Reflections on Week 7 and Break Week

It is amazing how fast habits get ignored when life’s routines are broken. We’ve spent most of the last two week re-establishing habits that were broken during my 96 hours in Denver with my mom. It took us a full week to put our routine back together, and most of break week was eaten up doing schoolwork that should have been done the week before. This coming week is show week for Lion King Jr, and I am working on what to delete from the schedule to accommodate the added responsibilities outside of the house. Also, there is a birthday in our house this week. We might skip Morning Meetings entirely, but they will be back next week. Perhaps I can get ahead in compiling a few week’s worth of ideas again

Rejoice: I was quite tired and slept in more mornings that I should have. I’m working to get back to getting up an hour before the boys because I need the morning quiet and prayer time that I have been missing. I need the rest, and I need exercise, and I need prayer. Getting all of that in before the boys get up is hard.

Relate: Jon spent a good chunk of his week working towards the Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism Conference that he hosted on Saturday. The boys and I spent quite a bit of time hanging out together while he took care of that. I went to a large annual local book fair and brought home some treasures. We finished Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library and started on Marguerite Henry’s King of the Wind (aff. links).

Remember: We had three successful Morning Meetings and one in which we all walked away before we finished after an argument at the table. Bad days happen. We moved on into the day, talked about it later, and did the work the following morning.

Reason: Math, English Grammar, Latin all done. We missed Chess Club because of a commitment, but the boys are looking forward to returning to it.

Read: There was a lot of reading. Josiah and Gideon realized that they are now behind in their Million Word Reading Challenge because they re-read a bunch of stuff that they had already read instead of starting something new. They enjoyed themselves, but now Josiah is halfway through Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Gideon is reading Pyle’s Men of Iron (aff. link).

Record: Both Josiah and Gideon finished a longer writing project (the Knights essay from IEW Medievals). Micah worked on a short story, a 1AC about the electoral college, and a research paper about police dogs (all long term projects). I wrote nothing, hence the lack of blog posts. But I did generate a short list of things I’d like to write here. It just might have to wait until the semester is over.

Restore: We resumed our habit of reading at bedtime, and Jon and I have still been ending the day with a half hour or so of Netflix. I have not given myself the brain space and journaling time that I crave, but that’s a work in progress.

Margin Report: We prepared for this week of having more hours dedicated outside of our home by staying home more than usual. Micah and I both wanted more time at home that wasn’t dedicated to work, but Josiah and Gideon need to be out with people more than Micah does.  This is a constant balance to strive for in our house. We are three introverts (who love our people but need some alone time to recharge) and two extroverts (who need more people to recharge). Sometimes the little extroverts have to make do with just each other. And sometimes those of us who would rather put on our headphones and hide from the world have to put on our big kid pants and deal with people away. Constantly, some of us are stretching and growing.

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