Edie Wadsworth

Where angels fly

April 26, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth 24 Comments

I had every intention of showing you my ‘redecorranged’ bathroom today. It’ll have to wait. My son, who is JUST FINE, was hit by a drunk driver on the interstate late last night. He walked away unscathed from a potentially life-threatening accident. That kind of news changes your plans. It changes the way you look at your children. It changes the color of the dogwoods. It makes all things new.

Taylor,

May I never take for granted the strum of your guitar,

the strength of your beliefs,

the things that remind me of the little boy in you,

the amazing songs you write,

those baby blues,

and the sweet sound of your voice.

God has given me a gift. I am blessed beyond measure to be your mother. And I see you with new eyes today. I will pray for you from a vulnerable heart. I will cry tears of joy and purpose to be thankful.

And when the time comes—- and it’s coming very soon—-to let you go……..

I will remember that you are the Lord’s planting……entrusted to me but for a little time. May he multiply the days, restore the years, keep you safe and give the growth. And may you become ‘an oak of righteousness’ for His sake and His glory. Strong and true.

I couldn’t be more proud. Love you long time,

Mom

I’ll end this emotional day by playing this song for Taylor and Caiti that I used to sing to them every night before bed.

Tales from a Homeschool Conference

April 24, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth 8 Comments

As many of you know, Steve and I took the ‘little’ girls with us to Cincinnati last weekend for the Midwest Homeschool Conference. Because this is our first year homeschooling and our first conference to attend, we were a little afraid at what we might find. Since we’re only taking two of our children, will they believe we even homeschool at all? If we ask around for a good brewery, will we get kicked out? Are denim jumpers required? But we were pleasantly surprised. There were all kinds of different people there and most seemed, for lack of a better word, very ‘mainstream’.

I knew from the outset that I wanted to go to EVERY last one of Susan Wise Bauer’s talks. I love all her books and feel certain that without her curriculum (The Well-Trained Mind) and without her history program (Story of the World), I could not enjoy homeschooling as much as I do. I would most certainly lock myself in my bathroom more often than I have. So, we went to almost all of her sessions and I finally got to introduce myself to her. I gushed on profusely about how amazing she is and how she has become my new hero. She said to me, “I do think you are my number one fan.” Yes, I’m highly excitable and I’m most certain that I invaded her personal space. But she was very warm and ever so friendly in person and I would drive five hours anytime to hear her speak. She was inspiring and encouraging and I left there with a renewed sense of why we have chosen this ‘less traveled’ path. Some of the highlights from her sessions:

1. Relax. If your children say to you, ‘Mom, are you mad?” very often, you probably have this worried look on your face all the time. Have fun with it. They ARE learning. Alot more than you think. And they are safe and being protected from many outside influences. Relax. Just relax and breathe. (Those last 2 relaxes are for me).

2. Avoid the common mistake of compartmentalizing school. Don’t say (which I said daily in the past), “Hurry and finish school and then we’ll…..”. Learning is a lifestyle, not something to be done before other more fun things can be done. Instead, it should more like, “Let’s do your math and then we’ll go for a walk….then we’ll read some and then we’ll have lunch…..then we’ll go to ballet and then we’ll plant some flowers. Don’t use school as punishment.

3. Educate Yourself. If you’re embarking on trying to educate yourself (like I am, using her book The Well Educated Mind), don’t be discouraged. Just because you can read the newspaper doesn’t mean you can easily read great works of literature with ease. Be patient. Even if you can only get through ten pages of Plato, that’s better than no pages of Plato. Just keep turning the page.

4. Surround your children with great books. Buy books for gifts. Read to them. Read yourself. Have them read to you. There is no substitute for great books. Keep them everywhere.

5. Sing. Dance. Laugh. Enjoy the fact that you are blessed enough to be able to stay home with your kids and teach them. If you enjoy it, they will too.

6. Don’t ask your children repeatedly to do tasks that are highly frustrating for them. If they cry everytime you ask them to narrate or write something, there’s probably a reason why. Break writing down into tasks. Have them narrate back to you verbally what happened in a story and you write it down. Then separately have them take dictation of short sentences. Eventually they will be able to do both steps together but this was a lightbulb moment for me. I have a child who cries everytime I ask her to narrate. But I do it anyway, thinking maybe she’s just being lazy. SHE DOESN’T HAVE THE SKILLS TO DO IT YET ALL AS ONE ACTION! Oh, thank you for this tidbit Ms. Susan. You will save us many tears.

