Visit my new home.

I have purchased a domain name www.sleepyeyed.com.  This will be my new website.  I am finally making use of my .mac account that my brother and sister and I split.  Anyhow, I was looking to update the look of my blog.  The blogger templates just weren't cutting it anymore.  So I started over.  I am not finished yet, don't have any links or anything yet.  You may wonder why I chose the name sleepyeyed, well I suppose you'll have to visit my new site to find that out.  If you have any trouble viewing the site, let me know.

Anxiously awaiting packages

Waiting is so hard. I am very excited, but the waiting is horrible. Soon we will be using a new homeschool curriculum. We began homeschooling this year. There are many things I like about homeschool. The sleeping in, sleeping in, sleeping in. Oh yeah other stuff like, being with my kids, watching them learn, a more balanced life for us. No more tired struggle with homework afterschool when Cathy was sick of schoolwork and I was tired of teaching (when I worked) and neither of us was motivated to do anything after the 3:00 bell rang. So the entire aspect of learning is more welcome.

Anyhow, we have been enrolled in an online public school. By Nov. I was convinced that I did not like online school. My kids like computers so several hours of online assignments and then more time to just play online games - was so too much time glued to the computer. I also did not enjoy the curriculum, I won't go into details. I also believe in hands on learning. I believe kids learn more by doing and also taking into consideration their personal learning style. I can show stats if anyone is interested. In the beginning I tried to supplement hands on learning with their online assignments. That didn't work since they had a deadline in which to finish their course. If we deviated then they'd get behind, etc. So instead I began researching options. I wanted to find something that would target my kids needs. Something affordable. I researched different methods of homeschooling. I settled upon, unit studies (multi-level teaching). With this method, there is a topic at hand for the unit - you teach your children together and you draw the different subjects from that topic - then there are separate assignments or projects based on grade level. I began researching options. I knew that coming up with my own stuff was not a feasible option. Too much time to plan out lessons, activities, assignments. I finally narrowed down my choices. I chose KONOS. It is a faith based unit curriculum grades K-8. Its units go by character traits of God. You study a character trait, read real books together, hands on projects, writing, science, etc. It covers all major subjects - except Math and grammer. I have chosen some workbooks to work out of for those subjects for the remainder of this year. Maybe for next year I'll choose to buy actual curriculum for Math, we'll see. From what I've read the "scope" (stuff studied) is the same as most schools, but the "sequence" (order) is different. I'm looking at getting another volume so I can mix and match and put the order as I want. Also volume II has the Presidents and electoral process which would be good since we are in an election year. I am excited for something different. I am excited to be done researching . . . for now anyways. I bought mine off ebay today, so I saved some money. I bought the workbooks of amazon for cheap.

There's still more to do. I do not have any college credits, so state law requires that either I have a certified teacher monitor my students or I take a homeschool qualifying course. My mom is a certified teacher so I could ask her to monitor their progress, but I am choosing to take a qualifying course. As long as I intend to take the next available course I am good for the year. There are different ways to take a course. Great Expectations has a course in May. I will be registering for that course. Once that is done we are set for life I think. WA state also requires annual testing. Since Jorge is not 8 years old yet, he doesn't need to be tested. I will be registering Cathy for testing. Right now I am looking at two different companies that will be having testing in May in Tri-cities. With the online school I didn't have to think much about this stuff since they took care of it all.

So that is what is going on. My kids are excited about the upcoming change. I am excited. We read in our first unit we study senses and we get to dissect a cow's eye to see the different parts of the eye! Through my research I found a homeschool mom's blog 

who uses the curriculum, she has lots of links and even made posts helping other to organize the curriculum for daily use.  I read her testimony.  Its interesting to connect with someone you don't even know.  Well, we journey on waiting on mail. We will keep with the online school until I get and familiarize myself with the curriculum. Hopefully this will be our last month with online stuff.

Aroma of Life

Sometimes you feel like life stinks. Like you know so much - yet you can't seem to make progress. And then a change comes.

Things have been well . . . rocky lately. Its a hard transition when you feel like you are in a comfortable spot. Comfortable in many areas: finances, marriage, being a mom, ministry, everything. and then suddenly nothing is comfortable. You feel like you are failing in all areas.

