Too Harsh? Too Morbid?

I've been thinking that maybe my last post was a bit too harsh, or maybe even too morbid. But, every time my husband or child leaves my side, I am thinking in the back of my mind; this could be the last moment, the last goodbye. I want to make it a really good hug, the kind that would hold us over until we see each other again, even if it's not until we meet in Heaven. I try to remember to always say I love you, every time I hang up the phone, because it might be the last conversation, and I want the last words I said to be "I love you".
I wonder why everyone doesn't think this way, but I realized that for me it probably has to do with my father dying when I was twelve. Since then, I've never been shocked by death, it just is. My grandmother hates to talk about death or anyone dying; it upsets her so, and I don't understand why, but I do understand that many people feel that way.
I do not fear death, or dwell on death, nor am I shock or disturbed by death; but I am always expectant, always waiting for God to take someone I love, expecting Jesus to return for me. I look forward to an eternity in Heaven, but I don't want to miss even one moment with my children while we are together here.
When people ask me why I homeschool, even ask things like, 'How can you stand to be around them all day? I can't stand to have mine home for the summer.' I have many answers I could give, but it always comes down to just one question I ask in return, "God gave them to me. Why would I want to send them away?"

One day they won't come back...

Hi, just a quick announcement.

We are always trying to find ways to save money, and have managed to put together a website with a cheaper host, so our new address online will be

vacationeducationbooks.net

If you visit our .com site, you will be redirected to the new site.



Also, a prayer request. We are preparing to welcome the 8th member of our family into a household with one 7passenger vehicle. We don't know what God has planned for our transportation needs or how He intends to pay for it, but we do know that He owns a thousand cattle on a thousand hills... He is not affected by the economy or the real estate market, so nothing is impossible with HIM. Our prayer request is for us to be patient as we watch and pray for a solution to this 'overcrowding' issue.



Lastly, a word of caution: if you have never read our newsletter before, they are usually more ENCOURAGING than this one. But, this is something that I have felt strongly about for quite some time and believed it needed to be said, so here it is...



Over the years, we have said goodbye to friends and family members. This is the way of life; death is unavoidable. Each time, I am reminded how precious these moments that we have together are. As I talk with mothers who are seeking day care options to replace the 'babysitting' that the school systems provide, my heart aches for them; the mothers and the children.
We are warned in Scripture that the end will come unexpectedly like a thief in the night. Many so called experts try to guess at a date that Jesus will return, and many Christians cling to these predictions; as though everything will be just as it is today until then.
But, that day could be today. Even if Jesus doesn't return today; you could go to meet Him today. For as many anticipated deaths we've been through, there are just as many that were completely unpredictable, like freak accidents & sudden drownings.
Many of us will live long and happy, healthy lives and so will our children. But, before you know it, your child will be gone; even if they've only gone off into adulthood. As their lives become too busy for you, what will you have left of them? Will it be memories of dropping them off and picking them up, or will you have been a part of every special moment in their lives? When you are gone, what will they remember? Will it be waving hello and goodbye from the bus stop, or will it be that you have been a part of every special moment?
Homeschooling our children gives us the advantage of seeing every milestone. I am here for the first word, first step, first tooth (in and out); I will coach them through learning to write their name, through multiplication tables, and fractions too. I'll stand by their side when the caterpillar becomes a butterfly, or even when the caterpillar dies. When they carry in armloads of cucumbers that they helped to grow, and when they try to figure out why the squash grew but never produced fruit.
Whatever parenting expert you read, they will all agree on one thing... your kids need YOU! If you knew that your child would go to live with Jesus tomorrow, would you still send him away today? Or would you hold him close in your arms and cherish these last few hours? What if you knew he'd be gone next week? Next month? Next year?
The thing is, we don't know.
The Lord could bless us with the next 70 years together, but it could be just 70 seconds...
So, act like you've only got one chance to hold on to them, to love them, to share your life and your faith with them...
Be careful when you send them away... one day they won't come back.

If you would like to receive periodic words of encouragement in your email box, please visit vacationeducationbooks.net and subscribe.

