But the streak story isn’t over. Yesterday, PapaJohn found a dollar in his pocket he didn’t know he had. He had just filled up the ‘burb with gas (in other words, he broke the bank). When he went in to pay he decided to splurge and buy a scratch off ticket (one of those little Louisiana Lottery money thieves). He brought it home for me to scratch off and guess what. I won that too. A whopping $3.00. A whole three dollars. I guess he should have splurged on one of those really big tickets for the millions of dollars instead.

And while technically I only won two dollars and got the original one dollar back, do not burst my bubble. I’ll be using that three dollars to buy some doughnuts to go with my coffee and pajamas for the online homeschool conference.

Now let’s just pray my winning streak continues long enough for me to get my computer back from the computer hospital. I’m having to beg and borrow to get my Internet fix. I want it back in time so I can lock myself away from time to time during the conference chat hours.

Also, all my emails were on that computer. I did back everything up, but in the meantime while it is gone I do not have access to those files. I don’t know if I need to do anything or not. I got an email, but I’ll have to do some back tracking to reconnect with my winning ticket. S’alright. I’m still a winner.

I’ve been blogging for a while now. I know there isn’t much on this blog yet, but it’s growing. I can’t even get you readers to leave me comments, even after I blogged about it. Your a hard audience.

Anyway, as I said, I’ve been blogging for quite a while (since 2005). I’m not even new to the home educating front either. Our oldest will be 13 in a few days (wow) and we’ve been on the home schooling band wagon since she was in first grade. There has been some time in school (traditional) as well, but this is nothing new to us.

What is a bit newer to me though is the plethora of home school blogs, bloggers, and online blogging resources out there. I mean I knew they must be out there because every other genre and platform of the blogging world exists so why not one for this. And when I say ‘online blogging resources’ I don’t mean all the companies that I’ve ordered from or places like ABCteach and EdHelper type resources I mean places of community like Heart of the Matter and Homeschool Blog Awards and The Homeschool Lounge. I’m not completely naive to them being out there. I just haven’t had the time to really explore them all and find where I fit in. I’m trying to do a bit of that now.

In doing some link hiking and jumping I came across HOTM about a month ago. This year we aren’t going to be able to go to any homeschool conferences or book fairs. I will miss that. The gas for travel is just way too high. Although we are in Louisiana our state’s homeschool conference is at least a five hours drive away because apparently our states conference doesn’t ever think about those of us in the northern part of the state. We’re like the “red-headed-step-child” or something. We usually attend the CHEF conference in Alabama instead. As grandparents live just down the road from where the conventions held we get to stay for free even though the drive is an hour longer. This year it’s just all too much.

I found out about the HOTM online conference after we had planned our budget so the ticket price is not available for me this year. It doesn’t cost that much, it’s just $30.00, but living paycheck to paycheck in this economy every single penny is accounted for and I can only squeeze our pennies so far. Know what I mean? Dawn & Sprittibee had 6 tickets to give away for the conference. I entered on the posts to have a chance to win a ticket. So now I’m letting you know about it too. but you really don’t need to go over and enter because that would just decrease my opportunity to win.

As I plan for this next year I need to think through what changes need to be made from previous years. What worked? What did not work? I came across this week’s HOTM meme and decided it would fit right in with my review of previous years and planning the one to come.

The most important thing for me of which I need to let go is the strict schedule. When we first started the journey of educating at home I was determined that for us to be successful (for me to be successful, or seen as successful) we had to have a strict schedule. One that required each subject to be done at a certain time and then be done with our “school” day by noon (as they were young and that was easily accomplished).

All this did was cause me a great amount of frustration. Therefore the children were frustrated and confused and unhappy. I was trying to fit unconventional schooling peg into a conventional schooling whole. Guess what? It doesn’t work that way. At least for us. Life wasn’t happening. We were not happy. So each year we adjust as needed. As they get older and are able to do a bit more on their own anyway it allows for me to let go a bit more. I let go and let us all live a bit more. I tend to be controlling, not of their lives in the means of snuffing out who God has made them to be, but in the sense of over-ordering things around me. A guess it’s a little bit of an OCD tendency. Chaos is not good for anyone, but I have to tell myself daily that everything around me does not have to be perfect. If their glue runs over a bit, it’s OK. They did it by themselves. They are proud of their creations as they should be, and so am I.

