December 2016 Highlights

December came so quickly in 2016 that I couldn't believe it. Where has the year gone?

Early December was my student focusing on finishing his to college courses for the semester (Dual Enrollment program). There were also Boy Scout meetings, Civil Air Patrol meetings, and getting ready for Christmas.

In December, both of my CAP family members got promoted on the same night.

The Cadet got promoted to Staff Sgt.

The Senior member got promoted to 1st Leutenant.  

The Boy Scout troop met each week and went camping. Our Scout missed some of the meetings because college studies taking up a lot of his time. Our troop was honored by a visit from five of our former Scouts, all Eagles, visiting while on break from college.

My husband and I got new cell phones. We didn't get all the most expensive bells and whistles, but I'm thrilled to have some newer technology and some faster speed for the things I use my cell for. The photos are better quality, too, and I'm glad about that.

We got a silly little Christmas tree this year. Sorry for the washed out photo...

We enjoyed our giving of gifts this year. I won't list gifts here, mostly. I'm not even sure what people's favorite gifts were (I'm meaning the gifts they received). I'll post more about some of the received gifts in future blog entries.

After Christmas we visited some family we don't often see. Didn't photograph everyone, but here are photos of some of our close family. The first is my nephew Jared and his mom and dad, my husband's brother Mike and wife Deanna:

The next is my husband Rick visiting with Deanna's mom Dixie:

We also saw Rick's other brother, Larry; Larry's son-in-law, Lee; as well as Rick's dad, Jerry -- but at the time I wasn't thinking and didn't take photos of them.

We were visiting them in North Carolina from 12/26 to 12/28. We came home to piles of laundry and some post-Christmas shopping 12/29. Then 12/30 was my birthday. We went out to dinner, which we don't normally do on my birthday, so that was special. I made my own cake, but doing so was a stretch time-wise. The cake was lopsided, and the icing wasn't warm because of how cold the house is in December. Then I kinda ran out of icing before the sides got iced all the way down. I photographed a better looking side. I requested, "No candles, please!"

12/31 was menu-planning and shopping, and not much else. We're leaving the tree up an extra few days because we're celebrating late-Christmas tomorrow at my house.

Student has been on break from college since 12/18 and has been focusing some time on his Geometry. He did a smashingly marvelous job on his courses during the fall semester (English 102 and History of the 20th century). He has also been making bull whips out of paracord. (Google it!) 

    

We're going to try to get him to buckle down and work on his Eagle project as well during his college break.

That's about it. Coming soon: results of 2016 year goals!

Hovering on the Verge of Summer

Summer is almost here.The weather is in the 80's. Memorial Day is days away, and the local public school releases its captives in mere weeks.

I was asked to write a Summer Inspiration post on one of the following topics:
** Fun summer ideas

** Summer DIY ideas 

**  Beat the Summer Heat

**  Making Memories with your family
The problem is, I don't see a summer break coming in my house. A student has procrastinated, and I need to try to help courses get finished for a high school transcript. Were that not the case, I would be trying to clean house and declutter -- necessary activities I've been neglecting. I need to get my vegetable garden planted now that warm weather has finally arrived. (Yesterday was the first 80 degree day we've seen this year!)
Fun summer ideas? I see Algebra 2 and Calculus in my future, followed by housework and gardening.
Summer DIY ideas? My vegetable garden? The quilt I don't have time to work on?
Beat the Summer Heat? How about air conditioning, or going to the pool (which I don't have time to do).
Making Memories with my Family? I don't think I myself will be contributing to good summer memories this year.
How about you? Do you have a break coming up? Or does unfinished schoolwork loom into your hot, distant future? Let me know.

A Glimpse at My Day

The cellphone blares its clarion alarm at 5:57 a.m. Why 5:57? I came up with that time awhile back, figuring out that it gave me three minutes to get up and shuffle to the bathroom, turn on the light and the radio, and catch the news as it starts at 6:00 a.m.

Today, though, I fall back on my "Sleeper Alarm" option. No, my cell phone doesn't really have that option. I swipe the face of the phone, wiping out the 5:57 call to rise, knowing that I set a back-up alarm to go off at 6:00 a.m. It goes off. I swipe the phone again and go back to sleep. The third alarm goes off at 6:15, and knowing it is the last alarm I set, I groan, roll over, and get out of bed. Should always make my bed immediately, but I didn't.

It is college class day, so I can't waste time. I shuffle to the bathroom, turn on the radio, and listen to the latest as I begin my morning routine. Unlike yesterday and the day before, I hear the weather is not causing any public school delays. I brush my teeth, get dressed, and head to the kitchen.

