We were stuck for 2 hours on the Sunshine Skyway bridge over Tampa Bay today due to a fatal accident. Watching everyone get out of their vehicles, take selfies, throw footballs, fish, and wonder when they’d get home - while someone was dead just yards ahead - reminded me of my days in TV news, which were filled with these odd juxtapositions of both the most humbling moments and those of routine frivolity. Most people were probably just hoping the road would reopen, though perhaps for a few seconds they considered the life and death of the person up ahead. It will be the same for all of us someday. Few will remember or even care. Even those who are hoping money or power will save them, those who may end up in a history book, will still meet the same fate. And though this seems a morose Easter message, I find it to be oddly fitting for the day we Christians remember our only hope. There is no identity that will last, no bank account, fame or statue that will save us - for dust we are and to dust we shall return. May our loving Father welcome home whoever it was ahead of us today.
A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while life shall last,
And our eternal home.
Remember when herding animals required manual labor? Actually we were shooting video but the animals thought it was the end of the world and ran straight for the barn. It was the fastest feeding time on record, maybe we use the drone more often?!
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I wasn’t a committed homeschool mom from the second my first child was born. I did quite a bit of research because I wanted to learn more about how kids learn - and truly what kind of environments are not just best for learning ABCs but for overall health and development. I wasn’t even sure I would be a good teacher. After reading many books written by education “experts”, we landed on homeschool.
I really had to unravel quite a bit of what I thought was “school” before I could even begin. I went to the same private school K-12 and equated learning with perfect exam scores. As a student, I forgot a lot of what I crammed into my head because I wasn’t learning for the joy of it - I was learning to survive.
I have come to see how much a child learns through simply living - and being bored! They are innately attuned to art, nature, science, nutrition, play, language - if only we give them a chance. I have truly loved homeschooling my kids, especially all the time we get to spend...
I lived for many years with the idea that I would be a career woman first and someday get to kids.
Biologically, this makes little sense as it gets harder to have kids as a woman ages. But even more mind boggling, I didn’t really even think much of it, like the way one considers what he or she is having for dinner. Actually I probably put more thought into dinner. Being a mom was a complete afterthought. One day a friend and I were eating lunch in downtown Seattle and she smacked some truth into my noggin. I decided, ok what the heck. What do I have to lose? We had our first when I was 38 - I found out I was pregnant the week I resigned from my TV news job. Our second came when I was 41.
If I could talk to younger me, I’d tell her that no career is worth delaying or sacrificing motherhood. It has been the most incredibly humbling, soul-stretching, heart-throbbing, belly laughing adventure I’ve ever had.
And don’t forget to grab the fermented cod liver/concentrated butter oil from...