During this time, I found a renewed relationship with an old friend from my childhood.  Our lives criss-crossed at an opportune time and God used a variety of circumstances to bring our families together.  We’ve known each other for over 30 years, our parents still live on the same street, and it was his dad that ultimately, although indirectly, brought my dad to the Lord almost twenty years ago.

Brian has two children and is no stranger to the pain of adultery and broken marriage.  Although he grew up in a solid Christian home (his dad was my Sunday School teacher), he never fully (or truly) gave his heart to the Lord until after he saw how miraculously God was working to bring us together.  He watched his dad battle cancer a few years prior and that, in conjunction with his own broken marriage, had almost wiped out any faith he had in God.  Since fully accepting Jesus as both his Lord and Savior, he has become a man of faith, strong will, and wisdom to teach me things I never knew I needed to learn.  We now both know that through all the circumstances that have taken place in these past few years, God was working to bring both of us and our children the “good” that He promises. 

Brian & I were married in April and we moved our new family to a beautiful home away from the suburbs on a 3 acre plot of land/woods.  The home is exactly what we needed for our blended family of nine children, our homeschooling needs, and business needs.  Nature abounds outside our windows and we have a state park and river access very near to our home.   It’s absolutely perfect in every way . . . truly a sanctuary to me.  After living in a crowded basement for almost a year and a half, it wouldn’t have taken much to please me (LOL), but the Lord has seen to it to bring us more than we ever could have dreamed for ourselves.

To top it all off, we just recently found out that we are expecting our first child (or maybe two!).  I have another ultrasound this Friday to determine if we are having twins.  We are all so excited!    More on that as we learn more . . .

I have many stories and tidbits I could share with you regarding the past couple of years (or twenty years if you were REALLY interested LOL!), but I want to share probably the most profound thing I’ve ever been told by one of my children.  One morning while sitting in Sunday School, in the midst of all the junk that was going on at the time, my daughter Jessie wrote me a little note and passed it across the table that said, “Mom, I just noticed you smile a lot now.”  Since then, she’s made many comments about old family photos/videos/etc. and how very sad, tired, and stressed I look.  She never noticed it before.  That was just “mom”.  Now she sees a different woman, a renewed woman, a woman who smiles genuinely, laughs uncontrollably, and isn’t weighed down by the heaviest of life’s trials . . . a woman with joy.  I’m so glad she noticed. 

I’m so glad I found my smile again.  Praise Jesus for all the gifts He gives us great and small!

Many verses have brought me vision, peace, and just overall strength.  This is one of my favorites God gave me in the beginning of this journey . . .

Joel 2:23-27 (NKJV)

23 Be glad then, you children of Zion,
      And rejoice in the LORD your God;
      For He has given you the former rain faithfully,
      And He will cause the rain to come down for you—
      The former rain,
      And the latter rain in the first month.
     
24 The threshing floors shall be full of wheat,
      And the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil.

25 “ So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,
      The crawling locust,
      The consuming locust,
      And the chewing locust,
      My great army which I sent among you.
     
26 You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
      And praise the name of the LORD your God,
      Who has dealt wondrously with you;
      And My people shall never be put to shame.
      
27 Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel:
      I am the LORD your God
      And there is no other.
      My people shall never be put to shame.

I am currently reading “A Steadfast Heart” by Elyse Fitzpatrick and wanted to share a poem that she shares in her book.

A Steadfast Heart: Experiencing God’s Comfort in Life’s Storms [With CD]

The Thorn
by Martha Snell Nicholson

I stood a mendicant [beggar] of God
before His royal throne
And begged Him for a priceless gift,
which I could call my own.
I took the gift from out His hand,
but as I would depart,
I cried, “But Lord, this is a thorn
and it has pierced my heart.
This is a strange, a hurtful gift
that Thou hast given me.
He said, “My child, I give good gifts
and give my best to thee.”
I took it home and though at first,
the cruel thorn hurt sore;
As long years passed I learned at last
to love it more and more.
I learned He never gives a thorn
without this added grace.
He takes the thorn to pin aside . . .
the veil which hides His face.

Last year, I was made aware of the root of many of the issues that have been hurting my family. As much as I like to share the happenings of our family as well as what we have found works and doesn’t work in homeschooling, homemaking, etc., some things are just very personal. So, I’ve kept to myself much of the past year for a variety of reasons, but mostly just to protect myself and my children and to retreat with the Lord. Now, with much of this behind me, many wounds healed, I feel it’s time to share. I feel I have a responsibility to share for a number of reasons.

I found out last year that my husband of 14 years had been unfaithful multiple times and for some extended periods of time throughout our marriage. I was totally clueless until the last few months we were together. This information opened up a whole world I never knew about, a world and a man that had been hidden from me. This unveiling helped me to make sense of many things. Lots of “aha” moments. Lots of “oh dear” moments. Lots of just feeling like the rug had been pulled out from under me moments – over and over and over again as I began piecing together so many puzzle pieces from all the years.

