WW: Big Boy in Brother's Shirt

Love and Respect - 52 in 52 Week 1

Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires, The Respect He Desperately Needs by Eggerichs

Summary:

Miscommunication is easily the most common cause of conflict within a marriage. Eggerich focuses on the difference between what a man or a woman need and how that influences their their perception of the words and actions around them. A man's greatest need is for respect. He knows his wife loves him, but he may not think she likes (respects) him. A woman's greatest need is for love. She knows she loves her husband but wonders if he loves her as much. Conflict arises when a husband comes across as unloving, prompting a disrespectful response from his wife, which in turn results in more unloving reactions, and so on. Similarly when a wife comes across as disrepectful, the husband reacts unlovingly, and the two negative behaviors feed on each other. The result is called the Crazy Cycle.

In contrast, when the cycle is reversed, a wife gives her husband respect (or he shows her love), then a good-willed spouse will respond in a positive fashion creating a positive feedback loop called the Energizing Cycle. He explains how a husband can love his wife using the acronym COUPLE (closeness, openness, understanding, peacemaking, loyalty, and esteem. He also explains how a wife can respect her husband using the acronym CHAIRS (conquest, hierarchy, authority, insight, relationship, and sexuality). While the hope of receiving positive feedback from one's spouse is a good motivator to change one's behavior, Eggerichs closes by suggesting that a better reason is to act simply out of faith. A Christian husband should be loving towards his wife simply because Christ calls him to do so. A Christian wife should be respectful of her husband simply because Christ calls her to do so.

RESPONSE

I confess that I understood the wife's side of the argument 100% of the time the first time through. I didn't always agree with the stereotype, but I could understand the point he was trying to make. Understanding the husband's point of view in fairness is going to take a second or third reading and some more time to process and consider the information. Despite my complete lack of understanding, I decided to pick a couple of the suggestions from the CHAIRS section to work on during the course of the week. I won't go into details, but the results have been very positive. I would definitely recommend it for any married Christian, even those with a "good" marriage.

Week 19: Trying to Restart

It has been a long week. On the school front, the new schedule is working well. I just need to tweak a couple of places. Both girls have been completing their schoolwork early by getting started on their own before 8:00. On the home front, my computer crashed Thursday afternoon. Today I'm using my MIL's computer to do this report and prep next week's lessons. I need to also do some research to replace our broken pc because I'm not buying a new motherboard for a 9 year old pc.

MATH

Jessie spent the first half of the week completing the section on angles in her IP book. A few of the problems were challenging enough that we worked on them together. Thursday and Friday , she completed the last review exercise in her 5A textbook. She should finish both the workbook and IP next week, and then it's on to the 5B set.

Violet completed the IP section on multiplication with 6, 7, 8, and 9. Wednesday she began the final unit on money in the 3A textbook and workbook. We also realized that she has gotten ahead in her CWP book. Since she just completed the CWP money section, she'll get a couple of week off. Her Miquon just started multiplication of large numbers, so it will provide some good review.

Benny is still adding and subtracting in both Singapore 1A and Miquon Orange. Some days he needs the blocks, and other days he doesn't. Some we work through the page together, and others he asks me to let him do it alone.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Jessie started SWO H this week and scored a 95 on her first test. In grammar she finished up the textbook pages on pronouns and is ready to test on Monday. We did have to review the definitions of demonstrative pronouns, indefinite pronouns, and interrogative pronouns when they had her using all three at once. We only completed half of her CW work before the computer crashed, so we'll try again next week. She's started the Legend of Sleepy Hollow for literature, which she tells me is even more boring than Rumpelstiltzkin in the beginning. In Age of the Fable, she has been reading about Aeneas.

Violet completed another spelling lesson successfully. In grammar, she learned to diagram direct objects. Then she had sentences with and without direct objects to find the direct objects and diagram. In literature, she has picked back up with her previous selection and requested that she read The Children's Homer for her next book. In CW, we completed the analysis work for "The Hare and the Tortoise".

Benny has started on long vowel words this week. So far we're just working with the long a. He's starting to catch on as we slowly go through the first page a second time. For copywork, he's been writing the lyrics to "Jesus Loves the Little Children". In literature, we picked back up with the previous books.

HISTORY / ART

In Old Testament history, we've all been reading about the reign of King David. The girls completed maps showing Ish-bosheth's kingdom and David's kingdom. The notebooking pages will be put together next week once we finish David.

In ancient Greece, this week's focus was the Spartans. Jessie read about Lycurgus, Spartan life, the Messenian War, and the Olympics. She completed a map of Sparta and Messenia and wrote paragraphs covering everything but the Olympics. Violet read about Lycurgus and Spartan life and marked Sparta on a map. No drawings this week. No timeline figures either because of the computer crashing before I printed them.

GEOGRAPHY

Not completed.

SCIENCE

We started God Design Properties of Atoms and Molecules this week. We covered matter, chemistry, atoms and their parts, and different ways atoms combine. The girls have enjoyed the hands-on aspect. I've been pleased with how the worksheets they've completed have helped apply what they learned in the reading. I'll post a more detailed review in a few weeks.

LATIN / LOGIC

Jessie completed another lesson in LfC B. The week emphasized conjugating duo and Roman numerals. Violet started LfC A and has enjoyed it so far. Logic was completed as usual with Jessie starting Think-a-Grams A2 and Min Benders B3.