Well, I feel things are looking up. Things are changing. We are climbing out of our slump. God continues to be our provider. I had this moment. This moment of feeling stuck. Just stuck. At the moment of conversation it was a feeling of being at a "ministry wall". But my words were true about a lot of areas of our life: financial wall, marriage wall. You see I feel like God has created me to be used to my fullest potential - and I think he gave me a lot of potential. I want to be a part of everything. I want to learn as much as I can. So I was extremely excited at an invitation to be a part of a "leadership team" with the Northwest Ministry Network. It was a team by invitation only 10 youth and 10 childrens pastors invited on a year journey to learn and grow in ministry. Anyhow, there's a fee for it all and a trip to california. Registration was coming due. I wanted a slot. It didn't seem that my church was in a position to support me financially. It surely didn't seem like I was able to support this financially. I felt like I was against a wall. I wanted to move forward, but I couldn't. I wouldn't be wise to put money I didn't really have towards this adventure - not when its hard enough to pay our bills. But I wanted it to happen. I had already accepted an invitation to be a part of the Nitro team (planning kids conference). So I made the trip to Tacoma for the meeting. I just about cried. You see as we were leaving I was told that I would be receiving a form for reimbursement. I thought it would be for gas - since they paid for our meal. When I got the form, it was a mileage form. 50.5 cents per mile. That's over $200! At that moment, I felt kind of awkward - them paying me that much to be on the team, they could save a lot of money by not having me on the team. But then I counted how many Nitro trips I have and how many Leadership Journey trips there would be before the may trip. The reimbursements they were offering me would just about equal the cost to be a part of the Leadership Journey. I had so much joy at that moment. I talked to them and they were able to apply the reimbursement directly to my registration. God is amazing.

It gets better. A friend gave us a gas card as "late pastor appreciation". We used that gas card to go to seattle and get Jorge his passport. Another surprise provision.

Oh gets better. I felt like ministry life was coming back into focus for me - God will continue to equip me despite my circumstances. I've been working on track for my Sunday lessons, and even started working with 2 students to have key roles Sunday mornings - been fun. I started being more disciplined with my Berean courses. But I still felt like my marriage needed a boost. Jorge started meeting with someone for accountability. He also checked out a video series. He feels like he is learning a lot. But tonight I got a phone call. A couple from our church wants to bless us by sending us to the Weekend to Remember Conference - by Family Life Today! It is next month. Did you hear that? They want to bless us!

All over God is putting things into place for all areas of our life. I pray that we will be wise with what God has provided, that we will learn and grow from each of these upcoming events.

So right now, this week . . . life doesn't seem so stinky!

Chores and thoughts

Aaaah the chore list! I'm loving it! We came up with 3 color groups - red, green, blue. Each color groups has 3 jobs assigned to it. The kids rotate weekly with color groups. laundry and dishes are each on a color group. Of course when Jeremiah has laundry - I have to help a lot (but its training right. if I can teach him to sort now - I'll have it made in a few years!) Cathy was great at dishes last week! She did a great job and did them pretty much on her own. She's got laundry this week. Jorgie has dishes this week - I help him, but he does pretty good. It's been good so far.

I've been watching more action type movies. Sort of scary to me. To think that such criminals really exist. I'm thankful that God is my protector and that I haven't dealt with such things face to face. But it makes me think of all that stuff that goes on in the world around me, and I just walk around with my daily routine. Is it enough to do the best I can with my kids and my family? To raise my little family to do right and love the Lord. Of course we will be witnesses to those around us and be part of global missions. But really, really will we or anyone reach these hardened criminals? Will any of us ever be in contact with these people who do wild and dangerous crimes? Maybe the concept is reach those around us and eventually we'll be raising up a new generation and there will be less and less criminals? I know everything in the movies is not real, but a lot of it could be real.

All right then.

an effort to blog

I keep being disappointed that there's not much new to read - but then its been a real long time since I've written anything. Not much excitement has happened. We decided last night to go to walmart and get alarm clocks for everyone. For a long while we were doing pretty good at waking up at a decent hour to do schoolwork (decent hour being 9:30-10:00). However lately, past month or so we've been waking up at around noon! yeah daily around 11:45 - 12:00! we'd eat lunch and do whatever - then finally start on schoolwork around 2:00. Well Cathy has to do several hours of school in order to finish a course in a month. In theory time doesn't matter, except at about 4 everyone is itching to go somewhere - anywhere just to get out of the house (especially Jorge the dad). So its not a positive experience when the whole family is ready to go except we're all waiting for Cathy to finish. So we got alarm clocks for everyone so we could all get up earlier. Well today - they didn't help much. Jeremiah's didn't even make him stir. Cathy slept with me and got up when I got up - 45min after the alarm. I went to take a shower and could hear both Jorge and Cathy's alarm going off - and Jorge sound asleep! I guess we're all deep sleepers.

Sorry, but I'm stumped.

family thoughts

My mom is gone to California. She left on thursday and will come back on the 27th - so a 2wk trip. She is spending about a week with my Tia Neomi (by dad's sister) and then a week in Indio with her siblings. Its got me thinking how for a good time we (my family growing up) went to California every christmas - usually spent most of our time with my dad's family and then a day or two with my mom's side. Then we kind of stopped going - at least didn't go every year. I've been thinking about Elia and her being away, yet she's come home every Christmas. Except this year she's not making it for Christmas, but for New Years. So I'm wondering. . . I suppose there will be a time where Elia may just stop coming home. Will I start going over to visit her? We haven't made it a priority to visit my husbands sister who is away. We didn't even really visit Abe and Deb when they were away in Seattle area. Will it eventually get to the point that I have to say "I haven't seen my sister for 3 years."? I hope not.

