17 Days… and One Month Later
This year started out as one might expect – Christmas is over, and we extended our vacation by a week into January because we ended up continuing our school year into December. We spent Twelfth Night as we always do, taking down our Christmas decorations and storing them carefully for next year. We cleaned up the pine needles and got rid of our couch (since there are so many instruments taking up space in our living room now), leaving room for music practice and a couple of chairs that we rescued from my grandmother’s house.
We joined our friends one evening to continue our D&D campaign, had our regular round of music lessons, and spent the first Teen Social of this year with a LOTR marathon before taking a trip to Longview to visit my grandmother in her new house.
The first weekend of 2017 was winding down, and we were preparing to get ready for school when my dad called and said that he thought we needed to bring my mom to the emergency room. She’d been sick for a couple of months and no one could figure out why. Tests were clear, but she was getting sicker and weaker every week. When my dad called, she was very dehydrated, so we brought her to the emergency room and, after some testing, they admitted her to ICU.
On day 2 or 3 in ICU, she was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer, and so we mobilized the family and between me, my dad, my sister, my brother and sister-in-law, we stayed with her round the clock. She was moved out of ICU to a regular room after a couple of days when her numbers started to improve, but because her cancer was so advanced, she decided to opt out of treatment options and move to hospice care. 17 days later, she was dead.
It’s amazing how quickly your priorities, your ideas about what’s necessary today, you entire world, can shift. Just like that, this year’s school plans fizzed into a holding pattern so I could focus on my parents. It happened so quickly that I don’t think that I’ve truly processed it even a month later. We spent so much time at the hospital and hospice center. School obviously took a back seat for a while – we only made it 2 weeks into the first 6 weeks of this school year before my entire being was focused on my mom. The first couple of weeks, we tried to maintain normalcy. We went to co-op; the kids and I all did our first round of chair testing; we even took instruments to the hospice center and the boys played for my mom and dad.
our last ‘family picture’ – January 2017
But it was a downhill battle, and she slipped away all too quickly. My siblings and I spent hours debating what the ‘right’ thing to do was – should we go to work, should we stay close? How long do we have? When should we bring the kids up to see her? So many, many questions and no real way to get good answers. It was a lot of ‘do the thing’ and hope for the best.
We were with her when she died. My dad on one side of her, my sister at the foot of her bed and me on the other side of her. Our brother had left that morning after being with her all night, and had to rush back once it was clear that she was in rapid decline.
I’m not good with grief; no one is, I’m sure. I (thankfully) haven’t had a lot of experience with loss. I’ve lost great grandparents when I was young, and 3 of my grandparents. I’ve lost my father in law, and my husband’s grandmother, and in 2009, lost a baby that we desperately wanted. Each loss has been different, and I guess nothing can prepare you for the feelings that come when you lose your mom. Even though she and I had a strained relationship, it’s been really difficult.
We spent the days immediately after her death going through all of the pictures, pulling ones we wanted to use for a slide show at her memorial service. There were so many pictures… and yet never enough.
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- 1974
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- 1975-ish
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- 1979-ish
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- 1987 – my 10th birthday
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- 1989-ish
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- 2013-ish
We had a memorial service for her 3 weeks after she died, and are getting together this weekend to bring her ashes to our dad. The boys all wore yellow ties, because yellow was her favorite color.
PeaGreen, my niece, and LBB
me and my sister
My amazing sister-in-law and my brother
It’s been a month and a half now, and we’re in our third week of school. I’m glad we took the time off that we did, but am also glad to be getting back to our normal routines. We had another round of chair testing in orchestra, and the kids have been hard at work both at home and at classes and co-op.
They went to their Aquatic Science class in either February or March 2017 – I can’t remember off the top of my head. They had several water lab stations set up. It was pretty cool!
February 2017 – LBB is not thrilled about being at his music lesson today.
For our March teen social with our homeschool group, the kids painted the Galaxy Unicorn along with The Art Sherpa. They made their works their own; instead of a unicorn, PeaGreen chose to draw a weenie-dog with an inflatable unicorn horn. I think he pretty much nailed it.
March 2017 teen social
Seat testing again! The entire class stepped their game up so much this round! It was SUPER competitive this time, and they both did an awesome job – all the kids did!
I love their pre-test looks of intense concentration as they practice and hope they don’t get called next….
March 2017 – 2nd chair (tied with another girl in his class) – Grade: 99.6
March 2017 – 4th chair – Grade: 98.16
Once testing was over, they had lunch and we started our art lesson – sculpture.
sculpture – art class in co-op – March 2017
Even though things are ‘back to normal’, in some ways, things will never be ‘normal’ again. Or maybe it’s just a new normal. It’s really hard to sort through my feelings, but I needed a space to do that, so I started a new, less topic-focused blog. I’ll link to in eventually, but for now I’m keeping it to myself.
I bought an urn necklace with her birthstone in it and put some of her ashes inside. I wear her jewelry, and listen to songs she loved. For now, it’s helping me feel connected to her as I figure the rest out.
This is the last moment I had with her. Her hand was still warm, and I try every day to remember the feel of her skin. I know I’ll forget one day, and that hurts more than anything.
Until next time,
Warmly,
~h
Happy New Year 2017
So it’s that time of year again; when everyone posts their resolutions and goals for the new year. I’m not immune to the appeal of ‘starting fresh’ and making a grand effort to improve myself and my life – the changing of the calendar from one year to the next is a natural transition, and it feels good and productive to have goals. Last year, rather than making ‘resolutions’ for 2016, I went with an overall theme for the year. It was trendy a few years back, but I really liked that idea, and it worked better for me than having ultra-specific resolutions.
My theme for 2016, so you don’t have to go back and find that post, was ‘mindfulness’, which is basically the practice of living in the present moment (hard to do when anxiety disorder is part of your life, which is why it felt like something I needed to work on). That’s still one of my favorite words, and I find that it will continually be on my list of ‘things to work on’. It wasn’t a total success, but, as my music teacher is often saying, ‘progress, not perfection!”. In that light, I do think that having an overall theme was easier to maintain than a list of ‘rules’ to have to follow.
