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God fills in the holes

July 7, 2009 By Jamie Leave a Comment

Toward the end of every school year, I find myself sifting through a pile of homeschool curriculum catalogs, re-evaluating what has worked well this past school year and what could be better. By summer, I’ve completed most of my plan for the upcoming school year, but there are always still a few decisions to make.  I also try to spend a little time re-thinking my main homeschool goals. Sure, I want my children to be artistic, eloquent, creative, confident, responsible, caring, and—of course—brilliant. But just exactly how am I supposed to accomplish all that?

shoveldirt21At a homeschool mom’s retreat I was blessed to attend earlier this year, I gleaned some invaluable wisdom. No matter what curriculum you use, how many hours of school you do, or how much planning you put into it, there will be some of those dreaded “education gaps” – GASP!

It is impossible for even the best school, homeschool or otherwise, to complete an education with absolutely no “holes.” But, here’s the good news: God fills in the holes. Let me say that again: God fills in the holes. Take a minute to let that sink in.

“I [the LORD] will teach all your children, and they will enjoy great peace.” Isaiah 54:13

Think of the freedom that gives you! You are no longer enslaved to competition within your household or in comparing the “success” of your homeschool to anyone else’s. You don’t have to worry if your child isn’t one of the highest scorers on standardized tests. God Himself is the teacher, guide, principal, and planner for your homeschool. You need only look to God to guide you. Give your children fully and truly to God, and He will take charge of their education.

OK, so this promise God gives us is HUGE and wonderful, but how does this look practically? We must remember that we homeschool moms are not just teachers; we are disciplers.

A few questions to ask yourself:

  • What kind of influence am I having on my family?
    The way we live our lives does have influence on those around us, especially our children, so before we jump into shaping their character, we have to look at our own.
  • How is my own relationship with Christ?
    As we grow closer to Christ ourselves, it will be easier to point our children towards Him.
  • What kind of home environment have I created?
    The more loving, encouraging, and edifying our home and family life is, the better everyone in the home will be able to learn and grow.
  • How well do I know my children? We must be in tune with the heart of our children to know where they may be struggling, where they need extra encouragement. If we are to be able to properly guide and disciple our children, we must be intentional about spending quality time with them, continually getting to know them as they grow and change.

momsonreading

If you’ve never written a mission statement for your homeschool, I highly recommend it. I may still tweak mine, but so far, it looks like this:

“Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life.
We want to give our children a quality education built on the solid foundation of Biblical teaching and faith in Christ. To allow them the freedom to wonder, imagine, ask questions, and learn hands-on whenever possible. To teach them to be confident and self-disciplined. To love, encourage, and disciple them so they grow up to be spiritually wise, creative, responsible, caring individuals who follow Christ and lead lives that glorify God.”

There is no right or wrong about the specifics of your homeschool mission statement, but having something like this in writing helps you focus on those days when it feels like nothing is getting accomplished. If your home and family are seeking first and foremost to please and glorify the Lord, then you are indeed accomplishing everything that truly matters.

Check out my article on page 24 of the funky flipbook edition of Heart of the Matter Magazine.

jamieJamie is in her third year of homeschooling, and loving the mostly-Charlotte Mason style she’s chosen. She is a joyfully married wife in a blended family, and knows that absolutely anything good she accomplishes is because of Christ in her. Her days are fueled by the love of her family and many cups of steaming hot tea. Visit her blog Rose Cottage.

Gardening with Kids: A Treasure Trove of Nature Study

April 7, 2009 By Jamie Leave a Comment

It never fails that we have at least one early warm spell here in Georgia, and it always seems that my garden catalogs arrive just about exactly then. The combination of spring-like weather and the photos with descriptions of gorgeous flowers gets me dreaming of all the new things I’ll plant. I imagine how great my flower gardens will look, wonder where I might be able to squeeze in another rose bush, and contemplate how to maximize the small space in my veggie garden. It’s an exciting time for this flower-loving girl!

rosegarden1

My wonderful husband does most of the hard labor of my gardening (thanks, honey!), and although he does appreciate the flowers and plants, and the overall beautification of our yard, he really doesn’t have a preference about whether we plant daisies or daffodils. I’ve always done all the planning myself, so when I began my garden planning at the end of last winter, I honestly didn’t even think to include my daughter in the process. Last spring and summer, I began to realize what a treasure-trove of nature study we have in our own yard, and allowing Kathryn to step in and help is a year’s worth of science and nature study waiting to happen!

