Seven Quick Takes

Make sure you check out the other Quick Takes over at Jen’s Conversion Diary.

 

–  1 –

Have you seen Dawn's binder system for her seasonal ideas? I'm so stealing her organization method! I have tons of seasonal ideas from my preschool teaching days that I want to use with the boys, but I'm an out of sight out of mind kind of gal, and these binders will help me tremendously!

 

– 2 –

You guys have made me feel a lot better about the possibilities of container gardening! I'm still looking at information and figuring things out, but thank you so much for your ideas and thoughts on this. I asked Kara a little bit about this a few weeks ago on her blog and she gave me a whole post of information from her brother!

 

– 3 –

It is so hard to figure out what is best for your kids, and it doesn't help that other people have their own ideas about that. We're struggling with one side of the family feeling like we're not doing enough with Big Kid to encourage his learning, and the other side of the family that has a "better late than early" kind of philosophy. We'll do whatever we decided to do of course, but it does keep my brain stuck on one particular worry- "Am I doing too much or too little?" I'm hoping that because I have that in the back of my mind all the time it means I'm averaging out just fine with him.

 

– 4 –

I've been working really hard to drink more water, have less caffeine and eat home-prepared foods rather than convenience foods. I've done really well this week- 1 cup of coffee total, at least 60 oz. of water a day (up from under 20- bad, I know!), and we've done well with foods. It all comes down to planning ahead and being prepared. If I take the time at night to think through what we'll be eating the next day, I'm prepared as soon as I wake up. I get right to making a good breakfast (rather than resorting to cereal every single day or worse- nothing) and I get most of lunch and dinner prepped while the boys eat breakfast and play first thing. It cuts down the actual time it takes me to make dinner significantly once all the chopping, defrosting, and finding of ingredients is done. Now I have to see if I can keep up with the planning part. I already know how helpful it is- now I just have to be diligent to complete it each week.

 

– 5 –

Big Kid is really loving these Brain Quest cards. He does a few cards with Daddy each night, and they've really enjoyed them. They're great little questions for him to think through- patterns, noticing things in pictures, vocabulary, etc. Plus it's something special he does just with Daddy- they've had some pretty interesting conversations over those cards.

 

– 6 –

I'm starting my 30 day declutter today. The goal is to toss or donate 15 items or more each day, 450 items total. I'm planning to start in the cabinets in my laundry room- I'm pretty sure there are things in there from when we first moved in that haven't been touched ever since. I'm trying to get rid of anything we haven't used in a year or so, except for seasonal items. I'll work in the bedrooms, living room and kitchen first, and when I've run out of things to get rid of I'll head to the basement where there are unopened boxes from our move 9 months ago. If we haven't opened it by now we probably don't need it. I'm going to look through boxes in the hope of getting rid of a good portion of them. I know I'll find most of my items to get rid of in the basement, and I'm hoping that from there it'll lead to a good cleaning of the basement. That's something I have to work up serious excitement for, because it is scary down there.

 

– 7 –

I'm almost done with my first sock! I have about half an inch left before I start decreasing for the toe. I've been knitting in every spare minute- I'm so excited to finish this one and get started on the other!

Latest Work

Ender is in love with words, so when he received a very nice wood moveable alphabet set for Christmas it quickly became his favorite thing to work with. We use the alphabet in several different way, and usually he chooses to set out each letter in alphabetical order before does anything else with it.

This is what he's been doing with the moveable alphabet lately:





And moving on from that he occasionally wants to write words. He picks a card with a word, I write it first to show him how to stroke each letter, then he copies the word letter by letter. You'll notice that his letters look very shaky- he strokes each letter extremely slowly still, and he erases constantly if he doesn't think it's good enough. That's my little perfectionist for you! It's still early for him to be stroking letters, so as he gets older we'll put real work into letter formation. Right now he writes however he likes and whenever he chooses to do so.  The only thing I really correct is the grip he has on his marker. If he's going to write he may as well do it with the correct grip.











And just for cuteness sake:






Ender received that chair for his birthday in October and Ezra has completely taken it over.

Beyond Homemaking Daybook

Weather: Cold again. I can't get used to the weather here and I've lived here for over 10 years now. On Saturday it was 66 F in the afternoon- we took the boys to the park sans jackets. We went home, had dinner a bit early and went out to do our shopping and when we came home around 7 it was 39 F!

 

This Week: Back to work for me. I'm back to a full teaching schedule this week, plus 1 new student and an interview with another potential addition to the studio. This will be a difficult week since I've been off work for two weeks and the boys have gotten used to that schedule. Superman starts his Winter term at college on Tuesday evening, so it's back to the grindstone for him as well.

 

Current Fiction Read: Still Kushiel’s Chosen by Jacqueline Carey. I'm making progress, I promise! 



Current Non-Fiction Read: Still Real Learning by Elizabeth Foss. I'm really studying this book and taking my time with it. I find myself nodding along and agreeing every step of the way. It's almost exactly what I want to do with my boys.

 



Craftiness: Still working on Reed’s quilt top.

 

Learning at home:  I'll have some pictures to share with you of work that has gone well for us lately. I bought  My First Book of Mazes for Big Kid earlier this week and it's all he's asked to do for a few days now. Superman was really into puzzles and mazes when he was a kid so we were interested to see if Big Kid would be too. He definitely is!

