2009

Mama bear is proud

16 November 2009

Posted by Les at Monday, November 16, 2009

I'll warn you right now, this is going to be a "my little girl is such a great kid" kind of post. :-)

We just finished Operation Christmas Child at church. As a family, we've done OCC (you know, those shoeboxes filled with goodies) for a number of years. In Novembers past, I've gathered the kids around my computer and showed them the videos that can be seen on the Samaritans Purse website. We would head over to Zellers and the dollar store to fill up shoeboxes with all manner of exciting things (exciting, because we knew they would be going to some little one who likely owned nothing like any of our bounty). I was always really pleased with the effect on my kids and felt it was building a great sense of compassion and sacrifice in them. It's hard for 2 and 3 year olds to pick things out of a store and not get to keep them!

Well, last year and this, mom and I brought OCC to the MountainKids. I won't get into how it went here and now, but instead I wanted to tell you about something Honour did.

2 or 3 weekends ago, we were over at my parents house on a Sunday afternoon, a common ritual. Sometime in the afternoon, Honour started talking about a ballet show she wanted to put on for all of us. This is also a common ritual in our family, although she'd never done it at my moms, in front of all the family.
So she schemed and planned all afternoon and once in a while I heard rumblings that she was going to be asking us all to pay to see the show. I didn't give this alot of attention--I'm usually trying to catch up on MountainKids planning on Sunday afternoons.

Sure enough, after supper she finagled the menfolk to move the furniture in the living room aside and tada! Her dance floor was ready. As everyone came in and found a place to sit, she tripped about the room, flashing her pearlies and holding out her hand for "donations". She asked for a minimum of a dime. Of course everyone dug deep and acquiesced.

And then, as I tootled some made-up tune (at her request), she waltzed about the room and performed, to the best of her memory, some of what she learned at a 10 week ballet class over a year ago. She was, of course, adorable.

After a grand total of 4 minutes, the show was done and we all clapped enthusiastically. When she had me help her count her proceeds, I was surprised that she had raised nearly 2$.

It was then that she told me that "Now she had enough to buy something for the kids who only get one egg for breakfast!". I was SO touched and pleased at this. I had been a little concerned at her "hornswaggling" this money off my parents and siblings, but to hear what her little heart had been intending....it just made my heart melt.

You might be wondering what in the world the one egg for breakfast thing is....

A couple months ago, I read this blog about a remarkable young woman who is making a difference in the world in a way most of us only dream of. You can read about her here.

One story she tells is about how she provides breakfast for about 200 needy kids in Uganda--a hard boiled egg. Now, truthfully, she might give them more than just one egg, but one day when I was trying to help my daughters understand how wasteful it was not to finish the food on their plate, I told them about Katie, and these children she provides for. I told them that these poor kids only got 1 egg for breakfast and that was a word picture that really stuck in their heads.

Honour had decided that these kids who only get one egg for breakfast were one and the same as those we were packing shoeboxes for. And who knows, they just might be.

So a few days after the ballet for charity show, I took her and Verity over to the dollar store and she picked out 2 items to go in her OCC box.

I won't pretend she was still single-mindedly committed to buying this stuff for her box...I had to keep her on track a couple times. But in the end, the items were bought, and she was ready to pack them in the shoebox and see them go off to a child who would appreciate them--in the end---more than she.

One of those...maybe-we-are-doing-a-half-decent-parenting-job-after-all moments....

We've been Dave Ramsey-fied

04 November 2009

Posted by Les at Wednesday, November 04, 2009

So here's an update on our Mvelopes/Dave Ramsey journey.

It's started quite a while ago really. I think we've just passed the 3 year mark for using Mvelopes. I first talked about it on my blog here and here. I'm still a huge fan of the service. I'm even considering a new offer they're advertising about a life-long membership for a reasonable price. I really do think I'll be using this for a looong time...or at least as long as it would take to spend the same amount yearly as I would in one shot for the lifetime membership.

Crown, where I first learned of Mvelopes through their Money Matters radio show, (it may be called something different--I haven't been able to listen to WDCX for months, ever since some dumb station from Kitchener horned in on their signal) and Dave Ramsey have alot in common. Crown has their Money Map with it's 6 or 7 steps to managing your money; Dave has his Baby Steps. Crown has the Debt Rollover. Dave has his Debt Snowball. The two mesh nicely and rarely does one contradict the other. I also pay attention to Mary Hunt. I read one of her books a few years ago; I think it was the Financially Confident Woman. I was impressed with her story of working her way out of massive credit and consumer debt, but I've been just slightly less impressed with some of her philosophies. Plus I thought when I read it that she was an outspoken Christian, but none of her emails or stuff I read now seems to indicate that at all. Not that I wouldn't listen to her if she wasn't a Christian...good money sense is good money sense no matter where it comes from.

But Dave Ramsey and I just click. I love listening to his show. I love his dry, sarcastic humour and his southern drawl; how he can get away with calling the ladies 'darlin'. I love the simple, straightforward common sense way he has about him. I don't doubt that he understands the ins and outs of real estate, investing, economics and all that, but he 'puts the cookies on the bottom shelf'. I said in one of the previous posts (now a few years ago) that I first read his Total Money Makeover about 5-6 years ago. We were living in Brantford and I think it was part of our big wake-up call that we had been completely botching our finances. I borrowed books from all over and I believe that one came from my parents' shelves.

It was a good book, really liked the ideas and principles. Talked to James about it, read him parts of the book. He agreed and so we decided to go for it. We were going to start the Baby Steps. I think they're fairly well known, so I'll list them here:

1. Save $1000 quickly for an emergency fund.

2. Get out of debt, except for your house, using the Debt Snowball

3. Save a larger emergency fund: 3-6 months of expenses

4. Start contributing to your retirement

5. Start contributing to kids college fund, you if have kids

6. Pay off your house

7. Enjoy and give away your wealth!

This is where we're at!

