Year in Review-February 2017

February 2017

In February there was a wedding at our church. They had the wedding as part of our regular Sunday morning service. It is my prayer that my boys eventually have a beautiful wedding like this one. I continue to pray for my boys future spouses. The entire congregation was invited to a simple lunch after church. There were many friends from the community at our worship that day and it was so fun to fellowship after. We were still pretty new members of our church at this point, but we knew plenty of people that day. I kept pinching myself that day, because for the past 14 years I would have talked to my friends that would have attended that wedding as I would have not been able to attend when we lived out of state. But this was one event where I shared with my out of state friends about the great day! Bonus: We sang the same version of the Te Deum that was sung at our wedding. It is our desire to stay in this area after Ram graduates, but we don't know if that is what will really happen. So I tried to be in the moment and soak in the memories of that day as we might not be here in a few years to make memories like this.

I don't know why Blogger is putting these pictures in a different order than I did, but my dad turned 77 at the end of February.

We gave him red silk flowers to attract hummingbirds to his backyard after reading about that in botany for homeschooling.

Ram took a tour of the campus as part of one of his college classes. He took lots of pictures to show me. This light fixture is star shaped.

My brother-in-law had an Army retirement ceremony in February. We weren't able to attend, but the Lambs wore some dog tags they received from an Army recruiter on that day in his honor. Lamb 2 was scratched by another Lamb so he has bandaids on his face.

Our book club read a biography of Rosa Young. The hostess served Southern food to honor Rosa. Bonus: I sat by a mom with a baby!

The photos didn't turn out the best, but the Lambs attended a chemistry homeschool day at Science Central. Lamb 2 was picked assist with an experiment. Lamb 3 had a lot of fun testing the ph of different liquids.

In 2016 we didn't do much shopping during the months of moving and getting settled, as  we were trying to use things from our pantry and not have more things to move. But we did put our moving truck/several items for house repairs/and some needed items at our rental house on our Costco credit card. All that added up to our biggest reward we ever had. I tried to make it last as long as possible when we received it. But we were still restocking our pantry after moving and it didn't last that long, but we were thankful for the trips of "free" groceries while it lasted. It was another example of being blessed while we were in a year of transition. We are glad to be members of Costco and get the reward every year.

End of Summer Family Update

1. We had a busy summer, but now I am going to try to get back to blogging at least a few times a week. We are back to homeschool with the goal of getting Lamb 1 ready for high school and Lamb 2 and Lamb 3 reading better this year. We are doing some school now and will add all the subjects after Labor Day.
2. We have been battling being sick off and on over the past few weeks. I can't figure it out, only some Lambs have had some kind of stomach bug. I am tired of doing laundry, cleaning the bathroom, and contacting people that we have to cancel our plans. Hopefully we finish this and can get on to our regular routine.
3. Lamb 1 and 2 are doing cross country with the Lutheran schools in our area. I didn't miss chauffeuring, but I did miss being part of a group since we didn't do cross country last fall after moving. The bonus is this is a Lutheran group and I love that the boys are meeting such nice Christian kids and that they pray together at practice and meets.
4. Ram is doing a graduate assistantship that pays really well, but he will be gone an extra 10 hours a week doing that in addition to his classes and studying. I have tried to get organized to get ready for some long days being mom/teacher/chef/chauffeur/maid etc. by myself. We were spoiled that Ram just had one class this summer so it is an extra shock. We will look forward to Thanksgiving Break!
5. We did a little house shopping and went to a few open houses this summer. I would love to buy a house and get settled instead of being in limbo with many of our belongings still packed up. Nothing in our price range in the location we want jumped out at us. The market is crazy here, often going $10,000 above asking price and often selling within hours. That was great when we were on the seller end, but terrible when we are on the buyer end. The good news is we are welcome to keep renting so we plan to stay here at least another year.
6. Ram is planning to take classes for this whole school year and then begin his practicum and internship after that. We are looking at him graduating in summer 2019.
7. I have more to say so I'll stop now and try to post more soon.

Start Times

The local elementary schools don't begin school until after 9am due to the bus schedule. I was so surprised last fall when the neighbor kids came over to play with my boys at 8am on school days. I did allow it at the beginning of school because the kids get home from school so late that there isn't much time to play after school. Once the weather cooled down that morning play time stopped. I'm not sure what I will do when it warms up again because I like to get going on our school day.

Our church is at 10am with Sunday School following. Eventually we would like to add an early service but we are not there yet. We don't get out of there until after noon. I have to serve a big breakfast on Sundays before church or my boys can't make it through church.

Every day of the week we could sleep in and begin everything we do later. It is frustrating to me to not get going earlier though. It becomes a rush to get lunch on the table when everyone is starving. If we don't begin early enough, we can't finish our school work until after lunch.

It makes me want to force myself to get up early and get work done. I'm going to have to make myself a to do list to try to accomplish before going to church on Sundays so the entire morning doesn't get wasted before church. That seems wrong, we shouldn't be doing chores on the Sabbath Day. I'm not sure what the answer is for Sunday mornings until we add an early service.

The worst is when we have doctor appointments early in the morning. The nurses usually laugh when I say 9am appointments are early for me. I usually begin school in my pajamas and get dressed later in the morning during a short school break. So to be dressed and drive to the doctor in the morning is a challenge for everyone in our house.

