We wake the girls up for our new Friday morning routine and discover that both had thrown up on their pillows in the middle of the night. The good blogger that I am, I thought about snapping a picture.

The good blogger that I am, I decided against it and took the sheets down to be washed instead.

Laundry

My morning had started five hours earlier when I woke up with the distinct impression that I needed to throw up. So I headed to the bathroom. I didn't, but those thirty minutes "on the pot" weren't all that pleasant; I would have preferred to have been happily sleeping.

Things weren't going well and it wasn't even 7:30 yet.

Then, I got a call at about 9:00 telling me that the main line of my house had clogged and water was filling the laundry room.

Fantastic.

It's been a long and rather frustrating day.

Oddly enough, this is a benefit of homeschooling: Our kids get to experience life in the real world. They get a genuine experience. They see us at our best and our worst. We get to introduce them to the Plumber and explain how he helped fix the toilet so we can flush it again. They see us rip off the sheets in frustration to then tromp off to the basement. They get the good and the bad.

Sunday school teachers, instructors, coaches, anyone in a professional or paraprofessional leadership role will tend to present the world as stable and under control. In fact, this is such a common experience the two exceptions I've encountered in my life stand out in stark contrast. And while this professionalism is essential to a public situation, that's not where most of us need improvement. We're all pretty good at behaving in public.

Homeschooling allows our children to learn from how we handle stress, frustration and disappointment. They go through the experiences with us and learn how to cope. Sobering thoughts for those of us still in the process of learning how to roll with life's punches.

I'm writing this post to remind myself that even days that start off not so well are excellent opportunities for me and my children to learn and grow together. And if it turns out that your three month long project in the basement wasn't ruined, you had a coupon for half off the plumbing service and you were taken out to dinner by some friends, perhaps it's important to celebrate the blessings of life as well. I'm not nearly grateful enough because I'm too often focused on dealing with the things that went wrong.

So, here I am, at the end of one of those days sitting back and thinking, "Life is good."

How's yours?

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father

You're busy.

My wife is busy too. We're having guests arrive four hours earlier than anticipated so she's probably pretty active at the moment making the house ready. And that's on top of the things she normally does like, you know, tend to the children, make meals and all that.

You may not have guests showing up, but I'm sure your life has it's own unexpected twists. Even without those, you're plenty busy. And if you're anything like me, every once in a while you lose the ability to determine the most important things to focus on. I have so many pressing items on my schedule I seem incapable of completing any of them. Worse still, many of them have wait times associated with them, so I can't even "just do it a minute" and be done with it.

And in these moments do we really care about eschatology? My world already feels like it's falling apart, I don't care when the Tribulation is supposed to hit!
Hermeneutics? A child is trying to tell me something from the bathroom, I need to investigate that first.
Age of the Earth? Today already feels like a contradiction: I've only had ten minutes to do anything but I feel like I've been doing it for a million years!

I could go on, but you're busy.

As finite creatures we have to make priorities. We must pick our battles. And some days, our priorities require that we forgo participating in even our pet conflicts.

I'm not saying that the things listed above--or the numerous other topics like organic food, abortion, pollution, politics, evangelism, etc--aren't important. But for the time being, your time may be needed elsewhere.

Where?

Only you know that. But if you're having trouble focusing, perhaps it's time to remind yourself of your homeschool goals and work from there.

I need to work out my priorities as well. I think it would help me tremendously.

If only I could find the time...

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father

...well, my branch of it, at least.

For those of you just joining us, let me catch you up:

• My wife and I are in the process of adopting three children. Two years into the process...
• In the meantime, we're pseudo-fostering two girls.
• We're doing Sonlight P3/4 with them.

And that's pretty much the last I've said of it.

Until now.

My good bloggy friend Mrs. C emailed me and asked how things were going. And while I'm still going to email you back with specifics, Mrs. C, I thought it'd be a good idea to post an update here.

First things first: The girls really like the Sonlight stories. They currently love Go, Dog, Go! and will often ask me if I like their hat. I once got it wrong by saying I did like it, not realizing I was supposed to not like it three more times. It's also not uncommon to hear, "Go! The light is green now!" as they run laps around the coffee table.

Second, we've received a few new pictures of our kids in Kyrgyzstan. Unfortunately, due to adoption law, I can't share them with you until the adoption goes through. And, near as we can tell, it's still just as stuck as it was over a year ago when the clog stopped up the pipe.

