Love is in the air! St. Valentine's Day has just been celebrated and all the chocolate in pink and red wrappers in 50% off. My favorite time of year! Pink and chocolate combined...at a great deal! The roses are still lovely, gracing the dining room table. Heart shaped cards are on the buffet, a reminder of being loved by my family.

Love is an emotion that wells up inside my heart when I watch my children sleeping, see them win an award, listen to them. or hear them talk about the Lord. So often, I am proud of them, not just for their achievements, but for who they are and who they are becoming.

Love, of course, is more than an emotion; love is a choice to do good for someone else at cost to your own personal comfort. Love is all about the other person, giving them your best, trusting God to take care of your own needs. We are commanded by God to love one another deeply from our hearts, to seek their good, to lay down our lives, to care about their interests, to honor them above ourselves.

So, we experience love as a daily decision and we experience love as a delightful emotion.

But, of course, there are those times, when it is hard to sing the songs of love and devotion, when I must cry out to the Lord....

Teach me to love when my son walks around the house in his socks, wearing them out and getting them filthy dirty, after telling him at least 877 times to put his socks on or go barefoot. After all, we live in Florida. We really don't need to wear socks and shoes.

The stores are filled with hearts, chocolate, and roses in every shade of pink and red imaginable. As a lover of pink, chocolate and roses, this just may be my favorite time of year to shop!  It's St. Valentines Day! Yes, St. Valentine's Day--I know that sounds a little odd to your ears. When I was a little girl, that's what we called it. But in recent years, as all holidays are secularized and materialized more and more, St. Valentine's Day became Valentine's Day. 

Who was St. Valentine and why do we celebrate love on the day we've set aside to remember him?  Valentine was a priest who lived in Rome during the reign of Emporer Claudius. He was know for his kindness and selfless love. He was arrested for his faith and imprisoned, but managed to send and receive letters from his friends and fellow Christians. Emporer Claudius tried to convert him to Roman paganism to spare his life, but Valentine shared the Gospel with the emporer instead. Before he was martyred for his faith in Jesus, he healed the eyes of his jailor's blind daughter.  

In the Late Middle Ages, when courtly love and romance became the rage throughout Europe, St. Valentine's Day became associated with love and romance. Both romantic love and Christian martyrdom are things to celebrate.  St. Valentine stands in the "great cloud of witnesses," in Hebrews 12, cheering us on! St. Valentine's Day can be celebrated in either direction, or both directions. We can celebrate the romantic love we share with our sweethearts or we can remember those who have given their lives for the Gospel of Christ.

If we are celebrating St. Valentine's Day with our sweetie, there are many options.  He, of course, can buy us a dozen long-stemmed roses and a big box of Godiva chocolate.  We can go out to a lovely dinner and gaze into each other's eyes.  But, of course, those things cost money.  So, what are some inexpensive ways to celebrate the romance you share with your husband?  Here are some things Mike and I have done:

• Pack china, crystal goblets, a tasty lunch, and sparkling grape juice. Go on a picnic in a pretty spot.  Bring a beautiful comforter to sit on and be careful with the china and crystal!
• Buy a package of Valentines for children.  Write little notes to your husband on each one and hide them throughout the house.  Make most easy to find, but hide some so that they won't be found until later
• Make a CD of romantic songs and dance outside on the patio in the moonlight
• Make a scrapbook of your relationship from its conception until now. Look at it together. 

• Tell your children how you met, how your husband proposed, and other fun stories. Your children will love this!
• Wait until the children are in bed and have a romantic dinner by candlelight ALONE!
• Read old love letters out loud to each other!

I love meeting moms who have raised godly children who are raising godly children. You see, I want to learn from women who have done it right and have good fruit to show for it. I also love meeting moms who are funny and spunky.

So, for me, reviewing this book was not like other reviews because I got to meet a happy, energetic mom who has run the race and is now enjoying her grandchildren. Her daughter is carrying on the principles her mother lived by and heartily endorsing them.

