Back at it!

The benefit of being a more regular scrapbooker than I am blogger is that I have loads of projects waiting to share. This is a layout I completed several weeks ago and I think I'm getting to the end of our soccer season pics. I really don't know if Sophie will play soccer again. She's already said no to playing indoor this fall and winter and we're okay with that. She's an active kid but she's not very big. At six-and-a-half years old and about thirty-six pounds, I don't really blame her. There are easily kids twice her weight and I think it's intimidating for her to see someone taller and heavier rushing at her. Doesn't seem to stop her brother from taking her down once in a while though (*smile*).

Yesterday was my first day back teaching music lessons and it went surprisingly well. It's not the lessons so much that I was thinking about but how the kids would do, especially as I taught several lessons in the afternoon. My first three students are also homeschoolers and are familiar to my children. The moms would stay upstairs while I taught down in the studio and everyone was well entertained by the turnover of people through the house every forty-five minutes. I had one more lesson in the afternoon, a Grade 12 student I've taught for about seven years. She has heard just about everything in her years of coming to our home so I am not concerned if I have to excuse myself for a minute. I didn't allow any TV during the day but did let the girls choose a program to watch during this lesson time. It worked splendidly! I had just over an hour to get some dinner going before I started my evening round of teaching. All in all I taught eight lessons. Next week I add one more in the evening and I will add one more after that once the high school football season ends. Three new students, seven returning. It's going to be a good year. Busy Tuesdays but now I don't have any lessons to teach until next week.

Early start today with a workout before Gary left for work. I am trying trying trying to get into a regular exercise routine. I hear people say how much better they feel when they exercise, blah blah blah. I'm not a big fan of sweating and I count the minutes until it's over. Maybe once I start to feel some results I will have better things to say. Discipline, right? Why can't my body just be a slightly oversized temple?? Oh well. It's done.

Coffee? I think I'll start a pot right now. Have a super Wednesday!

Season to Season

Our family travelled six hours north of here at the beginning of July for a great week of family camp. I was thankful for the very loose structure of the week, allowing us a lot of time to enjoy just being together and enjoying this beautiful piece of this province. Every morning the adults met for a time of worship and teaching and I so valued the timeliness of the speaker's topic. I found it coming back to me this morning as I prepare for a big week of transition into a different season of busyness.

For six mornings we looked at the book of Ecclesiastes. Hardly enough time to get a deep understanding of this rich book of Scripture, but a great chance to get a feel for this book, bits of it are very familiar as they lend well to political speeches, folk songs, and both wedding and funeral services. Basically the author explores what life would be absent from God, putting various pursuits in place of chasing after and focusing a life on the Lord. It's the same old stuff that people chase after today, all those fleeting things that just don't last. What I do see now is that the book smacks of a life off kilter. All these things have been given to us for our enjoyment and to enrich our lives - wealth and wisdom, for example - but putting any of those things in the place of most importance leads to a life of emptiness. It seems so easy to get a bit off track.

Why am I thinking about all this? Today I start teaching music lessons again. It will be a bit of an experiment as I have scheduled a few lessons during the day while my husband is still at work. I'm trusting my kids to do okay without me for short bursts of time, in cooperation with some other moms who have agreed to stay with them while I teach their kids. We started our fifth year of homeschooling last Monday, after a blissful summer of vacationing and enjoying a lot of play time. Church activities swing into full gear in the next couple of weeks. I've had a cool opportunity to be a Guest Design Team member on Scraptivity! for the month of September (I've asked Gary to refer to me as "Miss September" until that time is up). There are women in my life who I continue to meet and study with. Oh, and I have a household to tend to and children to raise. Any one of those things could easily shift the balance of importance. Most of all my desire is to stay on track, following Him through all the twists and turns of each season.

I wish you joy as you walk through whatever season you are in right now.

Oh, the canvas above is a project I completed a couple of weeks ago for a basketball-playing friend of mine. It was great fun to work on and the verse has special meaning for her. Thanks for looking!