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September 21, 2009

An Update From Deep Within the Pages

After months of inactivity or sparse posting, I'm happy to announce that I'm now in the perfect position to return to my regular blogging. The following is just an update on what's been happening in my life since I last posted, followed by what I plan to do virtually as well as actually.

Reading

I've been reading like crazy. Check out my Shelfari. I've been updating that fairly religiously. I've been knee-deep in Fantasy Fiction. I'm rereading the first two books in The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series, because I've just acquired the third book, which was released earlier this year. (Look for reviews coming soon.) I finished The Alchemyst three days ago, and am now about halfway through The Magician. The third, and as yet never read by me, book is called The Sorceress.

Writing

Apart from my usual jotting down of random ideas, my writing in the past few months has been pretty stagnant. Today, however, I managed to copy a bunch of files from my desktop onto my laptop. In doing so, I discovered quite a few documents that I'd completely forgotten about. I went through many of them and discovered something that completely motivated me. I really do believe God has blessed me with some skill in writing. Doubt is my biggest foe, and its all self-inflicted.

I vow, here and now, to persistently battle my doubt in my own ability. Through "The One True King" I shall arise the victor! All prayers are welcome.

Today I realized and remembered a few things I need to do:

Write daily.
Use the drive and ability to write that I've been blessed with.
Be prayerful in my writing process.
Don't forget the fellowship I get and give through the blogging network of Christian authors I've become associated with.
Go back and read what I wrote long ago. Great ideas can come from unassuming Word docs with the title Notes or something similar.
Have faith in everything I do (especially my writing)!

Homeschool

My daughter, now 11, and I just began our fourth year of homeschooling. We're doing our 6th grade year. I'm really excited about the changes in difficulty and content we'll be dealing with this year. Math gets more complex, Science delves deeper into concepts only previously touched on, and English contains far more opportunities to teach writing. We'll be doing some extra-curricular creative writing as well. Just for fun.

After a summer of camps, sleepovers, and plenty of pool time, even my daughter is ready to get back to work. The ice cream truck won't be coming around for too much longer now. Aw man - that means I don't get anymore frozen lemonade cups - too yummy.

I've been busy planning for lessons and correcting papers, while Kailee is doing independent work and developing a voracious appetite for books. We're a much better team now. I think our starting-off years are over and we're both a lot more comfortable with the whole homeschool gig. We slipped right back into our groove this fall and I couldn't be more happy about it.

Coming Soon...

I will be updating all sections of my blog's information.
I'll be blogging regularly.
I plan to devote at least a small portion of each day to writing.
More book reviews!!!
I'll be making my rounds to all my net nerds and blog buds to check in and check out what everyone's been up to lately. (I'll update any exciting news as I come across it.)

See you soon.

May 5, 2008

Seasons

Since my last post, not only has the season changed, but many other life events have shaped the course of my days.

My health - ugh...

I'd love to have a good report, but don't. So - I'll at least keep this part short. Migraines now daily? Yes. Asthma as bad as ever? Yes, and now there may be a possible genetic link to cystic fibrosis and my grandmother and possibly myself as carriers.

Homeschooling...

Fine, yet we've fallen a little behind where I'd imagined we'd be at this time of year. We'll be working into the summer partially. Standardized testing will probably be held in July, or whenever we get around to it.

Family...

Great actually! My parents moved up here, somewhat temporarily, in February. They've got their own room at our house and share the upstairs bathroom with my brother, but that's just like old times for them. :)

My mom has been a huge help. She drives when my meds keep me from being able to. She drags me out of the house to the library with her and Kailee, even when I refuse at first. She cooks and keeps us all well fed and spoiled with her excellent fare. She picks up where I leave off and doesn't, even for a second, let me feel like less of a person, even when it would be easy to do. God sent my parents to me during a time that I needed them far more than I knew.

Work...

Jeff's been a busy guy lately. When he's not a his regular job, he's on a side job doing a remodel. When he's not doing side work, he's busy as can be around the house with all kinds of home improvement projects. This weekend he refurbished our ugly white ceiling fan, turning it into a thing of beauty. The metal is a gorgeous pitted brown and the blades are now a textured deep brown. He took $20 and turned the $30 fan into a $200 fan. He amazes me sometimes - well - all the time. His gifts are so useful.

Writing...

Well -I'm getting itchy again. I think that after our end of April snowfall, followed by early May high temps has finally flipped my creativity switch. Winter in the Northwest is a bit tough for most of us. All of us imports have to adjust to the grey and rainy weather for a solid three months, so it gets easy to procrastinate. However, as soon as the sun is shining, I'm in the zone all over again. It's like our own little human hibernation. I'm definitely feeling awake now though.

Other news...

