CrazyBusy - Bucephalus, Where I've Been and A Fairy (or two or three or....)

CrazyBusy

Aug. 1, 2007

Bucephalus, Where I've Been and A Fairy (or two or three or....)

Bucephalus! That's our new pup's name! I'm sure we'll shorten it to something- Bufus, Beefus, I dunno, but for now, we call him Bucephalus. And I forgot to mention, in case you don't know, he was Alexander the Great's horse! It's a great story! And in case you're visiting here for the first time & have no clue what I'm talking about, scroll down to the next post to see pics of our new pup. I tried to get someone to guess our pup's name to no avail.

(warning: long post ahead. will sprinkle in fairy pictures here and there to keep you awake)

I'm going to try and recap what I've been up to these last two weeks, even though I'm extremely tired and my brain is muddled:

A muddled brain. That reminds me. I had a visit with an endocrinologist. He upped my thyroid dose cuz my TSH had already risen to 4.6 since I last had it checked- which was less than 2 months ago & it was 0.98 then! Also, he automatically ups his patients' dose the moment they find out they're pregnant (no, I'm not pregnant unfortunately, but if/when I do get pregnant, I know to call him immediately) & likes to keep his patients' TSH <2. My thyroid felt "lumpy-bumpy" to him so he did an ultrasound of it. Gave me an official diagnosis of Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Looked consistent of it on u/s.
Waiting for summer to arrive.
My brother and his family moved back to CA. :(
My good friend in Mexico, Adita, has to begin chemotherapy soon. Please keep her in your prayers.
My MIL was pretty sick for a week or so. Took her dinner one night.
My hubby's grandma is here visiting from CA.
My period actually started exactly on time.
Waiting for summer to arrive.
Alek has strep throat- I think this is the first time any of my children have ever had strep! His poor throat looks SO raw! Pray nobody else gets it. He started antibiotics ~~today~~ yesterday. *yawn*
Talked my mom out of moving back to CA or GA or TN or VA or anywhere else but here because she's tired of waiting for summer to arrive.
Got rid of all of the kittens.
Got a new puppy. (I should really do a separate post as to WHY we decided to get a new pup- has to do with irresponsible neighbors)
Have had 2 strange internet encounters.
But my biggest accomplishment..... *drum roll please* I have FINISHED our school schedule for next year! Woo-hoo!

(link to our school schedule, if you want to see it, is below the ramblings of a mad woman)
Okay, so more about that school schedule. You moms who do up your own school schedule and lesson plans every year have a newfound, huge whopping dose of respect from me. This is the first year I've had to do this and MAN was it a JOB! I'm sure I spent over 50 hours on it, easily. I kind of grounded myself from much computer use until I got it done.

(You need a fairy picture already? *sigh* Alright.)

Last year we used Tapestry of Grace, and I did plan out our schedule every week, but the bulk of the work (choosing books mostly) was already done for me. It was just a pick & choose & plug into the schedule type thing. I probably spent about an hour per week on our schedule last year.

Tapestry of Grace didn't really do it for me/us. I think it would've been a better fit had my children been older. The teacher's notes were extensive but geared for older children. I purchased it because it was a curriculum I could use with ALL of my children and I also loved the idea of seeing God's hand in history throughout the time period we were studying. But, I never saw it. And that was disappointing. Maybe it was in the teacher's notes- I'll admit I didn't use them much, but it wasn't very available. I really wanted a Christian history text for a spine and let the other books we read from be there to supplement. But what I wanted to be a supplement, really became the spine. Make sense!? Anyway.

(Another? Fine. Sorry to bore you so.)

This year I had purchased a couple different history curriculum that promised the same thing- they are both meant to teach all of your children the same time period together, and show God's hand in history. After looking them both over thoroughly, I've decided to combine them a little, but I chose Mystery of History to use as our spine.

I can't believe I passed Mystery of History up at the homeschool conference I attended in April! It just didn't look very appealing at the time. But after researching it a little further, I decided to purchase it and BOY am I glad I did! It is AWESOME! And I should know, I've read the entire book! You most definitely see God's hand in history throughout the entire curriculum. And it IS the spine! You supplement the spine.

You study 3 main topics per week, which leaves you plenty of time for rabbit trails. The suggested activities are wonderful and will make the experience very memorable.

Before Tapestry of Grace, we were Sonlight users from day one! And if you're familiar with Sonlight, you know you do a lot of reading! Our schedule is a bit on the heavy side when it comes to reading aloud, however, I LOVE reading to my children and they LOVE to be read to! So it works for us.

(Again? Are you even reading anything I have to say?)

The other curriculum I was referring to (when I was deciding which to use for the spine) is History Alive! by Diana Waring. It is great too, but I prefer the format of MOH. History Alive is arranged so that each of the learning styles have their week, so to speak. You spend 4 weeks on a topic (usually covering quite a bit though) and rotate through the learning styles.

However! It is Diana's CD's that I've integrated into our school year! Oh my goodness, if you've never heard her What in the World's Going On Here? or True Tales CD's, you are missing out! We took these to "the big city" several weeks ago. I brought them along just to see what they were like, not intending to listen to even 1 whole CD. We ended up listening to almost both SETS! And I think there are 7 CD's between the two! Kenton loved them too. Diana is very enthusiastic and knowledgeable about history and a great story teller. I've scheduled her CD's to match what we're studying for the day. Alek still remembers some of what Diana talked about on her CD's from that trip!

We are going to be studying the time period from creation to Christ so I've scheduled in our Bible readings to match what we're studying also. It's so awesome to read about something in a history book (secular even!) and then read about that same person in God's Word! Very exciting. This is going to be an awesome school year!

(I know, I know. I shouldn't write when I'm so tired. I can be long-winded and tend to not make a bit of sense. Sorry.)
(I know, her eyes look a little wonky in this one- not sure what I did to make 'em look like that. Can you tell summer's not quite here in this pic? Brrrrr! she says!)

I don't know if this will work or not, but I've posted our schedule if anyone wants to take a peek at it! :) There are lots of abbreviations (for the sake of space) that you probably won't get- like "M&M's" stand for "missionaries and morals"- something important to me that we read about weekly. Or "cement" you could probably figure out just means some activities (PT "pre tests", quizzes and other worksheets) to help the info "stick." So if anyone actually does look at it & has a question, just ask me. CHOW= Child's History of the World; UB= Usborne; SOTW= Story of the World; MOH= Mystery of History; HA= HIstory Alive.....TRY CLICKING HERE for our schedule.

I still need to go through and print off maps and activity sheets, etc. I have a whole list of pages I need to copy in various books. AND I also need to put all of our assignments in Homeschool Tracker. But I am SO close to being done! And now that summer's been here for almost a week, maybe I can enjoy what's left of it! Maybe? Please? God?

Were the pictures distracting from my most interesting post? I really need to get to bed. I'm cracking myself up. And that's not good. There are children sleeping in this house. And I like 'em that way. Sleeping.

Two more, then nighty-night!
MY FAVORITE: B&W, closer crop.

MY FAVORITE: with a bit of a hand tinted look.

Oops. I can count. Okay, so this makes three.

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Comments

Aug. 1, 2007 - Untitled Comment

Posted by daffodilmama

Still waiting for summer???!!!! Me thinks you should rethink moving to VA!!!