Gifford reunion or bust!

It is funny how the journey to certain life lessons take a long time to build up.  Or maybe it is just that when things come crashing down, you can see how each little part of the last several months has played into making that moment possible.

One year ago this October I got a distinct impression that it was time for me to leave my awesome, work from home, make lots of money, doing something that I enjoy most of the time, and pay a house cleaner/babysitter twice a week to help me out job and JUST be a mom.  I was terrified of that choice.  I was terrified of the potential repercussions of that choice - mostly as it relates to the fact that we MUST have a renter in our Denver Condo if we are going to be able to pay our bills.  It is very uncomfortable for me to rely on some other unknown person to help pay our bills (in return for us letting them live in an apartment hundreds of miles away).  However, I knew it was a prompting that I could not ignore. I admit, however, that I bargained with the Lord in how the "retirement" was going to come about.  I didn't want to be faithless, but at the time I got the prompting to quit, we didn't have renters and we hadn't had any for over 6 months (at least not paying renters - just incarcerated, impossible to evict renters but that is a whole other post that I will likely never get around to writing).  Anyway, I told the Lord that I would quit my job as soon as we had renters.  As the months passed without significant leads on the apartment despite our generous options (first month free, no down payment, lower rent, etc) I began to feel that perhaps I had failed my test.  This 'leap of faith' as it were was just a little too far out of my comfort zone.  Finally in mid December we got the call from the management company that a contract had been signed.  In an effort to show the Lord that I really did have some faith, I immediately called my boss and informed him of my decision to leave and we worked out an "exit strategy" for the coming month to finish up some big projects (Circle K stores...I don't think I will ever see a red K without a wave of nausea). 

A few weeks after I "retired" I began to feel that part of my mission as a stay at home mom was supposed to include homeschooling my kids.  I have thought about homeschooling on and off since I started having kids but I never really thought I would actually do it - I didn't want to have weird kids!  However, the more I thought about the responsibility I have as a parent the more I began to think that I was somehow "outsourcing" some of my responsibility by sending my kids away.  More than once I would think about some great lesson I wanted to teach my kids only to be overwhelmed by the homework, housework, feeding, bathing, and everything else I had to get done with them in the few short hours I had them after school.  It just never seemed like I had enough time with them to do and teach them, not just how to read and write but how to become the people that God intended them to be.  It was during our 2 week spring break that I really decided that homeschooling was for me.  Having all the kids home all day and not having to work was AMAZING.  Probably more the not having to work part, but I was still in the honeymoon stage with my vast increase of available time and it was so wonderful.  We had a great couple of weeks and I hated to see it come to an end with months before summer vacation started.  I probably wouldn't have dreaded sending my kids back to school if it weren't for half day kindergarten.  Running to the school 3 times a day to drop off and pick up was really, really annoying!

Homeschooling is a crazy endeavor I admit --especially with all the young ones I still have at home - but I was/am determined to make it a success.  I decided to start with just Autumn so I get things figured out before I have more than one grade to think about (not counting little Q's pre-school lessons).  Poor Autumn my little lab rat ;-).

Anyway, back to the moral of the story (there really is one in here and it isn't a advertisement for homeschooling) - As part of my need to feel like we could make this single income household thing work, before I quit work, we created a savings account that would enable us to cover 6 months of our Denver condo expenses in the event that our current renter leaves and we are unable to find another renter (as mentioned before, this would be something we couldn't afford to have happen).  In addition, we have a short term 'emergency' savings account that is used up by various un-budgetted expenses  and is replenished every 6 months by an "extra" paycheck (we have our bills budgeted bi-monthly while Quentin's paychecks come every 2 weeks so every 6 months we have a paycheck that is not "budgeted" into our expenses).  This summer, however, we had a little bit too much fun apparently because we busted through that account pretty quickly.  This isn't really a concern since we don't actually "need" the money there and we are scheduled to replenish it in 4 months. However, we failed to take into account apparently that we were up for some testing to see if we really did buy into this whole single-income, stay-at-home-mom idea.

