Daily Walk

I should be going for a daily walk. Sometimes I do not. It's a combination of mosquitoes and rain, lately, and also that I don't want to go outside some days. I need to keep up with my daily walks, for both mental and physical health. I'm really, really going to get on track with that!

I have five regular walks. 

The pond one is the longest and has the fun of watching birds, both in trees and water. There are ducks, geese, coots, and one day a great egret; there are also a vast number of red-winged blackbirds and many, many songbirds. It also has the most mosquitoes right now. 

The other long walk is along the path above the creek. It has a bench part way along to sit and think, and if I go long enough, I can go down to the part beside the creek. It's also very mosquito filled right now!

The third walk is up to the start of the creek path. It takes me across the creek (and if I want, there's a little "look-out" spot to sit for a bit), and I like to stop and watch the water on both sides as I come and go. 

The fourth walk is through my neighbourhood. I can make it a bit longer or shorter, depending on how I feel that day. It's a shorter walk in general (even the long version), and I take it when I want to stretch but don't want a long walk.

Finally, there is the "I really need to walk but it's probably going to rain soon" walk. It's pretty much across the road, then either down the alley or the side street; either one will easily lead back to my street. It gets me out of the house just enough to feel better and avoid the coming rain.

Today I took the third walk. It's sunny and warm, and it was a nice break from the rain. The creek is high, but lower than it was last week. I watched two ducks rush along until they reached a quite bit near the bank, just before the log and white water. They seemed to be getting up the nerve for the next bit, and then launched themselves into the rapids and shot out past the wild water. I'm pretty sure they were having fun!

Thoughts at Grad

Saturday was Church Grad. It used to be Homeschool Grad because we've always had several homeschool families (more than several now), but for some years now it's been open to every grad, regardless of how they were educated.

There's always a mix of children I know well and children I hardly know. The later are usually families who started when one or more of their children were junior high or older, so I maybe know the younger children but did not spend much time with the older ones. Last year was different; almost the entire group had been in my history class one year. This year, of the 13 grads, I had only taught three of them.

One in particular I had taught for 3 years and tutored on and off for more. I had also been involved with his family when he was in the younger classes and needed more help with focus and behaviour. He's much less trouble now!

I was thinking, as I watched my boy (and the others) get their diplomas, as I listened to their parents talk about them, and we all got a bit teary at points: I have so little time with them. I know that their parents feel the same, but I have even less time. I get them for a year or two in Sunday School (the three years was an anomaly and back when there were fewer students and I could keep some for an extra year); I maybe see them in the homeschool room; I talk with them on Sundays; I may have their families over. Taken altogether, it's a very short amount of time. If I add up the hours, it results in days, maybe weeks in total. 

The questions I was asking myself: What am I doing with that time? Am I doing all I can to help prepare them for adulthood? More importantly, am I doing my best to point them towards Christ?

It merged with my plans for Sunday School going forward. I've always tried to find the best materials, good teachers, everything to make Sunday School enjoyable, yes, but more importantly, to point them towards Christ. Many of my plans and desires for this take time that I don't always have, but that I need to keep finding and using well. 

And absolutely, the biggest responsibility is with the parents. It's their job to teach them, raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord, daily point them to the cross and the biggest, most important truths. Still, while my responsibility is much smaller, it's still there. God has given me a place to serve the church family and the church families and the parents have entrusted their children to me. 

This coming year will (I pray) be a planning year, a time to make sure Sunday School is all that it should be. We have so little time with them; my pray is that we will use it wisely and well.

July Plan

Summer is definitely upon us. We have had so much rain, with more to come. On the other hand, the sunny days are getting hotter. My garden is growing nicely. The little pot of perennials from last summer has flowers just starting to bud, the tomatoes and growing well, I've already harvested some green onions, and the other flowers are bright and cheerful.

I don't have a lot of work in the summer. The happy life of a homeschool facilitator means that I'm pretty much off until mid-August or thereabouts (whenever parents start filling out program plans). I just need to check email once in a while just in case. I do a bit of tutoring once a week, and I'm doing some tech work for a friend, but that doesn't take much of my time.

My plan for July is to read, read, and read more. Specifically, I plan to read children/young adult books. I get piles of recommendations from families, and I like to read the books before passing the recommendations on. It's not that I don't trust my families, only that different families have different rules for what they want their children to read. 

Which means I get to do a lot of light, easy reading next month! I've already started, and now I'm just waiting to get more books from the library. I'll also mix in some deeper reading; I have some biographies, theology, and history in my summer pile as well. 

The main goal for July, though, is rest. Reading lighter, simpler books has a double benefit: I can recommend things to families and I get to rest. It's a win-win!

In Which I Try A New Genre

I have a high school student who is a Very Reluctant reader. Tutoring him is a challenge, as not only does he not want to read the books for his course, his dad agrees that he doesn't have to read all the books. We ran into trouble when the assignment was directly from To Kill a Mockingbird and he had not (and did not want to) read it.

He had to read something. We couldn't do all the assignments from Tom Sawyer (which I'm pretty sure he read at least most of).

He finally agreed to read Leviathan by Scott Westfeld. It's a steampunk novel, and WWI alternate history, and his parents had given it to him for Christmas, and he had immediately tossed it on a shelf and ignored it until recently. And, lo and behold, he enjoyed it. I mean, really enjoyed it. Enough that his parents got him the sequels and he's reading them.

