Mrs. A: Her Husband

Showing posts with label Her Husband. Show all posts

~May~

Thursday, June 3, 2010

May's calendar page is sitting on my computer desk waiting to be blogged. It's sitting there quite innocently, right where I put it. But it's kind of glowering, too. Glaring it's blogging want.

May wasn't anything spectacular. I'm sure it was sort of indicative if the way things usually are around here. I sifted and coasted and drifted through the days, sometimes wishing I could keep my head in the game more consistently. I suppose I would feel better if I were able to concentrate on the wonderfulness of my kids and the happiness of the dogs and the simple luxury I live in every day. I'll have to remember that.

I started May with a clean house and a new haircut. I had a really nice Mother's Day.

Treats!

I helped my mom out by going to work for her for a day. That was interesting. One working momma meant two sets of packed lunches, a baby-sitter, a puppy-sitter, packed up school work, a morning rush, a late dinner and an early bedtime. Totally not something I would do every day on purpose. I suppose it was a jarring experience just because we've not lived that way in a long, long time.

The skittish white dog got an eye infection. And Mr. A, bless his poor, oblivious heart, learned the ins and outs of dealing with the vet. I think he debriefed for a week.

Niece!

My new knitting group seems to have taken off quite nicely. As I had hoped, a good crowd of diversity has shown up and they all seem to be happy with a relaxed, social atmosphere. I find myself looking forward to spending a couple of hours planning and preparing for the meetings. So, every other week at the local library, we knit. The other attendees have taken it upon themselves to carve out some space at the local pub to knit on the off weeks. Hilarious. And awesome.

New Kittens!

On the home school front, we're picking our way through the final bits of work for the year. Much of the language arts we did was finished in May. We're a little behind my schedule in our history studies and the kids made a plan to finish their math by June 4. Running club finished early so the coach could take some of the kids and groom them to join the local private school's track team. We had a social picnic-park play after a museum program to kick off the good weather. I'll have to remember to have another at the end of this month. We took in the local multicultural fair as well. Always a good time. It always surprises me how much the kids enjoy themselves there even though it's loud and crowded and they are scared to try the different food. They eat cotton candy and apple crisp while the rest of us are sampling Indian, Jamaican, Turkish, Irish and Chinese food.

"Science" With Mr. A!

The Blue Eyed Bandit grew so much over May! She's impressing everyone at obedience even though we didn't practice a whole lot. She's very smart. She's such a happy, peaceful puppy. And ever since I moved her crate to my bedroom, she's slept through the night. That only took me three months to figure out.

Bad Dog!

I was reminded throughout May that I have 'Me' opportunities popping up all over the place. It's a little exciting after focusing solely on the kids for so many years. I'm part of a book club that I love. The knitting group, getting out a couple of times a week for a walk/run, puppy classes. We even had a couple over twice in May. I don't want to call them Couple Friends...Mr. A is shy, you know...but I think there's potential!

June is shaping up: We still have to get the boats out so we can get out on the River with the kids. And the car is having major surgery to the tune of the cost of a week long family vacation to somewhere a plane ride away. The next round of puppy classes will start. The Boy will be playing soccer and I will be convening his age group. Exciting times, I say!

Thoughts On A Conference

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Mr. A and I are back from a local-ish homeschooling conference. I have all sorts of thoughts and ideas swirling around my head. Before I tackle those, though, I thought I would debrief the conference experience itself.

Normally I look forward to a yearly homeschooling conference. I find them encouraging and motivating. I like being surrounded by like-minded people...even if I don't know any of them.

I like attending seminars given by authors of materials we use. It's insightful to hear the reasoning and intention behind a particular curriculum. The authors are full of great ideas and tidbits that really help you to use their material to your greatest advantage.

I especially enjoy the vendor fair. I comparison shop. I'm a touchy-feely shopper so I need to flip pages. I need to check page layout. I need to weigh the book in my hands. If I know what I want, I have no problem ordering from a catalogue. But if I'm looking for something new, I have to browse with my hands and see what else is on the shelf nearby.

This year, my conference experience was going to be very different. Mr. A decided to come with me. This would be his first conference. I never pegged Mr. A as the HSing conference type. I was worried that he might not enjoy the day or be engaged by the speakers. But, the lure of the conference was strong. It overshadowed my trepidation and we made a date of attending together. I decided the day called for an open minded attitude on my part. After all, Mr. A would at least enjoy spending the day with me.

Being a (mostly) confident and (fairly) experienced HSing mom, I knew to get the most out of the conference I had to take what I wanted and leave the rest. I left the keynote address and snapped up a seminar given by someone I've waited two years to hear speak. (<--more on that later!) I made the call to skip the last seminar in order to spend time in the vendor hall when it wasn't so crowded. One of my main goals of the day was to browse for new grammar and science resources. Mr. A and I decided to only buy what I can't order from my favourite HS supplier instead of buying all our supplies. It was hard not to buy everything up right then, but I was able to persevere since Mr. A was Keeper of the Currency. I also like to buy direct if I can. I was able to get our French workbooks directly from the author as well as a surprise treasure directly from the source. (<--more on that later, too!)

