Our Week In Review

 I so love our history curriculum, Tapestry of Grace!   It is designed to be a four year cycle, and each year covers a specified amount of time beginning at creation and going all the way up to modern times.  In the fall of 2015 we began Year 2, which is the most packed year plan of the four.  It covers history from the fall of the Roman Empire (around 400 A.D.) to the presidency of John Adams (around 1800).  A LOT happened in the world during those 1400 years!  We got bogged down about halfway through the year last year and never finished.  So, as I have previously mentioned, we just picked up this fall where we had left off and kept going.

My high school boys have a very full plate of other classes this year, and we have done history as the "spine" of our school for many years, so my husband and I felt that they just did not need to do history as "full" as Tapestry is designed to do.  It is an amazing curriculum, but we moms need to be careful to control it, and not let it control us.  So this year I have essentially been cutting and changing each week's reading to make it a big lighter and more manageable for my kids.  I have been looking at the week's scheduled reading and accompanying questions, and separating out the various threads or themes and giving one to each of the boys.  They each have less work to do, but when we have our history discussion all together, each of them ends up learning from the others and I usually add a few comments to help them see how it all fits together.

This past week two of our boys worked on this:

(I changed the title, the reading, and the questions, so I am not sharing proprietary information from Tapestry of Grace by posting this photo!)  :)

Another of our boys read about the colonies that were chartered after the monarchy was re-established in England (hence they are called the "Restoration Colonies"), while Little Man worked on a comparison chart of four different Indian tribes.

I have found our discussions to be richer this year because each boy has in depth information on a single topic to share with the rest of us, rather than coming to discussion with several questions not answered because the workload was overwhelming.

This flexibility is one of the many things I love about Tapestry!

We did our usual math, grammar, science, and homework for various co-op classes (logic, economics, Latin).  I am so blessed to have our three high school boys in the English class I teach at our co-op. We are currently reading and annotating the novel My Name is Asher Lev, about an Orthodox Jewish boy who has an extraordinary artistic talent, and how his exercise of that talent creates conflict within his family and within his Jewish community.  It is fascinating and I am really enjoying the discussions we are having in class.

The highlight of my week was the fun date my husband and I went on to his new company's Christmas dinner/party.  It was super classy, at a beautiful venue, with amazingly delicious food.  SO THANKFUL he has a job!!

I didn't know.....

...that on the same day I last posted, June 23, my sweet husband had lost his job and spent the day at the public library, marking time until he could ride the bus home as usual because he didn't want to tell me over the phone.  :(

The company said that they were "reorganizing" his department and his position, along with several others in his department, had been "eliminated."  And just like that we were unemployed again!

I didn't know.  My husband didn't know.  But God knew. And nothing else that I know to be true and real changed that day except my husband's job status.  I am so thankful that God is still God, He is still in control, and His Word is still a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

We had to spend a few days processing our emotions and grieving, because it was so unexpected and my husband LOVED his job.  I was overwhelmed with sadness for him.  After that period of processing, my husband spent several days re-writing his resume.  That was finished two days ago so his job hunt is now in full swing.

Meanwhile, *I* decided to deep clean and tidy up our "castle" in an effort to encourage my husband (and me!) and to show him appreciation for what his hard work has afforded us.  Our daily life, as you know, is somewhat chaotic.  Hence a lot of little daily chores just don't happen. Our home was in serious need of some tender loving FREE care. :)

I swapped out our two couches and rearranged the family room furniture to make the room seem larger.  In the process I cleaned every nook and cranny, and found new homes for all the junk that had collected in the corners.

Here is one corner of our family room BEFORE:

And the same corner AFTER:

Another corner BEFORE:

And that same corner AFTER:

BEFORE:

And the same corner AFTER:

And finally, the mantel BEFORE:

And AFTER moving things in from another room:

I love the family picture and the great reminder to pray!

 So now I am motivated to keep this deep cleaning and organizing thing going in other rooms in our home.  Sometimes the world beats us down, but home should be a place that comforts and lifts us up. Please pray with us for a new job for my husband soon, and that in the meantime we will wait expectantly, work diligently, and trust faithfully.

My new outfit

As promised, here is my new outfit. It is a pair of black dress pants and this wine colored jacket with the drapey lapel. Not super exciting, but I needed the black pants (shouldn't every woman have black dress pants?) and I really love the little jacket.


We stayed four hours at the party. When we left there were loud whiskey shots and spontaneous dancing beginning to occur... but before that we had a great time mingling with my husband's co-workers and their wives. I met three other stay at home moms! And had a long conversation with a retired school teacher, who was initially alarmed when she learned we homeschooled but was relieved after discovering that I was a former classroom teacher myself. She told me exactly how to teach the play "Romeo and Juliet" to my ninth grader. :-)

What a great opportunity to support my husband in his work relationships, and Lord willing be a light for Jesus.

