Simple Woman’s Daybook

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I went to check Peggy's site to see if she was linking Daybooks again and saw this:


"I am feeling… a bit looney after looking over too many links of late…must delete about half of those blogs, especially the ones that leave me feeling hyper by soo many links in their entries, not-up-to-date with so many crafts, sewing and whatnots they are doing or less than what I am because of all the "showiness"…so, a new mantra or perhaps revised one for my blog takes place…ah, slow, simple, quiet, restful are watch words I want to show here at the simple woman blog."

I agree.  Slow, simple, quiet, restful is what I am after.   Good watchwords for the new schoolyear as well. And we are moving slowly this week. So slowly I am not even properly formatting this entry. : / 

I am wearing….. heather gray yoga pants and charcoal tee.  Still have my glasses on even.  Trust me this is not a visual you want today. The next paragraph explains why. 

I am thinking about….. In sickness and in health. But last week mostly in sickness.   I was flattened with a massive viral infection.  Completely, pitifully flattened.  I summoned all the oomph I had to get more Olive Leaf Extract and Grapefruit Seed Extract and boy was that a good idea.  36 hrs of misery and then it was like the sun came out.  Still haven't hit 100% but I have been functional and productive at least. Some of the kids have had it but not as bad and  this has helped.  Must buy boxes of this stuff….

One of my favorite things….  Skates.  Its all about skates this week.  We live on a ranch.  We have a gravel drive leading to a less graveled dirt road. What do our boys want to do all day and night?  Skate.  Two have roller blades and one has had his heart set on a skate board. That wish came true.  The tiled sunporch has seen a lot of action in recent days. There is a city park near the piano teacher's home. We have been taking lunch there and letting them skate on actual concrete on piano day.  They are a cheap date I tell you. : )   Happy as clams.   Husband was pretty amused to see Mama give it a whirl too – with a helper alongside. (And the gray yoga pant sick-day uniform)  It is possible I may be short of oxygen since being sick…. 

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I am reading….  The Secret of the Rosary and the Crate and Barrel catalog.  Seriously.   


In the learning room…… We are prepping to start school again.   We have to file our paperwork this week and go through the grade level boxes to see what must be filled in.   

The Montessori trays stand empty. We will do something about those this week. Funny, I went looking for my preschool books to have the girls help me and read some of them in the process.  All I could find (since dear daughter #1 shelved for me earlier this summer : ))  was the Hainstock books.  I sat with Abbie last night and read through the preschool book again and thought, you know what, despite the plethora of web sites and resources available, I STILL think this is the best thing I have ever owned.  Simple, quiet, restful. Deliberate but not frantic.  That is what I get from Elizabeth Hainstock.  

I plan to have the girls help and we will begin to restock our boxes and trays using the Hainstock ideas.  They will have to be on higher, by-request-only, shelves this year because look what happened this weekend :

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Abbie, Abbie, Abbie!   You are a baby!  Why do you think you must be upright as you begin 9 months and we begin school again? <g>  And why did your mother not fix your red eye?  

Around the house…   Got four kitchen cabinets emptied and reorganized.  Go Kim. <g>  Now dusting is another story on a dirt road.  It's like shoveling while its still snowing. 

From the kitchen…. cream cheese brownies twice this weekend.  Twice they have not lasted long enough for a picture.  Take one recipe worth of brownie and one half a cheesecake recipe.  Put 2/3 brownie batter in pan, then all the cream cheese mixture, and spoon rest of brownie batter over top.  Bake at 350 til they look done LOL.   I think its like 40 minutes.  Cream cheese should be just golden but wont set hard til it cools. 

 I am hearing….. Coyotes.  Husband called down the stairs late last night  while he was putting Tess to bed and ready-ing his work clothes.  Said they sounded very close.  We have these little fuzzballs in the barn so we rushed outside to check.  

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Sure enough.  Coyote calling from the north lot. They rarely come this close but mama cat was hunting and the kittens may have been crying loud enough to draw a passing coyote's attention. They will test the water before coming in close as they avoid confrontation as a rule.  The dog chased it/them off and came home triumphant as only a ranch dog on the prowl can be.  It was quiet after that. 
We have heard them more often than not lately, though.  Had a neighbor's cow  go down (read – kick the bucket) a couple week ago.  They left it in the pasture and it is pretty much a rack of ribs now.  That must have attracted this pack.  And yes, it WAS pretty gross, that whole circle of life thing,  if eco-friendly. Ok on that sorta creepy note I better wrap up and get to work.  Hope your day is delightful. 

