A Month Of Giveaways: Week 3

 The winner of last week's giveaway, a copy of the latest issue of the Daughter's of Promise magazine, is Nolita Stoltzfus! Email your address to christopherbethany@juno.com and I will get it sent your way!

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I feel like last week's giveaway was a bit of a "niche" giveaway, and this one probably is too. I guess that's ok. It doesn't have to be something everyone's dog and neighbor is clamoring to win. I had decided ahead of time that the giveaways would be simple -- things I already have or can make. This week, I am giving away a copy of the book my sister and I put together in memory of my mom. 

I've already written about the book here, so I won't spend a lot of time talking about why we put it together. 

Shady Lawn is the small, Mennonite church in the hills of Arkansas that I grew up attending. It began back in 1955 when one family felt called to find a rural area to share Jesus with. These Stones includes the stories of a number of the first families who helped with Shady Lawn's beginning. The stories are written by the families themselves, and have fascinating details about the "pioneer" days. Their stories of grit and ingenuity in a new community, so different from the places they grew up in, are interesting and (sometimes) downright entertaining. Their enthusiasm and love for sharing Jesus with the neighbors around them is inspiring. This book is definitely enjoyed most by those of us who have connections to Shady Lawn, but I think other people would find it interesting and inspiring as well. 

If you would like to be entered in the giveaway, leave a comment telling me a childhood memory that has something to do with church. Here's mine: When I was a little girl, for years there were only boys around my age. On Sunday evenings, we would often have children's class, where the children would go up and sit on the front bench and then someone would tell a story or teach a short lesson. I remember how they would often say, "Good evening boys and girl", because I was the only girl up there!

I hope you had a Happy Valentine's Day and that you're weathering the wintery weather these days. February has certainly brought Ohio an abundance of snow this year!

My view this morning and 

still coming down!

A good week to you....

**The winner must have a US address the book can be shipped to.

A Month of Giveaways: Week 2

I loved reading your comments about connection! It seems there are many common ways to feel connected but it was interesting to hear the little differences from person to person. The winner of the book The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea is "Just Me" who said: I feel connection when talking with someone who has walked a path similar to mine. 

Congratulations! Please email your address to christopherbethany@juno.com and I will contact Emily about getting you your book!

And now, for giveaway number two... but first, a story. 

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This year my blog will be ten years old. I've written 800 some posts since that humble little beginning in 2011 and although I've sent a few articles here and there, I've never published anything anywhere except in this little corner until last year. Last year, in August, I randomly sent a pitch to Daughter's of Promise, an Anabaptist based magazine for women. They put out a magazine quarterly and choose their content from pitches submitted by people from all over the country. I'd submitted a pitch before, and nothing had come of it; I fully expected the same thing to happen this time. 

Weeks later, when I received an email saying my pitch had been chosen, not for the magazine, but for a collection of bonus articles they were putting together, I could hardly believe my eyes! This came during a long stretch of silence for me; a long stretch of wondering if I'd ever write again. I had been asking the Lord a lot of questions about my blog and writing, and that email felt like a direct touch from Him. I still get a lump in my throat thinking about it. (Incidentally, it was shortly after that email that I received another email asking if I would want to write this article for the Calvary Messenger. Goosebumps.)

I think a lot of bloggers can identify with a strange conundrum in writing. The very fact that one likes to write is often indicative of a preference to remain out of the limelight. And yet, there is something within us that also secretly dreams of being seen -- why else do we write, after all? Well, Daughter's of Promise magazine is certainly a place to be seen! This is the place where the cool people's names appear; the place where you find the authors of popular blogs and noteworthy women. I would be lying if the idea of appearing in those ranks didn't go to my head just a little. We even expanded on the whole thing and asked about my daughter doing illustrations for my article -- she dreams of selling her artwork someday, and what better way to get her name out in the big wide world?

Writing for Daughter's of Promise is a long process of writing and working with an editor and tweaking and re-writing. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Adding the artwork was a bit stressful and complicated and I labored over writing a bio in third person that didn't sound like some woman I had never met before, but finally the deed was done. 

Then came the big day! I received an email from the editor of Daughter's of Promise magazine with a link to download the collection of bonus content for the Contentment issue. I opened the file, and right there was the table of contents with my article title and my name behind it. Wow. I scrolled quickly through, eager to find the finished work at last. And there it was -- the title, the article, the artwork -- and no name attached to it whatsoever. No name of the author, no credit to the artist, no third person bio. I scrolled quickly back and forth, confirming that every other article included those details and that really, no, mine did not. 

