The No Good

Writing about the no good, very bad days that we all have from time to time today. Because everyone has bad days and I know that in most of my posts it looks like we just go along all sunshine and rainbows, lollipops in hand, singing like the Von Trap family. Yeah righ!

There are days that ECJ with his teenage hormones, ADHD, lack of impulse control, and general attitude gets the whole house in an uproar! He's downloaded something he shouldn't have, he's online looking at things he aught not be looking at, he's opened an account that he didn't ask permission to open, he's talking to people online who aren't really good for him to be talking to. Do you see the pattern with him? His main issue is the darned Internet and his electronic use. We end up dealing with why he can't talk to so and so, no he really doesn't need that account and just whose credit card was he thinking of entering to use it (really?!?!?), his report is due for Literature and Composition and he hasn't even cracked the book open yet. YUP. That's right. We have a teenage boy in the house. One who sometimes yells at his sisters to get out of his room and then complains the next day that they won't hang out with him. One who goes outside to skateboard with the neighbor kid and forgets to take his phone while deciding to skate down to the park without informing us. One who likes to push every boundary there is with Mom and Dad just to see what he can get away with today because you know some days it's just not worth the argument.

There are also days that YCJ gets hormonal and pouts, screams, and cries over any little thing that happens. There's one extra math problem today than yesterday, I've asked her to write the sentences in English instead of just the words that need changed, she's just feeling like we're all against her for no apparent reason. YUP. She's an eleven year old girl who is just learning how to deal with all of the hormones going through her body right now. One minute she enjoys playing with her little sister or older brother and the next she's screaming that they drive her up the wall. One minute she's all hugs and sunshine and the next she's like that girl from Exorcist . This is how her life is at the moment and it means that most days we roll with the punches but some days we want to throw a temper tantrum too! A lot of her frustration in school work has to do with her dyslexia and how it can make reading something simple into something really hard that day. Sometimes she's just over tired and wanting some more rest. And some days she doesn't care what the reason is we're all trying to get on her nerves and driving her crazy! We have times when there's girl drama going on between her and her friends in the neighborhood, so and so is being bossy ... or so and so won't listen to her ideas which are so much better! You get the idea.

Then it comes to the youngest member of our camping troupe. Peanut. Oh Peanut. She's highly functioning autistic and legally blind. Most days she's an angel with lots of ideas, plenty to show us, making us laugh and smile. But there are days when she just can't handle ANYTHING! She blows her top and punches her brother in the eye, yanks her sister's hair, screams at me ... only to minutes later be crying that she did that. It's all part of life with her challenges. Living life with autism on any level isn't just a challenge for the child it's a challenge for the entire family. What do you mean that you forgot your entire alphabet? (Yes, it happened and we spent last year going through everything from her preschool books up through first grade ... which is why she's in second grade this year and not last year.) It's a challenge to know what curriculum is going to work with her... will it be visually stimulating enough, fun enough, challenging enough, and yet still be able to be dropped for a few days if she goes into her bad days.

And of course you have us parents and the animals. Seriously there are some days that we really just want to scream until no sound comes out anymore. We're not saints ... far from it! Our children stress us out, confuse and confound us, drive us crazy, AND make us proud. We're a normal every day family. No there's no phone calls from the school administration to deal with if one of the campers acts up ... but there's late night conversations between teacher and principal (read mom and dad there) on what we need to change and what we can continue, should we really expect so much out of ECJ and just what was he thinking when he .... (whatever it is he did that week). We don't always agree, and a lot of the time we compromise. We hit ruts with our camper while pulling into what we thought was a comfortable campsite only to find out that it's not as flat and comfy as we'd thought.

So ... we don't always have a no good, very bad days ... there's not always a runt when we're going into our campsite ... and we're not always nice to each other. We're just like every other family out there. Unique with our own problems but when you look at the basics we're all really the same. It doesn't matter if you send your kids to a brick and mortar school, an online public school, school at home, or even totally crunchy unschool. We all have bad days and good days. It's in how we handle it that makes us who we are. Hopefully with a little gentle guiding all of our children can grow up to be well adjusted adults who can think for themselves and raise our grandchildren in ways that make us proud.

Homeschool Highway Book Review

* I received no money, promises, nor anything else for giving this review. It is my honest opinion, given freely. The link to the book on Amazon is right in it's title just in case you want to purchase it for yourself as she's re-releasing it!*

Homeschool Highway

By - Amy Dingman

Oh my God, y'all!!! This book! This book right here! It's awesome beyond words! Seriously I read this book in two sittings (well, technically two baths since as a homeschool mom of three I basically only get time to really read in the tub) and although I was pleased with how it ended I was left wanting more to read because it was just that good!

