Diplomas for Homeschool Graduates...

It’s hard to believe, but tomorrow it the first day of March.  Many are planning for that big day-Graduation.  You’ve worked hard and so has your students.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have a custom made diploma for your student?

I started doing diplomas for Covenant Academy in Montgomery, AL in 1995.  I recently decided to provide this service for other homeschoolers.

My website is http://www.asonshinebytrudie.com 

Diplomas have your school name and state seal in color.  Name and date are done in Chancery style calligraphy.

I hope you will come check it out.

New Yahoo group...

I started a new Yahoo group yesterday.  I was searching for a group where I could get answers about some situations that come up when raising mixed heritage children. 

I would hope that any one from here who has a mixed heritage family or came from one would join my group at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Our_Little_Ones/?yguid=60532110

Just cut and paste in the browser and it will bring you to the group page.  I hope to hear from a lot of you, because your homeschooling background will give a lot of creative input to the discussion.

Thank you,

Trudie, aka Butterflie927

She is our granddaughter, her name that of my favorite flower, Rose.  She is just as sweet and lovely.  She is even smarter than she is beautiful.  (OK, so I’m the grandparent.  No.)  She has come to live with us for a while.

She now has to go to bed early, because we get up early.  She doesn’t get up with us, but we need to be in bed so my husband can get up at 4:00 a.m. and I can get his breakfast and lunch.

Last night she asked me what it looked like when we get up.  Wow!  My first response was exactly like it does when we go to bed.  Then I thought, no, the moon and stars aren’t in the same place overhead because the earth has moved.

Packrat?

C D packrat

R KNOT a packrat

O  S  I  R

C  M  whiskers?

C  M  tail?

L  I  B

M B a packrat

Who me? A Packrat...

Posted by homeschoolruby

It seems that each person is to add a new question, so mine will be # 7. When you answer these on your blog, you should add a question and send it to 5 more bloggers. To find out my answers, you will have to come to my blog. 1. What is your favorite all-time movie?   Let's see, there's Smokey and the Bandit, Beethoven, Gone With the Wind...   2. Where is your favorite place on earth? At home with my husband  and Laptop 3. Do you run a home business, and if yes, then what is it you do?   Yes, I make diplomas for homeschool graduates, cakes and am an assistant manager at our trailer park. 4. What are some lessons in life you had to learn the hard way?   God is God and I can trust Him. 5. As a parent, what is the one thing you are (or would be) happiest to see in your children?   Watching him be a great daddy has been a delight for me.  Several times were touching enough to bring tears to my eyes. 6. Who do you most consider to be your role model, the person you most want to be like? (No fair saying Jesus. Pick someone else.) Right now, I'm considering the role of grandmother and reflecting on my grandmothers.  If I could be half as good as they were, I will have accomplished something.   7. What is/was your favorite pet? Why?   Big Brown was a very special dog,  He came to us because God sent him our way and we were blessed by his companionship about 5 years before he got sick.  (Don't tell Laptop.)

A Day in Life

We knew it was going to happen sometime.  What we didn’t know was when and where.  We are relieved to know that is over.

Ok, What?  We have an elderly man living near us.  He used to be our next-door neighbor until we moved up the hill and across the street last February.  This man is reaching up to tickle 80 and he doesn’t have to reach very far.  A WWll Veteran, who we can thank for helping to keep this country safe, living in squalor.  For whatever reason, he has chosen to live in his home is spite of the fact he is unable to care for himself.  Late yesterday afternoon he fell.  We don’t know why, except that the Lord let my husband find him lying near the entrance of his home.  My husband said it looked like he had pulled himself to where he could shade his head.  We have no idea how long it was that he laid there until he was found.  As of this writing he is in an Intensive Care Unit.  We are relieved that he was outside, in that if he had been inside we wouldn’t have been able to find him.

I hope that if I ever get near the point of time that I cannot care for myself, I will be able to accept it gracefully and make such arrangements.  I would hate to give up my home and my car keys.  I’m asking the Lord to help me do it when the time comes.

I have wondered how his children can allow their father to live like that.  Do they not have eyes to see or noses to smell?  I wonder about what their home life must have been like. 

I would have never have guessed that a person could be allowed to live like that.  To keep an animal in such conditions would be against the law, but people are allowed to live like that?