Here’s a re-cap of my goals in that theme from last year:
meditation – I practice on my own, but I really would like to make it part of my week to go to the group sit at St. Mark’s. They meet twice a week; I want to make at least one of them.
simplify – KonMari! I want to clear out things that don’t make me happy, from possessions to wardrobe to household goods
health – movement and community – walking with playgroup; with the kids; family health; focus on cleaner eating
relationships – tend those I care about and cut loose those I don’t
I didn’t actually make it to St. Marks for meditation with the group, well … ever. The timing wasn’t something I could ever work into my schedule. After giving it some thought, and making my personal meditation practice a priority, I didn’t feel the need to practice with a group as much. Now, I’m content to continue my personal practice in private. As for simplifying… well, that didn’t work out either; at least not in the KonMari way. I did do some downsizing and re-organizing, but nothing that could be categorized as a clean sweep in the KonMari way. We finally got our storage building moved into our backyard, so that alleviated a lot of the clutter inside the house, but there’s more (always) to be done. It’s a process, so while I didn’t exactly meet my original goal, I don’t feel like that was a total failure, either. Health/Nutrition/Fitness are always going to be a focus – more so in the coming year with the decline in my parents’ health, but that’s a long story best told over coffee. I went walking with the group once, and tried to go with another group, but that didn’t work out according to the original plan, either. I did purchase a new bicycle a few months ago, so that’s what I’ve been doing, because I enjoy biking more than walking. The kids have their bikes, too and we ride together – another bonus. This year, I want to get a bike rack so we can take our bikes to local biking trails and ride (or maybe we can just work on increasing our distance and ride to a park that’s not too awful far away). As for relationships, I feel like I’ve been stretched too thin to effectively be a friend to some of the people I actually do care about. There are definitely a few friends who have become long-distance friends that I need to make more of an effort to connect with.
This year, I am going to go with the same one-word theme, but more action-oriented. Mindfulness can be an action word, but it feels more passive to me. Now, at the end of the year, I’m feeling antsy – like I need to move and ‘do’. To satisfy that need, I’ve chosen ‘create’ as my theme. Here are some things I want to create this year:
- space – both in a physical and metaphysical sense. In the real world, I want to create peaceful, relaxing spaces in my home. This means taking charge of clutter and possessions that no longer serve me or my family, or our purpose. I have really been drawn to the idea of minimalism over the past couple of years, and while I won’t say I am ready to go all in just yet, I feel the need to free up space in my home and my head, and I feel like downsizing all the things might be a step in the right direction. This aspect also includes clearing away obligations and activities that no longer fit my needs or bring me joy or relaxation, or free up time so that I can spend more of it with my kids and Loverly Husband. A relatively inflexible rule I’ve established over the last couple of months has been to say no to things I don’t truly, deeply enjoy or that put money in my family’s budget. I’m spread very thin, and I need to take back some of that time.
- memories – this is something that is so very important to me; that my children have a rich childhood filled with memorable experiences and traditions to carry with them throughout their lives and one day pass on to their own kids. We’ve made an effort to have game nights and do things as a family that do just that: create a memory. We only have a few years of ‘childhood’ left; I want to make the most of them. I’d like 2017 to have an emphasis on ‘creating memories’ – simple things like rock painting, cooking together, game nights, traveling and other fun (inexpensive, low-key) stuff.
- art – creating art is something I always come back to. This takes many forms: art journaling, writing, painting, crafting… I like them all. Some of the time I take from other things needs to be focused on creating more of the thing my soul craves.
- music – I started playing cello this past year, and began piano lessons earlier in December. I used to play flute and clarinet in school, but dropped it after I graduated. I’d forgotten how much I loved it; playing music occupies my entire body – mind, hands, attention, eyes – it’s a full-body experience. For someone who struggles with depression and anxiety, having something that’s so all-consuming to drown in has been an amazing relief. Since my kids are also taking music lessons (both on violin), it’s also something we can do together, which I love.
- change – activism has been a part of my life for years now, in small ways. As my kids get older and demand less of my time, I feel the need to get involved with larger efforts to affect positive change. I’m not sure exactly what route this path will lead me on just yet, but it’s something I am motivated to accomplish.
So… that’s my word for this year. What’s yours?
Happy New Year!
Warmly,
~h
Winter 2016 Update
I had this post split into two; one for November (which I never got around to publishing) and one for December. Considering that we’re now well past Christmas and about to kick off the new year, I decided to combine them into one post and just get it published so I can move on, otherwise, I am not sure they’d ever get posted individually.
November always starts off with a bang, and this year was no different. For some reason, #allthethings seem to happen in the last couple of weeks of October/first couple of weeks of November and I inevitably miss out on things I wanted to do because of the other things I also wanted to do. For example, there was a Native American International Pow-Wow the week before Halloween weekend. I didn’t get to go because of work (which is actually a thing that I enjoy doing), but it’s on my calendar as a placeholder for next year(if they have one next year, that is).
One of the major events we make time for is the annual ‘School Days’ trip to the TX Renaissance Festival. It’s about a 3 hour drive from our house, but usually worth it. This year, it was hot, and muggy and I ended up spending a lot of time waiting for other people to find me/meet up with the group. Good idea in theory, but bad in practice. This was the first year that I let my kids wander off with their friends. Also a good idea in theory, but in practice it meant that as soon as I got one kid settled, I had to be still and wait for the other to find me for one reason or another (because kids always need something). We’ll have to figure out a better plan for next year; I missed out on all the Ren Fest stuff this year. I didn’t have a great time at school days, but chalked it up to lessons learned and planned to make it up a couple of weeks later when we had plans to go again with friends, but I ended up being sick and not able to go. I have big plans for Ren Fest 2017 though!
Jousting
waiting for friends….
still waiting… but with smiles this time
November’s teen social was a low-key; we just met at someone’s house and the kids watched cartoons and played a game. I’m so grateful that they have a group of kids that they get along with. We’ve been very fortunate in our homeschool journey to have that dynamic now. It’s been a lot of work over the years, but it was worth it!
Another event we always make time for is our annual Thanksgiving Party & food drive through our homeschool group. We started this a few years ago, and are pleased to see it continuing. We had anticipated a bigger turnout this year, but the weather was pretty nasty and it kept a lot of people away. We had a great feast though, and were able to bring a nice donation to the food bank.
Our homeschool co-op continues to meet and exceed expectations. We have class on Thursdays, but also have music class on Mondays as well. Our music teacher is offering formal lessons starting in January, and we’ve been adding in private lessons for the boys (violin) and for me (piano) as well as class time. This was from November – a rare shot of a Monday class.