I looked at my daughter blankly, "You are not going to believe this! What do I even do now? Do I say something? It's digital content, I suppose they could go in and still fix it? Unbelievable!" And what did my daughter do? She started laughing. "So much for all the 'getting our names out there'!" She exclaimed. "But how can you say anything? Wouldn't that kind of defeat the whole purpose of your article?" Slowly, what she was saying soaked in, and I could only shake my head and agree. What had I written about? Treasure in Heaven. 

Ahhh, the human-ness of my heart; writing about Treasure in Heaven while secretly trying to store up a stash here on earth. I hope I learned a lesson. 

I don't think it would have been wrong for me to bring it to the editor's attention -- obviously, I'm telling you about it now, so it is no longer a secret! But in the moment, it definitely felt like God saying, "Check your heart there, sister. I'll give you opportunities but it's not about you, honey."

This week I am giving away the latest issue of the Daughter's of Promise magazine. 

I know many of you may receive this magazine regularly. If you do, you're still eligible to enter this giveaway! This will be a free one that you can bless a friend with. To enter, leave a comment. If you share a "pride before a fall" story of your own, I'll enter your name twice.

If you are interested in the bonus content -- 9 articles about contentment -- including my name free one, you can download it for free right here.  My article is a very condensed version of the Treasure in Heaven series I shared here several years ago. 

**The winner must have a US address the magazine can be shipped to.

A Month of Giveaways: Week 1

Many of you are familiar with Dorcas Smucker; I have followed her blog and social media accounts for years. You may remember that I've given away several of her books, one being the giveaway where everyone who entered received a book! Today, I have a book for you that was written by her daughter. 

I'm not sure when I started reading Emily's blog. I'm thinking it may have been the first time Dorcas and her daughters collaborated to post every day for a month? At any rate, I've followed along there for a while now; if not reading every single post, usually going back and playing catch up. I even joined her patreon account, which I rarely ever do. And, I pre-ordered her book, which is also a bit unusual for me. 

How honest do you get in a book review?

Emily and I have very different personalities. Granted, I've never met her in person but some things are pretty obvious. Following along with her blogs, there have been plenty of times when I rolled my eyes at her adventurous and (to me) impractical spirit. Her writing isn't always necessarily my style and I even confess that when I heard she was writing a book, I didn't think it would be that great. 

So why did I buy it?

I think it was when I signed up for her patreon posts that my feelings began to shift a bit. I discovered a depth to her heart and a connection with some of her beliefs and feelings that I hadn't seen before. Then, she wrote a post about the story behind the book and described how her editor encouraged her to dig deeper than just, "I did this crazy thing, and then I did that thing, and then I locked my keys in the car again." And instead asked, "But how did that make you feel?" Something about that intrigued me and I made the decision to pre-order the book. 

I must say, my earlier thought that a book by Emily would not be that great was completely and totally wrong. My deepest apologies. I loved The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea; loved it. And I think I loved it because of Emily's hard work in asking "how did it make me feel".

The book is about Emily spending a year traveling around the United States, living in a different Mennonite community every month. It was fun to read about many communities and names and events that were familiar to me. Emily's candid impressions had me laughing many times. I learned about Mennonite expressions and habits that I'd never heard of before. It was intriguing to read about different communities and the way they socialized. But Emily's book also made me cry. 

The underlying theme in Emily's book is connection. She writes, "At the beginning of the year, I thought I wanted to escape, but what I really wanted was connection. I thought I wanted to find myself, to figure out where I wanted to live, and to figure out if I could be a real writer. But what I really wanted was to understand my place in this world." Who of us can not identify with that?

Reading through her journey, I found my own heart throbbing with the same questions she was facing -- Who am I? Where do I belong? What do I really want? Her poignant conclusion at the end of the book had me wiping tears again the other day as I re-read it: "This year had taught me that relationships and connections are what really matter. And you can't grow connections when you're always escaping."

When I decided to do another month of giveaways, I reached out to Emily, and she  has graciously agreed to give away a copy of The Highway and Me and My Earl Grey Tea to one of my readers! You can also order a copy of her book here. I am pretty sure you will enjoy it as much as I did. 

