Home*School*Home: April 2020

Monday, April 27, 2020

Hanging in Here.

It's not too bad, working shorter days, getting to be home more. I have this overwhelming feeling that I should be accomplishing something really great with all the free time and this conflicts with my need to study for my coding class and my need to play the Sims4. We've done some things to intentionally try and enjoy the time. I'm sure in the future when my kids have moved out for good, that I will wish to repeat some of these days. I'm trying to get outside every day, do some house chores every day, do some studying every day and try to watch things on TV/Youtube that are uplifting and fun. Last night, my daughter and I watched 13 Going on 30. That's a really fun movie and it put me in a good mood for Monday. Hopefully, work will go well. I'm doing my co-workers job all the time now, but I do have hope that that will end maybe in a few weeks to a month. We'll see, I guess. I keep trying to predict the future all the time and, my daughter told me last night, I really need to just live in the present. Wise words. Our state is lifting some restrictions on medical procedures today and so things might pick back up and get back to normal soon. I have hope, at least. Anyway, here are some pictures from our current quarantine life.

Mr. Miller being cute.

A squirrel visiting the 4th floor of the parking garage at work.

My daughter cleaned out her closet and dug out this piece of memorabilia. This reminds me so much of my parents, who had a lot of fun collecting the quarters from every state for my kids.

Cosmo killed his toy and my daughter made this chalk outline and police tape photo of it. So funny!

Freckles got a new bed. It has cats on it, but I don't think she cares.

Saturday, April 18, 2020

Okay.

I'm ready for the quarantining to be over. It's crazy in my case because I have all that I need, I'm getting out to go to work 5 days a week, only working half days and getting paid for full days (of course, doing my co-workers job and not my own) so I should not be complaining, but I'm worried about everyone else. We need to get the economy going again. People need jobs. My oldest son has been laid off from both his jobs. My youngest son can't go back to his job as he had planned to do in April and hasn't been able to find anything else. Our library is closed! Restaurants! Church! I miss community.

Also, I think from what I've read we've flattened the curve and now our healthcare organizations are going to be able to handle the influx. The number of patients at the healhcare organization I work at have been dropping. We can still stay 6 feet apart and take precautions, but I think maybe we're ready for stage 1 of the reopening.

But what do I know?

Signs of the times, I went to an 80th birthday parade yesterday, instead of a party. It was fun. And when I got home, we had new shutters!

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Happy Easter!

This is the first and hopefully only year we'll spend Easter in quarantine. I intend to make the most of it and enjoy resting and spending time with my family. I hope that you all have a wonderful, blessed day!

Wednesday, April 08, 2020

Still here.

My hours at work have been cut to 4 hours, starting this week. I seem to go in there and have 4 hours of frantic busy-ness and then come home. Even though the transcription workload has dropped significantly and the phone hasn't been ringing hardly at all (thank goodness!), cases still need to be packed up and logged out and sent to other hospitals and received from other hospitals and logged in and refiled, which has been taking me large portions of each day. Today, I already know 3 that I have to send out and UPS is not coming inside the hospital now, so I'll have to wait for their phone call and then take my package down 2 flights of stairs and outside. And then I'll have to come back UP 2 flights of stairs. My one already replaced knee and my other knee that needs to be replaced are already dreading it. It's just one adjustment after another.

While I am at home, I'm trying to savor the time. I enjoyed seeing the super moon last night, watching old episodes of Monk, hanging out outside with the cats, etc. It's not terrible to be quarantined with these people and these 7 pets.

An admittedly terrible photo of the supermoon last night. I did enjoy looking at it and it looked fantastic to the eye, but like nothing at all to the camera on my phone.

Duncan, inside of the stepstools we prefer to use rather than a pool ladder. Getting ready to get the pool up soon!

Mr. Miller. He's such a sweetie. I'm glad he found us.

Some art I've been working on.

A wild turkey who decided to fly in front of me on my way to work yesterday. Again, it looked really impressive in real life, but my camera makes everything seem so far away and I couldn't zoom while also driving, even though there was no one else out there driving with me.

Thursday, April 02, 2020

The Royal Game of Ur.

So my son watched a video from the British Museum on the Royal Game of Ur, a game from ancient times, like 5000 years ago, made a board and we played it last night. Once a homeschooler, always a homeschooler I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZskjLq040I

Homeschooling Advice.

1. Try it. You might enjoy it. It might change your life. It might not be your thing, but you won't know if you don't ever try.

2. Find out what your state (or country) requires, the bare minimum. Do this and then with the rest of it, have fun with it. It doesn't have to be all serious and it doesn't have to look like the inside of a classroom. You're at home. Relax. Play. Read. Learn together. Enjoy your kids. They grow up way too fast.

3. Don't let a written curriculum boss you around. If it works, great. If it's not working for you, throw it out. If only parts of it work, use those and throw the rest out. It's not the boss of you. When shopping for curriculum, read reviews. Try to go somewhere where you can actually hold the book in your hands and look through it. Print out a sample day or week and try and implement it or borrow it before buying. It's kind of hit and miss buying books without being able to see them.

4. Find a homeschool support group. Or two. If you can't find one in real life, find one online. Get support where ever you can.

5. Make a mess now and then. Go outside and put some mentos in coke. Make alka-seltzer rockets. Make some great art. Make a timeline and a map. Grow some borax crystals. Use levers to lift things. Make a trebuchet out of whatever you can find around the house.

6. Go on as many field trips as you can.

The point of this blog.

"there is a theme, if you read, you'll get a growing conviction that homeschooling is a lifestyle that is worthwhile, that it is extremely good for kids and families, that it promotes bonding, is a personalized education that is superior to what you can get anywhere else for your kids, is fun and can be done even if you have a 400 track mind, no math skills (thankfully my husband does though), through working, job changes, bad hair days, home remodeling, deaths, illness, surgery, broken bones and various other things and it actually makes dealing with these things easier, not harder, than it was when we were in the public schools, because homeschooling is so incredibly flexible. That's the point I've been trying to make for the last 5 years or so."