This year, Kathryn and I are sitting down with our plant catalogs and pouring over them together. I’ve been teaching her about USDA zones and how we have to pay attention to how much sun a certain area of our yard gets before we know what plants we can plant there. Ooo! Did you catch that weather and climate study beginning right there? More opportunities for weather study happen all year round, because we need to know when to plant, how often to water, and so on. If we grow a few things from seeds, we’ll have an opportunity to study the entire process of plant reproduction first-hand. We did this last summer with sunflowers, and Kathryn loved it! Studying those sunflowers provided several weeks’ worth of nature studies. We saved some of our sunflower seeds to re-plant again this year. Now that’s a complete plant reproduction cycle!

sunflowers1

I had chosen the flowers in my garden because I liked them, rather than for any educational value, but we had quite a few distinctly different types of flowers to choose from when we studied them in depth last spring. The Handbook of Nature Study is a fabulous source of information on many, many varieties of flowers. Our apple trees, though still young, provided a few great opportunities throughout the year, and Kathryn thought it was wonderful when our tomato plants grew taller than her!

Even if you don’t have much space for a garden, or you think you don’t have a “green thumb,” you could just plant a few things in pots on your patio. I have often planted tomatoes in pots, and sometimes even slip in a few veggies right in the middle of my flower garden. Just squeezing in a couple of small pots in a windowsill would provide a “garden” worth studying! Allow your children to be as involved as possible, and they just may come to love those plants. They could choose what to plant (perhaps with a bit of guidance). They can do the actual planting, water when necessary, and keep a close watch for insect visitors. If possible, plant a few veggies they like. I have fond memories of picking cherry tomatoes off the vine as a small child and eating them right there in the garden. I’m still hoping that all this veggie growing will encourage my picky girl to eat the things she has helped grow!

Keeping plants healthy requires that we pay attention to the insects in our garden. Last summer in our flower garden, we studied – from a safe distance – a strange, unidentified insect, and then researched it to find that it was a stink bug which was eating our plants and could cause serious injury to the eyes if it squirted us. (Those stink bugs had to go!) We also studied the much friendlier ladybugs, a garden spider, bees, and several interesting moths and butterflies, which, in turn, led us to identify what they look like as caterpillars, so we’ll recognize them when we see them this spring! Don’t forget how fun it is to dig in the dirt, too. You could study the worms your kids find, and even add in some pedology (a big, new word I learned that means the study of soil!) and geology with the various rocks you may find.

ladybug1
image credit: patryk

Where to start? Check out these great websites:

Gardening with kids doesn’t have to be difficult or complicated. Just have fun, and see what happens!

Check out my article on page 6 of the funky flipbook edition of Heart of the Matter Magazine.

jamieJamie is in her third year of homeschooling, and loving the mostly-Charlotte Mason style she’s chosen. She is a joyfully married wife in a blended family, and knows that absolutely anything good she accomplishes is because of Christ in her. Her days are fueled by the love of her family and many cups of steaming hot tea. Visit her blog Rose Cottage.

On the Rocks?

January 7, 2009 By Jamie Leave a Comment

484371_899715211I once heard a college professor suggest that marriage should be a five-year contract with the option to renew–or not–at the end of that contract. Most of the world seems to take marriage lightly. Many confuse lust with love, and some think living together is good way to “try out” marriage. When we do enter into marriage, it’s often with the caveat somewhere in the back of our minds that divorce is a sort of escape hatch. Though we know divorce isn’t easy, it seems like a better option than being stuck in a miserable marriage.

This topic is near and dear to my heart, not because I’m not a sparkling example of marital longevity, but because I fell into this trap myself. I have a lot of experience in what not to do, and now I’ve been blessed with a few years of experience doing it right. I failed at my first marriage, and here’s the very simple reason why – God was not at the center of that marriage. Our marriage was built on sand (Matthew 7:24-26), and it crumbled.

