1. My family. Of course. When you are faced with difficult times (relatively speaking, of course) there are few things that you can count on. I am blessed to be able to say that my family is together and that we are one. We don’t always get along, but we always stand together.

2. My faith. It truly is a gift from God. Sometimes, I hear myself tell people things (like, “Well, I’m just trusting God for that. If this is where He wants us, then this is where He’ll keep us. If not, then I don’t want to be here anyway.”) and I think, that was the Holy Spirit speaking and I praise You, Lord, for those words. Make them as true in my heart as they were in my mouth!

3. My freedom. I just can’t think – the thoughts don’t make it all the way through my brain – how some people live in this world. Sometimes, I’ll admit, I’m jealous of them. If I didn’t have the freedom that I have here in this nation, would I rely more on God than on myself? And yet, I am so thankful for the freedom to gather with my children, the windows uncovered, broad daylight, to study the Bible. I’m thankful that I can raise my children to love God, without fearing the persecution of man every single moment of every single day.

4. My provision. God takes care of us. Plain and simple. He takes care of us.

I am also looking forward to the new year. I am not making resolutions. I’m not even really setting aside goals that I will forget in the next two months (those of you who’ve kept up on my blog for a couple of years know what I’m talking about). I am, however, aiming for a few things. If I get anywhere near any of them, I will be thrilled with the year, come December 31, 2011.

1. Study the Bible. Not just read it, and not the whole thing. Study the Bible, book by book. I’m in Colossians now, and I want to move on and finish Daniel. Not sure what else after that, maybe Ephesians.

2. Make a quilt for Mr. Nutt. Ssshhh. It is going to be a log cabin lap quilt made out of patriotic fabrics. Along with this, finish F2′s quilt. I was blessed by a good friend who quilted it for me, now I just need to get the binding finished up (the hand-sewing part). It should only take a day or two, if I would just sit down and do it! I also have a quilt that I started quilting on (I was going to try to sell it to gather up money for school books) but was very disappointed in my quilting. I need to finish it up and give it, I think, to F7.

3. Scrapbook Project 52 at eNKay’s blog. I like the idea of having themes for each week, as opposed to just taking pictures on the fly and getting the same stuff over and over. I also love that at the end of the year, I’ll have a 52 page album that I can print off or have printed at Shutterfly that embodies the year 2011.

4. Become more active both with the local pregnancy resource center and maternity home. I will hopefully be going through the peer-mentor training at the pregnancy center and I have already been teaching basic infant care classes at the maternity home. I am so excited about both of these opportunities!

5. School with the kids. Yep, just keep plugging away. Get it done every day and mark down what we’ve done. I love Donna Young’s site for her record-keeping files. She really is amazing.

I think that’s probably enough to keep me busy for the year!

Be blessed as 2010 closes and be safe as we enter 2011. May God’s grace abound in your life, and may you truly know His love.

What are you thankful for this year? Any plans, goals, ambitions, resolutions? Are you good at maintaining these, or do you utterly fail like me?

I recently chose Sir Rowan and the Camerian Conquest (The Knights of Arrethtrae) by Chuck Black to review for the Blogging for Books program through WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing. My 14 yo, F2, is a medieval nut and I thought this series of books, along with the accompanying Kingdom Series, might be a good fit.

This book is an allegorical tale of pride and the fall from it. I was a little surprised, as I didn’t realize the story was allegory until I started the book. This threw me off a little, but the allegory was fairly sound (although too many times, I found myself replacing sword fighting tournaments with football games in my mind). As a female reader, I felt the characterizations were too terse and flat, but the action moved along quickly. Conversations are kept to a minimum and humor is nearly non-existent.

The ideas presented in the book are worthy: pride is destructive and can throw you off the course of your true mission, disobedience brings painful results, our only hope is found in the Lord. The presentation of the ideas left a little to be desired on this mom’s part, although I think the target audience (tween and teen boys) might not find fault with the lack of character depth and terse writing.

All in all, I have no problem with my son reading Sir Rowan and the Camerian Conquest, but I won’t go out of my way to make sure he has the others in this series. Three stars.

Over at Christian Homekeeper Network, my wonderful friend, Sylvia, has a meme with a little linky love. Each week she has some prompts to help us along in our blogging/journaling/thinking processes. Some weeks I think, I’d like to blog that. But I don’t get to it. Other weeks I think, nah, I’ll never get to it. This week I said, I’m going to get to it. These thoughts made me feel so…peaceful. I like to feel peaceful. Don’t you like to feel peaceful? Maybe it is the thought of Autumn and the preparations for cozying down. Not sure, but something in this particular meme called me to take a few moments and do the whole journal/thinking/blog thing. Enjoy, and join us if you would like. The linky love is at christianhomekeeper.org.

My kitchen would be more inviting if …………. it didn’t have oodles of piles of stuff in it. I have this weird cutout area that I think was supposed to be a pass-through (for dishes, food, etc) but it just ends up making it easier for everyone to leave their “stuff” sitting there, rather than taking care of it. It would look better without the icky tile countertops, as well, but that is something that just isn’t going to get changed for awhile. Matching cupboards…but there I go again getting into the realm of a-long-time-from-now-changes.

