Its that time of year ... School Time!

And of course I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do this year...again. I am so glad I am a homeschooler though, as the options and choices are wide open. I have several stacks of school books in my living room (you know how I love to stack) that need to be gone through and either discarded, passed on or used this year. Unfortunately, because I am so unorganized, this task may take several days, days which I wont be able to do anything else I have on my never ending list of projects. School is supposed to start in a couple weeks though, so it needs to be done.

I am not a very good homeschooler, but I do have a pretty good idea what I will be doing, so that is a big plus, however I do not have a set curriculum that I use all the time, so it is up to me how to put it all together. I have several Bible study books to choose from so that is an easy fix, and a video Math curriculum I can use. I'm still debating on what to do with English, but I am leaning toward some type of Literature with books I already have on hand. I have a list of reading material I received from a friend, so will probably pick a couple books from it.

Okay, so that leaves Art, Music, Science, Writing,  Home Economics, Physical Ed.and the list goes on. Okay one at a time, Art, I know a lady here in town that does pottery, that might be an option, but I also just talked to a nice lady who wants to maybe do watercolor painting, so will have to check with that. Next is Music, the 2 youngest are already taking piano lessons, and the next oldest girl wants to learn flute. She might have to pick something else, as the Lady who was going to teach her is pregnant and busy with several children of her own.
Alrighty then, the next item on the list is Science. This also may be an easy fix, as I wont teach anything except Creation Science and I have a Large book complete with cutouts and quizzes and reading ect. that the kids liked before, but Im not sure where it is, one of those things that I will have to try and find in the next couple weeks. I'm absolutely positive it is in some stack somewhere.

Okay onto the next item, Writing, and I am wondering if that could include blogging, and or  forums, notepad on the computer, or only handwriting with a pencil and paper. I think I will incorporate the writing in with the English Lit. this year and make it Creative writing in any format they choose. I don't want them to be on the computer alot  though, so the majority of it will be with good old paper and pencil, this should be fun.

Home Economics, Definition: Don't burn the house down. Oh I know it can mean other things also, like don't cut off your fingers with the extremely sharp rotary cutter, don't use the 40$ Gingers on paper, make sure to clean up the large spill on the kitchen floor before someone breaks their neck, the list goes on and on. This is the funnest class to have as far as Im concerned. I have a really nice curriculum set for it and I think we will be definitely be using it this year at some point.

Im down to the wire, my last thing to decide on, Physical Education. I did not do well with this class when I was growing up in public school, you would think it would be easy, but it wasn't for me. I was never very athletic and always picked last, ect. Im not sure what to do with this one other than trampoline time, or something along those lines. I think there may be some type of curriculum to go along with it, but I have no idea what it is. So looks like they will be spending alot of time riding bikes up and down the driveway and jumping on the trampoline, at least until the snow starts flying. Maybe an exercise video or something during the Winter months.

Well, this is my plan, hopefully I will be able to stick to it. I seem to get really lazy right around Thanksgiving and Christmas, and sometimes it takes a real effort to get started again after all the vacation time. Im not a really good homeschooler like some of my friends are, as I have a tendency to be lazy and the un-organized bit doesn't help either. Sometimes it just seems like to much and I dont want to be bothered, but I usually start out doing okay. I keep hoping to find some kind of Coop, where people with special talents are willing to share with the rest of us. As for me, I will give our Homeschool year to the Lord, in the hope that he will help us get through it as Philippians 4:13 says, with this is mind we will continue striving toward the goal, alternately standing and falling as we go, hopefully standing more than falling. Now that I write that though maybe I should include falling as a good thing, as in falling on my knees and begging God for mercy when it seems to hard to go on, or maybe first thing in the morning I should start begging!

Now we are getting somewhere.

After having a couple rough days with no motivation, I got back into the swing of things yesterday by finishing up my closet, clothes and room for the most part. I still have my containers stacked everywhere, because I cant really put them in the attic as its not clean yet. I was up there the other day and for some reason it seemed worse then before. I think when you are un-motivated everything looks worse than it is. Unfortunately it is still to hot up there during the day to do any real work so I spent the rest of the day yesterday trying to get a walking path in my living room and finally succeeded and was able to get dinner done, the kitchen clean and my bathroom clean. Thank goodness for grilled cheese sandwiches, Im not sure I had energy left for anything else!
I can now get to my pile of yard sale items and get them over to my storage shed, and I have enough stuff to have a sizable yard sale this next Friday and Saturday also. I have to make sure that when I am done I am willing to take whatever is left to the thrift store and resist the urge to put it back in the storage and have another one.(BTW I have gobs and gobs of childrens books so I am willing to let my friends get first chance at picking some up before the yard sale)
So I have the girls pink and red totes stacked by their bedroom door and the boys blue totes against the wall in their room for easy sorting. Everyone now has a memorabilia box for things they do not have hanging on their walls, but want to keep. I think that was the funnest part of this, getting to see things Ive kept for sentimental reasons, but its still mostly birthday cards.

The overly stuffed hall closet.

My next project for today is working on my hall closets. They are so stuffed, sometimes I cant even get the doors shut! I have no idea whats even in there. When I open the door it all usually falls into a pile on the ground and I have to push it all back in. That can not be good for the door hinges I'm sure. And that's only the small closet. I want to bring my new dryer home so the laundry closet needs some work to. It has everything in it but laundry stuff.  I have actually worked on it a couple times, but it one of those things that I had to many projects going at once and it didn't get all the way done. Some advice I received recently was to pick one thing at a time and finish it before you start something else, but like my husband says, women are like spaghetti, they are all over the place :)

The laundry room closet

 Now that I have my projects picked, I need to finish my coffee, get dressed, get the kids up, and make a decision that this is what Im going to finish today. The fact that I really really want my dryer over here should help me with getting the laundry closet done sometime today, but if I don't get it all done, that will be okay to, I cant expect to be completely organized in just one week when it took years to get this way. But like my life with Jesus, I am a work in progress, not completed until he takes me home. I hope it doesn't take that long to finish my house.

Lessons learned....

I decided to go back through my blog and see if I had learned anything at all from the past week, and if so share it here. Being a Christian, I think the biggest lesson I learned this week is that I can do nothing without Jesus. The overwhelming amount of organizing I started last week is just that, overwhelming. But according to Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through him (Christ) who strengthens me.
This is the scripture verse I need for right now, actually I need it for everyday, but it rings of hope that the task before me can be completed with Christs help. As I look at the piles of assorted boxes, bags and containers my motivation to be organized wanes. If I depend upon myself to do this it will NOT get done, so this is a verse I really really need to keep at the forefront of my mind.

Unfortunately I totally forgot this on Monday at Silverwood. I depended upon my own power to get through the day and forgot to pray and give everything to Him. As a result, things did not go as well as planned. Any time you plan something without including Jesus in the decision its bound to be a problem. It is a lesson I'm sure will take the rest of my mortal life to learn. Hopefully it wont be anything major.
The past week has been long, I'm still trying to pack and sort, my house is a wreck (I'm really hoping no one decides to come over), the kids are still bickering for some reason known only to them, and my lack of motivation is a sure sign that I stayed up wayyyy to late last night. I think I will need to go have a quiet moment with God before I try to do anything else. I am so glad for Jesus in my life. I know my life doesn't always look pretty, but that's OK. I know there is hope for me and my family yet !