Just in General

It's been a week since our fire.  Oh, I never told you about the fire did I?  I suppose I should before I move on.

Last week, I believe it was Friday morning at almost 1 am, I woke up to my sister-in-law yelling for my husband.  She lives right next door to us.  I wondered why she was yelling.  When I looked out the window, it was really foggy.  I thought to myself, that's not right.

I opened the door and she told me that our garage was on fire. I saw the fire then, just starting to lick through the walls of the garage, just feet from where the kids and I were sleeping on the couch in my Living Room.  I ran in and woke up Greg and then called 911.  I had the kids grab some clothes and get out on the porch away from the garage.  Greg started up our lawn hose and sprayed the flames that were crawling up the rafters by then.

Amazingly, he got the flames extinguished before the firemen had to turn on their hoses.  It was quite a fire to get it out with our garden hose!  I was surprised!  I think some of the firemen were too.  They jokingly offered Greg a job.

But all jokes aside, it was a horrifying experience.  It was all so surreal.

Thankfully, the Lord Jesus was looking out for us.  None of us were harmed and the fire was out before too much damage could be done.  I have thanked God so many times for helping us and keeping us safe so many times, I can't even tell you how many!

So, moving on....

We all spent some time after that re-imagining the fire and being a little scared of another one.  I think that is normal and a process that we would have to go through to react to and healthily get through an event like that.  The kids were very scared, but they dealt with it better than the fear of the wind that brought the tree down on our house last Autumn.

Which, by the way, we had some gusts here last week and I was a little nervous.....

Our homeschooling has gone great this week!  We have been enjoying everything that we are learning with the exception of English.  Stinky doesn't like that subject too well.  But we plod through!

We've spent this last week learning more about Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.  We are reading the book Cleopatra VII Daughter of the Nile Egypt, 57 B.C. by Kristiana Gregory.  This is part of the Scholastic The Royal Diaries Series.  These are good books to use as a fun supplement to lessons I think.  They are fiction, but based on the real stuff.  This is the first book that we've been able to use with History because we are learning History in chronological order and this is the earliest book in the series.

I just love learning about this time period and the Romans.  Also the Egyptians.  Actually, I just love History!

We just finished yesterday our 5 Senses study in Science.  Monday we start Light for Day One of Creation!  We are learning the first half of our Science through Creation.  This is very exciting to me!  We will be doing this study, hopefully, for 3 of our Science years.  There are projects for 3 different age groups.  The book that I am using is called Science in the Creation Week for grades 2-5.

I just love homeschooling!  It is so much fun and so rewarding.  I love having my kids here all of the time!  I am thankful for this opportunity.

New Schedules

Disclaimer: The first 9 paragraphs also appear on my blog Teaching the Christian Way at Home.  I have added more to this blog post.

So many things are happening so quickly.  So our first week back to school was very messed up.  I should have waited to start this coming week. 

On Monday, things went pretty good considering that I had been so busy with things that I hadn't had time to get everything ready.  But I really wanted to get started, so I did.  Little did I know that I would get a phone call that afternoon from someone at the state office offering me a temporary job as an assistant.  They wanted to do the interview right away, so it was scheduled for the next afternoon. 

On top of all of that, my Father-in-Law was also having surgery to remove an aneurysm that was located in his neck.  It had caused a stroke already and was only only about 9% of a blood flow.  That surgery was scheduled for Thursday, but he had many appointments before then and my husband was helping him.  Our week was pretty much booked up with doctor appointments, surgeries and recoveries.

Tuesday dawned and I was busy most of the day and then went to my job interview.  I was given the job.  It's only for 3 months and I have no idea what I will be doing except handling paperwork and filing.  I am not really looking forward to this, but I have to do it.  She wanted me to start the next day, but I told her about the surgery and she agreed to wait and have me come in on Monday. 

Needless to say, there was no school done on Tuesday.

Wednesday was pretty much my last day to be horrifically lazy all day for a long time, so I took advantage of it and we didn't do anything but prepare for the surgery the next day.  No school was done.

Thursday dawned and we were already on our way to the hospital.  We were out of our house at about 6am so it was still dark when we left.  We were at the hospital for probably 10 hours and there was no school done on this day.

On Friday we knew that we were heading into the hospital at some point but we didn't know when.  I wanted to get a lot of the housework done before I start work tomorrow.  I did get a lot accomplished and that was nice.  But we didn't do any schoolwork.

