Journal ~ Forever Catching Up....

Sophia (3) and big brother Mattias (16) snuggle in bed.

Elias (7) on out backyard tire swing

Bekah (13) continues to take weekly "pie school" lessons from our neighbor.



Hello Sisters

Can it be possible that I am still behind in just about everything? I check my email about twice a week and probably dump a bunch of good stuff, I rarely browse the web, our home library looks like a tornado hit it (aka, "we can't find the books we need!), and Eric and my bedroom looks like a flea market.

I was asking the Lord what can I do, or MORE IMPORTANTLY, what does He want me to do? Well, I already the answer myself. Make His Word #1. No deposit, no return. If you don't put anything into a relationship, you can be sure you will never get anything back. I have begun to write out 1 or 2 verse scriptures that are encouraging and then I carry them in my pocket speaking them OUT LOUD many times a day. Another thing I do is to just talk about Jesus. I try and be thankful OUT LOAD many times throughout the day for whatever comes to mind. :) I want the children to see me making Him a priority in my life. :)

Robinson Curriculum (which is really not a curriculum at all, but rich literature) is working nicely with the children. We pretty much stick to a schedule that goes like this....Jesus 30 min. Math 1 hr. Writing 1 hr. and Reading 2 hrs. If we get these essentials done, the afternoon hours are free for the children to pursue their interests. The best part of the Robinson method is that all the children (with the exception of the 7 yob and 3 yog) are SELF-taught. No more Mommy sitting next to them, which frees me up to play and read to the 3 yog. The 7 yob reads to me for about 10 minutes a day and we go over some math. Then he is alone for drawing, copywork, more reading and more math. LOVE IT!!!!

I had planned to shut down garden operations for the fall/winter. Well, it seems like I am always thinking "gardening," yesterday I went outside and just sat for a few minutes with my vegetables and touched them and breathed in the air around them, picked a cherry tomato and ate it. My mind started racing 100 mph thinking about all the wonderful things I can do to improve my garden. But.....I said I would take a break, BUT it is SOOOOO relaxing, so enjoyable and it brings me peace. So, I guess I will allow myself some small projects (not really sure how small will work for me, since it usually doesn't).

With garden operations slowing down I have turned my attention to the kitchen and am just about ready to pursue GNOWFGLINS.com full time. I really need to be upgrading my cooking skills to better provide nourishing meals for the family.

Fall also brings the feeling of wanting to sew. I need to work with the girls and their sewing. I have some skirt patterns and if I could take them to the fabric store and let them pick out their own material, I know they would be more inclined to make their skirts.

I WANT more of "me's." I need me in the kitchen cooking healthful meals (which be the way really do take more time that opening up a package!) I need me sewing with the girls, I need me homeschooling, I need a me in the garden. But the Lord didn't give me more of "me's" so I had just better plan more efficiently, and therein lies my problem.

Goodbye Sisters...I hope by next time I write you, things will have fallen better into place for my daily routine's. :)

Shannon

Journal ~ Playing catch up...

My favorite room of the house, the dinning room...



Hello Sisters!

Well, not much has changed since last blog. Well, I should say a lot has changed, lots of small things. As Sophia is just about 3 I seem to have more free time.... which is not free at all. It should be called "catch up time." Repair the chicken coop, weed the garden, take the blankets out to air on the clothes line, scrub the floor just under the fridge doors (where you open them up and see all the old gunk from broken eggs, bread crumbs, etc...). I've been trying to do a little deep cleaning.

Since this is my favorite time of year I decorated our dinning room with our own pumpkin, some orange/yellow flowers from my neighbor, and sunflowers from our garden hung upside down in the windows. :)

Have you seen the Starbucks sign in all their doors? It says "Take Comfort In Rituals." Ummmm....I love comfort and I love some rituals. In the case of Starbucks it's a LOVE ritual.

Well, since it's 98 degrees and all the children just came home I had better get off. I'll have to wait to share more later.

Blessings,
Shannon

Journal ~ Fall Season, Biblical Holidays

Sunflowers and pumpkin



Garden

My 13 yog Bekah bakes with our neighbor, this is one of her creations.




Hello Sisters!

My most favorite time of the year is upon our family, September, October, and November.

I enjoy so much the change in season which is marked by decreasing temperatures, breezy afternoons, and beautiful gardens.

I prefer the biblical holidays such as Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkoth which are also Fall holidays.

Even though I "say" we school year round, some how we seem to get caught up in the neighbor kids "summer off" schedule. Late nights, fires and smores in the backyard, followed by even later in the night movies, seem to lend themselves to Summer nights. Who likes to have fires and late night movies when it's so cold in the backyard anyways? Well, I guess with kids, they are pretty much up for food and movies any season cold or hot huh?