In co-op, they’ve moved on from Debate and into home ec – starting with learning to crochet. This is a skill that neither of my boys learned very well. I can do the chain stitch, but when I crochet, I end up with a slice of pizza instead of a square. Knitting is more my style; they started knitting in December.
We’ve been homeschooling for 6 years now, and it seems like right about the time I start thinking about how we’ve been to all the homeschool things and seen all the homeschooling things, an event will pop up that’s totally new to me. Such is the case with the Houston Gem & Mineral Society’s Education Day in Humble, TX. This was part market/part education and we had SUCH a good time! There were so many pretty things to look at, and the kids got to take a couple of classes, sit in on some demonstrations on stone-cutting and jewelry-making, and play with electronics. They also had a scavenger hunt that spanned the entire building, which ensured that the kids got to see everything.
Thanksgiving this year was low-key and perfect. It was a change; our usual holiday plan was to go to Loverly Husband’s grandmother’s house and spend the day with his family. However, she passed away this summer, so we weren’t sure what the holiday would look like. His aunt hosted Thanksgiving at her house though, so it was much the same (except for the notable absence). We ended up spending a few hours chatting with family and then heading back home for a really peaceful evening.
As always, work is never far from my agenda; Whole Mothering Center celebrated Small Business Saturday with ‘Meet the Doulas’ at our local mall with our apprentice doulas, Kristin, Shylee and Cherish, and our brand new Certified Lactation Counselor, Ashley. We met quite a few new mamas and spent our down-time brainstorming, which led to Talkback Tuesday livecasts with WMC from our Facebook page.
In other news, November is the month that I both love and dread when it comes to my planner. I always make the new one at the end of the month, which is AMAZING – my favorite thing ever might just be a fresh, newly-printed Bossy Book… however, my year starts in January, so the month of December usually sees me carrying around 2 books – the old one with all of my current stuff, and the new one for all future planning. It’s a dilemma, I tell ya. But kvetching aside, I went for a complete re-design this year. If you’re a fan of my planner, I’m keeping the blank/printable/free version up on my printable freebies page; you can still download and use the previous versions of my planners there. If you want something custom, I have started making them for others. You can find out more on the Bossy Books by Heather Facebook page.
December is traditionally the month that we get to take off, regroup and catch up on things we’ve slacked off on. This year has been a bit different. The addition of co-op and music lessons to our normal schedule took a toll that I hadn’t anticipated. I was really exhausted at the beginning of this month. That’s partially why I ended up combining the last 2 posts into one – I just haven’t had time to hammer out the text to go along with the pictures. So we really put the kibosh on plans and the doing of things this month. I’ve had a lot of time at home this month, which hasn’t translated to ‘resting’, but it has been nice. That said, December has definitely had its own share of events to relay.
We’re still playing the same D & D campaign we started earlier this year. It been really fun to experiment with what this style of gaming can accomplish. I really love my character, and LBB has kept his as well. PeaGreen and several of our other compatriots have retired their original ‘starter’ characters and created new ones that fit them better.
December’s teen social was a slightly cool, rainy-day cookout – we roasted hot dogs and s’mores before we were sent inside by the rain.
One of the our kids had a birthday tea-party, which was really lovely. Her mom went all out with the fancy finger foods and tea options!
Most of the last month or so has been spent learning Christmas music for our homeschool group’s Christmas party. We decided to do a mini-concert, with orchestra kids playing and some of the other kids singing carols. It went really well! I’m so impressed with the kids who’ve gone from knowing nothing about stringed instruments to actually reading music and playing well enough to perform in front of a crowd. They have really out in a lot of effort and practice, and it showed. Our living room is perpetually the land of musical instrument and accouterments-dodging these days – music stands, folders and an excess of seating seems to be the ‘look’ we’re cultivating now. We’re contemplating the wisdom of disposing of the couch entirely to make room, but will wisely wait until after Christmas decor is safely stored once again in their boxes to make final decisions.
LBB turned 15 on the 10th, and got a new computer for his birthday. He actually got it a few months ago, and just had a couple of friends over for a sleepover to celebrate. I’m a slacker mom and didn’t make them pose for pictures this time. He keeps making faces in the first 3 shots of picture-time these days, so it’s almost become more hassle than it’s worth to try to get a clean short of him! We persevered with our holidays cards though.
Happy Holidays!
Warmly,
~h
Happy Halloween – October 2016
Another month gone, y’all. I honestly don’t know how time passes so quickly. At this point, my plan to update each week is just completely out the window; I’m barely able to get in the once-a-moth gig at this point. Once you read through this post, you’ll see why though. The additions to our normal busy schedule have basically made ‘free time’ a thing of pure fantasy.
We’re still taking #alltheclasses – the boys started an aquatic science course with one of the moms in our homeschool group and are 8 classes in at this point. They’re enjoying it. The course is project-based, which I absolutely love, because I feel like they’re getting more out of it than they were with traditional book-work. This is the kind of science-y stuff that I have always wanted to offer my kids, but never got around to doing. They’ve made models, maps, used all kinds of cool tools and worked in larger groups, which has been a really neat dynamic for them. That can be one of the failings of homeschooling – missing out on group learning environments. It’s not an essential element to education, but I’m glad that my kids get to experience it. Since it’s a small group, and the kids that are there actually want to be there, I feel like this is a really good opportunity for them. Their next lesson involves building a wave pool thingy. I don’t know a lot about it, but I can’t wait to see it!
Our homeschool co-op is still going strong. I can honestly say that this has been the best part of our school year. Having something to break up the monotony of the week has been really nice. We’re 10 weeks in, and will be taking a break next week for Thanksgiving, then have the last 2 weeks of the fall semester before breaking for the rest of the year. We’ll pick back up in January, at which time I think we’ll all be ready for it to start up again! Our schedule for co-op runs in 6-week segments; we’re in the second 6-weeks right now. We started home economics (which I think is called family and consumer sciences in schools now) this 6 weeks, and the kids are learning how to crochet, along with literature (still Romeo & Juliet, which they elected to continue), debate and orchestra. We got our music for our homeschool group’s Christmas Pageant coming up in December (a community service event where we visit a local nursing home and sing carols and play for the residents), so we’ve been practicing Christmas carols and learning tab music.
