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Saturday, June 4, 2005 - My (soon-to-be) daughter in law is wonderful!
| It's 2:22 a.m., I can't sleep, so I thought I'd blog for a bit. I just spent a happy 2 hours chatting on the phone with Becky, my son's fiance'. We don't get to talk like that very often, but whenever we do, I treasure every moment. She is a sweet girl and the perfect helpmeet for David.
Tomorrow, er, today is our big yardsale and opportunity to take some junk to the dumpster. Supposed to be very warm and somewhat humid (welcome to Cincinnati) so time to get out the sunscreen and make some tea. My friend, Rhonda, in Kentucky told me how she makes her excellent iced tea, but I have forgotten how, so I'll have to resort to my own means until she reads this or until I email her for the "recipe" ( I know, you're thinking, "It's iced tea for Pete's sake, not Chicken Divan".) And speaking of tea, I read a good article in this month's No Greater Joy magazine (http://www.nogreaterjoy.org) on the benefits of green tea, so I'm trying to include this more in my beverage line. I like green tea very much, but usually drink it hot and with summer coming on, hot just doesn't seem appealing once the early morning has passed. But the article suggested it chilled, so today (oops! Yesterday...) I made a pitcher full and it was pretty good, but very light so I think I will try steeping it a little longer next time.
All for now. I will check in with the results of my Friday To Do list and our Saturday yardsale sometime this weekend. |
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Friday, June 3, 2005 - Today's To Do List
| This morning I got up late. Like around 10 am, I think. I went to bed last night thinking about a problem I was discussing with Hank and I must have wrestled in my sleep and worn myself out because upon waking this morning, I felt like I had hardly slept. Don't you hate that? Oh, I know, it's not devastating or anything, just annoying.
While I ate my Cheerios and drank my coffee (Oh, by the way, I actually made an effort to put a banana on my cereal. Woohoo. Now there's some healthy eating...) Hank ran down his list of things that he had already accomplished that morning. Very annoying to the mentally hungover. Then, after going over what his plans were for the rest of the day he asked the dreaded Question: "What are you planning to do today?" Grrrr. Not at him, of course. Just the question itself. See, while he was talking, I had already created an impossible "To Do" list for myself in my mind and now I had to decide what was *really* going to happen-- my fantasy would of productivity, or a short-list of priorities that would make for a God-honoring, happy-family day.
So here's the short-list, added here mostly for my convenience, but you can check me on it later if you want...
1) set-up for yard sale this weekend: includes buying stickers, making signs, phone calls
2) oops. before all this, I need to take the meat that's been sitting in the fridge and do something crockpot-y with it, like meatloaf or whatever. Which reminds me of my lack of follow -through on putting beans in last night in order to have refried beans for our tortillas this afternoon. Choice: be bummed out or come up with a new plan.
3) balance biz and personal checking accounts so that I can...
4) pay some bills. When I do this I will need to...
5) clean off my desk and deal with some of the burried papers (note: points for me here, as I've finally set up the files for '05 and have done a rather nice job of keeing things filed.) make notes and/or take action.
6) work with Jon on getting ready for this weekend when the youth worship team plays for the weekend services. Oh, and make sure he mows this morning (which is now almost noon) and that he gets his 3 hours of schoolwork in. and helps with the yardsale. and continues to look for a job. and find out his plans for having his (girl)friend Emily over for the afternoon, which REMINDS ME...
7) take a shower before I get too busy and find that company is here already!
Well, that about does it, I think. Time to get busy. To all of you, I pray you have a God-honoring, happy-family, completed-to-do-list day! |
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Friday, June 3, 2005 - Does your family have read aloud time??
| I have always been guiltridden over the fact that we do not have a daily read aloud time. You know, where mother sits in her rocker while all the children gather around, looking up lovingly and listening attentively as she reads from one of the great epics of classic literature? Yeah, you know the picture I'm talking about. And while that is still a desire of mine, I found myself year after year promising myself, again, that we were going to start this wonderful habit. Oh, sure, there have been times where we have started reading together and even a couple of times where we actually finished a book entirely. But I think my pursuit was more in terms of the idea itself, instead of its purpose, so there never really was any sticking power to it. And that's something I always have to watch with myself--falling in love with an *idea* without really understanding the whys. or even whether that's something that God is requiring of me or my family at this time. So after reading some more in The Well-Trained Mind, I began read aloud time again. I let the girls choose the book this time, and since they are on a kick to read all my old Nancy Drew books, they chose one of those. Not exactly read aloud material, but they enjoy the interaction with me through it, and have begged for the daily reading. I missed today, so I want to do my best to follow through tomorrow.
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Thursday, June 2, 2005 - Classical Education Discovery!
| Time to change once again. I'm now investigating the possibility of modifiying my schooling approach. I ran across a review for Susan Wise Bauer's new book, The Well-Educated Mind, managed to pick it up at the library, and within reading the first few pages, knew I needed to dig further into the Classical Method. So I spend some time running around the web, getting a picture of what it might look like to be a Christian and have/give a classical education. I'll keep you posted on how things progress. But for now, those of you who are interested can check out http://www.teachingthetrivium.com . Still learning how to design my page, so keep checking back from time to time and you might actually see a photo where it says "no avatar"! Leave your comments if you feel so inclined and pass the word to your friends and foes to do the same. Hey, wouldn't it be cool if you--yes, you reading this page--would start your own blog? Hmm... |
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Wednesday, June 1, 2005 - Doing the FUN STUFF
| I'm already "behind" in trying to make this blog thing successful, so I'm actually writing a day or 2 late for each of the first 3 entries. Brilliant, right? It's like watching Letterman and wondering if it's really as funny in the afternoon when they actually do the taping. So "today" [wink, wink] I spent some time talking about and researching the classic "field trip" options for this summer. Every year I say that we're going to do FUN STUFF and somehow each summer seems to be a big, dull, distant memory. So this year, once again, we are going to do FUN STUFF. Yeah! Unfortunately, when I announced this to my kids, they seemed more enthusiastic about doing EXPENSIVE FUN STUFF than the nice, cheap, history and nature centered stuff that I had on my list. Yes, I know all about KIng's Island being outdoors and that buying and setting up a backyard swimming pool can provide history lessons ("Mom, you do know what year it was when we first asked you if we could buy a pool?"). I guess I had something different in mind. Something I could be proud of, take pictures of and have pamphlets brought home to put in the scrapbook. [Note: to those of you who know my anti-scrapbooking policy, let me assure you I haven't sold out. I've merely traded semantics and so now we are "notebooking" our memories. No archive-quality paper necessary.] Anyway, our first FUN STUFF field trip will probably be sometime next week when we head to A&M Farms to pick strawberries. Buy don't tell the kids, because they don't know yet. |
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Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - Welcome/Why I'm Here
| Hey everyone! Thanks for coming by and looking around. There's not much to see at the moment, so I don't blame you if you decide to split! Anyway, I've been toying with the blog idea for many months now, so when I found a website specifically devoted to homeschool blogs, I decided to give it a shot. The initial idea took root when I realized how paralyzed my homeschool mom friends (as well as myself) became when faced with the potential of having to share what really goes on in our homeschools! And the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that we needed a "guinea pig". Actually, I used to have a pretty cool guinea pig named Solomon when I was a teenager, but I digress... So, I've decided to go out on a limb, here, and allow whosoever will to have a little peak into our everyday life. Our homeschool life, which is really our entire life, is all yours, open to criticism, analysis, judgment, mocking, whatever. Use it to feel better about yourself. Use it as a lesson in what *not* to do. Whatever works. Now, on to the fun!! |
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