Hanna started full-time classes at our local jr. college. Mattias started football at our local Christian school Calvary Chapel Downey and is also taking Chemistry on campus. Bekah, Mikayla, Elias, and Sophia have started their Robinson Curriculum books, and although they balked at first, I often go into their rooms late at night and they are in bed READING their books. :)

In the next 2 weeks I am transitioning from finishing up in the yard for the next several months, to working/preparing whole foods in the kitchen. I have a link to GNOWFLGINS (sp?) on this website somewhere, that's what I will be using as my teacher. I LOVE the videos, what a wonderful resource for visual people like me!

I am home today with my oldest (17 yog) and my youngest (2 yog) while the others are at a local water park. After I post this, us girls plan on making something from The Pioneer Woman Cooks (I like to eat white-trash cooking once a week :) so that it can be ready when the rest of the gang comes home this evening. :)

My scripture that I have been meditating on during this season.

"ABIDE in Me and I in you. As the branch (us) cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it ABIDES in the vine (Jesus), so neither can you unless you ABIDE in Me. " John 15:4

When we think we have so much to do, and we don't have time to spend with Him, we MUST remember that WE CAN DO NOTHING (or at least it won't be as good) apart from Him! :)

Blessings,
Shannon

Journal ~ Crabby Wife (me), Growing Garden...

My hubby planted corn on our porch, he calls it privacy. That is little Sophia.



Our Fig tree is loaded with almost ripe figs. Fig newtons and Fig jam are on the menu!



Our Granny Smith apple tree (dwarf) is also loaded! These we will make pie and dehydrate.



BEST Avocados around. Haas Avocados! They will be ready Sept/Oct.



Blackberries in the wood container, squash, honeydew, corn, tomatoes and pumpkin.



Hello Ladies!

I am sitting in Starbucks with my 17 yog. We have our laptops, Iced Venti Soy Lattes, and we are enjoying the air conditioned, relaxing atmosphere (thank goodness they have the music turned down!)

My hubby is swimming in the semi-green, slightly dirty Costco 15x18 pool with the 7 yob, 15 yob, and 2 yog. My 10 yog, 13 yog and their Aunt Emily(who's visiting from Wisconsin) are spending the day at Knott's Berry Farm Stupid Park (I mean amusement park!)

Life is SO GOOD, I don't know why I am not enjoying it to its fullest. Oh yea, I know why, let's see, I gave my hubby a mouthful... or is it an earful, this morning when he offered to go with the younger ones and me to the park for an hour. I wonder how many husbands offer to go to the park with their wife's even when she's bitc#$%. Mine did. That still doesn't make me feel better.

I had a marriage book, I forgot the title, but under the title on the cover it said something like, "What if God calls us to holiness and not happiness." Hmmm. I don't like that. I really don't like that at all.

I KNOW the problem! :) It's me. It's my flesh. When I was born-again, my spirit was re-born. My flesh was not. Who is Shannon? Is Shannon her re-born spirit or is Shannon her flesh? I guess that depends on how much time I am or am not spending in the Word. If I am spending time re-NEW-ing my flesh or mind, it is much easier to line my flesh up with my spirit. Shannon opens the Word, it gets down in her spirit, it comes out of her mouth, she lines up with the Word of God. When I don't spend T I M E in the Word, I am by default, spending time feeding my flesh, NOT-renewing my mind.

Well, thank you for hearing me. I still don't feel better. But, I know that when I get home I am going to apologize to my husband. And, when he asks me to listen to the Word with him in bed (he likes to listen to Moorelife.com) tonight, I will say, YES! How many husbands ask their wife's to listen to the Word with them? Mine did.

I've been working hard in the GARDEN, pulling our more grass, getting blisters, and really enjoying every minute. I LOVE WORKING IN THE YARD!!! I just planted Winter Squash (it really is too early, but it's an experiment, I'm learning), Swiss Chard, lettuce and carrots. The pumpkin looks like some will be ready in September and another plant in late October, perfect! I have melon and more squash that was planted late, so it won't be ready for another 3-6 weeks or so. I got off to a late start this season, so we will see how things work out.

We found some of these Swallow Tail caterpillars, and after I killed one (because I thought it was a bad bug) I decided to go online and check out some Yahoo images, and found out what they were! When we touch them their head goes back and yellow antennas comes out. They also emit a very strong stinky smell.

I also decided spur of the moment to make a flagstone brick walkway. It took me all of 2 days, and although quite lumpy, it looks beautiful. is a very nice word, because walking on it almost caused my FIL to fall down, ok, so it is uneven. I encased them in dirt and not sand, so, it looks like I will have to redo them in sand. But that won't be for a while, because at this point I am going for looks and not practicalities. :)

Blessings,
Shannon

The BLOOD of Jesus SETTLES it! and Robinson Curriculum

Our peaches, our jam...what a wonderful feeling!