We will just finish last week's schoolwork this week and not worry about it.  That's the beauty of homeschooling!

So today I have been busy getting my to do list all done so I have less to worry about during the week.  I have all of my clothes picked out for each day.  I have been preparing the house because I will have less time to clean it.  I've prepared the school week.  I have also created a schedule for myself and the kids to keep.  We have never been able to stick to a schedule....or should I say I have never been able to stick to a schedule.  This will be quite a challenge for me.  I could certainly use prayers for motivation and to help me keep my schedule.

I will be working Monday through Friday starting at 12pm and ending at 4pm.  I'm looking at a 40-50 minute drive each way, maybe more on the way home depending upon traffic that late.

If you're looking for an online calendar to use for you and your family, check out the calendars at Famundo.  There were so many options to create the calendar for my needs and to customize it the way that I like.  What I especially liked about it was that I could use a different color for each person in the family.  It makes it so much easier to do that.

It is 8:27pm now and I want to watch some Big Brother before I head to bed.  I've got to get up at 6am tomorrow.  I'm growing from Christian Homeschooling Wife and Mom to Christian Homeschooling Working Wife and Mom.  Wow....what a mouthful.

Month of May

My calendar is already filling up for the month of May!  I can't believe it.  I have 5 doctor appointments, 2 meetings, 3 nights of AWANA, a fire station open house, appointment to get cats fixed, a dinner at church and court (if I get to actually go this time).

Then of course, what I've been waiting for for quite a while.  The Schoolhouse Expo!  It's a homeschool convention that is online during the week of May 16-20.  I am so excited!!

Last year, I didn't get to attend the Expo.  But I did purchase the Expo to Go tickets!  And as a nice little give away, they allowed everyone who had bought Expo to Go tickets to attend the Expo live on Friday.  I was ecstatic about that because that was the day that my favorite Christian fiction author, Tricia Goyer, was speaking that day!  I learned so much that day and thoroughly enjoyed myself!  Greg even took off for the afternoon with the kids for me I believe!


The nice thing about the Expo to Go was that when I received the mp3 files to download, I could listen to them at my own leisure.  And I could keep them too after I downloaded them to my computer.  I also received the devotions that were done each morning which was a nice bonus!

I hear that the Schoolhouse Expo is already sold out this year!  Wow!!  But you can still buy the Expo to Go!  It's $19.99 and you get access to 40+ sessions, including  Devotions with Deb and A Minute with Molly!  Believe me, if you are a homeschooling Mom, you don't want to miss this homeschool convention!


If you still need further proof that it is the best online convention and you don't want to miss it, check out the Vendor Hall.  From here you can see all of the vendors and click on their links.  You may even find some cool freebies!

Homemaking Help

Check this out at Homegrown Mom.  She has a great blog and now this awesome giveaway!  

If you are like myself, and you feel like you just weren't given all the basics for keeping house the right way you may benefit from this.  You can benefit even more if you share the information that you learn here with your daughters!

I can't wait to participate in this next month.  It is going to run for the 30 days of May.  I'm sure a lot of what I learn about cooking, cleaning and more I can pass onto my daughter to give her the abilities to take care of her family and home.  There will even be some guest bloggers and the chance now for you to sign up and become a guest blogger yourself!

Avoiding Homeschool Burnout

Have you ever just hit a wall with homeschooling?  Do your kids whine or complain when it's time to do some school work?  I think that we've probably all ran into this at some time or another.

I have some simple ideas that you may want to use for avoiding homeschool burnout.

One thing that I have done before was change up our routine.  We always start with our Bible reading, and I think that is too important to do first so we can't switch that around.  But after that, we can change it up!  Instead of doing history next, why not do art?  Or instead of just changing the routine you can try something different in your routine.  Have your kids jump on one foot while memorizing math problems.  Or maybe they can parade around the room while memorizing dates or Bible verses.

Giving the kids a different direction besides just sit at your desk and do your work makes it more fun!

Why not try a picnic outside in the sun and do some school work there?

One of my favorite things to do is to recharge myself.  The best way that I have found for that is to attend a homeschool conference of some type.  They are so informative!  You can not only learn about how to teach your children, but they have lots of fun ways to do it!  The guest speaker may have some awesome ideas that will encourage you and your children to do school work.  Or even the panel of attendees that chat have great ideas and they share them joyfully with each other.  I am of course, talking about an online conference.  But there are also great local conferences in many areas!