The last month has been full of activities. We went to Johnson Space Center’s Homeschool Day in Houston the first week of October. This was our third trip, I think, and as always, we had a blast! (no pun intended). This was the first year that we’ve gone with friends who were older; the moms and I sent the kids off with a couple of assignments and we got to go on our own tours. We met back up with the kids at lunch, then sent them on the tram tours while we caught a couple of the inside demonstrations and then toured the Space Shuttle. Because they kinda did their own thing, I don’t think I have any pictures of the boys from this year’s trip!
Each month, our group hosts a teen social for the group’s ‘tweens and teens to get together for some older-age appropriate socialization. In October, we brought games to a local coffee shop and let the kids hang out while the moms had their own table.
We also have Social Studies club every 6 weeks where we focus on one country at a time. Each student does a project of some sort based on that country. October’s country was Iraq. My kids chose a culture project; LBB did a recreation of a painting by Faeq Hassan, and PeaGreen did a recreation of one of calligraphic artist Hassan Massoudy’s pieces.
Mid October, I helped host WMC’s Nurture & Nourish Retreat at Crystal Beach. We rented a beach cabin, and spent Friday through Sunday working really hard on the mental aspects of good self-care. We spent some time learning how to stop the negative self-talk spiral, work through anxiety and depressive episodes that sneak up on us, and quite a bit of time learning some watercolor letting techniques and creating some artsy affirmation cards. It was such a great weekend! I came home refreshed and although it took a few days to recoup from my retreat, once I settled in, I feel renewed.
We’re hosting another retreat in April, and I am so excited for it!
October is always my favorite month of the year – so several reasons: 1) It’s fall (supposedly), which is my favorite season; 2) pumpkin spice; 3) Halloween season; and 4) it’s time for our first week-long break of this school year – yay! This time, our break fell the week of Oct 17-21, which was the same week after my retreat. I needed to take some time off to ease back into real life, and having the week off from school was perfect timing.
We had a couple of things planned for that week that we ended up missing. The kids prepared for several weeks for their Public Speaking (part II of persuasive speeches) class. PeaGreen went to visit his cousins, but LBB and I were going to go without him. I tried, but I just couldn’t make myself take LBB. I needed the break! Taking full advantage of the time off so we could start back strong the next week was a priority for me.
During my off week, I didn’t just laze about – I was productive! I spent a couple of afternoons painting with a friend (who shall now be called ScienceMom since she’s the one who teaches the kids’ science class as well). We found a really cool Harry Potter/Starry Night mash-up picture online and I wanted to attempt a recreating. It didn’t turn out too bad! I also found a YouTube channel called Painting with Jane. I did one of her tutorials a month or so ago, and I loved her ‘Squishy’s Embrace’ picture, so I did that one as well. I actually had to go out and buy new canvases! I’ve had the same 4 sitting around for a while now, but they’re finally painted, so I got new ones.
We decided back in the summer that our homeschool group should do a haunted house for our Halloween party this year. That was ambitious, and as the month started winding down, I think we all got more and more nervous about how it was going to work out. The last week of the month was full of decorating and setting up – I think we spent more time at ScienceMom’s house than we did our own! This is from the day before the party, after a long day of moving furniture and decorating. We didn’t want to wait until the very last-minute, so the bulk of the work was done the day before.
Vampire’s Lair
Zombie Maze with the projection screen in the background
zombies in the window
LBB’s very simple – but absolutely terrifying – costume
The end of the month was really exciting. We had the Halloween Party, and started the second 6-weeks of co-op. Due to a strange set of last-minute goings-on, I ended up hosting at my house, which was kinda nice. My house is tiny, so it was somewhat less comfortable for everyone, but we did get to do orchestra outside, which was amazing! All music should be played outside, I think.
After setting up the party, we went to see the annual screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Jefferson Theater in downtown Beaumont. I love going there – it’s such a cool old 20’s style theater. They’ve been hosting classic movie night over the last year or so, and it’s been great to see fun old movies and neat to hang out in that theater. I had planned on taking my kids to see it, but LBB elected to stay home, so PeaGreen and I went and met some friends to see it.
(c) Beaumont Enterprise
We also moved my grandmother’s piano from her house to ours. She’ll be moving in a few weeks, and the piano was not going to be able to go with her, so it’s now comfortably in place in our living room – and getting regular use as well. The boys took piano lessons from her for a couple of years, but they slacked off as they got older. Loverly HUsband and I both want to learn, and PeaGReen is interested in taking lessons again, so the plan is to start in January. Right now, we’re just focusing on violin and cello. 
I bought a bike! A pretty, pink cruiser with a nice, wide seat. It’s been fun to ride again!
Another big deal for me was a paid writing project – my first! I worked with a good friend of mine to complete a CPR & First Aid manual/training course for an online school. It was a 20K word-count project with a week-long deadline, and we aced it! Unfortunately, it was the week before NaNoWriMo, which means that my brain hasn’t recovered enough to make NaNo happen yet. At this point, it’s halfway through the month and I am still on the outline. That makes me sad, but I’m not giving up yet. If you’re writing, too, then Happy NaNoWriMo to you!
That’s pretty much it for October. Because I’m 2 weeks late with this post, I’ve talked about some stuff that’s happening in November already, but for the full story on what’s current, you’ll have to wait a couple more weeks for the full November update post (unless I get around to updating before the month is out… but don’t hold your breath). <wink>
Hope you’re enjoying the cooler weather – I know I am!
Warmly,
~h
Co-op and Field Trips and Fall, oh my!
I know I always say this, but holy Toledo – I cannot believe how quickly this month has passed! We’re officially into #allthethings now, and somehow that makes time pass even faster. On the one hand, I guess it’s good that we’ve been busy living life, but blogging helps me focus on the positive and awesome stuff that happened, so I have missed not posting regularly. I see a lot of bloggers get accused of glossing over the bad stuff, and that’s fair. I tend to focus on the positive because I am prone to depression and having a place to ‘store’ the memory of what we’ve been doing fixes that in my mind instead of all the other, stressful and negative stuff that’s been going on. So if that’s been something you’ve wondered about, please know that it’s not that it’s not my intent to misrepresent what my life looks like, but more that I want to keep my brain occupied with things that make me happy, which at this point is still pretty focused on the kids and homeschooling and all the associated business of being a mom.