Free & Cheap Entertainment

Here I am back to blogging about the book Nickel & Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (and if anyone is upset that I have been too critical, look at it this way; the more I mention her book, the more often it will show up on a Google search, and that is good for her and her career).
As per the comment on the earlier post: I have not read or looked into the writings of others in the past who have refuted Ehrenreich's findings. I'm not surprised to know that I am not the only voice crying out...
I think all in all, my points keep coming back to issues of decision making. My financial situation is far from perfect, and I can trace every element of it to a decision that I made, for better or for worse. I'm one of those people who actually take pride in not spending money, regardless of my income. I like to see how little I can spend, how long I can stretch the odds and ends in my pantry, etc. I make it a point to learn and put to use all the money saving tricks that I can.
I am at the point in this book where the author takes a day off work and goes looking for cheap or free entertainment. My first thought (especially since she is in a huge city) would be public library. They are loaded with great stuff, and all you need is a drivers license!
She chooses instead to attend a church tent revival, and I'll quote her here, "...sounds like the perfect entertainment for an atheist out on her own."
There's a whole lot that I could say from the perspective of someone who truly believes that my eternity depends entirely on my relationship with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
However, her book and this blog is supposed to be about the financial state of our nation, so I'll just say this...
if your best ideas for entertainment are to go and mock others for their faith...
not very creative and not great journalism either.

What is your end goal?

What is your end goal? What are you building toward?
We are all building something; building lives, building families, building businesses.
But, what for?
I am often reminded that God is the architect of my life, and I'm glad for that because if I was to make the plans, my structure would undoubtedly collapse.
As we are preparing the fields, God blesses us in many ways. I am known for saying, "I never turn down a blessing." We are often given food and clothing, and sometimes people apologize to us, and say, "I hope you're not offended, but I thought you could use this." I'm never offended and always thankful for the blessing.
Sometimes, it is hard to see a blessing as such though. We are making plans and we believe that we are following the path that God has laid out for us. Our plan is
SELL VAN = BUY A CONVERTED BUS
SELL CONTENTS OF HOME = PAY OFF ALL DEBTS
SELL HOUSE = PAY CONFERENCE FEES FOR NEXT YEAR
SELL BOOKS = PAY BILLS WHILE WE ARE ON THE ROAD
Then, God surprised us with a blessing!
We will be welcoming a new addition to our family next January. There are some who would consider this to be something other than a blessing, however, the Lord gives us His word that children are a blessing from the Lord. It would be heretical to say it isn't so. While in some ways, this news gives us a whole new set of schematics to work around; it really is just schematics.
Little things, like where will we have the baby, Jacob was born at home in a water birth, it was wonderful, my midwife was great...
we'd like to do it that way again, but we are also hoping that our house will be sold by then...
so then what?
Primarily, all our questions come back to "How does this fit into our plans?"
But, we should be asking "What does God have planned?"
In the end, it comes down to two choices; Are we trying to build a tower of babel with our own hands to live in luxury of our own making or are we working with God in hopes that He will grant us life in the Paradise that He has built?
I know where I would rather be, do you?
What are you building today?

paying the rent and eating enough

Hi there, I am still reading and blogging about this book "Nickel and Dimed" (see previous posts)
Her first city is Key West, Florida. I don't live in Florida and I have no idea what rents cost in the city of Key West. I do live in the Midwest, and I checked into rents in our area.
Her experience was that rents began at $400 and went up, and that a $500 efficiency apartment was about the best that she could find and still feel safe in the city. Now, where we live, there are less desirable neighborhoods, but none that I would consider unsafe. Her numbers are from ten years ago. Mine are from today. I could get a decent size one bedroom downstairs apartment for $325 including utilities, in a fair neighborhood (three blocks from the downtown business district - walking distance to all necessities) in a town of about 12,000 people. There were cheaper places in the smaller towns nearby with less amenities, and they weren't much cheaper, and there were much more expensive options as well, all the way up to $1600 per month four bedroom, three bath mansion on the lake.
Now, fifteen years ago, when I was a college student, and had to live in a college town where prices are much higher; I paid $350 for a one bedroom basement apartment plus utilities, not a great neighborhood, but still safe.
All of the places I've lived required first months rent and deposit. In college, when I had spent more on tuition and books and other expenses than expected, I didn't give up, and go home; I asked a friend for a place to stay(again when you are living a life for more than thirty days, you make friends that trust you and can be trusted by you). I slept on the floor of her apartment for one month so that I could save up the money for rent and deposit. NOTE: this was not a 'legal' arrangement, the complex she lived in did not allow an extra person or allow subletting. The situation did work out, but it might not have if things had gone differently.
There may be more opportunities in bigger cities, but minimum wage is the same whether the town has 2000 people for two million, and you'll still probably find a grocery store, gas station, and a few fast food joints.
Personally, except for my university campus experience, I have pretty much always lived in a small town and always been able to find a job when I wanted one. Also, and I made this point earlier, the more experience I obtained over the years, better the jobs I was able to obtain, regardless of the size of the city.
However, I realize as a writer, her story is more compelling if she writes about life in large cities, since more people are living in them.

