Transition Time Again

Transitions can be exciting, they can be scary, they can be frustrating...sometimes all three of these things at the same time.

This is another big transition time for our family, as our second oldest is about to graduate from high school and move in with friends in a rental home. The friends want to start a ministry community, and it is a neat time for them. In the meantime, the siblings and the parents are dealing with the little disappointments (and promised or hoped for time spent before she moves away) in one way or another! ha.

This month of waiting for things to happen, house leases to come through, etc., has been a little disconcerting to our end-of-year school plans, especially those toward graduation. No matter, things will eventually work out...but transition times are almost too tempting in that those taking the biggest steps really need to finish a chapter completely before they begin the new one in earnest, otherwise they may be tripped up and fall before the finish line.

Why can't kids seem to see this??? The future really is too exciting sometimes.

I'm also of the belief that we humans will learn and do what we are really interested in. We will push hard when things are hard *if* we are fairly successful all along the way. But if we take too many breaks and begin the next chapter too soon, we will not finish well, and may need an editor to fix a chapter or two of our lives. hehe. The things that most challenge us sometimes cause us to choose to move on too early, or we shut down almost completely. This happened to me in college. I became ill but kept forging ahead...and I ended up shutting down because the pressure was too great for far too long, and powers-that-be did not keep their end of a couple of educational agreements, which meant the final nail in the coffin for a couple of degree-required classes. I should have majored in my minor instead, but the timing was not right then. (It is now, and that is a whole other post! I will get a degree in liberal arts with an emphasis in Bible and Spanish as soon as I take two more classes! My minor was Spanish, BTW.)

But this transition for our next graduate in line...it's exciting and frustrating. We are still getting used to her leaving the nest soon! It's almost like it would be better to end the "iffyness" right now, just cut off the kite string a couple of weeks early and move on, because that kite wants to fly now!!

I'm happy for her, proud of her in so many areas, and know that she will learn what she puts her heart into all the rest of her life. She loves learning, so I'm thinking her educational years were actually quite successful!

:::sigh:::

I did say that it will all work out...in faith, I believe that! It has always been Hubby's and my mantra that it is not our place to be forcefully controlling of our children's lives. Help them each step of the way by placing before them a wide vatiety of books, some containing deep ideas and a wide river of things to learn, not hindering their interests, but encouraging them. Guide them, yes. Lead them to the Lord, yes. Let the Holy Spirit prompt and guide as we release them bit-by-bit. It's a very nice balance for life.

God knows the bigger picture in each and every one of our children's lives. What a comfort THAT truly is!! It's not really up to me at all, Thank the Lord! Saves a lot of guilt all along the way, don't you think?

Now on to the physical efforts of getting everything ready for all our company for dd's graduation party this next weekend, whilst we wrap up the homeschool year and high school Spanish classes.


Praying for strength and stamina!

Javamom

brief glimpses of a journey

December 1988 Nine months pregnant




J~ is on the left, both above in the orange T and in the graduation gown below






The "ceremony" of it all has been an important mark of "passage" for all of us!

Finished!

WHEW!!! All done!



do check out the decorative and protective headband on the book. I should have added a bookmark, as well. I will for our next graduate :-).

Progress...

Above, you see the backside of the endpapers that J chose. You also see the binders board that I will be attaching the textblock into at this stage of the process.


Notice the bookcloth is brown.


I am actually about 98% finished with J's book, tonight. This is a record, although I don't want to do this rushed of a job again in such short time. The last Senior book I created took about 60 hours (which includes drying time for all the pages and stages of cutting and pasting the book together). I had five letters trickle in as I was pasting and cutting and gluing up!! So the last five letters have had to be pasted in after the sewing process. I've left several blank pages to be able to cut them out and paste typed letters in from specific families at a later date.

I have toiled along steadfastly since late Sunday afternoon, stopping long enough to cook quickly, and tonight to throw on a decent outfit and drive the family to our daughter's end-of-year, final Worldviews class speeches. She did very well, by the way...great content and nice delivery. She was just a little quiet, and could use a better variety of hand gestures, but she really did so well! More on that later.

Back to the book: J's book was put together in around 25 hours. I rushed the drying with the help of a hair dryer, along with other (some risky) shortcuts.

The book is in the press overnight, and tomorrow I will make a Title label to add to it.


Graduation rehearsal is tomorrow night, and I've yet to shop for groceries and run final errands for the ceremony and J's senior table setup during the reception.

Off to sleep now, for the next two very busy and monumental days!

Javamom

Final countdown to graduation

Part of last week was spent taxi-ing our oldest teens to and from work, since we are down one less car.

Most of the week was spent scanning photos, photoshopping, and preparing a power point slide show for my son's co-op home school graduation. Dread-Pirate Sparsebeard and I had to prepare a 1 minute and 15 seconds (each) voiceover of memories and blessing to be timed just right for the number and timing of slides. This had to be recorded at a different location, then added later to our slide show. It was difficult to choose which photos would not make the final cut! After burning all of the above to a disk, it had to be delivered yet again to another family two towns over for final compilation with the other seniors' slide shows.

Other spare moments last week were spent in final prep for the Seniors' Campout weekend, which I spearheaded, since hubby is busy with his own school wrap-up business. Many details covered, there...and some physical labor :-).

So this week is spent prepping for J's senior table. We've got to collect and display things that represent our son and his journey. Framed photos from his portfolio of work, favorite books, hammock, favorite snack and drink props, power point of more photos running on a loop on laptop...

The biggest job for me is the compilation of blessing and memories letters sent in to me over the last month by family and friends, to be crafted into a hand bound book. I guarded all the letters together yesterday in an all-day process, then put them in the bookpress overnight. This is what the book looks like at this moment:

I'm about to mark it up for sewing, then will press it again while I cut the boards for the covers, then add the bookcloth. On for one final pressing, hopefully by Wednesday night.












Javamom

~ Senior Camping Trip ~

We were blessed by the most amazing weather while camping with my son and his friends. Three sets of parents came as senior sponsors. There was no agenda, just free time to rest and fellowship (and eat)!

These are some of our best friends...I just love this photo

blooming prickly pear and butterfly

After breakfast 'round the campfire

The Lad!

Isn't this fun? This one will definitely go in his Senior slide show. Our thanks go out to the Beehive Clan for clothing the Lad and giving him some pointers for his trip to Scotland. Queen Shenaynay said he looked so right in this outfit...because of his hair (quite authentic :-). This was just some of the fun and shenanigans to be experienced at their oldest daughter's graduation reception. I hope they post some photos of the evening soon (most of mine didn't turn out well), It really is such an exciting and bless-ed but incredibly busy season.

Javamom




as you can tell in the photo, he does NOT play the bagpipe. Terrible posture and embrasure, here :-)

Graduation Presents

Pictured here is one of several graduation presents that I'm making. I will custom cut sketch book paper for the inside text block so that it can be used for sketching, journaling, as a guest or signature book, whatever is preferred. I'm pleased with how this one is turning out. The dimensions are 8" x 8".

p.s. Now that the party is over and the present is delivered, it was for Fa's graduation. The endpapers are words from a dictionary...and there are some funny ones, but some "splendid" ones, as well!

Javamom

Senior Photo

J ~ one senior photo

He shaved the day after this was taken.
His band opens for a newish Christian band this week, which is a pretty cool opportunity! He even asked his sister to play bass for them.