Week 16 ~ Delighting in the Positives

Our Christmas break was filled with great joys and a few deep sorrows. That is the nature of life. Tragedies and hard times don't stop just because of the holidays. Most of our hard times were around our estranged special needs daughter turning 18 and becoming legal guardian over herself. She is only capable of being her own guardian if she trusts her mental health team to help her make safe decisions. Unfortunately, there has been a huge breakdown in trust and communication within her team and a few key members were on vacation during her coming of age. All of these issues led to a breakdown in her services and a huge scramble on our part to try and right the ship even though we, as the parents of a legal adult, have almost no power. We did hear yesterday that she had signed the correct legal papers to put her mental health caseworker and the overseeing facility in charge of her life for one more year. This journey has been so very painful and the struggles ahead are still great. We are not sure how much we will know or be involved with those struggles, but we will continue to advocate from the side lines and pray, pray, pray. I have heard that young people with her mental health issues are especially hard during the teen and young adult years and hers have certainly been turbulent. However, being fortunate enough to be in a mental health system has been a huge blessing for her. The other hardship is that my Dad is very ill again. He has been in and out of the hospital over the holidays. He was put back in last night. They think something is wrong with his lungs (cancer, more fungus??), and that may be why he isn't getting better. Hopefully, we will know by the end of the weekend so that the latest fight in my father's decade-old battle with leukemia can continue.

But, there is much joy throughout the heartache. Here are a few favorite things from the last few weeks.

We had a wonderful time rollerskating. 

Dean does not have green hair -- he's just sitting under a green light!

Anne's main Christmas present was tickets to a Lindsey Stirling concert. Only Anne and I attended, and we had a wonderful mother and daughter time.

We had a lovely New Year's Day board game party. We had a big turnout with 16 people all laughing, eating and playing games. People were playing in different rooms throughout the house.

The latest book by Karen Andreola was released and my copy arrived in the mail last night! I can't wait to drink it all up. It is titled Mother Culture for a Happy Homeschool. It even came with an encouraging postcard of the painting, "Snap the Whip" by Winslow Homer, which was my kids' very first picture study years and years ago. I love all of her books.

On the school front, we got back to work this week and reentry hasn't been very hard. We are really in a good place with our lessons, so we aren't making any major changes. We are making only a few additions. For Dean's art course, we are streaming a new Netflix show called Fake or Fortune, which is about identifying real works of art from forgeries. Dean is starting the classroom portion of driver's ed online. Hewitt Drew It has been added to our physics lessons. Finally, we are making sure that we apply Charlotte Mason philosophies to all of our curriculum -- using short lessons, more narration, living books and lots of freedom to enjoy the beauty of art, music and nature.

Blessings, Dawn