INTENTIONS FOR NEW YEAR

Thought I would post this here, so I can look back at it periodically.  Not much of a post, I know, but it is really just for me anyway.

1. Daily Bible reading (using some different translations: NET, HCSB, and ISV)
2. Daily free reading (I have a lot of good books I'd like to read)
3. Eat only 3 times per day and record on MFP
4. Exercise 4 days a week using schedule I posted here in Jan. 2012, before my surgery
5. Walk when the weather is good
6. Rotating house cleaning schedule I posted here in Jan. 2012
7. Start an expense notebook and try to save money, especially on groceries
8. Write in my diary daily, or at least when there is anything to write


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FRIDAY FAVORITES - A FAVORITE ESSAY

This is an essay that has been making the homeschool site rounds for years, apparently. It makes very clear the difference between going to school and getting an education. They are NOT the same thing.

Of Daffodils and Diesels

Author Unknown

I'm not very good in school.
This is my second year in the seventh grade, and I'm bigger than most of the other kids. The kids like me all right, even though I don't say much in class, and that sort of makes up for what goes on in school. I don't know why the teachers don't like me. They never have. It seems like they don't think you know anything unless you can name the book it comes out of.

I read a lot at home-things like Popular Mechanics and Sports Illustrated and the Sears catalog-but I don't just sit down and read them through like they make us do in school. I use them when I want to find something out, like a batting average or when Mom buys something secondhand and wants to know if she's getting a good price.

In school, though, we've got to learn whatever is in the book and I just can't memorize the stuff. Last year I stayed after school every night for two weeks trying to learn the names of the presidents. Some of them were easy, like Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln, but there must have been 30 altogether and I never did get them straight. I'm not too sorry, though, because the kids who learned the presidents had to turn right around and learn all the vice presidents.

I am taking the seventh grade over, but our teacher this year isn't interested in the names of the presidents. She has us trying to learn the names of all the great American inventors. I guess I just can't remember the names in history. Anyway, I've been trying to learn about trucks because my uncle owns three and he says I can drive one when I'm 16. I know the horsepower and gear ratios of 26 American trucks and want to operate a diesel. Those diesels are really something. I started to tell my teacher about them in science class last week when the pump we were using to make a vacuum in a bell jar got hot, but she said she didn't see what a diesel engine has to do with our experiment on air pressure, so I just shut up. The kids seemed interested, though. I took four of them around to my uncle's garage after school and we watched his mechanic tear down a big diesel engine. He really knew his stuff.

I'm not very good in geography, either. They call it economic geography this year. We've been studying the imports and exports of Turkey all week, but I couldn't tell you what they are. Maybe the reason is that I missed school for a couple of days when my uncle took me downstate to pick up some livestock. He told me where we were headed and I had to figure out the best way to get there and back. He just drove and turned where I told him. It was over 500 miles round trip and I'm figuring now what his oil cost and the wear and tear on the truck-he calls it depreciation-so we'll know how much we made. When we got back I wrote up all the bills and sent letters to the farmers about what their pigs and cattle brought at the stockyard. My aunt said I only made 3 mistakes in 17 letters, all commas. I wish I could write school themes that way. The last one I had to write was on "What a daffodil thinks of Spring," and I just couldn't get going.

I don't do very well in arithmetic, either. Seems I just can't keep my mind on the problems. We had one the other day like this: If a 57 foot telephone pole falls across a highway so that 17 and 3/4 feet extend from one side and 14 and 16/17 feet extend from the other, how wide is the highway? That seemed to me like an awfully silly way to get the size of a highway. I didn't even try to answer it because it didn't say whether the pole had fallen straight across or not.

Even in shop class I don't get very good grades. All of us kids made a broom holder and a bookend this semester and mine were sloppy. I just couldn't get interested. Mom doesn't use a broom anymore with her new vacuum cleaner, and all of our books are in a bookcase with glass doors in the family room. Anyway, I wanted to make a tailgate for my uncle's trailer, but the shop teacher said that meant using metal and wood both, and I'd have to learn how to work with wood first. I didn't see why, but I kept quiet and made a tie tack even though my dad doesn't wear ties. I made the tailgate after school in my uncle's garage, and he said I saved him $20. Government class is hard for me, too.

I've been staying after school trying to learn the Articles of Confederation for almost a week, because the teacher said we couldn't be a good citizen unless we did. I really tried because I want to be a good citizen. I did hate to stay after school, though, because a bunch of us guys from Southend have been cleaning up the old lot across from Taylor's Machine Shop to make a playground out of it for the little kids from the Methodist home. I made the jungle gym out of the old pipe, and the guys put me in charge of things. We raised enough money collecting scrap this month to build a wire fence clear around the lot.

Dad says I can quit school when I'm 16. I'm sort of anxious to because there are a lot of things I want to learn.

FRIDAY FAVORITES

This is a favorite spot in my house. Yes, it is my bedroom. I really like the pictures I found at the flea market and the pillows I found at the thrift store. My whole house is decorated in secondhand thrift style. You don't have to have a lot of money to make your home look cozy and nice. Just a bit of creativity (and believe me, I have the tiniest bit!), and some time to shop around at thrift stores, Goodwill stores and flea markets. I guess you could get stuff on Ebay and such places as well, but I like to actually see what I am getting up close and real. :-)

THANKFUL THURSDAYS

Since I focused on my Big Girl last week, I will focus on my Little Girl today. As you can see from the pictures, my Little Girl is not so little anymore. It was 13 years ago and then some that I brought home this gift for which I am eternally thankful.

