Within the Lines

Catching Up

I dedicate this entry to all those friends who call and say, "so, what are you up to?" and I can't possibly think of a thing to say, so I say, "nothing."

I would love to have kept up better than this.  I can't tell you how many times during a week I think about some way to write on my blog about whatever I'm up to.  And that's been the problem.  It's May on the "farm", and I'm "up to" a LOT.  So I'm going to try to do a short (hopefully), intensive update now.

In the past 2-3 weeks, I've worked (with some help) on the following...

     OUTDOORS: cleared a hill--piled all the cut down jackpine trees to burn-- in preparation for fruit trees and berries we plan to put in, removed straw mulch from all the flower beds and cleaned those up, divided the lilies, planted roses, got more seedlings started and cared for those that are up and growing, froze some (seedlings) off  by trying to move them out to our little "greenhouse" shelves too soon then spent a good part of a morning trying to find and set up a better spot in the house, planted strawberries after hand-tilling (pitchfork) the bed, planted asparagus, some herbs, reseeding pearl onions, lettuce, spinach, and peas, potted the peach trees, black raspberries, and elderberries that we brought home from a local farm tho the hill (see above) isn't ready because still awaiting excavating to smooth and prep it, thankfully husband cleaned out the chicken barn but I think I get the goat barn this week -FUN- , cleaned/raked up the hay storage area, cleaned up the dog poop in the yard (which is promptly being replaced by more -- I think our herding dog only knows how to go on the run; our lab cross always wants privacy), I can't remember what else...

     INDOORS:  schooling, reorganized school for the summer schedule, completed weekly to-do plans and menus, worked on the way-behind bookkeeping, started spring detail cleaning of windows, 4-6 loads of laundry per week, 21 meals per week, kept up on the kids' vitamins and health needs, sorted the accumulating and multiplying toys, finished up a baby quilt for my new niece, planned and hosted Bee3's 3rd birthday party, visited f-i-l in nursing home (as mentioned here) while he was still there recovering from heart attack and now learning to manage congestive heart failure, continued to check in with him at home after he came back last Wed. evening, made up a form to help him record and remember his daily weigh-in and diet allowances, caught up on email correspondence, contemplated and journalled about things learned in Proverbs recently -- and other areas as they came up, met and prayed with a friend going thru present trials, went on a couple dates with husband, and

lost 10 pounds!!

By the way, did you see the recent Fox news mention that a stay-at-home mom is worth (conservatively) $117,000.00??  My husband likes to say now that I'm worth more than him!  But I tell him I'd be worth nothing without him making my work possible.

Annual HS Conference

MORE SNOW!!  We left on vacation (4/13) with plenty of snow still on the ground, returned a week later to real spring beginning, but just got another snowstorm Saturday that dumped another 8" on us.  Now... I like winter --- in it's place!  But this is getting a bit much!  To lighten our moods about the whole thing, I decided, "well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em", and got to making Christmas cookies with Bug10.  It did help turn a not so fun event into a nice time.

For vacation, we headed up to the North Shore.  Hadn't been there before.  We stayed in a great Best Western across the bridge from Duluth (in Superior, WI) Sunday night; then worked our way up the coast shore (I have to stop calling it coast -- I grew up going to the "coast" in northern California.) to Grand Marais where we stayed the next 3 nights.  We did lots of beach-combing and rock-finding.  Hiked in to see Gooseberry Falls and High Falls (up by the Canadian border).  I'll maybe be able to post picts soon; that would help make this all more interesting.  We had a very nice, relaxing time.

On Thursday (4/17), my family dropped me off in Duluth as they headed home, so that I could attend our state (Christian) homeschool conference.  Thursday afternoon there were some pre-conference, "Getting Started" sessions that I attended for the encouragement.  They were very enjoyable and encouraging to me.  Not really much help to my friend who actually is just starting homeschooling.  I think they needed to be much more practical, give more direct how-tos.  Met friends for dinner, the friends with whom I shared the hotel room (fabulous hotel room!); we had a really great weekend, eating, walking, swimming, and laughing together.