My best tip for making a home seem more welcoming ….. Keep the doorway area clear and cleaned up. This is the first impression area – make your guests feel welcomed here and it will go along way to making them welcome through the whole house. Have a place for their shoes that obviously says “Take your shoes off” if that is the house rules. I hate when I walk into a house and don’t know whether to take mine off or not; I also hate when people come to my house and take their shoes off. My floors aren’t all “white sock” friendly. Having a spot to hang jackets or coats is nice, so the guest doesn’t feel like their pocket stuff is in danger of getting lost in your bedding when you toss their coat in your room. Now, does my house have any of this? Nope. My front entrance is an unfinished studwall maze of rooms. My way of welcoming guests is to hold the blanket that separates the finished part of the house from the unfinished, lol. But I am trying to keep that area neat and tidier so that my guests aren’t greeted with a total mess when they enter my house. Add all of that above to the “someday” category.

To give the feeling of warmth in my home I often ….. hmmmm. I don’t often do anything. This is a new one for me. I’ve honestly never thought about it. Although I’d have to say I think I bake. The nummy sweet aromas and the heat from the oven add a warmth that just says, “home”. I also like the idea of having lap-sized afghans and quilts tucked away for guests, so that if the house is cool to them, they can warm up under a cozy blanket.

In the cooler months, it is essential for me to ….. wear my slippers and sweaters. I have a cute fleece jacket that my auntie made for me several years ago, bright pink with koalas all over it. I love it! But it is getting pretty worn, as it is my go-to warmie during the cooler months. I may need to replace it soon with something else. I need to stay warm and adding on the layers is what does it for me best.

Some favorite Autumn/Winter recipes are ….. banana bread, chili, beef stew, lasagna, scalloped potatoes and ham, homemade bread. Cooler weather meals aren’t tough for me to find – anything that warms up the house! It is the summer meals that I have a tough time figuring out.

A Quick Tip for making your house more inviting …… Open the blinds/drapes/curtains, but be aware of where the sun is. There is nothing more irritating (okay, maybe there is, but this is what I’m thinking of right now) than trying to speak to someone and the sun is right behind them in the window and all they are is a black shape. If the sun is behind you, either shut the window coverings or move yourself.

Enjoy the meme!

Sometimes, people give you advice and you think, “Yeah, I appreciate that, but I don’t think it’ll work for me.” Then again, sometimes the advice strikes such a resounding gong inside your head, you wonder that you still have teeth left. This advice, given to me several years ago by a seasoned home educating mama, was like the latter. I was sure I would need a filling or two replaced.

This is one of those school years where this particular piece of advice is singing strongly to me. We are operating in stress mode this year. Mr. Nutt is still out of work and we are living still on the re-re-re-extended unemployment. We had another baby (I know, I wasn’t blogging when all that came about, so you all missed it. I’m sorry). F8 is a sweetheart, but, as all babies do who come during the school year, he threw us off schedule. We started attending a co-op that is 20 miles away (30 minutes) and while we are enjoying a lot of it, the stress of getting all of us there by 8:30 am is a bit much. To top it all off, I’ve put F2 on an ADHD drug in an attempt to help him out. I fought it for a long time, but I finally decided to try it. I’m not sure yet what the net results will be, because we just started them a month or so ago, but I’m praying for a little improvement.

On that last note, I’ll get back to the re-evaluation idea. As F2′s doctor and I were discussing the options that I have available to me, the idea of public school was brought up. Now, don’t jump the gun on me here and assume that the pediatrician is anti-homeschooling. He’s not and has admitted to me that no one can say that homeschooling doesn’t work…most of the time. However, some of the time, it doesn’t and we need to have our options open. Dr. is of the opinion that perhaps I’m too close to the situation and that by becoming “homework helper”, as opposed to “teacher”, I might be able to get a different perspective on F2′s abilities. He also thinks that F2′s difficulties are exacerbated in our family environment and that getting him into the school would allow him to find others that he fits in with.

That’s what the doc thinks and of all months to throw the public school option at me, he picks February. Sigh. As I left the office, after promising I would think about his advice, I repeated to myself – no eval, no eval, no eval. Because I’m tempted. It is February, after all. The idea that someone else could take on the hand-holding, the agonizing, the teeth-pulling work that is educating my son who is too normal to be special needs but not quite with-it enough to be normal is tempting.

But only for a moment. Okay. A couple of moments. The fact of the matter is, no one on this earth cares more about my son than I do. No one knows him as well. The teachers in the public school, bless their hearts, though they try their best, simply do not have the time to give to F2. God put F2 in this family and, in spite of our struggles, we are a loving, open, and gentle family. So much would be missed by sending any one of the Fruit to school, but especially F2. He adds much to our day: joy, friendship, and love, for sure, but also some things that we need to learn. The old joke says to never pray for patience, because God will send you trials to grow it. That is something that F2 brings to us, not trials, but patience fertilizers. The other Fruit learn to control their tempers and give unconditionally. They learn not to judge a person by their appearance. Most of all, we all learn every day to operate as a family, just like God made us to be.

Based on those facts, I’ve thought up some changes we need to make, both in the physical and in the emotional realms. I’m praying through all of that right now, but I am sure of one thing – F2 will not be attending public school any time soon. We have been called to homeschool all of our children and that is what we will do. Any other re-evaluations can wait until the sun comes out.