In the interests of ‘keeping it real’, the past month has been filled with stress related to my aging and infirm grandmother and parents (all of whom live next door to me); anxiety over work and finances and the direction of my career; existential anxiety over realizing that with the progression to ‘high school’, my days and identity as a ‘homeschooling mom’ are coming to an end in a mere 4 or 5 years, with the associated “what does that mean? What do I do? Who am I, if not that?” types of thought processes; frustration over getting the kids to do their freaking work and all the worry that goes with ‘am I doing enough to prepare them for the real world and life as an adult?’; and a host of other things, many of which involve negative thought-spirals that I’d rather not dwell on. Despite those issues, life moves on, and now that we’re (mostly) fully settled into this school year, I can breathe a bit and play a bit of catch-up here to remind myself that in between pockets of ‘bad’ are a hell of a lot of ‘good’.
The biggest new thing we were anticipating was the start of our homeschool group’s high school cooperative group. We’re now 4 weeks in, and it’s *so amazing*. Classes for this semester are: Life Skills, (which covers practical math skills like paying bills, balancing a bank account, planning for large purchases and managing credit, in addition to finding an apartment, buying a car, and things like that). Debate (Lincoln Douglas, which I freely admit I know nothing about and am thrilled to have someone offer this to my kids); Literature (Shakespeare; Romeo & Juliet and something else I haven’t decided yet, because I am teaching this one); and, of course, Orchestra. The boys are both playing violin, and I am playing cello. We have 10 students and 4 parents taking lessons along with the kids. Never too old to start a new hobby, right? The spring semester will have a couple of different classes, including a mental health for teen course that I am very excited about.
Overall, I am super happy with how co-op is organized and how things are progressing this time. The co-op we were part of last time had a wider age range of kids, and it was chaotic and stressful. Though this is tiring, it’s not ‘stressful’ in that way. I am really enjoying this smaller age group, and that it’s teens in particular. We’ve made a couple of changes to our original plan and moved some things around, but I really couldn’t ask for it to be better. The kids all seem to mesh well, and the class is small enough to feel intimate, but large enough for them to bounce idea off of each other and appreciate their classmate’s insights. Though it’s not ‘competitive’ in the way of classroom education, they do bring out the best in each other, and that healthy competition is really nice to see emerging.
For everyone freaking out over posture and form, worry not – we’ve since moved to proper seating and standing for the violins. These pictures were from our first day when everyone was just getting acquainted with their instruments. We’ve also moved to a different room, with cellos seated in front and violins and viola standing in the back. We’ve progressed from pizzicato to bowing now, and about a third of the class has moved up from ‘baby bow’ to ‘teen bow’ as of today. We still sound like cats dying when we play, but there’s definite progress! Exciting!
In addition to music instruction during co-op, their music teacher also offers a bumper lesson every Monday (see? Standing!). Currently, they’re practicing with a rolled up tee shirt under their arm and a shoulder rest to correct posture and hold. It’s been a long time since I took any sort of music lessons, but it’s amazing how quickly things come back, and how important PRACTICE is. When I was in school, I was a lackadaisical student – practice was definitely not a priority (but I also had band every school day, so many it balances out?)… however, because we’re only getting actual instruction time twice a week, an hour-long practice is part of the daily school plan, which means that I can actually see their improvement from week to week. 
Our homeschool group hosts a public speaking class every 6 weeks. We started doing this last school year, and this year, we changed the format a bit so that it’s less ‘presentation only’ and more actual development and skill in presenting. During our most recent class, we focused on developing and delivering a persuasive speech, and the kids had to use an outline and note cards to help with delivery. They did fairly well, but there was a lot of room for improvement, so our next class will stay on persuasive speeches, but focus on Presidential candidates’ speeches and their considerable powers of persuasion. It’s been interesting listening to the kids talk with each other, especially after the Presidential Debates the other night – I never thought my kids would engage in thoughtful political dialogue, but I am both glad they are, and proud that they can do so somewhat intelligently. How this will translate to their speech class presentation remains to be seen, but at least they’re not as blind to the world as I was at their age.
I have no idea what this face is about…
we call this the ‘anime grin’
We’re also still participating in our homeschool group’s Art Guild, which is based on the book Discovering Great Artists. We meet every 6 weeks, and both learn about an artist and create a work of our own in that style. This month was Georgia O’Keefe in watercolor. For those of you inexperienced at watercolor, let me just say that it’s a hard thing to master, especially with 15 kids in the room! They made a valiant attempt, but we may need to refine our technique a bit more.
Another addition to our schedule this year has been an Aquatic Science class, taught by one of the moms in our group who is a former science teacher. She’s using a really cool project-based approach which is giving the kids a lot of hands-on exposure that I am just in love with. This is the kids of thing that I have wanted to do as a homeschooling mom and always seemed to fall short of it. Their teacher is amazingly patient, and keeps them focused during class time and sends them home with follow-up work. This was from a couple of weeks ago – they were using an orange to map a globe, continent and island, and transfer the ‘globe’ onto a flat surface. Last week, they worked on land-forms, and made a contour map from construction paper and an elevation map from cardboard stacked and painted. We’ve been having classes every week, and in tomorrow’s class they’ll be using their models to work on ‘sounding’ the ocean floor.
With all of these additional classes and clubs, we’ve had to put actual field trips on the back burner this year! Our most recent was this week’s trip to Galveston to Seawolf Park. They have a battleship and a submarine open to tour, so we spent the afternoon on a lovely day trip. Ferry rides are always the highlight of our trip; there are dolphins in the bay and fat seagulls that follow the ferry looking for food offered by the passengers. You can see Seawolf from the ferry and it looks like it’s fairly close by, but it’s a 20 minute drive that I wasn’t expecting. Hurricane Ike destroyed the building that used to be the park’s eye-catching landmark; it’s still there, but disconnected from patrons by a huge fence. Apparently, there’s a proposal for renovation of the park, but it’s not underway yet. In any case, we still had a good time. LBB is somewhat afraid of heights, so he and I spent the majority of the time working on getting over that (without success this time), which was at times funny and others frustrating, for both of us. Afterwards, we spent the latter part of the evening on Crystal Beach, soaking up some sun before heading home (to practice our instruments, of course).
