News

We have been so busy lately. Things are going fairly smoothly with Jasmine. Although her father filed a motion to end the protection order so we have a court date this coming friday. He thinks he can get them back since I had Jasmine in the hospital. He is really warped if he thinks that getting her help makes me unfit as a mom. We had a chiro visit last friday and I’m finally feeling better from the accident.

Life is good, just busy and I’m not liking busy much at the moment. There is never anytime to ponder things just action. My history class is ok, just a lot of work but I love ancient history so that is a plus. There are a lot of interesting people in the class. The refresher is nice since we are back to ancient history with the kids in the fall, making my life so much easier in at least one subject for homeschooling.

I finally bought a new keyboard and mouse. They are wireless and that is really nice right now. I also had to do some computer stuff. It was running really slow so I ran my tech tool software and it seems to have fixed that problem but it took quite a while and then I had to reinstall some things. But it is now functioning nicely.

We planted our garden yesterday, tomato’s, green beans, peas, cilantro, basil and carrots, I need to get some peppers, and cucumbers still. We added a border to it. Hoping to keep the boys from cutting through it when playing. We are tearing out the ugly shrubs that border our yard from the neighbors. We asked them yesterday if they minded and she was so happy to hear we wanted to take them out!! So that is our yard project today. We want to add a border to the front beds and then just plant some pansies to make it look presentable.

The boys have become addicted to Farm Town on my facebook account. They are learning quite a bit there and having fun. Summer craziness starts in two weeks. Noah and Kendra go to camp, swim lessons and swim team start. As well as VBS, I’m working crafts this year. That ought to be fun. I’m also teaching Noah how to knit, because don’t you know that real men knit?Not really but he wants to learn and it will be good for him. Then I must teach the Princess.

Well, I would love to spend more time here with you but duty beckons as does a shower. Have a great week.

Contest for the New Apologia Astronomy and Botany Journals

Author Jeannie Fulbright is giving away four Astronomy and Botany Journals!!!! Thanks, Jeannie!!!! I have seen the samples and they look fabulous! So for your chance to win one head on over to Jeannies Journal

Apologia is now producing notebooking journals that accompany each of the elementary science books. Both Botany and Astronomy are now available. You can see samples on the Apologia website here:

These journals are beautiful spiral bound notebooks that will save you time and money. You won’t have to print and keep up with your child’s notebook pages, buy and maintain page protectors, or purchase and compile binders…everything that makes notebooking time-consuming and labor intensive for mom. Also, your child will adore having their own notebooking journal.

Each of the notebooking journals include:

• A daily schedule for those who like to have a plan or would like their children to complete the book on their own
• Templates for written narrations, the notebooking activities and experiments
• Review Questions
• Scripture Copywork, with both print and cursive practice
• Reading lists and additional activities, projects, experiments for each lesson
• An appendix with beautiful, full-color, lapbook-style Miniature Books
• Field Trip Sheets to keep a record field trips
• A Final Review with fifty questions the students can answer either orally or in writing to show off all they remember and know at the end of the course.

See the sample pages here:

Botany: https://apologia.securesites.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=128

and

Astronomy: https://apologia.securesites.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=127

Jeannie is giving away four Astronomy Notebooking Journals and four Botany Notebooking Journals to bloggers who post about this on their site. Visit her blog to learn more about this contest: http://www.jeanniesjournal.com

My grades are in!!!

I managed to get all A’s!!! I’m so happy!!! God has truly blessed me with wonderful professors that have brought out the best in me. I will admit that it was a very hard semester for me and I had thoughts of quitting but now, I feel like I can do this and survive. Although, it really is God making all this possible, not me. I’m just trying to be faithful and do what I feel He is leading me to do.

Summer Schooling

We will be going back to schooling year round, since there is too much I want the kids to learn in a year. Ace will be doing latin starting next week, we had panned it for The Ark after 5 lessons because of his dyslexia, but now it is improving to the point where he shouldn’t get confused. So hopefully next week we will begin again. I told The Ark he had to listen in to review his vocab and the grammar. Then once Ace is on chapter 6 we will just keep going. I truly believe that our 2.5 months of summer vacation is outdated in our society. After all, adults don’t get that much time off unless they are public school teachers.