Connection is an interesting thing, made even more complicated by the fact that we don't all find it in the same way. I have learned that the things that make people feel connection are as diverse as the people themselves! For example, my husband feels the most connected with people when they engage in disagreements with him. I on the other hand, feel the most connected with people when they say things like, "Oh, yes. I can understand why you feel that way!" 

So, I'm curious. To enter the giveaway, leave a comment telling me what makes you feel connected to other people. Or if that is too difficult to describe, I'll accept any comment...

Winner will be announced a week from today, February 8.

**The winner must have a US address the book can be shipped to.

A GPS or A Personal Guide?

Do you remember being a child, visiting a friend's church, and your family was going to your friend's house for lunch afterward? Remember how your friend's parents would say, "Henry can ride along with you all and show you the way"? If Henry was your best friend, the ride to his house was just as much fun as the anticipation of spending an afternoon together, right? You almost forgot about where you were going, as Henry showed you the farm with the big tractors that you passed and the school house where they played ball and he had hit a home run all the way into that cornfield!

Because a blogpost needs pictures...

I've mentioned that I'm listening through the chronological Bible this year, using The Bible Recap. Each day has a corresponding podcast with Tara-Leigh Cobble. Every day she gives a short recap of the day's reading and shares her "God shot" for the day. I've really been enjoying it. 

An idea that she mentioned last week one day (I can't even remember what the reading for the day was!) is that God wants to be our personal guide. If someone were to invite us to their place for a birthday party, or whatever, we could easily put the address in our GPS and find it. But what a different feeling it would give us if the person jumped in our vehicle with us and personally showed us the way!

Do you like my redneck bird feeder?

That idea has been rolling around in my mind ever since. 

There are so many things in my life right now where it feels like I'm just waiting to see what will happen. Where will this lead? How will this look? What does God want for us? How is He going to work this out? What will it look like? All I seem to keep hearing is "Wait and see". That's not what I would like to hear. 

What I realized is, a GPS seems so much more comfortable. You punch in the right thing and clear, concise directions pop up. Sometimes a GPS takes you on detours you weren't expecting but if you put in the correct information, you usually arrive at your destination eventually. It takes all the guesswork and, to a certain extent the responsibility, out of the deal. Put in the correct info; reach the desired destination. If you don't find yourself at the desired destination, it's certainly not your fault!

But that's not how God works; He wants to be our personal guide. He's all about getting in the car with us and having a conversation. He's all about the relationship; me relying on Him to tell me when to turn left or right. When we use a GPS, it's all about the destination and the best way to get there. We can scroll ahead and see all the turns and exactly how long it should take. A personal guide is not so much about the destination but the camaraderie along the way. The ride is just as important and enjoyable as the destination. 

My view that never gets old...

I don't have a lot of deep, insightful things to say about this. Mostly, I'm trying to learn to sit back and enjoy the drive with my guide. I'm trying to notice the scenery a little more, to participate fully in the conversations along the way and to stop worrying so much about the destination. 

Maybe that idea will be meaningful to you, too. 

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Two years ago I did weekly giveaways in the month of February; I'm planning to do it again! Beginning Monday, February 1, I'll be giving something away every week in February. Don't miss it! 

If you want to be sure to not miss a post, you can follow About My Father's Business on Facebook, where I always share the link. Or, view the web version of my blog, and on the left hand side where there is a place that says "Follow by email", enter your email in the space and you will receive an email notifying you every time I write a new post. 

10 Pros and Cons: Homeschooling

So, what do I think of homeschooling by now? Well.... just different stuff -- some of it nice and some not so much. 

Here are ten pros and cons in no particular order:

1. I love, love, love not having to be up and out of the house by 8:00. We still have a schedule and stick to it pretty strictly but being ready to start school at home at 9 is completely different then being up, dressed, breakfast eaten and out the door at 8.

I do miss coming back home to a quiet house and enjoying my breakfast alone. However, I get about an hour of alone time between Chris and Isaac leaving for work and the rest coming around for breakfast, so there is that. 

2. I do not miss packing five lunches every morning!

Obviously, everyone still has to eat lunch and sometimes I get weary of making sure there is food but generally there are enough leftovers to pull out and let people warm up. 

3. I LOVE not having to worry about getting out on snowy roads. 

There is no con for this one. 

4. I enjoy actively participating in my children's learning more than I thought I would. 

School at home has gone much, much better than I imagined it would. However, I know that going into it as "this is for this year" makes a huge difference. I am not a natural born teacher; I don't love learning like my husband does. Going into this thinking it's for one year helps me to not freak out as much about whether they're learning everything they should. Surely one year won't ruin them, or something like that. 