A picture thought I am sharing….


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(Brendan's first children's choir.  Yes he is in tennies.  We could not find his good shoes before church. Shoes, the bane of my existence ; )) 




 

Upside down cake

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With no small amount of nostalgia I was watching Alannah as she lined up pineapple rings in the cake pan and placed a cherry inside each.  It was for all the world like watching my Gram years ago.  Brendan noticed as well and wanted to know if we were making dessert.  I said yes, we are going to have pineapple upside down cake and didn't that sound good?  Brendan nodded and then was silent for a bit. He then noted very solemnly that since we would be eating on the ceiling the table would be like this (insert arm motions of table legs pointing up) and how would we stick?  

It's not easy being four.   

Or maybe its just being Brendan.  

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sunflowers at sunset

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Summer evenings have been exceptionally sweet this year.  The temperature drops, dinner dishes are abandoned long enough for a few more passes of the football or jumps off the bike ramp. The sun, dropping slowly into the mountains, eases in intensity and instead of washing everything out, it bathes the countryside in gentle golden light.  The pull is irresistible. The dirt road beckons me and I walk and walk, no car in sight.

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 It is me and the wild sunflowers towering overhead along the roadsides and fences.  They are not beautiful, as flowers go, but they are strong. 

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They are not daunted by prairie winds, nor hail, nor drought. They are briefly beaten down with the roadside mower when they threaten to overtake the road, only to return again to journey east to west daily in pursuit of the sun.

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I don't walk as far as I used to these days. I am hoping to build up my strength again. Still, long or short, these walks are stolen moments of quiet reflection.  They are over all too soon.

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Our pasture approaches and a half dozen or more laughing voices and barking dogs meet me at the drive. 

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We linger outside in the dusky darkness for a few moments longer and
then drop into bed with that very satisfying fatigue which only comes
after time outside.  It is good to be home.

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"Keep your face to the sunshine

and you cannot see the shadow.

It's what sunflowers do."


– Helen Keller


Reading for life

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Rebecca recently shared her list of the essentials for a simple school year.  Included was "a plethora of good books on a variety of topics from which to choose, both fiction and non fiction, which can be from the library or your own family collection." While I spent a considerable amount of time agonizing over different programs, both purchased and mom-designed, it was this plethora of good books that stayed with our older boys.   A chance visit to one son's facebook page last week drove home just how significant some of those books have been. One son tagged his brothers to list the 15  books which will always stick with you.   Here are two of their unedited lists:


1. The Road – Cormac McCarthy
2. Anthem – Ayn Rand
3. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell – Susanna Clarke
4. Lord Of The Rings – J.R.R Tolkien
5. The Chronicles Of Narnia – C.S. Lewis
6. To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
7. The Art Of Astonishment – Paul Harris
8. Ariel – Sylvia Plath
9. Angela's Ashes – Frank McCourt
10. The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ – Anne Catherine Emmerich 
11. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
12. The Screwtape Letters – C.S. Lewis
13. The Diary Of Anne Frank – Anne Frank
14. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley 
15. Inferno – Dante Alighieri

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
3. Father Elijah by Michael D. O'Brien
4. Inferno by Dante 
5. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
6. The Giver by Lois Lowry
7. The Autobiography of Malcolm X told to Alex Haley
8. The Histories by Herodotus
9. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein
10. Fatherhood by Bill Cosby
11. The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara
12. Blue Rage, Black Redemption by Tookie Williams
13. I Can't Accept Not Trying: Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence
14. The Lombardi Rules by Vince Lombardi
15. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

None of these were really "assigned" in the sense that they did many school projects around them.  Many were on the list of things I wanted them to read.  The differences reflect both their different personalities as well as where we were and what things we were thinking and talking about when each boy was a teenager at home. Their siblings will likely have very different lists. 

Some of these titles are considered classics.  Some are deeply spiritual.  Some heighten social awareness.  Some are edgier than I would probably suggest to others.  All were influential.  Together they likely amount to a substantial portfolio of lit study spanning ancient to modern eras and most genres and they do not contain the sum total of their reading at that. 

It was a good exercise, for them and for me.  They say life is what happens while we are making plans.  In homeschooling, I would say reading is what happens when we are writing plans. : )   And that is a very good thing.  

you say tomato, I say…

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Me:  Brendan, let's go now.  Go get your jammies.  

Brendan: You know the B_______'s (insert our favorite Buckeye family's name ; ))  say pa-JAH-mas, Mom.  Like they get on their paJAAAHma's at nighttime.  