"Jars" by Bekah Schermerhorn

Hello Sisters!

A few weeks ago at my friends house, she commented, “I’ll never forget when you said”…“you act like I can REALLY believe the bible!”

10 years ago she had faithfully come to my house weekly, sometimes visiting more than once a week. She not only put up with, but welcomed my 3-5 times a day phone calls about faith topics. What if God doesn’t….what if God won’t…what if we’re reading scripture wrong,…what about so and so, they died, how do you know my daughter won’t…how come more Christians don’t believe in healing…how come Christians don’t believe it when Jesus says that the sign of true believers are those who speak in tongues and heal (Mark 16).

Well, that was 10 years ago. I still believe, and even more so!

22 years ago I sat in a church and while the pastor never gave an alter call, Sunday after Sunday and all through the week the Holy Spirit was prompting me to respond to Him. On my knees in a rented spacious bedroom with windows all around, tall Eucalyptus trees swaying in the breeze, I bent down on my knees and asked Jesus to be the Lord of my life. I was 18 and had just got a hold of No Compromise by Keith Green. We had a lot in common, both hippies and both had vw vans and both of us on fire for Jesus.

When I believed that Jesus was the way, I simply reached out and received His Holy Spirit, in a second I was Born Again. I didn’t look any different and other than peace abiding in me now, I had no firecrackers go off to make me “FEEL” any different.

It was the same with healing for my daughters physical needs when she was just 6 months. I decided that the Word did declare Jesus to be Jehovah Ropah (the God who heals) and that He changeth NOT! I opened my mouth, asked Him for healing, and from that point on NEVER asked again. My daughter didn’t look any different, and none of us felt any different. But we KNEW that our daughter WAS healed.

Have you ever asked God to “save you again?” Probably not. When you asked the first time, it was A DONE DEAL. You had faith that His Word was true and what He said was a promise to you. So why is it any different with healing….? It’s not. You ask once and THAT SETTLES IT.

We are a people who are so post to walk by FAITH and NOT by sight. Did you walk by sight for your salvation? Did Jesus come down and appear to you and tell you to choose Him? No, you simply believed. So it is with healing, you simply believe.

When the devil comes to you and says, “your not good enough for heaven, your probably not saved” you know that’s hogwash. You know what the Word says, you come right back at him with the Word (READ Matthew 4, Jesus got satan on the run by speaking the Word, we should do the same!) So it is with healing. SALVATION and HEALING are not a feeling, they are a fact. Receiving either is not based in the physical senses, it’s based in the Blood. The Blood settles it, and from THAT point on when you get a little squarmish in your boots, and we all do from time to time, we GET RIGHT in the Word and put satan on the run!!! satan is UNDER us, we have all authority over him (Luke 10:19-20). He should not be making us miserable, we should be making his life miserable.

I have been running errands all over lately and when I hear people talk, you know what we ALL have in common? WE ALL HAVE PROBLEMS!!!! From the tattooed 24 yog with a baby, to the grandma caring for her grandchild, to the deacon at church, the pastor and us. We have problems. Right now I can think of a few BIG problems I have personally. But THE BLOOD OF JESUS SETTLES it and puts it under my feet. I roll my problems over to Him and say, “JESUS YOU HAVE MAIL!!!!” Then when ever these problems lurk back into my mind (like they do about every 30 minutes) I rebuke those thoughts, cast down those silly imaginations because that’s all they are, is imaginations and take every thought captive (2 Cor. 10). An imagination is something that is not real. One of my problems is not having the money to get a new laser printer. That’s silly because Jesus said to ask anything and it’s mine. So when satan reminds me I don’t have a new laser printer in the room, I just laugh and say, “Oh, I thank you Lord for your Word you said ask and I did, and I know RIGHT now You are behind the scene getting that laser printer to me!” And then, I worship Him and thank Him for what He has ALREADY done. I act like it’s a done deal. I act like the I can REALLY believe the bible, every single Word!!!!

I forgot to talk about the curriculum I’m using. Well, I’m using the Robinson curriculum. The biggest reason is because I’m a great mom, but not a great teacher. I want to get on to important things in life like gardening, composting, caring for chickens, sewing, exercising, caring for others, studying the word. HOW can I do all those “real life things” and still do school with the children. I can’t. So the Robinson method is simply just having the children self-teach themselves. They read excellent literature, look up vocab words of their choosing, they write a page, they do math. That’s about it. They do EVERYTHING THEMSELVES. The house is QUIET for about 3-5 hours while the olders are working. Even the 7yob works alone for about an hour. Then we get on to important things (the 7 and 2 yog) like baking and watering the garden, and reading. The olders finish up with the 3 R’s, I have done nothing and we can all join up to get on to the important things in life. We have been implementing this method for a few weeks now with just books we have around the house and the children LOVE IT! My 17 yog said, “we should have been doing this all along!!!”