Secret Cody Time: Creating an Unbreakable Bond between Parent and Child by Sky McNeill and Paula Stevenson is a book about relationships. This lovely book is not just for homeschooling families. Any parent that wants to forge a close relationship with his/her child will appreciate this book.

Secret Code Time is written by Paula and Sky, a mother/daughter team who believe in the relational principles of Secret Code Time and practice what they preach. Well written and engaging, the book is 142 pages long. Not a long book to get through. You will enjoy all the photographs through the pages of the authors and their family. The book itself looks lovely and would make a great gift for another homeschooling mom for birthday or Christmas.

When Sky was a baby, Paula purposed in her heart to begin building a lifetime friendship with her daughter. The foundation of the this relationship is loving communication.

When Sky needed to talk to Paula, she would say, "Secret Code Time 305." Paula would drop everything. Sky was able to say anything she wanted without fear of punishment, reprimand, or any other reprisals. Sky could talk to Paula about anything, any place, any time.

This established complete trust as the foundation of their mother/daughter relationship. They remained close through the middle and high school years. Today, they remain dear friends and Sky has continued this tradition with her own children.

Paula did instruct, encourage, and help Sky walk through issues in her life with Biblical principles, but Secret Code Time was simply a time that Sky could share her thoughts and feelings freely.

Another relationship builder was a weekly date with Mom and a weekly date with Dad. Though Paula admits that weekly dates would be impossible with large families, she does encourage monthly dates instead for parents of many children. Paula did everything she could to make these dates special by dressing up, going some place fun, and even shopping for special treats.

Paula began these all these habits with Sky when she was a very young child and calls it "Advanced Parenting." She set the stage early in life for Sky to know that she was valued and loved unconditionally.

What about Boys?

While some boys are great talkers, willing to share their emotions with Mom and Dad, others would rather visit the dentist than share their feelings. So, can this work with boys too?

There is advice given to help with boys who are more active and less likely to want to sit and chat. Recommendations include throwing the football together or engaging in an active pastime together first. But, the authors believe that Secret Code Time is just as important for boys as it is for girls.

Does the Book Talk about Anything Else?

She prefers documentaries to television shows and thinks that her children do too!

At holidays, while everyone else is decorating and baking, she is researching the origins of the holiday, how the holiday was celebrated in Colonial America, and turning her family celebration into a unit study.

Even though she never took Latin in school, she thinks all children should take at least one year. 

At election time, she asks, "Where does the candidate stand on homeschooling?"

Sneak back into her house. There are burn marks on the kitchen ceiling (chemistry experiments!), stains on her counters (art projects!), rips in her carpeting (sewing class!), and stains on the tablecloth (biology dissections!).

Buying a pet becomes a unit study.

She doesn't have time to read a novel or magazine, but spends hours pouring over homeschooling curriculum catalogs.

When she goes on vacation, she might forget to pack her shoes or her child's clothing, but she remembers to pack an extra-large suitcase full of classic literature for the kids to read when they tire of swimming, sight-seeing, playing games, and relaxing. She also wants to visit museums on vacation. She is convinced that everyone else in the family loves museums. Or, at least they should.

Her overdue library book fine equals the National Debt.

"Have you finished typing your paper, Shine?" I asked yesterday.

"Almost..." she replied sheepishly. 

I looked over at the computer to see her Facebook page filling the screen.

"I'll exit out," she offered quickly.

"You're grounded from the computer for the rest of the day," I admonished.

Wisely, Shine said nothing in reply.

In the last few years, homeschooling teenagers has taken on a whole new set of problems in our house. Internet has been around for a long time, but never really affected us too much until the last few years. There have been times that my children have opted to "research" on the internet, rather than using the books and resources we have checked out from the library.  But the real culprit in our house has been Facebook. My teenagers love it.  All their friends love it and have pages too. I have a Facebook profile myself and have enjoyed finding old high school friends and keeping in touch with distant family members. But, these online communities can be addictive and consuming. Can any of you moms say “Amen”?