 

New work: Nothing new for Big Kid this week. Little Bit has a new work with a salt shaker and toothpicks, and also work with spooning beans. I presented the salt shaker and toothpicks to him on Saturday and it kept him busy working at it for a solid 15 minutes. This child sits still for nothing, so I was impressed! I also presented spooning to him this weekend and it didn't last long before he started pouring them back and forth between the two little jars. Maybe I should do pouring first with him?

Towards a New Year

Superman and I have the tradition of going to lunch together before New Years to talk about what we want from the new year and what we'd like to accomplish. We went this year on the 30th- he had an appointment with his doctor to see if he was cleared to return to work (he was, YAY!) so we had lunch before that since my sister graciously agreed to watch the boys for us.

It's not so much an "I'm going to totally remake myself this year" but a realistic, "I'd like to accomplish this or work towards a new habit" kind of thing. Let's just say we keep each other honest.

I won't share superman's personal goals here, but I'll share mine. My goals revolve around clearing out clutter, both in my home and my body. I don't need to lose any weight per se, but I do want to feel better, and I have had some problems with food allergies resurfacing that I haven't had in a long time. I need to take care of that, and it requires a pretty strict diet change.

1. Plant a garden this year and hopefully end up with edible produce. If not we'll at least have learned a lot about growing green things this year.

2. Eat at-home prepared meals only for a week. We've been working for the past several months to move away from pre-packaged foods and inbalanced meals, and this is the continuance of this goal. This will either take a lot of planning and prep or not much at all, depending on if we attempt this on a week I'm working or on a week that I don't teach.

3. Read 20 fiction books this year. I made it to 17 last year, I'd like to bump it a little bit this year.

4. Start Bible memory with Big Kid and build it into a habit. We'll be using the method I found on simplycharlottemason.com and starting with shorter verses. This is just as much for me as it is for him.

5. Keep my nightstand area completely clear for 30 days except for vitamins, Bible and 1 current book. This is something I am doing particularly because Superman really prefers that our bedroom be clutter free and the fact that my nightstand looks like a library/knitting factory doesn't meet his ideal. So I'm going to limit my knitting to my basket, and my books to the shelf, save the ones I will actually use that evening.

6. Keep/Toss/Donate 15 items each day for 30 days. I'm planning to start this soon, and continue straight through for 30 days, then move on to item 7.

7. Move systematically through the house to declutter and re-organize. The plan is to work 1 month at a time in each room and the goal is to get rid of the things that have not been needed or used in the last year. I did this in 2004 and I've had two kids since then, so the house definitely needs a reboot. The general rooms are in pretty good shape, but our master bedroom closet is still a stack of boxes since our move last April (including some maternity clothes I haven't needed in over 18 months) and our basement is a true disaster of boxes. Most things just need a re-organization- like the linen closet and the laundry room/pantry. The kitchen items were put into random cabinets when we moved in and I'd like to really organize them the way I'd like them to be to make them more functional for me.

8. Drink water. Make juice an occasional thing and soda a rare thing. Another health thing, but one I'm having severe problems with. I cannot have any soda in the house or I drink it all.

9. Move to using as many fresh ingredients as possible in our cooking. Another improvement on our current diets, and another step in a healthier direction.

10. Re-evaluate my goals every 3 months. This is just as important as the actual goals themselves. I need to stay on track, and check-ins are crucial to that point.

Seven Quick Takes

Make sure you check out the other Quick Takes over at Jen's Conversion Diary.

 

--  1 --

Wow, the holidays really take it out of me! Last night was our last big hurrah with my sister who is currently on her way back to school in New York. Thank goodness the last party is done with! The boys have been staying up later than usual, Big Kid has been napping less often in favor of staying up to see visiting aunts and uncles, and the amount of sugar they've consumed in the last 2 weeks is probably more than they've had all year! We're definitely feeling the effects of all that. I'm eager to get everyone back to regular nap schedules and meals.

 

-- 2 --

The Christmas tree is still up. I'm not counting it as terrible since there was one year that our tree was still up on our anniversary. In March.

 

-- 3 --

I'm trying to sort out some information on container gardening for this spring, but I am totally lost on which information is actually useful and I'm starting to get really overwhelmed and thinking I absolutely cannot do this. We don't own land to put any kind of garden in but we have our deck to garden on for food as long as we can do that in containers. In front of our home we can plant flowers, but I'm not so worried about that.

 

-- 4 --

I have eaten way too much candy and had far too much soda over the holidays and my body is letting me know it. I am really tired even after plenty of sleep and I just feel bleh. I need to get back in the habit of drinking mostly water again and get the rest of this candy out of the house OR I WILL EAT IT ALL!

 

-- 5 --

I am not eager to return to work next week. This is the first time I've felt like this. Usually after a longer break like this I'm ready to get back into things, but this time I want to continue on how we've been- lots of cooking and baking, playing a lot of games, and keeping the house clean. I've been looking into a career shift for awhile, something that will allow me to work while the boys are in bed rather than during a lot of their prime waking hours.  I'm really hoping that we will get closer to that this year.

 

-- 6 --

Superman was released from physical therapy on Tuesday and returned fully to work on Wednesday (just in time for the holiday yesterday!). Dealing with the worker's comp people has actually been a really good experience.

 

-- 7 --

I've been knitting my first sock over the holidays! Everytime we went somewhere where we'd be sitting and talking with family I took the sock and it's almost done. I'm so excited since this is why I started knitting in the first place. I've been using Silver's Sock Class and it has been great to follow. I especially appreciate the pictures throughout the tutorial.