All posts by KME

Bible Study, Joshua, Project 365

A Servant’s Heart

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Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. (I Peter 4:10-11)

Two of my five children have demonstrated an inclination toward the spiritual gift of service. Their hearts quicken with the opportunity to serve. They find joy in helping, often behind the scenes. They frequently anticipate the needs of family members and move to help. They are very different in the way they serve and their personalities and temperaments but the heart to serve is there for both of them. They are not perfect, of course, and sometimes serving (especially family) is the last thing on their mind.

sarah's braids

This cutie pie still requires/needs/demands/enjoys quite a bit of service from her siblings.

And yet, when the moment arises, they hear the whispered need where others often hear nothing. How kind of the Lord to place in our large family some with this gift. They bless all of us, and their (always slightly harried) mama most of all.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (1 John 3:16)

There was a dinner and musical show at church this evening. The middle schoolers were in charge of serving the meal. Joshua immediately signed up to help. There was, of course, the draw of getting to be with friends, but the rest of the activity seemed a bit lacking on the excitement side. Dress up – not a favorite in any of my children’s opinion, with the exception of Princess Sarah. Serve food to tables of hungry church patrons – this is all wrong in a teenage boy’s mind, the food should be going TO the middle schoolers not AWAY from their hands and mouths.

joshua dressed to serve

Afterward, Joshua told me that he and a few other boys came up with a devious idea for playing a trick on the high schoolers. I braced myself, not sure I wanted to hear any details that might incriminate me or my family.

“The senior highers were in charge of taking down all the decorations and cleaning up. We decided we would do it for them.” Sneaky laughter followed by smug look. “We did everything. We put the decorations away, took down the tables, and cleaned up. I just wish we could be there to see their faces when they see we did their work. Ha! Ha! Ha!”

More laughter.

Um, whose child is this? Adding to the weight of the situation, it turned out Joshua and his two buddies gave up their dinner in order to perform this mischievous “prank”. The rest of the serving crew ate during this time. When asked why they were working, Joshua said,

“I told them, why should the high schoolers get all the fun?”

Um, why indeed.

“They did give me a few odd looks when I said that, Mom,”

No doubt they were jealous, Joshua.

So whether you eat or drink[Or serve hungry church people food and drink] or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (I Corinthians 10:31)

I am often humbled by the work the Lord is doing in the lives of my children. He speaks to me through their example.

Kathy
P365 – Day 139

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Events, Project 365

Project 365 – Some Changes

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Okay, mainly just one change. I’m a wee bit tired of naming each post P365 – Day (insert number here). It’s just a boring way to write. It stifles creativity and, more importantly, doesn’t let me use long, descriptive titles for my blog entries.

sarah

Sarah is waiting in eager anticipation to hear about the blog change.

I do, however, like keeping track of the Project and the current day. I mean, I’m over 100 days into the Project and some people thought (hoped??) I wouldn’t make it past 6 weeks or so. I don’t blame them one bit. As I’ve readily admitted before, I’m a great starter of projects, not so great a finisher.

david

David is ready to squirt anyone who maligns the blog or his blogging mother.

I’ve been thinking about how to hold on the sanctity of the Project (I like capitalizing it, makes it seem so official like it’s a ‘Study’ or ‘Thesis Title’ or something). I’ve decided I’ll just write the interesting, creative, emotional, spiritual, funny, informative, whiny (not all at the same time, of course) blog and, if the pictures included are from the current day, I’ll put a little Project 365 Day # on the bottom. I bet I could even get Tim to create an icon for me.

daniel

Daniel is sure this is a GREAT idea. The excitement on his face is nearly overwhelming.

So there you have it. Sorry to take up internet cyber space with a random blog announcement like this but I needed to make this change and I didn’t want to do it without an official proclamation. :)

Kathy
Project 365 – Day 137

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Daily Life, Project 365, Rachel

P365 – Day 136 (Rachel Speaks)

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Rachel would like to join us today on the blog. She has some thoughts on healthy eating, vegetables and whatnot. Here she is:

rachel

Hi everybody! How are you? I’m here, sitting in the famous orange chair, dictating my thoughts to Mom. :)

First, I have to defend my taste of mushy broccoli. If you have to eat broccoli, the only way to possibly enjoy it (choke it down), is to have it cooked until it is soft and tender. Besides, Dad agrees with me. So there, Josh.

A note to Samuel – I happen to like salad (better than broccoli) so to think that it’s rotten lettuce is rather disturbing.

Anyhow. I like the exercise program even though it bugs me that Daniel and Joshua usually get ahead of me. Last night, Joshua, Mom and I went to the Y. There is a new family exercise room where kids and grownups can work out together. There are 2 treadmills, 2 elliptical machines, and 6 bikes. They have a table with coloring books and other toys.

We rotated from the elliptical to the treadmill to the bike, ten minutes each. Thirty minutes total. This is worth five points. I liked the elliptical the best. It was the easiest, in my opinion. I dreaded the bike because the 10 minutes seem to go on forever. I got cramps on the treadmill from going to fast. This doesn’t happen all the time.

rachel on the treadmill

Here I am on the treadmill at home, not the Y.

We started to do another half an hour when we decided to go home instead. Mom had a few errands to run.

The main things I have trouble with is getting in enough water and vegetables. I don’t drink that much water. I forget to drink extra water during the day. I think I drink a lot of half glasses, though.

rachel thinks

For vegetables, the only ones I really like that are mostly available are carrots, lettuce and broccoli (we only have broccoli at dinner time). I get sick of carrots and I’m not that interested in eating five cups of salad a day. I’m the only one in the family (besides Mom and Dad) that likes cucumbers. Mom says I need to try some new vegetables.

