Last year’s apricot blossoms, with a butterfly.
This weekend we celebrated Christ’s death and resurrection for our sins. It’s a good reminder to ask ourselves: how can we live in thankfulness to our Savior?
One aspect of this is that we understand what we are called to do and make careful plans to do these things. Of course, we all have our regular routines of Bible reading, prayer, family time, basic home care, and church activities, as part of our daily focus on loving the Lord and our neighbor, but I find that each month has a few other projects that need to get done.
Although I did not complete every item on last month’s list, it was so helpful in focussing my attention. I pray that this month’s list will again help me use my time wisely.
Here are our April projects for living thankfully before God and enjoying the many gifts He gives us:
Homeschooling:
Homeschool diligently, day by day, remembering to keep everyone on track.
Catch up completely on Miss 15’s high school records, and keep up with Mr. 17’s.
Read at least two books for my teens’ Omnibus program. I read about or skim all of the books, but don’t actually read them all, especially if I’ve read them before. Finished How Should We Then Live.
Decide what major program Miss 12 will be doing next year. It will probably be Tree of Life’s What’s the Big Idea? If it is, I want to order it at the conference.
Prepare for the homeschooling conference where I’ll be on two panels, one about teaching multiple levels and one about teaching high school at home. I have a lot of ideas but still need to organize them. I need to schedule an hour a day this week and maybe more next week to work on this.
Listen to the MathOnDVD Calculus lectures with Mr. 17, one or two a week. Only a few.
Home and Family:
Memorize Ps 31:5,7,8 which was apparently an evening prayer to be taught to students and children during the time between the Old and the New Testaments. Perhaps Jesus grew up with this prayer as well. He quoted the first verse while on the cross: “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”
Do a tiny bit of spring cleaning most days with the kids. With five people working 15 minutes a day, we should be finished by the end of the month. This week we’re focussing on bedrooms; the other weeks will be kitchen, pantry, and recipe collection; dining, living, and bathrooms (we work on these every Saturday, so there’s not much to do); and basement, study, and hallways. The Little Misses cleaned out the verandah last week. Prepare cleaning checklist.
Increase our B-vitamin intake and get back into making yoghurt regularly. I made it three times in the first 8 days!
Be active outside together, enjoying nature, preparing for Track and Field, and caring for our little piece of paradise.
Finish reading aloud Children of the New Forest and Twenty-One Balloons, and decide if we want to read Nobody’s Boy. Started I, Juan de Pareja.
Gardening:
Finish planning the vegetable garden.
Order seeds. Start tomato, pepper, and leek seeds, as well as the petunia seeds we saved.
Plan the front flowerbed with the help of young neighbor who does landscaping, and make a step by step list of things to do.
Work in the orchard: learn about cloning fruit trees and applying an organic treatment to prevent insect infestations.
Clean up the yard after winter.
Personal:
Exercise, eat well, and relax appropriately.
Accept the fact that there are only 24 hours a day and decide what practical implications that should have. In other words, what should I eliminate? What am I not called to do? Reading Decisive to help me make a wise decision.
Begin to study the history of science; read one small biography this month.
Decide if I need to limit the amount of blogging and/or reviewing I do. I am planning to cut back a bit.
…
I will probably not complete all these goals, especially since I’m not feeling all that well. However, since these are the things I believe I’m called to do, I aim to make progress on each one of them.
Do you have plans for this month? Feel free to share in the comments and include a link back to your blog if you have blogged about them.
Great list. I pray you have the strength to make progress in each area. Spring cleaning is on my mind, too. 15 minutes a day is a good idea.
Sounds like a very good list. I hope you get done at least half of it. 🙂
Thanks, ladies! Easter Monday we took the day off from school, and I got the spring cleaning list made and planned the garden seed order. 🙂
It’s so wonderful to get so far on the first day! 🙂
Today we plan to focus on learning, do our 15 minutes of spring cleaning, choose some new glasses for Miss 12, make yoghurt, shop for food and potting soil, and visit a young friend. In my ‘spare time’ I hope to write an outline for my talks at the homeschooling conference.
I’ve been battling some illness for the past several months too. At times we have to extend grace to our goal lists and just be happy with all that we are doing. Homeschooling at that level has to be intensive enough- hang in there!