Tag Archives: family life

Everyday Bloggin’

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I’ve been inspired recently by a friend who writes on her blog nearly every day about her family’s everday homeschool doings, largely she says, so that she has some record, somewhere of what they spent the day doing! I’m thinking that’s not such a shabby idea, considering that most days I fall into bed wondering if we did anything worthwhile or educational at all. When I stop and think hard, I realize that yes, in between all the coming and going and activities, we did learn a few things, probably quite a lot. So maybe I’ll try? So I have a record somewhere to make me feel better when I have insecure homeschool moments? days? lifetimes? BUT, and that is a big but (ha!), I will have to relinquish some, or rather A LOT, of my perfectionist writing tendencies.  So maybe there will be some sentences that just hang together don’t quite right. Maybe I will overuse wonderfully descriptive words in two wonderfully consecutive phrases. Maybe fragments. But then maybe, just maybe, I could post a little more and then posts wouldn’t be so far between because I am waiting for the perfect time to “perfect” them. Maybe I could get to the point where I feel like a post written quickly at the countertop or zipped off after lunch (right now) while I’m ignoring everybody would “count.” So anyway, today: Everybody felt groggy this morning. I had the worst time getting out of bed, and I am certain that it is due to Daylight Savings Time. Twice a year it irritates me all over again. Yes, I do like the long, bright evenings, but the switch is just hard! For those of us who seem to be more closely tied to light for their circadian rhythms and who work hard at going to bed and getting up at the same time every day, suddenly jumping an hour one direction or another just upsets the whole sleep pattern thing again, and it takes me about a week to adjust. Okay, enough whining about that. Sorry. I actually did get to the gym this morning. Mr. Zeus prayed over me to have the energy to go, so then what could I do? I made it and did a weight circuit which I haven’t done in a looooong time. Nothing crazy, just remembering how those machines work.  After I came home and breakfasted and more importantly, coffeed, I took Hermes to preschool and then came back and started school work with the other two. (Artemis is away for a field trip overnight with her 2-day a week middle school.) We read the first chapter of Nehemiah – we’ve just finished up Ezra, and we want to get Nehemiah’s take on the Return of the Exiles. Then spelling/dictation for the two of them, and then Apollo and I finished up his Little House chapter on The Wonderful Machine, about a new-fangled threshing machine that came to the Ingalls farm. After that we did French together, and I left to go read to Hermes preschool class. This month is BEAR week: Be Excited About Reading and parents were invited to be guest readers.  I read Harold and the Purple Crayon (Harold was my childhood favorite) and The Story About Ping. While I was gone Apollo and Athena finished up their French and did their math lesson.  We had refurbished leftovers for lunch, cleaned up and scattered for FOYB – Flat On Your Back time. And so here I am, feeling drowsy on the couch, listening to the hum of the dishwasher and Hermes fussing about FOYB time in his room. I’ll bet he’s not really flat on his back, but I don’t really care as long as for the moment he’s there and I’m here!  The day’s not nearly done, but thinking through what’s already been accomplished does give me encouragement…and makes me think that becoming a little flatter on this couch would be a good idea and wouldn’t be unmerited. What…do you…zzzzzz….

Lego Winter Olympics

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Time once more to be a proud mama: Apollo the Lego Creator has done it again – a tribute to the 2010 Winter Olympics. Can you discern which sports are represented in this diorama? Maybe there will be a giveaway for correct answers! IMG_8322Which is cuter – the Lego Olympians or their Builder? IMG_8326