This is NOT a how to from A - Z book of homeschooling. You're not going to pick it up and know what your state requires (remember that all states have different requirements and laws and you should know what your states laws are), the ultimate 100% foolproof curriculum (there is no such thing y'all), nor are you going to find a schedule or set of rules to follow each day to make your homeschooling day perfect.

What you will find is the truth about homeschooling. As Mrs. Dingman puts it the pot holes in the Homeschool Highway (or in other words the challenges you'll face on your homeschool journey) and her suggestions on how to face them. She is truthful with how she presents herself as well, she doesn't sugar coat it ... homeschool is NOT all rainbows and sunshine. But, she reminds us that it is our choice to be on the highway ... we made the choice to homeschool, no one forced us into it.

In just nine short chapters she'll have you chuckling and nodding at nearly every page. It's insightful and helpful in more ways than one. Have that family member that continuously quizzes your children? She covers that. How about that feeling that you're failing because so and so down the road at the co-op has children who are fluent in Latin and have perfect penmanship? Yup, she covers that too. Feeling like a failure because you just need to get away from the kids once in awhile? That too is covered.

So, order this book (hard copy or Kindle) and grab yourself a glass of wine. Break into that secret stash of chocolate you hide from the kids and settle in for a good read. As Mrs. Dingman would put it (paraphrasing here), "Pull you Minivan of Awesome onto the Homeschool Highway and enjoy the ride."

Oh the Possibilities

Well, last week's weekly wrap up was rather short and I published it in the middle of the week. So, this week I'll pick up where I left off. Thursday and Friday we spent the days running errands and looking into possible houses to move into. Each house we looked at had something that we couldn't handle come into it. One house was so run down it would have been better demolished than tried to be rebuilt, we don't have that kind of money. The middle house we went to look at was beautiful, in a beautiful country setting, with almost everything we were looking for ... except their down payment was more than we're comfortably able to part with at this time. And the final house, looked for on Friday, had already been taken off of the market. So, this leaves us to follow our original plan of moving our current mobile home to another community, saving some money for the next 3-4 years, and then finally going house shopping again. We're not sure which area or state we're thinking of moving to when that happens but we're open to any and all options.

Saturday and Sunday we spent much of our time outdoors and some of the time watching movies together on Netflix with the entire family. Nothing out of the ordinary to talk about on either day but it was our favorite type of weekend. Low key and surrounding ourselves with our family with lots of giggles and tons of fun.

Scarf for Noni

Hat for me

So, what did we do during the week? Well, we took the week off of lessons. We're going to be trying a new schedule where we do 3 weeks on and one week off most of every month. That way we get some down time. Homeschooling year round gives us the option of doing this without running into any issues with hours of education needed. And we're still requiring reading and any reports or projects to be worked on those weeks. So, that doesn't mean they're really "off" weeks but more of an exploratory week in which we'll work on new skills, dive into new genre of books, get around to those projects we've been putting off no matter if they're house projects or individual projects. It seems like it'll be a good way to add a little unschooling to our homeschooling agenda. Provide more freedom for the campers to explore new ideas and things that interest them. Which means one of these weeks I'm sure we'll be building a volcano or a robot ... the list goes on and on.

This means that I'm not going to break the rest of this post down by days and what we did on each day. I might mention a day just for perspective but not a whole lot of each day we did x,y, and z. And as I bet all of you can guess I spent a good deal of time crocheting this week.

Monday we chose as our library day. Many many books were taken out along with many DVDs. Much of the week was spent watching videos, reading books, and looking up things online that interested each child.

Peanut's inspired art work.

YCJ's

ECJ's

On Wednesday they watched a DVD documentary series on the Italian Renaissance great artists of music and art. They then decided to draw pictures inspired by what they had just watched. It melted my heart to find them enjoying the art that had been shown. In my opinion the DVD documentary series was pretty dry and I thought they'd loose interest rather quickly but they did not.



Other than that, working on a few crafts, and watching some Netflix together it's been a really relaxing interest led week. I crocheted for more hours than I thought I would and am currently working on a service vest for Moragon to wear out when she's with Daddy. Buying them the right size from online when she weighs about 180 pounds is rather trying and expensive.

