Circling Through This Life

As I think about saying hello to the new year, I can’t help but think about what goals I want to accomplish.  There are no major life events planned.  We’ve not been invited to any weddings, nor have the girls been asked to be part of the weddings. (We had flower girl in 2013.) None of my girls are set to graduate in 2014. (We had one in 2013 and we’ll have one in 2015.)  So what am I looking forward to? Using my 2014 Schoolhouse Review Crew Blog Planner ~  I tried a bit to use a blog planner for 2013 but couldn’t really find one that I really liked.  There are parts of this specially designed for 2014 Schoolhouse Review Crew Team Members planner that I don’t need and won’t use but I’ve printed out and bound the pages that I want. Keeping my blog real.  Blogging from my heart about what’s on my mind, about what’s happening in my life and my thoughts and reactions to issues of faith, family and home education. Using a new simplified check off system f...

I can’t say that I remember much of the first half of 2013, but the second half? Especially the summer? That was a stressful and busy time! I’ve decided to take a photo tour of the year! Sharing pictures as highlights from 2013. But first I’m going to start with some blog post highlights though: I chose my focus word for 2013 BooBear was accepted to her first choice college and received an academic merit scholarship ! I posted my most popular ever post in February of 2013.  It was a recipe  for “Stir Fry” in a Crockpot! I wrote a post about Better Butter ! Now for a few pictures! From January to May we experienced a Recital, Every Day School Life, a Birthday and Pascha! June through December we experienced another recital, a heart attack, a graduation, a wedding, and more birthdays. Other 2013 Highlights include:  Honeybear reading the Epistle for the first time, growing a garden, and I became an Orthodox Godmother for the first time. My friend Susan has ...

WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Title: Forever Friday Author: Timothy Lewis Publisher: WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group Format: Paperback Page Count: 288 pages Sneak Peek:   includes chapter 1 download link Though some would say I am a hopeless romantic, romance novels are not my go to genre when choosing a book but Forever Friday has a different approach. It’s not a typical boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, have conflict, resolve conflict and live happily ever after.  Yes, boy does meet girl.  Yes, boy and girl fall in love.  Yes, there are conflicts and problems to solve that do get resolved and yes the one couple lives out the “’til death do us part,” but the love story is a story in a story and it is beautifully woven together dancing from the past to the present as we get glimpses or pictures of the love story that spans 60 years. About the Book: ...

I did not get this posted yesterday so really it’s Random 5 on Saturday <grin>. 1.   Christmas Eve ~  Our church has two services.  The first is at 10am and is “Royal Hours”.   I love this service.  The hymnography tells the story from Joseph’s perspective.  At the beginning of the service Joseph is troubled.  He wonders why Mary is doing this to him and bringing him dishonor.  By the end of the service Joseph is “convinced that Mary will birth to God.”   It has become a tradition in our church for the Youth to be the choir.   2. Christmas Eve~  We attended the beautiful Vesperal Divine Liturgy of St. Basil which includes many OT readings read by the laity. None of us participated (we got there too late!  Oops!) but Honeybear ended up reading the Epistle that night. The Liturgy was followed by a Lenten potluck.  There were some traditional Holy Supper foods as well as candles on the tables. Very be...

I decided to the follow the advice that a friend gave to someone else: make a list for the letters that you are missing.  So with this post I hope to be on the same letter as Marcy over at Ben and Me. This my Merry Christmas Edition of Alphabet Blogging:   I is for Icon of the Nativity of Christ For information about the icon: the symbolism and theology you can read the Orthodox Wiki article: Nativity Icon J is for baby Jesus in the Manager: The phrase “baby Jesus in the manager” brings two things to mind or rather I hear two things.  I hear the song “Away in the Manager” (which bugs me with the line “no crying he made.”  He was a baby.  He cried.  He was fully human. He did not sin.  Crying is not a sin.  Crying is a human baby means of communicating. Rant over.) and the other is a CCM song.  Casting Crowns?  Third Day?  Oh it’s Third day and the song is “Born in Bethlehem.”  I always hear “baby Jesus lying in a mana...

I do celebrate Christmas.  This isn’t a post about why you shouldn’t celebrate or that Christ wasn’t really born on December 25 or that Christmas is pagan.  Nope.  I spent a few years in the “Christmas-is-pagan-therefore-we-can’t-celebrate-it” camp. That is a whole ‘nother topic for another blog post and not one I want to tackle today. Instead I want to share about my journey from celebrating Christmas to not celebrating Christmas back to celebrating Christmas and what Christmas means for my family. It’s a heart to heart about why we celebrate Christmas and why it’s important to us. I grew up Catholic. (Yes, Roman Catholic. though there are several “ rites” that are in communion with or fall under the Bishop of Rome . The largest is the Roman Rite which is the one that most people think of when they think “catholic”.) We always celebrated Christmas which included attending mass, though we usually did that on Christmas Eve (the 4:30 service though I always wanted to go ...

We are a game loving family and part of our Christmas holiday tradition is playing games during the 12 days of Christmas. Dad takes time off from work and we have lovely days of sitting around munching food and playing games.  We do something similar at Thanksgiving as well. It’s also become a tradition that there is a least one new game under the tree. With Christmas coming up fast [in just a few days!!] I thought I would share a list of games that we love, some of which have been Christmas presents. Wits-n-Wagers Family Edition ~  We reviewed this one crew year and it quickly became a family favorite.  Say Anything Family Edition ~ Like Wits-n-Wagers, this game is from NorthStar Games and we had the privilege of reviewing it for the crew. We can all play this as a family as well but we did have to modify it a bit in order to include Supergirl. 10 Days Games  from Out of the Box: Engaging Games ~  We purchased these years ago, there are several. We ha...