{This was New Year’s Eve and me trying to take pictures at -20*; I have my settings wrong but it was so dark and cold I couldn’t see to change. When my brother helped me out I did get some better pictures, but by then I actually couldn’t feel my fingers. 🙂 I feel like this picture is an adequate visual of me…everything is there, but you can’t tell what belongs where – it’s all jumbled, BIG time.}

I really wish I had wonderful pictures ready to post, but I don’t. In fact right now I have a tangled mess of nearly 20K photos between my iMac, MacBook Pro, and two different external hard drives. I think all 20K are on all four devices, but they’re organized differently on each so I’m not completely sure. To top it off the iMac won’t work and I’m so weary of calling Apple to have them walk me through fixing it over-n-over-n-over again. Seriously, I’ve had the machine for 13 months now and I’ve called them 25+ times for help. Half those calls were over 2 hours, and at least a fourth were 4 or more hours! My brain refuses to even calculate how many hours of my life has been spent on the phone with them. Since I’ve had it, I think I’ve comfortably used the machine twice for a couple hours before it got stuck and stayed messed up until I call……. anyway, I’ve digressed to whining so I’m going to stop now. 🙂

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I saw sunshine in my eyeballs on Valentine’s Day!  We had sun and sparkly snow and I took a ton of pictures.  It was SO pretty!  I sometimes even got pictures of what I was trying for, on purpose :-D!  Also, I started and finished a re-do in my boy’s bathroom {pictures will come, when I can find them!}.

Originally I put them into iPhoto, but now I have to pull them out & put them on the desktop to use them in any other program.  Also, every time I open a picture with Picasa it goes through and imports every picture it can find…then tells me it’s full can’t open the picture I wanted.  When I was using Microsoft – I used MS Digital Image Pro for organizing and editing my photos.  I got it. … Now I don’t.  I thrive when things have a place – and when they are in their place.

I’m already getting overwhelmed with the organization of photos from my new camera.  My problem is multi-level — I don’t get the filing system in the Mac.  This is a high source of frustration to me – basically I save everything to my desktop and then move it where I want it…but that is ridiculous!  When we’re talking photos, I’m really messed up – I think I have 4 & 5 copies of some!  When I started with my Mac Book Pro I was doing school online, at the end of a campaign, and learning the Mac system after 20+ years on Microsoft.  In other words, I didn’t learn it.  I made do, now I really need to get a handle on it, it’s driving me nuts!

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Our first snowmen of the winter are in the yard.

I have wonderful photos, I can even see them in iPhoto on my computer and I like them. However, when I try to upload them, those particular pictures are not in my choices in iPhoto. The other 15K photos are, but not the 3 I want right now. Why?

Life is full of so many “Why?‘s”. Life hurts. Life doesn’t go the way we think it should – in so many ways. Life can be fun. Life can be easy. But it isn’t always. We have no promise of easy or fun – so why do we think we need more? I have had several “Why?” questions in many aspects of life. My life. Other’s lives…

Last weekend was our youth group retreat, there was a lot of discussion about

– Why we do or shouldn’t do certain things.
– Why we need our faith to be our own.
– Why God has a certain way He wants us to do things.

I have so many petty “why’s”. Why’s like:

• Why was this fall the right time for me to go back to school and start working? (in addition to being a mom and homeschooling.)
• Why not one at a time or slow changes? I used to have so much time. Not so much anymore.
• Why do children nit-pick and argue with each other?
• Why do I have to be so tired?
• Why don’t I have the energy to scrap/quilt/tat/read?
• Why don’t I just start cutting material for the new quilt I want on my bed?
• Why didn’t I just buy another 1/2 yd of the material I bought for making nightgowns?
• Why did I think I wanted to change the pattern of the nightgowns? (besides, because I always change the pattern & I’ve made that one before)
• Why did I cut the material wrong? (Now I’m 4 inches short & Jo-Ann’s doesn’t have the material!)
• Why can’t I make this Mac do what I want it to?!

