Seven Quick Takes

1. After overthinking and changing my mind many, many times I decided not to do the co-op that I mentioned the other day. I just can't handle a whole day out of the house every week. We have too many other interruptions all the time so I need every day available for normal school and I don't want to always feel like I'm playing catch up. So, about two hours after calling the co-op coordinator and telling her we were doing it I e-mailed her (too embarrassed to call again) and told her I had changed my mind. Of course, Hannah is still going to babysit on Tuesdays but that should work out. She just may have to put in more time the other four days.

2. Speaking of putting in extra time...Hannah (and I) had a loooooong school day today. She had big assignments due in two of her virtual school classes. One was to visit an art gallery in your town and visit 5 online and then answer various questions. We spent the morning walking downtown, visiting at the coffee shop, visiting the gallery, and then getting ice cream before finally walking back home. So, we got a very late start but managed to do everything. The big challenge was that Hannah had to write a report for keyboarding. This might have not been a big deal for the average sixth grader but writing is the one area that has been seriously neglected in our homeschool. Despite having never written a report, Hannah did a good job. She wrote about the game company, Cranium. Then the fun began--she had to format it in a specific way and neither of us is very familiar with Microsoft Word. After a good hour or more of both of us working together we finally got it done. Then we both agreed that even if she got a failing grade on it she was NOT re-doing it!! We are done!! Thankfully, her next few assignments are more normal and fairly easy.

3. My kids may not be able to write very well but they sure as heck know their Greek Myths! In addition to listening to the Percy Jackson books, we have also read two different books full of Greek Myths. Last night they were each a different Greek God and had some elaborate game going. It was fun to listen to them, they really knew the stories and characters very well.

4. The Office was pretty disappointing tonight--no real LOL moments. What's up with those writers?? And they haven't even mentioned Jim and Pam's baby. It's as though they never even had a baby. There is soooo much material centering around being first time parents, again, what is wrong with those writers???

5. I had about 45 minutes at the library last night between tutoring sessions and I spent the whole time going through this photo journal book called, "A Day in the Life of the American Woman." It was pretty interesting but I was disappointed to only see one stay at home mom and no homeschooling moms. I guess they'd need a whole book to document a day in the life of a homeschool mom! I thought about documenting my life for a day but decided against it. For one thing, it would be pretty boring and for another thing--that would just be way too hard and maybe a bit embarrassing if I were completely honest with it. I wouldn't want to include how after promising that I wouldn't get all stressed out I then hurled Grace's assignment notebook across the room because I was mad at Hannah and her inability to do anything alone! No, wouldn't want to tell that story.

6. On a completely different note....I was in JoAnn Fabrics the other day and they have a foam, hollow pumpkin that can be carved. All the fun of carving with none of the mess. My first thought was, "how stupid," but later thought--"how clever." I am completely intimidated by carving a pumpkin. The only time my kids have gotten to experience carving a pumpkin is once when my mom was in town in October and once when we were in GA at her house in October. I don't even know where to begin carving a pumpkin. So, maybe I will go back to JoAnn's and get one of those fake ones.

7. Tomorrow is the first of October!! October is probably my favorite month because with the coming of October there is hope that we've survived the heat of the long summer once again. And, October just kicks off three months of fun--first fall in general--pumpkins, scarecrows, pum pkin spice lattes and then we move right into November and Thanksgiving and turkeys and thankful trees and fall leaf projects (even though we don't really have fall leaves in FL) and of course we head right into December and Christmas. Yep, I'm downright excited that tomorrow is October 1. I may have to celebrate by making pumpkin muffins for breakfast. I'm getting up at 5:30 to walk with AnnMarie so I should be feeling wide awake and spunky by 7, just in time to make breakfast!

Happy Fall, Y'all!!