5. This might be too honest, but I absolutely love not being obligated to take part in all the ba-jillion school related activities and drama.

On the flip side, a bigger worry than my children getting a good education is what will happen to my children's social skills. It's hard enough to cultivate friendships sometimes and I worry that not being a part of school activities will make relationships next to impossible for them. Homeschooling can be rather lonely. 

6. I love watching my children be each other's best friends. Doing life together all day every day has forced them to iron out some wrinkles in the getting along department and provides so many opportunities to do things together. 

I get weary of having people in my space all the time. Sometimes I long for some silence to just breathe or an hour to mop the floor without anyone around. I am the kind of person who gets motivated to tackle projects and do lots of work when I am alone, so the past year has been a challenge and a learning curve. 

7. I love having some flexibility with our schedule. We don't do this a lot, but occasionally we have worked ahead a day in order to go away for a day. Other times we've hurried to get school work done so we can take an afternoon off or finished up school in the evening for the same reason. 

I miss not being tied down. I can still get away to do things on my own but it's more complicated than it used to be. I miss not being able to have a friend over during the day (which is silly, because I rarely did it but you know how it is).

8. This is related to #6 but I enjoy watching Jasmine interact as "teacher". I love hearing them randomly belting out songs downstairs in the middle of school time. I love listening to long discussions after supper about history lessons or the best way to teach things so that students want to learn. There was an hour long session a couple nights ago (while our food dried on our supper plates) that involved asking questions off of a history test Lillian had completed.

I get weary of juggling the roles of mother, teacher, mom-of-the-teacher, mom-of-the-student, and mom-of-the-classmate all at the same time. I'm also wife and wife-of-the-principal. Oh, and mother-of-the-graduated- student. It's fun. 

9. School at home is definitely easier on the finances. Think of all the $$ we are saving on gas this year without the drive to and from school twice a day! Not to mention not needing as many clothes and shoes and so forth that going to school requires. (Only, you might run into problems when you decide to go on a trip) The books were an initial investment but I can't say that I miss the monthly tuition bill. 

On the other hand, did you ever stop to think how much toilet paper and Kleenex your children use at school instead of at home? I feel like I am constantly buying the stuff. 

10. I love how many more Hank The Cowdog and Adventures In Odyssey stories I get to listen to in every spare minute. 

Just kidding. 

All in all, this year has been a different one but good for us in many ways. What will we do next year? Well, we shall see what we shall see, I suppose. This year has taught  me to never say never. 

Not A Tale Of A Turkey

 I confess: I really don't have anything of consequence to say but I kind of feel like saying stuff anyway. 

Just documenting 

the five minutes of sunshine

this week...

Actually, I've wracked my brain for a decent blog post topic. Alas and alack, there are no Turkey Stories to tell. Of course, I'm not wishing to wake up to the smell of a turkey that isn't there but, well, you know what I mean. I did have an order for the book, These Stones, the other day that had a connection to the famous turkey story. It seems the lady ordering a book has a sister who reads my blog and she shared the Turkey Story with her! That made me grin. 

I feel like I haven't written anything wise and intellectual for many days. What can I say? I just do not have it in me to address anything serious or weighty. I feel very, very un-wise. 

In 2019, our church read through the chronological Bible together. I stayed on track better with regularly reading the Bible that year than I ever have in my life. On January 1, I started listening to it again, using The Bible Recap. I am terrible at self discipline and I know it will be harder without knowing that lots of others are doing it with me, but I really want to try to stick with it. I also set some disciplines in place for social media. I'm scared to even say that out loud. 

The grey, grey days of winter have been threatening to take me out this week. Today I had big plans to take a photo every hour and share that as my blog post. It was an attempt to add some pep to my day but I fizzled out at 3:00.

We start every school morning at 9:00 sharp or soon thereafter. We meet downstairs and pray together and then Charles heads upstairs with me, while the girls work downstairs with Jasmine. Since Christmas they've been working on states and capitols together first thing and that's what the picture came from. The enthusiasm level looks so high I can hardly stand it. 

I suppose I should write about the pros and cons of homeschooling -- there are both, for sure. I always come back to the fact that it's not even really fair to say I'm a homeschool mom. Jasmine teaches the girls. If I had to do it alone there would just be one long list of cons, I can guarantee you that. 

