A New Resource

I got my weekly email from The Homeschool eStore, and I discovered a new publisher with some fantastic homeschooling resources. It's called The Homeschool Shop, and I've found several resources there that look promising.

So far this morning, I've downloaded History Scribe - All History Combo and Geo-Scribe World Combo Package. These both have journaling pages for history & geography subjects as well as loads of maps & information gathering sheets for every country of the world. I've just shown the kids what their assignments are for the day, and they seem to be really interested in them.

I also ordered two Reading & Review Log Books with the hopes of getting each of the kids to write more about what they're reading. I'm *really* looking forward to these!

And that's all for now ... We have an extremely busy day ahead, but I've gotten a good jump-start on it! Dinner ingredients are prepared, laundry has been re-booted, the kids are eating breakfast and starting their history assignments at the same time! Woo hoo!

Starting Over

DS finished radiation last Wed!! That means that today is the first day of the rest of our lives, and we're trying -- desperately -- to get off on the right foot.

I let the kids sleep in this morning, thinking that they deserved a good night's rest w/out alarm clocks arousing them. Now, they're ever-so-slowly getting their showers done. We often do showers @ night, but I know how refreshing it is for *me* to shower in the morning, so I'm trying to get them into the same habit. It would make life so much easier if they'd just DO it and stop complaining about it. Of course, once you get them in there, they don't want to come out. I'm so confused.

My new beginning included 15 minutes on our elliptical. My goal is to do 15 minutes of aerobic exercise a day this week and add 5 mins/day next week and so on. I will also try to add in some free weights, but I'm going to put that off 'til next week .... as the FlyLady says, "Baby steps."

Oh yes, and I'm re-dedicating my Weight Watcher efforts. Somehow, between re-starting our "school" work and going to piano lessons, I'll find time to get to the grocery store. We're down to about 3 grapefruits, a bag of spinach (sans e coli, I hope), a red onion, 2 lemons, and 2 Roma tomatoes that probably need to be tossed. Well, that's not ALL we have, but that's all the produce we have, and you can't eat a healthy diet w/out lots of fruits and veggies, now CAN you?!

Finally, we're going to get re-organized and spend a couple of hours getting back into our lesson plans. DD's will be easy -- she's using Sonlight, and it's all spelled out for us, and she enjoys most of it. DS, well it stands to reason that he'd be the more difficult one. (I say that w/ an air of exasperation mixed with lots of love. ;-) ) He's also using Sonlight, but I've had to pick his apart and mix in some other ingredients that suit him better. So, we'll have to sort through some of that and re-adjust his schedule so he doesn't feel like he's aiming at a moving target.

Oh wait ... and I forgot ... we also need to do laundry & continue our efforts of attaining that perfectly clean and organized house I keep talking about. Ha.

Dipping My Toes in the Stream of Consciousness

Well, I just got done tucking Child #1 in bed. (Is 12 too old to be "tucked in?") I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and then tried to figure out what it is I want to do w/ my final hour or two of the day. I picked up my knitting bag intending to knit & watch a recorded episode of "Good Eats." Instead, I sat down & saw 401 Ways to get Your Kids to Work at Home lying on my coffee table. I just received this book from Amazon.com earlier in the week, and I've yet to read it.

I decided that I would look & see if the author -- Bonnie Runyan McCullough -- had a blog. I Googled her and ran across the blog of a woman in Massachusetts.

I'm always surprised to run across people who share my point of view on things. I guess it's because I often feel like I don't fit in. There are a variety of reasons for this. I'll get to that later. My point is that I get so excited when I find someone who appears to think like I do, and so this dear woman has inspired me to finally do some writing.

I've been saying for such a very long time that I want to write a book. I have lots of thoughts and ideas rolling around in the back of my head. I feel myself getting closer to writing them down, but finding the time to do just that is where I falter. It's hard for me to get a chunk of time that will allow me to get into a the flow of writing. I guess I need to make some sacrifices if I'm going to do that. And that leads me to ....

... apparently a mental roadblock.