The coffee is set up, so I turn it on. The dishwasher is clean, but I ignore those dishes and pull out breakfast supplies. Eggs with some sauteed vegetables, a hot cup of coffee, and I glance at a few emails while I eat. Then I wake my student, and while he gets it in gear I make eggs for him as well.

The college class is a couple of hours away, so we enjoy some time together over Bible reading, Tale of Two Cities, and Gulliver's Travels. We've been working on these two books way too long, but we're getting much out of them using the Charlotte Mason methodology. We still haven't gotten to the Yahoo's yet, so I refuse to quit. Today's reading in Gulliver was so full of words we didn't know that I was glad to be reading it via Kindle -- a quick touch on the word gives a definition, if there is one. Gulliver has lots of made-up words, too, but today's reading also contained: ebullient, peccant, flatus, vertigos, purulunt, lenitives, aperitives, abstersives, palliaties, cephalagics, icterics, apophlegmatics, and more. I had to stop defining -- the teen boy was getting grossed out!

Hopped in the car and drove to the community college. Got there early, parked, and finished the last chapter we hadn't finished at home, then the student fleet-footed it to his class building. I wrapped myself in a blanket and opened my Kindle to the book and chapter I am working on for Small Group study Friday night. Okay, I also checked some email on my cell phone.

The student finished up and I drove closer to his building and picked him up. He was beaming. The instructor liked his writing assessment essay. That made me happy as well. I needed this English class for him as much as he needed it for himself.

• I have trouble assigning essays and sticking to due dates;
• My student has difficulty respecting my due dates;
• When I review his writing assignments I have difficulty deciding if I'm being too critical, not critical enough, and deciding how to grade.

We're both so glad to have this new set of eyes reading his writing and approving!

We head home and stop at Starbuck's on the way. I buy him a beverage to celebrate the teacher's kind comments. Home again and a brief lunch break. Then the student struggles with Spanish and gets discouraged, struggles with Chemistry and gets discouraged, and works on his Algebra 2 lesson.

My bed's not made, my bathroom needs cleaning, and I'm trying to decide which dirt to tackle today. I grab a bucket and add Spic'n'Span and hot water.

Today I am washing walls and baseboards down the stairs. There are so many walls that need this,

but today I tackle the stairwell.

At 5:15 hubby gets home and I put away my cleaning supplies and transition to dinner preparation.

Dinner is a new chicken recipe I found for honey/lemon glazed garlic chicken. It's a good thing I am an experienced cook -- I notice the recipe calls for both minced garlic and garlic powder but does not call for honey. Hmmm. I skip the second garlic and use honey instead. Dinner takes longer than I'd hoped to get to the table.

We scarf dinner and head out to the Algebra 2 tutor. He's traveling for the next six weeks, so this session is really important to cover stuff to tide us over. The tutor covers imaginary numbers, college test-taking techniques, and factoring polynomials. Excellent session. I'm a bit concerned about getting through the next six weeks as the only instructor for Algebra 2, but what can you do? The tutor says we can email with questions.

We get home, and the student heads to his computer where friends have been waiting for him in cyberspace. I head to the kitchen, where my wonderful husband washed most of the dishes. I set the dishwasher up to start in two hours (in case someone decides to shower tonight) and set the coffee up ready to turn on in the morning. I head to the bedroom, put on jammies. While I'm there, I swish and swipe bathroom. brush my teeth, then go to my bed and straighten the covers, and then climb into bed. I'm beat and ready to turn out the light. It is 9:30 p.m. I say good night to my hubby, put on eye shades and ear plugs, and I'm out for the night.

What are your days like these days?

A Day in the Life...

The clock ticks.

In a moment it will "BONG" out the chimes to tell me it is 8:30 a.m. I have been up since 6:30. When my alarm went off, I stumbled out of bed, took care of my morning ablutions, and stumbled to the living room.

Lights were blazing everywhere. And yet, I was alone. These are signs that my 13-year-old chose "Option 2" for school today, where he stayed up into the wee hours of the night doing his Math, his Latin, I'm not sure what else. I know, now, that he will want to sleep late today.

I let out the dogs,

   

brewed the coffee, unloaded the dishwasher, made my oatmeal. I checked to make sure hubby got up when he wanted to. Then I snuggle down in my recliner with my laptop, covered with a flannel quilt, and my coffee and oatmeal on the table beside me. I check my email.


8:30 strikes on the clock. I reluctantly leave the warm cocoon of my quilt and struggle back to my room to make my bed and take my shower. On the way to my room I peek in at my student.  