One of his favourite things is that the book describes how things work. One side has been building mechanical beasts and means of travel, and the other has been playing with biology and coming up with their own contraptions and animals. The book talks a lot about how they work, more than just "it flies because it does". My student is mechanically inclined and that appealed to him.

So.... I read the book. It was not a bad story. The characters are interesting, the story moves fairly quickly, and it wasn't too predictable. The steampunk bits were just like any fantasy book, so not that strange for anyone who has read a lot of fantasy (raises hand). I probably won't read the sequels, but that's nothing about the story and more about being the wrong age with the wrong interests. I like my historical fiction a bit more realistic.

I'd definitely recommend it for teen boys who like reading about adventure, war, close escapes, and mechanics and the like. 

On Slowing Down a Bit

Yesterday I had my Sunday School boys over. There were 5 boys and the young man who helps in my class. It was noisy (boys are loud), chaotic, and fun. They devoured pizza, chips, and junk food. They played with Lego and a remote controlled truck. We had planned to go to the park, but there was a storm moving in, so we decided against that. We discussed which of the Torchlighter videos to watch later that evening, but put it aside until a bit later. I prefer movies as a "wind down" time.

Much to my joy, the storm blew over with little rain and the sky started to clear up. They boys were playing happily. Some of them were building a castle and dungeon out of Lego and the rest were playing a board game. I was hesitant to disrupt the peace, but I also didn't know how long it would last, so I finally gave them the option: stay, or head out to the park. The boys voted 4-1 to go to the park, so we headed out. The park is a short walk away; the boys alternated between running ahead and having pinecone fights.

At the park, they grabbed the basketball and all the males headed over to the court. I stayed at a picnic table (happily sheltered so not wet from the rain), taking care of the other sports equipment they had brought, along with water bottles, jackets, and whatever else got tossed my way.

And for half an hour, I just sat. I watched the boys play, I watched the children on the playground, I listened to the sounds of the park. I just sat and enjoyed life. Officially, I was taking care of the boys and keeping an eye on the stuff. Really, I was just enjoying getting to stop and rest.

I'm trying to do that this summer: Slow down, stop working, stop thinking about all the things, enjoy the moment, let the peace settle over me. I've been walking down to the creek to stand and watch the water. I've been sitting in front of the balcony window and watching the rain pound down and the wind whip the trees. I've been standing by the pond, watching the waterfowl and listening to the birds in the trees. I've been getting coffee and sitting outside in open areas and reading or people watching. I've been letting my mind slow down and I've been relaxing.

There are so projects that I could focus on, but I've been remembering that it's okay to slow down, to stop for a while, to just let things go. Summer is my quiet time, and I'm allowed to enjoy the peace and not think about all the things I could do. There is a time to stop and watch the rain, listen to the birds, enjoy coffee, and then be ready for the next task.

This summer is about slowing down.

The Last Sunday

Yesterday was the last Sunday School for the year. It was a wild year; we had some illnesses go through in February, making things more complicated. Then a wee, sweet, very early baby came in March, leaving us short two teachers as his parents were more focused on him than on the students (go figure!). But we all survived, 33 weeks of teaching, and now we get a break!

This year I taught my kids theology, focusing on Bibliology and Theology Proper, with some Christology and Pneumatology thrown in. We covered everything I could fit into the time we had and looked up piles of Scripture references. We also had 2 missionary weeks, taught by my helpers.

The kids did a good job on their memory work this year. They got a prize for every 10 verses, for a potential total of 3 prizes. Most of my class received at least one prize, and 9/15 received all 3 (and to be fair, 2 of them stopped attending part way through the year, so really it's 9/13). I was very pleased with them.

The last week is always more relaxed. Some teachers do a short lesson, most of us do review or trivia, and everyone has snacks. 

My class of 11 and 12 year olds had some excellent cupcakes and some acceptable juice boxes. There was a rousing game of Bible trivia, followed by ocean trivia because we had time and it was the first box I grabbed. The Bible trivia winners had first choice of a pile of treats; for ocean trivia, answering a question correctly and first meant I threw a candy at you. I did eventually make most of the class stop answering so the quieter students had a chance for prizes! We ended with me throwing the remaining candy at them and the wild scramble. According to one student, that was his favourite part, completely overshadowing the 32 hours and 45 minutes of Sunday School leading up to it!

And now it's summer, and we all get a break. I'm resting for three weeks, and then I'll start to think about next year.

I Might Be Old...

Yesterday the Sunday School girls were over for an end-of-year party. There were crafts to make, pizza and junk food to eat, movies to watch, and things to discuss.

At one point we were talking about books we've read recently. I told them that I'd just finished a autobiography, but they probably wouldn't know the person. It was about Alex Trebek. They didn't know who he was, no problem, but it turns out that they'd never heard of Jeopardy!

They knew the theme song, given that I sing it to them frequently during quizzes and trivia time; in fact, they said that everyone knows that. They had just never heard of the show.

When I was younger, I'm pretty sure everyone had at least hear of Jeopardy! I showed them a short clip of final Jeopardy (teen tournament), but they did not recognize it.

One day I'm going to make them watch a full episode, but an older one with Alex Trebek.