Just 3 days before we were to start our home school (and the twins would head back to public school for 1st grade), the car Quentin uses to get to work stopped working.  We took it to the shop only to find that it needed a new battery (unfortunately not a regular battery but the $2,900 hybrid motor battery assist battery), air conditioning system repair ($1,000) and some $500-$600 bushings?? (something to do with the suspension).  Needless to say we were suddenly a lot more stressed about the fact that we are just a few months away from the lease being up with the current renters.

In an effort to cut back on any extra spending to build back up our savings account (and our peace of mind), we told the kids that we would not be attending the Gifford family reunion this year (my Grandpa's family (mom's side)).  We have only rarely missed this reunion and the kids start planning their talent display for the next year the day we get home.  This year they practiced extra hard with my niece Genieci on a song she was going to play on her guitar while they sang. Needless to say they were sorely disappointed and immediately broke into tears (all four of the older kids at the same time...mmm such a wonderful sound).  I explained to them the reasoning behind our decision and the actions we needed to take to put ourselves back in a safer financial position.  They sweetly offered, first one and then all of them, to add their savings (little jars of coins where they save their allowance) to our savings to pay for the car expenses.  I explained to them that their contribution, while thoughtful, was not necessary and ultimately not sufficient anyway.  They then ran off and using a laundry basket, gathered up all the toys that they wanted to sell to help earn the money so that we could go to our reunion. Suddenly I realized that we had an awesome opportunity for a teaching moment!

I told the kids that if we could earn the $200 it would take to cover the gas to go to the reunion that we could do it.  We brainstormed ideas for selling cookies by the school and posted an ad for a garage sale for that Saturday. Now here we are just 2 weeks later and we are officially headed to the reunion.  Well I guess that is jumping the gun a little as we have one more day of cookie sales to get the last $25 dollars, but it is basically in the bag. 

The kids have been so great about working hard making  and selling the cookies (even though it is horribly hot and muggy!).  And they are way more in tune to how their requests for things are part of/affect our family budget.  So much so in fact that it was a comment by Lauren today that got me thinking about writing this post.  While Lauren and Lexi were at school today we went grocery shopping (the post about how I forgot Isaac at Walmart and made it all the way to the van without him will DEFINITELY NOT be a post for another day).  When the girls came home from school Lauren was cataloging all the items that had been added to the fridge and she asked if we had stayed in budget or if we had used our 'reunion' money to buy the food.  Boy do I have to be accountable for how I follow our budget now!!  Not that its a bad thing, everyone can use a little 6 year old interrogation to keep them in line.

This really is not an advertisement for homeschooling, but as I write this I think that one of the greatest things to come out of my decision to homeschool has nothing to do with where my kids are during the day.  The greatest thing to come out of my decision is a change in the way I think about my interactions with my kids.  I used to get so frustrated/ bugged/annoyed at the non stop questions that 5 kids can come up with.  Now, when I know that they are not going to be getting the answer to the question from some other source later on, I find it way easier to take a minute and answer the question - not just in a quick get you out of my hair way, but in an actual 'save myself a planned out lesson down the road' sort of a way.  When Lexi asks to help make the muffins, I cut up a piece of paper into fourths to show her what reducing the milk from 3/4 to 1/2 cup means.  When we catch a wasp in the house, we put it in a jar and look at its body parts and google the family of wasp (mud dauber) and what it eats (which to little Q's surprise is not people blood).  Not so say that I am in any way perfect at this, or that I don't still get bugged by non stop questions (because lets face it...certain kids (one tall 6 year old who won't be named) really cannot STOP asking question) but I try harder.  Most of all I see a greater vision for my role in teaching my kids and an excited for homeschooling not just as a way of doing "school" but as a way of life in our family.

This post was really just supposed be be the background for one little comment that Lauren made today about budgeting but instead turned into a bit more than that.  One thing I think is funny is that I am totally second guessing all of my grammatical choices (especially my way-to-frequent use of parenthetical statements) and wondering if some day after I teach a lesson on the correct use of parenthesis if I am going to have to come back and edit all my posts. Or maybe I just leave them as sort of a scrap book  progress report of what I re-learned in my 2nd trip through grade school.