Oh, and, yes, he sleeps in his clothes. He resists bathing, but when we finally get him clean he either puts on jammies, and then tries to wear them all day when he gets up, or else he goes to bed in his clothes. I guess he just doesn't see any sense in having to change clothes again when getting up in the morning...

So I showered, dressed all the way to my shoes,

swished and swiped my bathroom, 

and made my bed.

[Lest you believe I "have it all together", I later read on my "FlyLady" email that my assignment today was my living room -- sit down and think, "If I were to change just one thing, what would it be?"

...Okay... um.... I can take that one of two ways... Either I can say to myself, "Oh, good, I only have to do one thing... I can handle that...", or else I can look at my living room and give up and say, "Doing one thing won't accomplish anything. So I won't do anything." ...Sadly I did the latter... After all, I need to do school now...]

So I peeked in on JD and suggested to him that it would be a good idea to get up now, as there was a lot of school to do today, and bowling this afternoon.

So he did his Math last night. We start out with the day's "Read through the BIble in a Year" selection. Then we read two chapters from Alice in Wonderland, followed by two chapters from All Creatures Great and Small. I still want two chapters from Treasure Island and a worksheet in Latin, but it is time to pack it in, eat lunch, and then skedaddle to the Bob's Bowler's bowling league for home schoolers.  Get there around 1:00, and JD runs in while I finish my healthy home made soup that I'm having for lunch (that is, having what of it did not spill on the way to the bowling alley.)

I run in, pay for bowling, and let the adults know I'll be back in about an hour -- have some errands. Off I run to Michael's to get JD some fusable (we call them "melty")  beads for the project he is working on.  Then I pop into Whole Foods, right next door, and grab some trail mix. On the way back to the bowling alley, I stop at a famous coffee shop and buy an expensive cup of coffee. Then on the way to the bowling alley I remember that I meant to sit at said coffee shop a few minutes to tackle some e-mail. ::sigh:: Arrive at bowling alley, and sit in car trying to tether my computer to my cell phone's signal; epic fail. Go inside til JD finishes bowling. Didn't even THINK to take a photograph of him bowling. Oh well! Have conversation with an adult about the "incident" that occurred while I was gone.

JD finishes and we go out into the BEAUTIFUL day! We decide it is too nice to go home and finish the school work. We turn right instead of turning left, and we go to the nearby state park! We play on the play ground, and we hike in the woods around the lake. I take lots of photos on my phone, but I'll use those photos another day for my Nature Study blog entry, so subscribe to my blog and read it in a couple of days.

Finally we've had our fill. We found lots of neat things on our hike, but still did not find mistletoe, that I have been trying to find to show JD all winter.  We head home. On the way home I stop at the in-grocery store bank so I can replenish my cash stash, and JD crawls around and with a ruler pulls dropped coins out from under the Coin Star machine. The teller comments that he is quite the entrepreneur, and I comment that I keep waiting for someone from the store to kick him out for doing that every time...

We head home. I don't have time now to help JD with his Latin, and both of us want to call it a day. He heads to his room to play Mine Craft for a while, and I head to the kitchen and make dinner -- oven baked chicken, mashed potatoes, and broccoli (fake chicken and brown rice and broccoli for the vegan, cause the mashed potatoes is those dried potato flakes with all those additives...)

Dinner eaten, hubby kindly gets up and does most of the dishes, leaving me to put away the leftovers and do the dishes and dirty baking sheet from the chicken (to clean) while he heads off to get cash for his own wallet, and to buy gas for his car with a cash discount.

JD is, again, playing Mine Craft. He will fight with us when it is time for his bath. He will take it anyway. He will have trouble going to sleep at a decent hour, and will probably do a lot of tomorrow's schoolwork tonight instead of going to sleep. (His computer locks automatically at 9:00 p.m.) He wants to do his school work tonight and be school-free tomorrow because it is supposed to get up to 66 degrees before it starts raining in the afternoon. Then a cold front will come in and it will be back down in the 30's for the rest of the week. He doesn't want to miss this little oasis in the middle of the frozen winter desert.

I will tackle part of the living room mess in above photo, and then I will crash in my bed at about 9:30 p.m. -- with a clean kitchen sink and a dish washer that is running. And tomorrow I will start again at 6:30. 

I blogged today, mostly, instead of dealing with email, so tomorrow I expect I will be really swamped.

So that is a day in the life. Thank you for joining us. Here is a lake photo of JD--he thought would be in silouette -- his idea!

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