I feel like I've lost 3 weeks since Thanksgiving.  I've either been out of town or in the dark or in storm recovery since the end of Nov.  I was finally able to spend this past week getting our house and life in Christmas mode.  We still have boxes in the living room because I just can't get out there and finish decorating yet but I'll get there.  We finally had school yesterday and today.  Yesterday was a nightmare - the younger kids were difficult and my older one was very distracted but we got through it.  Today was much better, as if they all remembered what our morning book work was like.  I didn't cry today, like yesterday.  On Thursday, I was trying to teach the metric system to my middle son using Miquon Math but the pages we were doing showed absolutely no explanation or help in anyway in the teacher's manual.  Miquon does that sometimes and since I didn't learn metric in school, it's a struggle for me.  I kept mixing up cm with mm, etc., and we had to look up stuff in the dictionary to get the right measurements, and I finally broke down and cried.  Then I remembered that, "Hey, I can turn the page and go back to metrics another day - I can do that 'cause I'm the teacher!!"  Sometimes things just don't work and you can go back another time.  The beauty of homeschool. 

I wrote more about our storm recovery and some of the neat things that have happened since then - see my blogspot blog if you are interested.  I don't like to repeat myself but I did win a raffle - a free turkey!  I was so excited because we had to eat our Christmas turkey last week - it was starting to thaw because of our power outage.  What a joy it was to hear the news of a replacement turkey.  Today, I called the lady who ran the raffle to let her know when I needed it delivered and discovered she had just had a baby a day or so prior!  I had called her cell phone and, bless her heart, there she was in the hospital room, recovering from a C-section, talking with me about a frozen turkey!  I was all apologies but she was fine with it.  We talked about new Mom stuff and it made me think about my own short hospital stays with my kids.  Anyway, what a nice thing for God to do -  making sure we had a turkey for Christmas.

I need to do my Christmas cards - I don't have that many to do but I always procrastinate.  It's so hard for me to sit down and do something like that.  It's easier at night when the kids are in bed but I'm tired.  I'd rather blog!  I baked a pumpkin pie last night, just because we don't have enough goodies around here (ha, ha!) and I could have done the cards then - but I didn't.  In fact, the hardest thing to do is the newsletter.  I always want it to be short and to the point but not boring or braggy-sounding.  And humorous, not cutesy.  How do you find that balance?  I have a friend who isn't the least bothered by sending a "look what I did - look where we went - look how perfect my kids are" kind of newsletter.  It's just the way she is.  I love her dearly yet my husband and I roll our eyes when her letter arrives.  But I love reading about her year and I'm never envious - if she wrote it any other way, I'd be disappointed!

So, I'll stop here and get to work on my little newsletter.  It has to be small, I don't want to pay extra postage.  On a more encouraging note, I have gotten all my shopping done.  I know I have because I am not going to buy another thing.  They get what I've got - it'll have to do!  I mean that in the most loving and merriest way!