I am aware of a online homeschool conference that is coming up this year and tickets are even on sale now!  The Homeschool Expo is a wonderful conference with many great speakers.  I attended a day last year and also bought the Expo2Go that contained the mp3 files so I didn't have to miss when I couldn't attend.  If you'd like to join up check this out here http://bit.ly/ExpoGo. 

Along with the informative guest speakers that will be attending, there are great freebies that are given out with the purchase of a ticket.  For $19.95 you can order the Expo2Go if you can't make it and have access to the freebies and the mp3 recordings.  If you are interested in buying a ticket to join for the whole week of conference in May 2011, you can purchase a ticket for $29.  But you better hurry because pretty soon it goes up to the regular price of $39!

Not quite ready yet....

I know that I said I was going to blog about something soon.  Well, I'm just not ready yet.  I really want to.  I know just what I want to say.  But I'm not sure that I'm ready to let everyone in on that yet. 
So on we go.....Things here are going smoothly along.  Besides the temperament of a person I put up with daily.  But that is something I have been dealt to deal with and I just do.  I try not to let it bother me, along with other things.  I am trying to grow in the Lord everyday.
Homeschool, as I've mentioned before, is going great this year!  How much fun we have!  Yesterday we did a Science experiment to make rain.  It was awesome and I will blog about it later on my homeschool blog called Teaching at Home in a Christian Way.  As my friend Tawny said on Facebook, "I'm so thankful that we answered the call from God to Homeschool".  That is not word for word, but I can't find it to quote it exactly.  But it was something along those lines. 

I found a new Christian bookstore up here on the hill, about 15 min away in good traffic.  In great traffic it would only be about 10!  But that never happens on Meridian.  So I plan on 15-20 min drive.  But the store is great!  It's a Christian bookstore (I know I already said that) and thrift.  I did see some clothes and such in there but honestly, I just wanted books.  lol  The name of the store is Love's Treasury.  Isn't that a great name?  So inviting!  The books were so fairly priced that I am going back probably this weekend!  I can't wait!  They had a large selection of books for homeschool.  I mean large. 
Speaking of Christian and bookstore.  I found a new used book store called A Novel Idea in Puyallup.  I went there to meet author Christina Weigand.  She found me last year on Facebook because I was signed up to do NaNoWriMo and she lives in Puyallup.  At that time, I didn't realize she was in the process of getting a book published!  Well she did get that book published and it's called Aaron's Revenge. 
I found the bookstore and actually got to meet her.  The best part?  She gave me a book for free for just making it there (it was quite a feat for me) and signed it.  It is the next book that I am going to read.  I have to finish White Fang first.

I have a busy day planned today.  Trying to get my house all cleaned and ready for the holidays.  Decorating is going to be kept at a minimal this year for Fall and Thanksgiving.  I don't know where any of my decorations are at the moment and really am not going to try and get them from my garage.  I'll save that for Christmas.
And since I have so much to do, I am going to start my work now.  And that has to start by stopping my blogging.  Oh I hate it when I have to do that.  I could just keep on blabbing. 

Where Oh Where Has the Blog Author Gone?

I know....bad me.  I've been missing pretty much for a month.  I messed up on my NaBloPoMo for October and decided to just give myself a break from the worry of posting.  Maybe that was a mistake. But, here I am now!  That counts for something, right?
I am busy getting the house all picked up for the holidays.  It's been a slow and painstaking job, but I'm getting it done.  Now the hardest part is keeping it picked up!  That seems to be my downfall.  I do well on one room, while another gets messy.  I must admit, I am not perfect.
At the end of October I went to the AWANA conference and fully enjoyed myself.  It was a great learning experience and send us home with many ideas to implement in our group.  One fun activity that I wanted to start was working through the workbook for adults that go along with the workbook for kids.  The first book makes me memorize the same amount of verses as Kindergarten Sparkies do.  Then I can move into the book that matches the 1st graders and then the 2nd graders.  I am making this more fun for the kids by letting them sign my book for me when I say my verses. 