Ear warmer for
YCJ

Ear warmer for
Peanut

The campers played outside a lot this week too, even though it's been a bit chilly. Mainly in the 60s with gusty breezes. But, being the outdoorsy types they'd rather be out in the sunshine soaking it up than inside curled up with a book. The ground is too cold to sit on right now or I'm sure YCJ would have taken her new book outside with her to read while sitting under a tree as she did several times this summer. The local schools had a half day Thursday which meant that their neighborhood friends were all home early and could play with them and we've had a new homeschool family move in just down the street from us.


I couldn't list for you everything the campers learned or didn't learn this week. Math was covered while cooking and grocery shopping, they read every single day, observed nature at it's finest while raking leaves with Daddy, crafted with Mom, and cuddled with the dogs. Some weeks you just need to hang back and let them be them. This was one of those weeks. We've had unschooling weeks where they've learned more, we've also had unschooling weeks where they've learned less. I'm glad we called one for this week, they enjoyed themselves and we were all able to relax and get some me time in between all of the family time.

A box of gifted yarn for me from a good
friend! Absolutely love it and I will
be making some preemie stuff for
a young lady I know who's baby will
be delivered at 29-30 weeks! Such a blessing!!!!

Don't for one  minute think that every second of this week was sunshine and happiness with rainbows. We're a bunch of strong personalities in this house and we often bump heads. Teenagers opening accounts that they shouldn't have and didn't ask permission about, dogs making themselves known along with a loud mouth cat, and the election! ECJ spent until about one am watching the news feed on CNN and Daddy stayed up to watch it all. I fell asleep shortly after one and decided to stay asleep until morning. I won't get into political views here but ECJ should be more prepared in four years to follow along with the election, and make an informed decision when it comes time for him to vote. It'll be the first year that he'll be able to vote and I am very glad that he took such an interest in it this year. He'll remember this election for a long time and so in four years, though we might not vote the same way, he'll make an informed adult choice when he votes and I couldn't ask for more.

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All Hallows Eve

With more drizzling rain on Sunday we started our week on a wet note. All weekend we'd enjoyed visiting with family, spending time outside, carving a pumpkin, and roasting pumpkin seeds. The rain on Sunday wasn't the downpour type of rain but the steady drizzle that quickly chills you to the bones if you stay out in it. So, the majority of Sunday itself was spent inside the house using various electronic devices and attempting not to step on each others toes while excitement mounted for Halloween.




Monday, All Hallows Eve, the day the campers had been waiting for. The past month and a half all I've heard about is Halloween. I had planned on doing a half day Monday and Tuesday, but in favor of having a longer weekend I lumped both day's lessons together. We didn't start until around noon and were done by two PM. The rest of the afternoon I had bouncy excited campers. We went trick-or-treating with our neighbors (who have been in the area for the past several years and know the best routes) around 5. I even dressed up this year. And ate leftover chili from Sunday night for supper after we got back home. With candy for desert you'd think that they would have been too hyper to sleep but they were all off in dreamland relatively quickly to my surprise.


Tuesday, All Saints Day, the day we've got catechism and our day doesn't end until after 9 PM and that's even without a ton of extra things. The lessons today were actually in the lesson plan for Wednesday (and I moved Friday's lessons to Wednesday ... giving us a four day weekend). Lessons were moved through quickly and all three campers are excited that next week marks the end of the first quarter grading for this school year. (That's only become important for my record keeping since ECJ began high school levels.) We followed one of our less healthy yearly traditions and allowed the campers to eat chips and candy for lunch that they got while trick or treating. Since we rarely buy candy throughout the year they are allowed to binge a bit during the holidays. The girls had a party like environment in catechism for All Saints Day and we attended one of the masses at our parish church. They fell asleep rather quickly after a busy, long day.

Wednesday after lessons we did our oozing pumpkin experiment that the kids have been looking forward to for over a month. Basically you take your jack-o-lantern and turn it into the container to hold your experiment. Then you mix some elephant toothpaste up in a jar that you set inside of your jack-o-lantern. After a few moments you should see your chemical reaction pouring out of at least the mouth of your jack-o-lantern. Hence the title "oozing pumpkins". The campers really enjoy doing this experiment and each time they retain more information about the chemical reaction than they did the previous time. We normally do this experiment outside because of the mess, but we again had that drizzly cold rain falling and so I just put one of my big square pans under the jack-o-lantern to catch the mess. 

Thursday and Friday are now lesson free thanks to a little lesson planning juggling. Thursday we are driving over two hours to go check out a couple of houses. We're contemplating moving and I'll let you know what we choose next week. We may or may not come home Thursday night so I'm publishing this Wednesday evening and I'll link it up to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap up when I get home and can easily do it. I hope all of you had a wonderful Halloween and a great week homeschooling!

