Blessed Beyond Measure
Homeschool
Has it been a whole month already?
Mar 3rd
Ok. Almost a whole month since I posted.
In my defense, I have been sick the past week. The yucky flu that seems to be going around. I went to the doctor on Saturday and they gave me antibiotics for a sinus infection. Now I am blowing lovely green snot out of my nose. At least it is coming out!
I finished up this lovely project for a friend of mine that had her baby. Mind you, I forgot to take a picture of the finished product–it has pretty white tassels on each end of it, but you get the picture.
I was very happy with the way it turned out. The only problem now is that I have to find another project to work on. I think I found a pattern and I think I will give it to Sue as a wedding gift. I’ll post more when I get started.
We are 16 weeks pregnant. So far, everything is pretty good. I’m liking the fact that I don’t feel so sick anymore, but I’m not liking the fact that I seem to get heartburn an awful lot lately. I’m still in my jeans, but I do have a bulge started. I’m looking forward to the maternity clothes though. They are so much cuter than they used to be. My sister send me a whole bunch of them–so I’m kind of excited to try them.
Beth and I are making plans for the nursery. She is very excited and happy about this new development. Right now, we want to do ‘vintage’ Pooh–not the Disney kind, but the old kind. I have a glider that I want to re-upholster with either yellow or green fabric. We are going to try to find Pooh fabric–I think you can order it. I’m also going to try to make some sheets of my own and a bumper pad, once I know what size mattress we will have. We will see. The afghan will have to wait until we find out what color it should be–I’m not doing pink or blue, but want to try green or yellow, depending.
Piano lessons are going fine. We are getting started on our recital pieces for May. Homeschool is fine, although I missed a whole week, since I was so sick. I need to order their end-of-year test packets this week.
That is about it. Good stuff going on in our church–you can read about it on David’s blog. I’m going to try to post a recipe or something soon, so watch for it. Of course, I make no promises, but that is my hope!
Homeschooling
Oct 18th
My husband just wrote a post on how awesome homeschooling is. That is really funny considering the day I have had today. For the record, I do agree, at least most of the time, that homeschooling is awesome. I’m glad to be able to teach my children our values, and have a relationship with them.
Today, I want to “stick a fork in my eye,” as Loralee would say. One of the children made it their objective to argue, complain, whine, pick a fight, be defiant, swear, be generally rebellious, and disrespectful. Now that I have consequences for all of these behaviors, this child has a very long list of chores to do, bible verses to write and money to pay. I was calm the entire tirade through. Although I felt like killing afore mentioned child. Even when the child stood up to me and said, “You are *issing me off!” I calmly told them that they could have an extra chore and pay money to the adoption jar. Even after the child decided to rip up the paper I gave to write the verses on, I just picked up the papers, brought more and added more verses.
I feel like a hero. (I hate to say it, but I almost feel triumphant, like I won, which I guess I did.) All that without raising my voice at all.
Normally, homeschooling goes very smoothly. We have a schedule that we follow every day and we try to stick to it. This is the first major outburst we have had all year. But I bet with the consequences there are now, the child will think again about doing what they did today. At least I hope they will, because I’m exhausted!
Another week
Sep 8th
Unbelievably, another week has gone by. It has been incredibly busy around here, and I am getting into the swing of things.
School is going along well. The kids each had their first math TEST last week and both got an A. I was happy about that. We are having a geography test on Monday and a science test on Wednesday. Spelling will be getting underway–finally! I have been kind of slack with the spelling. We are doing a geography project. A topographic map. It was something I remembered from my school days and we got a map of Chesapeake and will be getting that done this week, hopefully. I will post the pictures.
The piano lessons have been absolutely amazing. Who would have thought that there would be so many people that want lessons? I have 30 students. I had Alex take the sign down on Friday, because I think this is it, for the year. It is a nice little business, and it is going well, for being the first week. I am enjoying it, and we are talking about possibly converting the garage to a studio. (Down here, there isn’t much need for a garage, per say, so lots of people take that opportunity to add another room to their house.) That won’t happen for awhile, but it is nice to think about it.
We got word from church that they want David and I to take the 8:30 praise and worship service. We are excited and the kids will be singing with us too. On Friday, we played/sang for the intercession that evening. We had a great time! Our drummer and bass player said they didn’t want to quit playing. Neither did we, it was so fun. I’m hoping that they decide they want to be part of our team instead of the 10:00 team, because we all work well together.
David is going out of town tomorrow! I hate it when he is gone, but at least it is only for a night. He is going to the trade show in Chicago with his boss, the boss’ son and another guy. We will drive him to the airport tomorrow at 5 a.m. and pick him up on Monday at 10:00 p.m. I will miss him!