On Friday, I had to be there early morning for a training session for volunteering (hostessing one of the conference rooms).  Finishing that, I headed directly for the used book seller hall.  So did everyone else, apparently.  You could barely move in there.  Since I didn't really need to buy anything, I probably would have skipped that mob, but I was bringing some things to consign to one of the vendors.  God used it, tho, to lead me to a used volume 1 of Weaver.  I've looked at Weaver off and on, seriously considering it, but not sure I would commit enough to it to be worth nearly $200.  (I realize it's well worth the money, but #1 I know myself that I'm very bad at following someone else's plan, and #2 that's almost as much as I spend for all our homeschooling for the year.)  In this case, tho, I feel strongly that God led me directly to this, made it affordable, and wants me to follow it.  So, I guess we'll be "weaving" next year.  Bought several more needed items (once you're in, you might as well stay  ), hauled everything to the Coat & Book Check (thank goodness for them!), and headed off for my hostessing duties.  Tho it was sort of nerve-racking at first, I had a great time doing that.  It was nice to narrow down the crowds to a much smaller group, and I enjoyed meeting the vendors that were in "my" room.  After a quick hike thru the (new) vendor hall, I checked my books out to lug back to the hotel room.  That near to killed me off!!  I'm not in that bad of shape, but those were some big -- no, BIG! -- heavy books, several of them.  (Note to self:  next year, buy small, itty-bitty books.)

Saturday would, I thought, be slower-paced, more relaxing because I had a few sessions I was interested in, no real buying left to do.  True -- but just moving from session to session in the massive crowds was a lot of work.  I did have fun meeting and talking with Steve Demme (to tell him how much my daughter loves him and how he saved our math time), who promptly wrote a note to Bug10 -- so nice! -- and Jen Ig who was incredibly nice, but I was too starry-eyed to enjoy the conversation much.  She spoke about it here in her blog, and I am one of the comments.  I was thrilled to find a Worship Guitar instruction course for Bug10 at the YWAM Publishing booth and, in the process, picked up some of their wonderful missionary biographies.  And I found a great book for Son6, Dinosaurs Unleashed, at the Creation Institute booth.  A few other gifts and I was done!  Happy, but done in! 

So, here are the suggestions I will email to our association re: the annual conference. 

1.  There needs to be much more practical how-tos for the many, many newbies that attend.  (Miriam Heppner from Heppner's Legacy is one example of someone with lots of practical knowledge to pass along.)

2.  It would be nice if there were some sort of prayer/worship time to begin -- either once, to begin the conference, or twice, to begin each day.  In the mass chaos and high-pressure vending, it would be really nice to get our focus where it needs to be.  I realize this can and should be done individually, but I think it would be good to do corporately, as well, and would be a good reminder from MACHE that God is to be the author of our homeschooling, not the latest curriculum.

3.  And along with that, I could see a real need for some sort of get-to-know-you, mixer thing.  Where you come into a meeting hall and get together under the banner for your county, perhaps.  It's just plain h-a-r-d to connect with people in all those massive crowds.  Maybe if you're from the Cities and have a super-sized homeschool group, it's easier.  But when you're from the hinterlands and know maybe half-a-dozen homeschoolers, it would really be nice to be given a chance to connect with others.

That's it.  A really nice break from the routine.  And now we're back at it...

April Showers

How we do April showers Minnesota-style:

This is a view of our garden taken this past Sunday, April 6th! 

                   and my snow angels...

We're expecting another foot of snow tonight!!  So, do you think this will bring May flowers??

Another Disappearance

A Day at My House

So TOS Minute's topic this week is "A Day at My House", only hardly anyone really outlined an actual day.  Maybe I'm the only one, but I love getting a peek into other people's lives.  I learn, I laugh, I feel connected.  So, if you don't like that sort of thing, don't read this post.  But if you do, read on!  Here is my probably way-too-honest report of our day yesterday.

I wanted to get up at 5:15 to exercise, but was too tired.  Husband got up at 6 to pray, and I finally dragged my tired, grumpy self out at 10 after.  Husband and I had argued the night before, one of our unresolvable, "you said blah, blah, blah!"  "No, I didn't.  I said, blah, blah, blah."  We would look like giant 2-year-olds except that we don't stomp and yell.  Well, I probably would, but my husband is very quiet and wants to spend a l-o-o-o-o-n-g time thinking before responding.  I got ready for the day, started laundry, quick-checked email & weather, and went to start the french toast for breakfast. 

It's now 7, which is when the kids get up.  I get mobbed by 3 kids, hugging and saying "Good morning, mommy!  Did you sleep well?"  Actually, Bee2 just says, "Mommy!  Mommy!  Mommy!"  in her yummy, I-love-you-and-you-thrill-me-to-no-end voice.  Great way to start the day!  Hustle kids off to get dressed, make beds, and do morning housekeeping chores; then husband comes in while I'm still working on breakfast and apologizes.  Great -- except his apology comes out all lopsided like he's apologizing for me being hurt rather than his part in it.  So I, being the grown-up 2-year-old that I am, say something insulting like, "that's not an apology" and the argument delays resolution till later since he has to think, and go do chores.  He goes out to care for goats and chickens, kids work on housekeeping --downstairs day--, and I make breakfast and begin calling kids to the table as I have their plates ready.  We dig into french toast and sausage.