After observing my puzzle mania, Chris bought me this one just before Christmas. I could hardly wait to start it, it's such a cute picture. But my goodness. That was the hardest puzzle I've done this winter! All that green and flowers was quite a challenge. I listened to The Robe on Libby a lot of the time I worked on it. I read that book years ago and loved it and the audio version was even better. Kind of sad I finished it. 

I've been listening through Jan Karon's Mitford series lately. I've always loved those books and they have a great reader. 

Yes, I have a very difficult life -- listening to audio books and doing puzzles! That's not all I do, believe it or not. But you're right, I do have an easy life. I won't bore you with coming up with ideas for the day's science lesson or figuring out how to get a child with a phenomenal memory to master math facts or my prayers for patience when the same child guesses at the big words when reading or the daily hope that there are enough leftovers in the fridge for lunch. 

I will stop rambling and leave you with this typical QOTD:

Charles, in the middle of a Math test -- "Mom, do you know what the three rings actually were in Hank The Cowdog and the Case of the Three Rings?" Ummm... yes, I actually do. But you're supposed to be doing a Math test!

Happy New Year

 Well, it's a New Year; the time when you reflect back and look ahead and wax eloquent. Frankly, I haven't been in the mood. 

I'm a little sick of hearing about 2020, to be honest. Everything I have to say about it will be a near carbon copy of something you've read somewhere else at least half a dozen times. If I'm even more honest, I would have to admit that I haven't really processed the year and I'm not sure that I want to. Even more honest-er? I've been avoiding it. There.

My life, for the past two years, has been a cycle of six months of super intense, uber stretching, mentally exhausting, emotionally depleting days and weeks, then six months of such peace and calm and ease that I hardly knew what to do with myself. I'm in the middle of a relatively calm cycle right now, and I just don't even want to go outside of it. I kind of feel like that's what 2020 has done to me -- it's shrunk my world smaller and smaller until I feel like I am a tiny little speck in the middle of my own, personal bubble and I just don't even have the energy to care!

I've heard lots of people talk about how 2020 has made them realize how important people and relationships are and how much they need them in their lives. I might be strange but I feel like 2020 has only made me realize how much easier life is when you don't have to deal with many people! I know, shocking. Terrible. We were made for relationships. People are the most important things in life.

I know, I know, I know.

I'm just being honest.

In my very most truthful moments, I have to admit to myself that this has been a horribly, horribly lonely year. I haven't been truthful very often lately. For an introvert who feels most of the time like she can get along fine without lots of interaction with people, a "normal" world usually provides enough obligatory interaction to give her a healthy dose of social life without needing to go looking for it. Throw her into a world where almost nothing is obligatory and she's going to be fine with it for a very long time. Except when she realizes that she's not. But then the effort she must put forth to go looking for it is almost more than she can force herself to go to and it is just easier to sit back and be fine. Because, after all, life is a lot easier when you don't have to deal with many people.

I know.

I need therapy and a sermon and probably a good kick in the hind quarters to boot. Sorry. This is my end of the year navel gazing and it's not very pretty. Like I said, I haven't processed the year; I don't have it all figured out and tied with a neat, tidy bow. 

There's been a lot of cheering about 2020 finally being over and being glad to tell it good bye and celebrating over a New Year. I get it. I confess that I feel more pessimism and near dread about a New Year than I do joy. News flash: 2021 is not going to magically be so different than 2020! I know. I need to learn how to play Pollynna's Glad game, too.

Contrary to what you might be thinking, I am not in as much of a funk as this sounds. We've just had a very lovely Christmas vacation -- several days spent with my family, after we thought it wouldn't be happening; long, slow days with no school and time to relax; puzzles, audio books, sleeping in, random naps. I am thankful, believe it or not, and life is good; very good. 

I could make a list of hard things this year -- it would be shorter than some of yours and longer than others. I could also make a list of gifts that this year has brought and it would be much the same. One thing that I know, is that God is the God of the big picture. Right now, I'm not sure that I understand how 2020 fits into His handiwork, but I know it belongs there. I also know that as I enter a new year, what He wants from me the most is daily faithfulness in doing the next right thing. I don't know what all of those next right things will be but I am confident He will be faithful to show me.

        * I barely took any pictures of our short trip to Arkansas, except an overload of the trumpeter swans we went to see. Aren't they just lovely?