It's got me thinking. My last post -me crying with Rachel. I really think it was a moment of "i don't really know you". I don't know that I intentionally spent time with all my other nieces -but somehow I feel connected to them. I know growing up I didn't feel like I really knew my extended family. I remember thinking "my nieces and nephews are going to know me. I am going to know them. not just know who they are and that they exist but really know them" So what am I going to do about Elia and Mark's kids? I have this relationship goal for my nieces and nephews, but how can I make it a reality from afar? I suppose letter - blogs, email, making the most of the Christmas visits (I do feel like I knew my Tia Neomi -because that's where we spent the bulk of our time). Here I am thinking of all this, and Mark and Elia don't even have kids yet! But I think it is so easy to become a disconnected family. I don't even feel so connected to my nieces and nephews on Jorge's side and they are just in the Tri-Cities. I suppose it's because our priority has been here.

We decided to be more intentional with our time this year. We've actually started this month of December. In our life group we are going through a series by Andy Stanley called Taking it to the Limit. One session talked about our time and how all of our time is going to spent. We can't save it up and when we're on our death bed say "oh, wait. i can't die I've been saving up some time" Whether we plan how to spend it or not it will be used up. So we decided that we should spend some more time with the Najera's. So we are devoting one Friday a month to spending with them. Not much in terms of a month or how many days a week we see the Lara's. But hey its better than just chancing it and hoping that somehow we spend time together. So we had our first friday two weeks ago. It was fun to say "we're coming over" and Poncho saying "I'm not home I'm on my way from Yakima" then us saying "well we're doing a little shopping, but we put 'spend time with Najeras' on the calendar and we'd like to spend time with you" (see i know what you are thinking - you should have called ahead. tried that and it got nowhere except for "not sure what's going on friday. just call us friday" - they're not big on planning ahead) But they're response was fun "oh, wow on the calendar! Ok we'll be home in half an hour and we'll have pizza". Turned out that the ladies were having an end of year get together at their church so they scrounged around for a ticket for me. I got to go spend time with my sister in laws - and watch a very funny fashion show given by ladies from their church - really a good level of excellence in their performance and the event (you know me always looking out for ideas). Then I spent time talking to my nieces - found out that there was a dance exhibition for Jordana's dance team the next day. I even chose to wake up early to go see her perform!

Anyhow, enough family ramblings. Oh yeah! Our church Christmas Variety Show is this Wednesday at 7:00 PM. Don't know what that is? Well come on out and check it out.

Rachel made me cry!

I was baby-sitting on Monday afternoon while Deb had a doctor appointment.  All the kids had gone downstairs to play and it as just Rachel and I upstairs.  Rachel had made her way on top of the kitchen table, so I grabbed her.  I was holding her and Klove was on so I began to dance around the house with her.  I wouldn't say she 'loved' the experience.  She just sort of looked at me, half smile here and there.  But she didn't protest.  So I kept twirling around.  I started tearing up an everything.  I haven't nailed down why.  Did I cry because -I don't have my own little one to twirl around with, and oh how I want one - or because I've never really twirled around with Rachel before so maybe I feel like man I don't even know this one! - or maybe it reminded me of my dad and Abby.  I don't know - but I did cry (thank goodness everyone else was downstairs), and she just let me twirl as I wanted.  It was a great moment.  I stopped a minute to take a picture because I wanted to remember it.

We got a new van.  Well you know what I mean - used, but new to us.  It is a 96 ford windstar.  It is a year older than my white car - but a year newer than my old van. We sold our car to Manny who was happy to have a car - although he needs to practice driving stick!  The experience was a great reinforcement of the FPU principles of not borrowing money.  I was telling Jorge "can you believe this van is a year newer than our old one - and we paid way over 3x as much for our other one because we financed it - and not to mention got a good deal for paying cash on this one."  Manny was also happy to have a car without a car payment.  So its light blue, tinted window, and has "captains chairs" - only  a bench seat in back, middle and front have separate seats.

So what do you all eat for Christmas?  I am wondering what we are going to eat for Christmas? I'm not really wanting a "thanksgiving round two" - I'm not much of a turkey fan, we too have turkey still in our fridge.  What would be special - not so ordinary.

Oh, Susan - I hope your new job is all you hoped and more.  Also we're trying something new out with our dog.  We've fixed up the front yard for her so she can run around unleashed - hopefully she doesn't push too hard on the front gate - or realize that if she stands on the steps she can hop over the fence (that's how her backyard jumps started at mom's, standing on something and realized she could).  We do let her in quite a bit now -since yesterday.  We'll see how it all works out.  Just thought you'd like to know since you were so concerned with "being tied up is no life".  Hopefully she is enjoying her life more.

Oh yeah.  My kids got sort of unnerved by a car that past by.  They were all playing in the snow yesterday morning and a car at the stop rolled down their window and said "aren't you kids supposed to be in school - did you get kicked out".  Cathy came running in to tell me.  I asked what their reply was - none of them said anything back.  Cathy didn't want to go out anymore.  She sat at the window and said she saw the car come by a few more times.  Jorge didn't care.  He said he was going to say "we're home-schooled and we're at recess".

Ok.  That's all.