We are moving right along with school this year and it is so nice!  So far, this is the best school year that we've had.  It's been smooth and for the most part they've enjoyed everything that we've learned.  I am looking forward to having a break though.  In 2 weeks we will then have a week break, during the week of Thanksgiving.  I know that seems short, well at least it does to me, but we are only doing school for one week in December.  We will have a break for the first week because I may be going to court, and then we will have a Winter Break. 
We haven't had the chance to do lapbooks this year.  I haven't really been able to find one that I liked for the topics that we have been learning.  Right now we are reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume together as a read aloud and the kids love this story.  Bubba gets so happy to read it.  And Stinky has finished 4 chapter books these past few weeks, one of the Charlotte's Web that is a reading level 4.  She is definitely my daughter!  I am currently getting ready to start book #53 for this year.  My goal was to read 50 and I have made it.  Obviously.
I have definitely missed blogging.  I am hoping that my time and memory will allow me to blog more often like I was before.  I have many thoughts and ideas that I want to blog about.
One is a subject that is causing me some sadness in an area of my life.  But I want to blog about it so that maybe I can give hope to others that may be in a similar situation.  I still am forming thoughts about this though, so I may not blog about it right away.
With those words.....see ya later gator!

Day #5 No Coffee

I love to just throw random pictures into my blog.  I don't know if there is some rule that your picture has to go with whatever you blog about, but mine don't always. 
Here I am, day #5 without coffee and I've survived.  Who'd a thought that could happen?  I miss it terribly though.  I have been waking up ok without it in the morning, but Teeccino just doesn't cut it for creamy roasted goodness in my morning mug.  We'll see if I keep drinking that in the morning.  I might just drink it in the afternoon.  Dunno what I will drink in the morning then.
After the first 3 days there was no headache, and the 3rd day was an extremely mild one.  I experienced  very mild mood swings.  They were pretty easy.  And no one else in my family suffered from them!  Lucky for them!

I want to take more naps than usual, but that should go away soon.  Hopefully. 
Today we went back to homeschooling after taking a break last week.  It was nice to have a break.  I wanted to get a lot done, but between having cramps and then having to catch up when they were gone, not too much housework actually got done.  But that's ok with me. I am doing the most important things here and that is worshiping my Lord, taking care of and teaching my children and trying to make my hubby happy. 
Tomorrow I think I may have a couple book reviews to do.  We'll see....I may do them tonight.  It depends....

Link Up to Homeschool Happenings!

Sunday is the last day to link up for this week!  If you miss it, join us next week.  You have Monday - Sunday midnight to post!  Click the graphic above to take you to the blog for Homeschool Happenings!

Why do I Homeschool?

I have been asked this question before.  Why do you homeschool?  I have a few reasons why.  Let me share them with you.
I believe that it is my responsibility to make sure that my children get an education and are capable adults when they grow up.  I don't think that is the government's job.  God gave these children into my care, and into my care they will stay.
I don't have very much faith in the public school system anyways.  I believe they fail students all of the time.  There are so many kids that graduate and don't know how to read.  It's so sad.  And I also think that the government teaches what they want you to know, and what they don't want you to know.  Enough said.
I want my children to grow up and be good Christians.  I read a blog this morning where the mother talked about homeschooling her children.  She was a Christian.  But she didn't homeschool her kids to instill Christian values in them or to teach them to be a good Christian.  She said that those were issues that parents should cover, but as a parent, not a teacher.  I disagree with her.  I believe that homeschooling my children will instill the values in them that I TEACH because that is something that I want them to LEARN.  Public schools do not teach Christian values, they teach worldy values.  I want my children to have the best chances of becoming the best adult and I think that includes teaching them Christian behaviors and the public schools will not do this for me.
I am one of those crazy ladies who like to keep her kids with her.  Another of my beliefs is that my kids are only going to be young one time.  There will come a day when they will be embarrassed to be with me and even the time when they won't want to be with me at all.  I want to cherish and keep close to me those days now while I have them.  I don't want to look back and think, I should have enjoyed them more or I should have been with them more.  They are my babies and I want to enjoy them as long as the good Lord allows me to.
And along with instilling the Christian values into my children, I also want to teach them Christian history and Christian worldviews.  I do not use a Christian curriculum because I mainly write my own plans.
So there you have it.  Does anyone have any questions?  I will answer them!

Family Photos

This is my beautiful family.  We had new family portraits done today.  After all of my worries about them I like how they turned out.  This one above is a sneak peak.  I am planning on posting more, but I want to play around with them a little bit and also update my blog profile to match.  I am going to start it some tonight and work late doing it just because I enjoy it so much, and hopefully finish tomorrow.  

