Strong and Courageous - How?

This month, my memory verse group (led by my friend Kim, the inspiration for countless blog posts) has been thinking about the verse Joshua 1:9, which says, "Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."  I absolutely love this verse, and I thought of it often when Joshua was going through all the surgeries and medical stuff.  And this month, it's been an encouragement in a whole new way.  

Whenever I'm going through a transitional time in my life, like I am right now (see previous two posts), there are always moments of fear and discouragement.  Always.  And I don't think I'm alone in this.  It's hard to move out of your comfort zone; it's hard to be the beginner and have to learn new systems and ask questions and look foolish; it's hard to be on the learning curve.  All of us go through these times in life, whether it's a new job, a new city, or a new life stage.  This verse, and some others that relate, are perfect for these transitional times.  

The verse tells us to be strong and courageous rather than frightened and dismayed, but how are we supposed to get this strength and courage?

• The first answer is right in the verse - "the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."  I don't have to look to my own strength to fight fear - I can look to the one who travels with me wherever I go, who faces every discouragement by my side - and who is infinitely more powerful than any of those things.
• Here is a related verse that takes the concept even farther:  "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still." (Exodus 14:14)  This verse comes from the story where the Israelites have just escaped Egyptian slavery, and the Egyptians are chasing them down, and they run into a dead end at the Red Sea -- but then God parts the Red Sea, lets the Israelites through, and stops the Egyptians in decisive fashion.  Neither the Israelites nor the Egyptians could've possibly imagined this is how the story was going to go.  It's a good reminder that I don't need to know all the details of how my life story is going to play out, and in fact I'm going to be a lot better off if I trust and be still and enjoy the ride.
•   If I was going to get another tattoo, it would say "Be Still" as a reminder of this verse.  (Either that or matching Celtic tattoos with my sister.)  (But not going to get tattooed.)
• Another verse that acknowledges how heavy the burdens of fear and discouragement can be, and how God takes those things on for us:  "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest."  (Matthew 11:28)  God never promises us an easy life.  He understands that the burdens life throws at us are heavy.  But He does offer rest in the midst of life's challenges.
• Finally, a reminder that this piece of the story we're living in is just a tiny sliver of the bigger story:  "Fear not; I am the first and the last." (Revelation 1:17).  God has been there since the beginning, and He will be there in the end.  He is working all the events of history, including all the pieces of our individual lives, towards a larger redemptive story.  Remembering the bigger story helps us relativize any fear or discouragement we're feeling right now as temporal, momentary, passing. 

These are the thoughts I'm having this month on how to be strong and courageous.  As always, would love to hear any further thoughts! 

Back to Work - How's It Going?

I am about one month into the working life, so I thought I'd write a follow up blog about how things are going.  There are two parts to it - the return to work after such a long break, and the combining homeschool with work - so I'll split it up that way.    

Lawyer hours

What It's Like to Go Back to Work After 13 Years

This has been a mix of all kinds of emotions:

• The first time back to anything significant feels like jumping in the deep end of a freezing cold pool.  The first time back at court.  The first time drafting a pleading.  Etc.  But then you do it, and you survive, and it's exhilarating to be back at it.
• There are moments where it feels frustrating to be this far along in life and this early in the career.  Like, I shouldn't be asking the most beginner of questions in the same year where it might be time to get bifocals.   
• It's satisfying to get back into the legal world - it feels like an important part of my mind is coming back.  I want to be clear here - stay at home parents, and particularly homeschool parents, are using their brains a ton - that could be a whole separate post - but it's not the same type of thinking as legal analysis.  
• It feels good to be contributing financially to the family, even though Kenny's still taking on the bulk of that responsibility.  

The main thing that's been really different this time v. 13 years ago is how much remote work changes the entire nature of the job.  This job used to be much more social.  I chatted with my colleagues in their offices at least a couple times per day; talked to the other lawyers we go up against before and after court; saw the other people who are part of this work at meetings.  Now, pretty much all of it takes place by Zoom, and the in-between social interaction with people has disappeared.  There are definitely some positives to this, but it's striking what a difference it makes.    

What It's Like to Balance Homeschool and Work

Homeschool hours

The first couple weeks were unbelievably exhausting, but as I settle in, the hours are balancing out about like I hoped they would.  Half the day goes to school and half the day goes to law, and I try to keep it pretty separate.  Occasionally I have to take a work call during school hours, or I might work on the homeschool library list while I'm sitting in the Zoom waiting room for court, but in general it's helpful to keep them as two different worlds.  