Last fall, as I contemplated all my options/choices/etc. and it was evident that reconciliation wasn’t possible, I began turning my focus back to the dreams the Lord placed upon my heart back in 2006 when He first brought the idea and beginnings of NotebookingPages.com to me. Since those early days in 2006, the Lord has blessed me with vision for the future and for my kids, as I’m sure many of you have experienced in your own journey of homeschooling. Specific desires and dreams for ministry, not just for NPC, but for the community in which I would live and for my kids have been growing since those first days.

Now, with all that’s happened and with the knowledge that the Lord was not at all surprised by my circumstances, I see clearly that He has been making preparations for this period of my life for quite some time. He knew what was coming, then and now, and knew what I needed. He put many provisions in place for me and my children. I had to fight to an incredible degree this past year to keep NotebookingPages.com in my possession. I finally came to the point of realizing that this vision God put in me was born from Him and that He would be the one to keep it going. So I released the business/ministry as well as everything else to Him and prayed for the faith to leave it in His hands. Many things did not go well. Many days I did not keep the faith as I should have, but He loved me through it and taught me much. Keeping the business, the dream, the vision, meant losing almost all of what was my “home” (physically & materially). However, in return, I have learned even more how true God is to His word and how when we take the time to really listen, He is speaking and leading all the time. He prepared me as well as my kids during a week of shared quiet times (prior to learning of all that was going on) for this period of financial/material loss we have experienced. We have learned, our “home” is with the Lord; it’s eternal and not something that can ever be taken from us. He never leaves us or forsakes us and He does work all things together for our good.

It’s been a year of many, many blessings as the Lord has shown me His provisions, His hand in preparing me for this time in my life, and His overwhelming love and grace in getting me through some very bitter moments and times where I didn’t feel connected with myself anymore. He has brought new friends into my life as well as many old friends. He’s surrounded me literally with family. My children and I have been living in my parents’ basement for almost one year now and surprisingly we’re all still alive and well LOL. It’s tight as you can imagine! Maybe I’ll post some photos of our creative use of space some time. I am also very blessed to have an old friend of mine walking with me now, taking on the role that God intended for him and intended for me. His story and mine met up at an incredible time in both of our lives and once again, as God has shown me over and over throughout this whole period of my life, He is in control and has a plan, a dream, a vision for my future.

Thanks for making it this far in “my story”. I pray that as I dive back into the work and ministry of NotebookingPages.com, the Lord will bless us both. Many ideas have been sitting on the back-burner for years now, waiting for me to have the time to really dig into them. Now is the time. Many things in my homeschooling have had to change. Thankfully, I’m still able to homeschool, although I’m much more limited in time than ever before. We’re trying some new things, doing some old things with new flair, and doing some things exactly the same because it just feels familiar and familiar feels like “home”. Stay tuned to the blog for more on that.

With my greatest thanks and love to my many notebooking friends, customers, and family for all of your love and support these past few years, blessings to you and yours,

Debra @ NotebookingPages.com

PS…
I know many will feel compelled to comment and I welcome you to (I do moderate). I understand the nature of this update is not what you would commonly find coming from me or from any of your other homeschooling publishers. However, one thing I’ve learned is that moms, homeschooling moms especially (maybe?), need to be honest with each other. We need to stop hiding behind these masks of perfection. For years I’ve hidden behind a mask hiding a marriage and issues because of my place in the church and in the homeschool community. I allowed myself to hurt because I feared what others would think. I hope my honesty here in this email will if nothing else help to dispel the idea that any of us truly have it ALL together.

They each have a spiral bound spelling notebook. Taylor’s is the yellow one in the picture – used one of the language art covers from our Free Homeschool Resources section at NotebookingPages.com.  These are divided into four sections: spelling log, challenge words, spelling rules, & spelling reference pages.  I created new spelling paper for these sections (nothing special – just something new for the new year).  You can get your own free copy of our spelling paper here.  The reference pages are copied from the SWR chart pack.  We bound the whole thing together using our ProClick binding machine.

For the first 20-30 days of school, we will complete one reference page a day until they are all “finished” (or at least started).  No, this is not the way the program is written, but I’m tweaking out my own spelling program this year LOL!  The kids redo these pages every year, so they are all pretty familiar with them.  Throughout the year, as they encounter words that follow the rules/patterns of these reference pages, they’ll add them.  Each day they are also copying 1-2 rules into their notebooks until they finish all 29 of them.