So back to our first try: It was pretty much a complete bust. A combination of things I think...one was that we didn't follow the steps. We thought we were, but really, we didn't and so it didn't work. We didn't think we could save the $1000 bucks, that seemed unreasonable and unnecessary and so we...shhhh...skipped that one. Number two was that James was with me on it, but he wasn't with me on it. Dave talks about getting mad and zealous about getting rid of your debt--gazelle intensity he calls it. We didn't get that. So it petered out.

Jump ahead to our move to Hamilton and the discovery of Mvelopes. I wouldn't say that Dave Ramsey's material was completely ineffective in our lives. I think alot of the principles and ideas permeated our thoughts and beliefs and slowly we became more mad at our debt and more serious about doing something to get rid of it.

The Mvelopes was a great step. For the first time, we had a way to follow up on our budget and really track where everything was going. It's one thing to sit down and make a budget and say, "OK, we're going to spend 40$ on milk and bread for the next two weeks". But how do you make sure you do that? 5 trips to the variety store later, you've spent more than $40 bucks. But you need the bread and milk, right? It's that follow up step that most people lose out on when they live on a budget. You can get really fastidious and keep every receipt and go back to your budget sheet and subtract each one, keeping a running total. I did that for a while...back when I was still doing everything on paper with a pencil. But Mvelopes makes all that nice and streamlined.

The Mvelopes was working really nicely for us, but it hadn't solved all our problems. The beginning of this year rolled around and I sat down to run some reports (another nice Mvelopes feature) to see how we'd done over the previous year. The most valuable part of this is I can see accurately how much is actually getting spent in each category. We might budget $180 for groceries every two weeks, but what do we really spend? Do we go over and pull from other envelopes, or let the envelope sit in the negative until payday and fill it up with overtime? Then I have a goal to aim for. One of my little money goals is to be able to fill each envelope with the actual amount we spend. It gets awfully tiresome to always be putting the bare minimum into, let's say, the food envelope and than overspending it much of the time because it's simply not enough money to feed my family. Then I might actually get to the point of having money left over in an envelope and be able to 'sweep' it into a savings envelope at the end of the month.

My financial assessment, as it usually is, was not pretty. We were just consistently overspending, relying on a cushion in the account to take the fall. Well, the cushion had sprung a leak and now it was flat and useless. Gone, in fact.

I actually had to reset the Mvelopes system. We had so many negatives that it was like being in the middle of an endless maze. It was a depressing and pride-busting day.

We decided that we needed to do something more. We needed more help, more information....more something. So I started looking at Dave Ramseys material again on his website. His Financial Peace University looked like just what we needed.

I'll boil this down so as not to make this too long (too late!). We found an FPU class in the area and started attending. It was awesome. It totally kickstarted us on the path to our financial hopes. Within a month we had our 'baby' emergency fund. I really think that the only way we were able to do it was using the Mvelopes. Let me expand a little.

Have you ever had a time where you knew you'd be saving money on something in particular? Or maybe some extra money came in for something. For instance, when we first read DR, we decided that instead of James getting a second job, we were going to take all his overtime and put that towards the Baby Steps. Every pay, I saw that overtime come in but do you think it actually went towards the Steps? No way. It frittered away into nothing.

With using Mvelopes, we were able to see any extra money in black and white, and immediately put it towards our goal. When the gas bill arrived, $26 less than the usual equal payment amount (we're on equal installments for all our bills that offer it), that $26 went right into the Emergency Fund envelope and then transferred to our ING account soon after. I regularly sat down and went through the envelopes, scraping off amounts as few as 4 cents, transferring it to the EF envelope. The night we got to $1000, we celebrated with a bottle of sparkling juice that we had bought for Valentines day and not used. It was Jamie's birthday too! It was such an amazing feeling. We'd never saved that much money in our whole lives.

Onward to Step 2. I guess it wouldn't be kosher to say how much we were in debt. But I'll say that we had about 3 debts that were all around the same size. And they seemed pretty big to us. I knew it was going to take us quite a bit longer than one month to get it taken care of, snowball or not.

Just in case you're not familiar with the Snowball concept, here's a quick lesson: You list all your debts from smallest to largest. Include in this list who it's to, what your monthly payment is, what your interest rate is and the total amount owed. Since this is Baby Step #2, you're likely already in search-under-the-couch-cushions-for-extra-money mode, so keep that up and start applying ANY extra money towards debt #1. Keep paying the minimums on all the rest. Do crazy things like work extra jobs delivering pizzas or something to get extra money--remember, it's only for a short time. As Dave says constantly, Live like no one else....so that later you can live like no one else. Then when you've got debt #1 paid off (celebrate!) and move on to #2, applying the minimum from #1 to #2...and keep scraping and delivering those pies.

This is again where the Mvelopes were indispensable. This is again, where we failed when we tried the first time. Because we didn't have a plan for how each household paycheque was used, there was no way to put our hands on that minimum from debt #1 in a consistent way. With Mvelopes, when a paycheque comes in, a 'profile' is applied to it: a list of all the financial obligations that we've pre-determined will always come out of it. For instance, my paycheque from one of my choirs pays for:
Phone bill
Babysitter
Savings
Gas bill
Some groceries

In the Mvelopes program, the deposit from this paycheque comes through automatically (Mvelopes connects with your bank and downloads all your recent transactions). I click on it and drag it to the Income Cash Pool (the screen where you decide what envelopes it will be dispersed to). I found it easiest to use their profiling option which with one click, fills in the amounts for me.
So when Debt#1 got paid off, when I clicked on 'profile', however much we were paying towards it was filled in....but now it didn't need to be there! I could very happily delete that box and clearly see from my totals at the bottom of the screen that we now had $X to apply to somewhere else. So I put it in the envelope for Debt #2. Small victory...but felt great.

Since the spring when we finished FPU, we were able, through the blessings and grace of God, to finish Baby Step #2, and as you can see from my ticker, get about halfway through step #3. It's an amazing feeling! Especially when I think back to the frustration and despondency of our first attempt 5-6 years ago. I never thought we'd make it this far!---and maybe that was part of the problem.