We just celebrated Kailee's 10th birthday. Last weekend (end of April), Jeff and I went shopping at IKEA for a new bed for her. We'd decided to do a whole room makeover for her, and ended up doing an Extreme Makeover - Kailee Edition. :)

She was at Jeff's parents' house for the weekend and we'd been shopping and decided to keep her at her grandparents' for an extra day to give us time to paint, build, sort and organize, and decorate her brand new "tween" room.

It went from froo-froo pink to grape green in less than a day. We got home from IKEA and left again to Home Depot for some paint. We had to primer the pink on three walls, and left it alone on one wall. Two coats of primer and two coats of green later, it looked like a whole new room. Jeff even decided to give the pink wall a fresh coat of pink.

I'll see if I can get up some before and after pics soon. We took plenty, as proof of all our hard work.

After the green dried on that Sunday, we began our individual projects. My job was to sort through all of the endless clutter and toys that had previously littered our little girl's bedroom, that always kept it from being clean. Jeff was busy building the bed and desk. Whew - I hope I never have to do that again. It was unreal and seemed endless at times. We'd brought everything out of her room and downstairs to paint, so nothing went back into that room that didn't pass through my approval.

We donated massive quantities of toys and threw away almost as many. Now all her toys are in plastic bins and will stay organized for years to come. We also put some of it in our attic for her to pass on to her kids someday. It was the hugest purge in Browning history! Whew - done.

Well - after a teary phone call of misunderstood abandonment from Kailee on Sunday night, we felt terrible, but couldn't reveal our little project if it was going to be a surprise.

Finally - Monday evening around five pm, we headed out to get her and bring her home to her brand new room. We'd scored a desk chair for under her new loft bed that day, and a cool fuzzy pink lounging chair as well to go with the new desk, comforter, accent pillows, and matching sheer curtains. This room was made for hanging out, talking on the phone, and just chillin' in.

We got her home and upstairs. It was like an episode of Trading Spaces or While You Were Out. She was so excited! We even saw some happy tears. She was overwhelmed with joy. It was such hard work, but we just kept thinking about how much she'd love it, and she did. She's been calling down every so often the phrase, "I LOVE my room!" since Monday. Now it's been a whole week and the room has served its purpose beautifully. All the neighborhood kids have oo-ed and ahhh-ed over it now and over the weekend, we had her friend party with a sleepover with three of her best friends. It was awesome! They all wanted to sleep in Kailee's new room.

It was such a blessing that we were able to do this. I think it's been the best money we've spent in a really long time. Praise God for tax returns. :)

Birthday Business...

We also prepared quite a party for Kailee. We made our own pinata, wands, and signs. We ordered and picked up silver and black balloons, made a lightning bolt shaped cake, and hung oodles of spiral streamers and shiny silver stars around the house. The theme was Harry Potter. We had to make nearly everything, but it was SO much fun! I've never made a pinata before and it was messy and a total blast. All three of us got really into it and Jeff and I may have smeared each others' arms with gluey paper mache mix. Hee hee...

Conclusion...

I think the last couple of weeks have really pulled me back to reality. I've realized that even with more limitations now than ever, life is still worth working for. Our experiences with the people we love are worth any extra effort and personal consequences. It all matters. God's blessed me with love and support and so much more. It would be a travesty to waste all of it feeling sorry for myself or letting any of it get me down.

August 27, 2007

The New School Year

One week and one day left...

Preparations have been a slow and steady process, rather than a quick rushed gathering of books and such. It's actually been quite a smooth process. I haven't been writing as much as I'd like to, but a little prep now will afford me lots of free time later.

I thought I'd put up a few of the homeschooling resources I've found helpful. So without further ado:

HomeschoolReviews.com - Parents review curriculum and programs that they've actually tried. This is a great way to get info on which books would work best for your child.
ColoringBookFun.com - Free printable pages with every imaginable characters/subjects you can imagine; from Hello Kitty to Bible stories.
Used Curriculum Forum at About.com - A new forum and a great ebay substitute.
Multiplication.com - Games, flash cards, printables, and more.
Family Learning Organization (FLO) - This site will send standardized tests and supplies, score the results electronically, and get you the results in great time. You choose when to test and you are the "Proctor" while the FLO is the "Administrator." We used this last year - highly recommended!

Well -those are the only national sites I could really post, they're in my sidebar too. I've just joined a co-op in my area that does field trips, events, and something called Friday School. It's a parent taught program that meets every Friday. The kids can enroll in 3 classes, one hour each, for each session. The whole thing begins with chapel, which includes worship and a brief message. Then - off to class. The classes themselves range from horseback riding to horticulture. I think it'll be a really fun program for my daughter.

I also found a Yahoo group for homeschoolers in my area. I highly recommend trying to find an online group for your own area. It's great! Parents post events they hear of and provide helpful hints and tips, as well as giving you a safe place to ask those questions we all have rattling around in our brains.

This year will definitely be full of new adventures!