Writer's Block

So, I'm sure that some of you have noticed that I haven't been blogging as much as usual. I think I have writer's block or something because I sit down to blog and can't really think of much to say and then when I think of something to say I think---nah, nobody wants to read that mess. That's because practically the only thing I can think to write about is how busy and tired and overwhelmed I am. That gets old after a while. But, it's true--I'm busy, tired, and overwhelmed. We have yet to really get our groove for this school year. Three and a half weeks in and I'm struggling. We're getting a lot done but I'm majorly multi-tasking for hours and hours every day and it's exhausting. I am so unmotivated in the kitchen that it's just sad. I keep thinking that with the arrival of soup weather I'll get my inspiration back. For now we seem to be subsisting on veggie subs, eggs, tacos, fried rice and spaghetti. Not terribly exciting or terribly healthy. As far as housekeeping and other projects go--I'm so far behind that I have little hope of ever catching up. Oh well...enough with the complaining. I'm truly too blessed to be so stressed. I'm living my dream,, right?? I get to stay home with my kids and homeschool them---just what I've always wanted to do. When I remind myself of that it does bring it all into perspective and truly I am in charge here. If it's not working for me and I'm unhappy then I need to make some changes. We tried something new today that I think will become our new Tuesday thing. Hannah babysat (mother's helper babysitting, not alone babysitting) most of the day and Grace and Joe went to a co-op. A co-op where I don't have to "co" anything. They both seemed to like it and I enjoyed my alone time. I went to the grocery store, made dinner, and cleaned. It wasn't fun but it did feel good to accomplish something. Maybe with a few hours every Tuesday I can start to make a dent in that infinite to do list. One of the things I did today was put out some fall decorations. I get so inspired by the arrival of fall every year. As the temps start to drop I just want to celebrate. I've got some ideas for some fun fall crafts to add to our decor, that will give me something to blog about. Any ideas you'd like to share?

Daybook Style (but with lots of pictures)

From Hannah's camera...I really like this one on top--ponytail holders and puzzle pieces with a partially finished puzzle in the background. I love popping her SD card into my computer and seeing what she's got on there. She finds the most interesting things to take pictures of.
Outside my window...well, right now it's cloudy and muggy but when I started this post a few hours ago it was pouring rain with a cool breeze blowing into the windows. It seems dumb but I was excited to fill in the "outside my window" part but now it's not nearly so nice. Fall can't come soon enough around here!!

From the kitchen...I made chocolate zucchini muffins today and they were so good! I used coconut oil, my freshly milled wheat, and flaxseed meal and they had zucchini so they were semi-healthy. Other than these muffins I have been pretty uninspired in the kitchen lately. I absolutely can't wait for soup weather. We'll be having soup and fresh bread or biscuits practically every night as soon as it cools off. Speaking of fresh bread, I really want to master making our own bread. I haven't even really tried but now I have it in my head that I want to learn and teach the girls while I learn so that we can all successfully make bread. Ollie's brother made the best bread while we were at Madeline Island this summer and he totally inspired me. Of course, I've yet to do much with that inspiration but I'll get to it.

On my iPod...I just recently bought a whole Sara Groves album and my favorite song is "How is it Between Us." It's all about feeling stressed and crazy and then evaluating how things are between yourself and God. One of the lines is "when did I talk to You last and what has happened since..." I just love it. Her songs speak right to my heart.

What I'm reading...I just started a Jodi Picoult book that I've avoided in the past. The title is "Second Glance," and it's all about ghosts. The idea of ghosts freaks me out which is why I've avoided this book but a friend recommended it and brought it to church so I decided to read it. So far it's great, of course. Jodi Picoult is awesome. Just before reading this I read, "Shadows of Lancaster County," and it was very good, I highly recommend that one.

What I'm reading to the kids...We read for about an hour every morning. First the Bible, then something from The Book of Virtues, and then one or two other books--usually at least one just fun chapter book and often something related to history. So, we just finished up Pippi Longstocking and we've been reading various books of Greek Myths for a few weeks now. Today we started Augustus Caesar's World and I'm really excited about it. I've heard great things about those books and it goes right along with our history. Once we finish the Greek Myths I will start reading a classic novel--probably Wizard of Oz. Our reading time is the best time of the day for me and I hope for the kids!

From our homeschool...we just finished our third week of school. So far, so good but I'm frustrated with myself for once again letting outside distractions encroach upon our school time. A couple of days this week I found myself distractedly schooling or rushing in order to finish and skipping things because we ran out of time. So far my calendar for next week is mostly empty. As you can see in the picture towards the bottom of this post I scrawled across the week, "Just Say NO!" and reminded myself of some things I'd like to have time for and the only way that will happen is to stay home and focus each and every day. I am happy with our curriculum and all three kids seem happy with it as well. The big thing I changed this year was our language arts curriculum and we started Rod and Staff. I love it! It's very thorough and takes things step by step. My only complaint is that Virtual school takes so long. I don't recommend taking three classes at a time unless at least one of them is an academic class. It really is alot to do each day/week.

Around the house...it's tidy but in desperate need of a good, deep cleaning. One of these weekends I'll get motivated and git 'er done. Until then, well, it's tidy. I'm looking forward to doing some fall decorating. There are a couple of neat craft projects in the latest Family Fun magazine that look fun. Hoping to make time for them next week...