Getting enough to eat. She is open in the beginning that she will not go hungry; that if she can not afford food, then she would pull out the ATM card from her other life and cheat on the experiment. Her first job is as a waitress, every restaurant that I ever worked for, whether fast food or fine dining offered significant discounts on food, often free. Working a closing shift in particular allowed for not only sufficient dinner fare, but also "leftovers' to take home and warm up the next day.
Again, the issues she faces in her first city come from the "thirty day" rule of her experiment. She discusses not having any kind of cooking appliances or kitchen utensils when she first starts out. When I was sixteen years old, I was already thinking about my housing needs, and bought my first microwave at a yard sale for $1 this was many years ago, but yard sale prices change much slower than retail prices. I bought a new coffee maker last weekend for $1. I guess not every town has yard sales, and maybe you can't get away on a weekend morning to catch them, but there are estate auctions, thrift shops, resale stores, etc, that also offered extraordinary discounts on household necessities.
Working in a restaurant; closing shifts particularly allowed for not only sufficient dinner fare, but also 'leftovers' to take home and warm up the next day. When I was in college and working at a fast food place, I always volunteered for the closing shift (other students wanted to be out in time to go to parties, so these were often hard for management to fill). I never bought groceries, and always had plenty to eat. If I had two days off in a row, I did splurge and purchased food at the 1/2 off prices offered where I worked (food was free on days that you worked, but 50% on days off). Plus, if I was in the store and they were unexpectedly busy or if someone called in sick or didn't show up, I'd be the first to get the opportunity at an extra shift, and sometimes this even meant overtime pay, which certainly covered the few dollars I'd spent on food.
Where we live, and I think these are available in larger cities also, there are food pantries and churches that serve meals. I didn't know about these when I was in the city, but if I had, I would have taken advantage of them. If you don't feel comfortable just taking food for free, they do take donations, and after you show up for awhile and get to know the people, there are often volunteer opportunities for you to earn your meal. (Again, this usually takes more than thirty days).