July 26, 2007

Gently Used Curriculum

I now have FOR SALE gently used curriculum books from Bob Jones University (BJU) Press and Alpha Omega Publishers.

For details and pictures click HERE or email me (Amy) at more2live4@gmail.com

Books available:

Bob Jones:
*Handwriting 3
*Spelling 4

As items sell, they will be marked so on the details web page.

June 20, 2007

Used Curriculum Sale

For many home-schoolers, summer break began as soon as the weather got warmer. Around my house, we actually quit mid-May. Our trip to California was an educational experience in itself, but we couldn't really get back into our school schedule after the vacation. Our minds would've been on important summer musings. So - we took off early and our summer began in May.

Home schooling is one of the coolest lifestyles God could bestow upon a family - well, our family anyway. It's so flexible, enriching, and miraculous. I could go on and on about the joys of home school, for now though, I'll get on with my current topic.

Friday, June 22nd, I'll be joining many other parents in a frenzy of book shopping at the annual Used Curriculum Sale for CCHE (Clark County Home Educators) group to which I belong. I'm actually really excited about the whole experience, now that we've finished our first year and ironed out many of the wrinkles we ran into initially.

Last August was when we decided to pull our daughter out of her private Christian school, in order to attempt what we felt God was leading us to do - home school. We just dove right in and I attempted to research curriculum over the internet with moderate success.

I decided to try one publisher for all subjects, since this was our first exposure to the huge variety of curricula in existence. Bob Jones University Press seemed to fit our needs best. I had found an amazing website of reviews done by parents who'd actually used each type of curriculum: HomeSchoolReviews.com. This was and still is an amazing asset to our family. I highly recommend this site for even seasoned home-schoolers looking for a new curriculum.

BJU Press was a blessing. The lessons were laid out and the Teacher's Editions taught me how to teach my daughter. I had help - backup so to speak. Initially, all of these things saved my sanity and curbed my worries of, somehow, damaging my little girl's education.

After the first week or so though, I realized that even home school books didn't have to be followed to a tee. So - I improvised. In Math, my daughter was quite a ways ahead of the book, so I let her take the test and if she scored 90% or higher, she could go on to the next one. In English, the book was arranged so that every other chapter was about writing a different kind of essay (persuasive, compare and contrast, etc.) - well what third grade kid really likes to write an essay every other week? Not mine. So - we reviewed the material and moved on to more grammar and sentence structure type stuff. The point is that I altered nearly every book from it's original state, to something that fit my daughter's learning style. That's the beauty of being her teacher.

So after a year of tweaking the books to suit us, I'm able to recognize much better what our specific needs are. This is a tremendous advantage when picking out curriculum for our next school year. I've finally made some decisions and hope to find at least a few of these curricula at the sale on Friday. We'll be going with the following:

*Math - A Beka
*English - Rod & Staff
*History/Social Studies - Bob Jones Heritage Studies (an excellent program)
*Science - Neoe Science (Chemistry 2, Physics 2, or Biology 2)
*Spelling - A Reason For... (Level E)

As for Reading and Bible, we do our own thing. My daughter reads everyday, on her own, and I have her either write a short journal entry on what she's read, or tell me, in order to check her comprehension. This is unconventional, but I want her to develop a love for reading that is personal, and not just read because I said so. (I also developed a rewards program where she gets one penny per page she's read, only after she's finished the entire book.)

For Bible, I've taken a more practical approach. I've prayed about it, and for now, we're using an amazing teaching Bible my dad gave me a few years ago and trying to apply it to our everyday lives. If she's having a disagreement with her friends, we look up what the Bible says about that. If her attitude is a problem, we'll look it up. I've also found a really great devotional series for her called Devotions for Girls: God and Me, and one for me, as well, (God's Little Devotional Journal). Our goal, even in summer, is to start our day with a page in our devotional books, so we start out focused on the Lord, which gives us perspective throughtout our day.

So while all the children in the land are dreaming of swimming pools, ice cream trucks, and sleepovers, parents like me are preparing for the fall year of home school. The sale this week will be a fantastic opportunity to buy, as well as sell, my used curriculum. Every year, kids move up a grade and others leave behind the books we'll be needing and vice versa. It's a beautiful thing. All those discount books, all that knowledge, all waiting to be delivered and found.

Most people don't realize that home school does, in fact, cost money. It's not as much as private school, but it's definitely not free. So local sales like this one are a chance for us to sell the old books and hopefully get some money toward next year's learning.

It's funny because it's not even officially the end of her 3rd grade school year, and I feel like 4th grade will be fantastic!

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Update: The sale was fantastic! I found about 70% of what I needed for our upcoming 4th grade year. Yay!

April 15, 2007

New Article by Yours Truly...

Well, yesterday I was inspired by a fellow writer and homeschool mom, and wrote an article about socialization and homeschooling.

Check it out if you have a few minutes to kill.

Homeschooling Solutions to Socialization Issues.

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