The Homeschool Mother's Journal - 2

In my life this week:

RAIN! 15 days straight of rain in our area. I HOPE we dry out soon.
And... CHAOS! Our routine is totally out of whack, for homeschooling and otherwise. Hoping we can get on tack for next week.

In our homeschool this week:

Well, spring break is over and we were back to the grind... for 2 days. Wednesday came with a long music rehearsal (back to back 2 band practices). Thursday and Friday, we "winged" it - unschooling style. Not sure how much I like the idea, as Lexi seems to need to be pushed to do anything. But, I've been reading about how kids need time to adjust from public school to homeschooling. And it can take weeks, months... sometimes even a year or more. WHOA! So, I'm trying to be patient with her and hope I'm not screwing up and letting her down.

Places we're going and people we're seeing:

We didn't make it to Rochester Museum and Science Center last weekend, so we're hoping for tomorrow, or Sunday. Our new dining set is being delivered and I still need to clean that dining room for it.

My favorite thing this week:

THE CARPET! Really, it really makes the living room more inviting, homey and just peaceful. I can see us homeschooling more in there now.

Homeschooling questions/thoughts I have:

Adjustment from public schooling to homeschooling... we've been at home a month now, and I am feeling MORE resistance from my daughter. Ex. we've been using an online program for the bulk of her work (and filling in when needed, for both subjects they cover, and for ones they don't even have). She's now refusing to use it at all (and with less then 2 months to year's end, I'm not buying anything else for this year now). She want's more hands-on, less computer/book work. Which, i WOULD LOVE to do, but finding that stuff, on my shoestring budget is proving hard. All the suggestions for stuff I've found has been for much younger kids.

I'm 110% sure I want to homeschool her in the fall again (now to get dad on board), and rather put any money for stuff for next year (like a microscope, globe, books, etc...)

A photo, video, link or quote to share...



All three kids Easter morning. Daddy took this picture on his iPod, which does not like to take decent pictures in low light.

Wishing everyone a fantastic weekend!

{this moment}

{this moment} - Inspired by Soulemama.
A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.




Wishing everyone a lovely weekend!

For more moments, hope over to Soulemama!

The "trying to become" a garden, Garden Update

Continuing with the Homeschool Garden Challenge, we spent Tuesday working on our plants and doing some outside clean up to get ready to plant. We've had 13 straight days of rain here in the Finger Lakes region of New York, and it's not even May yet, so we haven't even thought about planting anything outside yet. It's been unseasonably warm the last couple of days, but we've had snow on Mother's Day in the past, so we won't attempt outdoor planting until after then.

We have, however, started more seeds inside!

Our cherry tomato plants. In my first garden post, these were started in an egg carton, which worked out really, really well! I wish I had taken a picture before transplanting them to these bigger start containers. We thinned out some of the weaker looking seedlings, and gave some to our neighbor as well. With all the rain we have had, the upper right corner of this pic is where water was streaming in through our kitchen ceiling just an hour after we finished transplanting these. So far, they are ok, but I'm not expecting them to make it either. We're going to finish growing these out in hanging baskets, since they are the small variety, rather then in the ground and staking them up.




Lettuce! We started some seeds inside so we're not wasting time waiting for mother nature in NY to figure herself out :) We've learned that we can actually sow these twice! Though best to start they seeds indoors as well, as they may not seed well in a hot/dry summer heat. If nothing else, we'll have 2 attempts to grow lettuce!



And here is everything in front of the kitchen window. ON the left is my oldest pot with some cherry tomatoes (they hadn't even popped up when we posted last!) and on the right is the kids herb starter. That has parsley and basil in it.

So in the next couple of weeks we'll be building our raised garden bed, and considering getting some containers and strawberry plants as well. We still have cucumbers, green beans and cantaloupe to sow, but I'm not sure as we'll do it all, as that would mean everything but the lettuce and herbs are climbers!

Mostly, the kids are I are SUPER excited about this, and hope it's a successful garden!

Menu Planning Monday - April 25th

A day late, and a dollar short, I'm finally getting around to posting this! We took last week off from, well, everything, and finding it REALLY hard to get back into the swing of a routine (even if we are still working out the clinks).