So that's my novel..er, um, update. I hope maybe there was something informative or inspiring for you!

The Lowdown

29 October 2009

Posted by Les at Thursday, October 29, 2009

We're still somewhat in a state of shock that this is all happening. For a number of days James kept texting me with variations of "I'VE GOT A NEW JOB!!".

Most people reading this are family that know what we've been living with the last 8 years. But, just for the odd person that perhaps stumbles upon this blog, or some friends from facebook that perhaps are taking a peek here, I'm going to talk a bit about it.

I say 'living with' like it's been some kind of horrendous ordeal. I wouldn't say that at all. People who have lost their jobs are in a horrendous ordeal. But, we have been putting up with a situation that a lot of people would have gotten themselves out of a LONG time ago.

When we moved back from Chicago, James left a good job in the AV department of Moody. Because of our decision to move back to Ontario, he also turned down what likely would have been a really excellent job with a recording studio in Wheaton. But, for many reasons we wanted to get back to Canada.

We had a detailed plan about how James was going to send out resumes all spring, schedule interviews for March Break when we were home for a week and come home the end of May with a job waiting. Now that we've lived in the real world for a few years, I can clearly see how deluded that was.

Things didn't work out too much worse than that however. While he didn't get any interviews during March Break, he did land a job at a local AV Production company within about 6 weeks of our move back home.

Unfortunately, that job was somewhat short lived, and about a year later he decided to go freelance. Freelance in Chicago had served him well. Freelance in Southern Ontario....slightly different dynamic. Things were pretty sketchy and when I got pregnant with Jairus, I started pushing James to find full time work. One of his freelance jobs was working with my uncles AV company in London and sometime around Jairus' birth, he was able to start working full time there. It was an hour and a half commute from our little house in Stoney Creek which James was quite willing to do if it meant a steady paycheque and some security.

After about a year though, with the boss suggesting we move closer, we decided to try a halfway point and considered Brantford. To make a long story short, we spent 4 years in Brantford. Honour and Verity were both born there. James' commute was still on the long side though.

In 2006 we moved back to Hamilton for a number of reasons, one being that James wanted to develop his recording business and felt that the closer to Toronto the better. And so the commute continued. James would leave the house about 6:45 and get home at 6pm, at the earliest. With three children that only periodically sleep all night without waking for some reason, and a fourth that regularly wakes numerous times in the night, it was no surprise that James called often during his drive home, needing my help to stay awake. Sometimes he'd arrive home late, or told me of getting to work late because of pulling over and dozing for 10 minutes. Sometimes the 10 turned into 20....30....45 minutes?!

Overtime was not unusual. James would get home closer to 6:30, 7 or even 8 or 9 o'clock at least once a week. Regularly there were installation jobs that took him away to a far off town or city for 2 or 3 days to a week a number of times a year.

It was those long days I would dread....days of being with 4 small children for 10+ hours on my own.

The company he worked for was small. A few years ago, my uncle sold it to a young guy with a good business head. Still, the employees could be counted on one hand. Up until a year and a half ago or so, we did not have any health benefits at all. We had looked into arranging our own insurance, but the cost was crazy. Finally, the new boss was able to put a plan in place.
After 8+ years of working for this company we really had to take a serious look at James' future there. Through a period of restructuring and the new boss coming on, James' responsibilities had gone from a simple install tech to a manager in charge of overseeing the jobs. Unfortunately, his pay had not seen the same increase, a situation I regularly groused about. What was more disturbing however, was that there didn't seem to be any potential to move into a position where an increase in salary was possible. The next rung on the ladder was the owner of the company. I was becoming increasingly concerned as I watched our kids grow out of clothes and shoes that the costs of raising four children was only going to get more expensive. Being a virtually single income family is incredibly difficult these days. Add homeschooling to the situation--the costs of which we saw approximately quadruple this year as Honour moved into Grade 1 work....well, I think you're getting the idea.

It was shortly after we moved back to Hamilton that I first started talking seriously to James---and God, about finding a new job. He agreed with me (James, that is), but I sensed a reluctance on some level. Perhaps it was just the immensity of it all. They do say that changing jobs is a stressor right up there with losing a loved one or divorcing.

Nevertheless he did start looking. He regularly searched a number of job sites online but was usually unsuccessful at even finding a job that interested him or that he qualified for. When this situation dragged on through months and into years, I became more frustrated. Every once in a while he would find a good listing and we would work on his resume and write a cover letter. Every time, he failed to even hear about an interview. We both became more and more discouraged. In the spring of 2008 I reached a point where I felt James needed to consider finding some help in this venture. I remember sitting down one Monday morning to my computer and doing a search for career coaches. Alan Kearnes of Careerjoy seemed to jump out at me and when I later that same day received a postcard from Fair Havens advertising a seminar with him as a keynote speaker, I was convinced it was a sign that James should make an appointment with him. His $1000.00 price tag later convinced me that it wasn't to be.

Fast forward to this fall. After a wonderful "Kent Summer of Fun" with our kids, James for a few reasons that will remain nameless became inspired to start looking again. Within four days, he found the McMaster listing and we were gripped with a hope that we hadn't felt for a long time. Of all the jobs he'd ever found online, this one seemed to fit him more perfectly than any other we'd looked at. It was in an area he had specific experience with. Not only had he worked in the same department at Moody, but he'd had a few installation jobs that had put him into close contact with some of the new technologies being used in education today ("Smart" classrooms). Making a move into the world of academia was appealing to James. Working for a huge institution with the security and weight behind it that a university can offer was inviting. The vastly shortened commute was simply inconceivable. At times, I was just plain scared to hope that this could happen for us. And I don't think I've prayed as hard as I have since I was carrying Afton.

Well, you know the rest of the story now. It's really going to happen. One week from Monday, James will start his new job at McMaster University. He is SO excited! We got his 'package' from Human Resources yesterday in the mail and he sat down and read through every word of it, and than got online to check out the sites he was directed to. There's still some loose ends to work through: this past week we've been debating what to do about a computer for him. The one he uses belongs to his current job. While usually I'd be the first to say that a computer isn't a "need", James had already taken on two recording jobs in the next 6 weeks and so a laptop is a necessity. His cell phone will also have to go back to the company. We're not sure if McMaster would supply such a thing, or perhaps they just use radios on campus, like James did at Moody.

