A Joyful Keeper

Hosted by My Cup Runneth Over

1. Bibles Study/Devotions

I started on “Power Prayers for Your Mighty Man“ last week and will continue doing that this week. I’d like to set aside one evening a week to sit down and do this. I am also going to join in on the study held at My Cup Runneth Over of Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit by Terri Maxwell

2. Must Do

· Put bulk flour and sugar, etc, in plastic containers to keep out bugs and nasties

· plant strawberry plants, rosemary and other seedlings

· continue to tidy up front porch

· continue to prune creepers around front porch (oh, this is a big job!)

3. In the Home

Last week I wanted to spend time in the boys’ room. We made a very good start, but are not finished. We sorted and tidied up all the books on the bookshelf. We pulled the bunks apart and took them out because Matt is now too big to go in the bottom bunk - he always bumps his head! We then dragged two more beds out of the shed - one really high bed that my Dad made Dan years ago, and another small bed that used to be mine. We’ve almost finished putting them together. So… I want to continue with their room this week. Finish the beds, rearrange the furniture, and bring some things back in from the shed.

4. School

We’re starting on the Olympics this week. I’ll be posting a bit more on what we are doing with that later in the week. There are some great free resources out there on the net.

5. Menu Planning

Hosted by Orgjunkie

Monday

Irish Stew with bread & butter

Tuesday

Tacos with mince, lettuce, tomato, cheese, carrots, etc

Wednesday

Roast Lamb with grated potato cakes

Thursday

Leftovers

Friday

Homemade Pizza

Saturday

Silverside (Corned Beef) in crockpot with mashed potatoes and veggies

Sunday

Macaroni Casserole with leftover Silverside

Have a great week everyone!

Hosted by My Cup Runneth Over

1. Bibles Study/Devotions

I was blessed last week by Lylah - she gave me a copy of her ebook “Power Prayers for Your Mighty Man“. It is a Prayer and Bible study guide. I printed it out and want to make a start on it this week. It looks great! I will keep you posted when I find out more about it.

2. Must Do

· iron the BIG pile of washing on the couch! Yay! Did this today!!!

· sew seams on table cloth

· finish ACE tests and send them off (I’ll post about this another day!)

· tidy up front porch

· prune creepers around front porch

3. In the Home

This week I want to spend time in the boys’ room. Ever since we had my sister and family here, I haven’t taken out the spare mattress, or put some of the cupboards back in. I hope I can get stuck into that this week.

4. Train Them Up

Getting back into routines this week with chores and baking. I’d like to get the chore charts up on the wall again so that it is easier for the kids to see what they are supposed to be doing.

5. Menu Planning

Hosted by Orgjunkie

Monday

Tuna Casserole and Rice

Tuesday

Chicken Burgers

Wednesday

Tasty Crockpot Beef with potatoes and veggies

Thursday

Leftovers

Friday

Silverside (Corned Beef) in crockpot

Saturday

Leftover Silverside and Macaroni Casserole

Sunday

Not sure yet! Maybe takeaway… or something quick and easy!

Have a great week everyone!

Hosted by Tiany

1. Bibles Study/Devotions

During my morning Quiet Times, I journal my prayers and thoughts. My current journal is just about full, so I need to start a new one this week. I want to print out a couple of prayer lists to stick in the back. There are various lists available on the internet and these are the ones I have chosen:

31 Days of Praying for Your Husband

and

31 Biblical Virtues to Pray for Your Children

There are many more things to pray for I know, but I want to make a start with these two lists.

2. Must Do

· bake cake for Matthew

· sew blouse for Elizabeth

· Finish putting manure on the veggie garden, take photos and post them on my blog

· plant some winter seeds/seedlings

· ******finish baby quilt****** !!!!!!!!! (Our friends’ baby will be too big to use it if I don’t hurry up!)

3. In the Home

I want to spend an hour in each of the kids’ rooms this week. I have been ignoring that part of the house, and it is not looking good!

4. Train Them Up

We’re back to studying the Middle Ages together and the kids have been begging me to do another mural, so… this week we’ll work on that, as well as making a timeline in the hallway so that it is easier to get an overview of History.

5. Menu Planning

Hosted by Orgjunkie

Tuesday

Irish Stew

Wednesday

Macaroni Beef

Thursday

Silverside (Corned Beef) in crockpot

Friday

Homemade Pizza

Saturday

Leftover Silverside and Macaroni Casserole

Sunday

Chicken in the Crockpot

Have a great week everyone!