Blessings,
Shannon

Journal ~ Gardening, Working side by side with Hubby! :)

Hello Sisters!

How can I say everything I've been up to, in 10 minutes?! I guess I could learn to type faster, that would be a start, but I don't have time!

I have been visiting http://www.homesteadbeginners.info/ and www.gnowfglins.com/ If you have the Nourishing Traditions book, but want it EASY, FRIENDLY and broken down in small steps, then GNOWFGLINS is something to look into. The Homesteading for Beginners offers 2 dvd's and soon to be 3 on homesteading for beginners. The movies are great for the WHOLE family! Our 2 yog and 7 yob can watch these over and over again, even the grandpas in our family find these movies highly educational and entertaining!

As we undertake the business of self-sufficiency and learn to compost, garden, cook, etc...Eric and I both feel this DEEP current of Holy Spirit juices directing us into different tasks but with the same goal in mind. What are Holy Spirit juices? I don't know. I just know that when Eric and I are working TOGETHER as a TEAM, it's like a spiritual high, it's like the Lord directs, Eric follows and then I cling to my man. It really is beautiful. It really is nice to obey your husband, when I get on Eric's program as his assistant, he treats me very well, the children treat each other well, and the Lord is released to pour out the blessing of Abraham on us! When I am not in sync with Eric, I hold up God's blessing on our family. Read Deut. 30:11-20 with emphasis on v. 15-16, actually the whole chapter is best to see the bigger picture. :)

I'm in a hurry because in a few minutes our family has to go to Whole Foods to buy some things, actually a lot of things. I'm going to buy some bulk items such as organic wheat, beans and rice, maybe some raw honey, it depends on the price. I figure I will limit our food to beans and rice, oatmeal, different grains, nuts and seeds and fruit and vegs. I would like to get some grass fed beef, but buying in bulk or somehow splitting an animal with neighbors might prove to be cost efficient, so we will see. :)

We have finished canning our peaches and our pumpkins have sprouted, so by September we should have about 20 of our own pumpkins.

One of chickens had her vent (butt hole) coming out of her...gross...and she had some kind of shaking her head twitch going on. So we helped her out and cut of her head with an axe. My dad did it while my son and I help her neck and body. My dad said to throw her in the corner afterwards so she wouldn't run around. We did, she just fell in the corner.....and then she GOT UP and ran after me (not really, I was just in her line of fire, I mean blood) blood got all over our porch swing, Liz Clayborne pillows, and Eric's bible, nice huh? It was exciting to say the least. It makes we want to kill our own chicken for food, but I will make sure our nice pillows are not around. :)

I think I have FINALLY found a hs method that works for us!!!!!!!! After 17 years!!!!! No, really this is it!!!!! I'll share later, but I've got to RUN......



Blessings,
Shannon

Hello Sisters!

The last 3 weeks we have spent gardening, swimming, playing, gardening, definitely NOT cooking, and more gardening. Thank goodness for Del Taco bean burritos because that is what we've been eating almost 4 times a week. Besides being only a quarter mile from our home, after working in the yard all day I'm tired and cooking is just not my plan for the evening!

My husband wants the yard to look nice most all the time. With chickens, grass, ivy, potted plants, a garden and fruit trees, it's not like we can just mow and edge and he's happy. We have begun picking, and preparing our peaches for peach jam. We have to make them in small batches so, it really is a lot of work, but my hubby doesn't know that as he happily doles out jars of jam to friends and neighbors (and strangers). He is just so excited to tell everyone that he grew these peaches and that his wife and children made the jam. [Eric's rendition of how it got in the jar], [my rendition of how it got in the jar...

...try and get some willing children to help pick the peaches, after I have found a ladder, forgot the bucket, go back in house to get it, get back out to the tree, pick and pick and throw yucky ones to the chickens, laugh, eat while you pick, go in house, "oh no, dad made lunch", clean counters for 10 hours, wash peaches, boil peaches, pull out and dip in freezing cold water, skin, slice, remove seed, back in pot with sugar and pectin ("oh no, forgot pectin," run to store), 4 hours later, "moms home let's cook!" ...where is everyone??? , does anyone want to help mom? Cook jam, where were we??? oh yea, add pectin, cook, stir, it's ready! THE JARS!?!?!?! Mikayla, you forgot to press the start button on the dishwasher, the jars aren't ready! :)

So as you can see, Eric's version and my version differ GREATLY on how the "jam got in the jar." But despite our differences, I am proud to say that it makes me feel real good when I see my man bragging about something WE ALL accomplished as a family. I LOVE YOU HUNNY.:)

Blessings,
Shannon