September Mission of the Month Update

Since I cannot post to the About Mama page (don't ask I don't know), my personal posts will be on the home page as well.  As I will be 'experimenting' throughout the rest of the week (and most likely the weekend) be forewarned that when you come back to visit, it will probably not look like it does now.  So on with the story.

Who is your hero (fiction or non-fictional)?  At this very moment mine would have to be Ms. Mary Poppins.  Mary Poppins, the woman who could do anything.  As a child, I remember laying on the floor with my brother watching Mary Poppins for the first time (on VHS).  Although I have no idea what my brother thought of the movie, I know I was in awe of how fun she made life.  Being able to jump into chalk drawings was cool, but "In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and - SNAP - the job's a game!"

International Talk Like A Pirate Day. . . (was yesterday!)

Ahoy me hearties!  Shiver me timbers, ayeterday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day! (Yes, indeed there is such a thing!) Did you participate?  We did as we do every year.  If you didn't you should be sent to Davey Jone's Locker you should!  We even had our own treaaye hunt with map and all!

If you hear me come to my voice. . .

Last night, Gert and I attended a triage assessment course provided the the local CERT program.  Although I have taken this course before, I found there was a lot I had forgotten and it was a great refresher course.  Now Gert had never been exposed to this so it was all new to her.  Originally she was just going to play games on my phone but quickly decided since everyone was pretending to be hurt she would too -- her first assignment was to play dead! 

Leaping Lizards

Finally!  We made it outside!  We took pictures of a number of buildings that are in our community - the market, the County Historic Preservation  building, one of two churches, one of two parks, the nature preserve where they filmed Hoot, and the Fort Lauderdale Fire Museum.  If you watch the new TV show The Glades on A&E, one of the episodes was filmed in a friend's home so we couldn't pass it up to take a picture of her there either!  We wanted to make it to the other park and the swing bridge, but it started to sprinkle and we thought it would be best to head back home.  

One thing a mother must always save for a rainy day is patience.

"Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember;
involve me and I'll understand.”

As adults, sometimes we forget this one simple thing ~ 'Involve me and I'll understand.'  We learn by doing.  We all learn differently.  Some things work, somethings don't and for me books are boring.  I need excitement.  I need to do, but being raised in the public school system books are our guides.  I frequently ask myself, how can I make school fun?  This was a request made specifically by Gert ~ 'Make school funner.'  So this summer I began to think, but once again I fell back to the old standby of books/workbooks.  

Monday, Monday. . .

Did you know that Monday was International Chocolate Day?  Me either until I looked at my Teacher Vision Events Calendar.  It was also Milton Hershey's Birthday.  Hum.  I see a correlation.  So of course I had to make brownies.  Yum! Yum!

As for our activities, we talked about the life cycles of different things.  Of course the easiest thing for me was to talk about how we grow and change.  We looked at pictures of Gert as a baby and each year after then pictures of her now.  It is amazing how she has changed through the years.  She looks so grown-up now.  Can I put a brick on her head?  She quickly responded with no and 'Mom, it won't work.  it will just make my head flat and I will look funny.'  We also talked about the life cycles of butterflies and ducks.  In the spring, plant a butterfly garden as well as our own butterflies.  I think it will be neat for all of us.

We also talked about our community.  The plan was to take pictures of our neighborhood and to talk about all the different places within our neighborhood.  Once again, we had to alter our plans.  It rained.  So we decided to do it on Tuesday.        

Week 2 Summary

Well, Week 2 was different. . .

As we all know things don't always go as planned and we have to make adjustments.  This was the first week we had to 'adjust.'  Tuesday went very well.  We talked about different habitats around the world but also about habitats in South Florida.  We also talked about how how plants and animals are different in each habitat and how we adjust to where we live.  For those living where in Missouri it is going to start getting cooler, which means jackets and long pants.  For us here in South Florida, we get to continue to wear our shorts and sleeveless shirts and of course Gert mentioned 'SWIMMING!'  Now occasionally it does get cool in South Florida and earlier this year we had to turn on the heat!  I know you are probably thinking 'Oh you poor thing.'  For native Floridians that is a big deal.  

Week 2

I really wish that summer didn't have to end. . .

Well that makes two of us, but we as we all know 'the show must go on.'  Yesterday we started school at 10:30 AM which is late for us.  Gigglin' Gert was not feeling well, but I guess I am the evil Mom because I made her attend school.  It took a lot longer than normal, but we accomplished all of our school subjects.  My thought process is if she is running a temp or is throwing up, then school will be 'canceled.'  I don't know if that is the right choice or not, but I don't want her to use 'I don't feel good' as an excuse to get out of school.