Monday: Chicken Fajitas

Tuesday: Breakfast foods night

Wednesday: Pasta night

Thursday: Chef Salad

Friday: Roast Chicken with vegetables

Saturday: BBQ pizza

Sunday: BBQ anything-we-can-toss-on-a-grill

Hop over to I'm an Organizing Junkie for more info, and this week, a giveaway!

The Homeschool Mother's Journal - 1

In my life this week:

We FINALLY have a living room floor! It's been busted, broken tile (growing worse) since we moved in here, and we had it replaced with carpeting. The living room is now my favorite room at home (and we have yet to paint it still!).

In our homeschool this week:

It was spring break for my public school kids, so it was spring break for my home schooler as well, except for the work we did not finish last week (we're still trying to get a routine down, esp having music/band 3 days a week). We did look at our tomato seeds nearly every day, so that's been exciting for the kids to watch! We'll be moving the seedlings from egg cartons to bigger starter pots this weekend.

Places we're going and people we're seeing:

We're (hopefully) going to the Rochester Museum and Science Center tomorrow. They have a dinosaur exhibit that will be ending May 1st, so we're going to check that out (if not tomorrow, next weekend).

We are not seeing any family for Easter (we usually don't). My mother-in-law is in North Carolina with one of my sister-in-laws who just had her 2nd baby 2 weeks ago. We called to see if my father-in-law wanted to come here, but he has his mother over while MIL is away. Since we're active in church (I'm playing hand bells that morning), we are not traveling.

My favorite thing this week:

THE CARPET! Really, it really makes the living room more inviting, homey and just peaceful. I can see us homeschooling more in there now.

Homeschooling questions/thoughts I have:

Figuring out next year. I really am reluctant to re-enroll my daughter into the public middle school, but my husband is really pushing for me to go back to working in the fall (our youngest will be in school whole days). In addition, given the problems my soon-to-be 8 yr old has been having in public school, I'm questioning homeschooling her (we had seriously considered it in the past). There is a possibility I can work and homeschool, but it really depending on things "falling into place". I'm praying very hard about this, because I am beginning to believe more and more it is the right thing for my children, and my family.

Of course the thought of homeschooling next year, for a 7th grader and 3rd grader, has me freaking out! Finding the "perfect curriculum" scares me, and knowing we plan on sending my oldest back to public school for high school, making sure I don't leave out anything she needs to learn.

A photo, video, link or quote to share...

The kids and J. playing around after the carpet installers had gone and we moved back in the furniture. Looks like a good episode of "ATTACK DADDY!!!"

I'll be taking the weekend "off" from my blog, but look forward to next week when I hope to have some wonderful posts to share.

Wishing everyone a happy and blessed Easter weekend.

{this moment}

{this moment} - Inspired by Soulemama.
A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Wishing everyone a lovely weekend!

For more moments, hope over to Soulemama

Our Garden

Gardening will be a new thing for us this year! I've been waiting to plant one for a few years now, and events, happenings, etc just kept us from attempting to do so.

But not THIS year.

Now, let' me explain. I'm a black thumb. I easily kill the most hardy of household plants (like my husband's spider plant), though I had a good run with some impatiens a few years ago.

SO, we're determined to try! And then I found out about The Homeschool Village Garden Challenge. Perfect!

Our Plan: To try and do a square-foot garden (SFG) for fruits/veggies and some flowers in front of our front porch (impatiens), and some herbs (basil and parsley) to grow indoors. The seeds for the SFG the kids choose were: cherry tomatoes, cantaloupe, beans and cucumbers. All climbers, so I'm not sure how we're going to do all of them.... yet.

Resources: I've been reading The All New Square Foot Gardening and reading anything I can find online. I also plan on talking to my father-in-law (who is the biggest green thumb I know).

Involvement: About a week ago the kids and I started the cherry tomatoes in a egg carton. I didn't want to spend much time or money if I couldn't get them to seed, but to our amazement, they are doing well! We'll need to thin them out and move them to something bigger then their egg cartoon soon! Just even the difference from yesterday to today has been amazing.

April 18th

April 19th
(noticing they are leaning towards the window, I flipped the carton around to help them grow straight!)

So there it is, the start to our garden. I hope you come back and watch as we (hopefully) have some great success this year!

Menu Planning Monday - April 18th

Spring break week - enough said, right?
Add in our carpeting is coming in to be installed Thursday, and I haven't done a lick of painting yet.... oye. Simple meals, simple week.

And with all the kids home all week, I'll be planning out lunches and making sure to rotate snack options as well.