Third, the life of pseudo-fostering continues to be hard. Your prayers are much appreciated. However, Brittany and I recently decided to make conscious efforts to accept that the girls are part of the family. Not that they weren't accepted before, but that we hadn't yet consciously moved out of babysitting mode. It was exhausting to always be "watching" them. As we try to relearn how to go about our lives, now with children underfoot, we are trying to figure out how to incorporate them into what we do rather than waiting for them to go down for a nap before we start doing chores. Writing that makes it sound so obvious that we should have done that from day one. But some of us are just slow, I guess. Especially since we're still figuring it out...

There's more to say, I'm sure, but I've run out of steam. I think my emotional regulator just kicked in and shut off oxygen to my brain, ceasing all thought.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have, or provide more details for anything you're interested in. Please just leave a comment and I'll try to get to it. If you have no questions, that's fine: I would absolutely appreciate your prayers.

Thanks!

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father

Last month I mentioned that our old logo had been removed from the building.

Today the new logo was installed:

A Work in Progress

A Few of the Pieces

Sonlight's New Logo

Pretty cool...

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father

I really like words. That's one of the reasons I share "Words of the Day" with you when I stumble across them:

Autochthonous:^* indigenous; originating where it is found

Brought to you by
Milton Gaither

Definitions are important because, without them, we lose meaning and the ability to communicate. In debate they say that "he who defines, wins" because if your definition is accepted you can direct the conversation where you want it to go. A few examples:

• Is abortion a medical procedure or murder?
• Is swatting your child's hand training or abuse?
• Is evolution a scientific fact or a godless lie?
• Is homeschooling selfish and vile or a wonderful opportunity?
• Is eating meat productive or immoral?
• Is the use of "he" instead of gender neutral pronouns acceptable or chauvinistic?
• Is this blog fantastic of lame?
• Is Luke Holzmann a ninny or brilliant?

Ultimately, much like the last two, neither answer is entirely accurate--or, perhaps more accurately, both answers contain a certain level of truth. Logicians call what I gave above a false dichotomy. But the point remains: If you can convince people to accept your definition, you are more likely to sway them to your side.

The difficulty, then, is determining what definitions are correct. And when there is disagreement, discover what drives the two sides. Why do they define it that way? And what's influencing that definition?

Are you a parent or a teacher? Are your offspring your children or your students? And what in the world is a Core or an Instructor's Guide anyway?

I spent some time today working on a lexicon for a potential new Sonlight product. It was amazing to me how difficult it is to find words that will be wildly recognizable without leading to wrong impressions or confusion. Schedule or Calendar? Asset or Resource? Teachers Manual or Lesson Plan? Course or Program or Study Unit?

May the words you use today be edifying and understood by those around and closest to you.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father

^*Yep, I had to look up the pronunciation too.

...is when you have to break it.

I'm a routine guy. More than that, I'm a schedule guy. I don't always have to be on time ...as long as I'm early. I park in the same spot every day. I have a morning routine. I have a evening series of events. I do the same thing every Saturday night and Sunday morning (Movie Night and church, respectively). My body is so used to my order of life, I wake up at 6am on mornings I forget to set my alarm (which is great because otherwise I'd throw a hissy fit because my groove was thrown off. Not proud of those moments).

You get the picture.

Today, my routine was broken.

Garage sale season has started; there was one this morning. And for that one garage sale I got up early to do a little work, then drove my wife to meet my sister and my mom, watched the girls for a couple hours with my brother-in-law, drove home and then, and only then, was able to come into Sonlight--four hours later than I usually do.^*

I was grumpy.

And that's the real problem with routine: I feel entitled to it. The problem is me. Routine is fantastic, even beneficial in many ways. But like so many good things, it's how we use it and respond to it. Vegetables are great, but they aren't if I were to go ballistic on the kids over them. Money is wonderful, but an unhealthy focus on it leads to trouble.

You get the picture.

Are you like me and need to have a solid routine? Or are you on the other end of the spectrum--with my wife--and fight against repetition? I'm guessing neither extreme is super healthy. That's why I'm so thankful for Sonlight's approach to scheduling: Consistency with flexibility. Every Sonlight Instructor's Guide allows you to plan your day how you want so you can quickly adjust when you need to. Like when garage sale season starts....

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father

^*My wife accused me of wanting to get to work so desperately I almost drove down to open the building at 6:30. I still maintain that I had responsibilities that were thankfully covered by another.