In other news, FALL IS HERE – finally! The weather is forecasting 60’s most mornings this week and I am over the moon about it. We left for co-op this morning and it was cooler outside than it was inside (with the AC on). I am so beyond ready for sweaters and boots! Speaking of ‘favorite things’, we have gotten some awesome mail this week – our PhysicsQuest science kit, and the kids’ homeschool yearbooks arrived! This is our first experience with both of these companies, and I am thrilled with both. I’m not an affiliate; these are resources we’re actually using by choice with my very own monies. The PhysicsQuest kit (which was free), I learned about in a homeschool group. They sent a kit for each kid, with the book and most of the materials (everything except household things like water and paper) to work through the problems presented in the story (comic book). We haven’t started on it yet, so I’ll get around to updating that when we do.
The yearbooks are from Picaboo, and I am ENTIRELY pleased with. If you’re in the market for either a personal yearbook for your kids’ school year, or an option that works for your homeschool group, I HIGHLY recommend Picaboo. The quality and options for the price are incredible. After some tinkering to figure out their site, it’s super user-friendly to create the books, and the free customization option is really cool. My boys both got their names and pictures on the back/flip cover, with pictures of ‘just them’ in the flip section, in addition to the main book. I am really considering creating a book to cover our entire homeschool journey as part of the boys’ graduation gifts. We’re still a few years away from having to think about that, but wouldn’t that be something?
To sum up… we’re busier than ever this year. With just math, music and literature, the boys have a minimum of 3 hours of school work per day, not including the rest of their subjects. With clubs, lessons and classes, plus co-op, their time and mine are extremely limited this year. I enjoy being busy for sure, but I am maxed out by the end of the week. To combat that, I’m focused on self-care in a big way. Music practice is part of that for me – learning something new that has to potential for creative expression in such a beautiful way is extremely satisfying. I recently went to a weekend retreat with some very close friends, and spent a lot of time just focusing on my connection to life and nature and it was glorious. I have another retreat in a couple of weeks, and I am so looking forward to it as well. At home, I am nurturing my creativity with art. I always forget how much I need art in my life when I get stressed out. Our homeschool group is hosting a ‘mom’s night in’ every month, and this month, we decided to do a paint-along with The Art Sherpa on Youtube. We did the dragonflies with the Kevin modification, and it was so much fun! I also created my own version of Paint with Jane’s ‘A Walk in the Rain‘ that I am pretty happy with. I didn’t know that painting along with someone was a thing, but I am making it part of my routine now that I do!
This one lives in my bathroom now.
This is a pretty long post, so if you stuck with me through to the end, thanks for reading! My plan is to get back into updating weekly, so hopefully there won’t be so much to cover at once. So now that we’re all caught up on me, how about you – how’s your year going so far? Doing anything new?
Happy Fall, y’all!
~h
NBTS Blog Hop 2016: Curriculum Week – High School Lesson Planning
Here it is, folks – the long-awaited high school lesson planning post! And hey – it syncs up with iHomeschool Network’s annual Not Back to School Blog Hop for this year, which makes me happy. I don’t know why, exactly; I don’t actually participate the NBTS Blog Hop (as in, adding my link and everything). I just like that there’s a ‘plan’ and being on-task with it, I guess*. I’m weird; what can I say? Moving on then…
As you may know, my boys are technically a year grade apart, but I plan most of their work together. Since they’re so close in age, it’s just easier for me. That means that this year, since LBB is in 9th grade, and PeaGreen is in 8th, PeaGreen will actually start accumulating high school credits this year because he’s doing high school level work. Luckily, we live in Texas, a state with little to no state/government interference, regulations… oh, I mean assistance <wink,wink, nudge, nudge> so this work out quite nicely for us.
This is an interesting dilemma for me; on one hand, PeaGreen is perfectly capable of doing the same work his older brother is doing. Holding him back wouldn’t make sense to me. But at the same time, he is younger, and there’s a part of me that wants to make sure to keep that separation because as an ‘oldest child’ myself, I know how important that extra bit of privilege/responsibility is to identity. Then again, there’s a wider gap between me and my younger siblings, so maybe it’s less of a concern with closely spaced siblings? If you have input here, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. In any case, LBB will turn 15 in January and he’ll start Driver’s Ed, which will, at least for a while, give him a little bit of ‘extra’ that comes with age for a while.
Our school year was really easy to plan this year. When we started homeschooling, I decided to go with a 6-week on, 1 week off schedule, and school all year long. That got switched up and changed during the first few years for various reasons, but that’s always been my ‘ideal’. Last year, and most of this year, we’ve managed to maintain that, so I just stuck with that plan and mapped out the school year accordingly. That gives us 195 school days (we have some weekend days that we’re counting as ‘school days’ because of clubs or other projects planned for those days), spread out over 39 weeks, from September 2016-August 2017. This includes a month-long break in December, and a couple of weeks in July. In truth, there will be missed days here and there; our ‘normal’ school year runs somewhere in the neighborhood of 170-185 school days per year. I build a little padding in so that we necessary, I can take a break or call a ‘movie day’… or just skive off school entirely and go to the beach.
Here’s what a year’s worth of work looks like for my kids. It’s not quite accurate, because this doesn’t include their notebooks from this school year. They have one for CNN Student News/Current Events; Literature; Spelling/Grammar; Math; History and Science. But this is what goes into their binders each week over the course of a school year, and includes any worksheets or handouts that I give them or that they get from classes or clubs or events that they do during the year, arranged by week. I don’t know if that’s ‘a lot’ or if it’s ‘not very much’. I try to avoid the trap of comparing what we do to what others do, but I thought I’d put this out there. The stacks are about 2.5 inches high in the center (when smashed down), if you’re wondering. I am about to file it all away, so I thought I’d snap a picture of it for posterity!
So… what I am sure you’re wondering is how I actually went about planning this school year, and what we’re using, right? Let’s get down to it!
As I mentioned before, LBB starts high school this year. We’re also in Texas, which means that although the TEA has regulations in place that govern how public schools may place and graduate students, private schools (which is what homeschools fall under in terms of designation) don’t have to follow those recommendations in any way. Shocking, right? I know… it scares the bejezus out of me, too, sometimes. Luckily, Annie & Everything is a blogger who apparently has my brain bugged, because every time I start freaking out over something high school related, she posts a blog that pretty much addresses my exact fears.