These are all so petty in the grand scheme of life. I know that and don’t really dwell on these questions, but they are all there in my mind (and so many more) – some I even say. Why? (especially when I know better)

There are also more serious Why’s I wonder about:

• Why do parents choose to walk away from their children?
• Why is it so difficult and expensive for good families to adopt children needing loving parents and homes?
• Why do children have to adapt to a different parent taking them for periods of time?
• Why do parents inflict this pain on their children?
• Why do parents have to see their adult children make poor choices?
• Why do adult children have to see their parents make poor choices?
• Why do some single parents have to make the choice to send their child(ren) somewhere they don’t feel is safe?
• Why don’t we always just do what God planned for us?
• Why don’t we remember to fully appreciate what He sent His Son to do for us?

Even though these Why’s are more life determining, often we won’t ever know the answer. Why? I have to believe all of my Why’s? sound like an awful lot of whine to my Heavenly Father – but He still listens and He hears me. Unlike me, I tell my children (too often lately!), “I can’t hear whine”. I’m so glad my Heavenly Father listens to my “whyne”.

I have a homeschool magazine I got the beginning of September and I am only about half way through. (I told you I haven’t had time to read) I have to believe the reason why I haven’t read more of this magazine before now is because it wouldn’t have meant the same to me. I am going to write out the beginning of a particular article, and a couple phrases from the ending. It is written towards homeschool parents, but is so true for any one – parent, child, adult, single, married – it doesn’t matter. Our relationship with Christ is ours alone – not for anyone else, ever. It is our responsibility to make time for this relationship. He is always there.

Life doesn’t stop just because you start homeschooling. Sometimes we wish everything else would go away so we could concentrate on the educational tasks before us. Wouldn’t it be great if our clothes suddenly never needed to be washed or mended? If meals just appeared on the table? And better yet, wouldn’t it be wonderful if no one got sick or had financial struggles or felt sandwiched between caring for two generations of family at once? Then, we tell ourselves, we would have time for planning all those creative lessons and grading all those papers we’ve assigned.

But that is not how our wise and loving Heavenly Father has designed things. In His wisdom, He custom designs the events of our days to grow us into the image of Christ. How would we learn patience if no one ever did things that frustrated us? How would we learn to trust Him if we never experienced want?

God is the ultimate homeschool teacher. He individualizes a curriculum for each of us, carefully selecting experiences and people that will draw us closer to Him. There are even pop quizzes and big tests along the way.

Unlike our children, we have the option to ignore His assignments or do them in our own way instead of in a way pleasing to Him. His goal is mastery learning; He will take us through a lesson as many times as necessary to help us learn what we need to know.

…

The more times we refuse to learn, the tougher it gets. Rebellion reaps its own reward.

…

God is building a unique life message in each of us, using our experiences, temperament types, and spiritual gifts to advance the kingdom of Christ on earth through us in unique ways. No one else has exactly the same life message to share as you do. God doesn’t use cookie-cutters to make us or to design our curriculum. Washburn, M. (Sept/Oct 2009). Homeschooling through difficult times. Home School Enrichment, #41, 48. [I’m guessing I didn’t do the citation right, but this isn’t for class 🙂 … besides, why does it matter? As long as I give credit where credit is due, isn’t that good enough?]

We will always have why’s in our life. Some we will get the answers to. Many we won’t. But when we have Jesus Christ as our personal savior, we have hope. Hope for a new beginning.

But the joy for the Christian homeschooler is in remembering that we get a fresh start with every new day. As the author of Lamentations said, “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23). Hang onto that promise as you work through the daily challenges of life on earth. (from the same article, page 49)

I am so thankful I have a Heavenly Father who has so perfectly orchestrated my life individually, to work together with others as a whole – for His good purpose. I don’t have to understand why, I just need to rest in Him. He does not fail.

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I’m not even going to attempt to back track the last 2 months – but here are some pictures of the last week.

4th of July
A proud Vince carrying the Alaska flag. The kids got to go swimming in a friends pool – an unheated pool during a cold Alaskan summer, at 9:30pm! Can you say BRRRRRRR?!

4 days later we hiked Hatcher’s Pass – absolutely gorgeous!

GOD IS SO AMAZING!
The creek, mountains, waterfalls – they’re all so big up in Hatchers, and then in the middle of it all there are all these beautiful little flowers. This little flowers head is about half the size of my little finger.

Yes, that is snow behind the kids. For July it sure seemed like a lot. We were thankful for the sweatshirts & wished we had more layers with us.

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