7. If they’re crabby, feed them a sandwich. If that doesn’t work, have them take a nap. Children are physical beings and most of their melt downs are related to physical needs. Don’t neglect the physical needs while trying to push harder with the mental tasks. The brain needs food and rest.

8. Establish a regular ‘rest’ time. Even if they’re older, they can go to their room and read. When you’re with your own children all day, you all need a break from each other. Even mom. Especially mom. Susan says she has kept this up even as they get into the teen years. Her mother (who homeschooled her) would say, “Don’t talk to me from 1-3, unless you’re seriously injured”. I think this is wise. We must pace ourselves. This is a long, hard but rewarding road.

Another highlight of my trip was visiting one of my favorite stores ever….. IKEA. And I’d like to thank the Creation Museum for that. We were so looking forward to going to the museum and were sure we’d need more time than just one day. I think the concept is good and I happen to agree with the main theology points of the museum (God created the world in seven days, young earth etc) but there was something lost in the translation I think. I’ll summarize by quoting Steve, “It’s like a bad mixture of Dollywood and Jesus 81”. Enough said.

And last but not least, I got to meet Darcy from Lifewithmy3boybarians. This was certainly one of my favorite bloggers to meet. Sadly, the picture of the two of us did not turn out well. Of me at least. I had just had my hair colored and it was a sort of orangish-yellow. So I’ll spare you the fright but I will tell you she is a beautiful, strong, kind woman who you should meet if you get the chance. She is DARLING in person and I feel so fortunate to count her among my friends in real life now.

Don’t forget, I’m making my big Retro Cottage Kitchen reveal on Monday and you can link up with me and show us your painted wood projects. I think to warm us up, I’m gonna show you my bathroom redo this weekend. So go get some paint and paint something wood. K? BTW, I did figure out how to use Mr. Linky. I’m pretty darn proud of myself.

Love to all!

Post-Edit:
I forgot to add one of the key things I learned:

9. Think LONG and HARD before you join a co-op. I was contemplating Classical Conversations and after hearing her reasons for not joining, decided to postpone it indefinitely. Co-ops can be very time consuming, especially if you’re required to teach. Spend that time preparing for your own kids instead. They also can foster unhealthy peer groups which is probably at least part of the reason you’re homeschooling to begin with. I think co-ops that are just for field trips might work for us, but we’ve decided against joining one for now.

faq

April 23, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth 5 Comments

1. What is your faith/denomination?

We belong to the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod—-ie. the conservative ‘branch’ of the Lutheran church. My husband grew up Lutheran while I journeyed through fundamentalism and then pop American evangelism before embracing Lutheran doctrine and practice. I often blog about my journey of faith in Christ. I recently wrote a post on Lent (new to me as a former Baptist) which you can read here.

2. What type of camera do you use?

Nikon d90. I love it and really still BARELY know how to use it. I shoot in auto mode almost exclusively, which I am a wee bit ashamed to admit. I edit photos on iPhoto but plan to get photoshop soon. My advice for taking good pictures is: 1. Take a lot of pictures and a few of them will be great 2. Take pictures close up. Even closer.

3. How is been hard giving up your career?

I have written about this here. But I will say that staying home with my children has been THE most blessed gift my husband could have given me. I feel honored to do it and eager to learn to do it well. I’ve never been more sure of anything—than that this is what I was made to do.

4. How do you manage to do it all?

I’m so glad you asked because it gives me a great opportunity to say absolutely, unequivocally that I DON’T MANAGE TO DO IT ALL. Not by a long shot. My bathrooms are dirty, I haven’t showered in two days, I have 76 unmatched socks sitting on top of my washing machine. My husband shakes his head at the outlet covers that I still haven’t replace from my kitchen remodel!

5. Do you have any outside help?

Not unless you count these two ‘merry maids’.

6. Where did you get your necklace?

I bought it here. I love her stuff. And I love buying from mom-artists.

Feathers, eggs and painted wood…..

April 22, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth 26 Comments

Today, I’m giving you a sneak peek into my ‘Cottage Kitchen Makeover’. And I’m planning on hosting a Mr. Linky party of my own Monday when I make my big reveal. I hope you’ll join me…this is my first attempt to host…and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that maybe a few a you will show off your ‘Painted Wood Projects’ then. If you’ve painted any wood surface (cabinets, floors, picture frames, ANYTHING—-or if you’ve been wanting to paint some wood surface in your house but haven’t gotten around to it, link up and show us your plans. Spread the word on your blog and let’s get everybody painting this weekend. Of course we’d love to see stuff you painted months or years ago too. That’s this Monday April 26th.