When there are no rules, what do you do (other than ‘pretty much whatever you want’)? I’ll admit it; started by looking at the TEA’s guidelines. As much as I fancy myself a bad-ass free-spirit who don’t need no fancy-schmancy ‘rulez’, the truth is that those guidelines are familiar and comfortable, and they’re just an easy place to start. We’re tweaking some of it, and have discussed with LBB his options as far as dual credit course and CLEPing courses that he covers well during his high school years, which means that he’ll be at least as prepared as his public school peers when it comes tome for secondary education. We’re starting with the basics, and letting him determine what direction he wants to go. While we’ve set University before him, that may not be his path (which is cool, man…), but we do want him prepared if that’s a direction he chooses to go in.
All that said, here’s what their actual schedule looks like this school year:
- Math (D) (currently recapping middle school; will being Algebra I when finished)/Coding (1xW)
- History – Ancients (2xW)/Geography (1xW)/Current World Events (3xW)/Community Service (1xM)
- Science – Biology (3xW)/Science – Aquatic (2-3xM)
- English I (3xW)/Literature I (D)/Grammar (D)/Speech 101 (1xM)/Writing (D)/Spelling (D)
- Logic (1xW)/Debate (1xW)
- Art History (1xW), Art Club (1xM), Art (practical)(2xM)
- Music (orchestra – first year violin) Class (1xW)/practice (D = 1 hour)
- Health (D) /Mental Health for Teens (spring semester 1xW)/Physical Education (D)/Home Economics (1xW)
- plus notebooking for most subjects (D), field trips each week and driver’s ed in 2017
KEY: (D = daily) (#xW = 2 time per week, or 3 times per week, etc./ M=month)
They average between 4-5 hours of school work 3 days per week, with a lighter day of desk-work/book work on Wednesday (2-3 hours) to accommodate our homeschool group’s field trip or class, and this year we will have a full day at co-op on Thursdays. Like i said earlier, I don’t know if that’s a lot or only a little. Some days I feel like it’s a super lot; other days they get it done quickly and I wonder if I am being rigorous enough. Sometimes, homeschooling mommy-brain just won’t cut you any slack. Le sigh…
So here’s the grand finale – the part you may have been waiting for: What are we using this year? Here’s a list of most of the resources we’re pulling from this year. I don’t like ‘textbooks’, so you won’t see a lot of those on the list. Some of their classes are being taught by other homeschooling parents through either clubs, classes or our co-op. Having a strong support network/homeschooling community/village is so key to opening more options for both the homeschooled student and the homeschooling parent. We’ve worked so hard to build our group, and I cannot tell you how thankful I am to be part of such an amazing group, and how grateful I am to each and every one of the parents who are willing to put their time and effort into teaching and sharing and helping this community thrive. This year is going to be an amazing school year!
RESOURCES for this school year:
- Khan Academy
- Ask Dr. Math
- Cool Math Guy
- Code Combat
- Story of the World I (Timeline/Geography included – NOTE: if you’re iffy about SOTW for older students, check out this blog that talks about using it as a spine for basing your history program on. This is similar to our approach.)
- World History for Us All
- CNN Student News
- Atheists Helping the Homeless (this is the volunteer page for the Austin chapter, but there are AHH groups ALL OVER the US. Look on Facebook for a chapter near you, or start one!)
- The Biology Project
- Science Teacher Program – Biology Lesson Plans
- Texas Aquatic Science (the AquaSci course the boys are taking is a private class taught by a science teacher/fellow homeschooling mom in our local group, however she recommended the TXAquaSci site, and I have gone through the training for the FREE Project WILD courses, including their Aqua offshoot. Contact TX Parks & Wildlife to set up a free training session with them and get a copy of the curriculum at no cost.)
- Project WILD – Aquatic
- No Fear Shakespeare
- College Board Reading List
- Daily Grammar
- One Year Adventure Novel
- All About Spelling
- Rationale
- Discovering Great Artists
- Violin lessons online: with The Online Violin & Piano Tutor (obviously, online lessons are not a replacement for an actual teacher and IRL lessons, but if you can’t access that as a resource, this will at least get you pointed in the right direction)
- Cello lessons online: with Hans “Enke” Zentgraf
- Teen Mental Health
If you have resources that you love, or that you think I would, please comment and share them!
Happy homeschooling!
Warmly,
~h
*upon further reflection, the NBTS Blog Hop is one of the first things I joined in on when we started homeschooling – I think it was the 2nd year they were doing it when we started – so it’s always been something that helped me feel connected to the homeschooling world, I suppose.
Spring 2017
As much as I’d love to say that we’re going to be productive this week, that’s unlikely. It’s almost 2 in the afternoon at the time of this writing, and here’s what my kids are doing at this exact moment. Not that I blame them; if not for a meeting this morning, I would probably have stated in bed until noon, at least.
At the beginning of last month, I was so ready to fall back into normal routines, and now, I’m so ready for this week’s break! Life feels mostly back to normal, which is both a good feeling and a sad one. I’m still grieving the loss of my mother; do you ever not once she’s gone? I feel like the loss will get more and more poignant as time passes, especially with milestones and life events that I know she would have wanted to be there for. Even silly things, like my new-to-me patio situation I’m adding photos of in this post. I don’t believe in hiding from grief, so be warned that my posts will very likely mention my mother and how her loss has and continues to affect me, my kids and our lives from this point on. I am a proponent of Caitlin Doughty’s ‘death positivity’ advocacy movement in a big way, so if that bothers you, well… tough. <wink> If you’re into it, check out her book, and the one forthcoming in October, and her YouTube Channel that talks about all kinds of death and death-related things.
Moving on, even though we’ve been supposedly ‘back to normal’ (whatever that means), we actually have had kind of a light schedule, especially in the first couple of weeks. There were a couple of field trips that I wanted to take the kids on, so days in Houston meant limited time for desk-lessons. I’m okay with that; the value in spending time around art and culture a couple of days has value for them. LBB (15) asked why I take them to art museums and make them go see live music and stuff. I told him that art exposes you to a different way of looking at the world, and gives you insight into how people of the past viewed the world. You never know what your ‘thing’ is; taking advantage of every possible experience will help you explore possibilities that you never knew existed. Even if you hate it, it’s still an experience that you have a definite opinion about now, because you’ve personally experienced it.
I’ve been a fan of Ron Mueck for years, and when we saw that his art was on display at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (through August 13, 2017), I knew we HAD to go. It was AH-MAY-ZING. Of course, we saw the big, giant head and the enormous newborn, but those get so much attention, I wanted to focus on other pieces. These are some of my favorite pieces.
probably my favorite. The detail in their skin and clothing is incredibly fine.