Then there's been some concern about reconciling the vacation days he's already used, but now will not work the last 2 months of the year to earn. Something we never considered when this new job search was underway.

I'm not going to worry though, because, well to be honest, I'm still basking in the glow and certainty that God answers prayer. I know, that doesn't sound very faithful--that I'm feeling confident now, implying that other times I don't?

{Shrug}

What can I say....it's true. And I don't think I'm all that different from most other Christians. We're still just human after all, and our confidence wavers. Sometimes when the answer from God time and time again is "wait", your faith starts to flag. And than you have an amazing experience like this to renew your strength.

I'm also not worried because of another journey the Lord has been taking us through....stay tuned for my long overdue Dave Ramsey update!

HE GOT THE JOB!!!

22 October 2009

Posted by Les at Thursday, October 22, 2009

PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW

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GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!HE GOT THE JOB!

PRAISE HIM ALL CREATURES HERE BELOW

PRAISE HIM ABOVE, YE HEAVENLY HOSTS

PRAISE FATHER, SON AND HOLY GHOST!

AMEN!

HE DID GREAT!

20 October 2009

Posted by Les at Tuesday, October 20, 2009

James came home pretty much beaming after his interview. He did just awesome. He felt that he answered questions well, asked questions well and overall made an excellent impression. The 3 interviewers assured him that we would know--yay or nay, by the end of the week.

Thank you so much for all the prayers. Lots of you emailed, and I'm confident many more were praying too. Please keep it up!

HE GOT AN INTERVIEW!

16 October 2009

Posted by Les at Friday, October 16, 2009

Look at that, I even restrained myself from putting many exclamation points after the title.

Yes indeed, Monday at 12:30, James will be interviewing at McMaster. I was going to ask you all to pray for today as well, as he had to break the news to his boss and ask for the time off to go to the interview, but it's all taken care of. His boss was understanding and has agreed to be a reference too. Yay!!
James and I were hoping he might be able to squeeze in his A+ Certification test before an interview, but after more research on it last night, it's not going to be possible. Little bit of a bummer, but hopefully if he can speak intelligently about it and his concrete plans to obtain it, they will see that positively.

Soo, mark your calendar, set your blackberry, put it in your computer with an alarm....pray on Monday for us!!

Holy Sick

12 October 2009

Posted by Les at Monday, October 12, 2009

I've been sick.

Usually, my sick the last, oh 15 years, has been colds. Sinus colds, strep throat maybe. Might have had an ear infection or two.

Have I ever mentioned how much I despise being nauseous? (Or is it, nauseated?) I would frankly rather go through labour than throw up. Pain, I can handle that. Vomiting, not so much. If I had been so blessed as to have morning sickness, you can bet that I would not have four children at this moment. If I should ever get cancer, God forbid, I'm going to be one sad and pathetic chemo patient.

Seriously, it's been more than 17 years since I last had the stomach flu. I can remember specifically when it last happened.

Last Tuesday, Wednesday-ish, I had been having the odd queasy feeling that would prompt me to take a reeeaally big breath. One of my coping mechanisms for nausea.

And then on Thursday morning after taking Jairus to school, I hit this wall. Suddenly all my energy was gone. It was time to put the baby down for a nap and I told the girls that I needed to lie down with her. They were thrilled to postpone school for a few episodes of Scooby Doo. When I woke up with the baby about an hour and a half later, I felt no better, in fact, worse.

I managed to get the girls some lunch and then things took a turn for the really worse, prompting a series of texts to James to hightail it home, in no uncertain terms. Fortunately he was able to do this. He got home just in time to get Jairus from school.

I'll spare you the details of the following 12 hours.

And of course, the best time of year to have the stomach flu is leading into Thanksgiving. I thought I'd be fine by Saturday, but by noon, I was still incredibly energy-less (effects of the Gravol I think), dizzy and lots of other negative type stuff. (yeah, I'm still sparing you). So James took the kids and went off to my side of the family's dinner.

Sunday was somewhat better but I was still rather dizzy and had no strength. Still, I packed pillows around myself and we went up north for James' side of things.

By Monday I could honestly say "almost", when the girls asked me if I was better yet. Almost was good enough to get up and put the house back in order....

Hhyyeah.

You know, a while back my very good friend introduced me to Flylady. But even before that, I had read Managers of their Homes, a home-organization-while-you're-homeschooling book. It showed how to lay out a week of activities and schooling on a nice big colourful schedule, ensuring that everything needed to be done had a time and a time for everything that needed to be done. (Sorry, that's my wordy variation of a place for everything....)

Many proponents of this kind of scheduling insist that with all of your life on a lovely clockwork schedule, clearly laid out with a colour for each kid, if you should fall ill, anyone could pick up your schedule and fall into place, directing all the little soldiers into their proper order. Likewise with Flylady, although she of course focuses on keeping your house clean. With a schedule of cleaning tasks laid out in your 'control journal', hubby or MIL, or whomever can easily take over the running of the household and keep all in order while you are sick or away.

It just sounds SOOO....organized? Coordinated? OCD???!

Well, whatever it is, I wish I was it. For the state of my house after a few days of being incapacitated was truly frightening. After our marathon of cleaning yesterday, things feel MUCH better but somewhere deep still lurks that nasty pessimism that it's only a matter of time.....I like to think about a statement I read somewhere that trying to keep a clean house when you have young children is about as sensible as shoveling while it's still snowing outside.

******************JOB UPDATE**********************

It's now been a week since the job listing closed and I'll admit, we were a little discouraged not to hear anything by last weeks end. But discussing this with James' brother and father yesterday yielded a fresh batch of ENcouragement as it was well agreed that they might not have everything ready to start contacting possible interviewees. They both agreed that James should call, even though there's no contact person on the listing and it might amount to talking to an HR Dept. Administrative assistant.

