Weekly Preview

Sunday - Relaxing Day (and catching up),
Monday - Memorial Day, I can WORK if I want to (4 hrs daily), Bob has to work 8 hrs
Tuesday - Lessons, WORK, Meeting
Wednesday - Lessons, WORK, Art Class (E,J,S?)
Thursday - Field Trip, WORK
Friday - Lessons (or field trip), WORK
Saturday - Nothing on the agenda! Lots to do!
Sunday - Tomboy Tools party - all are invited!

James and Suzy are both finished with soccer now. They had a great year!

My Getting Fit blog is here.

Had a very nice Friday night/Saturday at a friend's house. So relaxing. Totally needed it. Did not get much sleep, however. LOL

Hard to believe May is just about done. Where in the world did it slip off to? I realize that with my work, I need to be more intentional about how I spend my time. The important things (relationships) are getting overlooked in favor of the urgent things (errands, phone calls, lessons, the actual work hours, etc...). Going to work harder on this in June. Not quite sure how to go about it, but trusting God will show me. I'm not all that great at personal relationships in the first place, but I'm trying.

No garage sales this weekend. Drove past a BUNCH! The weekend's not over, I guess! Still time.

Bob found a bat in the house last night while we were gone. REALLY glad we were gone. HATE bats in my house. Love them out in the yard, doing their "thang" - you know, catching skeeters.

Can't find my favorite yellow jammies anywhere. Where in the world did I leave them? Did one of the kids put them someplace?

A/C in my car - not working.

Finished Little Women today (book club tonight). LOVED it. I think I must have read the abridged version years ago; I do know I read it, maybe even twice. Read the unabridged version this time and it was great. Watched the Winona Ryder film tonight at book club and dripped tears the whole time. Very good. And to think I didn't want to read/watch this. Would have totally missed out on something wonderful!

Another friend is moving away.

A Little Update - What Goes First

Sarah wrote: It would be nice to devote more time to blogging, but when life is crazy, it's the first to go.

Actually, when life is crazy, first exercise vanishes, then sleep. Reading comes next and blogging comes somewhere after that. So if I've made it all the way down to mostly not-blogging, then you can tell I'm crazy-busy.

I will devote 1 more minute to posting and then I need to work.

James and Suzy both had soccer games last night and James had one the night before. I love watching soccer in this weather. Soccer registration has morphed to mail-in at this point, but my work is just beginning. Paperwork! Entering player ratings from this year. Entering new players. Updating returning players. Matching coaches to teams. Ordering uniforms. Calling back people about late registration. Updating the phone message.

Enough about soccer. The weather has been gorgeous. Wish I could spend more time in it! Then again, who am I kidding? I've never been outdoor-sy!

I am reading Little Women for book club. Didn't really want to read it, but am enjoying every page. Emily read it for her lessons, so she will be attending book club with me this month. I don't think she'll be the only girl there either.

We went to a great field trip on Tuesday and Suzy had a nice birthday on Wednesday. Thursday was garage sales and getting David to his last dissection class (late! argh!).

OK, that was 2 minutes. I'm off to work. (Seeing as I don't actually GO anywhere, that's a figure of speech! lol)

Oh yeah, I'll have photos soon.

Getting Fit with Lisa

My blog for getting fit - Getting Fit with Lisa.

I was tossing around the idea of having some guest bloggers there and we could encourage each other. Let me know if you are interested in blogging there occasionally or regularly.

Blessings

Whining about having no money? No, probably not.

More lists of jobs I didn't get? Boring.

Whining about the cold weather? Gets old.

Excuses about staying up too late? No one wants to hear that.

All the things that are breaking or falling apart? Even I don't want to think about that.

So, because I'm not writing about THOSE things, I haven't been writing much here. I am sure you're tired of clicking here and finding nothing new though. Pictures of James on his TENTH birthday are nice, but they don't really tell you anything NEW, do they?

Yes, my little boy has hit the double digits! My oldest will be FIFTEEN quite soon - amazing, eh? And my second born will be a teen in the spring, making me the mom of TWO of those exasperating and inspiring creatures known as teenagers.

I'm really glad Bob is working and he's adjusting to it pretty well, I think. I wish he had more hours since 32 hours at minimum wage just isn't enough. We continue looking for work. That reminds me, I have a phone call to make.

Have I ever mentioned I hate making phone calls? Well, this phone call is for a telemarketing job. Are those the only people HIRING nowadays?? I can't even get the local grocery store to call me. I even applied at Walmart, for gosh sake. Oops.... Ventured into boring territory there.

Got the tree up Saturday and we decorated on Sunday. Looks Christmas-y around here, although we don't do a LOT of frou-frou. I admire it in other people's homes though. My kids are all excited - snow, pretty tree, stockings hanging. They've been making presents and wrapping them. At least the girls have.