Some picture thoughts...
I spent much of my free time last weekend completing the puzzle in the picture above. I just did a big puzzle the week before and really didn't have time to get into another one but Joe is all about puzzles right now and he got started on it and I couldn't resist. I refuse to get sucked into the one below though. I had not even finished the Coke one before he got this one out. I'm trying not to even look at this button one until I am more caught up with stuff around the house. I'm curious how much Joe will end up doing on his own. I confess that I did do the full edges for him though and got it set up nicely.

We spent Monday at a free homeschool day at our local science center. I am waiting (patiently I might add) for pics from Amy. These are the only ones I got because I asked Hannah to pack my camera and she packed it in some obscure pocket of the backpack and I didn't find it until the very end of the day.

Tuesday night I got to meet a cyber friend, Cindy from Monkey Boy Adventures, in person! It helps that she is Julie's childhood friend and came here to see Julie and visit Disney World. We met at the cutest little coffee shop and brought Hannah and Madi along as well. They loved sitting at their own table and choosing their own dessert and paying for it with their own money (don't think they loved that part). They were very thrifty and shared a piece of cheesecake and each got hot chocolate. After dessert they played a game of Yahtzee and helped take care of Landon who was along for the ride while his mommy and daddy had rehearsal at the theatre right next door. Julie and Cindy and I also had a great time eating and chatting and all that stuff that ladies like to do.

Above is my calendar that I mentioned above. See how full this month has been--and to end the month we get a nice, calm week! Now I just have to keep it that way.

And, finally, a picture of Joe with his latest obsession--setting up his cajillion Star Wars guys every day in dozens of different scenarios.

Catchin' Up

It's been a busy, busy week and I'm trying not to stress out about how crazy my life is these days. I'm trying to take the squirrel's advice from my awesome new shirt--Look both ways when you cross the road, plan ahead, stay active, eat plenty of fiber, spend time in the woods, go out on a limb, it's ok to be a little nuts. I hope it's also ok to be a lot nuts because I definitely am. Remember that recent post when I was feeling "nuttier than a squirrel's turd?" I still am. How can I not be with all that I have going on these days? I mean really. I had a rough morning with Joe on Friday and later I caught him reading this book--Mr. Happy--I immediately prayed, "Oh Lord, make it so." Joe is almost always pretending to be one of these characters and it doesn't matter if it's a "Little Miss" or a "Little Mr.," it's all about the attitude. My favorite this week was "Little Miss Brainy," that day he got all of his schoolwork done joyfully within an hour. "Mr. Rush" was a nice one to have around too.
Below is a picture of Joe's "playstation"--he had all sorts of things going on here on this board--two puzzles (his latest passion), some lego projects, and of course Star Wars guys. Joe has lots of interests and it's fun to see what it looks like when they all come together.
I tutored at the library the other night for 3 hours straight. I went from a 9 year old that was working on addition to a junior working on Trig, to an 8th grader learning Algebra. It was tons. of. fun. While the kids were working on problems and I was waiting I couldn't help but look at all the books on the shelf in front of me. Below is what I came home with--you've heard of judging a book by its cover, well, these were judged by their spine. The spines of all these books caught my eye in between addition problems and functions and solving equations. I'll keep you updated as to whether any of them are any good. On another note...the junior that I'm tutoring is a young man who wears a royal blue rubber bracelet that says in big white letters, "I love BOOBS," and in small white letters, "Keep the breasts." I'm assuming this is some sort of breast cancer bracelet but it makes me slightly uncomfortable sitting there with this pubescent boy wearing it. Awkward.
These next few photos are from the other night--just a little snapshot into an evening around here. Joe was doing a puzzle...
Hannah was on the phone...
And Grace was uncharacteristically reading a book. The kids have been listening to the Percy Jackson series and that has sparked a big interest in Greek Myths.
I am looking forward to a semi restful Sunday. I was very manic today and flitted here, there, and everywhere all day today and now I am very, very tired. I am most definitely in my industrious stage of the month. Hopefully it will last through the week so we can have a productive school week. After three weeks we are getting into a good routine and I am happy with how things are going. I am a little further behind in Science than I wanted to be but we have had some irregular days that has gotten us off schedule as far as that goes but hopefully we'll catch up this week.
Well, time to wrap this up--peace out my friends!