Sooo, this is just what he did today. He called the department and spoke to said AA who gave him the name of the person in charge of hiring for the job. He left a message for this person who called him back shortly after and said that they were still organizing the resumes and hadn't yet started contacting people. This person (he, she? dunno) invited him to call back in a week if he hadn't heard anything. Yay!

Meanwhile James is considering starting the process of getting his A+ Certification. This was one of the "would be an asset" notes in the job listing. It's a basic computer knowledge/IT kind of training. James did a little research and found some sample questions....put it this way, I was answering some of the questions. We figure it would look really good if he could get the first of the two tests that make up the certification under his belt and be able to say that he was well into the process of getting the whole thing during an interview.

You'll never guess what I did today. I reactivated my Facebook account. I started thinking of it a few weeks ago when a friend announced a serious health crisis concerning one of her kids on FB and my mom had to tell me after reading it there. And, there have been a few situations over the past almost two years since I got off that I kinda wished I was still on. Mostly seeing photos of friends and events. So, I'm giving it a try again....my first status update was that "I caved....but I won't be here much, so email me if you really want to talk". I really hope to stick to that because I really truly can't take another thing in my life that needs to be done. I'm still thinking it's kindof a big thing that I'm doing any blogging.

And often still feel guilty that I'm doing that.....

Kentlife

02 October 2009

Posted by Les at Friday, October 02, 2009

So, a little update on the job. James checked the listing on Tuesday as that was supposed to be the last day it was posted, only to find out that it had been extended for a week. This brought a bunch of feelings...mostly negative I'm afraid to say.
It was first off a bummer because it just delays everything. The sooner James is into a new job, the better. Another week....sigh.

And my first thought was that even though they had James resume, they still wanted to keep looking. That just doesn't sound good from any perspective. But, James had a few side thoughts on this, and another friend had a twist on it as well.

Perhaps it was the union. This will be a union job, so James would have to join, which at this point I don't think we are concerned with at all. Maybe the HR dept were ready to move on this but the union applied some pressure to keep the listing open, to give 'their' people more time. It was only up for a week. That doesn't seem long to me.

And my aforementioned friend thought that perhaps this indicates they are not going with an internal applicant after all. It's a possibility, I think.

So, the door's not closed. We're still praying.

It's Friday and I'm done Week 1 of my new Sonlight homeschooling curriculum. It's been quite a week.

I started on Monday because, I really had to. I ordered it a few weeks ago; the Friday before public school started. Let me just tell you a little about Sonlight. I don't remember exactly how I heard of them a number of years ago. A good friend who homeschools uses their stuff, and I ordered my Handwriting without Tears program through them after seeing the OT use it with Jairus at Lansdowne in Brantford.

I'm not sure where they fall in the 'philosophies' of homeschooling spectrum. They promote alot of reading and literature and I'm all for that, so they found a niche in my heart quickly. Still, I went though two large bags of resources gleaned from two separate years of OCHEC (Christian homeschooling) conventions and carefully considered all the catalogues and companies. The other two runners up were Alpha Omega and Christian Light.

I ordered a set of curriculum that's based around Kindergarten, but suitable up to 7 years of age, with a few grade 1 additives for Honour. When my big box came a few days later, it weighed about 50 pounds and had about 40 books. I was all set to teach: read aloud books (ie. The Boxcar Children), Bible, memory verses, Poetry, History, Geography, Science, Reading and Language Arts. I already had a math program (Math-U-See) and a Printing program (the Handwriting without Tears) and had been using a Hooked on Phonics kit that some friends gave us.

They forgot to send the big binder with tabs to organize all the teaching guides so that was one small delay. I was determined to start even without the binder, but it was rather difficult since I was so new to the curriculum. Then Honour got sick for a whole week, so we were delayed.

Sonlight puts the year together in 36 weeks. I mapped it out on my Google calendar, and with starting week one this week, taking 2 weeks off a Christmas and another in March, we'll finish about a week or two before public school. Sounded good.

Taking an idea from a homeschooler blog my mom probably sent me, I found a clipboard for each of the girls and printed out a table with their subjects down the left and the days of the week across the top. I found a few sheets of smiley stickers and stuck them in the clipboard too. As they finished that subject for the day, they got to put a sticker in the box. I told them if they had all the boxes full of stickers by the end of the week, they'd get a treat.

So, Monday.

I don't remember when we started in the morning, probably around 10 or a little later. I've always had it in my head that I need to get started by 9, but with taking Jairus to school for 8:45, it's pretty much impossible. I try my best to get up by 7 because I really need an hour and a half to get us all dressed, breakfasted, Jairus bathed, his lunch made, myself showered and out the door.

****We interrupt this sad little re-telling to bring you an important announcement:
The job has "gone external".

We're SOO excited!

So back to my week.

I attempted to start working through our curriculum on Monday but only got a few things done. Monday is my choir day so I have to leave the house about 3:30 and a babysitter comes until James gets home.

Tuesday I started again, determined to get through all eight subjects for Honour and seven for Verity.

We started around 10ish and stopped around 11:30, as Verity has gymnastics at 1pm on Tuesdays and we needed to get lunch. We got Read alouds, Bible, memory verse, history/geography and Honour got her math done, Verity her workbook. I gathered up Honours reader, language arts and writing practice to take with us to the gym. It was a bit of a crazy hour while I tried to help Honour, keep Afton from running into the gym area and take in some of Verity's activities. (More later on just how talented my little girl is in gymnastics, after only 3 classes) I missed a back walkover to my chagrin.

When we got back, we had all of 20 minutes to get a little more done before going to get Jairus. We get back from that around 3:20 and still had stuff to do, though I don't remember exactly what now. Science, at least.

I didn't finish until 5:30, at which time I came up and gazed in despair at the kitchen. I had 1/2 an hour to get the kids something to eat before we left for the church for junior choir. I decided to put together a lasagne and we would eat when we got back. I had that about 1/2 done by 6 when James got home and I left him to finish layering.