For each word list, I’m writing the “clues” for each word on one side of an index card and the word with it’s markings on the other side.  (I’m trying to learn from my friend Molly over at HomeschoolWithIndexCards how to print these on my own – I think I’ve just about got it figured out!)  I have my own little system for dictating the words.  For each multi-letter phonogram, I use a line divided with little hash marks to denote the number of letters needed.  So a three letter phonogram looks like: “_,_,_”. 
So, the word ”mother” would look like: “_ _ _,_    _,_” (note the space between syllables).  
That would be on their “clue” side of the card.  The other side would say “moth² er“.  The whole set of 20 words are then numbered and put together with an O-ring. 

Then, I use my computer’s mic to dictate each word from the list and save the audio.  It takes about 15-20 minutes for me to prep this material for one word list.

The kids LOVE it (so far).  They can work at their own pace as long as I can keep up with creating the cards for each lesson needed.  What’s super-duper fantastic is the time being saved in the LONG run.  Each word list I create will be used by at least 3 kids (maybe 5) by the time it’s all said and done.  I prep only one time!

I am requiring the kids to log 5-10 words a day for three days completing at least 20 words a week.  They sit down at one of the computers (I’ve saved the audio to both computers so 2 kids can work on this at the same time) with their log sheet and cards.  The cards are numbered 1-20 just as their log sheets are.  They play the audio and pause after the first reading of the dictated sounds.  They use their clue card to help them decipher the word.  Then they listen to the repeated dictation of the sounds and if happy with their attempt, flip the card over to check.  They then make any corrections as needed and add any markings they may have missed.  Now, here is where the loss of teacher interaction could make a difference with kids less experienced with this method.  The kids need to understand how the rules and markings work.  These kids have been using SWR for several years now and know their stuff pretty well.  However, we are going over the rules and markings together just to be sure they “get it” in one of our two quiz sessions that week.

Quick rundown of our week:
Day 1:
[Copy 1-2 rules, Work on Building a Reference Page] will last for the first 20-30 days of school
Dictate 5-10 new words, Practice Phonogram Cards

Day 2:
[Copy 1-2 rules, Work on Building a Reference Page] will last for the first 20-30 days of school
Dictate 5-10 new words, Quiz Session with Mom/Quickly go over & discuss new words in log book

Day 3:
[Copy 1-2 rules, Work on Building a Reference Page] will last for the first 20-30 days of school
Dictate 5-10 new words, Practice Phonogram Cards

Day 4: 
W/Mom: Add log words to reference pages as they apply (these are specified in the Wise Guide lists).
Quiz Session with Mom/Quickly go over & discuss new words in log book.

One other section of their spelling book that I hope to blog about at a later time is the Challenge Word List.  Here is where the kids will log words that they have misspelled in their notebooking, reports, etc.

These will be tested during one of their Quiz Sessions with Mom each week.  All words must be spelled correctly twice before this word is taken off their weekly quiz list.  Our Quiz Sessions involve nothing more than a quick quiz taken on a personal-sized marker board.  Mistakes can be quickly erased and paper is not wasted on something we’ll only toss later.  We keep the original list of words (which they have marked), their challenge word list, reference pages, and rules.

**My 2 cents: There tends to be much discussion in homeschooling boards about whether or not SWR is Charlotte Mason friendly.  I do not pretend to be an expert by any means with SWR or CM.  I’m not following either one of their methods as prescribed.  However, I will say that THIS family finds SWR to be very “friendly” for the CM-type education WE are seeking.  So, for us, it’s CM-friendly.   I know the system above isn’t “perfect”, but it will work to meet our goals and it will work well with our schedule/routines.  I’m learning to let go of my perfectionism one step at a time.  With spelling, I want to create better spellers.  I want to give my kids the tools to become better spellers.  I do not want to sacrifice all (or even much) of our time to make sure they become perfect spellers when that time could be spent doing such greater things – like devouring great living books, developing the character and skills needed for the calling(s) in their lives by pursuing the interests of their hearts, spending time with each other and building relationships.  I have wasted enough time over the years trying to ”perfect” so many things in our schooling.  So, this year, our focus is on identifying EVERYTHING that seems to entangle us so that we can once and for all surrender these areas to God and truly be FREE to receive the richest blessings that come from THE one and only Perfect One.

This is one of the greatest little tools I’ve found for notebooking. I thank my friend Angi for introducing it to me a few years ago!  It’s called ProClick and it’s a binding tool.  Basically, it’s one long hole puncher that punches little holes all down the side of your paper to fit into the special ProClick spiral spines.

What is awesome about these spines is that you can easily open and close them.  So you can start your new notebook with just your front/back cover (designed by the author of course, your child!) and then as they create their pages, they simply slide the puncher down the side of their paper, “unzip” their spine, put in the page, and zip it back up.  The spines come with a little plastic “zipping” tool that opens and closes the spines.  You can do it manually, but the zip tool is so much more fun!