They each like to get a list of what they need to do each week, but they all like a different format of that list. Because they are individuals and they each have their own gifts and abilities, they each like to start their day a bit differently, that’s OK too. Two wake up ready to face the day and are bounding with energy that needs a bit of taming before they can be still and focus on the work at hand. Those two begin their mornings with a bit of outside time, bike riding, trampoline jumping, running, exercising. Another one wakes up slowly like her mother. She needs a bit of time to wake up her brain and get going but some mornings move to slowly and we are working on that.

My point is that each one of them is different and I can not force them into my time mold - none of would be happy. So I give them their work load and expectations weekly, stay on top of those that need the extra push to complete the less desirable tasks, and work with them when and where they need it.

Educating at home is a lifestyle. Every child is different. Every family is different. Every year is different, even within the dame family. Life changes, so must our school year.

The hardest thing I have had to learn to do and the best thing I have learned to do is to let go of the schedule. We all learn better. We all learn more. We all live better. We all live happier. And we all love learning at home more.

Has anybody else gotten theirs yet? Ooooh, it’s so purty, too. All green and lover-ly. I almost don’t want to take the shrink wrap off. NOT! I ripped that plastic off so fast it could make your eyes hurt. I don’t know what that means, I just had to type something. My heart, it swoons.

This morning, after a long, long night with the toddler who refuses to sleep, the toddler who refuses to sleep alone, in his own bed, the bed that is in my room, the toddler who rolls and flops and kicks in his sleep, the toddler who finally falls deeply asleep in the morning hours in which I need to rise, the toddler who wakes me so sweetly with a kiss on my cheek and grins real big and says, “Hi” when I open my eyes to that sweet kiss, the toddler who makes all the night writhing and sleep deprivation disappear with that sweet smile on his face. ¹

After this long night, I stumbled to the kitchen to pour myself a cup of ambition ² to discover I was OUT OF COFFEE. This is awfully akin to sin. Seriously, it’s a law. didn’t you know? Thou shalt never run out of coffee. But we did. I failed. The failure - it burneth like a bridge over troubled water. ^{3 4}

My sweet, sweet hubby offers to go get me a cup of coffee this morning. I deny myself my heart’s content (for the moment anyway, the heart’s content part, that is) and say no. Thinking how much I would love my boost of ambition, but not wanting him to go out so early on his day off, I admit that I’d survive (even though I don’t think I can). He fixes our daily morning dose of boiled eggs and I say to him thank you and does that offer still stand? You know, the one about the cup of coffee. Because, seriously, I just tried to pour water on my sweet child’s bowl of cereal. This was not an act of being out of milk, mind you. This was sheer unadulterated lack of solar power to the brain. I was seriously lacking in the Boost Juice department today. He very lovingly said yes, the offer still stood and retreated to putteth on his shoes for his beloved wife (who is walking into walls).

Side note: Have you seen WALL-E? We have. I want to five a review of it later, but there is this one scene where WALL-E, who runs off solar power, has run short of his Boost Juice because it has been so cloudy from a dust storm that he his having trouble functioning properly. He climbs to the roof of his abode and opens his solar panels to absorb the rays. Because of the recent dust storm he must stand there an extra long time. Before he got to his roof, when he awoke that morning, he was knocking stuff around, he couldn’t walk straight, he could open anything, he couldn’t do much at all. My children commented about how funny it was that he was like me before my morning coffee. Sad? Yes. True? Yes.

What was my point? Oh, yeah. As my hubby walked out the door to fetch me my day’s ambition he exclaimed (OK, fine) he said, “Ooo, a box at the front door.” I jumped up so fast because I knew what it must be. I was so excited my hands were shaking (actually that was the anticipation for my forthcoming coffee) but needless to say, I was excited. I grabbed the box, sending him flying ignoring the fact that my hubby was going to get my coffee fix for me and started ripping open the box immediately.

Cue the music. Cue the lights.

Tapestry of Grace Year 3, Redesigned

Isn’t she a beauty? And she’s all mine. Mine. MINE. MINE! Mwahahaha! I get to hold her. Smell her. Run my fingers over her . . .
WAIT!! STOP!!!
This isn’t a romance novel, this is history. History curriculum! But the love affair is so very real. I ran to the kitchen dancing around with it (oh, yes I did), taunting my children as they ate their breakfast. ⁵

I know what I am going to be doing today. I have an excuse to ignore the laundry and the children and the yard . . . Oh, shoot. I guess I can’t really do that either. But I am going to spend some quality time with my TOG RY3U1. ⁶

Neener, neener, neener. I have mine. Do you have yours?