Me: Yes, Brendan you've mentioned that.  (about two dozen times since we visited them!) 

We miss you Rebecca!  

awesome

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Asher shared this video with me last night.   I am not a big youtube-er so the rest of the planet may have already seen it.  If you haven't however it is beautiful.  Reminds me of both Waldorf chalkboard artists and Waldorf figure drawing methods in a way since she had to create the forms in the negative – something I could not master.  

Simple Woman’s Daybook August 10, 2009

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Monday December 29, 2008

(Please visit Peggy's site to participate in the Simple Woman's Daybook project. She is on sabbatical this week)

Outside
my window…. Sunny and hazy today but this summer has been cooler than usual.  By the wee morning hours the breeze ruffles the bedroom curtains causing us to bury a little deeper into the comforters. Perfect sleeping weather!  What else?  There are some giggling children under the tree watching their sister try to build a swing. They have a bird feeder they are hanging next.  Asher's car is disappearing down the dirt road taking little boys to the bookmobile – highlight of our week I tell you.  God bless the bookmobile.

I
am thinking….about how different life is these days from those gone by.  Still busy, still full.  Perhaps more of both of those things. But it is peaceful. Husband says it is that margin and he wants to zealously guard that this school year.   He is right.  We have no meetings, no outside commitments besides piano, no compelling interests outside these walls and each other and it has been sheer bliss.

I am thankful for… home improvement. And it is vastly improved this summer! Dh fixed the cheapie sewing machine so we can zig zag and sew knits again. (old machine does not like to do that) He also got the printer up and running again at least in grayscale so Montessori cards and file games are in the works.  We have a new roof.  The children and I painted the outside trim.  We ripped up nasty bedroom carpeting.  Allen and the boys tore down an ancient metal shed.  I am thankful for the stamina to participate.  It is a gift.

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I am thankful we got to watch Aidan serve his first mass. It has been a year of preparation.  Lots and lots of latin memorization. Lots of reverent watching from the front pew. Lots of anticipation. Grace all over.

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From
the learning room… Its quiet back there lol!  There are signs of the new year approaching however.  We have grade level boxes coming together.  I am removing the grade level books from the shelves and getting them all collected.  This leaves more room for the things we use daily.

The Montessori books are dusted off and new supply lists are in progress. Tess is the Montessori poster child.  She and Brendan have been enjoying lots of practical life work this summer. Table setting is a hit and they are carefully transferring glasses and plates and napkins each evening.

Kieran has finished a test run of the first chapter of his new history program.  He is accelerated though he has not skipped a subject or grade.  I was not certain he was ready for the next level of history.  It involves completing outline summaries and mapmaking. The whole finding data from the text thing seemed like it would be over his head.  He was so excited though so we had him complete the first chapter as a trial run.  He loved every bit of it and had no trouble at all and told his dad all about the people and places he read about at dinner.  So much for dead textbooks.

Aidan picked up a Dover coloring book – Rocky Mountain Animals and Plants – at Garden of the Gods last week along with a new box of colored pencils.  I wish I could afford some nicer pencils but little people have a tendency to let them drop or to pound on invisible drums with them.  For that reason Crayola and I are tight. : )   This is the time of year to stock up on school supplies even if you homeschool.  You can't pass up 28cent crayon boxes and stacks of composition books.

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From the kitchen… It's quiet in here too!  Iced tea and homemade spaghetti sauce are in the fridge. The last of the oatmeal cookies were finished last night. A cooler is ready to pack for piano lessons.

I am wearing… Christopher and Banks denim skirt. (thrifted – woo hoo!) Rose colored tee. Silver knot earrings. Sandals.

I am creating…a home.  The downstairs is in the pink again – literally.  I touched up all the walls in the kitchen, dining room and hall. After much thought about repainting another color we decided it was much easier to just go over in the same color since the ceilings are all 9-10 ft and they are painted the same color. So its all very, very rosy pink.  But not smudged or chipped.

I am creating skirts and dresses for daughters.
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I
am going… to take four children to piano lessons and hopefully to pick up yet more fabric. Groceries must happen. Lunch at the park in between if we are lucky. 

I am reading… I finished The Masterful Monk and was sorry to see it end.  So sorry we bought Colin the entire set of the series and he promised me I can borrow them. : )  The  Shadow on the Earth required some fortitude to get through the early chapters due to the British lingo and the metaphorical style.  This second title went much more smoothly.  I was totally drawn in to the characters and their struggle with the big issues.  

