Oh, yeah ... we homeschool.  That means I need to turn my attention to preparing for our school year.  I hate that word.  But what else do you call it?  Our "learning" year?  Our "learning time"?  Our lifestyle of learning?  Life?

It's time to begin again and break out of the emotional bonds I've been in since late July.  Enough wallowing.  It's getting tedious and boring.  Changing my focus to the task at hand will be good for me.  Although, it's a big task.

I really wanted to spend the summer getting more organized and tidy.  Um, o.k., it didn't happen.  But I didn't have a plan.  Now, I need to make a plan plus plan our homeschool year.  The homeschool planning is easier and more fun.  So I'll start there.  I want to make some changes to the way we have been doing things, like, for years.  Shake things up a bit.  It will be good for my kids as well as me.

Tomorrow, we will begin our school year by getting some vaccinations.  (I said I wanted to shake things up!)  That will be followed by a trip to our local toy store (not a big box but friends of our who have a great little toy shop in town) where the kids can spend their allowance.  Then on Thursday, we are going to the Oregon Zoo to see the new baby elephant!  It's the first one born in 14 years, can't miss that, can we?  We actually were at the zoo last week, on the day it was supposed to be born.  But, like all babies, it didn't arrive as planned but was born the day after.  After the zoo, we get to find out about Todd's tests results and possibly ride the aerial tram that was put in to take people from the bottom of the hill to the top of the hill where the hospital is.  This thing looks like something out of a 1950's space age film.  I'm scared but it will be fun - I think.

Then, next week, we will actually be sitting down for some book time.  I am thinking about making a schedule for each kid, so they will know what they need to work on and I won't have to keep reminding them.  Maybe getting each of them a binder to keep their work in.  That would eliminate papers scattered on their homeschool shelf.  More consistent Bible reading.  Get going with that American History.  This sounds more slapdash than it really is.  I'm just thinking out loud here, areas of our school (ugh) time that I want to work on or do better at.  You know what I find interesting is how easy it is/was to advance my oldest son, but how hard it is to remember to advance my younger two kids.  What's up with that?  Like the younger kids don't grow at the same rate as Chad?  I mean, Alec is 10, and it's hard for me to see that.  Suddenly, I find myself thinking, "O.k., have we done all we should be doing for his age?!!"  I guess it's because Chad was born old, while Alec and Carmen are more age appropriate.  I don't know.  I probably should have had only one child because I just hate repeating myself or doing the same thing over again.  Isn't that awful? 

Speaking of Alec, he has recently discovered some Enid Blyton books that we picked up last year and spends all day on the couch reading, laughing out loud and reading parts of the story to his sister.  It's awesome!  Alec has been more drawn to magazines like Air & Space, so it is fun to see him enjoying books.  I hope he has run out of ideas for jellyfish crafts.  We are overflowing in jellyfish made out of all kinds of materials.  It's his way.  Oh, and he got glasses last week (like all the rest of us, except Carmen).  He looks just adorable!  And he likes them, which is a plus.

Todd and I were looking back on 20 years of Labor Day Weekends, realizing that either he or I have worked every single one of them (as well as we can recall).  The only good thing is that now he gets overtime for working it!  When we both had our businesses (at different times) we looked at Labor Day as a way to get a bit caught up on our work.  We truly labored on Labor Day!

Of course, he's gone tonight.  His overtime will end in about 5 minutes.