The rest of the day was a bit of a daze. I couldn't believe it had taken so long to get through it all. I had the feeling I remembered having the morning of the second night after Jairus was born. I was in the hospital, he was in the NICU. I was pumping every 3 hours, even through the night. Since I didn't have a baby waking me to feed, I had to have the nurses wake me. The second night, they forgot and I woke up around 4am, sore and upset. I was overwhelmed with (hormones I'm sure) but, the sheer constancy of what I had to do for my child for the next...year? Two? Who knew.

Wednesday morning I tried to get started earlier and managed about 10 minutes before the morning before. Again, it took until after 5 to get everything done, and that was even with keeping Jairus at home due to an ear infection.

By Wednesday night I knew I needed to get some advice. I thought about my friend Karen who's using the same curriculum with her four, but by the time I knew I needed help, it was quite late. I went to the Sonlight forums instead and poured out the whole pathetic story.

I had about 10 responses by the next morning. What a relief. And such wonderful responses they were. I could tell that these ladies were mature and caring.

The advice given most often was: relax. They are only 4 and 6. Keep reading and math for the year old and drop the rest, they will learn what they need just by living, playing, reading books with me.

After I read some of those responses, I walked into the homeschool room and Verity asked me if she could get out her puzzlemaker, a gift she got for her birthday that would require my direct intervention and I hadn't gotten around to it. She was supposed to do her workbook....but I immediately decided that figuring out a puzzlemaker and making her very own puzzles would be just as good. It was so fun!

One good idea I put into practice right away were to transfer some of our subjects to another time; we already read at night so instead of whatever books the kids pull from the shelves, we now do Boxcar children and the Ergermeier Bible at night. Just that adjustment made a huge difference on Friday. We pretty much finished by 2ish on Friday.

I'm hesitant to drop things like science and history. We really enjoyed it this week and Honour is chomping at the bit to get out 'those boxes' (the science kits). Being the completely right brained person I am, I'm not confident that scientific processes will just present themselves in everyday life and I will immediately notice and expound upon them with my kids. I think I even learned a thing or two from Kindergarten science this week. (I kid you not). So, I will continue to try and fit them in in some form...maybe not every day. But enough.

And so ends week one with Sonlight....on to week 2!

Con-templating

25 September 2009

Posted by Les at Friday, September 25, 2009

So, as you can see again, I'm trying out another template. So far I think I like this one the best. It's pretty snazzy and dramatic. Don't you think that's me? ;-)

The script column appears to be narrower than my others however, so if you're taking a look at our summer adventures, the pics are slightly cut off, but you can still see them fine. I may attempt to get into picasa and resize them today.

I also changed up templates in the kids blog and Haydens blog. I checked on them and found that my old templates had somehow expired. Could that be because...I've not posted on them in over a year?! Yes, I'll admit it. But it's been purposeful. I don't post on Haydens because it stays static, and I took a break from blogging last summer and that included the kids blog. I'm actually thinking about having the kids blog printed up and then I'll delete it.

Today is a PD day. It's nice to have my boy home. It's nice to not race around getting him ready and the girls ready and a lunch made and, and, and...
We're all still in our pj's----me blogging, the kids watching Scooby Doo even though our rule is no TV until we're all dressed.
This is the first morning Honour hasn't thrown up since Monday. That's nice too. I think she's finally on the mend from her tummy flu.

So, this is just a little filler post, really. Wanted to comment on the templates.

Wanted to mention an important prayer request.

I'm taking a chance that Jamie's boss or anyone at his current work does not read my blog. It's a pretty low risk, I'm confident.

James found a job at McMaster University yesterday. We were SO excited. James needs to find a job in Hamilton. The commute to London is literally going to kill him any day now. I know that sounds dramatic, but, it's actually true.
This job is an AV Technician, and looks extremely similar to what he did at Moody when we were there. Probably slightly more technology as it's now been (gulp) ten years since we moved home.
There have been a few other jobs he's found over the last few years and applied for and to tell you the truth, it's been pretty discouraging. He's never even gotten a call for an interview, which was always so perplexing. Most often, the jobs seemed tailor made for him. I started to wonder if perhaps his resume or cover letters were substandard.
Well, last night we spent more than 2 hours tweaking his resume and crafting a cover letter. I thought the results were exemplary...but I guess the proof will be in the pudding.
The one hurdle is that they are giving priority to internal applications right now. So, please pray a door would open that he can get his foot in. Thanks.

And they'll know we are Christians by our Love

20 September 2009

Posted by Les at Sunday, September 20, 2009

This fall marks the start of my second year co-directing the children's program at church. My mom is the other director. We had a good first year I think. We made alot of changes to the program, which of course a few people in the church had issues with, but by and large, people responded well to all our ideas.

One change we made was to move the children's program from before the church service to during it. This made it a little hard to get teachers willing to miss church all the time. We were very grateful for those sacrificing souls who did so.

At the end of June we held a BBQ lunch for all the kids and parents, and, of course, leaders. We took that opportunity to shower our wonderful support crew with gifts. The teens and children who were in leadership roles recieved a 'cool' gift: a music download of the new Hillsong Kids cd (we love Hillsong Kids :-) Other leaders and helpers recieved flowers or gift cards. So then we had our teachers. What could we say to express our thankfulness?

I enjoy giving unique gifts. Usually, I shy away from traditional, typical gifts. No plaques or books or cutsy little figurines. I wanted to find something different and meaningful. I mused about the teachers and what being a part of our program had cost them during the year. I imagined that their husbands were likely also on the recieving end of this cost factor. As strengthening marriages has been both a personally important thing to me, and something we focused on at church with the showing of the Fireproof movie, I decided to pull a unique gift idea from my gift-giving past and give each teacher a 'date in a basket'.

