Monday we celebrated M, N and E's 10th birthday! They are so excited to be double digits now! Since we had cake at a church outing the day before, they decided they didn't want cake again - so they opted for peach cobbler (which worked out great since we had a half bushel of them fresh from the farm!).
Tuesday we officially started the transition back into school days. Of course our learning hadn't stopped for the summer - they've been crazy busy in the outdoors learning all sorts of stuff in our new home environment! And if I had a nickel for every book they read this summer I'd be well on my way to vacation! ;)
Our day started out great - worship, journaling time, and then math. Math took a while because we started a new curriculum this year (Math U See) and I had to get each kid into their appropriate materials. Overall that went great, although I won't make any early calls just yet.
What happened next (well, after finishing up canning my spaghetti sauce, feeding the kids lunch and getting cleaned up!) was not something that I was prepared for. I hadn't planned on doing history our first day, but since M was bugging me about it (yes, he was dying to get started!) I decided that I would sit down and start gathering what we needed. I had also chosen a new curriculum for history this year - and by first glance, it seemed like a good choice - it started at creation and included God in history, which is something that you don't see often. As I sat there looking through the book, I began to get an overwhelming feeling. Suddenly I was having thoughts like "I can't do this!" and "where is the nearest school?!" My feelings completely surprised me as up until now I had felt fully confident in our decision to continue homeschooling and had even encouraged friends (who were on the fence) to do the same.
I called a friend. The friend I knew I could count on to listen to my cry for help and talk some sense back into me. The one that would pray with me and reassure me that God knew the answers even if I didn't just yet. Do you have a friend like that? I sure hope so!
After talking with some homeschooling friends, I quickly realized what set me off about the particular curriculum we had and took steps to change up what our plan will be for the year. For as panicked as I was, it still amazes me that I am completely calm and collected again. It's only through the grace of God that happened.
Are you struggling with any kind of issues as you start this school year? I'd like to share something that I put together to print out, fold and stick in my Bible. As I do my devotional each morning, I will see this paper and claim some promises. :) I hope you will, too.
on my glass-top cookstove despite all the warnings about not doing so. I tested first to make sure that it could bring the pot to a boil, and it did so fine, so I went ahead. The bottom of this pot is not flat, but it was still able to make enough contact to get the job done! Yay! I bought two of the pot sets and they will actually fit side by side on my stove! Double yay! 