First Day

Thanks so much for your prayers, my husband had a great first day at his new job! It was a day full of meetings, but in the afternoon his new work computer was delivered and he had fun setting it up and loading on all the software he will need for development. Oh my word, he is in computer heaven! His new machine is very powerful (fast) and he has two large monitors totaling about 4 feet. He should be all set to begin writing code today. He wants to be up to speed and productive as soon as possible (and they want that too). :-)

It was funny; his immediate boss was giving him a "tour" of the software, to remind him of all its features, and more than once when he asked, "do you remember this?" my husband answered, "um, yes, actually I wrote that!"

I cannot tell you how thrilled I am for my husband!! I've said this before when he's found work, but I'll say it again... it just feels different when he's working. More purposeful. It affects all of us, in a good way. I. AM. SO. THANKFUL.

Lord, thank you so much for this new job. It happened so fast, and so out of the blue, we are still in a bit of shock. But we recognize this was YOUR doing and we accept that this is YOUR plan. Thank you so much. Please be with my husband each day as he goes to work. Help him to contribute significantly to the program. Help him with problems that are hard to solve. Help him most of all to be a witness for You in his work place. Use him as you will in that place. Amen.

New Job Starts Today!

Please pray with me that my husband's first day at his new job will go well, and that this will be a smooth and pleasant transition. Thank you!

I am so excited for him. :-)

More about the New Job

When I shared the exciting news about my husband's job offer last week, it was a pretty brief announcement. I wanted to share just a little bit more about the circumstances leading up to this offer, and let everyone know what an incredible God thing this is!

If you read my blog regularly you know that my husband has been unemployed off and on for two years, with short term contract jobs here and there (he is a software developer). These last two years have been a hard road, and I won't lie, sometimes I have felt discouragement and even despair. As a believer, I KNOW that God is sovereign and always in control, and I also know that He loves me and His plans are for my good, but I wondered more than once why He didn't just swoop in and "rescue" us, when it was so within His power to do so.

He allowed us to come as close as possible to losing our home without actually losing it, to go hungry a few times, to have to say "no" very frequently to the children, to stay home because we had no gas in the vehicles and no money to buy more, to wrestle futilely with the bills, and cry and pray and experience extreme stress.

Yet I have learned, and am still learning, so many lessons from this experience. People would always say to me, "God always provides". Those are true words, and He always did, but hardly ever in the way I expected Him to. Sometimes He chose not to provide the funds for a certain bill, but instead He gave me the grace to make the phone call and explain why it was going to be late. Sometimes He chose not to provide grocery money when I thought we really needed it, but He provided the creativity and resourcefulness to make meals out of what we had. He allowed our children to see my husband and I cry, to overhear snippets of "desperate" conversations, but in the process He helped them see what it looks like to cling to God in the midst of pain, when I felt as though my faith were hanging in shreds. GOD DOESN'T WASTE TRIAL AND PAIN. Isn't that just absolutely amazing?

Through all of the hardships of the last two years, God has been so constant. My heart is so full of praise to God for WHO HE IS, and how unchanging He is! I feel so humbled that He loves me enough to invest this much "lesson" in me, but there have been many times I wished the lesson didn't have to be so painful.

So, fast forward two years. Last week, out of the blue, my husband got a call from the man who had been his immediate boss at his former job. The job he got laid off from two years ago, and hasn't had a direct hire job since then. The job whose layoff started us on this difficult journey. (just want to be clear which job we're talking about here! ;-)

This man and my husband met together, and he proceeded to offer my husband his old job back. Direct hire, non-contract, with benefits, no need to interview again. ISN'T THAT AMAZING!!!!!!???!!! It sort-of feels like we have come full circle.

So what was the point of the last two years you might ask? Why did God choose to take us on this particular journey? I don't know the complete answer to that, but I honestly would not trade it. I learned more about God and His relationship to me during these two years than I did during any year of plenty. My viewpoint on money has changed dramatically (and I thought it was fine before!). I will be able to look back on these years when the next trial comes, and know without a doubt that it is God's nature to be faithful. He cannot be unfaithful.

To those of you who have prayed faithfully for my family, thank you. Two years ago, God was good. A year ago God was good. And today, God is good. As you feel led, please pray that we will continue to cling to God with as much ferocity now as we have during unemployment. It is so easy to put our trust in a paycheck, and not in the Lord. Yet He knows that we need income to live in this world, and He has chosen to provide that for us in a unique way. We are glad, and we thank Him!

Thursday's Thankful Things - it's a good one!

My husband got a job!!!! A direct hire, non-contract job! With benefits!!!!! And it literally fell into his lap ~ he didn't even know about it, didn't apply for it, and doesn't have to interview for it. How's that for an answer to prayer?! (it's a place he's worked at before, so they knew about HIM) He will start in two weeks and we are so thrilled and thankful!!!