Yesterday & Today

Back in my day, we talked on the phone for hours on end. My teens prefer texting, which I like because it saves minutes. Yes, as a teenager, I spent time on the phone with friends having conversations my parents could not hear, but Facebook takes it to a whole new level. Why do teens love these places online? Well, teens have always wanted to connect with other teens with a great desire to build relationships and to feel close to others. Plus, there is that build in "radar" for attractive members of the opposite sex. No matter how godly your daughter or son is, they will notice when a handsome boy/pretty girl walks into the room.

Facebook is a large social network on the internet. Your child has a profile page where she posts notes, pictures, and personal information. Yes, these pages can be made private so that only his "friends" can see them. But, here is the important thing to keep in mind:  Who are all these people your child is adding as friends? Are they really who they say they are? Predators are a huge problem online, but this article is not about that! (I'm not dismissing predators as a huge, scary problem, just not tackling it today.)

Profile Pages

Profile pages give children the opportunity to put their best foot forward with the prettiest pictures, exaggerations about accomplishments, and all kinds of "little white lies" meant to impress. Friends add friends of friends and give access to their personal information to young people they don't even know. I'm sure if they met these young guys and gals in person, they would be shocked to find out who these people really are...rather than the image portrayed on their page.

Sheri Graham is a busy homeschooling mom with a houseful of children. She also runs her own business and writes books. Somewhere in all that hard work, she manages to post a blog each day. I am encouraged and challenged by Sheri and her ministry.

To do all that she does, and to do it all so well, Sheri must be a very organized lady! So, when she sent me her Intentional Planner to review, I was eager to see it. I like to learn from other homeschooling moms who do all things well.

The Intentional Planner is an E-book that you can download the minute you purchase it on Graham Family Ministries online store. You can make as make copies as you need and put together as many planners as you need for your family. Before I tell you any more about it, though, I have to give you some really good news! The Intentional Planner only costs $5.00. Yes, that's right, only $5.00 for 247 pages of wisdom from Graham Family Ministries. I could not believe that you could spend so little and get so much!

With a desire to combine her planner, calendar, journal, and home management binder into one notebook, Sheri created the Intentional Planner. It is everything you need to manage your home and home school in one neat package. There are fields on the pages available to customize your planner too.

This planner is laid out very simply.

• Front Section:  Daily Planning Pages
• Tab #1:  Monthly Calendars
• Tab #2:  To Do Lists
• Tab #3:  My Daily Journal
• Tab # 4:  Miscellaneous Lists
• Tab # 5:  Menu Planning & Cleaning Schedules
• Tab # 6:  Homeschool:  Lesson Plans
• Tab # 7:  Homeschool:  Reading Lists
• Tab # 8:  Homeschool:  Current Year
• Tab # 9:  Homeschool:  Long Term Plans
• Tab # 10:  Homeschool:  Articles/Information

There are 4 different covers to chose from: blue, green, red, and purple. The same covers are also available with only the border so that you can make up your own title for your planner. Throughout the planner, there are several opportunities to personalize your planner.

The daily planner pages are the "heartbeat" of The Intentional Planner. The Weekly Evaluation and Planning Page touches my heart every time I read it. There are spiritual examination questions. One question is "Where am I lacking in the fruits of the Spirit?" Ouch! I forget to ask myself questions like that. The page goes on to ask you to come up with practical ways to:

• Strengthen my relationship with the Lord
• Bless my husband
• Love my children
• Serve others
• Encourage others
• Simplify my life

I love the idea of starting each week with these questions and challenges. I commend Sheri for making this planner intentional by bringing prayer and self-examination into it. 

The daily planning sheets that follow have 4 sections: Daily Schedule, Appointments, To Do Items, and Notes.

Next, comes the monthly calendar pages, monthly plans pages, dates to remember pages, birthday/anniversary chart, to do lists, Bible reading schedule, memory work prayer list, personal reading list, and personal reading journal.

