Sep. 8, 2008 - Reflections on Week One

One week under our belts (strange saying), and I feel like we've been back at it for months. We have encountered so much new terrain, especially with my older daughter's program, that I have been feeling very overwhelmed. I'm not handling the rest of life very well at present.

School could become all-consuming. I spend the evenings helping with homework, and planning the next day for my other three. And, the weekend hasn't been much better. Most of Saturday was spent helping my eldest with homework and trying to complete year overviews for each subject. The school that we're enrolled in would like one for each of my children by the beginning of October. I've only managed to get one partially done. Gulp.

I'm thankful that most of the extra-curriculars are being added slowly into the mix. A swift plunge into the deep end would have done me in, I think. Thankfully I get another week of relative ease before all the classes and activities will be up and running. And, I have one more week before Bible Study begins again. (Where, on earth, will I get the time to study for that?) Unfortunately, my husband is away on business this week so where the load could be light, once again I'll be carrying it alone.

We're still trying to round up books for some subjects and there are some obvious hiccups in the tentative plans I made for how our day should run. We've been fine-tuning our schedules, and discussing better ways to make the days progress rather than drag. I expect that figuring out all these details will take us well into next month.

One would assume by now that homeschooling would be a snap. But, I find that every year holds something new and with that new element comes confusion, adjustment, and reassessment. The pieces fall together a little differently every time. So the new year never looks quite like the previous one. I struggle to stay fresh and enthusiastic. Sometimes motivating the troops feels more like cracking a whip and laying down the law.

Sep. 8, 2008 - The Simple Woman's Daybook

Darin and I are still reading St. Bartholomew’s Eve by G.A. Henty.  This was one of the kid’s favorite history read alouds last year, so I wanted Darin to hear it.  He’s slowwwwly warming up to it.  There’s a lot of set-up at the beginning.

I am hoping...to get my desk cleaned off this week.  That would include making a schedule for Ben’s Greek studies.  Those books will stay here until I do.

I am creating...plans….seems my brain never stop, but my body does.  ;-)  I make more plans than I could ever accomplish in 24 hours.

I am hearing...Sophia playing with her sippy cup on the floor.  She's learning to drink from it, but loves to play with it more than anything at this point.  Jack is out in the backyard hitting something with a stick.

Around the house... Monday is coming in like a lion.  I’ve had a minor cold this weekend that left me tired out, so the normal chores I do on the weekends did not get done.  The important thing was that breakfast, lunch and dinner were all served, mostly thanks to Darin.  What a guy he is.

One of my favorite things... is going for a walk around the block with Darin after the kids have gone to bed.  Our dog, Joy, walks along with us.

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week... Ben has an orthodontist appointment, Sophia has her 9-month well-check, I’m hoping to meet a pal at Starbucks for a long overdue chat about life, and Darin and I are going to a 40^th birthday party.  Should be fun.

Here is a picture thought I am sharing with you...

Sep. 8, 2008 - Exercise Challenge

Well, I'm still working away when I can.  Is anyone else still with me?  You know, I go to other ladies' blogs, and I see so many Mr. Linky's just overFLOWING with participants.  It's the exercise thing, isn't it?;-)  I know.  I don't want to exercise either.  Especially when I'm seeing no results.  I just don't have an hour a day to give in order to see the results I would like, but I still think it's important to be at least moving.  Is anyone else still with me? 

Buehler.  Buehler.

Monday, September 8, 2008 - A New Perspective on Life... and Death

September 7, 2008 - The Princess Does Homeschool

September 8, 2008 - Recycling in China

Sep. 7, 2008 - Hands-On Science

We just started using Apologia's Elementary Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day.  One of the activities is to make an ocean box.  You line a box with blue paper, and as you study a sea creature, you make it out of clay or whatever you want, and then add it to your box in the position it would go in the sea.  That would be in the Sunlit Zone, the Twilight Zone or the Midnight Zone.  I'm using this with three kids and the thought of three boxes floating around our house just totally irritated me.  I hate clutter, and yes, I would have considered those boxes clutter, rather than a teaching tool.  That's me....big clutter freak!  I'm sure I've mentioned on this blog before that I LOVE to throw things away.  ;-)

Anyway.....We actually only have Ben with us for this study for a short time.  Soon he will be off on his own, doing his own science studies.  Kinda sad for me.  He's 13 and in 8th grade now.  I figured it's time to cut the apron strings and send him off on his own history and science studies.  It's been a wonderful time schooling the oldest three together in history and science.  It's hard to believe that they're all growing up....

Back to the boxes.....my idea was to line our hallway wall with blue paper and let all three add their animals to that.  When I mentioned what I was going to do, Ben immediately wanted to take over the project.  I was good with that and I'm so glad he did it!  I would have just put blue paper up on the wall and been done with it, but he went a lot farther and made an island, the continental shelf, the sunlit zone, the continental slope, the twilight zone, the continental rise, the midnight zone AND of course, the abyssal plain.  It is so neat!  Here you can see his work.  He's so kewl.  ;-)  You can see two little angler fish down in the midnight zone.  And up top, courtesy of Finding Nemo, the E.A.C., dude.

Sep. 7, 2008 - I Spent 1.24 at CVS

Here are the things I got at CVS on mine and Darin's date night.  We really know how to party.  ;-)

3 Revlon Nail Polishes - 3.99 each
2 XTreme deodorant - 2.99 each
Tom's of Maine Toothpaste - 5.29
subtotal: 23.24

I used:
3 coupons for the nail polish.  $2 off ($6 total)
2 coupons for the deodorant.  $1 off ($2 total)
$4/$20 CVS coupon
$10 ECBs

My final total was 1.24.  How kewl is that?  And I earned 14.50 in ECBs!