I'm going to try listing some books on amazon.com for sale. Maybe that will bring in a little money. I have three Spanish classes starting in January, and I thought about calling the enrichment program I used to teach for and seeing if we could get that on the schedule again there. Another phone call. Hate making phone calls.

I sorted out our medical insurance. (Bob and I finally qualified for Medicaid again. Thankfully!) Bob really needed to go to the doctor. He hasn't been in a year or so. He was off all his meds since we couldn't afford them. The kids and I changed health plans and hopefully I can get new glasses. I need bifocals, I think. Sigh. We are all going to try new doctors (except Bob). I had enough of the run-around that we got at the old practice. I need to call the new place and get the records transferred over.

Dentist needs a call too. Kids are overdue for 6 month checkups. Sadly neither Bob nor I can go to the dentist. Kids out there? TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOUR TEETH!

It takes a huge effort to stop thinking about money problems and focus on the kids. They need me to be directing my energy at their education and well-being. It's hard when there is so much stress.

Im not even going to mention the hot water heater.

Let's try counting blessings. That always helps!

• A friend just dropped off a box of goodies. I need to go poke through that. It'll make me feel loved.
• A local ministry is buying some gifts for the kids for Christmas. VERY thankful for that.
• Christmas money came in the mail from a couple different places. THANK YOU!
• I won a prize in that writer's contest I entered a couple weeks ago (and posted about on Cornerstone). When it arrives, I will blog about that.
• Everyone is healthy.
• The medical insurance finally came through.
  
• I'm still losing weight.
• I love having hot water whenever it decides to cooperate.
• We are not (very far) behind in any bills.
• I have book club tomorrow! That's always a bundle of laughs!
• I can find lots of good books and DVD's at the library.
• I'm still homeschooling. (That IS a plus, I keep reminding myself.)
• Bob's remodeling the kitchen to fit the "new" fridge Maryann gave us (was that 2 years ago?! lol)
• Christmas cards are rolling in from loved ones near and far.
• I have internet access in my home.
  
• We are warm and fed and loved.

There, I feel better. I'm going to go make some yummy potato soup.

Two Blogs - Why? And Why Visit Both?

I heard a family member say today that I post personal things over at Cornerstone to lure people over there. That's not really the reason I do it. I'm trying to gain a bigger readership there amongst homeschoolers, true, but I want to share a lot of myself there also. If you only read here, you won't see everything I post. I try to keep this blog for day-to-day family stuff, details about where I'll be that don't necessarily matter to everyone.

So, yeah, there will be a good deal of things there that aren't specifically "homeschooling" but that do give a better picture of who this homeschooling family is. For example, I am going there now to post a Thanksgiving meme.

Does that make it clearer the purpose of the two blogs?

Today's Writing.

I am going to start a writing blog (yes, another blog, lol) as soon as I can think of a good name. That way, you don't have to read it if you're not interested, plus readers of my future published books can read it without me having to open up this personal blog to all of them.

Today I wrote 3 more query letters. It's not the writing that takes so long; it's finding the agents to query. I'll wax poetic about that process some other day.

I also typed 1247 words of my new novel, the one set in the 40's. I have about the same amount written that still needs to be typed. I am aiming for this one to be more like 75,000 words (rather than the 50,000 of my NaNoNovel).

I did some research on nicknames and names of people born around 1910-1916.

Everyone Had the Same Idea

David had fun at Cedar Point, but only got to ride 3 rides. Evidently they spent a good deal of time in the arcades, because the lines were very long for the rollercoasters. He said the parking lot was crammed full of church vans and school buses. One would think a Tuesday would not be prime time for visiting an amusement park, but apparently everyone else had the same thought. Well, at least he had a good time! They got back last night about 12:30 am.

I think some people imagine I spend all day on the computer looking at blogs and such. On occasion I do sit here most of the day, but that's when I am writing or doing other work. I was telling a friend that it will be difficult to stay focused when I have to work on the computer for several hours and the internet is Right There All The Time. lol

But usually I find I can accomplish all I need to in less than half an hour. Right now I have been online for less than 20 minutes and I've read several blogs, read all my email, wrote a couple emails, checked my facebook account, checked the weather and paperbackswap, and looked at 20+ job listings sent to me by the Michigan Talent Bank. Oh yeah, and wrote this blog entry. And had some coffee - essential!

Now it's time to get dressed. After we have family prayer/Bible time, I'm heading into town (probably taking James along) to file my business paperwork, go to the library book sale, and stop at Walmart. Oh yeah, and the Secretary of State to file the title for the trailer.

Visit My Other Blogs

A plug for my other blogs - you can always see my most recent blog posts if you page down to "Blogs I Own" in the sidebar. The most recent entry title is posted as well as how long ago it was updated.

I've most recently posted my June reads on Mirkwood Reflections (my media review blog) and some Fourth of July activities on Cornerstone Home Learning (my homeschool blog). I've also been posting a weekly report on Cornerstone as well as some other miscellaneous items.

Check them out!

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