It's over.

My mom has gone to heaven today.  Continued prayers please.

Not going well.

Things are not going well for us at the nursing home.  We have more bad news each day and we've had to call and speak with mom's brothers and sisters and tell them how bad it is now.  Each day this week, mom has lost ground and gotten weaker, despite excellent nursing care and the doctor seeing her every day.  Prayers please.

Crazy roller coaster.

We're on one of the parts of the roller coaster of life, where you just feel like you may lose your lunch, or worse.  Mom is in the nursing home but is not doing well.  The doctor calls me pretty much every night with bad reports.  She doesn't want to eat or drink, she's agitated, she's upset.  I knew that she would be agitated and upset with this move, as with any move, because she doesn't know the people and the building is unfamiliar.  I hope that will resolve and she will settle in.  The eating and drinking has been an ongoing thing and apparently is characteristic of the end-stages of Alzheimer's disease.  My husband and I were talking last night and I realized that I've known she's had this at least since 2003, so 13 years.  That's longer than most people live with the disease.  So, needless to say, we are having some really hard times here and would appreciate prayers and warm thoughts.

On the other hand, we have kids who are thriving and growing and doing things and we are happy about all of those things.  My daughter is doing very well with the little store we are selling art in and in orders that we get from posts on Facebook about our booth at the store.  She is doing well with the job duties at the store and the cash register/computer tasks and it is awesome.  I'm very happy she's doing so well   Youngest son graduated last weekend, and this past weekend, turned 18 and yesterday, got his driver's permit and drove for the first time.  Milestones, good things all.

I am up, down, up, down throughout the day, but I think I am calmer with mom at the new place.  There is a little bit of peace knowing that she is getting the best care possible and that we personally don't need to drive there to make sure that she eats.  So that's something.  I guess.  Requesting continued warm thoughts and prayers as we try to navigate the end stages of this horrible (beyond words) disease and at the same time try to celebrate milestones with our kids.   I'm also sad about the recent bad news from Orlando, but the truth is, other than a few prayers here and there for the families, I haven't spared them a lot of my thoughts.  :-(

Reba McIntire said it best when she said "I guess the world didn't stop for my broken heart."  It doesn't. The world just goes right on around you.  It's kind of a shock that it does.

Trying to take a mental health day.

We have found a nursing home for my mom.  I know that this is what we have to do, but it is hard.  I am worried about how she will do here, but she's not doing well where she is, so maybe this will be better.  I am trying to be hopeful.  The last 5 or 6 days have been taken up with mom's care, with her falling several times this week at assisted living and every time it happens, either she has to go to the emergency room or we have to go up there and sign a paper declining an emergency room visit.  It's made for a crazy week.  Tomorrow, if things go well and all the paperwork is in order, we will move her.  I looked at my two kids who live here last night and said "We may have to move grandma again on Friday and it might just be the three of us" and what did my wonderful kids say?  "Ok."  They didn't even say it with dread or whining.  They are better people than I was when I was their age.  I kind of hate that all this is happening right when my son is graduating from high school (last weekend) and turning 18 (this weekend) and he might actually have to be moving mom on Saturday, which is his birthday, but what can I do?  Life is hard and adulthood, which he is on the verge of, is made up of things like this.

So today, I am trying to take a mental health day, to get over the past few days and to try and prepare myself for the next few days.

Recognized.

They had graduate recognition at our church yesterday and each graduate came up to the front, had a small bio about their high school career and their plans for the future read aloud and received a bible.  We don't have any kind of formal ceremony around here, so that's the only recognition that my graduates get.  I think they enjoy it a little bit.  They are shy but sometimes having a little positive attention is a good thing.  Youngest son got his  bible and also got some monetary gifts from members of the congregation, which he wasn't expecting but really appreciated.  :-)

So now it's officially over.  :-P

I do need to write his transcript.  Next week he turns 18 and will get his driver's permit and start learning to drive.  That's going to be interesting.  

Pushing academics.

These are the kinds of things I annoy my friends and acquaintances with on Facebook, the things I am passionate about.  I feel like there are a few of us speaking out against pushing children so hard, but our voices are being overwhelmed by the compulsory schooling/testing mentality.  Individually, moms and dads, save your kids from this and let them play when they are little.

Sky candy.

Early academic training causes long term harm.

"Early academic training somewhat increases children’s immediate scores on the specific tests that the training is aimed at (no surprise), but these initial gains wash out within 1 to 3 years and, at least in some studies, are eventually reversed.  Perhaps more tragic than the lack of long-term academic advantage of early academic instruction is evidence that such instruction can produce long-term harm, especially in the realms of social and emotional development."

There's a deer in this picture, taken from inside my car on the driveway.

Educating too early
"Recent studies with four-year-olds showed that, “Direct instruction really can limit young children’s learning.” Direct instruction also limits a child’s creativity, problem solving, and openness to ideas beyond the situation at hand. This is true when the instruction comes from parents as well as teachers."  