We switched Ace to MUS and I made him repeat the second grade math as he just wasn’t getting the concepts at all. So here we are after the first week of MUS and he really likes it, did his daily work without complaining and correctly in a decent amount of time!!!! He will not get a summer break for math since he now has to catch up. But as long it is continues this way I think he will be fine. I think the best difference is less problems and no pictures or color to distract him. Senory Integration Disorder is a different teaching challenge for me but I think we are finally getting it right.

The Peanut and the Princess still have way to much creativity going on lately. I won’t share the latest but it was interesting, just not as safe as I would like and I had to put a stop to it. *shakes head* where do they come up with these things? The Ark and The Princess want to start their MUS as well but I told them to finish what they have and take a short break from math, so we could do some other things for a bit. The Peanut told me today that he is going to bury me in South America. Why there I have no idea and we haven’t talked about SA for months now.

We took a hike this week and had a great time but the kids were sad to come home. I hope to be able to take a hike every other week. Since we are doing Zoo 1 we are paying lots of attention to birds these days. I really need a better lens for distances though. I am going to price them but it will be awhile I think before I can get one.

We have listened to the Magician’s Nephew on cd in the van while driving to the kids chiro appointment and now have new Jonathon Park cd’s to listen to.  After that we might listen to the other Narnia cd’s and we have Island of the Blue Dolphins, the Sign of the Beaver, and a couple of other’s that I can’t remember the name of right now. I’m really trying to get them to look at learning in a different light.

Well, I’m off to unwind it has been crazy here lately.

More stress

I’m so tired of stress and drama!!! The 16 yr old is not taking her meds, wanting to kill Renee’ finace. (she was living with Renee). Now I get to deal with her. I picked up her stuff tonight while she was at work. Kendra has been staying at the older daughters as well to help out and I told her she has to come home now too and boy is she sad. I let her spend the night and asked Renee to talk to her. I’m so angry right now. Angry at the ex for messing up their lives, angry that he brainwashed them into thinking I don’t want them, or love them, and that I was never there for them, etc,  etc. They don’t seem to realize just how much I was there for them. I went to most of their school things, picked them up every weds and friday night. kept them all summer and almost every day they had no school for years. But of course I didn’t  do anything for them. They only want me for want they want me to do for them, not because they love me or I love them. I wish this was just teenage stuff but I know it is not, they are so angry for the divorce because I’ve never said anything to them abut how their dad treated me and he just went to town ranting and raving like a lunatic for years. If he goes to prison, we get stuck with teenagers that have never had any rules and alway been given what they want. Can I just say this is a horrid situation and that it stinks?

On a brighter note I got an A in physical anthropology, probably missed an A by 6.6 points in math, and am still waiting for word on my final draft of  my literature review paper. I’m working on  a settlement for my van that was sideswiped. I will be seeing my chiro, getting a rental and my van fixed at some point and hopefully get a few $$ out of it. Which will be a God send right now. The husband’s glasses are old and he lost one of the lenses last week at work. But he doesn’t qualify for a new pair under insurance until Oct. He needs bi-focal’s so that will be pricey. We also need a futon for the 16 yr old to sleep on. I’m hoping that she doesn’t blow up too much. I really can’t handle it right now.

I have already called my Pastor and told him I need to see him next week. He doesn’t know why but he will. He might have to serve jury duty though so I have to wait until I find out what the deal is with that. He said to call him monday night and see if he managed to get out of it.

We have been cleaning alot today to get ready for the onslaught, and  because I can’t stand it anymore. Tomorrow the teen and the Princess  both have dr. appointments. One at 10am the other at 11:15 in two different cities. That ought to be fun with only one car. I will probably drop off the husband and the princess, then run to get the teen out of school, go pick up the husband and princess then run to the teen’s appointment. Then get the teen back to school and then the husband can go do his magazine job. I know that the Lord will get me through this but right now I’m so overwhelmed, angry and discouraged. I’m tired of paying for other’s people’s sins. It is not my fault that nobody believed me years ago when I tried to tell them, it is not my fault that the ex is charged with 62 felonies. I didn’t do it, he did. I would never have let my kids run wild like he did. Now, I will have to deal with his poor parenting.

I think I will end this and go do something, although I have no idea what.

It is finished!!!!

