The Homeschool Mother's Journal ~ Dec. 1, 2016

In My Life

In the past 6 months or so, I have been learning that God's grace is sufficient indeed and to trust in Him more. Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus! It's true. 

In Our Homeschool

Our school work has been minimal in November since we give gifts for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas. We took some time off and focused on getting those gifts prepared as we would normally do for Christmas, so there's not a whole lot to report in our homeschool except that we're back to our normal schedule and moving forward! Today is our 66th day of school. 

What's Working/Not Working

Working - I talked about implementing a new routine/schedule to help us get our work done last month.  Our new schedule/routine plan is working. I got out our "Class Schedule" poster and wrote out a daily agenda. We are getting up a little bit earlier and following the list of school work, even if we're off on the time a bit. Now I just need to get a cleaning schedule going. 

Not Working - I already know that I cannot put a new blog post out every single day, so I don't know what I was thinking when I I tried to post what we were thankful for every day last month. I have a hard enough time keeping up with this blog once a week, let alone once a day!  😂

I also have more ideas to blog about than time to actually write about, so I think I'll stop saying that I'm going to blog about this or that so as not to get hopes up just to be let down when I can't deliver. I'm sure there's a lesson in being trustworthy and promise keeping in that somewhere. What can I say? I'm sorry.

Some Changes

Menu - I'm going to have to redo my menu plans once again. I shared my Fall menu several posts back. It looked a little empty and I needed to rework it. I don't know what the problem is, but the recipes I have listed on there just aren't working for me. I haven't gone by that menu in weeks! I watched a video by Andrea Mills on Youtube where she talks about how she organizes her meal plan. She calls it The Self-Planning Menu or The Menu That Plans Itself. I love her idea and I really think it can work for me. I have everything necessary to start working on it, but it will take a little time. You're going to have to watch her video for the explanation. 

Curriculum -  The kids are in need of some help in math. We were supplementing with Easy Peasy online, but these children are getting a little too "addicted" to playing on the computer. I think EP is a great curriculum, but I'd really like to keep them off the screens as long as I possibly can. I looked at Life of Fred books again. These guys like to read (score!) and so I thought Life of Fred math books would be good for them. So, we are still using Math-U-See and now supplementing with Life of Fred instead of Easy Peasy. To top it off, I got a fabulous deal purchasing the entire elementary set from another homeschool mom. Can't beat that! 

We're Purging... Again

I am tired of junk cluttering up our home, especially if it's stuff we aren't using. Once again, we began the purging process last weekend. We started in the big storage space we rent. We made 3 piles: Keep, Donate & Garage Sale. We have so much more room in that storage when we were done... and it only took 4 hours! Maybe we can go down a size and save a little bit of money after I have a garage sale in the spring.

My hunny brought home a few more boxes from work so I can toss more stuff. Now as I clean the house daily, I can easily get rid of items that we don't need or aren't using. Again, I'll have a donate box and a garage sale box. I get the kids involved too. I have them go through their closet and take out clothes and toys they don't use and can't wear any more. 

This is quite a process, but it's so relieving when it's all done! Then we'll probably have to do it again next year.  LOL

A Restoration Project
I have several pieces of cast iron cookware that I've had for about 15 years or so. I've used them and tried to maintain them, but I've done something wrong and now they're just sitting in the cabinet and have for the last 3+ years b/c I didn't know what to do with them. Some pieces are a little rusty, some are gunky and some just make the food cooked in them taste absolutely terrible. I know that I have some very reliable and quality pots and pans here, (besides the fact that they were all gifts from my hubby) so the thought of throwing them out is not something I am willing to do. So I am beginning to try to restore them. I have spent about a week looking at youtube videos and instructional blogs to learn what to do. It's a little tricky because everyone has a different opinion about how to restore, re-season and maintain them. So, here goes the biggest experiment for me ever! I will try not to get discouraged along the way because getting that non-stick finish on cast iron takes time. I don't need new cookware, I just need to restore what I have and learn to maintain them.  

A Video/Photo/Quote to Share

"The real Gospel is not that if we follow God, we will get the desires of our heart. The real Gospel is that following Christ is about changing the desires of your heart to desire Him above all else." ~From the video below, only 10 minutes long. It's worth checking out.