The Best Laid Plans

There's not much that I like more than to stay up late, all alone with my calendars, day timers and schedules.  I love to use all the on-line gadgets to get that euphoric feeling of organization.  It's a feeling folks, remember I think I've noted that feelings aren't the same as reality, but still, I like the feeling! I like to have a hanging calendar with pretty pictures or interesting quotes or funny jokes.  I like to have a purse sized calendar to carry around and write stuff in when I'm waiting in the car for hubby, or when if am asked to participate in a prestigious social function.  When I get the church bulletin or nursery rotation I like to type it into my email dates reminder, pencil it on my wall calendar and jot it down in my purse diary.  Now that I'm homeschooling I'm in my glory ,blocking off weeks for unit studies and color coordinating them with different highlighter colors. Oh yes, I love the FEELING of being organized! 

The trouble is that right after I jot it all down and the organizational high wears off, I am no more organized than I was before.  I'm just reminded, everywhere I look, of what I wasn't organized enough to achieve. I have great intentions, but yeah, that 3 tiered diorama of the Brazilian rain forest is just not going to happen in real life. You see, it requires rounding up items and things and stuff and well, somehow that little activity never gets scheduled into my calendars. I also forget to foresee the unexpected, and my motto in life really should be "Expect the Unexpected".  Though I know things are going to come up to throw my schedule off course,  yetI never leave any lee way on the calendar for that fact.  So there it is, lack of organization and unforeseeable events are my greatest nemesis. 

In keeping with my greatest joy, I PLAN to overcome these little foibles of mine. Just yesterday I blocked off a whole week in February as a catch up week.  I know! Aren't I smart! That, and I found out from the first 4 months of homeschooling that there is no way on earth I'll ever finish everything I'd like to, so maybe it's ok to plan a little more realistically for the next 3 months or so.  Also, I'm only planning specific things 3 in advance.  This gives enough time for me to gather the supplies necessary, but it's not so far in the future that I'll have to revamp the entire year if things go awry, for whatever reason.  See, I'm expecting the unexpected.

Those of you who have been homeschooling for some time, or have been teachers or have had grown up jobs of any kind will be rolling your eyes at me right now and saying, "well duh!".  But for me this is a breakthrough.  I'm learning to face my life as it is, not just as I wish it was.  I'm learning to accept the fact that needing to catch up, take breaks and goof off now and then is normal, and ok, and should be part of the routine.  I'm learning that I'm not a failure if I don't tick everything off the list ( btw, I've never even come close to being able to do this with even a grocery list! I've just felt bad about the inevitable failure pretty much all my life ~ how is it that I'm just coming to grips with reality now?!!!).  I guess what I'm all in a dither about, is that I'm learning to have high expectations for myself and for others, and then the next step is allowing some grace when things don't go as expected.  I've heard it said that way up high is where we set our expectations and way down low is reality and what's left in the middle is disappointment.  I think that is a sad way to look at life, yet accurate as far as my experiences have taught me.  But that disappointment can be changed to blessing when I consider grace as the object lesson of the experience.  To accept failure and learn from it and remember that life is messy and muddled and rarely fits in my calendar boxes and to be ok with it and adapt is such a freeing skill.  One that I plan to hone and refine.  Now let me get a pen and schedule in some honing and refining time!

Up, Down, Up, Down

Yeesh, talk about a bummer post yesterday.  All I could focus on yesterday was my negative feelings.  I felt like I was chained down under their weight with no hope of getting out from under them.  What a yucky feeling, and how horrible for the people around me.  I struggle with keeping my feelings at bay.  When I'm up I'm up, when I'm down, I'm down, and when I'm only half way up.... well actually that pretty much never happens, I'm usually one or the other.  Over the years I've learned that feelings are just feelings and I don't have to let them control my actions or words, but that is easier said than done.  Feelings are such tricksters, whatever feeling I have at the moment seems so real and like it has eternal bearing on my life.  If I'm happy I feel like nothing could ever go wrong ever again, and I feel like I have it all together and like I'll never be sad again.  When I'm down and out I feel like nothing will ever be good in my life again and why even bother to try to see the positive things.  It is a vicious cycle, and actually quite exhausting.  I take vitamins to help combat the peeks and valleys and to try to keep my emotions more hilly and less mountainous.  I try to get enough sleep, but my self discipline really lacks in this area.  I try to read the Word and remember that life isn't just about me and my particular mood.  And last of all, though I should really make this my first defense, I count my blessings.  There are so many that I can't even get to the end of them all before I start to feel better and see my life from a new perspective.  Here are some of the blessings that make me smile each day...

Healthy, Easy Going Kids

Messes Creativity All Around Me

A Close Knit Family

Life Long Friends

Warm Clothes

Yummy Food

A Vibrant Heritage

Countless Luxuries

Unconditional Love

Help and Encouragement From Loved Ones

 

To name just a few.  There I feel better now.

