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. :-)

Thankful Thursdays

Oh wow! Just where do you begin? There are just so ridiculously many things to be thankful for! Above all, I am thankful for the One by Whom, from Whom, and through Whom all the other things come - my God, my Lord, my Savior, Jesus Christ.

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. (James 1:17)

I am thankful for His love, mercy, grace, kindness, goodness, provision, protection, and on and on I could go. I am thankful for my family, my home, our health, our safety, my friends, the freedom and ability to homeschool, our pets, ..... and on and on that could go as well.

But today, I will focus on just one of those gifts for which I am so thankful - my oldest daughter. I will focus on her sister next week.

I can't believe how quickly 17 years have passed. She is my artist, helper, and peacemaker. She has always been obedient and compliant and eager to please. She has grown into a beautiful Christian young lady with many talents and interests all her own that I had nothing to do with. How did that happen? She loves drawing, writing fan-fiction, and making music videos. She loves reading great, old literature that many her age would shun in this modern day. She will do anything I ask her, or at least attempt it. ;-) She has always been the peacemaker in the family, and never could stand conflict or arguing, nearly always giving in to her little sister rather than hear her fuss. She is modest, kind, compassionate, intelligent, honest, trustworthy, and trusting. She may forget on occasion to do something she was supposed to, but she never disobeys or goes back on her word on purpose.

All those years have flown by, and I wish I could do them over. But I can't. So I am thankful for what is now. Very thankful.

A BRAND NEW YEAR

I love a new year. It is like a fresh new notebook, or a new pack of crayons. :-) I do have a few resolutions I am hoping don't fall by the wayside by February.

1. Daily Bible reading (hoping to read through a couple times this year)

2. Post here at least once a week, especially about schooling

3. Write in my diary/journal daily

4. Exercise 3 days a week

5. Go for walks when weather permits

6. Continue eating healthy and try for smaller portions

7. Keep up with revolving housecleaning schedule (in which we thoroughly clean a different room of the house each week

8. Post on accountability threads at RBG

If we did grades in our homeschool, Big Girl would be in 12th and Little Girl in 8th. Wow! That is just crazy to think about!

We are continuing to do my homemade history, since dropping TOG. We have been enjoying it much more. Lots and lots of reading! We are still covering the 1800s.

We are covering one composer at a time, trying to do the ones we have cds for and who were most important in the 1800s.

We are also covering important artists of the time period in much the same way, one at a time. I simply read a bit about the artist, then use his paintings as desktop pics (one at a time) on my computer for the weeks we study him.

We are continuing to read through How People Live, one two-page spread each morning. I think I am going to alternate with The Fallacy Detective, which we have already been through before, but can use a refresher.

Big Girl is reading the Idiot's Guide to Music History, Abeka World Literature, The American Impressionists, A Ready Defense, and Carson's A Basic History of the United States. She also has at least one other book going at all times, as well as doing her own writing, video making, and drawing. Oh, and I almost forgot, she is continuing to practice on the keyboard.

Little Girl is still using CLE math and language arts, Vocabulary Vine, and she just recently started an italic handwriting program (her penmanship is woeful), and Spelling Power. She still always has many books going at a time during her reading time. I am having her read a two-page spread of the Kingfisher history encyclopedia each day. It has lots of cool pictures and sidebars. We skipped the first sections about pre-history junk.

Both Girls are currently rather obsessed with Dr. Who and Sherlock Holmes. They have been watching the old versions of both shows. Little Girl still loves her trampoline, and is not enjoying the cold weather that is keeping her off it. :-)

ODDS AND ENDS

Wow! It's been two months since I posted last. I just got tired of posting our weekly reviews, since they were basically the same old thing week after week, with different books. Not exactly exciting to read or anything.

Little Girl is almost finished with the CLE level 4 math. I LOVE this math! If I had another child to homeschool, I would definitely start at the beginning with it. It covers so many things that you "think" you will cover in "real life," but never actually happens. At least, not enough to actually learn it. She is also just about finished with the 7th grade CLE Language Arts. Since they only go through 8th grade, I have slowed her down to a half lesson per day. That leaves her more time to work through the math and to read. She is still doing the Apples 2 Spelling workbook, skipping through some unnecessary pages, and the Vocabulary Vine book. She is also reading the BJU 8th grade Literature book, just one story per week right now. She still keeps several other books going at a time, as well as her Nature Friend magazine. She just finished Black Beauty and The Wind in the Willows.

Big Girl is still working through the Abeka Consumer Math book and the Story of Art book. She is also reading A Ready Defense (with discussion and discernment), and the Clarence Carson history book, as it goes along with our main history, Uncle Tom's Cabin (as am I), A Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, and A History of England by Dickens.

For history, we have dropped Tapestry of Grace. I just did not like the way we kept going back and forth in history, instead of completely chronological. I know everything can't be perfectly chronological (as when you read a biography, that person's life will cover a lot of ground), but it could be much better than most history programs do it. I started to pick Truthquest back up, but it has the exact same problems. We do not like studying history in units that cause you to go out of order, like most history programs (actually all I have looked at) do. So, I have been creating our own. We are still in the 1800s, taking it a decade at a time. I use a couple online timelines, as well as a few books I have here, and we cover a decade in 2-4 weeks, depending on how much happened during that time period that we want to study. I went through several book lists I found (along with All Through the Ages and Truthquest guides) and listed out all the most recommended books for our century first. I narrowed them down to ones we own or could get at the library. Then I put an approximate date by each. If we want to study something or someone we don't have a book listed for, we just see what we own or the library has on that topic.

We are basically reading chronologically through that book list, along with reading Abraham Lincon's World, the Scholastic Encyclopedia of the Presidents, The Pictorial Encyclopedia of American History, The Defining of America (PAC), and utilizing BJU world and U.S. history texts where we want extra info or can't find it anywhere else. We usually have a biography or two going, as well as a historical fiction and a few nonfiction books on the period. I simply figure out what readings are about the decade we are studying and divide them up and read a bit of each book daily. We all are enjoying this much better.

I am trying to do some of my own reading lately as well. Currently (besides the Bible), I am reading Uncle Tom's Cabin on the Kindle, More Than Conquerors by Hendrikson (don't think I agree with his viewpoint, but wanted to read a good book on it anyway), and Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. I may do some short reviews on these soon.

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NEW PUPPY

Yep, we are crazy. :-)  Got a new puppy yesterday.  A little girl hound mix named Daisy to add to our pack of 3 male dogs and 6 kitties.  It is Big Girl's job to train her.  She is actually very good at training the dogs after learning a ton from The Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan.  His methods and advice are really good and we have seen great results from following them.

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WEEKLY SUMMARY #3

Not much to report this week.  We took the week off for Thanksgiving.  We did continue our reading out loud, and finished up an Usborne book on the Vikings.

I have been planning out any changes in our school for January, when our "official" school year begins.  There aren't many, but I will put up our "new" schedule next month sometime.

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