Both lawyer and homeschool mom are an identity, and those identities are pretty hilariously different.  How you act, what you do, what it's expected the whole rest of your life is like.  I actually love this part of it, as both sides feel like a piece of who I am, and neither feels like the entire thing.  The things that are stressful in each are different, so one provides relief to the other, going both ways.  And the things that are rewarding in each are different, and the contrast helps bring out the positives.  

The thing that feels hardest is that these are both primary gigs.  They are both my priority.  They are both things where I'm continuing to puzzle about how to do it better or how to fix a particular problem or what I have left undone after the actual "work hours" are over.  On a day to day scheduling basis, law wins - you can't skip court because you have a previously scheduled homeschool group - and luckily, homeschool is flexible enough that it mostly works out fine to flex around the more set law schedule.  But looking at how things have worked out over a whole week, or a whole month - if there's not enough time and energy to get them both done well, then it's not going to be okay to keep doing both.  Thankfully, so far so good.

On good days, I feel so blessed to have this life.  I can't believe that it's worked out that I still get to have this very significant chunk of time with my kids, get to educate them the way I want, get to continue on this path that has worked so well for us.  But still somehow also get to resume life as a lawyer in a significant way and work a job that I really enjoy.  On days where one or both pieces are hard, I feel overwhelmed.  But really, this is not so different from all the other working and / or homeschooling parents out there! 

There are lots of other homeschool parents who work, so I'd be interested to hear from any of you how you what you think about the balance.  And friends who have gone back to work after years of staying at home with young kids - I would love to hear your thoughts on that.  

Back to Work!

Some big news around here:  I will be going back to work for the first time in thirteen years!  Back before we had kids, I never thought I would spend any stretch of time beyond maternity leaves out of the work force.  Life threw us some curves that had me home for a couple years with a medically fragile child.  And then, as we had more babies, it continued to make sense and be my desire to stay home full time - and thirteen years rolled by.  Kenny has worked very hard as the sole income earner all this time, and God has faithfully provided for all our needs.  And now that the kids are older and a good opportunity has presented itself, it seems like the right time for me to join back into the workforce.

I will be working part time as a child advocacy attorney, representing kids who are in the foster care system in their court cases.  This is the same job I had right before I stopped working, and I really like it.  It's one of the very few jobs in the legal world for which I've gained some skills during my time at home - I know a lot more about Early Intervention and IEPs, for example, and I know a lot more about how to interact well with children.  

I have a swirl of emotions as I get back to legal work after such a long time away.  I'm excited to get back to work, excited to do a job that's meaningful to me, and excited that it's available in a way that will work for our family (part time and mostly remote).  I'm nervous, but this is helped greatly by going back to a job I've done before.  And I'm grateful that my employer is giving me this opportunity after such a substantial time gap on the resume.   

I'm working part-time because we are continuing to homeschool all three kids.  I've written blogs about why I like homeschooling here and here.  Homeschooling can be done in about 20 hours a week, and those hours can be very flexible - we'll see whether the students and teacher of this household can also adapt and be flexible - this will be an area of growth for us :).  

I'm hoping these two things will combine well.  I appreciate all prayers and well wishes, as this will be a big transition!  And any tips from remote working homeschooling moms would be great :).  

My Favorite Books of 2023

This is my annual book post!  My tradition is to put pictures of the books I read this year (thanks, Goodreads, for compiling the list), and then post my favorites.  Before I get to the favorites, I always put a few thoughts about my reading life over the last year.  This is probably a little like recipe bloggers who tell a whole story when all you really want to see is the recipe - the good news is, like those blogs, you can just scroll on down to the picks if you so desire! 

The big change in my reading life this year is that I finally, finally picked up the habit of audiobooks.  I've heard people singing their praises for years, but I just didn't think that format would work for me.  The tipping point came this year as my friend Autumn had us swing by the Douglas County Library when we were on an adventure, get a library card, and get the Hoopla app  -- and then, because she had gone to the trouble of

getting me up and running, giving it a serious try with at least one book.  Everyone was right:  audiobooks are an excellent way to get in more reading!  Like with podcasts, you can pop in an earbud while you're doing chores, or put it on the radio when you're driving somewhere, and suddenly you're making it through a bunch more 

pages per week.  I read 91 books this last year - 25 of those were audio.  Thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you who kept pushing them!