My paper that is. I’m so relieved. I will turn it in on Tuesday. She liked the rough draft so hopefully this will be even better.

I’m so hoping for an A since I really worked hard on this project. I learned a great deal both about writing in APA style and the affects of physical child abuse upon the child, teen and adult in all of the realms: physical, emotional, cognitive, neurological and behavioral. It was more creative than I thought it would be and I really enjoyed doing it although it did drive me crazy at times.

I’m waiting to see how i did on my finals, I really studied for them and hope I did well. I know I’m really close to an A in both classes but have no idea yet if I managed to get the A’s.

This week will be filled with lots of homeschooling, cleaning and organizing. I will only have two weeks off before summer semester starts so I have to make the most of it.

Well, I should go get the table cleaned off so I can plan for the schoolwork week.

News… or lack there of.

I have taken my finals and am working on my final draft for my research paper. I have to turn it in on Tuesday. The kids have a chiro visit tomorrow. After which we will be home to do some schoolwork and some cleaning. At some point i need to work on our summer schooling. We are going back to a year round schedule to take some of the stress on all of us. Tomorrow we need to buy our swim passes and register the kids for swim lessons. I am ting a summer class but it is web-based and that is nice to free up my time.

I have finally decided to go through with my name change. I’ve been thinking/talking about doing it for years. My husband went down and filed the paperwork for me on weds. so I have a court date of June 15 in front of a magistrate. At least it is a good reason to go to court!!! I’m very happy and so excited!!! I know many people don’t understand why this is so important to me so I will tell you a story~

Once upon a time a teenager mom was pregnant. The baby was 4 weeks overdue and was induced. This teen really wanted a boy and was going to name him Michael. Well, that boy turned out to be a girl, who was to remain unnamed for 13 days while remaining in the hospital being treated for jaundice. Finally the teen mom decided to just us the feminine version of Michael, with no middle name picked out. Shortly thereafter, the teen mom found out there were 14 other Michelle’s in the nursery at that time.

So this baby Michelle would grow up in a single parent household only to be abused. Told the above story of how she got her name. As well as being told that she had been given up for temporary adoption and lived with parents that loved her only to be taken away and abused. The abuse may have been something to get past but to be forever blamed for messing up that teen mother’s life, when she fought to get me returned to her was/is very wrong.Now all of this might not have been so bad except as a teenager Michelle got pregnant in order to leave the abuse, which was like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. For the next 16 years, she would be abused by her husband’s and continue to be verbally and emotionally abused by her mother.

At 32, she left her current husband, and started a new life. One with a man who would find his way to Christianity and be saved by God. They married, had 4 beautiful children and Michelle eventually went back to college to work towards a degree in psychology. She is still working towards that degree and finally sees light at the end of the tunnel. Next January, she will transfer to a four year college and hopefully be able to graduate in two years.

Michelle remember being 3 years old and hating her name, telling her teen mom that she was changing it when she grew up. So 42 years passes and she realizes that she can change her name. She also realizes that she can be the person that the Lord meant for her to be all along. A person with her own identity, not somebody’s daughter, wife, mother; but her own person. She still has flashbacks of the abuse, and finds it to be painful, but is finally starting to heal. Thanks be to God!!!

So soon that unwanted baby will have a name that she loves and in a couple of years a degree, she has hopes of going to grad school and being a counselor. She dreams of working with other women that have been hurt like herself. Her new name will be Rose Catriona M******. It is fun to be able to pick your own name. There is something incredibly empowering to do something so meaningful even if nobody really understand why or they all think you are crazy.

In case your wondering, yes I know my story was in the third person but it was the only way that I could relate all that pain and sadness and not re-live it too much.

I can say that life is good and the Lord is great!!!

Quick Dots

* I’m studying for finals, and working on my final draft.
*boys rooms is 90% done, need a fan, curtains and new outlets/faceplates.
*all the schools books are in
*going to a 6 day school week for the kids
*taking History 1010 during summer semester.
*the ex’s trial is pushed back to June 22, as it stands right now.
*My Psy. Prof. liked my rough draft and thinks I’ve got potential for writing psy. articles.
*need to do some spring cleaning~ next week after finals.

Ok, that is all for now. I’ve got to get back to studying.