking. We'll see how it goes when the sky is dark in the early morning. I love fall and winter. But I do not love getting out of bed when it's dark. And driving in the snow. I didn't have to do either of those too often last year when all four were home. Believe it or not, it's a big personal drawback to putting kids in school. I've got my priorities.

holy, holy, holy

Want to hear something beautiful? Oh my goodness.

time

Only two fiction books have ever affected me enough that I walk around for days wrapped up in their characters and then mourning their end. One of them, my favorite fiction book of all time, is The Time Traveler's Wife. The first time I read it, just after it was published, I finished it at bedtime and was ruined for sleep. I couldn't believe how very sad I felt. I hadn't felt that way from a book before.

The movie comes out today, and I wanted to read the book one more time (my 4th or 5th time through?) before seeing the movie and having my own mental images forever changed. So I finished it this morning, and I still got tense while hoping the ending would be different. And now I'll feel melancholy for a while. Luckily, it's a cloudy morning.

Interestingly, the other book that affected me like this also involved time travel and two lovers separated in ways beyond their control by time. I'm ashamed to admit which book it is (though if you have known me for five or more years, you probably know as I was a bit obsessed). It's shelved in the romance section. I'm not a romance reader. But that whole being at the mercy of something big and uncontrollable like time gets me somehow.

Now off to do normal things like laundry and back-to-school night, but in the back of my mind I'll still be thinking about Henry and Clare - hoping they have somehow found their wrinkle in time.

swirl.

So much swirling around inside my head from today that I can't sleep.

1 - Why did I go and mention last week that it has been weeks since I'd needed a sleeping pill to get drowsy enough to sleep?

2 - There sure were a lot of papers to fill out for two very little kids at school registration today.

3 - Will Jaso want her teacher to call her "Jaso" or "Lila Jaso"? In either case, her class roster is only going to say "Lila" since only the first name prints, and Jaso's speech isn't quite clear enough to get a correction across to a new listener. Need to get to the teacher before the first roll-call.

4 - Really glad I said "no" to the television interview about being an adoptive family of a child with HIV. Felt a really big pit in my stomach til I actually got the "no" out there. We are fairly open with disclosure, but something about putting it on the news four days before school starts wasn't sitting well.

5 - Enjoyed doing an HIV Adoption webinar tonight and am so excited I figured out how to get it recorded online and available as a link by request.

6 - Got tons of From HIV to Home work done today together with all the kids' laundry. This is what happens when half my kids are at VBS.

7 - Someone needs to walk the dog more. I think it's me.

8 - How the heck am I going to fit in all of the physical therapy activities for Avi's neuro-reorg therapy? One of the exercises actually requires two adults to move his body.

9 - Greg is going to be working a lot of late nights in these upcoming weeks getting this new school launched. I need to get a lot better at being the only adult at dinner when necessary. Right now, I'm just a very crabby adult at dinner when that happens.

10 - We have no wine in our house. In my excellent grocery budgeting skills (I really am getting pretty good), I generally have to cross a few things off the list. Wine got crossed off this month. That was dumb.

11 - God was so good to create VBS - three blocks from my house - the week before school starts - that runs from nine to one. It's nearly as good a creation as wine.

the isaac book of common prayer

Greg prayed the other night at dinner, pausing first to quell all of the complaining and bickering taking place.....it went something like this:

God,

Thank you for this house - that is too small...
Thank you for our cars - that break...
Thank you for this food - that is yucky...
Thank you for this family - that is grumpy...

I loved it - it really calmed me to remember that is really how it is sometimes. Things can feel really small, yucky, broken, grumpy - and it's all still part of this amazing gift that God has handed to us.

monday morning

After sleeping in (interrupted by only about 23 tattles), I meant to take the whole crew for a morning walk. But I can't get out the front door because there is a massive fort (with three beds' worth of bedding) blocking the entire living room. The boys are crawling through it in their dressy clothes so they can pretend they're "going to work to work on their laptops."

Mia is making her 5th batch of muffins this week (what am I going to do with all these muffins?).

Jaso is pouting - she might have meant to sleep in but it didn't happen.

I'm reading "In Praise of Slowness" by Carl Honore - a kind of sociological perspective on slowing down. But he keeps talking about idyllic towns and meals in Italy which makes me want to go there; and I can't even get out the front door.

kid date

After a great hike today with the kids (really our most successful hike yet with the two littles and a great first hike with the littlest - the dog), Noah had his kid date tonight with mom and dad. He chose Noodles and Company for dinner; then we went to go see "Ice Age 3" in 3-D - very fun! To cap off the evening, he got to choose a pack of gum at Seven Eleven (my kids love buying gum and it was kind of a novelty to get to go to Seven Eleven late at night for gum on the way home - we really like to live it up).

