Life's Little Anchors

This has been such a busy fall! The boys have had so many appointments in New York and will continue to have more this week. They are also going to CA in November. This school year definitely feels so different from any other one we have had in the past 13 years, but, there is something so grounding about schooling at home. It feels like an anchor keeping us afloat in one place.

Here are some of life's little anchors for me:

--When I see one of the boys explain something to the girls it makes my heart swell up with joy. Yesterday, Alex helped Lily with memorizing her poem for the month, "The Walrus and the Carpenter" by Lewis Carrol. The beauty about this little unplanned arrangement was that Alex had memorized this very poem in around the fifth grade and he still remembers it to this day! He is very passionate about this poem and this infectious passion was quite contagious and now we have one little girl who is excited to memorize this poem.

--And...do we still do read alouds?

A resounding yes! And who is the first one in line to listen? The seventeen year old of course!

The pick of the month is The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...Forrest's choice. ( I did skip a couple of lines about passionate love in chapter one. Our audience is 6 to 17:)

--Do we still take nature walks?

Yes we do. Molly put on her cape and brought a basket down to our field and we went gathering colorful leaves and ironed them between wax paper. We had "oo's" and "aw's" from the older kids as they reminisced and said, "Remember when?"

--I love to remember when. We brought out old photos of the children a couple of weeks ago and the kids talked about them. They have such vivid memories of their earlier years.

This year so many things are happening. Yep. Life is going to change a little bit. But, no matter where you go you can take life's little precious moments, the things in life that matter most, like your faith and your family, and you can let that be your anchor.

None of us really know what the future holds, but we do know that these very stable elements of life like our loved ones, priceless moments with them, and faith is what life is really all about.

Our little anchor this morning is the smell of homemade granola wafting throughout the house.

The smell of anything baking is such a comfort. I think in an old Christmas movie someone said that Santa smelled like freshly baked cookies. I giggled and thought, "There couldn't be anything more comforting that that." It totally made sense to me!

Actually, when you think about it, there are many little anchors in life...the things that keep you centered and grounded, that help you to know that you are not alone and never were, that God's presence is all around working through those that you hold dear.