July 22, 2005

He responded well when my husband visited him this afternoon.  He's out of the ICU and in a room now.  They think he had a stroke, but aren't positive yet. When the family found out about their father, they came to town and have been with him.  His truck and trailer will be moved to the out of town daughter's property and cleaned.

Thank you for your prayers!  

              Trudie's Theme

Sing like only God can hear you!

Work like you're serving Jesus!

Love like you've never been hurt!

And dance like no one's watching!

About my name, Butterflie927...

A butterfly is born a caterpillar, which is in some cases just a pretty worm.  They spend a short time and spin a chrysalis.  After a period of time they break out a new creature, the butterfly.

Scripture says we are a new creature and the old has passed away.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

I thank God that I am not the creature I used to be. 

I liked the “ie” spelling of my name when I was in junior high (mostly called middle school now).  When I took the name Trudie, which was a combination of my first and last name, spelling it with an “ie” was just natural.

So along came computers and the invention of screen names which protect the privacy of the poster.  Now a Christian and an admirer of God’s creation, especially the butterfly, choosing Butterfly and then changing it to Butterflie was just a matter of course.

927...  If you’ve been around the ‘net for a while you begin to notice numbers in peoples email, screen names and what not.  A goodly portion of these numbers mean something to the person who chose it.  927 is such a number to me.  It stands for ninth month and twenty-seventh day, which is the day I married my wonderful husband in the year 2002.

I'm working with the cover school that my son graduated from.  They needed a coordinator in this area, so I came out of homeschool retirement.  I don't really think any homeschool parent ever totally retires anyway.

I had the opportunity to take a cake decorating course that covered a way of doing cakes commonly found in Australia, South Africa, and England.  It was a lot of fun and ended all too quickly.  Now, I've got to play with I've learned so I can make some money off it.

...How are your son & his family doing?

They are doing just fine.  We had lunch together after my class (Yes, I drove to Montgomery two Saturdays in a row to take it at 88 miles one way.) and I really enjoyed it.  Little is now old enough to remember me from the last time.  I was really tired of him being afraid of me when I came to visit.  I got to hold and play with him twice.  :)  Hard to believe he's working on his third year.

...I have been so busy with everyone else I haven't been keeping up with you. Sorry about that...

Forgiven...  As you can see, you're not alone on that getting busy. 

I've got 36 plants that need to be planted, plus four Confederate Roses which need to set roots before it gets cold.  They are interesting shrubs.  They bloom pink and as the flower ages it fades to white.  I don't think they grow anywhere else.  I don't remember them in TX anyway.  They had pansies, violas, and Sweet William on sale at the store I did my class at.  I had just spent time surfing the search results for pansies because I forgot which petals are purple and yellow.  I wanted to put them on a cake I was doing for a bridal shower.  Well, I saw pansies in colors I'd never seen before.  Then I went to the class and they were selling off a semi-trailer full of them.  Actually, they could have just brought the trailer and parked it across the street...

Well, talk care.  I'm laying low today.  Laptop just got on my lap, so I know he wants me to get dressed and take him out for a WALK.

... How is your search going for lost decendances?  I made some progress in contacting my dad's younger brother's family from his first marriage. 

I (Trudie) forgot about this.  I don't know how.  I got my dad's medals from WWII a while back and scanned them into my FTM files.  I remembered a picture that was in this huge mess of pictures that I took to MI to get Aunt D. to help me ID.  It is a picture of Macarthur.  There was no one else in the picture I recognized.  We thought then that Dad might have met General Macarthur.  Well, when I talked to Aunt D. about that and asked her more questions, she told me he had sent his mom pictures of him standing with a jeep with 5 stars on it.  Grandma took the pictures to get them copied and they "disappeared".  Dad had a medal from the Philippine Campaign (I think that is right.)  Ray being so into military (20 years in the Army can do that.) put 2 and 2 together.  My Dad possibly drove General McArthur around when he was in the service.  I don't know how to find out if that is true or not. 

We are experiencing a cold, wet and windy day.

...a cold, wet and windy day...

That is just a scout, there are worse to come.  We are still in Fall mode with temps dropping a little this weekend.  I don't mind.  I love MI, but I didn't move South because I like cold weather.

...I hope you didn't lose anything or were injured.