Lately, I've had a lot of people tell me they don't need to do the CVS thing because their family is not as big as mine.  A family of 7 definitely has its challenges, but to me, getting stuff for free and nearly free seems like an across-the-board thing!  The whole reason for the CVS journey is not just for the adrenalin rush of getting stuff at super cheap-o prices.  Although really, that would probably be enough to satisfy most.  ;-) 

Seriously, the main goal is to outfit your home as cheaply as you can so you're not spending all your dough needlessly.  When we need body wash here in our house, we simply go to the cabinet in my bathroom and grab a bottle.  I don't need to stress over adding that expense to our budget that week.  I've already got it, and I got it for free, or nearly free.  There's nothing in that that keeps it exclusive to large families. 

Give it a try!  Go to Crystal's Money Saving Mom blog and read CVS 101 and get started ASAP!  :-)

Sep. 5, 2008 - Note Worthy Tidbits

This looked like fun and I love this blog, so I thought I'd participate.  This week's theme is school-related, so here are a few noteworthy tidbits from me:

First off, I came across some really neat homeschool quotes on a blog.  She offers them for free w/ the codes to them so you can put them on your side bar.  I used two of them-one from Beatrix Potter & one from Mark Twain.  There's several more great ones, too:

Daily Quotes for Lifelong Learners

This next link takes you to a fantastic resource--it's called the Amazing Bible Timeline & at a glance, you can see 6000 years of Bible & world history simultaneously.  We have it & it's really neat.

The Amazing Bible Timeline

This next link is to a blog that I learned about from another blogger.  It's a "boot camp" for moms & kids.  You have to read it to understand the impact of it.  Once you click on the link, scroll down until you get to week 1.  This really blew my socks off.  It's an 8 week thing.  I can't do it justice-go check it out!

Paradoxology

That's it!  Hope you enjoy.

Sep. 4, 2008 - Just Chatter about Yesterday

Yesterday public school started.  So, we took the day off.  We do some schooling thru the whole summer-here and there.  It's informal, but we do get quite a bit done without feeling the whole day of school thing.

So, I like to take off the first day of p.s.  Plus, it was a gorgeous day!  Jonah(10) spent a good part of the day chopping wood-his choice.  He told me later that he discovered that "green" wood is much harder to split.  Dry wood splits a lot easier & he had to set aside the green wood.  This may seem insignificant to some, but it registered in my brain that that is something he learned thru experience.  Logically, it makes sense, but he also felt how the ax bounces off green wood & sinks into the dry wood.  I like that.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there, but my brain works in strange ways.  He was telling me this while laying in the grass and I was hanging laundry on the line.  After he told me this he let out a big sigh and said, "I sure do feel sorry for the kids that are sitting in school right now."

We did end up doing our Prairie Primer unit study.  One thing we learned about was making cheese-and we hope to try it.  We discovered what rennet is.  You must have rennet to make cheese.  Guess what Pa had to do when Ma wanted to make cheese-kill a calf that was young enough that it hadn't had anything but milk yet.  Rennet comes from the stomach of such a calf!!  I never knew this.  Well, guess what-we have all that here-but not enough heart to go and kill our calf-besides, he'll be dinner someday.  So, we'll just try to find "junket" rennet tablets.

Hannah's(12) spent some time reading Farmer Boy in her room.  She said she was really encouraged by it because it talked about training horses and she has a 3 yr old horse that needs training. She's worried that even when he's done being trained, he'll still be hard to ride.   Almanzo's dad said of his 3 yr old trained horses that they're perfectly trained, but still have "ginger" in them.  That made her feel better.

We got rid of satelite TV last week.  We did it for financial reasons (although, I've wanted to do it for a long time for other reasons) and wow, what a difference.  My dh has been giving Susanna her baths now (before it was sometimes) and he's been reading Where the Red Fern Grows to the kids.  Our living room has become a reading room instead of a TV room-it's really wonderful!  Pat & I were discussing the other day how much family time the TV actually steals away from family.  Susanna(3.75) loves it when Pat gives her the bath because he does her hair now and sings "Oh Where is My Hairbrush?" from Veggie Tales.  He sings it very loudly-the whole house can hear it and he really draws out the "oh where oh where oh where oh whereeeeeeeeeee....is my hairbrush?"  LOL-everyone is laughing by the time he's done & all the kids end up in the bathroom laughing.  I just laugh to myself downstairs.

I am so thankful we got rid of the satellite because sometimes he'd watch things that weren't necessarily bad, but was inappropriate for children-and they had to be sent out of the room-when they really wanted to hang out with Dad since he'd been gone all day.

In other news, Jonah learned a word to the wise.  Never make up a game called "Rabid Dog" without explaining very carefully to the 3 yr old that you should PRETEND to bite-not REALLY bite!  LOL 

And, here are a couple pictures of my sweet Alyssa Rose(14 weeks).  This first one is her wearing a soft wool outfit that a good friend gave to us.  This outfit is for babies wearing cloth diapers without covers.  The wool is the cover-and amazingly stays perfectly dry-even w/ a wet diaper.  The nice thing is air gets to the derriere to help prevent diaper rash:

And here's another sweet one:

Oh, I almost forgot-Susanna & I did get to Before Five In a Row during one of the baby's naps.  We're "rowing" Blueberries for Sal and it was so much fun!  I had blueberries that were just for her and a tin pail.  She enjoyed dropping them in and saying "kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk."  We did counting with the blueberries and then we ate them. 

I know we said we took off today, but what we all did was so much fun, it didn't feel like schooling. And Hannah did her math when she didn't have to because she loves Teaching Textbooks so much.  I tell you what-I could be a spokesperson for them!  LOL