It breaks my heart that the statistics for divorce among Christians is no better than the divorce rate among non-Christians. Why is that? Because we’ve bought into what the world says about marriage. The truth is, marriage is meant to be about glorifying Christ, living out an earthly version of Christ’s relationship with the church (which is all believers, not just one congregation or denomination!). We should seek God’s wisdom and guidance in choosing our spouse, we should keep our hearts and bodies pure to present to each other only, and we should never expect our spouse to fulfill all our needs. Only God can fill that God-shaped hole — no other person or thing. But the good news is, if you’re doing these things, you’ll have the joy of an intimate relationship with Christ, which in turn will bless your marriage. A Godly marriage is full of true and lasting joy!

325247_44001It’s a fact: men have different needs than women, and I’m not referring to anything physical. We as women need to feel loved and cherished; men need to feel respected. I choose to encourage my husband and show him respect because God commands it. My husband really is a “super man” but he’s not perfect, and I’m not either, so occasionally we do butt heads. Sometimes I get downright irked at him, but I choose to obey the command in Philippians 4:8: “…whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” By the time I’ve forced myself to think on a few good things about my husband, then more good things come to mind readily, and before I know it, I’m back to swooning about him. You see, in everything that happens each and every day, I have a choice whether I will think on good things or focus on the negative. If I choose the latter, I will never be satisfied with anyone (including myself) or anything. Focusing on the negative begins a dangerous, downward spiral. Even if your spouse is getting on your last nerve, find at least ONE thing you appreciate or love about him or her, and think on that.

When I remarried, my husband and I vowed to keep Christ at the very CENTER of our relationship; it’s the only way marriage can work. The saddest thing about my own failed first marriage is that we were both Christians, but neither of us knew anything about actually living out a Biblical marriage. Just being a Christian parallel to your spouse is NOT enough! Find those verses that speak of marriage, and pray for understanding as you read them. And then start living them. Many of us don’t know how to do this because we’ve never seen a true Biblical marriage in real life. How sad that is! How can we expect marriage to thrive unless we are showing the world what God’s true intention was when he created marriage? Christians, if you are married, you have an obligation to live out a Biblical marriage so that others can see what that looks like in practice!

Is your marriage “on the rocks?” Or is the foundation of your marriage built upon the Rock of Christ? ”… the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock…” (Matthew 7:25)

Check out my article on page 23 of the new flipbook edition of Heart of the Matter Magazine.

jamieJamie is in her third year of homeschooling, and loving the mostly-Charlotte Mason style she’s chosen. She is a joyfully married wife in a blended family, and knows that absolutely anything good she accomplishes is because of Christ in her. Her days are fueled by the love of her family and many cups of steaming hot tea. Visit her blog Life and Love in Rose Cottage.

Nature Study – Relaxed and Fun!

August 7, 2008 By Jamie 3 Comments

reading about butterfliesThis past spring, we finally began doing weekly nature studies. All along, I’ve had good intentions, and we’ve done some lovely nature readings but actually getting OUTDOORS to do our studies just wasn’t happening. I think I was overwhelmed at the multitude of possibilities, and just didn’t know where to begin. Then I stumbled upon Harmony Art Mom’s blog. She has taken the time to plan and share weekly “Outdoor Hour Challenges” that are simple but fun. We can go more in-depth if we feel inspired to do so.

Nature study doesn’t have to be complicated, and it should always be enjoyable — in fact, our nature studies have become the highlight of our week. All we really need is to provide our kids regular opportunities and encouragement to get in touch with nature. This allows them to develop a real relationship with the world around them. “There is no kind of knowledge to be had in these early years so valuable to children as that which they get for themselves, of the world they live in.” That bit of wisdom from Charlotte Mason goes right along with her teachings about education being a “science of relations” — in other words, children (and adults!) learn best when they are personally involved with a subject. For instance, studying botany and plant diagrams may seem quite boring, unless you have first developed an interest in the flowers in your neighborhood. Let the kids dig in the dirt, help in the garden, and search for bugs and other little critters in the yard.

watering the veggiesAlmost all of the nature studies we’ve done have been literally in our own yard. We’ve studied all sorts of plants, flowers, and insects right in our flower garden. One of favorite studies so far was of a weed – the dandelions that dot our lawn! We already knew (from previous weeding attempts) that dandelions have quite long and strong taproots. What we didn’t know is exactly how and why the puffballs that kids love to blow as well as those happy little yellow flowers grow on the same plant.