Now for Mrs. Nester’s Linky party, I have a confession to make. I have no L.Herbert Feathers and Eggs prints….. at least not yet. I’m always late for the show. Two seconds too late. Johnny come lately. Like those ten years I kept wearing blue eye shadow when everyone else had moved on to the natural look. I do have a couple spots where they’d be perfect though.

First, in my guest bathroom that has also recently had a makeover, I’d love to exchange my faux eggs print (that I printed off the internet from this site) for 3 or 4 authentic ones.

It’s pretty cute but I need something bigger there.

Or maybe in place of this bird print that’s hanging on my newly painted kitchen cabinets.

Or maybe here….in lieu of plates. I love the plates but I never know when to stop with an idea. We have nothing to eat dinner on because all my plates are hanging on the wall.

And now for more teasers……these cabinets were very standard oak finish with the doors ON.

So my painter and I have been very busy this week.

And because my kitchen is 10 years old and not built by me, the lighting has always been an issue for me. Hence, the 17 lamps I used to have in the kitchen. But I bought these little bookshelf lights from IKEA and voila……custom lighting.

Make sure you come back on Monday for the rest of the reveal.

And link up with me for the love of painted wood!

Thank you my friend Mrs. Nester for hosting and for so graciously sharing all of your wonderful ‘nesting’ ideas!

Grace and Parenting

April 20, 2009 by Edie Wadsworth 17 Comments

Gracie and I–7 years ago

One of the speakers at the homeschool conference had a session titled ‘The Education of a Child–the Wisdom of Fenelon. I was intrigued–so I ordered the book on Amazon before the trip and read it on the way. Francois Fenelon was an archbishop in the Catholic church in France in the late 17th century, along with being a writer and poet. One of his books, called ‘The Education of a Daughter’ is fascinating if you can lay aside your feminist sensibilities long enough to get past lines like this, “…they need not be learned, per se…it is sufficient if they (girls) know how to govern their families and obey their husbands without reason”. I am not easily offended, so I read on, and am certainly glad I did. His overarching message for parents: grace and unconditional love, exercised with humility, reaches a child’s heart, and not just his behavior.

The speaker, Mark Hamby, from Lamplighter publishing, used Fenelon’s points to drive home the idea that parenting is about seeking relationship and not merely behavior from our children. Far too often, I find myself so determined to achieve a certain level of obedience and respect from them, that I’m oblivious to what is really at the heart of their ‘discord’. And admittedly, the desire for prompt obedience is often self-centered. We want our children to make us look good; to prove to the world that we are indeed good parents. We’re so afraid of letting them make mistakes. We parent them more like drill sargents than we do loving mothers and fathers. Have we not been given the unconditional love of our heavenly Father? Do we not defy and disobey and display profound ingratitude to Him daily? And what does He do? He welcomes us with open arms…..the arms of One who poured out His life for us on the cross to ransom us. He forgives and forgets. His mercies are new to us every morning. God gives us grace, pressed down, shaken together, running over and yet we measure out to our children tiny doses of mercy laced with hosts of rules and scoldings and “I told ya so’s”.

Our authority should be exercised with humility. Christ is our supreme example: His humility cost him His very life. We often associate authority with power and might, but as C.S. Lewis once said,

“Authority exercised with humility and obedience accepted with delight are the very lines along which our spirits live.”

We must surrender our need to always be right and humble ourselves in service to our children. As foreign as that may sound, that is exactly what our Father has done for us. He could have come in power, seized upon our frailties and weaknesses and demanded right behavior. But instead, He took on human flesh and died that we might have life.

Does this grace and humility mean that we have no rules, no boundaries. On the contrary. Those whom the Lord loves He chastens. It is our primary job to ‘discipline’ our children, but that word means ‘teach’. I think we often jump right to ‘punish’—which should be reserved for extreme cases of direct defiance. Likewise, God has given us rules, that if followed, will lead to happiness and unity. His standards are incredibly high, as should ours be for our children. But the final answer does not lie in following the rules. He has not been content to see our behavior realigned. He went to every length to reach our hearts: His grace and mercy cannot be exhausted.

You might think that I am providing the solution to our parenting conundrum as a simple ‘Show more grace to your children’. I am not.

The solution is always Christ. I will always fail to bestow enough grace. I will always, even in my best attempts, fail to love them unconditionally. The real answer for us all is the forgiveness and mercy of the One perfect parent, whose love has no limits and whose grace knows no bounds.

He alone can restore the years.

I’m linking with Emily from Chatting at the Sky as we celebrate ‘thankfulness’ and ‘noticing’. You’ll love her blog!