What’s your favorite vegetable? Give me an idea of what to try? What do your kids like to eat? How many servings of vegetables do you think you eat a day? Have you ever counted?

As for measuring, I’m really good at that as I don’t eat that much. Weight training is hard to remember to fit in during the day. When you do do it, your muscles hurt really bad. When you’re done using the weights, it feels so good to lift up your arms and not have weights in hand. Push ups are not my strong point. I can, however, do sit ups.

All for now, see you later. Thanks for letting me blog.

rachel outside

Rachel

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Joshua, Project 365

P365 – Day 135 (Joshua Speaks about Health, Fitness and Broccoli)

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I’ve asked Joshua to come and share his thoughts on our first week of Healthy Living. Please give Joshua, age 13 and oldest of our five children, a big welcome.

joshua

Our guest blogger.

Water - Easy, I drink that much water anyway (1 points for 16 oz, 3 pts max)

Fruit - Trickier than I thought. It turns out I don’t eat that much fruit. Tonight, for example, I was determined to get all 50 points but I hadn’t eaten any fruit. It killed me to think I would only get 48 points. Mom said a bowl of applesauce (a generous bowl) could count as two fruits. Whew. 50 points! (2 points for 2 fruits)

Veggies - An annoyance. I just shovel in the salad. I usually have at least three servings of salad a day. I tend to eat a good helping at lunch (or else you get behind in vegetables). I don’t really like cooked vegetables. Rachel and I disagree strongly on how broccoli should be prepared. I say crispy, stir-fried. Naturally, as everyone would agree, crunchy and close to raw is the only way to enjoy broccoli. Rachel and Daddy, in their confused state of being, like them mushy. Yuck. (Veggies bring in a lot of points as they are rated on a graduated scale; 1st serving = 1 point, 2nd serving = 2 points, and so on up to 5).

Measuring - Another annoyance. Worse than the vegetable requirement. Measuring implies NOT eating, at least the vegetable one lets you EAT. I disapprove of programs that want to restrict that glorious activity known as eating. I am growing 13 year old, after all. It’s especially sad on weekends. I don’t like having to limit my bowls of cereal on Saturday; since that’s when we are allowed sweet cereals. (4 points per meal for measuring, ie limiting quantities).

Desserts - This one is not too difficult although it is a bit worse on weekends. One sweet treat a day is fine during the week. On Sundays, there are delicious goodies after Sunday School as well as treats at Bible study. How am I supposed to limit himself to just one dessert, may I ask? This week they served ice cream cake, Hostess fruit pies (which Mom absolutely forbids/detests), and chocolate cake. All at the same party. Torturous. (1 free treat a day, -2 points for additional desserts).

joshua and his bowl of applesauce

Joshua enjoys his bowl of applesauce.

Exercise - I’m spending a lot of time running on the treadmill at home. I think the treadmill will be very happy when we finish this little month long plan. Since we’ve started, I find my endurance is improving. The laps we run at the YMCA aren’t as difficult. We are granted 10 points for our time at homeschooling PE. I have a new appreciation for the PE program. (5 points for 30 minutes cardio, up to 1 hour).

Weight Training – Push ups and sit ups are both getting easier, though I still don’t like doing them much. I feel stronger which, I guess, is part of Mom’s devious plan. I’m already working up to the heavier weights in my weight training. (4 points for 15 minutes wt training or 50 push ups and 50 sit upts, up to 8 points).

I like this method of doing things. Not forcing or compelling us to work out or eat healty but setting goals and let us meet them (or not). I like the challenge of trying to get all 50 points a day. 50 points = 1 chip and 1 chip = $1.

There you have it. Words of reflection from Joshua. No doubt he wants to earn money because my birthday is just around the corner. He’s a very generous son. :) I’ll see if some of the other children care to be guest bloggers and join us next time.

Kathy

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Daniel, Project 365

P365 – Day 134 (Daniel’s Dinner Duties)

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This is Daniel’s week to be in charge of the dinner dishes. The older three children rotate meal assignments. Right now Daniel has dinner, Joshua has lunch and Rachel has breakfast. When I considered homeschooling, I never really took into account the impact of the ‘home’ part of the homeschooling. Although we are busy and have several activities that take us out and about, for the most part we are here at home. Living and playing and learning and MESSING UP THE HOME!! This holds true for the house and especially the kitchen, since we eat all three meals together.

daniel cleaning

Daniel takes his kitchen KP duty seriously.

The fact that there are three older children makes the delegation very tidy. :) The kitchen/meal work required involves clearing and setting the table for your assigned meal, helping to serve people during the meal, and doing all clean up afterward (including putting food away, washing and loading dishes, and wiping down the table, counters and island). Breakfast comes with the added responsibility of unloading the dishwasher. It’s countered by the fact that the dishes are minimal (usually just cereal bowls or a few plates) and the only thing to put away are some boxes of cereal. Lunch is usually the easiest assignment as the dishes are often light (the kids vie for paper plates as much as possible) and there isn’t a lot of extra time for lingering. Plus you can have two directions to hand the work off -you can blame breakfast for leaving dirty dishes around or “forget” to finish the lunch work and hope the dinner slave, I mean laborer, will take care of it for you.

beating that surface into submission

The island is going to get clean, by golly, if he has to beat it into submission.

We’ve tried several variations of meal chore assignments and this one seems to work the smoothest. The kids are very proficient at their KP duty. They know how to bag or box up leftovers. They wash pans and load the dishwasher like experts. They each have their own style and pace at which they like to work. They still grumble and drag their feet at times but mostly they are cheerful, hard workers.

Really, who wouldn’t want this young man helping in the kitchen?

clean island

Kathy

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