Here he is earlier this week with his FIRST PLACE ribbon for his 25-yard freestyle race at last week's swim meet! This is great because about a month ago he wouldn't even jump into the pool for his first race at his first meet. He really pushed through and is loving swimming now.

And then today, on our way up to the mountains for Buddy's first hike. Boy and dog. What a cutie!

summer learning

I thought it would be fun to do a unit study with the little ones this summer on butterflies. It turned into a very short unit. We read a couple of butterfly books, they re-enacted the butterfly life cycle a few times in skit form, and we hatched butterflies. Here's one of the butterfly babies after our release the other day - I thought the kids would want to stand around and watch them make their way into the world; but the very second they all flew out of the net house, the kids ran back inside to see the dog. It's all in the timing, I guess.

staycation

We are in the middle of two weeks off for Greg - originally, this was when Jaso was going to have surgery, and even though we started the time off with a short hospital stay, surgery is off the table for now (!) and we've had a family staycation. We love having daddy home all the time. And the kids are all at great ages and stages that allow lots more fun activities than when they were younger and "newer" (for instance - last night was our first fireworks in a while where someone wasn't initially terrified by the event).

Of course, as is the usual for us in summer, there isn't much extra money (and Greg's new administration salary doesn't kick in until the end of summer even though he's already started the job). But we have had a little pile of passes and gift cards that have gathered up plus a museum membership, and it's made for lots of fun.

This past week, we went swimming several times (and are on the verge of being able to call Jaso and Avi "swimmers"); visited the Museum of Nature and Science - where we had a picnic breakfast before they opened and then were the first family in the doors (having the funnest exhibit all to ourselves for a little bit); visited Lakeside - a 100-year-old amusement park - very old school (this included a picnic with a salad made from our own homegrown lettuce!); took a mountain drive and got stuck in traffic on the way over Guanella Pass then headed for a trip on the Georgetown Loop Railroad together with a silver mine tour (fascinating!) - this alone was a $150 event but the passes were given to us by a kind man from the historical society who had visited Greg's classroom this year (of course, this event was punctuated by one of those excruciating, awkward conversations regarding our family - let's just say that I plan to avoid conversations with people from Missouri from here on out and will not be sitting next to them on trains anymore); got a dog; and had a visit to the Paris Street Flea Market with the dog (where we realized we have joined a new club where other dog owners stop to chat and ask all kinds of questions about your dog).

And it's rained quite a bit. This makes me happy. happy. happy. Even though we had to drive through a flood to pick up our dog and bring him home.

Honestly, this is the most fun we have squeezed into a week in a long time, and we've spent nearly no money (unless you count Petsmart, which I'd rather not think about right now). Gotta love that (except the Petsmart part).

And it certainly beats a couple of weeks in the hospital on all counts!

Here's some proof of the fun.....

when the party is over

sometimes turning six can really take it out of you.
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cuties

whew.

Today marks four years since we moved into our sweet little house and the longest I have lived in one house in my entire life! I tried to make a list of all the places I've lived (and even attempted dates and lengths of time but that one threw me for a loop). I might be a bit patchy further back....in fact, if my original estimates were accurate, I'm actually two years younger than I thought I was.


Our current house (for 4 years now!)
Parker, Colorado
England
Denver
San Francisco (got married here!)
the year in Moscow that became a summer in Moscow
Chicago
southern California
New York City
Texas
New York City
New Jersey
northern California
Maryland
northern California
Iran
northern California
Nebraska
Utah

the story of stuff

I know many of you have already seen this, but if you haven't, it's definitely worth setting aside 20 minutes to watch it. My bigger kids are old enough to understand most of it, and it's a great family conversation starter.

why is the ocean so far away?

So we haven't been on a family vacation in four years. Various members of us have gone places near and far (two trips to Africa for me - resulting in a couple of new family members, weekends away in the mountains for all, some camping trips, the kids and I for a weekend to family camp in Washington, a weekend reunion in Nebraska, etc.). But no pile in the car and go on a long adventure trips for a very long time. Jaso and Avi weren't even home last time it happened (and that sentence alone probably explains why - the last four years have been pretty full - and expensive).

But I have a master plan brewing. There are two places I'd really like to go. One is to see my besties in Virginia with the whole fam-dam. And the other is the Oregon coast. But those are both really far away - from here and from each other. But that's not going to stop me. I've been plotting out a driving plan and a budget. Summer 2010 may just be it!

Someone hold me to that.

four kids, all smiling, all at the same time