Monday:
L: Sandwiches, cucumber
S: Baked Ziti

Tuesday:
L: leftovers or sandwiches with applesauce or pears
S: BLTs

Wednesday:
L: macaroni and cheese, broccoli
S: Fajitas

Thursday:
L: bagel pizzas, salad
S: Breakfast

Friday: Good Friday. Keeping it to a lite fare due to fasting (I will be, not the kids).
L: sandwiches, carrots and pears
S: simple pasta (plain or with jar sauce)

Saturday:
L: Packed lunch out (heading to a science museum)
S: leftover buffet

Sunday: Easter! Slow Cooker Ham, home made mashed potatoes, not sure on what veggies yet.

As always, make sure you head over to I'm an Organizing Junkie for more menu and meal planning ideas!

{this moment}

{this moment} - Inspired by Soulemama.
A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Wishing everyone a lovely weekend!
For more moments, hope over to Soulemama.

WIP Wednesday - The Home Edition

So long now since I have done a WIP Wednesday posting! I really hope to get back into this more regularly now.

So this weeks WIP is a of the home improvement kind. We are painting and getting carpeting for the living room. When we move in here, the tile was already badly deteriorated, and only became worse over the winter.

So we've pulled up the tile, and cheap (nasty) chip board under lament.

(pulling up tile)

(half the tile/chip board up)

And this weekend will be filling in holes and painting the walls (I'm going to do trim later)

With any luck, I'll paint the dinning room as well. Well, maybe next week, as the carpet will be here next Thursday!

So that is it for the WIP right now. As we had into more spring like weather, there will be lots more to share!

A list of follow WIP Wednesday participates can be found on Shelly's website, Musings From the Fishbowl - so check it out!

Menu Planning Monday - April 11th

Every have a excellent plan and then life happens? Yeah, once again we are moving meals we had last week (or the week prior even) into this week.

So without further ado, here is our plan this week.

Monday: Personal sized pizzas

Tuesday: BBQ with corn and chips

Wednesday: Pasta night

Thursday: Chicken Alfredo

Friday: Tosca's Keep-it-tight Talapia with couscous and veg

Saturday: dish-to-pass supper at church following the kids Easter pageant

Sunday: leftovers?

As always, make sure you head over to I'm an Organizing Junkie for more menu and meal planning ideas!

Playing catch up...

That's what i feel like i need to do on this blog. Play catch up.
Oh blog, I've been ignoring you for oh so long... I need to stop that!

So, let's do a little time line here and just move on...

Jan-Feb - was in Physical therapy for the knee issues

Feb - wedding anniversary (12 years!), husband's birthday, kid's spent February break at their grandparent's house, I have knee surgery

March - recoverying from surgry, my birthday, calendar start of spring, pull oldest daughter from public school and start homeschooling

Now: homeschooling the oldest and trying to decide options for next year, spring cleaning, and soon, Easter!

So yeah, that's it all for right now. The knee is doing great (I'll save what happened in surgery for another time), stairs/kneeling are the 2 things I can't really do yet. But I'm moving great otherwise and can almost chase the kids again! Good thing, as the weather is improving, I'll need to chase them down!

So this is me re-re-recommitting to keeping this blog updated!
tomorrow look for a muffin tin monday and menu planning monday post!

Menu Planning Monday - April 4th

Here we are another week... it feels good to get back in the grove of this. We've had a major upheaval of routine this week, so again we are moving a few meals from last week, to this week.

Monday: Asian Orange Chicken with rice and broccoli
Tuesday: Breakfast
Wednesday: Pasta night
Thursday: Vegetarian chic'k nuggets and baked fries
Friday: Fish Fry (take out)
Saturday: Homemade Pizza
Sunday: Tosca's Keep-it-tight Talapia with WW couscous and veg

Lunches - so much easier to have these figured out, rather then waiting till "i'm hungry, what's for lunch?"Not going with specific days for the most part, just lunches kids can choose during the week (and that I buy for. we'll switch these up each week). I'm just listing the main item, we add whatever fruit/veg we have around not needed for dinner that night.

Ramen noodles
Sandwich (baloney, turkey, PB&J)
Chicken patty
Pizza bagels
Ravioli
Meatball sub (leftover from pasta night)

And as always, make sure you check out I'm an Organizing Junkie for more meal and menu planning ideas!