I had a wonderful session today with my tutor student. He is the sweetest 6th grade boy you could ever hope to meet, other than my own of course. We are working on writing, and he is really engaged with it.

The snow is melting and I SAW GRASS TODAY!

The children and I got to watch a falcon (or possibly hawk, not sure) slowly pick apart a small bird it had caught. It was in a tree not 6 feet away from our dining room window, facing us. Sort of gross, but amazingly fascinating at the same time. The children were glued to the window the whole time, and then we watched the falcon spread its wings and fly off. God's creativity is just so..... creative!

My husband got a new job!!!!!

A lady in my REAL moms group safely delivered her first baby a couple weeks ago and I was able to cook her two meals today, and pray for her as I worked.

We had a great school day.

When I went out this afternoon I did not wear a coat. I've told the children this is what's known as a "spring tease" ~ it will get cold again and it will most certainly snow again. But we know that spring IS coming!

My husband got a new job!!!!

I have amazing friends.

God loves me.

And did I mention my husband got a new job?!

Job Search Update

This past week my husband had interviews with two different contract companies. They were the fruit of contacts he has been pursuing the last few weeks. Sometimes an interview with a contract company is more of a "meet and greet" type thing, but if they have a specific job in mind that they want to submit you for, it is more like a traditional job interview. One of the interviews was the meet and greet type, and the other was a regular interview. He also had to take a dot.net test for one of the jobs, which he feels went pretty well. Lord willing, one of these opportunities will result in an interview with the actual client and then a job offer.

By God's grace, and your prayers, I am less fearful and much more at peace. Satan was really attacking me with dark "what if" thoughts, and he struck at the things I tend to fear most. Some of those things we can do something about once my husband has another job, and some of them are things that are totally beyond my control and I just have to trust God with them and go ahead and live life. Living fully in each moment, as is my goal for this year. I feel that I have barely scratched the surface of what it means to trust God moment by moment, but I am practicing living in that truth, however feebly, and enjoying His presence.

Living moment by moment is truly what we're doing right now, as we are experiencing a severe cash flow crisis. We have money saved for next month's expenses, and want to keep that set aside for its intended purpose. We thought that unemployment benefits would cover the daily things like groceries and gas for our vehicles, but since benefits have been delayed we are having to get really creative in those departments! We *think* that it's a matter of bureaucratic red tape ~ even though the judge ruled in our favor we don't think the right office has gotten the word that we are once again eligible for benefits. So my husband is going to try and get that straightened out tomorrow. Whatever the issue, it is a small thing to God and He can provide for us with or without the unemployment benefits. He has been doing so already! A check in the mail, a grocery card slipped to us at church. He is faithful, and He is good.

One of our children is really wrestling with fear, so please pray for wisdom as we shepherd him through this time. He is afraid of not having enough to eat, and has begun to try and eat "extra" (sort of like hoarding, only hoard eating). He honestly has not experienced any shortage of food, just a shortage of some of his favorites (there is a difference!). Last night at bedtime we talked about how God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness ~ manna from heaven and even water from a ROCK! That is some pretty dramatic provision! I used that to gently point out to him that we really have nothing to worry about. It was good for me to hear it too. Confirmation from my own lips to my ears, that God loves us, He is in control, life circumstances that happen to us are not random, He is sovereign!

I'm so glad to be in His hands.

And then there were zero....

One of my husband's two part time contract jobs ended today. The other one ends tomorrow.

We knew about the one tomorrow. The one today was a little surprising (thought we had a couple more weeks).

But.....

It didn't surprise the Lord. He knew. If I've learned anything the past two years, it is that God is above and beneath and around and all over the circumstances that make up our daily lives. He is PRESENT and ENGAGED.

I am so thankful that He is here, and that we are His.

Update to the Job Interview Update!

My husband thinks the second interview went well. He was especially thankful that he felt at ease and was able to be himself, and represent himself honestly (tough sometimes to be true to who you are while at the same time trying to sell yourself). So we continue to wait and watch to see what God's plans are!

Thank you for your prayers!

Another Job Interview Update

My husband received a call back from the company he interviewed with last week! He goes in tomorrow to meet and talk with more people. It is an encouraging sign! Please pray for God to go before him, for clarity of thought, and that God's will would be very clear. Thanks so much!

Job Interview Update

The interview yesterday afternoon went well! Thanks so much for your prayers. My husband is the first one they've interviewed, however, so now we wait and pray and trust. He liked the company really well, and all the people he met. He thinks he would like the work too. It would be challenging, but challenging in a good way. They are actually hiring for two positions, a senior developer and a software architect. My hubby would be happy with either one, but is hoping for the architect job, as that is the direction he would like to go career-wise.