You can make just about any size notebook that you want because the spines are very easy to cut.  You can even create a landscape style notebook!  The kids enjoy making mini-scrapbooks with all of our scraps and leftover supplies.  The only downside is that the largest spines do not hold much more than 85-100 sheets of regular paper, so even less if using cardstock.  What I do for our bigger notebooking subjects, like history, is to either keep separate notebooks for different time periods or put the pages into sheet protectors at the end of the year into one big 3-ring binder.

We used to use the big 3-ring binders for all of our notebooking, but they became so cumbersome for little hands.  I LOVE the ProClick spines because the notebooks are easier to handle, they lay flat so you can keep your pages in the notebook while you work on them if you like, you can easily put pages in and take pages out, and unlike “unprotected” sheets in your 3-ring binders they don’t rip out so easily. 

It’s also great for combining the mini-books that you do for lapbooking with notebooking.  If you’re used to putting your finished notebooking pages in sheet protectors, it’s a little hard to view the minibooks.  Since these spines are better at keeping your pages intact, you really don’t need the extra protection of a sheet protector and so the mini-books are more accessible.  Of course, a lot of hands-on contact will begin to show without the protection of sheet-protectors, but that’s just the sign of a well-loved notebook, isn’t it?  Oh, I also have used it to punch through transparencies without any problems.  I don’t know that it’s recommended, but just thought I’d tell you it works for me!

Here’s a demo picture I put together showing how to use the ProClick binding tool to make your own notebooks (click for closer view):

The best place I’ve found for purchasing this binding tool is at Amazon .  I search online for the spines and buy them in bulk for a better deal at the beginning of each school year.

You can view a close-up of one our kids’ notebooks here to see a close-up of the spines or visit our website to read more about this binding tool and other supplies we use for notebooking.

Free Father’s Day Holiday Notebooking Pages now available:
Free Homeschool Resources / Free Holidays & Special Days Notebooking Pages

Free Flag Day Holiday Notebooking Pages now available:
Free Homeschool Resources / Free Holidays & Special Days Notebooking Pages

In Missouri, we are required to track the number of hours we school and to keep a portfolio (that’s the gist of it anyway), so it’s pretty easy to keep track of everything with paper/pencil.  When I kept running into a brick wall with the program, I finally decided we would just do the paper/pencil thing.  So I put HST on the shelf last summer.  [Curious about our flexible scheduling?  Flexible scheduling (part 1)  (part 2).]

Well it turns out that RIGHT AFTER I put it on the shelf an update was made to the program that made it MUCH more flexible and user-friendly for crazy moms like myself who want super-organization with super-duper built in flexibility.  (Kicking myself for this!)  Thanks to a post by my online buddy, Angi, I caught wind of the new features a couple of months ago and have been “testing” the program ever since.  I have to say that I a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y LOVE it! (By the way, all updates to Homeschool Tracker are FREE!)

So what makes it so great for me now?  Within the Lesson Plans, there is this little column/feature called “Group”.  That one little feature has made ALL the difference for me.  It gives me the ability to group my plans in all sorts of ways giving me the ability to sort my plans in all sorts of ways – it’s great!  Plus, there is also the sequencing feature as well as the order feature that allow you to sort/group your plans in other ways.  Lots of flexibility!  I’m not about to try to explain all of this LOL!  You’ll have to go check it out yourself.  Go to www.homeschooltracker.com. They give you a free basic version to try out before upgrading to their Plus version.  Not sure what’s included/not included in basic version, but it’s worth your time to check it out.

I now have just about everything I do in HST – our lesson plans, the kids’ chores, our cleaning lists, memorization lists, reading lists, etc.  I’ve only skimmed the top of what can be done with this program.  You can add schedules, appointments, . . . and who knows what else!  The problem is I’ve been “winging it” for the past couple of months adding all sorts of things, so it’s basically just one big unorganized mess!  So, starting TODAY and for the rest of June until however long it takes me to finish it, I’m going to learn how to use this program to its fullest.  I’ve printed out the Table of Contents for their 200-something page User Manual to be my guide and I am going to go page-by-page through this manual saturating myself with all the possibilities.

Sound fun?  I’ll try to keep you posted on my progress.   I have also just printed out what looks to be a fantastic new tool from Simply Charlotte Mason.  It’s their newest book, “Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education in 5 Simple Steps“.  Even though I finally feel like I have found my niche with our homeschooling and with all we do, I think going through this book will help me to fine-tune what we are doing and help me to make this the most productive and fun-filled year yet.  I am excited to see where this year will lead us.

Off to plan!

2009 Monthly and Yearly Calendar pages are now available:
Free Homeschool Resources / Homeschool Planning Charts & Printables