Weekly Wrap-Up: Valentine’s Fun and a Lot More

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In my life this week… Between routine tasks, growing bean sprouts, trying to keep up with little spring cleaning projects, and bringing the car back and forth to our mechanic, 40 minutes away, it’s been a busy, busy week.

But it was fun, too.  On Monday I sat down with pink paper and a pair of scissors, hoping Miss 9 would become interested, and started cutting out valentines.  She did, and hung them up too.  Miss 11 made red jello, Miss 14 promised to make icing for the heart-shaped cornbread I was making for breakfast, Mr. 16 approved of it all, and my husband looked confused.  It’s been so long since I had the energy to do something like this!

In our homeschool this week…   We’re plodding steadily along, enjoying most of it most of the time.

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…   Nothing this week except for the encouragement to keep on keeping on.

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing… The library, judo, catechism, friends, an award ceremony.

My favorite thing this week was… Again there were so many things!  Here are a few:

• Decorating and baking for Valentine’s Day.
• Attending a ceremony where Miss 14 was awarded prizes for her writing.
• Watching all four children, in everything from shorts to dresses, run five times around the house in the snow.  They had too much energy to do school work, so I gave them an energy break.  The dogs loved it and ran with them.
• Watching March of the Penguins, at Grandma and Grandpa’s recommendation.
• Having the first baseboard in our home ‘renovation’ project completely finished.  It’s beautiful, shining white.
• Getting a new mailbox to replace our rusting-to-pieces one.
• Watching Amazing Grace with the older children.  They want me to review it and tell everyone how wonderful it is.
• Eating our very own bean sprouts, the freshest food we’ve had since fall.

Questions/thoughts I have…  How will we manage to keep up our intense homeschool program when the outside work begins?  The younger children can study less, but the older children really need to keep on going.  And the outside work is necessary for our family.  I recently read about the need to decide on the sacrifices you’re willing to make to meet your goals, since ‘setting sacrifices on purpose is significantly better than setting them by default.’  That is so true!

Things I’m working on…

Homeschooling.  We’re completely back into our routine, and we’re moving on steadily.

Birding.  The Great Backyard Bird Count is this weekend.  So far we’ve only observed two blue jays, some chickadees, and a large unknown stranger that sits in the tops of trees and sounds like a cross between a hen and a duck.

Dejunking and spring cleaning, both on my own and with Jessica’s Zone Defence.  I hate deciding what to tackle when, and this is the closest I can get to someone telling me what to do.  I love it!  I’m working on the mending basket, the homeschool book pile, and the box of books to sell, and maybe the old photo box.

Getting fit.  I’m focussing a bit more on food than exercise for now, and that requires a lot of decisions, another reason I’m thankful to have someone else making the spring-cleaning decisions for me.

Planning the garden and other outside work.  Actually, my family’s been reading Joel Salatin’s books and wants to get back into chickens as well as try a pig, a goat, or rabbits.  I’m the one adding the ‘or’  but some of them want it to be ‘and’.

Home decorating.  We’ve lived in our home for over 11 years.  It desperately needs repainting and that requires decisions about color and more.  I’ve started a file with ideas; perhaps I should open a Pinterest account.  Fortunately this will be a multi-year project and my husband is happily focussing on our fancy baseboards for now.  Those will be a beautiful glossy white.

Blog background stuff.  In a few weeks Google Friend Connect will no longer work on WordPress blogs.  Apparently a Facebook page is the way to go, so I’m trying to set that up.  Facebook is not my up of tea.  Does anyone have a better solution?

I’m reading… John. I am also reading The Odyssey (the version by Samuel Butler) , Mindsight, Fit and Fabulous in 15 Minutes.  I finished Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul.  It is one of the books studied in Omnibus 1.

With the kids, I’m reading Acts, The Long Winter, Rozemarijntje Gaat Naar School, and Wambu by Piet Prins.  Neither The Long Winter nor Wambu is particularly cheerful at this stage, but the worst is almost over in both books.

I’m grateful for …  Sunshine.  Friends.  My family.  Blogging. Clean-swept floors.

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This post is linked to The Homeschool Mother’s Journal and to Weekly Wrap Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.