First post of each month of 2007.

I saw this on another blog as a way to review the year. It's the first few lines of the first post from every month this year. It gives sort of a snapshot of our homeschool. It's likely out of focus and jumbled, but here it is, the first post of each month this year.

January 2007
I was going to get started back to school today. I told everyone at all of the family parties this weekend that we were starting back today. However, we aren't. I was up until 3:00 because I couldn't go back to sleep after being woken up and I slept until nearly 10:00 and I'm not going to do school today. In order for them to have to do school, I have to have gotten up early and done my list. I didn't, so they don't have to ...

February 1, 2007
It snowed a tiny bit today and I toyed with the idea of giving them a snow day but then I figured with the little bit of snow, they'd play in it for 5 minutes and then want to watch TV and play video games all day, so I decided not to go that route. We're doing school today. I'm not sure if the county schools in our area are closed or not. I kind of enjoy not having to check that (especially since I had to get up around 6:15 a.m to find out if there was school and if I needed to wake the kids up!) Anyway, we're doing school and work as usual around here.

March 1, 2007
So far, it's been a pretty ordinary day around here. My husband and I kept to the no nagging routine and the kids pretty much did their work without us bothering them. Actually, that's kind of amazing if you think about it. They did all of their schoolwork with minimal input and no nagging from us. I helped my youngest with reading and grammar and I helped my oldest with his math, otherwise, school was smooth today. Weird, huh?

April 1, 2007
There is a definite downside to baking bread in the bread machine. For about an hour each day, no one in the house can think about anything except how wonderful it smells and when is it going to be done. Sigh. 14 more minutes.

May 2007
We're working on finishing our study of South America. That Sheppard's Software
web site has been great. The 2 older kids know the South American map backwards and forwards. The youngest is getting there. I've even gotten pretty good at it.
Yesterday, my daughter said that homeschooling was like having an endless campout. I'm not sure what that means, but I guess it's positive feedback?

June 2007
The last few days we've had a cardinal who has been trying to get in our window. He tries about a hundred times a day. It's weird.

July 2007
Yesterday I took the kids to a local aquatic center that has a pool and water slide. I didn't feel like swimming or even like suiting up so I wore a pair of pants and a shirt and sat down in a lounge chair to watch the action. I did kick off my shoes to be more comfortable. I ended up getting a slight tan/burn on my feet and the lower section of my shins and on the top of my head, in the part of my hair. It's very interesting. I guess to even it up next time, I'll need to wear a bathing suit, a hat and a pair of crew socks. :-)

August 2007
I've been trying to figure this out all summer and since Pam in Colorado asked, I'll tell you what I'm going to try to do this year ...

September 2007
Vacation is over and now we need to get back to real life. We took our Labor Day holiday yesterday, since Monday we were at the Renaissance Faire learning all kinds of things. That counted as our first field trip of the year. Tuesday, we visited a farm and petting zoo. That was our second field trip day of the year. Yesterday, we just needed some down time so we took it. Today, we'll start school again. I need to print out everyone's checklists and get going on mine.

October 2007
We did do school yesterday. Everyone got their morning lists done by at least 3:00 p.m. The younger 2 kids also got their afternoon lists done and then we went to the first ever tween event at the library. (Tweens are kids from 9-12 in case you didn't know!) They've set up 4 events for tweens this week.

November 2007
We have old-fashioned TV reception from an antenna. No cable. No satellite. Just 3 channels of broadcast TV. Well, last May, our TV reception went out completely. We decided not to fix it, just let it go. We had adjusted to life without TV, although I must admit missing watching "Dancing with the Stars". Suddenly, yesterday, it just came back on. My daughter was turning on the TV to watch something on DVD or tape and there it was. Now I don't know how to react. I did miss TV somewhat, but it was getting to be less and less. We were all adjusting to life without it and now it's back. Weird.

December 2007
The flooring is about 90% done. My youngest son said we ought to be on the show "Weekend Warriors" because we only work on the weekends. Truth is, I haven't done any of it. My idea of getting flooring put down is to call in professionals. I've just kept working at my job and supplying the workers with food and iced tea.
Anyway, it looks great and I'm very happy with it.

There it is. Our year in summary, Kind of.

Easing Back Into Our Regular Pattern.