I
am hoping… my husband loves his new local job.  We are so grateful to him for making that move! 

I am hearing… Beautiful Dreamer on the piano in the other room.  I never tire of hearing that piano.

One of my favorite things… a baby who is crawling with record speed, cutting top teeth, and experimenting with new gurgly, growly sounds.  She is a momma's girl and that is just fine by me. : ) 

A
few plans for the rest of the week…  empty school crates and begin to refill them.  Make file folder games for Brendan and Kieran.  I have a new dress/top pattern for the little girls and a skirt pattern Moira wants to try.  Weekend Sewing is on my kitchen island….

Here is a picture thought I am sharing…
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Family and reunion

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The past few weeks have been such a blessing to our family.   The day after Allen and the boys returned from camp we drove to Denver to pick up Zach and Anna, whom he had brought home to meet the family. They had a whirlwind week which included a 13 mile hike to the top of Pike's Peak.  

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Anna discovered there is always something fun, fast, loud, and/or messy happening around here, although none of it phased her in the least. 

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not even wet dog chasing along

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 shared flowers were delightful, even if shared stomach virus was not : / 

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little people lingering, just to be close by, fighting off sleepiness at the end of day so as not to miss one minute

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beside themselves when he brought them treats from town

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bigger kids game for a little football…..or soccer

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baby watching, always watching

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birthday songs sung badly but with gusto, birthday cakes (which must sometimes be relit if the camera shutter doesn't fire the first time….) and brothers to help blow out candles 

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This is home. This is summer.  This is family. It is good.  Very good.  But it is fleeting. 
All too soon we were in Denver again saying goodbye. All too soon.  They are preparing for the new school year.  Before long we will begin our own preparation in that regard.  But not today.  Today we spend with Jesus.  It is First Friday and we will spend it in adoration and thanksgiving because we are indeed thankful for the gift that this summer has been, for the gift these children always will be.  

Zach and anna 4

Taming the Homeschool Overload – free today

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I didn't plan to post again today since we are in home improvement overdrive. However when I saw the Homeschool Freebie of the Day was titled Taming the Homeschool Information Overload I stopped to read, since this is a topic near and dear to my heart.  After offering audible cheers to the screen I thought I would link here in case anyone missed it.  This is a must read for homeschoolers.  


In this day and age we are bombarded with resources vying for our wallets and attention.  For many of us it is easy enough to resist the pricey items.  It is far more challenging to pass up FREE however. This article reminds us of the very real cost of FREE however in terms of time, distraction, and disorganization. They warn,


"You see, there IS a very real price for the multitude of  "free" homeschool 

resources you can find on the internet. It is the cost of your time, mental energy and 

focus.  YOU ARE PAYING MORE DEARLY FOR THAT RESOURCE THAN YOU REALIZE. "


It is tempting to amass materials and methodology information but far more challenging to really incorporate them.  In fact if you look critically you may well discover there is no possible way to incorporate all you have amassed in a coherent manner. For that reason they advise,


"Don't be caught in an “Information Hoarding” mentality 

Information Overload can sometimes be a sign of laziness. Lots of us tend to be 

information  custodians instead of users. It is a lot easier to just sit down and keep 

feeding yourself information without thinking of how to implement it. 

If you sense you are just spending your time accumulating but not applying, give 

yourself permission to let things pass you by. "


The other especially important advice,


"Stay Away From “Pretty, Shiny Things” that sidetrack you from your current 

homeschool plans. 

If you take the time to develop a “game plan” for your homeschool year, 

and can stick to your plan and avoid the “pretty shiny objects” that are constantly 

coming at you, you’ll get further along than you ever thought possible. "


When you have made a plan, selected time-tested ideas and materials, then just run with it. There are new things available every day.  As Jessica Hulcy once said, 


"If there are creative ideas, they will be replaced. If there are great curricula, they will be superseded. If there are effective techniques, they will be improved." 


That is no reflection on what you own and use today because in the end methods and materials are simply tools which will be more or less effective in your hands based on your focus and your attitude. Therefore,


"Focus on your plan, buy only those products which help you do it better, faster, 

cheaper, or easier and you’ll prevent information overload."


Stay the course, keep it simple, start with the core work, and then do no more than you can do with great tenderness.  As to all the wonderful things you may be missing?  Let them go.  Put on your blinders, smile at those beautiful children in front of you and marvel at a freshly wiped table and dishes drying on the rack.   Leave the resources on the computer, walk away from the catalogs, and get outside for some real life.  It passes by faster than you can know.