That could may a girl real self-conscious. I mean I take a shower everyday. I wear deodorant and brush my teeth. I don’t shave my legs everyday, but I promise not to offend - I wear long pants if I decide not to shave on a given day. But that doesn’t mean that if I’m wearing long pants that I didn’t shave. I’m just sayin’. I mean every girl’s gotta have a day off every once in a while right.

But I digress. So what gives, ladies (and gentlemen)? Why won’t you comment?

Well, I’ve installed this nifty little plugin called . . .
. . . CommentLuv to help entice you to throw me a bone every now and then. I use this plugin on my personal blog and it’s awesome! Each time you leave a comment for me to read and respond to you will get a link back to your own blog as well. See, this isn’t just the link from the comment-author link. No, this is much better. This link will actually give the title of your last blog post and list it after your comment.

Go ahead and try it. Go ahead. I’ll wait. I’m not going anywhere. Well, I might go get a cup of coffee while you type, but seriously, I’ll wait. I will warn you though, if it is the first time you have commented on this blog your comment will go to moderation. But that’s what you get for not commenting before now. All those views and not a single comment. For shame! I have that view reader plugin set not to display my views or any views or hits from bots, strictly from visitors. So see, I know you were here.

It’s like that old joke “How can you tell if an elephant has been in your refrigerator?”

He left his footprint in the peanut butter. *ba-dum-ching!*

See, you’ve all left your footprints in my peanut butter, but none of you will ‘fess up. Come on, confession is good for the soul. Who is going to be first?

Do you remember the playgrounds days of your youth? Or the lunch room drama of opening your lunch box and finding a sandwich that was just, so, blah?

Did you ever trade sandwiches? or how about deserts? I’ll give you my oatmeal raisin cookie for your chocolate chip. Deal? Or maybe you traded your large cat-eye shootin’ marble for your friends wooden nickle.

I’ve started a Children’s Swap. It’s not really about trading our used, no longer loved, items for someone else’s, but it’s just the newer version of the same. How many of you adults are getting into these Internet Swaps? I’ve been in one for about a year (since its inception) that I have really enjoyed. I’ve seen others around as well.

It will be a bit different each time, but the idea is for our children to be involved. To get something fun in the mail. You remember the mail right? The real post? Not that electronic stuff, the one that brings packages and well, junk too.

Are you tired of plastic toys from fast food places and dollar store or the dollar isle? How about encouraging our children to think outside of their own box, outside of what they know and love. Let’s give them an opportunity to be creative with some online pals.

This first swap is a swap for books. Check it out, you might just have a blast. I’m a stickler about rules so read carefully to make sure you understand.

Calvin’s Commentaries, 22 Volumes
By John Calvin / Baker

A towering figure in the Reformation and prolific scholar and theologian, John Calvin authored not only his famous Institutes of the Christian Religion, but commentaries on twenty-four books of the Old Testament and all of the New Testament except for 2 and 3 John and Revelation. These classic commentaries continue to be valued exegetical reference works for pastors and serious students of the Bible today.

• I’ve already received the entire set for the new math level for the oldest (MUS Pre-Algebra with Honors book, DVD, TE, etc.)
• I’ve already received the student editions of MUS Primer, Alpha, Gamma, and Epsilon (for the others - have everything else as we have always used MUS)
• Last year was the first time to use Easy Grammar and we all liked it so I ordered and received Grades 3, 5, and 7 (needed 4 and 6 last year so now I’ll have almost all the TE and henceforth will only need the student editions)
• Pre-ordered TOG Redesigned Year 3 (can’t wait for that to start arriving)
• Ordered the Unit 1 books for TOG RY3 for Lower Grammar, Upper Grammar, and the Dialectic stage and they should start arriving soon.
• Ordered and received the new Latin text, we switched to Latin for Children last year and will do the same again this year.
• Ordered and received Logic for the oldest
• We’re not sure yet about Science - hoping to continue with Exploring Creation series with the Co-Op (will know more later)
• I’ve begun re-reading The Well-Trained Mind.
• I ordered a few other books for myself to read over the summer.
• I completed entering Easy Grammar 3 Lesson Plan into HST
• I completed entering MUS Pre-Algebra Lesson Plan into HST
• I fine tuned-copied a Lesson Plan of Primer and Alpha into HST for the 1st grader with special needs - this is a struggle for her.
• I’ve begun compiling, editing, and publishing new Education pages

Are you getting ready for next year? Making your lists? What are going to change? Have you found something new and interesting you didn’t know about before? Please share it with us. Blog about it and leave me a link in the comments section.