This morning I woke up with a splitting headache, so I have really not achieved a lot around the house. I have used this time to do quiet things behind the computer, however, … like playing solitaire… um, er, and planning school! Part of planning the new school year is to look back on last year and make a bit of a summary. I have put it on my homeschooling page: Our School Year 2007

Hosted by Tiany

1. Bibles Study/Devotions

Start working through Purposeful Planning by Phyllis Sather. Remember I won this! I think now is the perfect time to do this.

2. Must Do

· Finish packing away the Christmas decorations

· Collect and take things to the opshop

· Clean out the fridge

· Set up my sewing machine and start on some projects!

· Do some baking before the hot weather starts again towards the end of the week.

· Finish mulching the veggie garden, take photos and post about their progress!

· Plan for 2008 school year

· Print out ebooks for school

· Set up household binder….

I know there are heaps more things I need to do… but I’d better stop at that! LOL! We are on summer holidays now, and I want to do a hundred and one things before school starts back! If I get through the above list this week, I’ll be happy! I will come back during the week and cross off the things as I get them done (positive thinking here!)

3. Zone

I don’t think I will do zone work this week. I do however need to wash all bedding and vacuum through the whole house, so that will do!

4. Train Them Up

We’re on summer holidays!!!!!!!! Yay!! While we are not doing any “school work” at all, I do want to continue to train us all in getting back into a routine after moving house and celebrating Christmas. I think this is a good time to do it since we are all getting plenty of free time.

Things I want to work on are

· Getting chore charts back up on the wall in each child’s bedroom. I want to tweak these with different chores this year. Just simple ones that help keep the house and homestead running smoothly.

· Involving the kids in menu planning and grocery shopping. I will do a post on this one of these days, but for now I just want to teach them a few new recipes and kitchen skills.

We also need to work on puppy training! Chewie is a sweet dog, but obedience is lacking! He won’t come when we call unless he feels like it. We took him to puppy preschool for 4 sessions before Christmas where we were told what he was supposed to learn. We were told to teach him the following: sit, come, drop, heel, wait, stay, down… I think that’s it. By the end of the 4 weeks he could sit and drop!

We need to be involved in this training as a whole family. So I will dig up any info that I can find, and try to spend time this week with him. Any suggestions, hints & tips would be GREATLY appreciated!!!

5. Menu Planning

Hosted by Orgjunkie

Monday

Macaroni Casserole & Salad

Tuesday

Roast Lamb & Veggies

Wednesday

Beef Pasties & Salad

Thursday

Cold Meat & Salad (it’s going to be hot!!)

Friday

Homemade Pizza

Hosted by Tiany

I haven’t participated in Monday Meanderings the past two weeks and I have missed it! I really stayed on track better with a weekly plan and menu. So this is what my week is going to look like:

1. Bibles Study/Devotions

Homeschool Devotional/Study. I am behind in my lessons with this study I joined online, so I want to try to catch up this week.

2. Must Do

- continue to convert some of my Homeschooling & household forms to pdfs to post on this website

- catch up with emails

- enjoy my in-laws as they visit this week

3. Zone

Zone 2 this week – the school and sewing room. I am a week behind with my zones, because we’ve had a lot on and have been a bit under the weather. Not to worry, the zones are meant to help us, not make us guilty. So I hereby declare a change of zones. Hey, I might even get a little bit of work done on zone 3 as well!

4. Train Them Up

We’re on school holidays!!!!!!!! Yay!! Officially they start next week, but since my parents came last week and my in laws are coming, we decided to take the two weeks off earlier. So last week we had no school, and this is our second week.

In the midst of our vacation, however, I am still getting the children to do things around the house. We are having some fun together while still trying to do our normal chores.

5. Menu Planning

Hosted by Orgjunkie

I HAVE to plan this week’s menus! My in-laws are here! LOL!

Monday

Chicken Soup and Biscuits

Tuesday

Roast Chicken, Chicken Wing Casserole, Roast Potatoes & Veggies

Wednesday

Irish Stew with mashed potatoes & Veggies

Thursday

Macaroni Beef with salad

Friday

Leftovers

Hosted by Tiany

How I went last week:

Well, I got all my cleaning and housework done ready for the inspection. School flowed smoothly too, so that was good. I didn’t do any Bible Study and the Menu Plan was slightly different! Like one night we had sausages in bread instead of with mash. Still, it was not too bad!

Here are my meanderings for this week:

1. Bibles Study/Devotions

Proverbs 31 again

2. Must Do

3. Zone

Kitchen - I haven’t worked out my zones yet, so I will start on that next week, which is the first week of the month. This week I’d like to tidy and organize my pantry. I have some bulk items that I need to decant and tidy up as well.