OTHER

Henry has been all over the place this week. He's spent a lot of time with DH. He also discovered that he can reach the dog treats and loves to have the dog follow him all around the house before giving him the treat.

My Poor DH

There is a danger to reading marriage books. Let me explain...

I've been reading Love and Respect by Eggerich. Yesterday, while I was shopping online for a new homeschool cabinet, I was also doing some reading (since shpping with dial up is extremely slow). I read the chapter where it was talking about how when a woman explains a problem to a man his natural inclination is to try to fix the problem. In the middle of all this DH comes to see what I'm doing. I explain to him that I've found some cabinets that might work, but they are all made of particle boards, so I don't know how well they would hold up. I showed him what I was looking at, and then he left the room. I continued shopping without giving the conversation a second thought.

Fast forward 20 minutes or so, DH returns with a pad of paper and a pencil. On it, he has drawn up plans for his own school cabinet complete with doors and made a list of the supplies it will need. He starts explaing the drawing to me and how he's sure he can put together a wooden cabinet for less than the particle board ones I have been looking at online. I tried to listen. I really did, but part of my brain was thinking about that book and how men always try to fix things. It just struck me as funny that he had just behaved exactly as the book said he would. I tried really hard not to laugh, but I just couldn't help it. My poor DH was bewildered when I burst out laughing. After a couple of minutes, I managed to get my laughter under control, apologized for laughing while he was trying to show me the drawing, and tried to explain why I had been laughing. He finished explaining his idea, and I told him to go price it.

Since I knew he really hadn't understood why I was laughing, I apologized a second time about an hour later and tried to reexplain why I had been laughing. He looked at me and said, "That's what I've been trying to tell you for years. If you give me a problem that I can put my hands on, then I can fix it. When I can't put my hands on it, I'm no good at it."

WW: Holiday pics

Goals for the new year

Time to evaluate my goals from last year. I think the overall goal for this year will be more consistency.

Physically

• Improve my eating habits by:

1. Drinking more water and less caffeine free Pepsi - I do great in spurts. Need to work on consistency.
   
2. Having a least one fruit or vegetable with every meal or snack - The set menu worked well last year, but I let it slide towards the end of the year. Just need to pick back up again.
   
3. Using my bread machine to make more homemade bread - I went through a couple of spurts during the year. I picked back up over the holidays using it to make various dinner rolls.
   
4. Eliminating soy from my diet - Almost completely eliminated except for the occasional convenience food buy.
   

• Becoming more active as best as I can for the first half of the year and reestablishing a more consistent exercise program for the second half of the year. - I started off well last year, but didn't follow through. Another area needing consistency.
  
• Remember my daily vitamin - I did better this year, but there's still room for improvement in consistency.
  

Spiritually:

• Spend time daily on a more consistent basis in reading my Bible and praying - I made some improvements last year. Still need to improve on consistency.
  
• Try to read through the entire Bible (whether I can stay on the daily schedule or have to finish up next year) - I kept losing track last year. Trying again.
  

Relationally:

• Try to spend some non-school quality time with each of my children individually twice a week - My focus for the beginning of the year is to spend more time with them in the kitchen. I want to get back to a game night as well.
  
• Spend more time in the evening with DH - Currently I'm having a hard time getting Henry to sleep. As we work on that, the time will come.
  

Other:

• Put together the crocheted squares for Violet's blanket that have been sitting in a bag for over a year. - I did get a few rows assembled last year. I just need to keep working on it as I find time.
  
• Organize Henry's room - I have the baby part organized as best I can. When finances permit, we still need to purchase some furniture. I'd like to get Benny a larger bookshelf and move his into Henry's room.
  

• Establish a system to manage my digital photos so that they get edited and uploaded in a timely manner. Go back through older photos and get caught up with my backlog. The photos are organized now. Need to work on consistency of downloading and editing beyond what goes on the blog.

• Should I achieve the previous goal before year end, I'd like to start working on the boxes of photos I have stored from before we started taking digital photos. The end goal being some scrapbooks that the kids and I can look through together. On my want to do projects list. We'll see.
  
• Improve the consistency with which chores get done around the house both by myself and by the kids. We have really slid backwards in this area since mid year. My fault, not the kids. I think we'll try to ease back into it this year.

New goals for 2010

• Work on my own education. As part of my book challenge, I'll read through as many of the Great Books in the Rhetoric as I can starting with the Iliad. One a month would be superb, 10 in the year great, even just one a good start.
• Complete my new book reading challenge.
• More decluttering and organizing.
• Revise my current cleaning system to include more help from the kids and free up more time for other activities.
• Of course - finding and setting up a new school cabinet as well
  

A Rough Start to the New Year...

I was hoping to get started with a new budget for the new year. It looked so nice on paper. Then Henry broke the Brita pitcher and the coffee pot stopped working. I have to pay for some body work on the van at the end of the month. DH has hurt his back again, so that means another round of copays for the chiropractor and regular physician. To top it off, the kitchen cabinet where we keep our school books came apart. DH says there was too much stuff and too much weight. Now he wants me to find a new cabinet to hold the school books. In the mean time they are sitting in the middle of my kitchen floor. Needless to say my budget categories are going to end up anywhere near where they started. Maybe I'll just spend a few months tracking expenses and looking for areas where we can cut back that way.