A Joyful Keeper

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

These past few days I have been thinking once again about my priorities and the goals I believe God has for me during this season in my life. I was thinking how quickly my children are growing, and how many more years I have with them to teach them at home, before they leave to their own homes. My youngest will officially finish school in about 10 years time. That’s not long! I then thought about what things I was involved in now that I will look back on and say,

“Oh, how I wish I had waited till the children had left home to do that, and spent more time with them instead.”

Life is so short. Children grow up so quickly. I don’t want to look at them when they are older and wish I had spent more time with them. You may ask what I mean by that. After all, I am a homeschooling mother. I spend ALL day, every day, 24/7 with them!! LOL! True. But I there is a difference between having my children around me all the time and spending time with them.

Let me give you an example that is very dear to my heart. I love my hobbies. Over the years they have been different. Reading, sewing, scrapbooking. There is nothing wrong with these hobbies. There is nothing wrong with spending time doing these things. But there is if they take the place of doing other things I should be doing - like spending time with my children. I sometimes catch myself telling them that I will be done in a minute… with my sewing, or reading, or computer time. That minute easily stretches to become minutes…. sometimes hours! Before I know it, the afternoon has gone by, and I haven’t played that game or made that puzzle with the children, or even sat with my daughter teaching HER how to sew…

Again, I don’t mean that I need to be spending every single minute of the day with my children, giving them my undivided attention. I think you know what I am trying to say. I have so many choices to make during this season when my children are growing up. I want to choose the right things, and not get distracted with things that I can easily do later, when they have left home and I am alone all day.

We have so many things that pull us and try to get our attention. Just being a keeper of the home is a full time job, let alone homeschooling on top of that! I constantly find myself re-evaluating my goals, activities and priorities. It is not a thing I do once a year, as a “New Year’s Resolution” that is broken a week later…. but with my short attention span, it is something I need to do regularly. Depending on my frame of mind, I even need to be doing this daily or weekly! LOL! What are the important things in my life at the moment? Who are the important people in my life right now? What should I be investing most of my time in today?

Benjamin Franklin said:

“Does thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”

Our time here on earth is so fleeting. How we spend it is entirely up to us. I don’t want to squander it on things that will not last….

Matthew 6:19 - 21

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy,

and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,

where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

The sun is shining and I need to go and hang my washing out. We’ve had such funny spring weather. Once day it is warm, the next cold. Still, I enjoy both types of days. We just went into Daylight Savings, so there is a bit of adjustment there, although so far we’ve all been up and about early.

I feel like we are getting into a routine or rhythm with our weeks now. Mondays I try to get most of the washing done. Tuesdays I iron while the kids are nearby doing school…. and so on. I’ve been baking and cooking extra at the end of the week so that I have less to do on weekends. I particularly like to have food made for Sunday so that I can rest. Of course in three weeks time we will get our new property and this rhythm might just change! LOL! Still, for now I am enjoying it.

It is also only a few more days till the end of October - my month of only reading the Bible! I must say I have missed my devotionals in the morning. But I have enjoyed reading the Bible. Even though I have only read four books (1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings), it has been good for my soul. God has spoken to me through His word and I have felt a special closeness to Him all month.

It is less than two months till Christmas and, for us Down Under, the end of the school year! The year has whizzed by, probably because we have had so many changes. I am hoping that next year will be more settled for us. I have found more than ever that I have had to be flexible with our life and school. I am glad that I haven’t been following a set curriculum, because with so much change, I doubt we would have finished it!

Chewie and the kittens are settling in well. They are being spoiled rotten of course! Comfy with Elizabeth on the bean bag:

Chewie’s favorite sleeping position:

Time to get the washing on the line and get school started! Have a lovely day, everyone!

After the excitement of a new puppy (and all the whining because he was alone all night!), I got up before six to check and see if he had survived his first night. I peeked through the blinds and he was fast asleep in his kennel…. so I left him there and got going on my daily routine, so nice and early! Once the kids got out and he saw them peeking through the blinds there was no more peace and we had to spend the rest of the day keeping him company!