(Relatedly, here's a hot tip for any northern Nevada audiobook listeners - Douglas County Library will let Reno residents sign up a library card for free and that gives you access to Hoopla; Washoe County Library

has Libby.  The two apps compliment each other well. Hoopla's big strength is that it lets you check out books instantly, and keep renewing as long as you need to - but its selection tends to be more back list titles.  Libby has many of the hot new books, but there is usually a wait list and then a two week 

deadline to get through the book before it's returned.  So Libby might have the books that you want more, but Hoopla will have the books that are always available.  If you get both, you will always be well stocked with good books.)

I'm still training my mind not to wander while listening, and I still get interrupted frequently with the kids home all the time, so not all books work perfectly.  The books that work the best for me are non-fiction and memoirs, where you still get the gist of what they are talking about even if you miss a thread here and there; lighter / page turner type fiction; and long books of any kind, where you might be mired down for months if you read the print version but can fly through more quickly by audio.  Do you like audiobooks?  What kind are your favorite?

And now, here are my favorites of the year:

Favorite fiction:

• "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" by Gabrielle Zevin - excellent portrait of friendships over time, new appreciation for the art of video game design.
• "Birnam Wood" by Eleanor Catton - really enjoyed this eco-thriller set in New Zealand.
  
• "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver - a modern day retelling of David Copperfield, set in modern Appalachia.
• "The Covenant of Water" by Abraham Verghese - Multigenerational family saga set in southern India - Verghese covers the important parts of a life so well.  
• "The Fortnight in September" by R.C. Sherriff - a family in England takes a seaside vacation - this book covers it in fine detail, and from all the characters' perspectives.
• "Shark Heart" by Emily Habeck - this book was part love story, part reflection on grief - really weird, really good.  

Favorite non-fiction:

• "Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World" by David Epstein - compelling case why kids (and adults) should be learning a broad range of skills rather than specializing early.
• "Invisible Child:  Poverty, Hope, and Survival in an American City" by Andrea Elliott - excellent investigative reporting that follows a family living in poverty in NYC over years and shows their experiences with homeless shelter and the different systems.
• "Habits of the Household" by Jusin Whitmel Earley - good ideas for how to incorporate regular spiritual habits into busy family life.
• "A Treatise on Good Works" by Martin Luther - excellent reflection on how faith and good works relate, using the Ten Commandments as a framework.  
• "How to Stay Married: the Most Insane Love Story Ever Told" - this memoir is not going to be for everyone - it's raw and has lots of dark humor, but is also pervasively Christian (i saw reviewers who disliked it from both angles) - but ultimately hopeful, both in terms of faith and the value of fighting through hard times in marriage.  
• "The Six Conversations" by Heather Holleman - a great book about becoming a better conversationalist by being interested and asking good questions.

Favorite Middle Grade:

• "Everything Sad is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri - a memoir about a child whose life goes from prosperous Iranian to refugee living in America - lots of Arabian folk story woven in, also humor, also some very sad parts - shows the experience well.
• "A Place to Hang the Moon" by Kate Albus - historical fiction book about a group of siblings who were orphaned and grouped with WWII evacuees from London - a good mix of funny, sweet, sad, and ultimately hopeful.
• "Peter Pan" by J.M. Barrie - really fun read aloud for both parents and kids.  
• "The Light Princess" by George MacDonald - funny, well written, beautiful themes.
• The Wingfeather Series - we made our way through #3 and are in the middle of #4 - this is an excellent series for any children or parents who love books like The Chronicles of Narnia. 

Happy reading, all!  I would love to hear your recommendations!  Would especially love to hear books in any genre that were great on audio!

 

Advent Post 2023: God With Us

One of the things I'm thinking about this Advent season is how God is full of surprises, and the Christmas story shows this as much as anything.  It's a such a familiar story that we forget the shock of it, but imagine seeing any of these things in the headlines, and not of the National Enquirer:

A virgin becomes pregnant with the Son of God.  Shepherds are visited in the middle of the night by a huge choir of singing angels.  Several kings follow a giant moving star to meet a baby in a farm stall.  It's crazy!  But the biggest surprise of all is how God, who created the universe with His word, entered into humanity to be with us.  This blog is some thoughts about how much we need the "with us", and what a gift it is to have God with us.  

Since we're in the holiday season, I'll start there:  when I think of favorite Christmas memories, the main thing that stands out is who I was with.  The food, the decorations, the music, and the gifts are all great and contribute to the atmosphere of abundance and celebration (and shout out to all the hosts who, over the years, have worked round the clock to make Christmas so special) - but what really makes the holiday is celebrating with those you love.  

