Posted in Family Life

It is 10:30 a.m. on a Friday and DD is already well into her school work for the day, although woke up a bit late at 9:00 a.m.  She likes to do her schoolwork while she eats her breakfast so it isn't a problem for the most part.  I must tell you though . . . the 6th grade workload is tremendously different than the previous grade levels.  With the addition of extra writing projects, formal note-taking, mind-mapping and outlining, it is taking on a whole new level of critical thinking and learning for her.  Something funny happened yesterday (well atleast I thought it was funny anyway - LOL). . . ya know that cramp that your fingers feel after writing and writing and writing? Well DD held her writing hand up in the air and pointed to the purple indent in the place where the pencil was resting on the side of one of her fingers, as if it was some alien from another planet. This was the first time she experienced writers cramp. THE FIRST TIME? Oh Jeepers Creepers I can remember getting those things well before 6th.  . Oh the tragedy and travesty of it all!!!  LOL. 

Anyhoo, as the pace and  pencil demands pick up, so does our hope that we will soon find a good rhythm to learning.  Each time a new school year starts we go through the same transition of adjusting to a new routine.  I love it when we can get into a "groove" and things just flow easily and that steady tap, tap, tap of time isn't loud and dreaded, but rather melodic and peaceful. Like an orchestra right before it begins, we are currently in the rehearsal stage when the instruments make screeches and scratches as they are being fine-tuned, then gloriously the screeching stops and the beautiful music commences.  Yes, we await that celebrated time, but until then it is screech, scratch, bing, bong, ching, and the alien pencil indentations on writing fingers.  

We just added another great thing to our schedule (screech, bing, bong), which is "Digital Photography." A home-educating Dad, who also teaches at our local ISD, is offering these classes to the homeschooling community for 4 weeks (3 hours each session).  The students will be learning how to take great digital pictures, download to computers and edit pictures in software programs, along with some other goodies.  Then in the winter he will be offering more classes about  movie making and Claymation Animation. I just love it when Homeschool Dads get involved in the community and use their giftings to metor and teach the young ones.   Pure One is looking forward to this class.

This week something extra special happened . . .  our DD was baptized by full water immersion! It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.  It happened on Wednesday night at church, and she was SO ready!  I'll post pictures as soon as we can figure out how to download them from our new digital camera onto a less-than-agreeable PC (argh).  I'll share more about it then.  We are so proud of her and are seeing beautiful changes in her already. The old man has gone and the new one on board! Whoohooo.

That's the update from our home for now.  There is more to share, but not much time to do it (screech, bing bong), so stay-tuned (ching, ting, bang) for more .