Avoiding

Boy, I sure haven't been blogging like I used to.  Just reading other people's blogs exhausts me and I put off writing posts because I feel like I have nothing worthwhile to post about.  I muddle through each day, trying to keep order in our little world, but I feel lost in the little things. 

I don't post that my favorite thing to do each day is laundry.  Having done laundry at laundromats since May I actually like doing laundry in my own house right now, but who posts about that? Maybe if I made my own laundry soap or used essential oils and some ingenious natural product as fabric softener, but no one posts their love for doing laundry. 

I don't post that doing dishes is the worst part of my day.  Of course it is! Everyone hates doing dishes.  I'm just in the throws of renovating my kitchen, and therefore do not have a kitchen sink, so I have to do dishes the old fashioned way, with a basin of heated water.  I don't post about this because I've been doing it for a month now and good grief we should have gotten our sink in by now don't you think? So until the big news comes that our kitchen is done and I can post a picture of our sparkly new sink, I really have nothing to blog about.

I don't post that I'm fearful that I'm not paying enough attention to my kids' homeschooling.  We do a bit of this and that here and there, but it's not the structured routine that I had in my head in Sept.  Yes the kids are progressing with their reading and I'm comfortable where they are at with their counting and number recognition, but maybe I'm to comfortable.  If I was more ambitious I could be doing nifty crafts and games with them every day.  Instead I just let them play with their toys and with each other.  I'm not even enforcing the get outside everyday rule! Gasp!

I think I'm just avoiding the accountability that blogging enforces.  I avoid telling the world that I'm going to do something until I actually have pictures to post of what it is that I've done and it should be pretty terrific and there shouldn't be any messy piles in the background of the pictures.  After all, what is a blog post with out pictures to prove what a great job I'm doing? Therefore since there are messy piles everywhere I look, there are no pictures, ergo no posts. 

Instead I talk to My Five each day, I check FB statuses a few times a day, I return emails if I have some and I pick at my house work and school activities.  The biggest events in my day include Swiffering my floor with Slipper Genies attached to my feet, pouring my favorite fabric softener into my sweet washing machine, and planning the big trek to town complete with menu and list compatible with the isles of the grocery store (where I shall buy paper plates and plastic cutlery, non organic chemical laden machine made cookies).

Late for Advent

We made an Advent calendar today and opened the first 2 packages.  Better late than never I guess.  It is not glamorous but it should do the trick.  It's made of  cling wrap, left over wrapping ribbon, some sweets we scrounged up and some post it notes.  Each day the kids get either a Werther's candy or 3 mini marshmallows (they alternate each day) and a note with an instruction to do something to enjoy the season. It kind of looks like white and gold sausage links :o)

Here are the activities I wrote in each one:

1. Enjoy a Werthers candy and give your mommy a kiss
2. Make a snow angel
3. Make paper snow flakes to decorate your room and our windows
4. Enjoy the Parade of Lights (our home town Christmas parade)
5. Search for things in the Christmas See What I See book (we'll be traveling that day, so I wanted something they could do in the car).
6. Sip hot chocolate with marshmallows
7. Help decorate the house for Christmas (we'll be doing this at my Grandma's house so we'll see what she has in mind).
8. Help with Christmas Baking
9. Sing as many Christmas carols as you know
10. Build a Snowman
11. Make an ornament for the tree
12. Drink some egg nog
13. Set up our Christmas town
14. Set up Nativity scene
15. Deliver Christmas Cards
16. Act out the Christmas Story
17. Light candles and pray for friends & family
18. Make ice sculpture sun catchers
19. Build ginger bread houses/men
20. Watch a Christmas Classic
21. Go skating
22. Drive around and see the lights
23. Go tobogganing
24. Open one small present
25. Read the Christmas story

Some of these may need to be saved and done on days that are more convenient.  If the snow doesn't work to build a snowman we'll have to do it another day.  I'm excited to see if we can get all these events done in 23 more days.  It should be fun.  Now I'm off to take a picture of a snow angel...

Lookin' Good

We have a few things left to do on our house, but here is a look at some of the progress...

Before

Before

After

Unit Studies

So I'm a newbie at this whole homeschooling thing and I've recently found something that I really like (all you seasoned homeschoolers can roll your eyes if you want) it is The Unit Study. 

