So, I said we had Cheer Competition last Sunday, and lo! behold! we did! And I shot a video. Now, I used my digital camera to make it, so the sound is not great. In fact, at one point in the vid, it just comes all together in a loud screechy noise that will make your teeth vibrate. You have been warned. OTOH, the sound is kinda necessary to fully enjoy the vid. OT3H, I want a flip video. Enjoy!
So, I posted that I was busily reviewing books, and I am thrilled to report that, except for the novels, that is done. Man, it’s scary how fast stuff can pile up and then it just starts sapping the joy out of life, even when it’s stuff you want to do. Sometimes, it’s just better to get it done and over with, so you can get back to real life.
YK, more and more I am reminded how fast they grow, how short 18 years really is. All those sappy old women who said stuff lke “be careful, you’ll blink and they’ll be grown” were right. They were totally right. Somehow, it doesn’t seem quite fair, but I don’t expect that my laments are going to change a system that has worked for millennium. The best I can do is to try to slow it down a bit by being in the moment.
That’s hard for me, and probably for most moms. We are always looking at what has to happen next, scanning the horizon for trouble, ticking off a mental todo list. All that stuff has to be done, true, but once in a while, I want to read to my littles until they have had enough, play with my middles until they are tired, talk with my teens until they are all talked out. After all, I only have 18 years to squeeze it all in.
Yesterday, I finally had it with my crowded workspace. I had so much reading and reviewing to do that I just had to take a day to do it. Oops, make that two days, because I am still not done. But here’s a good look at what’s coming up on the TueReview at my knitting blog for the next several weeks.
I also shot some video. Country is reading Ariel’s Journey, and I asked her opinion of it. She was not overly impressed so far, but she’s a bit older than the target market. I was hoping we could get by with it because she loves horses so much, but I guess not 
I do think this would be an interesting book for 9-12 year old girls. Unfortunately for us, we don’t have any of those. It’s boy, boy, boy after Diva.
So, we made it through the first week of the new term/year with our Google document lesson plans, and the kids all report that they like it. Except Stuntman, who fell far behind when football season started and still has not managed to catch up. But I am not going to get started on that 
I put group Bible and singing back in the lesson plans this time, and that has been such a neat thing again, to read the Bible with the children. We just take turns, but it is a nice peaceful break in the day.
Bach is not a great hit. I don’t have the recommended piece on CD, and I have to admit it was mush better than the darker pieces I do have, so when I do the lesson plans sometime this weekend, I will be tracking down the Concerto in D, or whatever it was I listened to a snippet of last week.
I’m finally starting to feel a bit better, too, so I hope to get teh house back on track next week. Just in time to run like a mad woman all next weekend, LOL. Lock-in Friday night, all day craft show on Saturday. What can I say, except that it seemed like a good idea at the time?
This weekend is also busy. Our last games are tomorrow, we need to get Angel Food picked up, the cheerleaders have a hugely long and important practice as well, BECAUSE! SUNDAY! IS! COM! PE! TI! TION! I will be locked in a gymnasium for about 5 hours with hundreds of screaming girl children. And I can’t wait!
I popped in to say that I am still here, and ask if you are. Last Tuesday, after my wonderful tackle, I went to bed around 8pm with a fever and hard chills. And that was the last cleaning I did until today. Nothing like going out in a blaze of glory, eh? I seem to be on the mend, if by mend, I can mean able to get through the day with less than 2 naps, and so I attempted some light housework today, just my bath and bed room, and not even the floors in those rooms. And that is why there is no Tuesday Tackle for you today. The only thing I am up to tackling is a pillow!
We’ve started new years/terms for three students this week, and I am making a more conscientious effort to include the extras that make a CM education so much fun: art and music and Shakespeare and such. To do that, I have back on some of the extra history readings I was requiring. Part of the beauty of CM is the free time it allows to pursue interests that the children have. It took me awhile to see that, to let go of what I think they want/ought to know, to stop trying to make my favorite subject their favorites, too. We’ll see how it goes.
Now, I know that this set of pictures doesn’t seem to indicate much progress, but if you said that, you would be wrong. My 45 minutes of cleaning a day (ok, usually I do an hour) is really beginning to pay off. On Mondays, I start in my bathroom, and I clean it, really clean it. Then I move into my bedroom and really clean it, and then I move into the living room and clean it. When the MP3 player shuts off, I stop, right where I am. On Tuesday, I start in the bathroom again and tidy, then the bedroom and the living room. Today, a Tuesday, I moved from the living room and into the girls room. Those shots are of behind the door of their room! And it is Tuesday. Only Tuesday.
Now, I probably won’t get any further than their room this week, but I have made it into the that room on the second day of the week! Tomorrow, I will start in the bathroom, tidy it, my bedroom and the living room, and work more on the girl’s room. But even as I have a girl room, a boy room, a kid bath, a work area and a kitchen to go, I am able to say that three rooms of my house are totally under control now. In two short weeks. And that, my friends, is a massive tackle.
I think this picture pretty much sums it up, because anything else I could add wouldn’t be for for print.
Yeah, I realize I’m not done–the mower is out of gas and I have to wait until the van gets back to get more.
Aunt Annie’s Alligator A….a….A
That’s the book I read to the littles today before quiet time. It had been a very long time since I had read that book! See, my priorities had gotten a little bit whacked, and the reading had been more miss than hit lately. I decided last week that this was just not acceptable any more. My kids needed raising, and I was the one who should do that. That decision prompted the blog makeover here and it’s prompted a whole lot of other changes, too.
Such as this one to post just a few sentences about that great book and then move on back into the living room with my kiddos.
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