The kids are so excited. It is good for them to take the responsibility of looking after him - feeding, brushing, playing. Next weekend we are getting two kittens to keep him company. We had them booked up for a while now, and they will soon be old enough to leave their mother. Five weeks from today we get the keys to our new house and we will have some animals ready to take out there! Next thing on the agenda is chickens. But they will have to wait until we are actually there! I don’t think our back yard here would cope with them, and the landlord would not be impressed!

It was a beautiful day. I got the washing out on the line early, and managed to get three loads washed and dried. I ironed a bit while the children were doing school and dinner was Marinated Chicken Drumsticks with rice. A good day.

Looking back over my day, I wonder what makes a “good” day or a “bad” day. What I liked about today was that I was up on time and didn’t rush around madly. I felt like I achieved a lot of the basics needed to keep the house running. The washing was done, the schooling was done, ironing and cooking was done. I spent time in reading the Bible, chatting on the phone to family, responding to some emails and having a cuppa with Robyn. All of this made it a “good” day. I didn’t feel like I was constantly behind…. I didn’t get all the ironing done, but enough that I felt I’d made a big dent in it. Tomorrow I will do some more.

I reminded myself that I didn’t need to catch up! I reminded myself that I had all week to do my weekly chores - it didn’t all have to be done today, and that certainly helped. So, yes, it was a good day.

I’m going to start a series of posts written by Robyn, my dear friend and older woman. She has so much wisdom to share, and until she gets her own blog, we are going to use this blog. I will be telling you more about that later this week. I’m also still working on some posts of our time overseas. So,… I will try to do my basics and find time in the afternoon to do some extra posting this week.

Have a great week everyone, and pop back in every now and then for some challenging and interesting (I hope!) posts!

Last week we went to visit Sovereign Hill, which is a wonderful historical Gold Rush village. We have a family membership so that we can go as often as we like. Of course it doesn’t fit in with the period of History that we have been studying lately - the Middle Ages. The perfectionist in me says that we can’t start studying something else until we have finished the Middle Ages. The practical in me says - the weather is beautiful, this is the time to make the most of your membership and go regularly. So, I have listened to the practical in me and we will set aside our Middle Ages study until next winter, and make the most of our spring and summer and our family membership to Sovereign Hill.

What helped me make the decision was Elizabeth reading the Little House books for the umpteenth time. Just as I did as a child, she loves them. I had a few unit studies on the Little House books sitting on the shelf that I had picked up on sale years ago. They were sitting on my shelves waiting for the right time to use them. I decided that now was the right time. With us moving out to our little homestead soon, we could do a lot of the things that the guides suggest to do that are “country-ish”, like growing things, making butter, etc. I know we don’t really need to be out in the country to do that, but it does fit in nicely. Now, to convince DH to pack all our stuff into a covered wagon for the move….????!!!!

Also, the gold rush in Australia and the pioneer days in America are around the same time period, so I can link it all together. I think it will work well, and the children will enjoy spending more time at Sovereign Hill, I know. It will also make History come more alive for them, as they can see the way people used to live in those days, while studying about it.

I have never really been that fussed about studying History chronologically. I think it does have its place, but as we have traveled a lot over the years, I have tried to fit our History in with what we were seeing. For example, when we were in the Middle East, we studied Ancient History, and we saw rock art (paintings) that were approx 4000 years old. We walked on Roman Roads that were built 2000 years ago. That is living History.

Australia is a young country. It makes sense to me to make the most of the the History we see around us. So we although we are jumping around a bit, I am hoping that by using time lines and other things, the children will be able to draw it all together.

I was thinking I’d love to share a bit about our travels in the next months. I need to get myself and my photos organized! I’ll also be sharing the History we will be learning about currently. I’m afraid we didn’t get very far with the Middle Ages timeline - that will have to be continued next year!

So those are my musings for this beautiful Monday, and here is my menu plan for the week:

Hosted by Orgjunkie

 

Tuesday

Taco Salad

Wednesday

Tuna Casserole and Rice

Thursday

Pasta Bake

Friday

Leftovers

Have a great week everyone!!!