That's what we're doing around here. Now that the new Christmas toys are getting more familiar and some of the newness has worn off it's no longer 24 hour a day Pikmin 2, Guitar Hero and skating back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. That's what youngest, oldest and girl respectively, were doing in the first few days after Christmas. The kids have been going back and doing some of the things they usually do as well, like reading, painting, watching TV. The younger 2 even played one of their big pretend games yesterday. I'm off work today and my plans are to grocery shop, clean and try and get the Christmas tree and other decorations put away. I might take 2 dogs and a cat to the vet today as well. I've been trying to get that done for over 2 weeks now. I doubt seriously if we'll be doing any partying tonight, maybe at home. We might just play games or something to bring in the new year. That sounds good.

Quick Blog Update

I need to get to work so this will be quick. The party was great yesterday. The cake was just okay, nothing to write home about and according to the results of a poll of 2 party goers, I did not stink. Maybe it's just children who find the scent repulsive. Hmmm. A child repellant. Interesting.

I'll be working today, all day, so I'd better get to it.

Entry for Carnival of Homeschooling button contest.

At Why Homeschool they're having a contest to make a graphic for their button. I used a graphic from this site and modified it a bunch to get it to the appropriate size, trim it and color it in. I think that's okay to do, as long as it is a public domain graphic and it is.

Here's my attempts.

Stinky and weird.

That's what my kids have decided I am. I'm weird for wanting to make an inside out german chocolate cake for the party today. (You put part of the icing in the cake mix before you bake it and half on top). I think it sounds really good. I'm stinky for wearing the lotion and body spray my mom-in-law gave me for Christmas. I think it smells wonderful, but they don't like it. Not one bit. Too bad. I'm making the weird cake and I'm wearing the stinky lotion. Ya'll can pass on the other side of the street when you see me coming!

Weird Week.

The week after Christmas is always different from any other week. We pretty much let the kids do whatever they want, within reason. We haven't had any video game limits this week and they have been playing a LOT of Guitar Hero. I've been trying to catch up on work and get a few things done around the house. I feel kind of ready to get back to routine and kind of not. I haven't got our new, almost perfect lists done (I always think they're going to be so much better!). I've been looking for some kind of log system to keep up with my older son's units/hours of study and so far, haven't found anything yet. I may have to make up my own. We've got a Christmas party to go to today, and I've gotta work before that, so I'd better get busy.

Oh and for anyone who wondered, older son now thinks his foot is not broken and is just bruised, so he didn't get taken to the doctor for that.

Still in a slump.

We're still in some kind of slump. We're tired. We haven't gotten our sleep schedules straightened out. Our house looks like a tornado hit it. I have been getting a few little things done. I have been doing transcription. I cleaned one closet and started on another. I retyped my mom's medical history (I do one for both of my parents and update it from time to time). I've also been trying to figure out how to do our schedules on a spreadsheet, instead of on Word, but it didn't seem as easy for me. I'll probably just go back to Word. I'm planning the semester in my head and writing a few notes, but so far, that's as far as its gotten. I also went to the store while my oldest was at game night and bought myself an index card file and some index cards. This is my new system for keeping track of all the things I need to keep track of and writing down any brilliant ideas I might have. ;-) Hey, it could happen.

Ah, well, tomorrow is another day. I doubt I'll get much accomplished since youngest son has a doctor's appointment and I may have to take oldest son to get his foot x-rayed. He tripped over his own shoe today and is limping around. We'll see how it is in the morning.

The day after Christmas.

Traditionally at our house we don't make the kids do much of anything on this day. No chores. No going anywhere. They just get to play with their things. Tomorrow, we need to start finding places for those things and getting rid of some of their old toys that they no longer play with. Or, maybe the next day. Sometime soon. I've been feeling very lazy today. I did get up and clean out my bathroom closet, made some chili and did a few odds and ends jobs, but other than that, I have not gotten much done today. I guess after the holiday busy-ness, we need a restful day. We've got one more holiday party this weekend and one on January 6.

Hopefully we'll get some things cleaned and organized some time before we start back to school. I've changed as I've gotten older and for some reason, having a clean, organized home has become more and more important to me. I used to just not care that much, but now I do. Hopefully, I will become a better housekeeper. Or maybe I should just hire one! I really had no idea how much homeschooling would impact housekeeping, from the materials that we have to store to the fact that the kids are home so much. It's worth it and just lately, we're getting better at corraling the mess and using the kids to help do that.