I am fascinated by the indents of fingertips in flesh. That, combined with the aging skin, complete with wrinkles, droops and sags is beautiful.
This is so graphic and lovely. Her expression and body language is familiar to me as a woman who experienced an exhausting birth, and dealt with depression afterwards. Who is this creature? What now?
I haven’t been to the MFAH in a long time; it was lovely to go again. The kids walked around without me, which left me and my friend Jenise to wander around sans childish commentary… so we had to come up with our own. I’m sure if we were overheard, people thought we were being disrespectful or whatever – but there are only so many ‘hallelujah’ moments that one can experience in a days’ time. My phone’s battery died mid-visit, so I didn’t get pictures of some of the other paintings that made an impression, but we had a blast!
Mid-March saw vision appointments, with new glasses for LBB, and glasses for PeaGreen for the first time. We knew it was coming; his doctor told us last year that he’d very likely need them soon, and he was right. I don’t think he could have escaped it though; Loverly Husband and I both wear corrective lenses, so it was probably inevitable.
March 16th was a homeschool co-op day. That was the last day of their sculpture assignment; they all made final touch-ups and set their pieces aside to dry. PeaGreen went with a butt sculpture, and LBB opted for a hand. It was interesting working with a group of teens without any particular boundaries. I told them they could sculpt whatever body part they wanted to, as long as it was accurate (or as near-to as possible). After a lot of jokes about sculpting penises, I truly expected to see at least one student follow through with it, but they actually ended up sculpting a set of shoulders, a foot, an eye, a head, 3 students chose to sculpt a hand, a butt, and a bust (head and shoulders). For three 1-hour class periods (and minor work at home), their work didn’t turn out half bad.
March 18th was the 3rd annual Normalize Breastfeeding Project. This is a project that Whole Mothering Center, the organization I work for (and co-founded) puts together each year to celebrate breastfeeding as a cultural norm. The final photo turned out really pretty!
#NBPSETX2017
The rest of March kind of passed in a blur. We had a couple more co-op classes in our homeschool group, which is on the same schedule our personal school schedule is on, so we;’re actually out this week. We start our last 6 weeks for this school year next week – I cannot believe how quickly it has passed! We’re planning on doing another round next year, and are in the process of planning classes and things now. I’m excited about it; it’s been such a great experience for my kids and I am looking forward to next year’s classes. In art, they started watercolor – sounds fun (and is, in a way), but watercolor is so difficult to work with competently; I wish I;d scheduled more time to play with it. We start mixed media next week though, and I am SUPER excited about that.
The kids had a teen social that was at The Art Studio; they had a live band night and the kids went with a group of teens from our group. That was their first ‘no parents’ outing. It’s so weird to see them growing up and being old enough for these kinds of experiences. I’m glad for them, and it makes me nostalgic. I loved going out with friends at their age, and I hope they’re making memories. I didn’t get pictures, because I wasn’t there, but I hope that they took some to share in their little friend group.
At the end of March, my friend Leia of Gentle Strength Yoga hosted an Ayurveda basics class that I was able to attend. I am so glad I went! More than just reading about it, having someone explain it and bring it to life was fantastic. I don’t practice it, but it was interesting to me that across almost all spiritual and wellness paths, there are some threads that are consistent: the connectivity of mind and body; a focus on nutrition, rest and movement; and mindful attention to your body and actions and thoughts. I attend to those things in other ways, but I really appreciated how those threads of similarity tie health and wellness together and was glad to learn about it.
April 4th was my 40th birthday. I started a photo project last year after seeing a similar one online. It was supposed to be ‘a year of selfies’ for things like positivity in growing older, appreciating your aging body, and that kind of thing. I only ended up with about 80 pictures, but I’m pretty happy with the result. Because I lived it, I can definitely see things reflected in the pictures that I didn’t realize would be; my mom’s illness and passing are obvious to me, but I wonder if it’s visible to anyone else if you didn’t know. I wasn’t going to share the video slideshow originally, but a couple of people who knew about it were asking, so here it is.
Before you dissect it with negative commentary, some pictures are edited, others are not; it was meant to be a personal project, not necessarily one for public consumption. So, if you need to say something nasty, just… don’t. One thing I have come to discover about pictures is that there are never enough of Mom. We’ve gone through the thousands of pictures my mom took and put in albums, but there are only a handful ‘of’ her. So, if you’re a mom, take a damn picture of yourself. Take lots! Your kids will want them one day – good, bad, edited, raw, color-corrected, too dark – it won’t matter to them. They’ll want them all. Along the way, especially after my mom died, this project became more about that than anything else – just having pictures for my kids.
April also marks the return of the South TX State Fair. This was the first year that I let the kids run around with their friends without me – again; it’s so weird to see them old enough to do stuff like this. I remember being this age and wanting nothing more than to roam the fairgrounds with my friends. We’d have spent hours just walking and talking and people-watching. Our kids were ready to head out after a mere two hours. We took them to a local coffee shop for a while to hang since they weren’t quite done visiting with each other.
The children… off on an adventure!
Jenise, Heather, and Kandi – 2017 TX State Fair
I absolutely LOVE this picture! It looks like a still from a movie.
In other news, I’ve been spending time out-of-doors, Summer Crafting (even though it’s not technically summer yet). I rescued a very sad patio set from my grandmother’s house and re-painted it a lovely sky blue. While the kids were at their music lessons, I went to Home depot and roamed the garden department, picking up herbs and plants and pots, and got filthy dirty planting a little herb garden for my little table. The addition of a canopy and pillows (made from Dollar Tree place mats) makes for a happy little outdoor spot… at least until the temperature climbs into the high 90’s and the mosquitoes come out.
this years newly potted herb garden
manicure by Mother Nature
sky blue patio furniture, topped with a bright yellow canopy. My mom would have loved it!
coordinating pillows to tie the color scheme together!
Our plans for the coming month include the kids’ first formal dance, a trip to the beach, the Health Museum in Houston, another visit to see my Grandmother in Longview, and (as always), school, school, school. We’ll see how that works out when I check in next time!
Warmly,
~h
April 10, 2017 | Categories: Art, Classes, Day in the Life, Group Lesson, Parenting, Personal Growth, Rambling Thoughts, Socialization | Tags: balance, benefits of homeschooling, commentary, Field Trip, going with the flow, homeschooling challenges, record keeping, year round homeschool | 1 Comment