Holy Hannah.
If I could ever get near the PC for a span of time that was condusive to blogging, I would be a more prolific blogger, I'm sure. Locating the PC in the family room, next to the kitchen and beside the phone has benefits but there are some very significant blogging drawbacks.
Case in point: this post has taken me 27 minutes to finish.
~Mrs. A
About a month ago I checked in. A week later, we were off to our official start of a new-to-us homeschooling school year. As we were headed to our annual local HSer picnic, I remembered that I should probably take some pictures.
Today, while the world was spinning away with the business of the first day of school, the kidlets and I puttered around the house in a calm and collected manner.
I've taken on the administration of the local home schoolers' email list. It's our primary means of connection and communication with other area homeschoolers. Today was catch-up day for me. I sent out 35 emails alerting everyone to upcoming programs and events. I welcomed a number of newer homeschoolers to the email list. It's scary that this work took me hours and hours. But, I'm also encouraged that I was balanced in my approach - we ate on schedule and everyone got to where they needed to be on time. Which leads me to my next point...
I've taken most sugars out of my diet (fruit is still ok or I'd have starved to death by now). I'm almost three weeks in now and doing so has led to an almost immediate improvement in my ability to wake up and function like a normal human being. Also vastly improved is my focus - I'm able to stay on task and accomplish things. I'm still a bit ambitious and flighty, but I tell you, when I say I'd like to complete the laundry today, the laundry gets washed, dried and put away. This has happened two weeks in a row now and I'm still amused. And it's a principle that I see repeated in various areas of my day. I suspect there may be a bit of a placebo effect happening as I'm paying more attention to my attention span, focus and mood, but I'd swear it's a little less foggy and distracted in here!
It truly feels like summer is winding down. The mornings and evenings are cool and getting darker. Hockey season is on the horizon. There are more jeans and socks and long sleeves in the laundry. I'm looking forward to our change in schedule as we turn our attention to book work and other schoolish pursuits. I think the kids are, too.
As this week winds down our own little world will begin spinning with new journals and math books, official high school credits and homeschool activities. We'll be paying more attention to coordinating schedules and I'll spend more time chauffeuring people here and there. A new season and good times ahead...
♥Mrs. A.
I've been away. And there were butterflies.
Guess where we went?
I brought the rest of the family with me. I think they had a good time.
We even got to see a little piece of home away from home.
And now that we really are home...I get to sleep.
Read more...
In typical homeschooling mother fashion, last week I found myself discussing the schoolish side of life with a fellow homeschooling mom. And in typical homeschooling mother fashion, I on-the-spot dove into an unexpected project. It is living underneath my messy, catch-all bulletin boards. 
In further typical homeschooling mother fashion, I have myself in fits over the little intricacies of this project. It's consuming brain cells and I'm sure my sleep will soon be affected. 
There are 16 chicken eggs baking in there. If I could get the temperature to sit still, I'd feel a lot better. I'm not sure how many are fertilized. We're on Day 3 right now. At about Day 8 I can check and see if I have any baby chickens growing. I don't expect they will all develop, let alone hatch, but the hope is that there will be at least some action. The eggs are from a nearby farm of a homeschooling chicken-raising mom. She's very cool and busy with 4 kidlets under 9. If this chicken hatching scheme works out, even a little, it will be a win-win for both of us. She gets new fowl for her flock and I get a really cool science experiment. If I'm not too devastated after my first go at this, I will probably do it again. I'll just have to manage another very un-typical homeschooling mother 21-days at home... ♥Mrs. A. ...who would be a lot less crazy if her paragraph spacing would stay where it was put!
So many changes, so little time! It feels like 2011 has been just flying by so far.
Today was a March Madness day. My people were here, there and everywhere requiring this, that and more. On top of it all, I had a number of responsibilities and obligations to meet.
One of today's obligations included the creation and distribution of Mint Oreo Truffles. Yum!
The Boy has been playing guitar. He saved up his allowance last year and bought a very lovely acoustic guitar. Since then, he saved up his allowance and has bought himself a nice little beginner electric guitar with amp.
It's like checking things off a list with this kid.
I was all set to call this blog post 'Back to the Grind' but that would imply some grinding being done in the recent past.
The 'official' end of our Winter holiday happened a week and a half ago. To appease the minions, I schedule our school year according to the local school calendar. I suppose it works out well as the school days are measurable in case I was ever asked to speak to the amount of school work we do. However, by following the local schedule, I'm also constantly reminded that although it seems that society is brainwashed into believing that school is a consistent variable in a child's life, school attendance is actually very inconsistent. There are very few 5-day school weeks in the 36-week schedule. But I digress. My point is that we should be back to a full complement of school work by now.
Every day I've been dreading the work that hasn't, and isn't, being done. Throughout the fall, I gave up on one thing after another. My planner pages are blank for more of weeks 1 through 14 than not. World history stalled at week 3. Miss K's math was a disaster that still hasn't been solved. And The Boy Child's science - other than self-directed experiments in gravity, density and trajectory, the engineering of forts (indoor and out) and some theoretical dabble in time travel and astrophysics - has been nonexistent....never mind.
I suppose my point is this: I've failed miserably on the measurable outcomes in Scheduled Paper Work Land. But if I do some careful observation, I know that learning and other valuable work is being done. I just have to figure out why I'm being so hard on myself about the whole situation.