We learned that they start out as the cute and usually short (to avoid mower blades!) yellow flowers, which close at night and open during the day. After they are pollinated and mature, they close up again, stay that way for several days, and grow taller. When they reopen, they have become puffballs. One dandelion we found in the backyard had every stage on the same plant! It was so fascinating to see that in real life in our own yard after reading about all those many stages in our Handbook of Nature Study! Just this week Kathryn did her own experiment of bringing a handful of yellow dandelion flowers inside in a cup of water to see if they would go through the whole flower-to-puffball process. I didn’t think they would, but a week later, after looking like they were dying, they all reopened as puffballs! Even the family dog sometimes “helps” with our nature studies. (It may look like she’s just laying there in the picture, but she’s actually inching her way towards Kathryn in hopes of snatching the dandelion and running away with it!).

Lacy helps pick dandelionsNature journals shouldn’t be a chore, either. I keep my own nature journal so I’m not tempted to take over Kathryn’s and dictate what she must put in it. Here’s a bit from The Handbook of Nature Study that really struck me when I read it:

“A field notebook may be a joy to the pupil… The book should be considered the personal property of the child and should never be criticized by the teacher except as a matter of encouragement… No child should be compelled to have a notebook… It is a friendly gate which admits the teacher to a knowledge of what the child sees and cares for… These books, of whatever quality, are precious beyond price to their owners.”

dandelion journal entryWhen we did this dandelion study, Kathryn drew an enlarged picture of the dandelion seed, or akene, after examining it with a magnifying glass, and then came up with the idea to also tape a specimen of a real akene on the page next to her drawing. She described how it looked to her, and wrote some of what we learned about the dandelion. It’s fun to include a little poetry into nature study sometimes, too. For this one, she copied a little verse we found about dandelions:

“With locks of gold today;
tomorrow silver grey,
then blossom bald.”

Here are some other fun and easy ideas for doing nature study no matter where you live.

  • Grow a potted plant
  • Install a bird feeder where you can easily see it from a window in your school room or dining area
  • Go on walks together, even on rainy days (there are lots of new things to see then!)
  • Learn the names of the flowers in your yard or neighborhood

enjoying a picnic

  • Have a picnic and pay attention to the sky, the weather, and any birds, insects, or critters you see
  • Love and care for a pet (even something small and “easy” like a goldfish or hamster)

God reveals himself in His creation, so we can get to know Him better as we marvel at the intricacies of His creation. I can’t think of a better reason for doing nature study than that!

Enjoy your relaxed and fun time out in God’s great creation!

jamieJamie is in her third year of homeschooling, and loving the mostly-Charlotte Mason style she’s chosen. She is a joyfully married wife in a blended family, and knows that absolutely anything good she accomplishes is because of Christ in her. Her days are fueled by the love of her family and many cups of steaming hot tea. When she’s not blogging or homeschooling, she’s probably doing a photography session, gardening, or just playing with her crazy mutt. She invites you to visit her personal blog for more eclectic bits of encouragement and fun at Life and Love in Rose Cottage.

Masterly Inactivity

July 7, 2008 By Jamie 2 Comments
fishingIt’s hot outside, and summer is in full swing. For me, summer has always brought to mind vacations at the beach, lazy days at the lake, and a break from school. In other words, relaxation! One of the many reasons I love Charlotte Mason is her emphasis on the importance of leisure time. “Masterly inactivity,” as she called it, is meant to be time spent doing something to refresh mind, body, and soul. It is recreation at its finest: fun, unscheduled, unstructured time to enjoy life and appreciate the wonders of God. Go on a picnic, take time to read or draw, spend an afternoon at the pool, play hopscotch in the driveway, go fishing, or enjoy an evening bike ride together as a family. There are so many wonderful ways to incorporate a little masterly inactivity in your family’s daily lives . . . and summer is a wonderful time to develop this into a habit!