My girls are best friends, but they are so very different from one another! Little Girl is my analyst, my lawyer, my sensitive and social child. She has in the past been a little rebel and still loves to argue, yet can be hurt so very easily. She is practical, very smart, honest, and very wise for her age. She loves to do things with others, and seldom enjoys activities alone, the exception being hanging out on the trampoline in the back yard. She loves the outdoors and goes out every single day she can, even all winter. She has a good imagination and can write very good poems, though she seldom does so. She loves to collect things she finds on her outdoor tramps, like rocks, tree bark, railroad spikes, old pieces of glass and pipes. I call her Frederika Sanford. ;-) She is a Christian and can spot heresy and false teaching a mile away. She loves her family, and right now, she would be content for us all to stay together forever.

As with her sister, I wish so much that I could just do it all again. I cannot imagine any greater gifts than these two beautiful blessings.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

TITUS 2 TUESDAYS - SCHEDULED HOUSECLEANING

I just thought I would post how I schedule my housecleaning, in case it would be of help to anyone. If I were a writer, I would have had a much more clever intro to this post, but since I'm not, I'll just have to jump right in. :-)

First of all, I do take a week or so once a year to declutter and "spring clean," whether it is spring or not. I do constantly get rid of stuff, but it still somehow accumulates. Once that is done, it is just a matter of maintenance. I have chores that I do every day, some that I do weekly, and others that I do on a rotating schedule. First, I determined how often various chores need to be done. For example, the bedrooms do not get very dusty since there is no traffic in there and the dogs do not go in there, so they only need dusted once a month. However, the rest of the house needs it several times a week. This is where having two daughters comes in handy. :-) So besides what is listed here, the girls do a quick dusting on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Every Day:

Make beds

Do dishes

Wipe table, stove, counters

Sweep

Do a load of laundry (if there is enough to make a load)

Every Weekend:

Clean bathroom

Do laundry

Then, each week, I take the whole week to focus on one room or section of the house and do a thorough cleaning. This is where the rotating schedule comes in. I have them in a certain order, and simply do what comes next. If I miss a week, I do what was next on the list when I start back.

Week 1: Bedrooms (girls do their own)

Week 2: Porches (both since they are small)

Week 3: Kitchen

Week 4: Living Room

I simply clean a bit of the particular room or rooms each day, moving around the room, dusting, washing, removing clutter, organizing, until it is done. The last day, I wash the floor in that particular section. (We do not have any carpet.) This keeps the house basically clean so it doesn't end up overwhelmingly dirty and make me want to move out and start over elsewhere.

I have a very small house, so this doesn't take long at all. If you keep the clutter down, cleaning is much faster, no matter the size of your house. If you don't use something, get rid of it. Have a place for everything, and make sure to put things away as soon as you finish with them. Also, if you have things relatively neat and organized, people will exclaim how clean your house is, in spite of the dirt on the floor that you could plant a garden in. :-)

MISCELLANEOUS MONDAYS - FOCUS ON EXERCISE

Most people hate Mondays. I love them. A brand new week is almost as good as a brand new year. :-) Mostly, I just like the routine - school, regular housework, etc. Weekends seem long and boring to me now that my girls are older and mostly independent. I keep up the housework during the week and, besides a bit of laundry, there is really nothing much left to do on Saturday and Sunday. I wish we had a church, but since we don't, Sundays are really the worst. I always wonder what in the world I am going to do with myself once my girls are both finished schooling.

For this fresh, new week, I am starting back with my weights for exercising, which I haven't done in almost a year. (Don't get too impressed. I am starting with 5 pound dumbbells.) I have been working out on the mini trampoline a few days a week for this past year, and though I notice many benefits (one being bladder control improvement) and am keeping in shape as far as cardio is concerned, I also noticed lately that I get sore or hurt easily, when I never did before. If I reach for something wrong, or lift something unusually heavy, I am sore the next day. It didn't use to be that way when I was using my free weights regularly. So here is my new plan.

Monday - Warm up for 10 minutes on rebounder; full body routine with dumbbells and squats

Tuesday - Half hour workout on rebounder

Wednesday - Off

Thursday - Repeat Monday

Friday - Repeat Tuesday

From everything I have read, this is the best schedule for weight training (unless you are a body builder and trying to get huge muscles). It is best to have at least 2 days off between weight workouts for your muscles to actually recover. Also, from tests they have done, 2 days yields more than 80% of a 3 day per week routine, especially as you get older.

There are great benefits in weight training for everyone, but in particular for the not-so-young. It builds muscle, obviously, which uses more calories to help you keep your weight down. It even strengthens your bones. But one of the biggest things for me is that once you strengthen those muscles, you are much less likely to hurt yourself doing regular everyday things (or even not so everyday things). I figure if I have to be an old lady, I'd rather be a strong, in shape old lady. :-)

Anyhow, I am hoping that I will be able to walk tomorrow. After the squats this morning, I feel like I have spaghetti legs. Can't believe how out of shape I am in that regard! I am hoping by next month, it will be easy again. :-)