For obvious reasons, I do not make comments about football.  Winners or losers or favorite teams or upsets or coaches, etc.

However, as I have watched more games this season (we recently got a television with actual access to shows and games after about ten years), I am baffled with this notion that a grown man/coach that expects his players to always be in their correct position on the field cannot keep his own body off the field. Instead, they have this other grown man pulling on their shirt or pants for a majority of the game to keep them from getting a penalty. I don’t get it.  Don’t bother trying to explain it to me with actual reasons because I likely wouldn’t buy them.

I immediately think of a toddler on a leash.  No judgement if you actually used one of these, but thankfully, I never had to.

Happy fall football day!

Sometimes the week is so “interesting” that you have to remind yourself that there were bright spots.  That your home school is actually working, even though it doesn’t always go smoothly or without so. many. opinions. from these kiddos. So, after coming out of my Hurricane Irma addiction (Am I the only one who watched and watched and watched some more? Josh would say, “They are just saying the same thing, Kristy. They’re gonna say the same thing in the next 20 minutes as well.”), I led us in our home school week, but somehow it was just a wonky week. I thought sharing our bright spots might encourage me!

#1) Mack read his math lesson and made a notes sheet without my prompting.

#2) Mack and I finished Danny, Champion of the World and started The Hobbit.

I have to admit that I haven’t gotten into The Hobbit before now—I know, I know. Crazy. But I am very much enjoying this book!

#3)Our Bible curriculum (that I bought for last year, but we never got to) has been amazing.  We gather around 8:45 at the breakfast table and eat and talk and then dive into a chapter of this book.  I highly recommend it!

#4) The kids are loving church!  Youth group is a highlight, and Mack is enrolled in Awana for the first time in his life. *GASP* Bless his baptist heart! Wednesday nights were overwhelming for me for a season, so I opted out for a few years. This year Mack is in choir and Awanas. He is still unsure of choir, but we’re gonna rock along with it because I think he will grow to love it. Josh and I are helping in 11th and 12th grade Sunday School. We may have lived here over a year, but we are still making strides out of our comfort zones.  Every week there is something that stretches me here in our new place!

#5) The perks of home schooling far outweigh the challenges. Right now Mack is watching The Hobbit, and we will be discussing the differences we find between the book and the movie.  The girls are singing choir music upstairs.  They both joined a home school chorus called “King’s Chorale,” and I think they are going to love it.  It’s more formal than either of them are accustomed to — a far cry from Toby Mac and Jamie Grace–but they are jumping in with both feet! Mack and I enjoyed reading outside this week.  I read while he swung on the hammock. He gets to practice corn hole often so he can try to beat Josh. The many words that come from the kids can sometimes be overwhelming…they always have a story to tell me or someone to tell me about that they met at church….no one simply takes my orders and does their work compliantly and quietly.  They get along sometimes and other times they argue so bad I wonder if they’ll ever be friends, but overall I think the time we spend together is a good thing. I like what we are learning in History, Bible and Math. I like the music elements of piano and chorus. Language Arts feels complete and strong.  And I love that the kids are making friends at church.

We’re making it! Finishing up our fourth week of school and feeling good. Tomorrow we will use our Friday morning to do yard work! Kind of like P.E., but not.

Happy almost-weekend!

I was wearing a red dress and heels as I finished up getting ready to go to a job interview at Webb Bridge Middle School in Alpharetta, Georgia.  Josh was home also on that September 11th morning in 2001.  We were both 24 years old and had been married a little over seven months.

My sister called to tell me to turn on the television because a plane had just flown into one of the Twin Towers in NYC. We flipped on the tv to see the second plane fly into the other tower. It was awful. Confusing. Sickening. Disturbing. Scary.

So this morning when I awoke to the date 9/11, my heart was so heavy. We have been praying earnestly for so many loved ones all along Florida and into Georgia in the path of Hurricane Irma– “the hurricane of the century” is what they’re calling it.

I wonder if my heart can take remembering such devastation like 9/11 as I simultaneously view photos and hear stories of storm devastation like I’ve not seen.

Big sigh.

But we must remember. We can’t forget. Remembering together is a very good thing.  We show our perseverance and determination. We remember all the brave heroes that helped so many. Firefighters, police, good citizens, brave people on every flight, and so many brave men and women on the front lines the past 16 years.

As we remember the sadness and loss of that day and continue learning more about the loss of this day, I am reminded of G.Campbell Morgan’s commentary on Psalm 142, a chapter subtitled ‘Prayer for Help in Trouble.’

“It is a great thing in darkest hour to set over against the darkness all the facts about God.  To do so is to triumph even in sorrow.”  

Psalm 142:3, 5 “When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, You knew my path….You are my refuge, My portion in the land of the living…”

So today my family will remember 9/11.  And at the same time, we will remember the faithfulness of our God.

And today we will remember and pray for so many affected by fires and earthquakes and hurricanes and floods. And at the same time, we will remember the lovingkindness of the Lord, His ever-present help in times of trouble.

What a wild world we are living in. A wild, broken world– groaning to be made perfect and whole again.  I’ve often thought that I should I have gone to school to be a counselor, and while I still believe that, I also think a close second would be to learn how to be a meteorologist.  I get consumed with weather.  The big unknowns and how they determine where in the world these natural monstrosities will go is amazing.

Anyway, navigating in this broken world is challenging enough when we aren’t faced with flooding and hurricanes and earthquakes, so when these are factored into life, anxieties are tempted to grow like a fungus, taking over every crevice of our minds and hearts. I am so thankful for my relationship with God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, who does all things perfectly. Here is a verse that we talked about this morning in regards to these days:

We also decided that for creative writing today we would write a letter to Irma. They could be polite and ask her to calm down or they could get firm with this off-the-charts hurricane.  Mack was all about this assignment.  Remember, he likes the words.

I think he did a great job expressing his feelings toward Irma! “Instead of ‘Mack, watch out for Irma,’ it’s ‘Irma, watch out for Mack!'”