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Our life is in flux and our faith is getting exercise.

Jason’s severance pay ended so we officially have no income. And we’re enjoying the travesty that is pay-your-own health insurance.

I’m still getting used to all that’s different this year: Ada lives here but she lives a parallel life, one which I purposely don’t keep track of for both our benefit. I do like half an hour of school most days—a Bible lesson with Liz and Caleb and then going over their history and/or English assignments. For the rest of the day I wobble between trying to be productive (cleaning house, prepping food, doing laundry, deadheading the garden) and trying to enjoy my increased free time without guilt (reading, puzzling, talking to friends), until it’s time to take Liz to volleyball.

Jason isn’t working but is starting to spread a few feelers. We’re trying to find a finance guy so we can have a clear picture of what exactly we need. Life looks a lot different than it did when I had a passel of children underfoot, so possibilities are myriad.

Put another way, uncertainties are myriad.

Odds and ends around the house have gotten done; Jason scrubbed all the windows, inside and out; I shoveled out the long-abused sewing room and weeded the front flower bed; Jason cleaned out the shed and caught up on car maintenance and reseeded the lawn’s bare patches.

And we’re selling our old house. 

We’ve rented it out since we moved here but time has come to liquidate. So we found a realtor and Jason spent a week fixing it up and after a couple weeks we have an offer signed. Hopefully we will close next month, not only so we have the money but also so Jason can stop mowing the gigantic yard that now has to be done in sections with a push mower since our riding mower died. 

So it’s not like we have nothing to do. But the question is looming bigger, What’s next?

We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You.

2 Chronicles 20:12

Dear Mr. Heavisides

Dear Mr. Heavisides,

It has been an astonishing thirty-two years since I sat in your ninth-grade English class. You were fresh out of teaching college. (You’re probably old now, like I am.)

I went to school for seventeen years. I have had moderately good teachers. I have had some excellent teachers. And from kindergarten through college, I have had brilliant teachers, energetic teachers, creative teachers, demanding teachers, weird teachers, likable teachers, effective teachers, and memorable teachers. It’s a rare privilege to have a schoolteacher who unites more than a few of those qualities. 

You combined all eight.

It’s astounding to do the math about how long it’s been because I can picture you in the classroom clearer than I can remember what I had for lunch today.

Don’t start your concluding paragraph with ‘In conclusion’! Bleah!! (*vomiting noise*)

If you ever get the chance to become a teacher, do it. It’s the best job in the world. And if you ever get a chance to be an English teacher, even better.

out on the town with Liz for my birthday

Guess what? I got the chance to be a homeschool teacher. And it is the best job in the world, you’re right! 

Liz and I solved the speakeasy escape room with thirteen minutes to spare—an activity that Mr. Heavisides, sadly, was probably not allowed to do with his students.

One of the escape room clues was accompanied by this surprise message

And this year, I became a ninth-grade English teacher, just like you. Well, except my classroom is my house and my students are my children and my class size is two.

I’ve outsourced high school English before, and come away dissatisfied (shout-out to involuntary guinea pig oldest children everywhere). If you could, at age twenty-three, teach forty ninth-graders to stop writing “In conclusion” and get them to write a page full of sentences that follow logically from one another, then it is possible. 

Although it may be harder than you made it look.

 Can I explain what makes a good thesis sentence? Will I succeed in teaching reasonably coherent writing?

You did it. And you did it while somehow being popular with teenagers and lots of fun, too. 

That’s higher than I’m aiming. I just want them to learn how to write. 

pedicure with Maddie, also for my birthday

Fun, high energy, likability, and brilliance may not be possible for me. There’s a good chance I will achieve memorable, though. Even if one day they make me cringe with convoluted writing, forgetting all I labored to teach them in high school composition class, they’ll probably remember that I’m their mom.

recent storm with the biggest (and loudest) hail I’ve ever seen

Thanks for teaching me to write and inspiring me to do the same.

Mindy

Class of ‘98

First day of school 2026

I started the dreaded task of working on the school room right after the birthday party at Grandma’s house.

It sorely needed attention after the summer of neglect.

First, though, I tried out my new prime 35mm camera lens Grandma gave me for my birthday.

Last big stack of the summer. I’ve finished the four on top but haven’t started the two on the bottom yet—I’ve been spending my leisure hours, and my birthday money, on watching Sanditon on Amazon Prime instead.

Buck kept me company while I started shoving things around—from behind his fence though, so I didn’t squish him with moving furniture.

After an hour, at my first coffee break, it almost looked inspiring!

Buck agrees, so inspired

But a few hours later the serious furniture moving began and the room entered the “worse before it gets better” phase.

At which point it was rather demoralizing.

Midweek, Ada started her first day of college, notwithstanding the fact that she’s going to the exact same school she went to last year and the year before, where she was enrolled in college classes. Now she’s really, truly in college, as in, only college and no longer concurrently in high school.

On Saturday we acquired a dog. Minnie:

Minnie is indefinitely but temporarily living with us while her owner is in physical therapy rehab. The very first day we brought her home, there was a thunderstorm, which terrified her in her already stressed state. She astutely identified the mommy and daddy of the household and curled up, trembling, as close as possible to our bed.

Minnie is doing much better now and although I’m sure she still misses her real family, she has become quite affectionate with us and I must admit to a self-esteem boost when she greets me at the door with enthusiastic tail wagging. Can you entirely despair in life when a dog looks you in the eye and her tail involuntarily starts waving?

We started school last Monday. I have such a little, tiny student population! *snif*

Minnie is not allowed in the school room since we value Buck’s life. If he catches a glimpse of her when the door opens he freaks out and runs around in panicked, counterproductive circles that only draw attention to himself. She hasn’t particularly noticed him and maybe they would end up the best of friends…but maybe not, so Minnie stays shut out.

I forgot to take the After pictures until a few days after we started, but the room did achieve perfect organization and cleanliness for the first day of school.

 

Late summer

Late summer means wondering if we’ve gotten our fill of lounging and swimming and sleeping in.

 

Late summer means going to the county fair.

Bunny barn was the first and most important stop.

I always enjoy the livestock barns too. This guy had on a Hawaiian shirt, very aura.

For some, late summer means fishing from the lake to stock up Grandpa’s little pond.

every grown-up: Drop in the fish gently, Jackson
Jackson: *spikes the fish like a game-winning football

Late summer means celebrating Grandma’s birthday.

And my birthday.

Any time of year means riding on the unfortunately-named (by Grandpa) Hanky Panky Blankie.

Summer means a cherry-seed-spitting contest, an event that brought one of Grandma’s chickens running.

Late summer means hoping you got enough leisure in to last you through the long school year about to start.