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Reflections

I've spent much of the past week reflecting on life, religion, and our plans for the future. Sometimes we change those plans, sometimes we just adapt a few bits of the plan to fit the larger picture, and sometimes we start from scratch. Life is full of wonders and beauty if only we open our eyes and our hearts to see it.

So, this week I am starting off with a small prayer that I found in a book called Seek Me with all Your Heart, written by Beth Wiseman. It's a fictional book telling a small part of an Amish family's journey. The following prayer is one that the main character starts her day off with even when she's feeling abandoned by God...

Good morning, Lord. ?You are ushering in another day,

untouched and freshly new. So here I come to ask You, God, if

You'll renew me too? Forgive the many errors that I made yesterday

and let me try again, dear God, to walk closer in Thy way.

But, Father, I am well aware I can't make it on my own, so take

my hand and hold it tight, for I can't walk alone.

This simple little prayer, no matter where it actually began, has touched my heart over the last week and I find myself seeking God's hand to help me walk down the streets of my life. I hope that in some small way it has touched you in some way as well.

Two pumpkins, one
with a breast cancer
ribbon.

Teal pumpkin,
represents an allergy-free
option for trick or
treating.

Over the weekend we spent much of our time reading together, watching Netflix, and playing outside. The weather here in Michigan is a bit chill at the moment now that Fall is in full swing. But we're enjoying every minute that we can get outside before we have frigid temperatures. I worked on several crochet decorations for Fall and Christmas, the campers actually got along for most of the weekend even when discussing their favorite video games and their different ways of approaching the challenges in said games, and Daddy got to relax. Poor Daddy has been feeling out of sorts for over a week now with a migraine that just won't stop. My reflection of the entire weekend is that when you have your family little else matters... Sick or well, as long as you have your loved ones cherish every moment.

Monday we began our regular five day school week. Book lessons and computer lessons were completed within just a few hours and that left time for the campers to do some of the things that they wanted to. YCJ finished another chapter book, Peanut colored several more pages in her favorite coloring book, and ECJ got to spend time in his room without his sisters "bothering" him. Daddy and I watched a NCIS marathon on Netflix while I worked on larger pot holders that fit Daddy's hands better than the original ones I made (original ones are the red ones, the new ones are the green ones).

Tuesday we didn't do lessons in favor of relaxing and watching Netflix together. We had catechism that evening so it makes for a really long day. We're not all back from catechism until after 8:30 PM!

So, Wednesday we did double lessons. This is not as hard as it sounds and the campers voted to do this so that they wouldn't have any lessons over the weekend. The day practically flew by and we were still done with book lessons in about three hours and our online lessons only took an hour. When they buckle down they can get a lot done. Considering that I still had half a crock pot full of sausage and sour kraut we made Wednesday night a leftover night. Which left my evening free for talking with Daddy, watching more NCIS on Netflix, and crocheting some Christmas ornaments.

An envelope for a letter to Santa Christmas ornament

Thursday we did our lessons in record time! The girls watched Magic School Bus The Human Body again. Not because I'd asked them to but because they actually enjoy watching it. YCJ not as much as Peanut, but any excuse for TV during the day is a good one for her. We don't have cable so we watch antenna TV most of the time or Netflix. The campers don't watch much TV at all. They each have their favorite shows and we make sure to remind them each week when their show is on so they don't get upset about missing it. Yes, if we didn't remind them that it was time they usually forget about it about half of the time.

This has been a challenging week to say the least. As I look back and reflect on it I find many things that upset me. Each of the campers pulled an attitude at least twice this week, they're not perfect and neither is our family. Someone, we haven't figured out who, set bread soaked in antifreeze next to our porch steps in an attempt to poison our dogs. Thankfully we're vigilant and neither dog even licked the bread. Things could have been very bad. And Daddy and I both quit smoking this week! So our attitudes weren't the best but I'm very proud of us for having quit again. Perhaps this time it'll stick.

I have so many things to be thankful for each and every day. Some days with the hustle and bustle of daily life, I forget that each day is a gift. But, each day I'm gifted with life, I wake up to a loving family, we have a roof over our head, and we're in relatively good health most of the time. Life is good and God is everywhere ... you just have to take the time to look.

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A Blur

The last two weeks have been pretty much a blur. Not that we did all that much inside of those two weeks, just that I don't remember specifics of most of the first week. A lot of outside time at the beginning of the week. We did a lot of movies and reading at the end of that week, none of us were feeling very well and it was easier than pulling out the text books and getting lessons going in full swing. I finished a toddler blanket for a family friend during this week.