Yep, I was browsing on my favorite homeschool blog and by following a rabbit trail I found Homeschool Share and I feel like I hit the jack pot!  I've been trying to decide how to incorporate a little bit of each subject each day and keep it light and fun and avoid the feeling of drudgery.  My kids love to read books and have books read to them. Studying one specific book all week and basing lessons upon that specific story keeps them interested no matter what subject we're covering. I'm still trying to get the hang of Lapbooks, but I feel like I've found something to keep me moving forward with our fledgling attempts at "school".  I keep getting advised to take it easy, keep it simple, teach to the heart, and so on.  I'm wondering if I might be taking it to easy and slacking off.  It's easy to let school slide when you do it at home, and with us doing Kindergarten and PreK it's even more "acceptable" to do a little here and there with out much structure.   This is fine by my kids, and they are actually doing well and are making progress in their reading and writing and counting.  I struggle though.  I crave structure and order and routine.  Since I got married I have learned to tolerate less and less predictability in my life, but now I'm starting to feel like I'm just drifting along with no goals or purpose or accomplishments and it's a bit stressful and frightening.  I mean, I always have goals but they have become quite general:

1. get out of bed
2. feed children
3. feed self
4. pick stuff up
5. put stuff away
6. clean stuff up
7. move stuff around randomly if you don't know where to put it.
8. feed people again
9. catch up on the news Face Book
10. talk to my 5 on the phone
11. feed people again.
12. get children back into bed
13. get self to bed before a new day dawns.

These unit studies give me a  way to get focused.  We can do school in a way that I actually enjoy and relate to.  I'm so thankful that I live in the information age or I'd be lost. 

This past week we did a Unit Study on Boxes for Katje by Candace Flemming.  We read the book each school day.  Through the week we made a box for Operation Christmas Child, we planted a bulb (An Amaryllis not a tulip), colored the Dutch flag and looked at traditional clothing and other symbols of Holland.  In between all the fun stuff we squeezed in the usual stuff (printing, phonics, counting/grouping, cooking, cleaning, etc).  The week before we studied Johnny Appleseed by Reeve Lindburgh.  We counted apple seeds daily, sang the prayer, watched the Disney Tall Tales excerpt about Johnny Appleseed, did an art project on the changing seasons and apple trees, colored a facts booklet about apples, had an apple tasting and finally ate apple crisp. 
Next week we are going to examine pioneer life with The Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall
I've chosen our books based on the season, and have tried to order them from the library well in advance so we have them when we are ready to study them.

Our lap books are a bit sloppy.  I'm hoping to learn a bit more about what other people do to keep theirs from looking like the photocopier threw up into a file folder and then my kids scribbled on it. Until then, I'm happy to have a record of our weekly progress, so I'll keep the lap book in what ever form it comes.
So that's what we've been up to this week and last, and I'll try to post a bit more about our special projects as we go.

Trying Not To Forget

Making Poppies: Silk Flower Petals, Black Adhesive Velcro Dots.  Stick the petals together with velcro dots, one on each side.  Stick poppies in hair or on fleece/wool clothing

While we made these I found myself saying that we need to take time to remember the soldiers who gave their lives for our freedom.  My words were met with blank stares.  I started to panic because I was at a loss as to how to explain the valor, honor and sacrifice that was symbolized in our floppy little poppies.  Will our children grow up to have those values? Do we have them?  My Grandpa's generation is very different from mine, they grew up with very little and were still willing to give everything.  They know how to share,how to work hard, how to do without, and how to tough it out. Do we?  Will we be able to teach our children how?  I worry about this, and then take a breath and realize that they won't truly get it, just like I don't truly get it, but we can still pause and appreciate what was done on our behalf.  As I grow older I understand more about what sacrifices were made to keep our countries secure and free.  I know that is was horrific, messy, full of grey areas and darkness pierced with the light of measureless heroism and courage.  I didn't understand until... well, did I understand it until now, as I reflect and type, do I really understand it even now? I can't expect my kids to comprehend what I am still learning about.  I can make time to  "remember" and reflect each year and through the year with them.  Starting small with floppy poppies and talking about Flanders Field and standing at attention while we sing O Canada. Eventually, I hope, we will learn to share, work hard, appreciate what we  have and be generous to others who may be toughing it out.

Grandpa Al & Dade

Halloween Past

2005 ~ The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

Captain Dade Peg-Leg McKenzie*

2006 ~ Carpenter Dade

2007 ~ Pig Dade & Sheep Ma-a-a-a-tia

2008 ~ Cow Dade & Penguin Matia

2009 ~ Batman & Ballerina

2010 ~ Ballerina, Bumble Bee & Batman

 I'm missing 2005, because it was pre-digital, but Dade was a peg legged pirate, arrrrrrr!*

*Hey! Look what I found!

Crazy Hair Day

We had Crazy Hair night at AWANA last week.

Jenny Jenkins

Oh What will you wear?

Oh My Dear, Oh My Dear

Oh What will you wear? Jenny Jenkins!

I don't care what I wear,

But I won't go bare!

I'll buy me a fol-de-rol-dy, til-de-tol-dy

Seek-a-double, use-a-cause-a,

roll-a-find-me

Roll, Jennie Jenkins, roll.