As soon as I tried to put into word what I'm feeling about the whole "sacrifice" thing, I lost my momentum.

{sigh}

I don't even know where to begin.

If you know me, you know that the past six years of our lives have been spent dealing with our son's cancer. No, not every single moment of those past six years, but yes ... every single moment. It's not always in the spotlight, but it's always there. For a few months at a time, while he was in remission, we could go about our lives like "normal" people do. But then the time would come for a follow-up MRI. Life would shift gears again. Personally, I have nightmares in preparation for MRIs. The most horrendous of those nightmares have come just before each of the two recurrences.

I hate to say this, and I certainly don't mean it the way I know it will sound, but it's almost easier now that he's back in treatment. He has cancer again. That possibility is no longer to be feared. It's here. We're dealing with it. He's doing well despite the up-and-down blood counts.

And, well, I guess that brings me back to the whole "sacrificial" point I was trying to make above. As I said, I guess I need to sacrifice some things in order to get into the writing mode. Sacrificing is becoming increasingly more difficult for me. I feel all sacrificed out.

I don't say this so that you will feel pity for me. I simply need to get to it for myself. I need to sort through all of this and figure out why I have been so paralyzed lately. I seem to have lost all ability to practice self discipline. I don't want to clean my house; I don't want to fix meals for anyone; I don't want to pay bills or open the mail. I ignore emails from good friends.

I want to go out and do things, but I can't. The Blood Counts Are Too Low. We must wait for The Blood Counts to come back up. We can't have friends over. We can't go shopping. Fresh fruits and vegetables are verboten for the DS, and so I feel a little guilty feeding them to the rest of the family.

DH tells me that he will need to travel for business in upcoming months, and all I can think is, "I'm stuck here." How selfish is that?

And you know what's really frustrating? When people make perfectly reasonable suggestions about how to deal with these "sacrifices," and I just can't take their advice. It must all seem so simple when you're on the outside looking in. I guess all of the mental and emotional exhaustion must cloud my judgment and keep me from behaving in a practical manner.

Over the past year -- before recurrence #2 -- I found myself struggling a great deal with planning and organizing and self-discipline in general. I have felt wholly inadequate. Now that we are in the throes of coping again, I am beginning to realize that I probably never fully accepted the impact of the trauma our family has been through. We've been so busy trying to be "normal."

And now, Those of You Who Know Me know a little more. I'm not always as strong as some of you think I am. I'm as strong as I need to be when necessary. What else can I do? I thank God for that strength, and I thank God for getting me a little closer to sorting all of this out. I've had a number of revelations over the past couple of months that I don't think I'll ever be able to put into words. I guess I'll just consider it my own personal Grand Canyon - you just can't stand in awe unless you've been there.

Slap me a high five!

I finished my sweater!!!

It fits!!!!!!

I haven't taken a picture yet!

Maybe I'll wear it tomorrow!!! Woo hoo!!

Maybe not ...

Maybe I'll wear it on Tuesday!!!

I'll take a picture!!!!

Long Overdue

It's been a looooong time since I was able to sit down and update here. Things have been more than a little crazy at our house. In November, we learned that our DS had another recurrence of the cancer he's been battling since 2001. He's doing well and is a little over 1/2-way done with his radiation treatments, but the daily trips to the hospital are quite time-consuming. So, not much time left for "playing."

HOWEVER, with the good use we've made of the waiting rooms @ the hospital, I've managed to knock off a few projects. I'm nearly done w/ the top-down tunic sweater I'm knitting. I'd have been done w/ it by now, but I had to rip it back a good bit & re-knit the bottom of it. I knit it too short, and since the sides have slits knit into them, well, that meant ripping all the way back past the slits. *sigh*

But I digress ... lemme post a few pics of the items that are done ... first of all, here's the Tiny Einy I knit for my DD ... still needs buttons, but we haven't gotten to that yet:



And, just a cute little photo strip of my DD modeling the hat I knit for our church's Giving Tree ... I've nicknamed it "Twisty Twirl Me"