Long time.

I saw this table at a thrift store and impulsively brought it home.  We decided to decorate the top of it in our own way.  Who needs lamps or flower arrangements?

It's been a long time since I posted and honestly, I feel like I am wasting the blog posting about my life now, when it has always supposed to have been a homeschooling blog (despite the fact that I almost always posted about  my life more than homeschooling) now that we are no longer officially homeschooling.  In our house though, nothing has really changed.  Youngest son still schools himself constantly about everything.  This week, he's learning everything he can about Persia because he's interested in using the culture as a backdrop for either a game or a book.  With the 2 aspiring young authors in the house, there is always research for something going on here.  Our work also continues for the shop that my daughter and I sell our craft creations in.  My daughter has been getting a lot of orders for her chicken and egg washcloths and last night an order for hot pads that look the same but are double thick.

I have proved this week that I am the second biggest wimp in the world.  I started a job on Thursday and quit it yesterday.  When I was leaving, another employee came up to me and told me that I had lasted longer than the lady last week, who only lasted one day (hence, I am the second biggest wimp).  When I quit, I recommended a friend and she is meeting with the guy today.  The job was stocking bread on the Walmart shelves and it sounds easy, but it is very hard.  The bread company I was working for had 75 different types of bread in that bread aisle and also displays elsewhere in the store that had to be stocked twice a day from these huge bread trays and there was no order to the way the deliveries were stacked, no order to the invoices, so I had to stack and restack these big trays something like 15 times and bend and stretch and reach and it was really hard on my body and a little hard on my brain trying to remember the 75 types and where they were.  I need to do 2 things, get in better shape and get a slightly more sedentary job.  I don't want to be sitting all the time because I know that's bad for me, but standing all the time is very hard for my arthritic knees.

So anyway, back to unemployment.  I feel bad about it, but I really don't think that I could ever do the job in the amount of time that they expected it to be done in.  For example, yesterday afternoon's restock was supposed to take half an hour but it took me almost 2 hours.  I don't think that's a good sign for my efficiency in the job.  I mean, I would expect it to take me slightly longer, but not that much longer.   I had overly loose joints as a child and young person and was constantly spraining my knees and ankles ... I mean all the time, it was crazy...and now I am paying a big price in that my knees and ankles are always stiff and sore and it affects how quickly I can walk.  There's no getting around it.  Anyway, enough about that.  My friend hopefully will start next week and will love it and I will try to find something else.

My son and his girlfriend have gone back to Mississippi and we miss them but we might get to see them again in August, so I am excited about that.  We had a good time while they were here.  In the next little while, we've got working at the craft store, taking mom to several doctors appointments, my youngest son's 18th birthday and then he will get his driver's permit and we will teach him to drive and hopefully getting the pool up and getting in there to exercise and get in better shape and maybe I'll find a job along the way someplace.  I hope that someone comes up to me and says "I heard about this job that would be perfect for you ..."  :-)

This is the best picture I could find of the chicken and egg washcloths.  

This is a coloring page I made to sell at the store.

This is a similar one after I have colored it.

This is a sign someone else has for sale at the store. 

Many thoughts.

It's been storming a lot lately.  

I have a lot going on inside my head right now, trying very hard not to spend all of my time worrying about mom,   I do spend a significant amount of time worrying about mom, maybe half of every day.  It's not good.  It's something I've been struggling with, but we've got the oldest son and his wonderful girlfriend coming for a visit on Sunday and I'm excited about that.  Hopefully they will provide a distraction from my worries and we will have some fun.

We are finishing up homeschooling.  Basically, the boy is done with everything we had planned for him and he's going to keep studying the things he wants to study on his own.  He's planning to become 100% fluent in German on Duolingo and then learn several of the other languages they offer.  (He's 22 percent fluent in German right now).  He's going to keep reading extensively on all subjects.  He's kind of gotten a reputation at the library as a voracious reader, which is a good thing.  I am thinking of putting him in piano lessons this summer and he's going to turn 18 and get his driver's permit and start having driving lessons, so life goes on, educating ones-self goes on.

The deer population has become increasingly bold about being right in our yard lately.  

Since I have been a homeschooling mom for 12 years, I've become increasingly critical of the public schools and what they are doing to our nation's children and I've become more of an unschooler over the years.  I've learned to trust that when the kids want to learn something, they will learn it.  They will find a way.  My youngest son pretty much taught himself how to read when he was ready to learn and has taught himself a million things by reading since.  I participate in a lot of on-line forums and try to give advice and share my hard earned wisdom with younger homeschoolers but no one listens to me so I thought I'd share on the blog.  Here it is.  Don't push them.  Don't drill them. Don't fight about it.  Enjoy them, read to them extensively, take a lot of field trips and most of all, have fun with homeschooling.