Same Story Different Week

This was another brutally long week at work.  I put in over 50 hours and still couldn't keep up with the charting.  I lost my cool yesterday, but fortunately was able to keep my mouth shut.  A monumental task for me when I'm upset.

Tim and I are looking at schooling options for Jaedyn.  We've put all the kids on the Aurora Borrealis Charter School lottery list, but that doesn't look too hopeful.  She has her ups and downs, but it is hard to make a little girl go to school when it is so stressful and difficult for her.  Every Sunday she stresses out and often has a breakdown even as early as Saturday night knowing that Monday morning is approaching.  She did wonderfully well keeping up with her schoolwork and being done by the time I got home from work every day except Thursday.  That was miraculous.  Tim and I need to talk to the teachers again.  She needs tutoring or something in her weak areas, but I don't know if anyone at the private school there really can help us.  It looks like she may have to go public just to get the special help she needs.  She will start OT to help with her fine motor coordination again soon.  We've adjusted her diet severely again (which seems to be helping amazingly again). 

Looks like I'll be going skiing with her on Friday at Alyeska resort.  She wouldn't even consider going without me.  Should be fun.  The following weekend I get to go to a Becoming an Outdoor Woman conference up north around Palmer somewhere.  I'm thrilled to learn to shoot guns and bows and arrows and to learn bear safety.

One of my church groups is talking about becoming prepared for disaster.  This kind of thinking gets me stressed and I think adds to my early morning awakenings I've had this week.  I've sort of backed off.  I am praying that if we need to do this that the Lord would show Tim and that he would take on the task of researching what we'd need to do and setting about it.  The other women in the group are SAHMs or housewives

Carol

What a brutal week!

This week in the clinic I was seeing 12-15 patients a day and they were tough cases.  Where are all the colds and bronchitis patients that I so love to see?  I sent 2-3 to the hospital.  If they came in with a simple problem, they often had 3-4 problems!  Oh I am so glad this week is over!!!!

Relieved to not be homeschooling

After 6 years of homeschooling, I must admit, that it was hard to turn another direction.  I loved having the say in what happened with my kids, what they learned, who was able to be an influence on them.  However in the last year or two before I gave it up, I started having second thoughts.  My kids were not testing well.  I know that isn't everything, but it does show some things.  My kids might not be learning everything they need to know to succeed in this world.  They were only able to learn as much as I learned myself.  I consider myself educated enough to be able to teach my kids to do standard education.  After all, I got all A's through high school and most of college...  However, the niggling little thoughts wouldn't go away.  I'd hear about things my nieces and nephews or other kids were doing and it would sit heavy in the back of my head.  I was uncomfortable.  One of my daughters was draining me.  We spent our day doing the main subjects and ceased to be able to do any extras.  I couldn't do the fun stuff with my little ones to make their school fun either.  We were too far to take on sports or music, and the kids didn't have any friends.

Turn around one year later and my kids are in a private school.  They each are learning an instrument.  My youngest daughter has taken off with her reading by leaps and bounds.  The older girls are doing math that I started doing in high school in fifth and seventh grade.  They each have a sport they participate in.  The friends category is still on the short end, but overall I am relieved.  I feel good about what they are learning.  I know they are in a good place with good people who pray for them and desire for them to succeed.  The pressure is off my shoulders to do it all.  God is showing me that even though my kids aren't with me 100 % of the time, they are still with Him that long.

I know that our economy is not good.  There are many who think the end of the world as we know it is near.  I don't know what has brought them to that conclusion, but it makes me uncomfortable to hear it and to know that we just got ourselves into the biggest debt of our lives with the purchase of this house.  I think I'm in a good field.  I felt like the Lord told me that He did not want me to give up my license.  He even did a little miracle to ensure that that didn't happen January 2010.  This job was His leading, and I hope the house is part of His plan too.  At any rate, I hope that even if the world falls apart, my job will stand secure and so will the kids' school situation, or something as good.  I know that if my job falls through, God will continue to ever sustain us as our heavenly Father. Heck, if worse comes to worst, I've got six years of homeschooling experience, and I even know a little more now what school looks like in a good system, so I could emulate it a little better if I had to...

Do you know what is in your food?

Where do I start?  My husband and I watched, "King Corn" and "Food, Inc" this weekend.  Gross!  If you haven't seen those movies go check them out at Blockbusters.  That is where we rented our copies.  I already have a hard time eating much of the stuff they call food in this world.  Now my standards just got way higher.

We already try to eat naturally and avoid artificial flavors, colors and preservatives.  Now it looks like we need to find a new source of meat - hunting, or grass-fed beef and, of course, fish - a super source of meat in Alaska.  I don't know what the farmer's markets are like around here.  How do you all do your shopping?  Where do you get your food?

Fevers, Snow, Parent-Teacher Conferences

From a couple of posts ago you read that Eliana got a fever on Sunday night.  It ended up that she had it until Wednesday.  Fever and sleeping a lot and no other problems (except an elbow recovering from 12 hours of dislocation!).  As of last night, Josiah, 4, has the fever.  He had a good night sleeping.  Now the fever is low (99.1 down from 102.5 last night).  He doesn't even feel sick, but he looks a little puny and he is curled up in a ball on the couch...

We got a new dowsing of snow this week - the big heavy flake kind.  Our long driveway had my husband struggling.  He prayed for a better solution.  That afternoon he came home from shopping to find our new neighbor stuck in the snow with his 4-wheeler.  Dh got back in the Suburban and headed over to offer assistance.  His thanks?  The man came over with his 4-wheeler and blade and dug out our driveway... How's that for answered prayer?

I met with the girls' teachers this week.  Things seem to be going well enough.  Jaedyn still struggles with keeping on task.  Ciara still struggles with loneliness and not having friends and with frustrations doing her science.  Elly is still a delight to her teacher.  I'm pleased to find out that Elly is in the middle of her reading group.  She started out behind the class having joined in midway through the program they started last year...  My prayer is that we will find a way to help Jaedyn be successful and keep focused and stay on task.

I was happy to hear from a few of my missionary friends.  It is a blessing to hear of their successes and to know they are still out there serving the best they can.

Our computer crashed this week.  We've lost all our pictures since 2005 and our complete contact list...  I'm hoping that we can figure out how to get it back...

On the spiritual side of things, I've been reading about how gentiles fit into the Bible and trying to figure out my identity.  It is good.

Carol