Minimum wage is a starting point, not a career salary

Okay, so I'm reading this book Nickel and Dimed: on (not) getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. I feel I have to give her credit for the work that she has done, and I'm not criticizing her journalism; I even think that her words would resonate with more people if written today than it did ten years ago when she wrote it.
I do, however, feel like there is another side of the story, that she is missing altogether. First off, she set up some ground rules for her experiment: like she would always have a car. There are seven people in our household and we have one vehicle (by choice). When my husband needs it, the children and I find things to do at home or we pile into strollers and wagons and we walk; my point? I think lots of people get by without cars, and I would have to say that even one for our family is a luxury that we pay highly for, not an absolute necessity. Skipping to the third rule (I'll get back to the second) Never be hungry! No missed meals for her; if she was hungry, and didn't have enough money, then she would use here ATM card and cheat. I'll talk about food options later.
Her second rule was that she would always have shelter; her experiment was set up for thirty days in each city, if she paid by the week or night and couldn't make enough to cover it, the experiment in that city would have failed. I'm not saying she should go without shelter, although there are many inexpensive options, but I do think that the major flaw in this type of experiment is the thirty day rule. She mentions at one point that she is working in a place where benefits don't begin until you've worked there for ninety days. This seems reasonable to me, since benefits like insurance and retirement plans are for long term employees, not transients.
I've made many notes, and I'm barely beginning to read this book, but for this post, I want to primarily discuss her premise; "...could a single mother leaving welfare survive without government assistance...". Her experiment to determine the answer is a thirty day test. I think that is unreasonable.
When I got married, my husband & I were both working for a fast food business, I was making minimum wage and he was making about 1 1/2 times that because he had gained "experience" and a "promotion". This didn't happen in the first thirty days. I was living in a basement (cheap campus life) and he was living with his parents (even cheaper campus life). After getting married, we bought a home together (for about the same monthly cost as I had been paying in rent; but we added twenty minutes to his commute in trade). Eventually, he worked his way up in the company so that I was able to quit working altogether, and after seventeen years, he retired from his position as a store manager - but he started in high school as a minimum wage employee.
Minimum wage is intended to be a starting point, a wage at which teenagers at their first job get paid, or someone who is still learning how to do the job gets paid. If you have been at a job for a year or more and you have gained experience, you show up on time and you work hard, but have not been given any kind of pay increase since you started, then I assure you that you can begin looking for a new job, as there are plenty of companies out there that will compensate their employees for a job well done. Just don't expect it to happen in the first thirty days!

Why we can't get by in America

I am starting this blog, not about the books I've written, or even about books I might be writing, but simply to get something off of my chest. I may add to it later, or this might be all I need to say, and then it won't bother me so much.
But, I picked up a book (at a yard sale - for a quarter) called "Nickel and Dimed: on (not) getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich.
Now, I have only begun to read this book, and I don't live where she lives, but her premise is that people can't survive on minimum wage. It's cover boasts a glowing review from Diana Henriques, of the The New York Times and even claims status as a New York Times Bestseller.
Recently, Don (my husband) saw a program on television documenting a couple trying to live in the city with each of them working a minimum wage job; to show how difficult it is.
I don't know when the documentary was filmed, and I didn't watch it, but in just the few examples of situations faced by this couple that Don told me about, I could think of several ways that they could have saved more and spent less. Based on the premise of this book (Nickel and Dimed) that I am about to set forth reading, I believe that there is a flaw in the overall reporting. Now, I say this without having read the book completely yet, but I believe that both Ehrenreich and the host of the documentary are coming from a world in which I don't live, and entering into a world that I am accustomed to. They struggles they face are more accurately attributed to an executive who has allowed him or herself to become accustomed to a certain standard of living (no offense to the wonderful people of New York City, but since the New York Times was so impressed with her book, I'll call this standard, New York City living). Then, they suddenly, without warning or preparation are thrown into an income bracket that closely resembles the average rural community like the one I currently reside in (for that purpose, I'll call this standard the small town rural living).
To make it even simpler, I'll put it the way my daughter does: some people are city folk and some people are country folk. This has nothing to do with where you actually live, but Summer explains it this way, "City folk get through with stuff, so they throw it out and get something new. Country folk use their stuff over and over again, and sometimes even pick up and use the stuff that the city folk threw out." I think that says it perfectly.
So, my premise is that if you have always lived like country folk, and know how to get by, you'll keep on getting by, no matter what the circumstances. But, if you have always lived like city folk and suddenly have to get by, it will take some getting used to, and won't be easy.
I have a lot going on right now, but my attempt is to read this book and answer her claims with the other side of the story. I may not get far, but that is where I'm headed with this blog and similar ones that may follow.
Example: Don said that in the documentary, the woman in the couple had a urinary tract infection and went to the emergency room: this cost them $600!!! plus that cost of a prescription antibiotic. My answer: Cranberry juice is less than $2 at most grocery stores and works as well as or better than most prescriptions. How do I know? I'm not a doctor, but I have been pregnant five times and every time I get pregnant, I get an infection, and cranberry juice works every time. Also, I network with other moms and women who do not normally have $600 for an emergency room visit nor do they have medical insurance. Lastly, I know that for every possible ill this sinful world has to offer, God has created something to cure it.
More to come... I hope.