4. Train Them Up

We made a good start to the Middle Ages! Daniel made a timeline for us, and now we need to find somewhere to hang it where it won’t damage the wall in our rental house. I’ll put up a picture when it is up. I also want each of us to start our own book of the centuries… more on that later in the week too.

On Friday we went to the library and I found a lot of books on the Middle Ages. They actually had a display up, with a castle made by one of the primary schools! I was allowed to take a few books from the display, which was nice and easy! So we have enough reading material for this week.

My plan for this week is to do a lot of reading so that we get a good overall picture of the time period. Then I will ask each of the children to go into more depth on a subject of their choice. The timeline is important in gaining the big picture before going into the details.

5. Menu Planning

Hosted by Orgjunkie

Monday

Leftover Roast Pork with mashed potatoes, veggies and applesauce

Tuesday

Pasta Casserole from the freezer

Wednesday

Roasted Chicken pieces with potatoes and salad/veggies

Thursday

Leftovers

Friday

“Fast Food” – homemade pizza or something like that

That’s it for this week! Hope we all have a great week!

Hosted by Tiany

I’m late planning my week…. It is already 6pm on Monday! I started planning this morning and then got distracted by actually going to do some of the things that needed doing. Here are my meanderings for this week:

1. Bibles Study/Devotions

Proverbs 31 – I am speaking about this at a ladies meeting next month and want to start on it this week. I will be using some verses from this chapter, and also verses from elsewhere. I need to start praying about this talk and asking the Lord what He wants me to say.

2. Must Do

Get the house ready for inspection by the Rental Agency on Thursday. This is good because it will give me a chance to sort out the last bits and pieces that I haven’t found a home for since we moved. Nothing like a good deadline to get me working hard!

3. Zone

Er… all zones this week since we have inspection on Thursday. Next week I will get my zones set up properly for this house.

At this stage I have finished the lounge room, it is ready for inspection! I will list my rooms here and then cross them off as I go this week.

School/Sewing Room

Lounge Room

Dining Room

Kitchen - is organized, just needs daily maintenance

Laundry

Toilet

Bathroom

Guest Room

Elizabeth’s Room

Boys’ Room

Master Bedroom

Ensuite

Walk in robe

Hmmmm, that’s a bit of a list! But I am happy that by Thursday I will at least have a bit more order in the home and then hopefully next week I can start to maintain it by setting up my areas/zones and routines.

*THURSDAY UPDATE* - Got the house looking clean and tidy and the inspection went well - alhamdulillah!

4. Train Them Up

This week we are starting our Middle Ages Unit Study! We did a simple one, years ago, and now we are back in that time period again with the children all a little bit older. Over the weekend I put the materials together which I had collected over the years, printed out some ebooks, copied some individual pages, and I feel like I am relatively organized!

Our plan for this week is to make a time line to determine when the Middle Ages actually were, and how the different people and events fit in. I want us to start reading and researching, using our own resources and going to the library on Friday morning. I have some worksheets that they can fill in and they have already started coming up with ideas for building castles with lego and huts for the peasants out of clay and mud. They do remember something from last time! They also want to make another mural. This was the start of our mural last time, just before we moved overseas:

There was a big moat….! The children drew little peasant farms, as you can see, and the houses were cut outs on which they wrote the books that they had finished reading. We didn’t get much further than this because we moved countries….!

I’m not sure how this will work in our rented house, but we will see!

The idea is to do our normal schedule of Maths everyday, and then the rest of the time include all the other subjects within the Unit Study – reading, writing, sports, music, cooking, etc. I love doing Unit Studies at least once a year. When the children were younger we did a less-in-depth Unit Study once a term. I’m not sure yet how long this Unit Study will be – we’ll play it by ear.

I am planning on doing lapbooks as well….. I’ll keep posting what we are doing as we go along, and if you have done a Unit Study/Lapbook/Project on the Middle Ages already, I’d love to have any hints and suggestions!

5. Menu Planning

I’m not really good at menu planning. Well, let me rephrase that. I am good at planning a menu, but not at sticking to it! I do find it useful to try, though, so here goes! LOL!

Hosted by Orgjunkie

Monday

Leftovers (good start to the week!) – burgers and chicken wings, salad

Tuesday

Lamb Stew in the crockpot

Wednesday

“Bangers and Mash” - sausages and mashed potatoes

Thursday

Leftovers

Friday

“Fast Food” – homemade pizza or something like that

I like to make large quantities and then either freeze them or have them another day in the week. This way I am not in the kitchen every night and the dishes are limited as well. I don’t mind cooking, but I seem to have so many other things on in this stage of life, that any shortcuts are a help!

So, this is my plan for the week. I will let you all know next week how I went!