Our Downsizing Journey: The Beginning

Well, after much prayer and discussion, dh and I have decided to move our family into a smaller space.  We have our eye on a couple of places right now.  We will be renting either an apartment or town home for a few years so that we can actually save some money instead of just scraping by (a lot of the time, we are barely even doing that).

So, we will be going through all our stuff in the next couple of months to decide what's really important.  We have accumulated so much "stuff" over the years, and the only reason we have kept it is because we have the space and it's more convenient than going through the hassle of getting rid of it.  We have some relatives that can store some of our items until we get back into a house, like expensive tools and the lawnmower, snowblower, etc.  But we will be getting rid of A LOT of stuff, weighing out whether it will be worth it to have to pay for extra storage (which hopefully we won't have to do...we will have a garage included in rent) vs. buying it again when we are in our house and need it, or just plain get rid of it all together.  There are a lot of things that will fall into that last category. 

I am actually getting excited about this.  Being in closer quarters and not having so much STUFF to take care of, I will be able to spend more time with the kids, training, teaching, nurturing, and just plain building a better relationship with them.  Same for dh...any extra hours he gets will be just that.  It won't be necessary for him to be away at work so much so that we can barely scrape by.  We will actually be able to SAVE money (imagine that!).  I'm really excited to see what the Lord has in store for our family through all this.

Well, the house work basics are done, the kids are taking their naps, and I'm going down into the trenches (otherwise known as our basement) to get to work and start sorting!

Week 4

What a great week in Adventures!  We have a lot of fun projects this week.  Over the next few weeks, we are learning how Jesus is the Light of the World.  To kick off the week, we made this candle by spreading glue on and putting a paper on that says "Jesus the Light of the World" and sprinkling salt all over it.  We are going to light it every night for dinner. 



We are also learning about Native Americans this week.  Today, we made this wigwam out of a construction paper base with torn up brown paper bags glued over it.  When it dried, we cut a hole in the top for the smoke and we cut a door out.  It was actually hard work and tried both of us in patience, but it turned out pretty nice and we DID have fun!  Tomorrow we are making a teepee (much easier) complete with twigs and watercolor for the outside!



Friday we are planning to visit the historical society where they have life-sized teepees and wigwams that you can walk into and get more of a feel for how the Native Americans actually lived!  I can't wait...I love field trips!  Oh, yeah, and so do the kids  LOL!

Busy, busy!

It's been a pretty busy week and it's not over yet.  Thursday I went to a funeral for my cousin...he passed away on Sunday night/Monday morning from lung cancer.  He was only 35.  Please pray for the family and for his many friends who are feeling such a loss right now.

Yesterday through this afternoon I had an overnight meeting at a local church.  I am serving on team for a women's weekend retreat in November.  Dh is serving on the men's team the week before.  We had both gone through it ourselves a couple of years ago and WOW.  This is an amazing ministry they have here.  It has really changed our relationships with Christ for the better and is doing the same for many.

Tonight I need to prepare for Sunday school, which I teach to the preschoolers in our church.  I will probably do that after I put the boys to bed, since I don't have to do much this week.

So, right now, I'm just kind of relaxing.    The boys are playing nicely, the house is not a disaster...life is good.  GOD is good! 

Nature walk

Well, we went on our first nature walk of the year today.  It was a lot of fun!  Hopefully, we will be able to make this a weekly event.  One of the goals is to go to the same park every time and see how things change with the seasons.  We have picked out a tree that we will particularly look at each time we visit and once each season, Vincent will draw it to show the differences for each season.  We also took a leaf from that tree that we can put in his nature notebook along with his drawing and any other pictures he wants to put in from the visit.  This is such a fun project, and I know both boys and dh had lots of fun, too!

Here's "our" tree:


Here's some pics of the creek that runs through the park...it has lots of these little waterfalls:






We found this rock that has "Jesus" written on it.  I thought it would be pretty cool to have the picture when we study "Jesus the Rock." 


I feel so blessed to live so close to such a beautiful park.  Until we are able to move out of the city, at least we have somewhere nearby to just enjoy nature...a place to remind us how truly amazing God's creation really is!  God is so good!

Thursday

We are having so much fun in school this year!  Last week, we started learning the importance of names as an intro to learning the different names of Jesus this year.  We also learned about Leif Ericsson and the Vikings.  We started our timeline and made sugar cookies with our names on them.





This week we are learning about how Jesus saves, and about Christopher Columbus.  Today we made boats out of tin foil and sailed them across the "ocean," otherwise known as our bathtub LOL!













What fun!  Tonight, Daddy's going to build a small wooden boat with Vincent. 

2nd Grade

Well, we have completed our 2nd day of second grade (any Veggie Tales songs come to mind? LOL!).  It’s going really well so far!  We are studying American History this year and it’s going to be so fun!  We have started a binder for our US History Notebook…I can’t wait to see this thing grow.    For our first day, we had a snack of yogurt, blueberries and strawberries.  We did a brief review of the Pledge of Allegiance, and we are doing a brief overview of maps.  Vincent got his own NIrV bible, and we will be focusing on the names of Jesus this year.  When I gave Vincent his bible, he wanted to look up John 3:16 .  Last year in first, we learned all the books of the bible.  It took him awhile, but he found it and read it on his own.  I love it!  Vincent’s reading has really been coming along…he was able to read the directions and complete pages in his math and spelling books all on his own!  Friday we will kick off reading in history about Lief Ericksson.  We are also doing "I Can Do All Things" for art…starting off with very simple exercises, but we are both loving it.
Next week, we’ll explore his bible more, learn about Christopher Columbus, start music (starting off with "God Bless America"), start the "fun" science, and start Spanish.  I found a really good free resource for this here.  We want to eventually do Rosetta Stone, but we couldn’t afford it this year, so this will be at least a pretty good intro.  Vincent seemed a little leery when he learned he would be doing Spanish, so we’ll start gently and just see how it goes.  If he’s struggling, we’ll wait.
We’re both very excited about the year.  I love American History, even though I know there’s a lot I have forgotten, so it will be fun to re-learn things this year!  And it will be way more fun than the way I learned it (not homeschool). 

