Looking Forward

I apologize for being a fair-weather blogger.

But probably my lack of blogging about our school experiences is a good indicator of what’s going on here. Nothing. No schooling whatsoever.

Oh, we met our 80% benchmark and were able to put in our order for next year’s materials. However, we so far are not doing what I intended to do, and that was to continue.

I thought it made perfect sense to do 80% during the school year, and then casually plug away at the remaining 20% over the course of the summer. That way, we wouldn’t have the loss of knowledge that so many students suffer from because of the summer break.

I tell myself that it’s all good. It’s only been a couple weeks since school ‘let out’ and it’s perfectly acceptable for us to enjoy a little holiday. I’m just worried I won’t follow through and get back to work when our vacation is over. We are leaving for San Diego this week and I hope that we can add some light schooling back into our life once we return.

In the meantime, these are the things I’m thinking about:

• I need to look into some schooling tips and advice for children with ADD. I found working with Charlie to be extremely difficult this year. If he was ‘in the mood’ or properly motivated/interested, he did great in school—if not, he did terribly. As in puddle-on-the-floor-crying-his-eyes-out terrible.
  
• Improving our school organization so that the boys can more easily see their materials. Cleaning out my drawers and stuff so I can better store their papers and such.
  
• Do some research into how to be a better homeschooling mom. LC seems to enjoy really fun lessons with her girls. Similarly, Aly, has blogged about neat experiences she’s had while schooling her children. I don’t do any of those things. I am a very task-oriented person with no natural sense of fun. At least, not when it comes to teaching. I do what I’m told to do, nothing more, and sometimes less. I’m not going to expect miracles of myself (that was last year and I let myself down horrendously. I refuse to do that again!) but I do want to be prepared with a few ideas at hand in case the moment strikes me as right and I can add a little flavor to our lessons.

I think that might be the biggest stuff on my mind right now. I hope to do better this next year. In fact, I know I will. I survived the first and hardest year of homeschooling with definite positives to shine the way into the future.

Our home life is happier, less caustic, people are generally more loving and less argumentative. We have greater respect for one another. We like each other more. Personally and socially, this year has been the best one since I became a mother. Now we just need to work on enjoying those same wonderful benefits in our academic life too.

What about you? Where are you at, as your school year draws to a close? Do you feel it went well? Are there things you will aim to improve this next school year? 

I just joined The Homeschool Lounge and would really like to increase my circle of friends who homeschool. I need to learn from you, I need your friendship.

A Tag of Eights

It's been a long while since I've played a game of tag so when Shawntele tagged me, I was game (hardee har har.)

Here be Da Rules:
1. Mention the person who tagged you.
2. Complete the list of 8's.
3. Tag 8 other bloggers.
4. Tell them they have been tagged.

Eight Things I Look Forward To:

1. Getting my first book deal.
2. Losing the extra weight I'm carrying around.
3. Getting fit and being healthy.
4. Karen's photo shoot on Thursday.
5. San Diego with the family in June.
6. Seeing my sister again.
7. Finishing up Jump Boys and getting it into Shadow Mountain's hands.
8. Being a working, successful published author. :D

Eight Things I Did Yesterday

1. Slept in.
2. Had lunch with the fam at Red Robin.
3. Took the boys to see Star Trek and loved it--again!
4. Got rejected by a publisher.
5. Cried my eyes out.
6. Talked with friends.
7. Got hugged and held by my sweet honey.
8. Read a lot.

Eight Things I Wish I Could Do

1. Jump on a plane and visit my sister right now.
2. Deal better with Charlie on his 'off' days.
3. Be more consistent in going to karate.
4. Be a faster reader.
5. Be a more creative homeschooling mom.
6. Sing in an opera production again.
7. Make a CD.
8. Be published, lol.

Eight Shows I Watch

1. Smallville
2. Medium
3. Dollhouse
4. CSI
5. Eureka
6. So You Think You Can Dance
7. America's Funniest Home Videos
8. Chuck

Eight Friends I Am Tagging:

1. Karen
2. Shanna
3. Christine
4. Stephanie
5. Jeri
6. Kristi
7. Jennifer
8. Nichole

And there you have it! Crazy Eights, lol.

As you can tell, I'm back ... sort of. No promises, but I'm slowly starting to feel like myself again.

Don't be a stranger :) And if you haven't done it already, I'd love it if you became a follower. I'm a writer--I need constant reminders that I am loved ;)

Taking a Mental Vacation

Hi ya Folks,

I'm dropping by to tell ya'll that I'm not going to be blogging for a bit. Hopefully just a week, but perhaps longer. Or maybe I'll be back tomorrow. That's my prerogative, right? Keep ya guessing--that's my goal.

