New Blog

I have started a new blog to replace this one. I will still leave this one up but I probably won’t be writing on it. Come visit Glorious Womanhood

Homeschool Family

We find this video hilarious. Some of it is so true but of course some is exaggerated. I tried to post a God Tube video here but WordPress doesn’t seem to allow that right now.

Organizing Housework

I hope that one day I will have this all figured out, but today I don’t. I can not seem to find a way to consistently organize housework. It was better in the days when David had a normal schedule. He used to work Monday-Friday 7am-4:30pm. That was so much more conducive to a normal household routine. *sigh*

Now he works a schedule that while predictable for the most part, is not easy for me to schedule. Let’s say last week he was off on Wednesday and Thursday, this week he will be off Friday-Monday. Then he will not be off again until two Wednesdays after that to start the pattern over again. Now, often he ends up working off days because they need him.

I can not schedule cleaning or school on the days he is off because we never know what is going to go on those days. Soooo, what I have been doing is winging it and doing whatever I see needs to be done whenever I can. But, I don’t like that. I am a structured and orderly person by nature, but I have lazy tendencies. If it can be put off until tomorrow, it is likely that it will be. Yes, you can roll your eyes at me here. I am a procrastinating perfectionist. Not a happy mix.

I LOVE to have things orderly and clean and uncluttered and fresh and… you get the idea. But, as I stated in my last post about housework, I am not always willing to put in the effort to accomplish that all the time.

If you were to walk in my house today it would not be as clean as I like it to be, especially if I have company. The girls bathroom is dirty (they are responsible for it but I have to check up on them), my bathroom is okay, but I need to clean the toilet and the shower and rinse the tub out. My desk is cluttered, even though it seems like I unclutter it everyday. All the floors need to be vacuumed. My bed is not made. There are clothes on the couch that need to be put away. I have a pile of clothes and a box of toys for a maybe-one-day garage sale by my bed. Oh, and my closet is an absolute mess.

Now, lest you think I’m too bad, the kitchen gets cleaned 2-3 times a day. The living room is always clean and neat by the time David gets home. My bathroom sink, counter and mirror are clean. So is the outside of the toilet, I just haven’t put toilet cleaner in the bowl yet. My bathroom floor is clean. The girls beds are made and room picked up. The shower needs to be cleaned but yet it isn’t really dirty, but if I let it go much longer it would be YK? All the trash cans are clean and emptied. Laundry is being done, and I only have two loads sitting waiting to be washed. Most of my cabinets are fairly organized.

Hmmm, I am making myself feel a little better Anyways, the point of my post is I am going to be working on figuring out how to have a workable household routine with David’s schedule, that includes homeschooling. I don’t have it all figured out yet, but as I am working it out I will post updates. Maybe it can help someone else out there as well.

Choosing a Latin Program

I have been doing a lot of research on Latin programs over the past couple weeks. There are many out there but I have narrowed it down to two, Latin for Children and Prima Latina/ Latina Christiana.

I have compiled a list of pros and cons for each program. These are just my opinion on what is pro and what is con, yours may differ

Prima Latina / Latina Christiana:

Pros:

-Can start as early as 1st grade.

-Seems to integrate English grammar pretty thoroughly

-Seems to give extra info in TM

-Has active forum for questions

Cons:

-Seems teacher intensive

-Don’t have previews of the DVDs and CDs, so you can’t get a good feel for it

-Only gives one lesson to preview

-Only ecclesiastical pronunciation

-Lack of info on website, have to wade through forums to answer questions

Latin for Children:

Pros:

-Gives 5 Chapters for a preview

-Gives a whole lesson preview on DVD

-Gives clips of the CDs

-Student directed

-Classical pronunciation with concessions for ecclesiastical

-Pretty thorough FAQ on site

-Have additional, optional, fun activity books

-has History readers that coincide with the lessons, so that kids can actually use the skills they are acquiring

-also has a forum

Cons:

-Not sure how thoroughly every topic is explained (though the ones that were explained were very easy to understand

-can’t start until about 3rd grade level

-forum isn’t as active as Pl/LC forum

-not sure how thorough their English grammar instruction is, though the grammar they did intro I learned things I didn’t know before

I think it shows that I am leaning toward LFC, but I guess I need to talk with someone who has used it to answer the few questions I still have. A good site to go to to see the differences in different Latin programs is here.