Sara Groves and More

I am seriously in love with Sara Groves' music. I ended up buying the whole album, "Conversations" on Itunes last night and it did not disappoint. My favorite songs so far are Twice as Good, Just One More Thing, How is it Between Us, and When the Saints. You can also find a lot of her songs and videos on Youtube if you want to listen for free.
I got up at 5:15 this morning and walked with my friend, AnnMarie (aren't all you nosy people glad I went ahead and said who I walked with? It would have driven you crazy if I had just said, "a friend." Your welcome.) for about an hour and a half. It wasn't easy to get up but felt so good to get some great exercise and to get it out of the way early in the day. I only managed to fit in exercise twice last week because the days are just so jam packed. I'm still trying to figure out how to remedy this. I don't think I can consistently get up at 5 in the morning but maybe a couple of times a week I could. I'm still thinking of joining the gym, that would open up evenings a little more. I am not comfortable walking alone late at night, I can ride my bike though. I can't believe how full my days are right now. I started my day at 5:15 and didn't finish until 7 tonight. After my walk I came home and got the kids up, did breakfast, school, laundry, school, dinner prep, school, lunch, school, took Grace out for an hour (one of her reading bingo rewards), went to the grocery store, came home and made dinner, cleaned up dinner, made milkshakes (another reading bingo award), cleaned that up, and then finally sat down at 7. I love having productive days but at the end I feel mentally and physically drained. It's hard being a mom, teacher, launderess, housekeeper, chef, counselor, therapist, disciplinarian, and more...
We get to take a day off tomorrow to go see a play in Orlando. Technically, we could do school once we get home but who wants to start school at 2, that's naptime my friend! I'm just going to enjoy the day off and rest up so I'll be ready for another school day on Wednesday.
I'm off to obsessively check e-mail, facebook, and blogs and do a little reading. Peace out you crazy peeps!

Pictures from Madeline Island by the Amazing Photographer, Gabi!

Love these pictures of all the littles on the couch watching their videos. I think they watched "Paddle to the Sea," at least once a day if not twice.
Love the action shot above--this was the rocket launch.
I think Grace is easily as photogenic as I am not photogenic! This captures her just right.
Above is a sweet one of Steph and baby Sophie. What a sweet blessing that baby is and Steph is such a good mom!

The photographer himself.

Dani spends some time getting to know his newest baby sister. Dani is in the Air Force.
This is one of the pictures I plan to print and put up on the fridge in an effort to motivate myself to lose weight!! Scroll down to see the other one.
The girls (particularly Melody) would set up these little wooden dolls somewhere every day.
I love this shot--Steph was painting the daisy and I am in the background doing a logic puzzle. Left and right brains at the same table. :0)
I asked Gabi to take these pictures of my family, I had seen someone do something similar on FB and love the look of it. Thanks Gabi!
This picture below is the one that helped me resist the temptation for a Snickers ice cream bar. I have really let my weight get out of control again and I am frustrated with myself. I am doing a lot better and hope to have at least some of this weight off in the coming months. This will be my before picture.

Pictures of Food That We Ate at Madeline Island

Our family really loves to cook and we ate some wonderful food while on vacation. Here's just a sampling. Gabi is the food photographer, I was too busy eating to take the time to photograph my food. :0)

School and Life With Joe

We've successfully finished two full days of school...only 178 or so to go...I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...I really can't complain, our days have gone very well. Just long! It takes a long time to school three kids and do it right. I am hoping to get more efficient with our days but I think this is just how it will be. Today was especially long because I schooled until about 3:30, then spent some time with Joe overseeing a shower and chores, then made dinner, and then went to the library and tutored for two hours, then to Office Depot to make copies, and then back home. Once I got home I realized that I hadn't exercised today or yesterday (I'm trying for every other day for now) and so I went on a half hour bike ride. Yes, I'm ready to collapse now!! I'll go to bed here shortly and get up and do it all again--minus the tutoring. I am happy to be back to normal life even if it is busy. I just feel settled for the first time in a long time and that feels good.
Remember how I mentioned in my last post that Joe is obsessed with the Little Miss and Mr. Men books? Well, today he was acting like various characters. Little Miss Chatterbox nearly made me crazy but Little Miss Magic was pretty funny. Mr. Nosy can take a hike but Little Miss Daredevil was interesting. Schooling Joe is one of the hardest things I've ever done and I am just so thankful that he is so darn smart. He definitely thinks out of the box though as was evidenced by one of his assignments today. He is doing Wordly Wise 2 and he had an exercise where there were groups of 4 words and he had to circle the word that was different. One of the groups had the following four words--pair, two, couple, and crowd. Of course, the word that didn't belong was crowd, everything else meant "two." Well, Joe insisted that the word that didn't belong was "two" because the others all had to do with groups of people. At that point he was definitely being Mr. Stubborn and Mr. Know it All. It's hard to teach him anything because he insists that he's right about everything. By God's grace he is learning though.