  My aunt lives in Jacksonville, Florida, she was up here in Michigan visiting her son when the last storm came through. She mentioned no damage was done. But the anxiety & worry of what might have happen to her home was of top priority...

It's hard to walk off and leave your home in God's hands.  I did so much prep that I really hacked off Ray.  He's such a mild mannered man, but I guess he took my prep as lack of faith.  I have to do what I do and then I know I've done all I can.  Then I can walk off and not be panicked.  I've done this three times now.  I have a wind chime hanging on our deck that was outside during Opal back in '96.  I secured everything that was outside.  As the wind was howling in the 107 year old house we went to because we were going to have a hurricane party/prayer fest, I remembered that wind chime was still hanging on the porch.  I asked God to keep it safe for me.  He did.

The Lord was gracious to both Missy and myself.  Missy had minor damage and I had none, except Ray's feelings, which I hope, are healed over by now.  I still have some things in storage because hurricane season isn't over.  I'm tired of the unsettling feeling of all of the storms that came in on us this year.  Yet, I know it's by God's grace we don't live like that all the time.  The earth could quake and we could have hurricanes continually. 

This was written in response to an email I wrote in answer to a post she wrote.  It may have been a prayer list or homeschool list, I don’t remember.  As always, only my name is used and any other names have been changed to protect the privacy of the author.

Thank you for the encouragement.   I need a job to work with a school schedule, pass all tests for school, get enough funding to go to school, get into school for the Jan. 2005 class (this will take a miracle as there are 7 on the waiting list now but I know God is able...the apt. I am in there were 10 ahead of me when letters were sent out none replied and the apartment was mine), I will be taking tests next week for school admittance and federal funding...I need brain power.  And I need to get over this whatever.  I have upper respiratory infection.  I am on meds for it.  Also I need, if I don't get a job right away to get unemployment and for ______'s not to blackball me to keep me from finding work.  I really need work close to my home as I have a really, really old car and with the gas prices too.  Thanks.... Sarah

I've been where you are.  It was different circumstances, but the thought process was the same.  Trudy’s Theme was adapted from an Email that was left lying on the kitchen table by my Daughter-in-law.  She had no idea what it would mean to me, but Jesus did.

As I forced myself to do those four things, sometimes with tears

Streaming down my face, slowly the darkness lifted.  May you also be

inspired by this verse.  Please feel free to rewrite it and rename

It, maybe Sarah’s Saying.

Jesus is right there with you, no matter how bad it looks and feels. He has a job for you to do.  It is there waiting for you to get to it.  He is already in your

tomorrow making a way for you.  Nothing that is happening is taking Him by surprise.

"Live in such a way, that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, the devil says, 'Oh, no, she's awake!'"

"When satan is knocking at your door, simply say, "Jesus, could you get that for me, please?!!!"

Love & Peace from Ozark, Alabama

@-}-}- Trudie L. & Laptop ^..^

           Trudie's Theme

Sing like only God can hear you!

Work like you're serving Jesus!

Love like you've never been hurt!

And dance like no one's watching!

http://www.asonshinebytrudie.com

Diplomas for Home School Graduates

I was married in 1979 and gave birth to my son on April 6th 1980.  In November of that year we left Michigan for Texas, land of glowing oportunity.

When I reread my first post this morning, I was thinking about HTML and how I have taught it to myself through an online class.  Now, I'm no web designer by anyones vastly stretched imagination, but I have at least learned what it is and how it works and even what a few of the codes are.  It's pretty interesting stuff.

Since this is for homeschoolers, I guess I need to keep on the subject of home, schooling or both.  I posted to a friend's blog and ended up starting this one.  I'm not much of a writer, but with the birth of the computer writing is so much easier for me.  I do wish they had a spell checker on this site.

     It is going on 7 am and I have done nothing but play with the HTML on this site.  HTML facinates me, as do most things that have to do with color or design.  I would rather sit and play with this than get about doing the things that need to be done to get my home back into it's pre-hurricane evacuation state.  This has nothing to do, of course, with the things I already needed to do.

     I know the birds are wondering what happened to their buffet.  We have a seed feeder and two hummingbird feeders.  The little guys are really wonderful to watch.  I can see them up close and watch their little moves.  The feathers, the wings, the eyes, the beaks all speak of the wonders of the LORD.