This past weekend we really just relaxed around the house, still not feeling well (nothing major just the sinus issues that come with the change of season), and played on various electronics. The campers played outside a bit when they were feeling up to it. All in all it was a very relaxing weekend.

Monday we called text book lessons off in favor of watching educational history and science DVDs because of the sinus issues cropping back up in the morning and causing sore throats. And while the campers watched those I spent most of the day working on Peanut's Christmas blanket (one of her gifts this year). 

Tuesday we were back to our regularly scheduled plans. Book lessons happened while I supervised and made supper in the crock pot (sausage and sour kraut this night). Computer lessons happened during the afternoon in turns while I again worked on Peanut's blanket. Due to no one feeling 100% we did call off sick for catechism classes, feeling it was better safe than sorry.


On Wednesday we again pulled out the DVDs and books. Sore throats but no fevers along with sinus drainage tells me that we'll get through this without going to the doctor but that there's no reason to do too much at any given time. I spent a good deal of the day making sure everyone was staying hydrated with warm drinks and crocheting on the blanket, determined to finish it inside of a week. (Just a random goal of mine, not because there was a deadline of a week to make it.) And I did finish it right before going to bed!

Thursday it rained all day long. We spent the entire day working on lessons and cleaning. To show off a simple chemical reaction we got the girls to clean the drains of the sink using baking soda and vinegar. They now want to build a volcano and make it erupt! (Sometime this winter we'll do that just because they want to.) After lessons were finished the campers watched some videos and then played on their electronics while I worked on some more Christmas ornaments for our tree.

What we learned this week - Here's a short list of things we learned this week... brain storming for story writing, greater and less than, punctuation and capitalization, all about bees and other insects and why they are important, early American history and how colonists and pioneers lived, information about the upcoming election, and how much we really don't like college level algebra (we will be purchasing a more grade appropriate algebra book shortly).

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The Unintentional Break

This past week was very interesting! We ended up taking a break instead of doing the schedule for lessons that I had laid out last week in my planner. It was not a bad way to start October.

Snowman goody sack.

Over the weekend we played outside and watched movies. I crafted. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.


I had scheduled us off of lessons on Monday because it was the third of the month and I always schedule us off of lessons on the third. The third is the day each month that we do the majority of our errand running. And that's exactly what we did this Monday, run errands almost all day long. BUT, we did stop at the park in the afternoon for the campers to play on the playground and go for a small walk. Tuesday I had scheduled for us to do our regular lessons ... however, we hadn't finished our errand running from the day before and so we put off lessons in favor of getting the rest of the errands finished.

Wednesday the campers all had dental appointments and that's exactly what we spent our morning doing. ECJ, YCJ, and Peanut all had no new cavities. Peanut's dental work (that has been ongoing for a few months) will finish up next week with her last appointment until her six month check up. After the dentist office we went to Grandma and Papa's house and helped Daddy scrub their big back deck clean. You can just see Peanut through the window blinds spraying off the cleaning agent we used to scrub that old deck with. It hadn't been done in at least six years so there was a lot of cleaning, scrubbing, and water involved. As well as close to ten hours outside!

Thursday we went back down to Grandma and Papa's house to paint the deck with deck stain. All of the railings and bits and pieces had to be done before the main part of the deck. It was a really big job and Grandma and Papa were outside with us helping to get it done. Hours and hours worth of happy work and now the deck looks almost brand spanking new (it's a 21 year old deck too).

So, Friday popped up with us unexpectedly haven taken the week off of lessons! We'd planned for lessons every day but Monday. Instead of getting frustrated I just smiled as we called lessons off for Friday as well. Instead we went to the cider mill for lunch and then came home to craft a bit and watch our history videos that will need to be returned to the library in the next day or two.

Peanut worked on her first plastic canvas piece that she actually understood. YCJ worked on her new puppy toy sewing kit that she got at the beginning of the month. Both were excited because these were the items they'd asked to buy with their money that they earned from completing their summer reading maps that I had assigned them. Since they finished them all before the first official day of fall they earned their rewards.


I worked on a few Christmas ornaments, dabbled with my cross stitch, and worked on a toddler blanket for a friend's baby. 

What did ECJ do? Well, he played games and watched YouTube on his tablet. He was exhausted even though he was the least active of all of us this week. But, then again he's a teenager who's growing every day so I shouldn't be too surprised. 


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Read my other post this week where I talk about myself for once.

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