Backyard Aviary

We looked out our window and saw this:

We got very excited and went outside to a picture. It was so big! At least for a bird. I looked it up and found out it is a Turkey Vulture, which is actually somewhat common in the South. I don’t think I have ever seen one though. We are always fascinated by any kind of creature we find in our backyard.

Last week we saw a very big lizard chasing after a smaller lizard doing what we assume was some kind of mating ritual. He was displaying his red dewlap ( I found out later it was called that), which is this flap under his jaw. Here is an example of what it looks like:

I love almost all of God’s creation. Sorry, I just can’t bring myself to love some of them, like snake and spiders (picture me shivering just mentioning those names). But, so much of nature is just fascinating.

Girl’s Birthday Party

I have not written in over a week because many things have been going on. First, the girls had a combined birthday party on Saturday. It was a small affair with only the grandparents there and one uncle. The got mainly money this year and got a total of $105 each! Plus we gave them bibles. We gave Mariah a KJV Pocket Companion Bible with her name engraved on the front and we gave Savannah Egermeier’s Bible Story Book.

Mariah has decided she wants to save her money and Savannah has already spent some We had burgers and cupcakes and German Chocolate Cake (my MIL supplied these) and ice cream. As you would expect we felt very sluggish and had headaches later in the day and the next day. We don’t eat much sugar and this is part of the reason why. Not to mention that it suppresses your immune system for the next 24 hours. Here
is a helpful article about sugar and it’s effects on you and what to replace it with.

It was nice to see our parents. We don’t see them as often since we moved about an hour away from them. After eating and opening gifts we ended up all going to a local outlet center since my in-laws had never been. My parents brought my cousin’s baby girl Libertie. I will blog about that in the next post.

To Be or Not to Be….Organized

What is organization really? Dictionary.com defines organized as “To put together into an orderly, functional, structured whole.”

I can do that. What I can’t seem to do is KEEP it that way for too long. I am GREAT at organizing. But, is it realistic to expect it to stay that way? Hmm, I really don’t know the answer to that.

Part of it is probably my priorities. As much as I would like my house to always look organized, I am not willing to put in the time or effort it would take. I think that we spend a lot of time cleaning as it is.

Example: I like the kitchen cabinets to look a certain way. Inevitably when the girls put things away they don’t get put away the way *I* would do it. This also applies to towels, clothes, bathrooms or just about any cleaning.

I have a few choices here:

1) Do it myself.

2) RE-do it the way I like.

3) Train them diligently to do it the way I like.

4) Get over it and just be glad it got done.

I strive for a mixture of 3 and 4. But, sometimes I end up doing 1 or 2. By doing it myself I am really helping NO ONE. By, going back over it I could cause my children to feel like they can’t ever do it good enough or they don’t HAVE to do it good enough because I will do it over.

I think it is healthy to do a mix of training them to do it well and not letting it bug me when it isn’t done exactly the way I prefer. I have seen such improvement over the years in the way Mariah does things. I am sure it will only get better. She has only just turned 11. I think she does a great job for her age even if it may not be exactly the way I would do it.

I believe my job is to prepare them to be godly women first and foremost, but also to be competent, capable homemakers. I want them to be ahead of where I was when I got married. I didn’t know how to RUN a house. I am still in the process of learning how to do that well. Lord willing, my girls will know how to run a well ordered household before they get married. But I hope that, along with that, I can teach them to remember that PEOPLE come first.

Too many times in the past I have been so busy cleaning and making things look “just right” that I have had them go play and be out of the way so I could do it my way. How is that benefiting them? They weren’t learning how to do it well and I wasn’t spending that time WITH them.

The way we clean now is so different from how it used to be. Now, 99% of the time we are working together, talking, laughing , listening to music or audiobooks. I can teach them to clean well, spend time with them, and not wear myself out trying to “do it all”.

But still, I haven’t figured out how to keep things clean and organized all the time. Is it even supposed to be that way??? Is it realistic to expect that? Or are there some secrets/tips that I just haven’t learned yet?

Let me know what you think.

And if you have any advice I would welcome it.

