Weekly Wrap Up

This week was great...but not for homeschooling.

Homeschooling kind of went by the wayside, but a lot of schools were closed around here this week for Teacher's Convention, so I am telling myself that it is really okay and not a reason to freak out.  We did manage to do a few Chemistry lessons and experiments; we read about hieroglyphs and cuneiform and wrote our names in cuneiform; we did math almost every day; two spelling tests and P has finished the alphabet in cursive--which she is very excited and happy about--she is writing everything in cursive now!

Our children's librarian was on vacation this week, so I was asked to fill in for her.  I love my job, I love my boss, I love what I do...so, even though it made schooling difficult, I said yes.  The girls got some time with my parents and Jason and I were able to get in a couple of date nights :)  We went to a yoga class together, a rhythm movement class together, a holistic health meeting and out to dinner :)  On Wednesday night, we went to pick up the girls at my parents' house and celebrated A's birthday with them.

Thursday was A's actual birthday, we were supposed to visit a creamery and see how they make cheese, but it was really nasty and rainy and cold, so the trip was cancelled and rescheduled for next week.   But we took A out to dinner at her choice--Red Lobster.

I joined the 30 Day Giving Challenge this week.  I will be making an effort to give something every day, on Thursday, I clicked over to the Glisson Family Adoption Story and just by leaving a comment, $2 was donated to the family to offset their adoption costs. 

The one thing I miss about my girls being in school is being able to shovel out sweep through my girls rooms.  When they were in school, about once a month, I would go in their rooms with hefty bags and get rid of all of the papers with half written stories and drawings, all of the Happy Meal toys and birthday party goodie bag detritus, all of the little trinkets that people give them, all of those cheap Treasure Box things they accumulate from museum scavenger hunts and dental visits, all of the bits of erasers and that GirlWrap from Justice--we, or at least I, am still not sure what we were supposed to do with that, and I ended up throwing tons of small pieces of it away.  While the girls were at my mom's, I spent a little time each morning before work loading up bags of garbage from their bedrooms, bags for freecycle and Goodwill donations.  My girls are good about donating things they no longer want or need or can use, but for some reason all of these little bits of things never get thrown away.  If you know me, you know I hate clutter and I can't think clearly unless my home is neat.  Simplify is my mantra and I am forever freecycling and donating stuff we don't need.  I made a concession for P's bottle cap collection and A's HUGE box of markers, crayons and colored pencils all jumbled up--the thought of which sends me close to the edge...lol!

Since, our trip was cancelled on Thursday and it was A's birthday and it was a rainy day, I allowed the girls to veg in front of the TV and play Wii or surf the Web to their heart's content, while I reorganized their bedrooms and shuffled furniture around...putting A's desk in our learning area for both her clay and as a "teacher's desk" -- I can really use some more drawer space!!  We moved a bean bag chair into A's room for reading.

Today, Friday, we all have dental visits, we are headed to the mall so that A can spend some of her birthday money (2/3 was put in savings and 1/3 she can spend), then we are headed to the grocery store and then home to bake something.  Not sure what we are baking yet.  We were supposed to go apple picking after we went to learn about making cheese, and our plan was to spend Friday afternoon baking Apple Brown Betty (which I have not had since I was a kid) and homemade applesauce...but since we did not get to pick apples...the girls are going to peruse the cookbooks in the morning.