Seven Quick Takes

1. Joe is obsessed, I mean seriously obsessed with Little Miss and Mr. books. He has a lot of them, continually checks out others from the library, and continually wants to go on Amazon.com to see which ones they have. He draws pictures of them, makes bookmarks, colors coloring pages, watches videos (thank you Youtube and Netflix!), and talks about them all the time. Today, Ollie asked him which character he most identifies with and he said "Mr. Nonsense." Ollie didn't agree and asked why Joe identified with that character and Joe said, "Because I say no to Mom even though I am going to do what she asked me to do anyway." I think it is this kid's life ambition to drive me to the loony bin!!!

2. On another note, when asked what character he thinks I am most like he said, "Little Miss Busy." I couldn't agree more.

3. Speaking of busy, I have managed to procrastinate school prep for weeks and now I have one day to pull it all together so that we can start school on Tuesday. This evening I went through a lot of stuff and sort of organized the school area and separated out each child's books. Tomorrow I need to do some planning for the first few weeks and think through my expectations for each child each day. I also need to update chore charts and make some copies and put together some notebooks. This is the kind of stuff that I really, really hate doing. I have asked Ollie to go far, far away for most of the day and take our precious angels with him. Maybe, just maybe I can pull it all together and feel somewhat ready to start come Tuesday. Maybe.

4. The kids got their parts for Wizard of Oz. Only Joe got the part he wanted--he is going to be playing "Toto," and he is thrilled. Hannah really wanted Dorothy and Grace really wanted Glinda. Neither one of them got the parts they want, Hannah is Oz and the Doorman in Oz and Grace is the Barrister (the guy who hangs with the mayor) and the Masseuse (sing with me--clip, clip here, clip, clip there, and a couple of tralalas). They were both disappointed but not devastated and I know they will take their parts seriously and do thehttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6516955414390074761 best they can. Hannah already has some fun ideas to run past Ms. Amanda about being a girl Oz.

5. Remember how just a couple of days ago I basically vowed to exercise for a half hour a day? Well, I have only succeeded in fitting in a half hour of exercise one day out of the last four. My days are slap full but I can't use that as an excuse. This can't be an option. I'm considering joining one of the local gyms as motivation. The idea is that if I'm paying for it I will do it. We'll see...if you are a praying person, please pray for this to become a habit in my life.

6. I'm getting into a new series of books, The Yada Yada Prayer Group by Neta Jackson. I'm only on book 2 so far but I'm really enjoying it. If you're looking for a book to read you should check it out.

7. I got the DVD of pictures from Gabi from our trip to Madeline Island. I'll try to get some pictures up tonight. I have a whole slew of new terrible pictures of myself. Definitely enough for a new post!

A Few More of Hannah's Pictures

Nuttier Than a Squirrel's Turd!

That title perfectly describes my state of mind right now. I am going pretty crazy as we get closer to starting school next week. I am ready for a regular routine but overwhelmed by all that I am hoping to accomplish in a day. My main focus of course will be schooling my kiddos. Unfortunately, there are many other things that have to happen in a day as well. One thing that I am committed to adding to my day is exercise. I went to the doctor today to discuss all of my "issues," mostly arthritis and joint pain. I'm in a much better place pain wise than I have been in two years so that's very encouraging. But--I am still in pain daily--mostly with my hands and wrists and occasionally my knees. I very likely have carpal tunnel syndrome and should therefore limit my time on the computer and improve my position. Right now I am usually sitting with my laptop on my lap. I love my doctor, she takes a very natural approach to health. She said that the best thing I could do for my inflammation is exercise. An hour a day. Yeah, I can't imagine finding an hour a day to exercise so I am going to start with a half hour a day. Even that is a stretch but I figure I could replace some of my computer time with exercise. I got started tonight with a walk around the neighborhood. In addition to school and exercise...I am trying to plan and prepare healthy meals with very little meat and no dairy. That rules out most crock pot meals and pretty much all casseroles--anything make ahead and easy. Add to school, exercise, and meal planning...theatre two days a week, Joe will probably be playing baseball, tutoring, Hannah doing some babysitting, me doing some babysitting, church, friends, family time, and the list goes on and on....Yep. My brain is spinning and I'm feeling nuttier than a squirrel's turd. I know once we get in a routine I will feel better, it's the planning stages that make me crazy. I am praying for wisdom to balance it all. Anyone else feeling this way??

Hannah, the Budding Photographer