Week 1 Summary

The first week of school is always interesting for any student (or teacher) whether in public school or homeschool.  You get an idea of what is going to work or not work, and can start to tweak it as need be.  I learned real quick that for Little Miss Sunshine, if I wanted her to continue to be the happy go-lucky child that we all know, I was going to have to break up our writing activities.  Due to her need to grip the pencil like it is going to run away, her finger starts hurting.  As for what I had planned, things went very well.  As we all know what you have planned and what actually happens are two entirely different things.  We had one interruption that caused one day to be a complete washout, but we had a goal in mind and were able to conquer the rest of the week.  Monday and Tuesday went very smoothly.  Wednesday was our washout day so Miss Sunshine visited her Daddy's office and met her new 'best friend in the whole universe'.  Due to the event on Wednesday that involved some construction in our home, Thursday and Friday were a little more stressful.  Due to allergies, we both were suffering.  I have to admit that I was very proud of her this week.  We got a lot accomplished and I think we will be able to reach our goals of the year.

~ to be continued ~ 

All About Mama

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by your to-do list?  Well, I know I do.  I love to plan, but my plans seem to take on a life of their own.  I plan BIG!  Due to my big plans, they frequently become overwhelming and I find that I lose my self-esteem before I even get started or I get started and get discouraged or lose interest in the middle of the task at hand.  I have had trouble breaking my plans into smaller, bite-sized pieces to make them more likely to be accomplished.  On top of that I get distracted easily.
 Earlier this month I read about Mama Jenn and her challenge to her fellow blog readers to join her in Mama's Mission of the Month.  What is this you ask?  Well, Mama Jenn started this to hold herself accountable for the goals she had set for herself.  Many find that if they post something about something they are going to do it helps them accomplish their goal -- as they feel they are being held accountable for that job.  Mama Jenn decided to challenge others by starting Mama's Mission of the Month.  

I am taking the challenge, and joining Mama Jenn {and many others} in their Mission of the Month, but what do I choose as my first mission?  My to-do list is enormous!  As I said before, the goals I set for myself are radiculous.  In order to accomplish any of these goals I need to start by breaking them down from gigantic projects to bite sized pieces.

Like so many other people I want to de-clutter, reorganize, redecorate, and just simplify my home and my life.  It would be fantastic if someone from the many HGTV shows would show up and get rid of everything in my house and help me start from scratch, but until then I have to do this on my own.  My ultimate goal is to completely organize my home.  Yep, that's what I said -- completely organize my home.  *sigh*  Now that is a BIG task and just saying it discourages me.  It would be easy if we were moving -- I could purge as we went, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.  So I have to take it into my own hands.  I know that it is not something that will happen overnight or in one month, probably not even tow so i must break it down.  I keep telling myself one room at a time, but even that sometimes feels overwhelming and I often use the excuse that I need my husband to help {but then again sometimes I do need his help.}

Before I even heard about this Mission of the Month idea, I made a goal for myself to organize all of our school stuff -- books, workbooks, office supplies, art supplies, games, flashcards, etc. before we started school.  Well. . . I started. But I just kinda stashed things in various places so I don't have to look at them.  The old outta sight outta mind.  Our home is small and we really lack storage.  What I have organized has helped with the frequent question of 'Mommy, where is. . .?' which typically resulted in 'I don't know.  Go look for it.'  We all know what that is followed by. . .'I can't find it!'  You then stop whatever you are doing and go look for it yourself.  I have tamed the beast {for now} by using the Workbox Program, but I know that the dragon will burst through those doors rearing its ugly head and once again I will find myself discouraged.  On top of the various homeschooling supplies and activities, I have a one terabite of homeschool stuff I have downloaded from various websites that offer free homeschool items.  Unfortunately due to my lack of organization, I have not been able to use {or find} items I could really use.  {I think you are beginning to see my situation here.}

I have started to organize my bedroom and my daughter's bedroom which have also managed to find themselves tossed to the abandoned list.  There is not much to do in either room, it is just doing it.  Since I already began in my daughter's room this month, I am going to continue that goal through the month of September.  I have 21 days to complete my goal.

This will include but is not limited to:

1. Cleaning out the closet.
2. Buy a rod to hang clothes on.
3. Clean out the storage above the closet.
4. Buy curtain tiebacks and hang them.
5. Hang lights and clock.
6. Find pictures, print pictures, and hang pictures on wall for the Family Photo Wall.
7. Buy and paint plywood for the game closet doors.
8. Take toy box.
9. Go through clothes -- donate or take to storage.    

Now for a personal goal I want to lose 10 lbs by November.  I know you shouldn't plan a diet on or around the holidays, but more of just watching the amount of food I intake, but also to start getting back in shape.  I have started by doing 10 sit-ups a day for the last week and my goal is to increase that by 10 each week.   

There we go.  That was easy.  Mission set {here's hoping that I can use the mission accomplished tag at the end of September!!!!}

I promise most posts will not be this long!  

UPDATE:  As I am still learning about this bloggin' thing (and apparently still don't understand about pages.) Please follow my post at the primary page http://newriverlearning.blogspot.com/.