Meanwhile he is busily working at his two part time contract jobs (that add up to one full time job). They were supposed to have ended by now, yet he is still working.

We are grateful for the Lord's provision on every level!

Job Interview - Please Pray

My husband has a job interview tomorrow afternoon in a nearby town. This is not for a contract job, but a permanent, direct hire position. Please pray that he would do well during the interview, that if he is the man for this job it would be clear to his interviewers, and that he would quickly get a sense as to whether or not this company would be a good fit for him. He is feeling pressured today to complete work for his two part time jobs, but also wants to spend a significant portion of time preparing for the interview, so please pray for good time management today and tomorrow morning.

With election day tomorrow too (I hope you are all going to VOTE!!), I feel like I should just be in prayer all day!

Fun Weekend, and GOOD news!!

Last Friday was the day my husband learned that he was passed over for a second interview and that our car loan application was denied. It was a tough day. I knew we needed something fun to lift our spirits on the weekend, so I suggested to my husband that we take the children to see the movie "Toy Story 3". We rarely go to the movies all together so this would be a big treat, and a possible last "paying" family date before unemployment. My husband readily agreed, so off we went.

Oh my word, we had SO much fun!!! The children were super excited to be going to a movie in the middle of the day. With our whole family! And we opted to see it in 3-D which was a totally new experience for all our children. They were sporting the glasses long before the 3-D previews started. :0) We enjoyed the movie immensely. I found it every bit as good as the first one and all of us but Little Man cried at the end (don't tell my middle aged boys that I told you that). I don't want to give anything away if you haven't seen it, but the ending was SO bittersweet, and done SO well, and any parent who has watched their children grow up and out of certain stages will get teary-eyed at the end unless their heart is made of stone. It was a satisfying wrap up of the whole Toy Story "story" and a very fun time together. Then we came home and swam and played in the pool for a long time.

On Sunday afternoon we took son C to the library to get his VERY. OWN. LIBRARY. CARD. Yes! It was finally his turn!!

Signing his name....

...and then checking out his first book with his own card!

We went home and curled up in the family room ~ some of us read and some of us watched the World Cup final on tv. It was a fun, fun weekend and it made me so very grateful for my family and God's goodness in enabling us to enjoy one another.

Fast forward to the middle of the week, and yesterday my husband received the news that his current employer would like to extend his contract 10 more weeks!!!!!! Yippee!!!! It's not a permanent job, but it's 10 more weeks of work and it means we can go ahead with a vehicle decision. God is SO good! Thank you for your prayers! He hears and He is faithful.

Job Interview Update

It was not the news we wanted to hear. My husband got passed over for a second interview. Since this news was conveyed through a third party, we are not sure exactly what the reasons might be, but my husband feels fairly certain that not having asp.net experience probably played a big factor. In the field of software development, new development tools come on the scene at a pretty fast rate. Whatever the latest and greatest technology is for software development is what cutting edge companies want to be using. You can have years of experience, know a variety of languages, have worked with a variety of development platforms, but still not have "it". And right now, asp.net seems to be "it".

So my husband is convinced he needs to create his own experience with this tool. It is actually pretty easy to write a basic computer program, but to create one that does certain things using certain technology that runs in the background (unknown and unseen by the end user) can take hours upon hours upon hours of work. This is what he feels he needs to do starting immediately after his last day of work this Friday.

To my faithful friends and loved ones who have prayed so often these last couple years for our job situation....thank you. You have no idea what your prayers have meant to us and what they have DONE for us! I appreciate your love, demonstrated through your prayers, so much. And I humbly ask you to keep praying! Pray for a job, of course. God knows we need one. But also pray for good time management, for clear thinking and fast learning as my husband teaches himself asp.net and tries to create something with it, for patience and trust. For both of us to walk by faith and not by sight. For love to abound in our home amidst the uncertainty.

The timing of all this is really interesting. We also learned that our application for a car loan was denied. Which means we either have to fix our minivan after all, or buy a cheap clunker type vehicle to hold us over until such time as we can get approved (length of time on his current job - just 2 months - was cited as a major reason for denial of our application, and the only way to gain more time on a job is to work there longer!). We have money set aside, but if he doesn't find another job soon we were planning to use that for living expenses. If we use it to repair our vehicle or buy a different one, we'll have no buffer for unemployment. Hmmm, what to do? Thankfully, God knows, and He is in control. The events of this summer, and the timing of them is no surprise to the Lord, and are in fact orchestrated by Him for His divine purposes. We matter to God! The details of our lives are not random occurrences. They have meaning and purpose. Isn't this amazing?

That is the truth, and I choose to live in His truth today.

Job Interview Today!

UPDATE:

The interview went well, and we should hear by early next week if they want to pursue a face to face interview. Thank you for your prayers!

Original post:

Please pray for my husband who has an interview today at 2:30. Thank you!