Easing in.

We are easing into our fall routine, I think.  We did get an offer on Mom's house and we accepted it and now if the financing goes through, it will be sold and we will be able to keep Mom where she is.  I am so hopeful that it does sell and also a bit sad about it.  It was my childhood home and I love it.   I can't help it.  But, we're going on with life, starting our last year of homeschooling.  The math books came today and we may do piano lessons instead of violin lessons because they are available and inexpensive and we may also join the choir at church for some music.  We will start 4H classes in a couple of weeks and we may do some volunteering.  I'm sad about the house, but also it makes me feel more free than I have felt in a long time.  I told my daughter that I feel lighter.  Sometimes I felt like I was carrying that house around on my back and I feel the weight of it maybe being lifted.  This morning I started teaching an art journaling class at church and that is taking up some of my thoughts.
With the dissolution of our beloved old homeschool group, everything is different this year, but I am starting to feel like we may be okay.

My son's library list remains rigorous.

This is book research and washed off.  :-)

An afghan my daughter is working on.  

A post by the side of the road.  I remember learning about it in school and what the letters mean, but I can't remember and I can't figure it out.  Anyone?  

The super moon from a couple of weeks ago.  We were on a yarn procurement mission for the above afghan and stopped by the side of the road to get some pictures.  

Finally.

We finally started school yesterday.  It was only a week late, but I like doing things when I plan to do them.  Oh well.  That's life.  What it looked like was the boy adding writing to his day of studying German, which he continued all summer.  Today, he'll add his DVD engineering course.  This is a method that we tend to use every year, because we have other things going on and we procrastinate.  I feel like I only get the top of my to-do list done every day, just skimming the surface of it.  I'll have 10 things and maybe on a really, really good day, I'll get 7 of them done, and the last 3 will carry over, but then 3 or 4 things will come up and on the next day, those 3 things still won't get done as I am dealing with issues 1, 2, 3 and 4, which just happened today, etc.  You see how it goes.  I've been trying to get the people who publish the math book I want to let me have it in exchange for reviewing it for them, but so far, no luck, so I will probably order it today.  I am still looking for a violin teacher for him and will probably get more serious about looking/calling about that later this week.  The point of this jumbled paragraph is that I have a lot to do and when we start homeschooling at the beginning of the year, we start slowly and build up to a full day.

What can new homeschoolers learn from this post?  In Kentucky, you need to do 1062 hours of homeschooling a year, equivalent to 177 six hour days.  In the public school (and why should the homeschool be any different in this manner?)  this includes lunch and recess, art and music (hopefully), library time, going to the bathroom, and school assemblies.  So if you are starting a first grader in homeschool and 6 hours a day seems daunting, keep these things in mind, that your recess and lunch are included, art is included, a school assembly to discuss things or do a read-aloud for 5 or 10 minutes could be included and also, you could go to the library in the afternoon, then do art after dinner or on the weekend, take some music lessons and slowly add things in so that you are getting in your 1062 hours and also you can do as we do and ramp it up at the beginning, just doing a couple of subjects each day and adding on as you go and as you and your child get used to it.  Don't expect your child to sit at the kitchen table and do worksheets for 6 hours a day.  It's too much for the young ones.  With my high school senior, I assign the books and he decides his schedule.  He knows when he needs to be done and he does it.

My response to new homeschoolers is always  the same word -Relax. It will be okay.  If I had it to do over again, I don't think I would have started formal education until the age of 12.  There's a large body of research to back this up.

In other news around here, we may have an offer on Mom's house (pray!) and I'm trying to work out a deal with Freckles so that she does medical transcription and I lie on the bed and watch her (and sometimes snore).  So far, she's not going for it as you can tell by her facial expression here, but I will keep trying.  

Being bad.

I've been a very bad blogger lately, not updating any of my various  blogs.  They are all getting cobwebs on them ... sorry about that.   I've also been a bad homeschooler.  my son was supposed to start school on Monday, but with the visit from his brother and girlfriend and various other things, we did not start school and I haven't even ordered him the book I want him to use.  How's that for starting out well our last year of homeschooling?  At least at this late point in the game, I am wise enough not to panic.  He'll be fine.  We'll get there.  He's motivated to finish and so he's willing to work weekends and holidays if need be.  :-)   Relaxed Homeschooling

The weather has been so absolutely beautiful lately.  I told the kids they must have brought it with them, because it stormed every day until they got here from Mississippi and then the whole time they were here it was gorgeous.

Since we're not homeschooling and I don't have anything about that, I'll share pictures of the giant Mississippi watermelon that filled 5 bowls.  We were successful in eating it and not wasting any.  :-)  Also, here are 2 pictures of the moon, one at night and one in the day.

The next post will be about homeschooling I promise.  :-)

Great Stacation.

Our wonderful stacation is over.  I actually was working minimally during the week so I don't know if that counts but we did a lot of vacation-y type things and we also did a lot of homey things so whatever, it was a great week.  Now it's over and we have to go back to real life.  :-P   These are random pictures off my phone .... babies, a drawing, the dog photos I always include in every post, and the pool.  I didn't get in the pool much during the visit because I was pretty busy most of the time, but yesterday the pool and I had a reunion.  It was great.

Now, back to real life.  Homeschooling and home-college-ing will begin shortly, so stay tuned.

Enjoying the week.

We've had pictures made, visited grandmas and aunts, got to have dinner with my brother (and will tomorrow with my husband's brothers and mom and dad),  We gone to the local parks and seen the some of the local sites.  We've spent a lot of time at home, cooking, grilling, watching TV, playing games, having friends over, etc.  Sometimes when I am outside with Freckles (the dog) waiting for her to do her thing, I look in the back door and think about how blessed I am.  I hope that I can take some of my blessed peaceful feelings into the next few weeks when we are back to trying to get things done.  :-)

Having fun!

We are  visiting with my son and his girlfriend baking brownies and bread and seeing friends and family.   It's pretty wonderful.

Positive News?

I set up some google alerts some time back.  I have been dealing with depression so I set up google alerts for joy, happiness, depression and positive news.  All of them seem to work well with links to good, helpful articles, except for the positive news one.  I've thought about deleting it because it really doesn't work in the spirit that I had intended, although it did give me quite the laugh this morning.  Here are the positive news headlines I received in my inbox this morning.

Mosquitoes test positive for West Nile

Cannondale-Garmin's Tom Danielson Tests Positive for Banned Substance

El Niño: Destructive, but positive for economy, farming

Woods at Wyndham 'would be positive chaos'

Stray kitten in East Haven tests positive for rabies

FOX CT

  

Truck driver tested positive for meth after crash

Not quite what I had intended when I set it up.  :-)

A little less whiny today.

Maybe it was watching 4 hours of Gilmore Girls last night ( I really love that show that we have recently discovered) but I am in a slightly better mood today, less whiny.  Whatever the cause, I'm going with it.  I don't mind feeling better about things today even though nothing has really changed.

I may have defeated the wasps around our back door that kept stinging us when we were turning the key, with 3 cans of wasp spray and a glob of green playdoh (to block their entrance to the inside of  the wall.)

I art journaled my first bookmark.

Yesterday, was just a gorgeous day.

My daughter made this fake fire for VBS.  The kids were playing like they were camping out.