Every once in a while, I have moments of panic about “what am I doing with my kids?!?!!!!” And I feel like everything is a failure. This morning in the fuzzy wake-up period, I was having this panic, something like this:

They’ll go to college and XX will just flunk out. She’ll be miserable…. They have no idea what a bibliography is! How could this be? They have no idea how to write a bibliography entry, and will I ever teach them? I have to teach them right now, this year…. They’ll just flunk out of university… Well, XXX might be OK but XX will not do well…. What on earth am I doing??

As I woke up and got more into my rational mind, here’s what I thought: So if I put XX (not book-study-inclined child) in school to “make her ready” for four years of university, she’ll be just as miserable there as she will be in university. It won’t necessarily make her more ready. It might be a worse preparation experience.

Being “outside the system” has its moments of panic. But … does being in the system also have its moments of panic? Probably so. So it’s probably not the question of asking a system to solve my problems.

And am I really educating them just so they can be successful in university? That only lasts 4 years, average, then all your life is ahead of you….

Homeschooling is something like unassisted birth, in that it’s keeping your power to yourself when you could give that power over to another entity as most do. The difference for me personally is that birth thrilled me, but home schooling doesn’t, and I actually have tried to hand it over. But so far God keeps putting back into my hands. I think He wants to use it to change me, to say nothing of whatever He’s doing with my kids and homeschooling.

So fuzzy moment of panic passed…. off to think about bibliographies … ha ha.

So, two years ago, I had accomplished losing a lot of weight– gaining muscle, losing fat. I used the Curves eating plan and fitness center.

I actually started losing weight the year I was 39, preparing for turning 40, the year after I’d given birth to our fourth child.

I lost 18 kilograms– that’s 40 pounds.

Since then, I’ve regained 29 pounds (13kg). I actually gained a little more but then lost it in the last month or so.

Our trip to the States, February-July, 2018, I experienced great amounts of stress. Good stress, but a lot of stress– travel, meetings, constantly changing schedule, fatigue, etc. And gaining weight added a lot of stress to me, too.

So, We’ve been back to Ukraine for 7 weeks. I immediately started exercising again, and I started the Curves eating plan again. But I haven’t been sticking to it very well. But today I committed to it, did bulk cooking so I have food to eat, measured out some portions….

But what helped me re-commit was a thought I had last night: “I hate the process of losing weight, but I love having lost weight.”

This was a key thought because Vitaliy is always telling me, You have to learn to love the process. So I started thinking to myself: How can I enjoy the process of losing weight?

So I started thinking about it, and I made a list of things I love about the process of losing weight (not just the result of having lost it), though this list contains both aspects:

1. I love organizing food
2. I love going to Curves to exercise.
3. I love seeing progress.
4. I love getting into smaller and smaller clothes.
5. I love gradually seeing more muscle definition and tone in my arms and legs.
6. I love shopping, planning, and preparing food.
7. I love measuring/weighing myself.
8. I love setting and achieving goals.
9. I love Vitaliy’s compliments.
10. I love how clothes fit and that I have a wider choice of what to wear.
11. I love blogging about the process.

Here is a picture of myself that inspires me

I got my first compliment today about losing weight 🙂

So, home schooling mom.

It’s been a weird, conflicting journey. But I finally feel like I’m becoming comfortable settling into this role. And hallelujah, because It’s pretty much my main role at this point.

This summer, I actually signed all the papers to send the girls to Christian school here in Kyiv, but God made some steps that I didn’t do this. It was the second time He had specifically blocked an attempt to send my kids to an school-school.

So, I took it as God’s hand.

And I read a neat book, Morning by Morning, which really spoke towards some issues that I didn’t realize were issues.

1. I learned that I don’t need to expect my kids to enjoy this process, but we need to do it all the same. Not that I’m making it miserable, but expecting it to be wafting through meadows in romantic ecstasy is totally unrealistic.

2. Second, I realized that there ARE topics I am passionate about– I love history, literature, and writing, and with a little work, I can become pretty good at being an enthusiastic and capable teacher. Plugging in teachers to teach areas that I am not capable to teach is a great idea. Grammar, math, Russian/Ukrainian comes to mind.

3. I love fine arts, and all my children are age four or over. Let me explain. So, they all sleep through the night, and they all happily sleep in their own beds now. So that means I sleep more, hence I’m having more energy than I used to. Also, I finally started digging around online to see what’s available by way of concerts, opera, ballet, museums, and wow, is it a lot. And now I have energy to start doing these outings.

Here we are at an art appreciation lecture, about ancient art, mostly Sumerian– it’s the historical time period we’re studying.

I took the girls to a concert at a cathedral.

And we participated in the Rosh Hashanah presentation at our church–we’re studying ancient Israel, too. (And we put together a model of the tabernacle.)

For Rosh Hashanah, I made this honey apple cake.

And we made 4-strand circular challah, also traditional for Rosh Hashanah.

So, it’s been neat! And I’m starting to get more into this.