Now, we had about 12 teachers so I knew this could get costly. So, to keep expenses down, the first thing I did was hit the dollar store. I bought each teacher a woven basket and picked up some lace placemats in packages of 2 to lay inside. Then 2 long stemmed glasses, a lovely frosted votive candle holder (embossed with virtues) and a tea light started out the goodies. A trip to the grocery store yielded a personal favourite for celebrating events in my house: sparkling grape juice.
What else would create a romantic and relaxing night for our most appreciated teachers? Oh yes, can't forget some chocolate. The boxes I found were cheap but yummy.
Finally, tucked in the midst of all these items in each teachers basket was a 10$ gift card to the local video store. Sparkling juice to sip by candlelight, chocolate to share while watching a romantic movie...ahhh, sounded wonderful to me!
Judging from the delighted looks on our teachers faces, I think they all agreed. I was so pleased.

Until....last week.

See, one teacher didn't make the BBQ when we handed these out and publically announced our thankfulness to all the teachers. Try as I might, we never crossed paths ALL summer.

Last Sunday, we had the new team up onto the platform for the pastor to pray over us all and bless our upcoming year. I spoke a few words at that time and took the opportunity to thank that last teacher and hand her her basket. It was important to me that she be recognized in front of the congregation as the other teachers had been. As the others, her faced glowed and I was so glad that she seemed to be pleased.

I thought nothing more of it all until nearly a week later when I learned that our pastor had been dealing with repercussions. It seemed that a number of people had been highly offended by the gift.
After reading my description, I'm sure you're wondering, "What in the world is offensive about a lovely little basket of goodies for a romantic evening with your hubby?"

Well, first off, my church doesn't do drinking. At all. The sparkling grape juice was of course in a bottle that from far off, looked like wine. That people from my congregation could have watched me co-directing the children's program all year, have seen me in various roles over the years as a soloist and musician, choir director and generally devoted member of the church, and think that my mom and I would have the gall to present a teacher with a bottle of wine in the middle of a church service...now that is offensive.
But no, apparently the phrase "above reproach" was even batted around. My goodness, don't let them read about what Jesus did at that wedding in Cana.

I also heard that some objected to the money spent on such a 'lavish' gift. Yeah, those dollar stores are getting more and more lavish all the time. I think I even have to pay $1.25....$1.50....even $2.00 for some items! Even if the gift 'looked' lavish from afar...it truly astounds me that a church expects a group of people to voluntarily give of their time and energy to do something that is often a thankless job--challenging, frustrating, tiring...teaching children is HARD, especially these days when 1 in 5 has some kind of delay, learning disability or condition....and then criticizes a lousy $20 gift basket.
They didn't limit themselves to complaints and criticisms however. There were even threats that "if this is what our money is being used for"....you can imagine the implication there. That really stung. I'm just stunned that people in our church would be so hung up on such a tiny thing, after a wonderful year of successful ministry to the children of the church. They would actually withdraw their support over this? They would hit our ministry where it hurts the most, to the detriment of the children?

I tell you, that was a heart-wounding blow. I had to ask the Lord to deal with some strong feelings towards these people. I knew I couldn't go into the weekend, kicking off our first Sunday back in the children's program with such resentment inside. And He did.

That didn't mean it wasn't difficult to go into the church this weekend and face everyone. I was there all day Saturday and all Sunday morning until about 1pm. When I wasn't completely occupied with everything that needed to be set up, rehearsed, designed, put in place and so many other tasks, I had to fight my growing suspicion. I didn't know who it was that complained....was it that lady walking by the office door? Was it the old guy with the cane? That young mom with the handful of kids? I had no idea. Were they all secretly disapproving of everything I did? Who knows what they might target next...my clothes, my hair...too much make-up!?!

I know, sounds a little over the top. Brains do funny things when their hearts are wounded.

But...the Lord could see all that. And he sent reinforcement.

First off, it was a great morning with hardly any problems. Kids were happy and seemed to enjoy the program. Teachers did great.

After the service, I was out in the foyer when an older lady stopped me. She looked familiar but I didn't know her name. She wanted to tell me that she had met a mutual acquaintance of myself and my husband last week. After that, she said such a wonderful thing. She told me that I had a beautiful spirit. She said that her and her husband have watched me in the church and said again about my beautiful spirit.

You know, I realize that we will never please all the people all the time....but it's SO nice when the pleased ones say so.

Blasted Bureaucracy

06 September 2009

Posted by Les at Sunday, September 06, 2009

Well, I'm having trouble getting pics for our last trip up. Since both our cameras are pooched, I've been using my cell phone, or dad's camera. For this past Friday's trip, I used the cell phone, and I discovered last weekend after trying to download the pics after an impromptu Saturday adventure, that my cell phone is suddenly encountering a problem communicating with my computer.

Meanwhile, I've been meaning to tell you all about a couple situations from this past week.

On the last Friday of VBS, James and I tried to get downtown to the police station to get my background check, which I apparently need for both choir and church. I say apparently because I'm not nearly convinced that in the grand scheme of it all, that these things are really worth anything. My administrator with choir tells me that really, it's for my own protection. How is that, exactly? Because if some kid accuses me of something, I just hold up my clear police check and all is well? I think not. Clear police check or not, if someone suspected me of something inappropriate, the exact same series of events would fall into place, regardless of my blightless history. Let's face it, we all know that just because you've not been caught, it doesn't mean you are innocent. How many stories have we heard, and are reported every year about that much admired hockey coach or school teacher who everyone looked up to...and suddenly late in their careers we find out that they were secretly molesting kids or running a kiddy porno ring or something. People can hide things. They can hide them really well.

Nope, what I'd like to know is, who decided that we all needed police checks to work with kids, who is benefitting financially from every $40 that comes in from the checks...and how are those two groups connected?

Anyways, the last time I had my check done, it was a matter of walking in and signing a form and waiting a couple weeks until they call you. Since 4 years ago, they've set up a whole waiting room, with ticker tape numbers and four windows that service all the people. I arrived around 10:15am, and was number 21. They were on number 14 when I sat down. By 10:30 I knew I had to get back out to the van to make it back up to the VBS for the 'final program'. So I handed my ticket to some other lucky soul and beat it out of there.