Breakfast is complete by just before 8.  I work on kitchen clean-up, helping Bee2 dress, brushing teeth, and my downstairs chores while husband does the Bible story/devotion with the kids.  Then they all come trooping down, ready for school.  We start school with "clean up the mess in the family room", followed by "sweeping" and "mopping".  We've now covered all the important subjects they need to know so the kids can play the rest of the day.  Not really!! 

Quarter to 9, we settle into the school room.  (I can hear husband overhead, getting ready to go to work.)  We begin with recitation of the Pledge (I alternate beginning with the Pledge and the Lord's Prayer), checking the calendar (I got the Learning Calendar from Rainbow Resources this year that we're all enjoying), read-aloud a poem with a brief discussion to verify understanding, singing a hymn, and read-aloud a chapter from Little Pilgrim's Progress.  I begin this way because I love the old one-room schoolhouse kind of education and from what I've read, they often began with things of this nature.  Ours is a little different from what I imagined in that it is occasionally interrupted with reminders to stop fidgitting and focus and stop humming and "FOCUS!"  (I have an antsy, artsy oldest, Bug-10.)

...I've got to go start today's breakfast.  I will finish this post later on today.  I am going to just add on to this one rather than make a part 2, for those of you who start reading and want to finish later.

--This morning is going much better.  25 degrees below 0 this morning, but we warmed things up by dancing around the dining room when a Toby Mac song came on the radio.

So, let's see...where was I?  Oh, yeah, 9:00.  Well, at least it's supposed to be 9 when we finish opening exercises, but it was actually more like 9:15 due to various interruptions and delays that I don't remember now.  So next was writing.  Most of the time I follow a Ruth Beechick method of writing instruction -- assigning a selection for copywork or dictation and using that for grammar, vocabulary, literary, and other language instruction.  But yesterday's assignment was taken from Prairie Primer.  (We are roughly (very roughly) following Prairie Primer right now to try to teach me more about how to do a unit study --and because we're studying our state -MN- right now in our co-op so I thought this would correspond nicely.)  So I assigned the kids a passage from On the Banks of Plum Creek to study and note the various descriptive words; then they had to list those words under one of the five senses listed in their tablets.  While they worked on that, I took my youngest, Bee-2, upstairs to do an activity from Slow and Steady Get Me Ready.  It was lining up disposable cups, setting them either up or down.  I used the crack in our dining room table as the line, showed her one cup up and one cup down as an example, and she went right at it.  She probably would have been fine doing more of that, but after a couple of times, I was ready to move on.  So I got a counting/sorting toy we have, and started assigning her to put "2 blue in the cup" then 2 red and so on.  That was really easy for her, and fun too.  She called the tokens in the cup "ice".  She knows her colors no problem, could count 2 easily, but wasn't as sure of 3.  We'll work on that more.  Husband came out ready for work as I was heading back down to the other kids.  Bee-2 demonstrated to him what she could do.

Quarter to 10-went over kids work, approved it and assigned spelling practice.  Son-6 went to office to do Spelling Safari online while Bug-10 started writing her words.  Can't remember if I threw in a load of laundry or what, but in no time it was 10.  Son-6 had finished up and gone into school room to write his words.  Then I had to leave them finding things to do from the "Waiting List" (made this up like a poster so the kids can use it for ideas of what to do when they're waiting for me) because Husband came wanting to talk.  We talked some, prayed together, got some resolution, and agreed we would both pray during the day (the sanitized version of what happened -- leaving out all the tears and confusion because that would take too long to write and well, just ruin the moment).  Then Husband said bye to kids and left for work.

10:30 - We are now 1/2 hour behind schedule.  Which should be meaningless because we're homeschoolers and flexible, right?  Not totally, at least in our house.  There are other things filling nearly every moment, not really much for blank spots waiting to be filled in.  Oh, well.  Skipped the talk about poetic description I was planning.  We continue with the normal routine of reading from On the Banks of Plum Creek.  We do questions after each chapter (we were reading 3 chapters today); today, son announced that he wanted to ask one of the chapter's questions.  Thought that was a great idea.  Bee-2 proceeded with her usual demolish-the-downstairs project she undertakes while we are reading.  (Yes, yes.  I am working on getting her to put away one thing before getting out another, but it's definitely not settled in yet.)  After reading, we posted Laura Ingalls Wilder and Midwest Grasshopper Plague on our timeline.