Mr. A stuck by my side the whole day. I thought Mr. A represented the supportive homeschooling dad very well. He was a little amused to be the only guy in the room a couple of times throughout the day. In the first seminar (titled: Organizing Your Homeschool) he listened intently and seemed to be impressed that I was taking notes. A couple of times he leaned over and waggled his eyebrows at me while nodding toward the presenter suggestively. That was my cue to take a note. I choose not to analyze his motives too closely. I was trying to be open minded, after all.

The end of the day involved a detour to a nearby MEC store. I'm not too sure what it has to do with helping me feel encouraged and motivated about homeschooling, but Mr. A insisted I needed a new kayaking PFD. That would be the yellow and black bits alongside my new collection of catalogues in the photo above. I decided this open minded attitude thing definitely made for a successful day.

Feeling jazzed about the remainder of the school year,

♥Mrs. A.

A Chatty Blog

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Thank you to those who have emailed comments. I appreciate every one as they are so personal. Since I am just a wee blip on the blogosphere and not inundated with huge numbers of emails, I like being able to reply to those who drop a line.

I've noticed funky, frustrating things happening with my blog layout. It could be the template. I can't read all the HTML and figure it out myself, so I'll wait for my tech support to take a look sometime. THAT will cost me favours. But that's ok. My tech guy is my own Mr. B and he's not too bad to do favours for. In the meantime, I just select 'smaller' from the 'Text Size' menu in 'View' on my browser window menu. Then everything pops back where it should be. I'm trying not to worry about it. But it is bugging me.

My brother is having a baby. Well, of course his lovely new wife is actually going to be doing the work of the happy event. I can still call her 'new wife' as their first anniversary is not until next week. This is wonderful news! I will be an aunt for the first time on my side and my kids will get their first maternal cousin. The kids tell me they've been waiting a while. The Boy is all ramped up to teach his new cousin to play hockey. I don't think he understands the timeline involved quite yet. I'm not going to the be the one to burst his bubble.

New baby news is rocking my world. I knew when it came, I'd have trouble with it. For years, I'd been doing really well when acquaintances announced their happy news or brought their new bundle around. I even managed to get over myself when my sister-in-law on Mr. B's side had her baby. However. Now that a sibling has begun the journey to parenthood, all my baby itch, my baby envy, my bigger family wishes, my pregnancy jealousy has taken a seat at the head of the table. Being a hormonal week for me has not helped a bit. So. Please excuse me while I wimp and whine and leak pity tears for the babies I never had. I'm trying to stay busy and not listen to music or be alone and I'm going to maintain a full schedule chalk full of people because that will keep me grounded in reality. I'm trying to keep all the angry, sad and disappointed feelings to myself. It's easiest to take out stressful feelings on those closest to you. My little family is perfect, really. We are so blessed with health and happiness and I feel rich every day in so many ways. So even with all my internal storming right now, I am remembering to be kind and considerate and loving first. I just have to keep a Kleenex in my pocket.

Moving on.

A particular acquaintance of mine, a former employee from days gone by, speaks about homeschooling under her breath. She's a teacher. Every time she sees my kids she asks them when they're going back to school. Never mind that they've never been to public school. It's a little undermining. On Monday this particular acquaintance stopped by while walking in the neighbourhood and this is what she found in our yard:

What poor, unfortunate, unsocialized homeschooled children I have. My kids are loving these outside play times with neighbourhood kids. I could go on about how much they get out of these friendships, what they're learning, the skills they're honing, how they're socialized rather than just socializing. I won't. The kids talk to me about the value of these times and I'm not worried about the Undermining Teacher.

My parents are back from a two week trip to South Korea and Japan. They came home bearing gifts and souvenirs for all. We are eating up the stories of Asian culture and are anxiously awaiting the pictures they took.

As our last week of homeschooling wraps up, I'm weeding through the Shelf and putting away things we won't be needing next year. I've got a bag of stuff to sell off and other things, like our math box, will be dismantled. This little math box held our fact cards, coin cup, money manipulatives and word problems. I think we used it every day for the last 3 years. Onward and upward, as Ms. Frizzle would say.

On the To Do list for today is a Homeschooler Phys.Ed class and The Girl's soccer game. My scrapbooking project will receive some attention. I have a tentative deadline of this Saturday for it to be finished. I should be able to get to a good amount of housework if the last two days are anything to go by. I'm off to get to our schoolwork this morning so we can enjoy our afternoon without bookwork hanging over our heads.

Have a great day,

♥Mrs. A