Resurrection Sunday

Otherwise known as Easter. We didn’t go to church this day because David had to work, but we read the Resurrection story in Luke. The girls love to hear the stories of the Bible. I think they like them best because they know they are true.

We also painted some bunny figures that hold already painted eggs. I got them last week at the neighbors garage sale. They were free, you can’t beat that

Here is the before:

During:

And after:

Did I mention that I helped? Can you guess which one is mine?

The Joys of Pretend Motherhood

Savannah wanted to put her baby in a wrap after seeing some Babywearing videos online. Yes, that is marker on that baby’s head. He had to have hair, right? I made the wrap from an old sheet.

I used the other half of the sheet to make this sling for Astro. Doesn’t he look so peaceful in Mariah’s lap?

How Important is Housework to You?

 This article made think of some things I had never thought of before, like Theory 2. Now, Theory 7 I have always known ;)  While I don’t know who the Lennon sisters are (I guess I need to google it huh?) and I’m not sure what the “downloose” reference is, I thought it made points that we all should consider.

If you had to list the most important things in your life, would housework be one of them?

Housework can expand to fill all the time available. We can’t change the never ending chores, but we can change our perspective and adjust our standards. Peggy Lennon (yes, one of THE Lennon sisters) published a booklet for Kentucky Fried Chicken over twenty years ago called “On the Homefront: Speaking for the Management” in which she recommended ten common sense theories for downloose homemaking. Remember, it’s all a matter of perspective.

Theory One: No task is more important than the Big Picture.

If things are generally going well, don’t worry about the particulars. If a detail is bothering you, take care of it now. Either do it or don’t do it, but don’t worry about it.

Theory Two: What’s worth doing is not worth overdoing.

Housework deserves to be done adequately, not perfectly. If you do a perfect job today, you will still have to do it again tomorrow.

Theory Three: Homemaking is non-competitive.

Ignore commercials on television and ads in the magazines. Why try to be as good as someone else, or even better? Give yourself permission to live by your own standards; and give others permission to live by their standards.

Theory Four: Handle things only once.

Don’t waste valuable time worrying about doing it, or wishing that it was done. If you are going to make your bed, do it when you get out of the bed.

Theory Five: A stitch in due time is fine.

Or, if you can’t stay ahead of the game, it is okay just to keep up.

Theory Six: Don’t think.

Thinking about a disagreeable task adds weight to the task. Instead of bemoaning the fact that beds must be made and dishes washed, get on with the work and use your mind for other thoughts. Establish routines to free you from having to think, plan, and worry about chores.

Theory Seven: Things left until the last minute will be completed in the shortest amount of time.

We can spend time worrying about a task or we can wait until it MUST be done and use the adrenalin that would have been wasted on worrying to help us complete the task immediately. For instance, the house is a mess. The phone rings and out-of-town surprise guests call from across town to ask directions to your house.

When “Panic Time” sets in, two hours worth of housework can be accomplished in twenty minutes. If we can use Panic Time for guests, we can use it to provide personal time for ourselves.

Theory Eight: Never waste a bad mood on a good project.

When feeling grouchy, miserable, down and out, or maybe just sleepy, find a correspondingly rotten task — something you have put off for months (like that mess under the kitchen sink or in the hall closet.) Working on the miserable task has two advantages. Not only can you get an odious job out of the way, you haven’t squandered a perfectly good mood. Good moods are for spending with your family, and for yourself.

Theory Nine: Knock a chip off the old block.

A little bit chipped away at a time will eventually complete the whole project. Don’t overwhelm yourself.

Theory Ten: When in doubt, throw it out.

Clutter makes housework impossible. Make it a habit to get rid of possessions that do not serve a useful purpose or give pleasure to the family. If you can’t throw it out, store it out of the way.

These “downloose” theories remind us to relax, to keep things in perspective, and to enjoy the time we have with our families. When “messy house guilt” attacks, we need to say, “So what?” We need to say it to the dust, the dirty windows, and the sticky floor. If we don’t get to it now, we will get another chance. The years go quickly and the children will be gone. There will always be dust, dirty windows, and sticky floors. .

Put housework after the important priorities, like taking care of yourself and being with people you love. Don’t waste valuable time on the things that can’t love you back.