So last week I went back....with all four kids....armed with a book bag full of colouring books and crayons. I was number 45 and they were serving number 15 or there abouts. The colouring books and crayons lasted about 2 numbers and then I was chasing Afton up and down a nearby hallway. Visions of nasty passport office security guards still in my head, I shushed and hissed and plunked them back at my feet over and over again. Overall it didn't take nearly as long as I thought, maybe 45 minutes.

When we came out, we walked back to the van which I had parked a few blocks away to avoid paying a meter. Directly across from the van was a playpark which the kids had of course asked to play in when we returned. They had been fairly good in the police station so I agreed. As we came upon the park sign, I read that it was Beasley Park. This jogged my memory....I recalled that the Beasley neighbourhood was the subject of a friends photography exhibit. It had been displayed at the Freeway coffeehouse and I remembered that she reported that the Beasley neighbourhood was the poorest in all of Canada. Right here in the middle of Hamilton. And here I was about to let my kids play at the Beasley Park.

It did make me a little nervous, but it was a bright sunny day, in the middle of the afternoon, and there were not many people there; just a family of 3-4 adults watching some kids, and two young moms with 2-3 kids between them as far as I could tell. I don't know the ethnic makeup of this area, but I was surprised to realize as I walked back to van that a Native housing project was located right next to the police station. I hadn't realized there was such a strong Native presence in downtown Hamilton and suddenly I noticed that many people I was passing on the street were Native. This has no particular relevance to my story: it's just what I noticed that afternoon. I've actually been long interested in Native culture and did a few projects in highschool about Native history in Canada. I once named a fish after a character in a CBC movie about the residential schools as a teenager. The family in Beasley Park were native. One of the young moms was darker skinned, perhaps Hispanic, and the other just looked white.

Looking over the rather grungy splash pad, I instructed the kids to leave their sandals on as they played. The baby as usual, did not have any shoes on. I checked the diaper bag but only found a single sandal. As I searched, it became obvious that the two moms and the family were in the middle of a verbal sparring session. The two moms, the white one in particular were quickly becoming very angry and curses were starting to fly. My anxiety began to rise and I gauged how my kids were fielding this....they seemed to not notice. The fight rose and fell and seemed to be calming down. Remembering that there was a pair of baby sandals on the van floor, I took stock of where the kids were at and walked back over to the van, which I mentioned before was right across from the park, about a stones throw from where I had parked the stroller. It took all of 30 seconds to walk over and back, with about 10 seconds to open the door and grab the sandals.

When I returned, I sat and put the sandals on Afton and let her go to it. I was sitting on a small meandering wall that sectioned off the playpark section from the splashpad. The Native family and the two moms were at the south end; I was on the north end. I was probably 25 feet away.
I did a head check on the kids and saw that Jairus was now sitting on the wall too, about halfway between myself and the other people. He was looking dejected and I stood and called to him, asking what was wrong.

As I did this, the angry mom stood and walked over. "Is that your son?" she asked, in a slightly hostile tone. I said it was.
"Well, he grabbed my daughter and shook her", she announced. My eyes grew wide and I covered my mouth.
"She's only two you know, that's just not right", she continued in an annoyed manner. I immediately started to apologize, but she was completely uninterested in apologies. She turned around and walked back to where her girlfriend was sitting and I crouched down in front of Jairus. I asked him what he did hoping maybe he could show me with some actions, but he just sat, sad and droopy. I tried to get him to get up with me so we could find this girl and apologize but he wouldn't stand up.
Finally I picked him up, and long and heavy as he is (ok, not so heavy), I put him on my hip. I walked over to the mom and tried to start apologizing again but she was just clearly not accepting any apologies. She didn't seem all that angry, more annoyed than anything. She just kept blabbering and gesturing to the Native family, saying that she'd been having enough trouble and didn't want any more. I tried to explain that he couldn't speak, hoping to suggest that perhaps there had just been some kind of misunderstanding. She could have cared less.
You know that type? The type who has probably heard a million sorry's that mean absolutely nothing to her throughout her life. She was young, probably not yet 20, with jet-bottle-black straightened hair and dark black eye make-up against her rather pale skin. She wore low, slim fitting black jeans cinched at the ankle, as I've noticed is the new trend with teens.

I decided that despite what she was spouting off, Jairus needed to apologize. I walked a few steps towards the playpark with Jairus still on my hip and found the only white girl besides my kids. She was a big, stocky 2, with curly brown ringlets and I caught up with her at the bottom of the slide. I checked with the mom that this was indeed her kid, the only thing she co-operated with me about, and I had Jairus say sorry, which amounted to a murmur and a loose hug. The girl seemed clueless and showed absolutely no sign of such a trauma as being shaken.

We stayed another 5-10 minutes because I wasn't about to go running off with my tail between my legs. During that time, the family left and as they filed past me, looking disgruntled, I harboured a hope that one might tuck their head in my direction as they left and whisper that she'd made it up, or her kid had provoked him, or something that would exonerate Jairus. But they didn't.

When I had decided that we'd stayed enough time to look brave, I gathered the kids up and got back into the van. I questioned the girls as they buckled up whether they had seen anything. At first they said no, and then seemed to 'remember' when I asked in more detail. Sigh. I wasn't getting anywhere with that.

And so I fretted all the way home, so much that I turned into a wrong lane and got a good honking. It seemed that I was never going to truly know what had happened. While grabbing and shaking a kid is something I've seen Jairus do, it just didn't completely fit this situation. We'd only just arrived at this park, a brand new place we'd never been to before. Jairus usually takes a bit to warm up and become comfortable enough to run around a new place. And he would never approach another kid. Especially not to physically grab them....unless like in the previous instance of grabbing and shaking I can recall...it was to protect his sisters. Which if that was the case the girls would have known something about it. I just couldn't completely deny in my brain that Jairus would have done this....but I couldn't see him grabbing a little girl out of the blue either. It's made me quite nervous and watchful of him now when we are out.

It just makes my heart sad.

Les

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