Grace and Jack were at an art class today which afforded me the luxury of time with my friend W whose children are also at the class. She came over for coffee and a cream cake and we talked about our families, homeschool curricula, our churches, lots of things. Because W has 4 young children and we usually talk to eachother in short sentences, at a gallop and with lots of interruptions, it made a nice change to have a couple of hours with just her and I. What a blessing W has been to me since she's been here. Her husband is in the US military and they are stationed here for another couple of years, I hope.

We are planning a trip into London for both families in a couple of weeks and are looking forward to that.

The kids are not learning much in their art lessons, so we might pull them out at Christmas. Art is one of the things I feel guilty about...I haven't done enough of it with them and have never been able to find a GOOD teacher that we can afford.

I had a fasting blood test today for cholesterol. The nurse dug around for some time trying to find a vein. Didn't enjoy that. This is part of the investigations into whether I need further screening for Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm which I may have inherited from my father. My BP is a bit high, but I think that's only a result of being told I may be prone to Triple A!

I pulled out a book I haven't read for a long time today and thought I'd share it with anyone who's reading this. It's Clay Clarkson's book Heartfelt Discipline. It's a while since I first read it, but need to go back to it for a refresher course in why we don't use the confrontational, punishment-based approach to discipline and prefer a faith-based, relational approach. I am very pleased with how my teens (one teen, one almost teen) are turning out and am very glad that we didn't use a punishment-based strategy favoured by the overwhelming majority of christian parents, when they were younger. It really seems to have paid off now they are becoming young adults. They genuinely seem to long for God and obedience to Him. I truly feel this is because I have not attempted to be a mediator between them and God, but tried to bring them into an authentic, personal relationship with Him.

And while I'm at it, I should drop Sally Clarkson, his wife, an email note. We have been in erratic correspondence for a few years now and finally met up with eachother last year in Oxford. She's been such a great encouragement to me in my mothering and home-schooling journey. It was from Sally that I first came across the idea of home-education as a discipling process and motherhood as a mission and a ministry.

And then I need to do some book-packaging for my business and think about what to have for dinner! It's time I wrote a weekly or monthly menu again! I hate getting to 4.00pm and wondering what on earth I have the ingredients for.
Like today!