Box day!

Yesterday, we got our box with 2nd grade curriculum!  Box day is one of my favorite days of the school year LOL!  It's almost as good as Christmas.  I couldn't get the photos on my other blog, so I am showing them here.

The first 2 pics are the 2nd grade I ordered from My Father's World, Adventures in My Father's World.





These are the toddler toys I ordered for Andrew.  He will get to play with these while I'm doing school with Vincent.


The stuff came right before lunch, so we were exploring things while we ate. 


I am so excited...this is going to be such a fun year!  We are going to start Tuesday.  We will be doing Tuesdays-Saturdays, at dh's request, so that we have the same days off that he does.    Hopefully, I will be able to keep up on posting pictures of our projects and such as the year progresses...I really want to keep a record of what we're doing.  Needless to say, I've had my nose buried in the teacher's manual since last night (I actually fell asleep over it last night in bed LOL!), and probably will until Tuesday!  So, if you don't hear from me, that's where I'll be LOL!

Curriculum day???

Yay!  Nick said we are going to go through the budget today and that we will most likely be able to order curriculum!  I am so excited!  If we order today, we should get it by Monday or Tuesday, so we won’t be starting very "late" at all.  We will be ordering the deluxe package here, and will be using Primary Language Lessons for English, Singapore Math, and Spelling by Sound and Structure by Rod & Staff.  Oh, and dh also said we could order the toddler package for Andrew!  So, it will be fun for him to get something, too.
So, once again, I decide to stop worrying and give it to God, and He is letting me know that HE is in control and that He has everything taken care of.  God is ALWAYS good!  Even in the midst of the situation at hand, I will praise Him because whatever happens, God will put us where we need to be, and where He wants us to be.

Happy Labor Day!

Well, it’s been a pretty good week!  I’ve come a long ways as far as de-cluttering.  The main floor of my house is complete, and I have started upstairs now.  I told hubby it’s kind of like paying off credit cards lol…once you get one paid off, you have more money to apply to the next and it just snowballs.  The more I have stuck to de-cluttering, the more time I have to actually get more de-cluttering done.  The house has been getting easier and easier to maintain.  So, even though I have more time to spend on projects that need to get done, I also seem to have way more time to just relax and hang out with the boys.
Speaking of the boys, we still haven’t been able to get curriculum yet.  But I’m not going to sweat it…we just finished first grade barely a month ago.  Tomorrow I’ll probably just start doing a few things from Ambleside just for some brain exercise but for the most part, we are just going to enjoy our break.  Besides, it’ll be nice to have some time to make sure everything gets (and stays!) clean and organized before we officially get back into the school routine.
On the financial front, we could really use some prayers.  We will be meeting a bankruptcy lawyer soon to discuss options.  We may not file, and we really don’t want to, but we may not have a choice.  We are going to see if we have any other options, and we will have to file as a last resort after we’ve ruled everything else out.  Hubby is really stressed out to be at this point, but I am behind him 100 percent!  I do hate to see him like this, because he truly is working so hard to try and fix our past mistakes.  We both understand that God WILL provide our every need, but I do understand that he still worries about what’s going to happen.  Hubby’s prayer is that he’s not somehow resisting God’s will.  He’s really trying to listen and follow God’s leading in this.  All I know is that God has already done some amazing work here.  Because if we would have been in this spot before we found the Lord…let’s just say it would not be a pretty picture.  I hate to even think of what this home and family would be like.  But the Lord gives us all the strength we need to get through these times.  The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord!

A Productive Friday

Well, I’m just stopping by while taking a break in a busy day.  My neurologist has me on a one-day steroid treatment once per month to help with the other MS stuff.  I guess it’s working, because I have been on the go since I got up this morning!  Here’s what I’ve gotten done so far:
Made bed
Cleaned bedroom (including putting all clean laundry away)
Got laundry running (one load in washer and one in dryer now)
Last night’s dishes (I know, I shoulda had them done, but it doesn’t always get done!)
Picked up and put away things where they belong around the house
Weeded and swept the front yard (now it’s ready for hubby to mow tomorrow)
Washed down the outside of the front door and the two windows I can reach
Got the garbage and compost out
Now I want to start working on the backyard.  That will take a lot more work than the front, so I doubt I will get it done today, but I want to get as much done as possible.  I also have to finish up the laundry, iron some shirts for dh, scrub down the bathroom and sweep the floors.  And once I get the yard done, I will resume de-cluttering on the inside of the house .  I need to finish the living room and our front porch, then the downstairs will be done.  The bedrooms are another story and will probably take me awhile.  Then, it’s on to the basement.  It’s still somewhat of a disaster, but luckily, I got a lot of work down there this spring, and the garage sale cleared A LOT of stuff out for us.  I know we will have plenty more for a garage sale next year and hopefully, we will pretty much be done with the de-cluttering…and KEEPING the clutter out!
Yesterday, I went to the library and checked out a pile of readers, picture books, books with CD’s, and some Ranger Rick magazines for Vincent.  That will be our "school" for now, until I can order curriculum.  I figure as long as he keeps on practicing reading, and is reading good things, he will be just fine until we officially start, and will even be better prepared as he has more time to practice reading .
Anyway, this got a lot longer than I planned, but I do like to get things "down on paper."  LOL!  If I’m not back on in a couple of days, have a good weekend!