But I've resigned myself to a steely attitude of stick-with-it-ness no matter the cost. And the cost today very nearly had me swerving into the high-school parking lot I was driving past to be front and center at the 'Open House For 8th Graders' they were hosting in the gym. Crossing against three lanes at lunch hour was the only thing that stopped me. Later, I was thinking that I probably won't break Miss K in just one dismal-ish year of homeschooling. It was the thought I had when she was 6 (minus the dismal) and we were just embarking on this homeschooling journey. I just thought I'd have things down pat by year 8.
Sometimes stick-with-it-ness is depressing. But I think it is better than the alternative - throwing in the towel. So, I will look forward to another homeschooling day tomorrow. Even though I'm not having a good academic time right now, I still appreciate each and every day I have my kids at home with me.
♥Mrs. A.
All year (2010) I had a plan. In the fall, I would make a kabajillion little knitted Christmas ornaments. I had my supplies collected and stashed in a bag ready to go. Fall came. I began knitting fiddly little hat and sweaters for corks. Trust me, the finished product is Waldorf-y and cute.
I was so proud of myself for being so organized and prepared. It was very unlike myself.
Then the beginning of December dawned. I came across the cutest knitted snowman ever. I didn't even pause to try to talk myself into saving this new-found cuteness for the next Christmas season, reasoning that I had a perfectly adequate project on the go. No, I dropped everything and set my sights on knitting an army of snowmen.
I created a pattern as I went and was happy with the results. I happened to be at my knitting club when I finished the first snow-manny. I sent it home with the mom of a four-year-old. Feedback was positive. Said four-year-old moved Snow-Manny to the primary cuddly sleep spot in his bed. Two weeks later, Snow-Manny had created a number of angst induced 'incidents' when he went rolling off on his own, becoming very difficult to find. While Mom of Four-Year-Old attended the last knitting club meeting of 2010, Dad of Four-Year-Old was building a little house for Snow-Manny to live in when he was not in hand, thus preventing any lost Snow-Manny angst ridden Christmas holiday nights.
Throughout the Christmas season, I managed to make a small army of Snow-Mannies. I was reminded of Calvin's snowmen when I lined them all up. Something about the arms, I think. The army was split up and sent their various ways as gift toppers and tree ornaments for family and friends.
Snowmen are officially off my needles, although I will be knitting another soon so as to write down the pattern as I go.
On Christmas Eve, I opened a package and found two balls of variegated Riot sock yarn. As soon as gift opening obligations were over, I cast on a Noro Striped Scarf (Ravelry link). It's a simple, mindless pattern, but I am so looking forward to the colour shifting effect in the finished product. This is a perfect project to take along to knitting club as it's a mindless knit - more brain power to devote to chatting!
So that is the extent of my latest knitting. Instead of actually knitting, I have been spending much of my knitting energy in careful contemplation of my Knitting Year Resolutions. I'm getting quite a list: I will be making a monthly knitting newsletter for my previously mentioned knitting club. I want to read two knitting related books to include in the monthly newsletter (see how I inserted some accountability there?!) I will be leading a monthly knitted dishcloth for the group as well. Personally, I am going to participate in a year-long Christmas ornament knit-a-long. And just for me, perhaps a self imposed sock club. I just need to decide if I will attempt a pair of socks a month, or just one sock per month. I'm looking forward to all of this, I just hope I can follow through!
Off to finish January's first kniterary selection,
The holidays arrived - even though I was wishing someone would dump the last half of December off the calendar - and departed with much ado in our household.
Being predictably myself, though, I have managed to pull a few positive things out of a pretty miserable month.
The Most Surprising Thing literally showed up on my door step smack in the middle of our annual Christmas Eve celebration. It was my brother, fresh from a whirlwind 17-hr flight and 24-hrs of travel from Korea. And as fast and unexpectedly as he arrived, he's on with his tomorrow after flying all day today back to his temporary home abroad. His unexpected visit made for a very fun and memorable Christmas and New Years...and hectic. Definitely hectic.
The Most Enjoyable Scheduled Event happened mid-December at my knitting club meeting. I've been trying to pull off a local knitting club with some success. 
For our last meeting of the year, I planned a small Christmas celebration with decorations and snacks and music. There are such a nice bunch of people that attend and they were all able to make it for the party. A motley crew, but it's so nice to spend time with others who make the time and effort to be somewhere.
And finally, the Most Awesome Thing was the arrival of the household's first teenager :-) She is lovely...even first thing in the morning just before opening her birthday gift. I simply cannot call 
her The Girl Child anymore, especially since she is taller than I am. She will need to be Miss K from now on.
Other excitement included a New Year's Eve family challenge of skill, smarts and silliness in which yours truly emerged victorious...with a trophy. It was a team trophy, but a trophy that I can claim and my brothers can't. I'm not sure that something like that has ever occurred before. Pictures forthcoming....after the engraving of the trophy. Told you it was real.
So onward into 2011. Today was gloomy and grey outside. We had some gloomy on the inside as well. I think just post-holiday greyishness. It was a welcome quiet day after such a busy couple of weeks. Although I feel the pressure to make a resolution, I've decided against it. I have a list of things to focus on instead.
Happy New Year. I hope the spring-ish feelings of renewal and refreshment take hold here in the A house as well as with the one or two of you who happen to pop by here.
~Mrs. A.
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