11:00 -- No wait, that's what it's supposed to be when we're done with reading.  Actually, it's 11:30.  Okay, skip science, again.  On to math.  Both assigned sheets (we do MUS), followed by drill (using Quarter Mile Math).  Then I give recorder lesson to Son-6.  He thinks it's hilarious when I show him the difference between how he's blowing, like a pressure washer, and how he should be blowing.  He goes off to play with Bee-2 while I go over Bug-10's guitar lesson.  She's actually learning from a book & dvd, but I've found that there's a general lack of momentum if I don't oversee it. 

So now it's sometime after noon.  I leave the kids playing (after they'd cleaned off their desks) while I go to make lunch.  PB & J for the kids, braunshweiger (or however that's spelled) for me because I'm anemic right now.  We eat, put dishes in dishwasher, quick wipe to countertops, then kids have play & exercise time.  They jump on the trampoline or dance around to a kids aerobic cd since it's winter and they can't get outside.  I check email, but don't have enough time to blog. 

At 1:30, we would usually have storytime.  (Little House on the Prairie is technically our social studies time.  This time is for fun stuff.)  However, I decide to do our missed science instead.  I'm sort of using God's Design for Heaven & Earth - Planet Earth this year and we are on lesson 12(?) re: fossils.  I gathered all three kids at the dining table, then read briefly, leaving out or replacing all the words too big for my audience.  We're supposed to make examples of cast and mold fossils using plaster of paris.  I decide to substitute play-doh.  I grabbed a couple of our play-doh toys, demonstrated, and then let them go to town, making all the cast fossils and mold fossils they could.  They loved science today.

2:00 is quiet time.  YAY!!  Bee-2 naps, Son-6 reads for one hour (in his bed) then rests for an hour, Bug-10 reads for 2 hours.  Part of the reading is assigned and part free reading.  I spend 2-3 as my prayer time, and then 3-4 as laundry, bookkeeping, reading, or whatever is on the list for the day.  Hmmm, yesterday, I think it was actually phone calls & dishes (always combine something with phone calls) till 20 after 2, laundry, then prayer from 2:30-3:30, then talk with Husband, then prep snacks for kids.  Or something like that. 

At 4:00, Bug-10 had already completed the afternoon chores (collecting eggs & feeding goats), cleaned the eggs, and headed over for her craft time with Gramma next door.  She's working on a 9-patch quilt right now.  Son-6 had his snack, prayer time and headed for the computer for his half hour of playing a computer game.  I started on the pasta for dinner.  I make our own pasta so it takes extra time.  Bee-2 wandered out around 4:30, had a snack, and started playing with the play-doh again.  Gramma called and invited all the kids to come over for dinner.

So I had dinner of brats, fettucine w/cream & cheese, green beans, and a salad for me ready around 5:30 or so.  Ate in blissful quiet.  Cleaned up.  Went down to the office to check out the hotel I'll be staying at for our upcoming hs conference and ended up also spending some time cleaning out my overflowing email inbox, while listening to the Focus on the Family broadcast re: homeschooling. 

Kids home at 7ish; Husband not far behind.  Husband got his dinner warmed up while I got the kids in their baths.  Kids were bathed and in bed (to read till 9) by slightly after 8.  Husband and I read, talked, prayed together, and were asleep by 9:30.

And THAT was my day yesterday, and probably my longest post ever.  Which probably explains why it wasn't done in the Homeschool Minute.

Remaining Tags

Continuing with my final 4 tags...hmmm...

I think I'll tag HomeMom because I just came across her blog, and I always find very thankful people like a good dose of happy medicine, that I need often!

Tag -- quiverfull!  She has so much to learn at her blog.

Also interesting -- rashel at homesteadrefuge;

and last but definitely not least -- the one who should win Funniest Homeschool Blog Award since in my opinion she's one of the funniest writers anywhere, not just blogdom, Fish In My Hair!

Gotta go do more Christmas baking and get dinner in.  We are having Incredible Round Roast tonight.  It's an amazing recipe we found online that I will share soon.

Me & My Friend

My dear, dear friend Alissa, came all the way from North Dakota just to visit me (well, and a few family members ).  We had a wonderful visit here and at the lake.  How I wish she were right next door!  There's never enough time when you're with those few people you just "know"; you know, the ones who speak your language, understand you easily -- because it's just what they were thinking, the ones you connect so well with you begin to wonder if you were actually sisters separated at birth.  I thank God for you, my beautiful friend!!