Our third week of school is well underway, and things are going well. There haven't been any more tears, thank the Lord, and only a few outbursts of frustration. Quite honestly, I’ve been shocked at how smoothly things have gone since the first day. I am very, very happy with how things are going, but in the back of my mind I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop… It’s going too well.

Until then, though, I’m going to enjoy this peace in our homeschool.

And speaking of our school, we have a lovely solar system hanging from the ceiling of the school room, thanks in large part to my Dad. When he was here last week he helped us string up the planets and put them in the ceiling. He even hung them the right distance from the “sun” by doing a bunch of math and using a ruler to space them properly. Thank goodness he was here; I’m sure, left to my own devices, I’d have just thrown them up there in a pretty pattern.

Since then the sun has fallen (no big surprise; it was a mini basketball wrapped in orange construction paper) but the planets are still in their appropriate orbits around our light fixture. I’m going shopping this afternoon for an orange light bulb. Shouldn’t be too hard to find with Halloween approaching. Although the last time I was in Target they actually had Christmas stuff out. For crying out loud, it’s not even October!

Rebecca thoroughly enjoyed her first day of second grade. She told us her favorite classes are music and science. That news thrilled Sean, of course. Her only complaint about science was it wasn't going to focus solely on bugs. I don’t know what it is with Rebecca and bugs, but she does love them. I have to keep a steady supply of jars and plastic containers at the ready so she can house whatever bug she finds on any given day. She’s an interesting one.

Our 15th anniversary is this week. How did that happen? Fifteen years just flew by. The good news is we’re still married. The better news is that we are now at the point were we can celebrate more good years than bad ones; seven years of our married life, 1997-2003, just, for lack of a better word, sucked. Years 1-5 were good, basically because we were still in honeymoon phase, then Michael came much more quickly than we’d expected, then Amy. Then we had a few moments to breathe and discovered we’d never figured out how to be married before becoming parents, thus leading into years 6-12, which were bad. Very, very bad. But 13-15 have been promising. Disagreements still arise, unkind words are still spoken, but those incidents are much fewer and farther between than ever before. We have only the faithfulness of the Lord and his loving-kindness to thank for holding us together.

No big news, no big crises. Life is calm. I can’t remember the last time I was able to say that. I think I’m going to pour a diet Coke, take a peek at my children quietly doing their school work, and thank the Lord for the peace of today.