Don't worry, nothing's going on ... I just need to have a clear head with my writing right now and I'm finding there are too many voices talking at once. I need to give everybody a chance to say their peace so I can figure out what the heck they're all talking about. It's so noisy in my head, I can't even hear myself think.

So I'm going to go hang out with Me, Myself and I for a while, have some good heart-to-hearts, a regular ol' pow wow and see if I can't get some work done.

Forgive me if I'm not posting--especially, forgive me for not visiting your own blogs over the next while--and in the famous words of Arnold a la Terminator "I'll be bahck."

Till then, take care, adios, adieu.

Compromise

In any good relationship, it's all about the compromise. And home schooling is no different. You compromise when you'll do school and when you'll play. House work and school work. It's a relationship of agreements and compromise.

And sometimes when we compromise, we have to give up something we'd hoped for and be happy with something else. 

I really wanted to have all of our subjects completed to the required 80% by May 22nd. But with a few days off for spring break and for general spring fever craziness, we've fallen behind. Now, with testing next week and a writers' conference for me, we are very stressed trying to get all of our work done by the 22nd of May.

Enter, Compromise, and let the stress-free living begin!

Though it was my hope, I'm perfectly content to concentrate on Math and Language Arts alone for the next few weeks and work on History and Science through the summer. I had expected to do some schooling through the summer months, so really, this was an easy decision.

Now we can relax a bit, concentrate on Math and Language Arts and enjoy our History and Science at a more reasonable pace through the summer.

Next school year, I will understand much better what I need to do to help our school year run more effectively and enjoyably for all of us. I'm excited about that! I really enjoy home schooling, but I don't enjoy feeling stressed out and like I'm failing all the time. This first year has definitely been a challenge, but we've learned a lot and can look forward to a more fun and productive experience next year.

Hurray for Compromise!

Crying In My Soup

It's rainy and muddy outside and that's about how I feel inside too. 

Yes, that's right. I'm frowning. I'm whining. I'm crying in my soup.

I am feeling as dumb as my kids say they feel. I don't know how to teach them some stuff. I'm stumped, I'm stupid. They're stumped. They feel stupid too. We're having a stupid-fest here.

I even had to break down and call our teacher to ask for help. Which tells you one of my problems right there--I shouldn't feel like calling our teacher for help is a matter of "breaking down." She's there to help us, I should use her. Umm, no.

Charlie is having trouble reading directions on his tests. He can't seem to follow multiple directions.

Xander doesn't understand front-end estimation--he wants to answer the questions properly, rather than estimating them. I have no idea what front-end estimation is either. I swear I never learned that.

The BIG TEST is next week and we haven't practiced for it at all. I suspect my guys might totally blow it. I've made them stupider this year. Or so I fear.

Of course our teacher, wonderful, awesome, Mrs. Baggely, encouraged me and tried to placate me, but I'm still worried.

At this moment, I can't wait for school to be over and to be free of this enormous burden of guilt and stress--at least for a short while.

I'm not giving up, I'm not giving in. We will home school again next year. But for the moment, I'm going to enjoy a good ol' pout. So there. (she says with arms crossed on her chest and and her foot stomped on the ground.)

Spring Break!

We are taking an extended Spring Break--not on purpose, but entirely by accident. I *think* our principle took into account a spring break in the figuring of our completion percentages but even so, I'm sad to think we might not make it now. We were so close. And it's not over yet, I know. We may *yet* be able to get it done. But I'm not sure. It could go either way, lol.

Thing is, we've just SO needed a break.

And so . . . a break it is.

Officially we were only going to take this Thursday, Friday and Monday off because that's when the neighbor kids are off. But it's turned out that we've only worked a handful of part-days and just plain took today off.

Oh well. C'est la vie, right?

Taking Pride In What We Are Doing

When I first started homeschooling, I was sort of embarrassed to admit what I was doing. At the local elementary school's book fair, I tried to slip in and out without being noticed. I held my head down in that age old "don't look at me" posture. Picture women from the polygamist compound caught on tape.

It's taken almost an entire school year, but I find I can now hold my head high.

We went back to the elementary school a few weeks ago for another book fair and man, I felt proud walking through those doors!

I felt like a great mom, with great kids. I am proud of what we've done, proud of who we are as a family. Proud of our choices in a world where it's hard to go against the grain.