Wanting to Stay Put

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This week I don’t feel like moving anywhere. It’s cool in the morning, but the sun is out and in the afternoon it’s t-shirt warm and possibility is in the air. And the possibility I feel right now is centered on my garden and what I planted last year and what I would plant this year if I would be here in late summer to harvest it. And that all feels like a metaphor for the rest of life. Relationships that we’ve built this year, friendships that the children and I have made over various learning activities all feel like good seedlings that we’ve watched grow over this year, and I don’t want leave them. This week instead of feeling like taking an adventurous year and moving to the other side of the world, I’ve felt more like finding the house where I’ll live the next thirty years, planting fruit trees to harvest in five years, thinking about rooms that will welcome my children’s friends through the high school years. Yesterday two of our cousins came to play for the afternoon. It was a busy but sunny time and the boys practiced skateboarding on the new driveway (it’s got a perfect beginner gentle slope – thanks, Fred!) Made me a little sad that those relationships will need to be put on hold, too. I know it’s for a limited time, and long-distance relationships are not really “on hold” – friends reading this and commenting from afar are testimony to the fact that friendships can continue with technology and effort. Goodness, if it weren’t true, Zeus and I never would have stayed together and gotten married. I think that it is the joy this year of finally finding some likeminded homeschooling friends to do life with. Nothing special – I’m doing my everyday stuff, you’re doing your everyday stuff – let’s just do it together. So I’m talking to God about it all – and to you – and trusting that He knows what He is doing and what He has called us to. And yes, it’s all exciting and the prospects of being with relatives Over There and living all that together as a family are wonderful. But still this week, before I get back into the mode of excitement and preparation, I need to be honest with myself that that’s how I feel. Today I want to be settled, to have a plan, to put my roots down further. I wonder if Abraham – or more accurately, Sarah – ever felt like that. At the park with cousins Andy and JulianaIMG_8290Lovin’ the February SunshineIMG_8202 Cousin Juliana enjoying the rope swing at our houseIMG_8247SistersIMG_8278

Valentines

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I love Valentine’s Day. It may have started as a saint day and been transformed into another consumer holiday by American marketers, but I just love the sweetness of a day dedicated to secret greetings, poetry and pink candies! When the kids were in school there was a year that we bought Valentines with a recognizable Disney personality on them, but they left us with a hollow feeling – the whole process was over so fast – and we went back to making our own.
One Valentine’s when the girls were really small, we put a lot of effort into making a Sparrow Post Office in which to keep the Valentines we had made until it was time to deliver them. This was me copying straight out of A Time to Keep: The Tasha Tudor Book of Holidays.
She is one of my favorite artists and turning through the pages of this book makes me realize how much of my life I’ve attempted in some manner to fashion after her pictures! I took a picture of the February page so you can see their Sparrow Post Office. IMG_8058Here is our Sparrow Post office, a little well-loved by the passing years, but standing strong. On the other end is a slot to slide the Valentines in, just like a real post office. That makes us happy! The lid lifts on one side to take them out for delivery. We made it out of cardboard boxes and I recall a happy day with the girls involving a lot of pink paint. I think this year it may be due for some new white fringe on the eaves to spruce it up a little.When it’s not in use, we store our Valentine-y bowls and supplies inside. IMG_8052 Here is Tasha’s other page for February, just for fun. I love her depiction of the lives of children of yesteryear and how she incorporates the beauty of the natural world on every page. IMG_8059As for our actual Valentines, they’ve been different every year, but last year I hit on something that really felt like me: cut out words glued together on a doily heart to make special messages. Yes, it’s just words strung together and I could just as well have printed them out on my computer. But, No, actually, I couldn’t have. Like with magnetic poetry, only in playing around with the actual tangible words would I come up with such interesting and priceless bits of love message as we progress in saving love, you delighted your mom, and how to stop and enjoy. Sort of like the curious short messages on candy hearts – the ones that taste like chalk but without which Valentine’s Day wouldn’t be the same. For Hermes I found and glued the words: that cute thing. To a musical friend, I gave a creation that said moms can sing every day. She kept it on her dashboard for a long time to remind her to sing! For my sweetie? You can share the strong love! Here they are. When we dug out the Sparrow Post Office and opened it up, there they were! IMG_8053 So I think I will get busy cutting up old magazines and making new snippets of poetry for this year. But I would also love to hear about any new special, creative idea for homemade Valentines, so please pass them along.