Yellow BeltI often hear homeschoolers joke, “I don’t know why they call it home school, because we’re never home!” It is a blessing that there are so many great options for us homeschoolers these days: piano lessons, sports practice, co-op classes, tai kwon do, play dates, etc. The list goes on and on. All good endeavors, but we must be careful not to take on too many. Charlotte Mason cautions against over-scheduling because too much rushing around causes stress for the parents AND the children. When we learn something new, we need time to “digest” all that knowledge before we can actually apply it, so we should alternate our schoolwork and activities with recreation and rest. Children need “downtime” just like we do; they need time to process new thoughts and ideas. This is exactly why “masterly inactivity” is so important. We must prayerfully consider just how much we can schedule and do before we begin to compromise that valuable leisure time – but keep in mind that “too many” will look different for each and every family.

Charlotte Mason teaches that an essential aspect of masterly inactivity is “good humour––frank, cordial, natural, good humour.” Atmosphere is at least one-third of education, she said, and “the thought that any of our poor words and ways being a daily influence on a child should make the best of us want to hold our breath.” Amen, sister! She goes on to say that a child “breathes in unconscious ideas of right living emanating from his parents.” I don’t know about you, but that scares me a little! Like it or not, we inspire our children. The question is, what do we inspire in them? If we are harried and hurried, we are certainly not at our best. Our attitudes are contagious. When we argue, complain, or speak bitter words, our children learn from that:

“A nervous, anxious, worried mother can’t have an easy, happy relationship with her child. She might be the best mother in the world in all other respects, but all her children will pick up from her when she’s like that is a touch of her nerves, which is the most contagious of bad habits. She’ll perceive her children as grouchy, rebellious, and unmanageable, but she won’t realize that it’s her own fault–not the fault of her actions, but the fault of her mood.”

Moms need fun tooOuch! I know I’ve been guilty of this, aggravated about how grumpy my child is when my own bad attitude has actually been the cause of it!

On the bright side, when we have a good attitude, full of praise and gratitude, our children “catch” that, too. So Ms. Mason encourages mothers to go out and play! Every mother, and I think especially the homeschooling mother, absolutely MUST have time to herself. She needs time to revive and refresh her spirit. “Idle time to relax, and a sense of calm leisure in the adults around them is necessary” for children to thrive. That’s right, ladies, Charlotte Mason urges you to enjoy an occasional mom’s night or afternoon out! Heed her wise advice. Participate in some – dare we imagine it – uninterrupted adult conversation! Take some time to read a good book, simply for the sake of enjoyment, rather than for researching curriculum or homeschool methods. Dive into a new tea and booksBible study or devotional you love. Go for a stroll, visit an art gallery, or catch up on a few of your favorite blogs. Realistically, some days or weeks might not allow for a whole evening on your own, but a little creative simplification of your schedule should make at least enough time to stroll around the garden, or to enjoy one of my personal favorite activities, savoring a steaming hot cup of tea.

Take time to do whatever refreshes your soul and renews your mind. Listen to the still, small voice of God. Ms. Mason reassures us that “…faith is necessary to full repose of mind and manner. [God] works in ways which it must be our care not to hinder, in the training of every child.” If we are careful to listen, God does give us the wisdom we need to teach our children. And that’s a promise I cling to every day!

jamieJamie is in her third year of homeschooling, and loving the mostly-Charlotte Mason style she’s chosen. She is a joyfully married wife in a blended family, and knows that absolutely anything good she accomplishes is because of Christ in her. Her days are fueled by the love of her family and many cups of steaming hot tea. When she’s not blogging or homeschooling, she’s probably doing a photography session, gardening, or just playing with her crazy mutt. She invites you to visit her personal blog for more eclectic bits of encouragement and fun at Life and Love in Rose Cottage.

Why Charlotte Mason?

June 7, 2008 By Jamie 4 Comments

After studying various methods of homeschooling, I have chosen to use Charlotte Mason’s style. Her main principles are some of the many reasons I chose this method. Here are a few of them:

~ Children learn from real things in the real world! We use the opportunities in the environment children already live in to educate them. Recently, as we were listing our garden flowers for part of our nature study, my daughter was able to name off at least ten of our flowers without even going outside. That shows me she really is paying attention when I ramble about the flowers as she’s helping me weed and learning how to prune the flowers! I just LOVE it when I get validation like that because it proves that learning does happen best outside of a textbook. Certainly, we can supplement our learning with books, but she would not have any desire to earn more about our plants and flowers if she didn’t already have hands-on experience with them.