Beyond the holidays - every day life is made better when you have someone who understands, even in part, what things are like for you.  With siblings, you understand together the unique dynamics of your family (and as we all learn, these dynamics don't end when you grow up and move out of the house!).  With a spouse, you build a shared history and life as you age together, experience the joys and challenges of parenting children, and make all kinds of decisions about all kinds of things.  With friends, you choose people who have a similar understanding of the things that seem most important to you.  In a workplace or church or community group, you understand the ups and downs of working towards a goal together with this particular group of people on this particular project.  In all of the examples listed above, things sometimes get trickier and more conflict laden because other people are involved, and not all of these people will be lifelong companions - but ultimately life is richer and better for the people who stick with us through the long haul. 

And hard times?  This is the best time of all to have someone walking beside you.  When you or a loved one gets a devastating health diagnosis; when you or someone you love is struggling with something that can't be easily "fixed"; when you've been treated horribly; when finances feel impossible.  These are the times when it feels the most needful to have someone alongside you.  

The problem is, we don't always have someone with us through the good, the ordinary, or the bad.  We don't always feel understood.  We don't always have the "with you" that we are built for, long for, need.  

This longing for "with us" is one of the things that makes Christmas so beautiful:   in the Incarnation, the God of the universe comes down to be with us.  He joins us in the ups and downs of life, so we can know that He understands exactly what it's like that we go through.  Here is my favorite quote describing that:

 "The incarnation means that for whatever reason God chose to let us fall into a condition of being limited, to suffer, to be subject to sorrows and death - he has nonetheless had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine...He himself has gone through the whole of human experience - from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death...He was born in poverty and suffered infinite pain - all for us - and thought it well worth his while."  - Dorothy Sayers

We never have to feel alone in any part of the human experience, never have to feel that no one understands us, because God understands what we go through.  And while we are in the Already Not Yet  time of waiting for Christ's return, we can take great comfort that God is with us.  Merry Christmas to all of you, and I pray that everyone reading this feels the sweet companionship and love of God with us.  

Thankfulness post 2023

It's my annual Thanksgiving week post!  This year, there's been two themes that keep popping up for me, and they seem wildly different, but they were joined last week, so I'm also going to join them in this post.  

The first theme is hope in the middle of doubt and discouragement.  Often in the fall, I struggle with feelings of self doubt.  These feelings pop up in my parenting, homeschooling, relationships with friends and family, trying to write these blog posts, you name it.  Even as I've learned to expect them, I can't seem to fight them off on my own.  But my gratitude is for the promises that in my weakness, God is strong.  That my identity isn't found in what an amazing job I'm doing (or failing to do) with my life, but rather it's found in being a child of God, which is something that I'm not powerful enough to mess up.  I'm grateful for these promises, and I'm grateful for anything that can remind me of them in the middle of weakness.

The second theme - taking a 90 degree turn - is gratitude for music.  So much of adult life is work and responsibility - but this is why moments of fun and joy and abandon are so wonderful.  For me, music and dancing often brings these feelings.  Upbeat music on a run, new songs sent by friends, Kenny playing guitar, singing worship music at church; dancing around the campfire or the living room, line dancing (badly) at the country western bar, seeing live music at a show - the joy that comes from music feels other worldly.

These two themes united when we went to see Lauren Daigle in concert last week.  The big theme of her lyrics touches on exactly the things I struggle with; lyrics like, "I keep fighting voices in my head that say I'm not enough" or "When I'm not somebody I believe in".  And then she proceeds to sing the promises of God that reminds me how God loves us through these doubts, how God is our strength, and how to pray in these moments when you're feeling so weak.  And when you experience these beautiful promises in combination with her amazing voice and band, and with an arena of 10,000 people singing along, it feels like a foretaste of heaven.

So this year, I'm grateful that we got to have this concert experience.  I'm grateful for the transcendent joy that can be felt in music.  And most of all, I'm grateful to have Someone so much bigger than me to help as I grapple with my struggles.  

Happy Thanksgiving all!  I would love to hear any of your own stories where you felt transcendent hope and joy while listening to music.  

1,000 Hours Outside

Palm tree oasis hike

This year, we decided to take on the 1,000 hours outside challenge, inspired by the podcast of the same name.  This challenge encourages families to spend more time outside throughout the year - 1,000 hours specifically, which works out to an average of 2.7 hours outside per day.  We're not quite at the end of the year, but we're rounding the bend close enough that I thought I'd write a blog about it - why we did it, what were the best and hardest parts, how did it go, and whether we will do it again.  

Kenny and Josh watching sunset in Oregon

Why do it?

