Month: November 2016

Week 14 Intentions

Rejoice: Quiet for me, with Bible and prayer and writing something and planning. Writing morning pages and writing down a concrete plan for the day are still working together to help me focus and refocus frequently thought the day.

Relate: We looked yesterday at Thomas Gainsborough’s Girl with Pigs and The Blue Boy. We’ll continue reading about Beethoven in The Story of Beethoven, and we’ll listen to Beethoven’s String Quartet Op.59 No.1 “Razumovsky”

Remember: I did finally switch out the memory work for November this week. We starting working on a passage from Joshua 1. We kept Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky because we aren’t done with it yet. I added in “Home on the Range” because it came up in conversation a while ago. We live in Oklahoma, and night skies are amazing. We were out under the stars with some friends, and somebody started singing that song. The boys couldn’t sing along, so it went on my mental list. We also added the hymn “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.” November promises to slow down a little from the schedule that we kept in October, so we should be able to master these things in short order and then move on.

Reason: We’ll continue with math and grammar as we have been. And one boy will continue with his study of JavaScript and Electronics.

Read: We’ll read bits of The World of Captain John Smith, Wild Animals I Have Known, Pilgrim’s Progress, Plutarch’s Publicola, Trial and Triumph, and Roger Lancelyn Green’s The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. (Short lessons mean that we’ll be spending 15-20 minutes on each of those, so that list isn’t as long as it seems like.) We will continue reading this book of poems by William Blake. We need to listen again more of Henry V, and maybe watch the movie.

Record: The younger boys will do copywork and an IEW lesson. The older boy has multiple projects due as the end of the semester approaches.

Restore: There are plans to be at the YMCA at least twice this week, and Jon and I each have somewhere to be one evening this week. We are still working on that more rest problem that happens to all parents. We have been tired, and we love our kids and our multiple jobs (paid and unpaid) and our work. We are working on finding a way to keep our sanity while we keep doing the next thing.

 

Week 13 Reflections

So, that was a particularly crazy week. There was too much in nearly every day, and the evening were also full. I hate weeks like that, and multiple ones in a row are really hard for me. I didn’t finish everything that I needed to, and I didn’t read everything that i needed to know. We had a few yucky things happen, but they all turned out ok.

For instance, last Monday, the water heater went out. On Mondays, I have Latin classes to teach for which I cannot find a knowledgable sub, but my husband was able to work from home and wait on the plumber and make a bunch of decisions that would have stressed me out anyway. It was an expensive endeavor, but it is another improvement that will make our house more marketable when we are ready to sell it.

Last Monday, we left our CC campus at the same time as our friends, and we were all headed to Costco, so all my kids jumped in the van with their buddy. Or so I thought, as I drove away by myself, enjoying the momentary bliss of no one talking to me. I got a phone call telling me that only two of my boys were in the other vehicle. Oops. As I rounded the corner of the church, I got a text from another friend saying, “I have your Giant. I’ll meet you at Costco, too.” Mom fail. I actually drove off and left a kid. He thought it was hilarious (such was his faith that I would come back once I realized my error.) We were still laughing when we pulled out of the parking lot to buy groceries and visit with friends.

He was still giggling a few minutes later when we got rear-ended. It was a slow-speed encounter, and no one was injured. None of the vehicles involved had any visible damage. It was raining lightly, and the roads were slippery. I stopped in a line of traffic. The person behind me failed to do so. She pushed me into the person in front of me. It happened in slow-motion because of traffic, and I hope she got her tires and brakes checked so that it doesn’t happen again.

The rest of the week we crammed in a little school around a rather abnormally busy schedule. In addition to the classes and lessons that we do most weeks, I also subbed in Challenge 3 on one day and worked at a new business that belongs to an acquaintance on another day. It was a little much. I am not schedule to do both on the same week again, and that is good.

Week 13 Intentions

You all, I am really running out of steam. The last couple of weeks have been nuts. This week is overbooked with things outside of the house. I’m going to cut my losses and just plan for the bare minimum of lessons and to accomplish laundry and meals and dishes. I look forward to returning to quieter days, but they aren’t here quite yet.

Rejoice: Quiet for me, with Bible and prayer and writing something and planning. Writing morning pages and writing down a concrete plan for the day are still working together to help me focus and refocus frequently thought the day.

Relate: We will talk about Bach and Cassett with a group of friends this week, and that is going to be it for art and music. I am not going to endeavor to do any listening to Beethoven’s compostions or looking at Gainsborough’s work

Remember: However, we still haven’t mastered Psalm 1 or Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll so I suppose we should continue on for a couple more weeks.  But I’m getting tired of Simple Gifts and  Nothing But the Blood of Jesus, so we will put in a new folk song and a new hymn next week. I am thinking about Over the River and Through the Wood for the folk song.  You know, because it shows up in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

Reason: We’ll continue with math and grammar as we have been. And one boy will continue with his study of JavaScript and Electronics. I am teaching Latin to moms one evening.

Read: I’ll read aloud most days from Roger Lancelyn Green’s retelling of Robin Hood and from poems by William Blake. The younger boys will read for thirty minutes a day from books that are in our ridiculous personal library. I need to gather each boy a little pile of things that I think he will like to choose from. The Freshman needs to read 40 minutes a day from Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer if he wants to be able to complete the next composition assignment.

Record: The younger boys will do copywork and an IEW lesson. The older guy has a project to work on, and we all need to add to timelines and such.

Restore: There are plans to be at the YMCA at least twice this week, and don’t have anywhere to be in the evenings this week. That will help my sudden need for more rest since we should all get to bed on time.

Week 12 Reflections

Overall, last week was pretty good. I did make an unplanned trip to the Kansas City IKEA with my mom, and we bought a new bed that we still need to put together at her house, and some new cabinets that were assembled and installed in my dining room.

However, we didn’t get enough schoolwork done. This is one of the only downsides I have found to Classical Conversations. We needed to take a week off from school, but it would have meant sending my kids to class without their work. None of them like that, and I don’t want them to like being unprepared. So, sometimes we work when we’d rather not.  My freshman finished most of his because he went to IKEA with us and had a total of eight hours in which to ride in the car and do schoolwork. The younger boys (who are in Foundations and Essentials) did the bare minimum to go to class prepared.

In reality, we are all tired and ready for the six weeks off that our campus takes from Thanksgiving into the New Year. Just a couple more weeks, and it will be here. And we’ll be grateful for all those broiling days in August when we schooled during the day and swam in the evening. (August is not kind to us Okies.)

This week we have a group activity that was rescheduled from another week, violin lessons, Lion King rehearsal, programming and electronics classes, and I am substituting for a director in my favorite Challenge level. So, we know that we will be having school on Saturday to make up for a fun day playing with Gramma. I’m OK with that. I suppose that I’d better make a plan and stick to it, though.