Weekly Homeschool Wrap-up–August 2, 2009

If you want to participate in this meme, please visit Carol at ThreeLittleLadies, and be sure to link your post to her Mr. Linky so that we can all see what life has in store for you.   From where I sat this past week,

As an individual, I…

love the connections that are possible via social mediums(?) like blogs.  Today, Karen and I talked for nearly 2 hours!   Though we’ve never met, talking to her is like listening to an old friend, so like me until it’s almost scary.   We talked at length about raising teenage girls, husbands, jobs, and of course, homeschooling plans.   It amazes me that I came across her blog through another lady who no longer blogs, but she was obviously in place just long enough to introduce us.   Praise God for her and for Karen.

One of the conversations Karen and I had was how, in Blogland, every kid sounds like one that runs skipping to the table and loving to learn all day until you tear them away from the books and force them to the “dark side” of life (HA HA—those weren’t exactly her words).   It can make you feel pretty lonely and confused when this is not your reality.   I found it funny that she included my blog in her perception–I’ve always tried to be very real about our kids, their struggles, and my own shortcomings.   No sugarcoating intentions here.   But, as I said to her, none of us can truly articulate daily all the highs and lows of our school days, and I’m sure there are some for each of us.   Personally, I believe I blog from a bird’s eye view, relishing the highs, and trying to discuss the lows without hurting the children or spiraling into depression myself.    I venture to say that we all do.

I didn’t even work out twice this week.   A 6:30 a.m. hair appointment on Saturday morning meant that I had to go to bed early on Friday night, and by Saturday, I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.   So frustrating.

As a wife and homemaker, I…

am still being both enlightened and entertained by our pastor’s series on relationships.   Today he cleared the bed off the stage and talked about what men wish women knew about men.   Next week, he’ll cover the needs of a woman from a man.   Anyway, here is the list, in order of highest to lower priority, of what men need from their wives, in case you’re wondering:

1) Sexual fulfillment

2) Recreational companionship (learn to take genuine interest and involve yourself in the things he likes to do)

3) Physical attractiveness (not necessarily a “10,” but we must keep ourselves up—take off the housecoat and curlers when he comes home (LOL))

4) Domestic support (he still expects the things that his mom did in the household)

5) Admiration from his wife

Early in our marriage, a cousin of ours gave us the book His Needs, Her Needs by Willard F. Harley.   It identifies this exact same information, and I know for sure that our marriage was blessed by being able to see this list early on.   Anyway, as I said, our pastor will share the top 5 needs of a woman on next week.

As a mom and homeschooling parent, I…

am enjoying going back to our homeschool “roots” in some areas.  When the kids were smaller, they would read their books out loud to me.  There are a number of articles that point out the benefit of having kids read out loud, and here is just one.     For us, it was a great exercise in how to express themselves orally, and as we aren’t the dramatic types, it was fun, albeit exasperating for the kids, acting out the books.   Somewhere in the years we got away from this.   I know our son missed it, as he would often ask me when we first began to slow down in this area, “Mom, did you want me to read to you today?”   I could tell he was saddened by hearing, “Mommy won’t be able to listen today,” which I hate looking back on it, but it’s where we were.   Anyway, I thought about how to help the oldest with getting through her books, and I remembered how we once did this.   So, she got a head start with The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee, and I’ve been able to laugh and enjoy his Sherlock Holmes-like detective skills amidst an education in early Chinese culture.

The youngest has been reading through the last of her Kindergarten level readers as if she were saying the alphabet.   I might have wasted money on the 1^st grade readers, since several of them are review materials of the K-level work.    I’m glad that I found our son’s old reading list from his 1^st grade year to help with readers for her.   That was our second year of homeschooling, and I remember that most of those books were at the library—I hadn’t yet discovered the “Like New” section of Amazon.com.   Should be an interesting year.

As a business owner, I…

am starting to realize what a poor self-promoter I must be.   The Lord will bless my humility, but it’s not doing much for my pocketbook (smile).   A lady that I met 2-3 years ago called me to say that she wanted to meet and see my history curriculum while in town.   She said that someone else had sent her the link to the business, and then she put together two plus two, as they say, and figured out that the business owner was someone she knew.   Now she wants to talk.   Go figure.   Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing her and hearing more about what she’s doing with her family.  As a homeschooler, don’t you just love this time of year?

May the Lord bless your week as well.