The goals section follows with room for family/ministry goals, health goals, handcraft goals, personal goals, and business goals. A daily journal section is a nice touch in this planner. I like to carry around little notebooks to journal in, so I liked the idea of this section.

The miscellaneous section has lots of neat, rather random pages.

• Membership websites
• User names and passwords
• Thankful Page
• Photograph pages
• Books to review
• Blog ideas
• E-book Ideas

The Menu Section has a master shopping list, shopping lists, menu pages, and weekly chore charts.

"The cheerful heart has a continuous feast!"  (Proverbs 15:15 NIV).

"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones," (Proverbs 17:22 NIV).

Okay! It's time to share my deep dark homeschooling secrets with you! There are many!  Here are my confessions!

I don't fix breakfast for my children. Yep, it's true. As soon as my children leave the high chair, they are on their own for breakfast. If they want a hot meal they have to pull a stool up to the stove and cook it themselves or bribe an older sibling. My children don't even realize that there are mothers in the world who cook breakfast!

I would rather be shot in the head than teach my teenagers to drive. There! I admitted it! My children are all great drivers, but I am a terrible passenger. By the time we have backed out of the driveway, I am ready to be committed to a psychiatric hospital. I beg and plead with my husband to teach the children to drive. They seem to like learning from him better, anyway. Go figure.

There are millions of paper piles around my house. When I get rid of one, ten more take its place. My heart is to keep my home neat and tidy. File folders in the untold millions are labeled and in file cabinets, but still these piles appear! You can tell where I am and where I've been--just follow the paper piles.

A day at the beach by any other name is a field trip. Yes, it's true. I have put away the school books, loaded up the minivan, and driven over to the Florida coast for a day in the sun. Forgetting my cares, and sometimes my name, I have fallen sound asleep while the kids play in the sand and body surf in the waves. Sometimes they look for shells or capture poor innocent sea animals. I will go home, lather on aloe, and convince my husband that we went on a field trip.  "The field trip was a nature study on marine life." I can look my husband straight in the eye and say this. He begins to have doubts after the tenth nature study on marine life in one school year.

Technology is a necessary evil in the world we live in, but it is not my cup of tea. There are too many remotes in my house to understand what each one does, so I can't even turn on the  DVD player by myself.  I don't even like mechanical pencils. My computer can do fifty million things that I can't even comprehend, let alone make them happen. I force myself to learn one new thing each year on my computer. One year I learned that you can hit "reply to all" and respond to EVERYONE at the same time. It was a miracle and changed my life. This year I've already learned three new things--I'm way overwhelmed!

Starting a project is more fun than finishing one. Things are much more fun at the beginning of the adventure than when it is winding down. I have millions of unfinished sewing projects, novels, craft projects, and songs that I have never finished. Likewise, I enjoy the beginning of the school year more than the end. I love the fresh new start when we are eager to begin again after a long break. By February, I'm counting the days until summer.

When I was pregnant, I always fell asleep while homeschooling the other children. I would try so hard to keep my eyes open, but he minute I started reading aloud, I lulled myself right to sleep. Once the baby was born, nursing my new little one would put me to sleep too! It was so amazing when I weaned my youngest son. Two months later, I woke up one morning and, for the first time in twelve years, I had energy! It was wonderful! I don't fall asleep anymore while I homeschool. Now I fall asleep watching movies.

My children would rather play than do their schoolwork. They are not as eager to learn as all the self-motivated children in the homeschool books I've read. My children actually complain about school sometimes and I've had to discipline them for complaining. In the books I've read homeschooled children discover new stars, invent computer software, and rake lawns for all the elderly citizens in the town where they live. My children are just normal children, but I do like them!

I don't use math manipulatives--they are too much trouble. Yes, I own them, but I find that dragging them out of their special box onto the table to show my children a visual demonstration is just too much for me to handle. So, though I believe that hands-on math is the best way to learn, my children use workbooks with brightly colored pictures instead.

