Just for Melissa!

Hi Melissa! You may just get me interested in blogging again!

Half of my life

I was just thinking this week about my anniversary (May 26), and it dawned on me that this anniversary is special for a cool reason. Chuck and I will have been married 21 years, which is exactly half our lives! We actually started dating at 18, so we've been in love for longer, but wow! A: I can't believe I'm 42, and B: I can't believe we're celebrating 21 years! The really great thing about it is that I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. We've had our hard years, for sure. Five years of surgery residency, which consisted regularly of 120 hour work weeks, twins born the second year of that residency, and before that, six months in Kuwait for Desert Storm. Chuck did his training through the Army. The girls were known as "Desert Storm babies" because they were born within a year of his return from D.S. Believe me, we weren't the only ones expecting!

I just don't ever regret my choice to love Chuck and marry him. He's so much fun, and romantic, and a great dad, and a godly man, and, and, and....God was good to put us together, and also good to help keep us together. Surgery residents have an ungodly divorce rate; something like 75% - 90%! It's not an easy life in any way, but we have always been committed to each other, and therefore never entertained any other thoughts.

It's been a great life together, sweetheart!

Signature

O.K., I'm going to jump on this bandwagon and try to answer these questions originally posted by Tina Barriscale on her blog http://tinabarriscale.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/04/signature.html.

Your signature:

Color: pink
Word I most like to be described as: creative
Best meal I cook: Crockpot Creamy Italian Chicken
Best dessert: chocolate chip cookies (the original Toll House recipe)
Favorite book: Always changing--this is more "what am I reading right now": Rebecca Sower's Scrapbooking Life's Little Moments and Designing with Stamping; The Myth of the Perfect Mother by Carla Barnhill
Favorite outfit: Sheer floral collared shirt and cardigan (yellow-green) from Old Navy, with my fuchsia flower pin, boot-cut jeans, and my pink birkenstock clogs (Erin helped me with this!)
Bedtime: usually between 11:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m.
Sound: my husband's "I love you"
Wish: unshakable faith
Style: casual vintage country (wanna-be Pottery Barn)
Word: family
What I crave: knowledge and close friendship (I know that's two!)
Surround me with: books

That was fun! I did need help on the outfit. The rest is not surprising, but was difficult to narrow down.

Teenagers, etc.

Since I have three myself, I think I can comment on teenagers if I want to!

Don't like:
The ones portrayed on TV who think adults are at best, the enemy, and at worst, complete idiots. These observations usually proceed from the mouths of creatures who cannot generate enough energy from rubbing two brain cells together to ignite an intelligent thought. Unless one considers profanity, cheap sex jokes, lyrics to rap songs, or codes to video games intelligent thoughts, that is.

Do like:
Teens who are fun to talk to and like to discuss issues. Teens who are fun to shop with, take on trips, and especially, to watch as they grow and mature and change. Teens who are intelligent, creative, have interests and therefore are interesting, and have oftentimes surprising insights. Teens who have a strong faith/belief system in place. I often watch teens portrayed on movies or TV and think they are completely soulless. That's a scary thought!

Sorry for all the sentence fragments there; they just fit into the "do like" list.

We spent last Wednesday through Saturday attending a homeschool speech and debate tournament in Monroe, LA. Our children participated in speaking and in team policy debate. There was a large group of attendees from around Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Parents are expected to serve as judges periodically over the course of the tournament, and so we get to see first hand the quality of students that are out in the world. Lest one thinks that homeschool students are nerdy, social misfits, let me assure you this is not the type of teen we saw. These are intelligent, witty, attractive, and fun kids! The league we participate in is a Christian league, so we were fortunate to be among, (for the most part), kind, considerate, and spiritually maturing kids.

This is my kids' first year of real competition, so we are still learning how it all works. None of ours progressed to semi-finals, and thus, finals. They did receive good feedback on their presentations, for the most part. My son has rather long hair right now, which is often commented upon by the judges to be "distracting". In our home, the hair is not a problem, because his behavior is not a problem. He's usually polite, helpful, obedient, fun and funny, and so we see no need to create conflict over his hair at 16. However, he knows in order to do well at Speech/Debate, he will probably have to go with something more conservative. Like it or not, it's affecting his scores. I think he enjoys the whole process enough that he's about ready for a new 'do. My older twin, (they're 13), is a little punky. She likes to wear black, and her dress clothes are not very girly, unlike her sister. Again, I don't have a problem with this. We have specific boundaries, such as modesty and crude t-shirt sayings. Also, she doesn't wear punk/goth makeup or dye her hair, or pierce or tattoo herself (not MY 13 year old!). However, all this is to say that we completely forgot about her black fingernail polish! That didn't go over too well. Also, she has long bangs which at least one person found distracting. She forgot to remove her 50 or so black rubber bracelets, so we pushed the patience of some of the more conservative judges! Sigh.... Again, I think you have to weigh the positive aspects of being involved and try your best to fit their view of how the dress code should be expressed. I want them to be judged on their speaking ability, not nitpicky details about their appearance. The one situation that frustrated us was a parent complaint about her dress at the Friday night social. She wore jeans, her black "Im the Evil Twin" t-shirt, and black converse. Horrors! I just know in Christian circles, there are so many subtleties about values re: dress, TV, movies, music, etc. We find the t-shirt funny at our house, because sometimes it is true! We are not in any way implying she is "evil" in the true sense of the word! We tried to reassure her that people have varying viewpoints, and we just have to pray we are not causing anyone to stumble, as scripture says. On the other hand, I think we as Christians have to be careful about insisting that everyone view things exactly as they do in areas that are not specifically outlined in scripture. Ugh!

Overall, it was a really good experience. My son, who has been really wanting to go back to school (we've only homeschooled 4 years), was excited enough about the event that he is pretty well content with the idea of homeschooling next year as well. This is pretty much a miracle, in my book! We try really hard not to assume that each child will need the same things, even the twins, and that each school year from now on must look like the last. We are not of the camp that thinks homeschooling is unquestioningly the best answer for everyone everytime. We try to approach it with an open heart, in case God wants to lead us in another direction.

Whew! That was long enough for one day. It's almost time for music lessons and church, so I'm outta here!

Who am I?

Well, that's a loaded question, isn't it? I'm Beth, a Christian homeschooling mom from the New Orleans area. My husband Chuck andI have Ian, who's 16, and Courtney and Erin, who are 13. We're in our fourth year of homeschooling and still figuring lots of things out. I love to read (books and magazines), rubber stamp, scrapbook, surf the web, eat chocolate chip cookies, and drink Diet Vanilla Coke. I'm crazy about Beth Moore Bible studies. I spend lots of time at our church for various activities. I love looking at other people's scrapbook pages. I just need to spend as much time creating my own. I've moved 8 times in almost 21 (!!!) years of marriage. God seems to keep moving us to new places, and we always find that there is a very specific, planned reason why. I have to remind myself of that when in New Orleans traffic!

As for who I am, I think I answered more with what I do, because I'm still working on the who I am part. I thought at 42 (!!!-how did that happen?) I'd have more answers. Instead, I seem to have more questions. My mother-in-law, whom I dearly love by the way, says that this happens to her more and more as the years go by. My theory is that God plans this so we always rely on Him. If we thought we had all the answers, why would we go to Him for anything.

Well, it's late and I should go to bed. I wanted to get this set up so I can have a place to say what's on my mind. I think I might love it!

the Whitlow family