The benefits of outdoor time are huge.  Just some of these benefits include:  more physical activity; more time playing / using imagination / taking risks; less time on screens;  good health and sensory effects; great memories; exposure to natural beauty; and the list goes on.  

Spooner Lake

This challenge seemed like a good way to really measure how we were doing at getting outdoors, and to encourage looking for any and every space that would get us outside more.  We are reasonably outdoorsy in the warm weather months, but I would guess in past years we were only getting to about half the amount of hours in this challenge (maybe??  if even that much??).  I wanted to see if we could ramp our hours way up and turn sustained outdoor time into more of a habit.  

How did it go?  What were the best parts and the biggest challenges?

The first challenge we faced was weather.  As I wrote about previously on this blog, our region received record breaking amounts of snow this year.  There are some kinds of weather where it's unpleasant, but not impossible, to be outside: days that are unpleasantly hot, unpleasantly cold, or precipitous.  I felt like it was one of the unexpected benefits of this challenge to try to take these uncomfortable days on - to learn how to dress appropriately, to find the fun and motivating activity that gets you out (sledding!), and to strategize about what's the best time of day with this kind of weather forecast.  An hour outside in dreary January does as much to boost the mood as 8 hours outside in beautiful May, and this was one of my favorite takeaways from the challenge.  However - while we did get a little time logged in that snowy first quarter, probably much more than we would have without the challenge - we were still mostly indoors and we were WAY behind by the time April hit.  

Zoey writing poetry at Evans Creek

Partly because we were so desperate for hours, I started doing school outside once the warm weather arrived.  And this was great!  It provided some fresh energy during that fourth quarter when everyone is worn down.  It should be noted here that this was a great answer to the two other main challenges:  1) finding the time, and 2) killing boredom.  It's great when your outdoor hours can be filled with adventuring, but to fill 1,000 hours, much of it is going to need to take place close to home with everyday tasks.  Chores are great for this - watering the lawn, tending a garden, walking the dog.  Outdoor exercise is great for this - running, bike rides, baseball, skiing.  And if you can combine the outdoors with things that you want or need to do anyway, but might have normally done indoors - things like meals, board games, art projects, reading, school - that will really rack up the hours during the warmer weather months, when it's comfortable to be outside.  I really liked that this challenge encouraged me to move indoor things outside whenever possible, and I hope that continues past this year.  

Once school was out in June, we conducted our summer pretty much as normal, which includes lots of outdoor time at various bodies of water and a couple camping trips.  This reminds me of another thing I appreciated about this challenge - it encourages you to say yes to adventures.  Whether this means coming up with your own plans, or saying yes to someone's invitation to get together outdoors even when you might be feeling lazy (or introverted!) - it's good to have this extra push to do outdoor outings.

We were blessed not to have any wildfire smoke this summer (some years, smoke impacts up to 60 days - there's no way we would have met the hours in a year like that).  Between the school hours in the shoulder seasons of spring and fall, combined with summer being so amenable to outdoor time, we were able to catch up.  We haven't officially finished our 1,000 hours yet, but we are down to the final 50 hours, so we are in the home stretch.  

[A note for those who are also doing the 1,000 hours:  There were certain tracking rules that we did not follow.  If we slept in a tent, I counted those hours.  If the kids were playing in the backyard while I was inside cooking dinner, or if I was outside for a run while the kids were inside, I counted those hours.  All of the "broken rule" hours combined probably make up less than 200 of our total hours - but I want to disclose that, in case anyone is wondering, and to own up that we wouldn't have made it to 1,000 without breaking a couple rules.]

Andelin Farms

Favorite outdoor memories

This is one of the great parts - outdoors time makes great memories!  Some favorite memories include skiing at Sky Tavern with the kids; sledding Village Green; hiking through a palm tree oasis in Palm Springs; going on a lichen hunt on a spring hike; night swimming with glowsticks with the cousins; diving into the waves on a choppy day at Lake Tahoe; middle of the night run through Genoa during the Reno Tahoe Odyssey; paddle boarding at Boca on Zoey's birthday; having a campfire dance party with friends; spotting whales on the Oregon beach; and telling ghost stories in the tent.  

Sky Tavern

Will we do it again?

I'm undecided.  I'm glad we did it once, and I do hope lots of the outdoor habits stick.  But it was pretty challenging to get all these hours and keep track of it all; also, getting outdoors is just one priority among many in life; so I'm thinking we might drop the tracking at the end of December.  

Have you done this challenge?  Are you thinking about doing it?  I'd be very interested to hear about others' experiences!