"We are just starting out," the young woman informed me with shining eyes. I thought that she was a high school homeschooler with her fresh smile and "girl-next-door" looks.

I smiled to myself remembering those days. Was I ever a young mom who didn't need to reach for her reading glasses to check a writing paper or look at the numbers to explain a math problem? How wonderful those early years were when we enjoyed making volcanoes of papermache and going to the zoo for a field trip.

"I need all the wisdom I can get," my new young friend interrupted my thoughts.

"Well, have I got a book for you!"

Though I have read many books on homeschooling over the past twenty years, this was my first time reading The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling by Debra Bell (sent to me by Apologia Press to review).

The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling by Debra Bell is an honest look at homeschooling from a mom whose run the race with joy and success! You will like Debra. She is honest and insightful. She doesn't sugarcoat homeschooling. Debra and her husband, Kermit, have four children, all homeschool grads. Saved in college, Debra never envisioned herself homeschooling, but she saw good fruit in the lives of homeschooled children in her church. This led her to pursue homeschooling for her own family.

Debra homeschooled her children and built friendships with other homeschooling families. She mentions the support group, coop, and homeschooling friends in her book over and over. As she mentions her family, you can tell that she values relationships. Her lives, and the lives of her children, have been changed in these relationships.

Reading this book was not only a time of equipping for me, it was like having tea with a kindred spirit who loves homeschooling too! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, "meeting" Debra, and hope that you will consider reading it too.

Here are some topics that Debra covers in her guide to homeschooling. She covers these topics realistically, practically, and honestly.

• Advantages of Homeschooling
• Ingredients of a successful homeschooling
• Relationships
• Learning Styles
• Husband's role in homeschooling
• Choosing curriculum
• Home management
• Scheduling
• Can I homeschool my kids?
• Testing
• Support Groups
• Setting up a learning environment
• Preventing burnout
• Lesson planning
• Computers

There is a constant reminder to make learning relevant to real life. Learn computer skills with blogging. Start a family business to learn about economics and business. Learn about government and politics by participating in an election campaign.

 She also has many suggestions to avoid burnout such as the following:

• Raise your children to be independent learners
• Teach your children to be responsible and work around the house
• Go on some fantastic, fun field trips
• Plug into a support group or coop

Raising the Reluctant Learner

Who doesn't long to be beautiful? As moms, very little times exists in our lives to dedicate to outward beauty. We are rushing, moving, working throughout the day, making the world a better, brighter place for our family. When we finally get some make-up on our face and a pretty outfit on our body, it is more than likely to be spit upon or spilled on by one of our little ones.  

If we have several children, our bodies are not as trim and firm as we would like them to be. There are also those pesky bags under our eyes from sleepless nights of nursing a sick child or comforting someone who's had a bad dream.

Beautiful Moms

Yet, I think that there is nothing more beautiful than a mother!

Motherhood is beautiful. The gaze of love that a mother gives her child is breathtaking to behold. The look of joy on a young woman's face when her little one learns to read, or pee-pee on the potty, or recite his multiplication tables is lovely.

There is a beauty about pregnancy, nursing, and motherhood that is impossible to duplicate. Moms lugging a load of laundry to the washer, washing dishes at a sink full of suds, or bandaging a boo-boo are pleasing to the eye. How delightful to watch a mother giggle with her toddler or gaze in wonder at a butterfly with her young child.

Kingdom Beauty Queens

Let's throw away Hollywood's definition of beauty and embrace the Lord's definition of what is truly lovely. Grandma used to say, "Pretty is as pretty does." She must have read the Bible!

"Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful," (I Peter 3:3-5).

Hollywood focuses on the outside. God is more concerned about the inside. A gentle and quiet spirit can make us beautiful and not just lovely for a season, but with a beauty that won't fade away.

If you have spent any time around God's church family, you have heard about a gentle and quiet spirit. You have probably prayed, like me, "Lord, please give me a gentle and quiet spirit...NOW!"

Cultivating a Gentle and Quiet Spirit