~ Children’s minds are fully capable of digesting real knowledge, so we provide a rich, generous curriculum that exposes children to many interesting, living ideas and concepts. My daughter just finished first grade, but she reads really well, and I believe that is due, in part, to our love of books. One of these is The Blue Fairy Book. It has some complex, old-fashioned sounding language and difficult vocabulary, and at first, it was awkward even for me as we did our read-alouds. I didn’t think she would understand it at all. I was wrong! In fact, I sometimes catch her “sneak-reading” from this book, and later she’ll tell me about the story very accurately and with great detail! We should never underestimate what our children are capable of learning!

~ Children have minds capable of making their own connections with knowledge and experiences, so we make sure children learn about nature, science and art, that they know how to make things (handicraft fun!), that they read many living books, and that they are physically fit. Charlotte Mason encourages us to get outside and to make sure our children are familiar with their world: their yard and the surrounding areas. They should know North, South, East, and West in relation to home, and so on. We can’t comprehend far-off mountain ranges until we’ve climbed a hill, and if we’re familiar with a pond, we can better understand the Great Lakes and the ocean. This is how we begin to understand about the places in our books. In keeping with that idea, I asked Kathryn to make a map of our home and yard.

~ In devising a curriculum, we provide a vast amount of ideas to ensure that the mind has enough brain food, knowledge about a variety of things to prevent boredom, and subjects are taught with high-quality literary language since that is what a child’s attention responds to best. We love poetry, and our most recent book of poetry is The Oxford Book of Children’s Verse, which is a collection of many poets spanning several centuries. Each day, Kathryn chooses a poem and reads it aloud. This is great practice for her and I can make sure she is pronouncing words correctly. Then she picks a stanza that she likes, and copies it for handwriting practice. Once she has read it and done her copywork, she often has at least that one verse memorized. If she really likes the poem, she ends up reading it more than once. Not long ago, we read “The Mad Gardener’s Song” by Lewis Carroll. Kathryn LOVED the poem and thought it was hilarious. She got so tickled that she kept having to stop reading because she was laughing so much! That night in bed, she was reciting the poem again to her stuffed animals. This is most definitely not a child bored with her education!

And here is the BIGGEST reason for me…

~ We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and spiritual life of children, but teach them that the God is their Continual Helper in all the interests, duties, and joys of life. There is unity among both secular and divine subjects because both are of God and, whatever children study or do, God is always with them.

We don’t even separate Bible from our other subjects – God is in EVERYTHING we learn. Studying God’s creation (nature study) points us back to the Creator. Studying art and science helps us realize that ALL talent and knowledge is God-given, even if the recipient doesn’t acknowledge it.

There are many wonderful methods of homeschooling, but Charlotte Mason’s method is exactly what I was looking for, and I love it! I wish I’d been taught this way! Learning is so fun! I pray every day to be given wisdom in teaching my child, and for her to have a teachable spirit, but I also pray for MYSELF to have a teachable spirit and a never-ending thirst for knowledge about the Creator and about everything He made!

If you’d like to learn more about Charlotte Mason, visit these great links:
Summaries of the CM Series
Who was Charlotte Mason?
Ambleside Online

In The Handbook of Nature Study (a very Charlotte Mason-style book!), I found this wonderful quote:

“After all, what is the chief sign of growing old? Is it not the feeling that we know all there is to be known? It is not years which make people old; it is ruts, and a limitation of interests… It is rejuvenation for the teacher, thus growing old… to go out with her youngest pupil and reverently watch with him the miracle of the blossoming violet and and say: ‘Dear Nature, I know naught of the wondrous life of these, your smallest creatures. Teach me!’ and she will suddenly find herself young.”

So many books and magazine articles address the issue of how to stay young, and here we’ve found the answer: just keep learning! For those of us who homeschool, it’s easy if we just keep our hearts teachable and learn right alongside our children.
jamieJamie is in her third year of homeschooling, and loving the mostly-Charlotte Mason style she’s chosen. She is a joyfully married wife in a blended family, and knows that absolutely anything good she accomplishes is because of Christ in her. Her days are fueled by the love of her family and many cups of steaming hot tea. When she’s not blogging or homeschooling, she’s probably doing a photography session, gardening, or just playing with her crazy mutt. She invites you to visit her personal blog for more eclectic bits of encouragement and fun at Life and Love in Rose Cottage.