Just Like That, It's Over

I officially graduated from Liberty University today.

In my living room.

Watching it on the computer with the live webcam stream.

Wearing running shorts, an old t-shirt, and Andrew's motor board and tassel from his graduation last week.

It was great fun, and rather encouraging after experiencing several days of feeling like my life has ended. In a way, it has. At least, life as I know it. I've been doing school for as long as I can remember, since, back when mom only had just Andrew and I, she had "all this time on her hands" so she could start schooling us early. I don't even remember learning to read, so yeah, I've been doing school longer than my memory goes back. 

And now, for the first time, there is no school to do. Possibly, there will never be any more school to do (as long as you don't include homeschooling me own future kiddos). However, I've learned to be careful about what you say you are going to do in the future. Who knows, maybe one of these days I'll go after a bachelors...but also maybe not. Even if I wanted to at this point, I'd have to find some way of paying for it, which would require taking a year off and working anyway.

For now, I'm working with dad. It's not exactly the most lucrative thing at the moment, but it gets me ice cream and maybe some gas in my car. We are trying to get Soul launched again, and depending on how well it goes, I may have a real job. If not, I'll have to start looking elsewhere. Cleaning/landscaping for Papa T once a week for 3 hours probably wouldn't be enough. Ha ha.


However, I also don't mind, in the least, taking a couple months off of everything but...life. (If that really cancels anything.) Because life is sometimes fun. Today, for instance, Eric and Maria called early and asked if they could come up for the afternoon and dig for that clay we'd spoken of over the dinner table back in February. Somehow, it had come up that us kids--particularly Andrew--have spent summers turning it into various creations (or just getting messy, in my case).

Eric is a potter, but he has been wanting to see what he can do using only natural materials and processes that don't require anything store-bought. The idea is he wants to be able to make pottery when they do their missionary thing in Tanzania, and he doesn't think there are any ceramist supply stores there. So he thought he'd get some practice in at our house.

They arrived after lunch, and we immediately made the traipse down the hill to the swamp, armed with shovels, hoes, buckets, bags, and cameras (for the photographic evidence, so the home school evaluator will give the kids credit for spending a day with a professional potter haha).

Almost instantly we found clay that Eric was really happy with: pure blue, and quite plastic-y. There was also a lot of clay smeared with orange, and some dark purple stuff as well. All of it was wonderfully squishy, and I'm rather jealous that Maria got the job of standing in the clay pit and mushing it all around.

Loaded down with clay, we made the tramp back up the hill (it seems like a mountain when you are going up). We then spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sunny grass, starting the refining process with some of it, and messing around with the purer stuff, making lots of pots, vases, and whatnot. They left soon after supper since we both had stuff to get done, but I'm excited for them to come back so we can do more refining and also try out wood-firing. 

After that, we worked in the garden until dark, planting 5 hundred feet of sweet corn, a row of lettuce, kale, and a few rows of beets (so happy I have a billion siblings to make the work go fast and fun!...Quote of the night: "Why is there a rock right here?").

Sanna planted zinnias that have delectable names, like "peppermint stick" and "fruit smoothie." For a split second, before she tacked the "zinnia" to the end of it, I pictured plants with fruit smoothies on them. Yum.

By the end of the day, I felt marvelously dirty. And looked it, between the clay and dirt. Plus, I'd tattooed my arms in yellow indian paint since, finally feeling patriotic about my school, I needed to write "LU '12" on something, and my arms were the closest something. I may even put that Liberty bumper sticker on my car, if the feeling persists.

However, I am actually quite glad I wasn't at the graduation ceremony today, even if it meant missing the opportunity of being within paper airplane flying range of Mitt Romney, who gave the commencement address. Interestingly, the best part of Mitt's speech was when we was quoting either Santorum or C.S. Lewis. As to the former, he remarked that if a person just graduates high school, and gets married before having kids, their chances of being poor are 2%. Miss out on either one of those, and there's an 87% chance you'll be poor. As to the latter, Lewis said that the "ultimate career is the home." Well, good, because that's the field I'm going into.

I also found it particularly cool that they awarded an honorary doctorate to Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick Fil A (who never went to college). From the 5 minutes I saw of him, he is a sweet old man. And he gives great impromptu 2 minute speeches that catch Jerry Falwell Jr. off guard.

Anyhow, I'm super tired and am going to bed. It's been a busy day, precipitated by a busy 2 years.