We finished our school week today.  Tomorrow I want to correct this weeks work, add the fine details to next week and change our bulletin board to go with our lessons.  

Oh and the kids also got individual pics done today which I am going to use as their school pictures for the beginning of the year.  I am also going to have to decide upon 16 sheets of pictures to order tomorrow.  I was given that job and I gladly took it!  There are 48 poses to choose from.  But the nice thing is that I also have all 48 of those on a disc, so I get to print out whatever ones I want whenever.  

So anyways, I am just itching to get busy on all of this stuff.  So I will be back hopefully with a longer blog tomorrow!

Changes and Plans

After I checked NaBloPoMo yesterday morning and entered my blog into the blog roll, and posted my post.....they changed the theme.  Instead of VISION it is now ART.  I can go with that because I like art and it's easy to blog/talk about.  That also gives me a whole month to show off my designs!!
Today I was offered to do a quick job that paid quite well.  I blogged about it yesterday right here.  This will be a simple job, I'm hoping, but it will take quite a bit of time today.  I am extremely grateful that it is something I can do here at home though.  I have an hour before I start.  After I am done blogging I need to wash some dishes so hubby won't have to look at the mess all day.  
We are not going to do any formal school today.  I will have the kids do what school work they can do on their own, quietly.  But I probably won't get to the subjects that I need to do with them.  And that's ok, because I need just one more day to finish last week and that will be tomorrow.  It works perfectly!  

Yesterday I was brought to the realization of something in the Bible that I want to research for myself.  It is the issue of women wearing head coverings.  You'll find the passage in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16.  I am intrigued by the issue and am praying a lot about it.  *PLEASE NOTE: I DO NOT WANT A DISCUSSION ABOUT THIS TO GET OUT OF HAND.  ANY RUDE COMMENTS ABOUT THIS WILL BE DELETED.*  I do not need to worry about others religious life.  I want to do what God wants orders me to do.  That is why I am praying about it.  I don't care how others live their religious life, if they feel that God wants them to live the way they do, that is their deal.  They have to answer to Him in the end, not me.  And it doesn't affect my personal decisions.  If the Lord convicts me in this area of my life, I will know it because He will make it clear to me.  I believe this and pray on this.  I will be blogging about this topic a little bit more.  I want to do a little more research and praying first.

Marvelous Monday!

I woke up bright and early this morning to get ready for this Marvelous Monday!  I just love Mondays.  I don't know if there is something wrong with me or what....but I do!  And today is a special Monday because the kids decided they want to start school early and early is today.  I have been preparing the teaching room and other things for school this morning.  We are all excited to start!
If you're a homeschooler, please jump over to my other blog and check out the new blog hop called Homeschool Happenings.  I am so excited about this and ready for it to take off and meet some other homeschool Moms and Students.
My blog is short today so I can get a move on our marvelous day!  Hope you have a Marvelous Monday also! 

Homeschool Happenings: Introduction

Join up with a new blog hop for homeschoolers!  Students are teachers are welcome!  Click on the picture above to take you right to the post!!  Spread the word to other homeschoolers and meet fun new ways to teach and new blogging friends!

Things I Need to do for Homeschool

I am  making a Back To School Scavenger Hunt for the kids.  I made the list of the items that they will need to search for.  Now I just want to divide up the list and specify a few things.  I am going to add a twist to it and some things they may have to actually "show" me, or "draw" me instead of "collecting" them for me.
In the process of writing that above, I forgot what the other thing was.  That is why I was writing them out.  Oh well.  Hopefully I'll remember later or tomorrow.

Coming Soon...Spread the Word Homeschooling Moms!

I found a meme last year to join for homeschooling but the blog author gave it to another blog author to do and I never saw it again.  So I decided to try to start my own.  I want a weekly meme called Homeschool Happenins' so us Homeschooling Moms can post weekly about our adventures.  I am going to host this blog meme on my homeschooling blog called Teaching At Home in a Christian Way.  So if you don't already follow that blog and would like to and join the fun, please do!  Please tell your other Homeschool Moms that you know about it also.  I am in the process of making a button for it, so stay tuned!

My Homeschooling Blog

If you'd like to keep up on my homeschooling more thoroughly than what I post here, go to my blog, Teaching At Home In A Christian Way.