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.

Schedule for the New Year

I made a few changes to our schedule for the remainder of the school year.

1. History and science now have daily instead of alternating blocks. This will help me spread Jessie's history assignments out more evenly. It will also enable us to complete both God's Design Chemistry books in one semester.
2. I moved Benny's read aloud time back to before lunch. It was just too easy for me to decide I was tired and skip his reading or cut back on the amount I read.
   
3. I've also added an art time for Benny on Fridays instead of Read Alouds. He loves to make things, and Fridays when the girls are putting together their notebook pages are a natural time for that.
4. The structure for Henry hasn't changed much, but I plan to follow the schedule more closely than I did before Christmas.

Other changes include:

• Switching Violet from Discover 4 Yourself Bible studies to Explorer Bible Study
• Adding Greek for Jessie (Alphabet Code Cracker)
  
• Starting Latin for Children A with Violet
• Doing an actual week's work in Homer in one week instead of two with Jessie so we can get to the poetry book (Totally my fault. I don't know what I was thinking last semester. I must have been stuck in Aesop mode.)

I'm looking forward to starting next week.

Looking Ahead...

At the end of December I always try to take a look ahead to the upcoming school year so I can start looking for used curricula. Based on what is working for us this year, here's a list of what I'm considering for the upcoming year with a 6th, 4th, 1st, and 2yo. Green is already decided. Green italics need to be purchased, and orange are still up in the air at this point.

Jessie's 6th grade

Math: Singapore 6A and 6B US edition with IP and CWP
Spelling: finish SWO H; Vocabulary from Classical Roots A??
Grammar: R&S 6
Writing: CW Homer B and CW Poetry for Beginners B
Reading: assigned reading with more of an emphasis on discussion over narration
History: Middle Age, Renaissance, and Reformation
Science: possibly more God's Design or Apologia General or Apologia Anatomy
Latin: LfC C without the DVDs this time since the updated ones won't be out
Greek: ??
Logic: Critical Thinking Books 1 & 2 or Fallacy Detective and Thinking Toolbox
Art: ??
Music: ??

Violet's 4th Grade

Math: Singapore 4A and 4B US edition with IP and CWP
Spelling: finish SWO F and start G
Grammar: R&S 4
Writing: CW Aesop B and dictation
Reading: assigned reading with narration
History: Middle Age, Renaissance, and Reformation
Science: God's Design Heaven and Earth set may sub Apologia Astronomy for Universe book
Latin: finish LfC A
Logic: start BTS 2 and Mind Benders A2-A4
Art: ??
Music: ??

Benny's 1st Grade

Math: Singapore 1B with Miquon Red with maybe some 2A and Blue
Spelling: SWO A and B
Handwriting: copywork
Reading: Read alouds with Mom, start narration
History: Middle Age, Renaissance, and Reformation
Science: God's Design Heaven and Earth set may sub Apologia Astronomy for Universe book
CT: BTS 1, VPSB 2, some Mind Benders or DooRiddles ??
Art: ??
Music: Classical Kids tapes

Henry Time

Nothing formal other than I want to start a reading time with him each day.

Week 18: Tying up loose ends

It has been a wacky week. Grocery shopping last Friday before the snow was a nightmare. Now I have a crack in my corner bumper that will have to be repaired. Happily, I didn't cause any damage to anything else. Instead of 8-14 inches of snow on Saturday, at our house we measured 27 inches when it was all finished. With church cancelled and no cable, I ended up helping DH finishing digging out the vehicles and making a path to the road on Sunday. (Digging snow with a regular shovel is no fun.) Monday afternoon I went out to finish Christmas shopping, look for snow boots for Jessie and Benny (Jessie's been wearing my boots, while Benny's been wearing a pair one and a half sizes too small.), and pick up a few grocery items that I was unable to get the previous Friday. Still we somehow managed to accomplish our three days of work and still get the kids out to play for a couple of hours each day.

MATH

Jessie finished the last lesson on angles in the workbook and spent Tuesday and Wednesday on a general review exercise in the textbook. That will leave her the IP section on angles and some general review for the first few weeks of January to finish up with the 5A books.

Violet spent two days doing the last practice pages in the textbook for the section on multiplying by 6, 7, 8, and 9. On Wednesday, she started the corresponding IP section. She had the week off from Miquon.

Benny completed another Miquon page that required filling in blanks based on a set of blocks all by himself. He actually told me to leave him alone because he could do it himself, and he did. The Singapore page on the left was more of a combined effort. Benny solved the problems and colored in the sections while I wrote the numbers down for him. He had Wednesday off from math.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Jessie finished the last lesson in SWO G. YEAH!! In grammar, she covered demonstrative pronouns, more friendly letters, and indefinite pronouns. She was off again from CW this week. In literature, she finished reading The Children's Homer and also read the second chapter in Age of the Fable covering the Odyssey. I guess that gives me a week and a half to decide what to have her read next.

Violet finished copying Infant Holy, Infant Lowly and completed lesson 27 in her spelling book. In grammar, she reviewed subjects and predicates and was introduced to the concept of direct objects. She was also off from CW. For literature, she just read a chapter each from The Red Fairy Book and The Complete Peterkin Papers.

Benny finished up the phonics page covering words ending with -ink, -ank, and -unk on Tuesday, so I gave him Wednesday off from phonics. We spent Wednesday doing lots of reading aloud since he was out playing in the snow the first two days after lunch, and we didn't do any reading. He also did a couple of days of handwriting.

HISTORY / ART

The goal for OT history this week was to finish up with the reign of King Saul, so we could start fresh in January with King David. The girls both completed their summaries of Saul and David during that time and drew a picture of David using the Draw and Write books. (Actually, I think they traced it again because they both found it to be difficult and therefore frustrating.)

The only one with ancient history this week was Jessie. She read two chapters from The story of the Greeks covering the Dorian invasion and Homer. I had her write a summary of the former and complete a map showing the different Greek tribes. She also put together a corresponding notebook page.

GEOGRAPHY

The girls finished up the Middle East by completing maps of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

SCIENCE

We finished up our botany study this week by assembling our lapbooks.

OTHER

There was no Latin or logic this week. While inside, Benny has been practicing his bike riding skills. DH took his training wheels off a couple of weeks ago, and he's getting really fast.

Henry as usual wants to copy what his big brother is doing. He spent some time this week practicing on the tricycle downstairs. He can move the pedals in a complete circle now. Sometimes he rides forwards, and other times he goes backward; but it's a huge improvement from rocking back and forth.