Time...where does it go?! Here it is, the middle of May, and I haven't blogged for weeks. Life continues to pick up speed and fly by. No matter how difficult the days, I turn around and another month is marching away.
We are wrapping up the school year. My kids at home are nearly finished. My kids at school finish next Friday. Wrapping up this year and looking ahead to next year. I'm trying to get my ducks in a row so that there is no mad scramble in August. I need a some Science books for Autumn and Janae and to write the lesson plans for Janae, Zach, Mark, and Micah. Yes, I'm trying homeschooling everyone next year. I need to finish up Portfolios for our evaluations for this year and write objectives and fill out affidavits for next year.
I've got lists of "things to do and places to go" stacking up that I'm working at getting done before the end of the school year.
Last Friday I went with Micah on his school field trip to the Zoo. Monday, Randy went with Janae on her trip to Baltimore. I took Autumn, Zach, Mark, and the Little Guy to Hershey. We went to Hershey Chocolate World, Hershey Gardens, and the AACA Museum. It was a cloudy damp morning, but we had lots of fun.
I want to figure out a summer schedule...every year it's a struggle for me to figure out how to manage all of us...keep us occupied, get the work done, not allow to much idle time for kids to pick on each other, but enough idle time to enjoy summer. Figure out when and where and what-not for Summer Vacations.
Yesterday we went to the library to pick up some Dorothy Sayers novels that I had requested after going to vote. I found some other interesting looking books as well. I think, that if I could somehow communicate my love of reading to my children, and that there is so much to be learned in this world, I would be quite satisfied. :-) (There are many other things I want to communicate to them as well!) I also cleaned out my closet in preparation of taking a load of things to Re-U-Zit. Even though I think I do a decent job of keeping after things and not collecting, there somehow still seems to be an ever present pile of things to move on out of my house. I had Autumn help me go through my clothing. We got rid of things that I don't wear due to them being old and stretched out or duplicates. I even cleaned under my bed...a rare thing for me. I was pleased to find that I had an extra 5x7 picture frame under there as one of mine had been bumped off the wall and broken.
I love getting things cleaned up and organized, but in the press of children's needs, meals and laundry, sometimes those things get overlooked for longer than I realize.
Saturday evening Randy and I went out for dinner while our friends babysat the younger 5 kids. We had a gift card to Red Lobster so we went there. I even got salmon instead of chicken!
Sunday was the Make-A-Wish Truck Convoy. Because the weather was damp and there were rain showers, Randy, Josiah, and Autumn went into the convoy. The rest of the kids and I went to my parents' house and ate lunch and spent the afternoon with them and my siblings and their families. My father-in-law, Randy, and Josiah all drove in the parade/convoy.
In my devotional times this month, I'm focusing on Paul's letters. I read 1 Corinthians and have moved on to 2 Corinthians. Last month I focused on the Psalms. I'm also reading "The Broken Way" by Ann Voskamp. I'm finding it meaningful, encouraging, and challenging.
We currently have chickens and pigs on our few acres. Yesterday was hot and humid with thunderstorms at dinner time. Without steers in our meadow, the grass is growing tall. I guess we'll be making hay before to long.
Today. Mark has school work to work on. And I'm trying to decide which errands are most important and should be done today.
Well, this has gone on long enough...time to wrap it up! Enjoy your day!