Living here is such a contrast to living in MN. They were farmers that fought over having the early or middle service time, no one wanted late service. Here not much begins before 9am.

College (CUW vs. RF)

Last week on Loopers, there was a discussion about going to college. I was too sick to join in the conversation then so I thought I would post my story on my blog. I am not posting this story to brag, but I'm hoping it may help the Looper that originally asked the college question.
I studied very hard in school so I had very good grades. I was ranked 3rd in my class in high school until my final semester when I took calculus and physics (yes, I took these for fun!) dropped me to 5th in my class. I did not do fantastic on my ACT or SAT, but my class rank was enough for some colleges to notice. Ball State offered me a full ride of tuition. I didn't want to go there because it had the reputation of being a party school. Looking back, maybe I should have commuted from home and gone to school for free for a year or two.
My parents gave me a lot of freedom for college choice. Basically the only school I wasn't allowed to go to was Valpo because it's not Lutheran!
I applied for a lot of scholarships when I was in high school. I got a lot of small ($500) scholarships which all added up. I did best at ones like American Legion and local ones even though local was the second largest town in Indiana. If I remembered the deadline and applied each year of school, they would usually give me money each year too, even though it was only advertised for high school seniors. These local groups usually have money to give away but people don't apply for it or meet the deadline or have a nice typed letter or whatever reason.
I had gone to Art of Music camp at Concordia, River Forest a few summers while I was in high school. After this I had a fantasy view of Concordia, RF. I really wanted to go there. I wanted to be within walking distance of the city and sightsee Chicago and be part of their great Wind Ensemble and be part of their social life that I saw a small part of those summers at music camp. When the financial aid package came, RF gave me almost nothing. There was no way my parents could afford that kind of tuition.
My dad had worked out a family vacation while I was in high school so we had a tour of Concordia Wisconsin. It was ok, but not my dream school like RF. Right away 1/2 the tuition was paid with an academic scholarship and there were other small scholarships. The problem was it was 6 hours away from home and no one from our area, hardly anyone from our state went there. But the fact that I never had to go outside in the winter was very appealing. The buildings are all connected (dorms, cafeteria, chapel, library, classrooms, everything!)
It was embarrassing at the high school honors banquets to have no idea where I was going to college. Even on graduation day I still didn't know. The first born in me sat down and ran the numbers one more time a few days after graduation. It was obvious that financially CUW would work, RF no way. I tried calling RF and pleading with their financial aid office with not one more penny of success. I called CUW and told them I would be attending there in the fall. I returned a phone call to RF and told them I would be going to CUW and why.
A couple of days later, who should call but RF! How much did CUW give you? Would you still come to RF if we matched CUW? I was furious. I had just called a few days before and tried to work with them without any success. I told them no, I had already agreed to CUW.
It ended up that there were only 6 people from the entire state of Indiana that went to CUW when I was a freshman. I was the only flute in the wind ensemble when I was a freshman. I have no idea if I would have been good enough to even audition for the RF Wind Ensemble. The CUW band director talked a couple of other girls into coming to concerts a few times a year but for most of the year I was the entire flute section! The band director promised me we would go on tour before I graduated. We went to both New Orleans and Atlanta on tours before I graduated.
Financially, after scholarships, it was cheaper my freshman year of college to pay tuition and room and board than what my parents had paid the previous year for my Lutheran high school tuition. That is when I knew I had made the right decision to go to CUW.
My sophomore and junior years cost a little more as some scholarships were one time scholarships. My parents paid my tuition/room and board after scholarships for my first 3 years of college. I was on my own for my senior year because by that point they needed to also pay for my sister's Lutheran high school tuition. By this point college tuition had risen since my freshman year. Plus there were extra expenses of student teaching and graduation. The problem is that the financial aid office doesn't understand at all when your parents have been paying for you and now they won't. I got a very small student loan and had to scramble in my meager savings and do extra babysitting etc. to come up with the rest by the time it was due. I even remember I owed some the last semester and they warned me several times that I wouldn't get my diploma unless it was paid. Thankfully I paid everything on time and got out in 4 years! And I easily paid back my very small school loan the first year after I graduated.
Anyway, I had great friends and I'm really glad that I went to CUW. I'm afraid that I might have been disappointed if I would have picked RF because of my expectations for RF. I know I would have graduated with a lot of debt if I would have chosen RF. For several years after I graduated from college, it seemed like all the RF grads that I met were complete snobs. It didn't matter if it was someone from the Seminary or someone that I taught with or a friend of a friend, they were snobs. One is the only girl I've ever met that knew so much about engagement/wedding rings without actually wearing one on her finger. The way she talked the ring was much more important than the guy! I tried very hard to not stereotype RF grads, but it just kept happening! I am so thankful that recently I have met a few RF grads that are not like that. I can think of two regular blog readers that are RF grads!
I don't know if anything in this blog post will help the Looper that asked the question, but it has been fun for me to write out my memories. I guess the biggest point I want to make is just because you think as a high school student that you know the perfect school for you, it may not end up to be the perfect school for you. God truly did have the perfect school picked for me and it wasn't the one I thought it was.