Another week gone by…
Piano Lessons
Aug 26th
So, we got our home school year off last week. I have also started to offer piano lessons. My husband made me up a brochure–he’s a designer, and I put them out at different places in our community. The biggest draw though, has been a sign he put on our fence. It simply says, “Piano Lessons” with my number underneath it. I have been giving lessons for about 3 years now. It was something I didn’t ever think I would do, or could, and then a family at church asked me to teach their 3 kids. They had seen me play piano for praise and worship and wanted someone to give their kids lessons. At first, I was hesitant. I gave in after they kept asking and found that I really enjoyed it. Being a licensed teacher, I knew I could teach, but piano? (I was a music major in college for four years, but at the last minute decided on an educational degree.) So this is my first “serious” year. I advertised and now, I have 16 students with 2 more coming to check me out next week. That isn’t including my own two children. I really felt like this was something I could do to make some extra money–since quitting my job to home school, we lost about 30 grand a year. I was delighted to see the open doors for this. Not only did my husband create a beautiful brochure with my policies in it, but we got the brochure printed for free! I have a thousand brochures all for free. Anyway, as soon as I put that sign up, I got phone calls like you wouldn’t believe. So, I am excited that I can not only home school my children, but I can make some money at home doing something I enjoy. Ideally, I would like between 20-25 students, but this will work out fine, if this is what the Lord gives me. I get to make my own hours and it doesn’t interfere with my teaching time. All my lessons are in the later afternoon and two evenings a week. I have two recitals planned and have the calendar all done. We start in September and end in June.
In other news, Alex will be taking his permit test tomorrow. Beth will be going to get her eyes checked so she can get contact lenses. We will be doing school from 8:00-9:45, (bible, math and spelling.) take the car and listen to Spanish on tape while we drive to the two appointments. Then, when we get back, at about 11:15 or 11:30, we will do grammar until lunch. We will have to do geography, music and science after lunch. The rest of the week is school as usual.
2nd Day
Aug 22nd
Today went pretty well. I was pleased with the kid’s attitudes and mine. We did math, science, geography and grammar today. I am not doing spelling, vocabulary, Spanish or music this week, I think we will ease into those. (Plus the fact that I don’t know if I can teach Spanish!) Besides, I had to do a pre-test in spelling and vocab. to “place” them. So I have to score those in order to know what level to start them out in. Math was kind of tough. Not hard, but difficult for Alex. It is going to be a long year with the math, I’m afraid, again. We spent a very long time going over the lesson and he took an even longer time doing the work on his own. He just doesn’t “get” math, and I don’t know how else to teach it. We are into the algebra now, and I have tried several different ways to get the lessons across, but I guess I have just resigned myself to the fact that this may not be his best subject. (A very hard fact to consider, especially when I absolutely LOVE it.) Not that we won’t continue to hammer out the stuff, but I don’t think he is going to become a mathematics teacher. English is his strong subject.
I have gotten a few comments on my classroom, and it’s good to know that I’m not that messy. I just don’t know how to check out their blogs. Can someone tell me how I can get to the blogs that comment on my site? I’m kind of a dork when it comes to stuff like this, and my husband actually went through the whole posting pictures, so I know how to do that one thing.
Thanks for visiting!
First Day of School
Aug 21st
I promised pictures of our school/piano room. I went counter-clockwise around the room. Here they are:
This is Beth’s desk/table. The stairs from the kitchen are on the right, although you can’t see them.
Another view of Beth’s desk and the bookcases. The trays on top are for the kids work.
The bookcases. One for music, one for school.
The music corner. The side of the room opposite of Beth’s desk.
Further along the same wall. A portion of school stuff and my messy desk.
The messy desk.
Alex’s desk. It is in front of the stairs from the kitchen downstairs.
Garage Sale
Aug 18th
We have been planning this for 2 weeks, and we did it today. We sold a bunch of stuff in our attic that we don’t use anymore at a garage sale. We did pretty well, considering we had some furniture. We made about $400 when it was all through. It was a little irritating though, because we bought a permit, we advertised and this morning, when we had just about everything out and ready, our neighbors decide to have a garage sale, spur of the moment. They did this last time too. They live next door and always have a mess in their garage–I’m talking a BIG mess–and they just took stuff out of the garage and put it on their drive way. We made sure this time not to tell anyone we were going to do one, and there they are up at 7:30, setting stuff up in their driveway. Unbelievable! Well, I guess it wasn’t all bad, I got some yarn from her that she never used. It is a pretty yellow color and I’m not sure what I will do with it, but it is beautiful.
In other news, I have a cold. It started yesterday. Actually, it started two weeks ago when Beth had it. Alex got it after her, then David. I thought I was in the clear, but alas, I got it. Just a sneezy, stuffy nose and headache, so I suppose it COULD be an allergy, but I don’t get allergies in the fall, just the spring, and the whole family had it. So I’m pretty sure it is a cold. I took a nap after the garage sale and the kids cleaned up the kitchen for me, so it is all good. The only problem is, that I was trying to start school on Monday, and I don’t know if that is going to happen or not. It kind of depends on how I feel tomorrow. If I feel better, then I can get everything ready. Not like it isn’t already–all my copies are done, the lesson plans are pretty much done and the room looks like a classroom. (I’ll take pictures later.) It is just a mess because of the garage sale. Our attic doors are in the classroom, so whatever we take out of the attic, goes into the classroom, and then hopefully to the garage. Well, both of my tables are in the garage, and everything is a MESS up here. I know everyone will help out tomorrow, but I just don’t know if we can start Monday, although I want to. It may have to wait until Tuesday.
I am going to go and get ready for an early bedtime, now.
