Christmas giveaway from Homeschool Mosaics

The team of homeschooling writers at Homeschool Mosaics would like to wish you a very merry Christmas today. We're giving away our two newest e-books, Sanity Savers and Holiday Blessings, full of ideas and practical tips for combating homeschool (and holiday) burnout. Here's the scoop, from the Homeschool Mosaics webpage:

It’s December!  So, we’ve decided to do things a bit differently for this month’s Giveaway Day!
Instead of teaming up with a  vendor friend to bring you ONE prize, we wanted to give a prize – from us – to each one of our readers! 

So, this month, there’s no Rafflecopter entry widget – and every single one of you can receive the prize(s)!  Yes, plural!

TODAY ONLY you can head over to Amazon and grab BOTH of our books for FREE!  Even if you don’t have a Kindle, you can still take advantage of this offer – Amazon has free apps that you can download so you can access Kindle books on your computer, tablet, or smart phone!

Find the download links and lots of helpful homeschool-related articles here.

There's so much I want to say...

Part of the problem of trying to keep a blog (at least for me) is just getting to the keyboard. We have five people sharing one computer at our house at the moment -- that's a lot of competition.

Of course, this situation helps me in my resolution that actually conflicts somewhat with the wish to regularly update my blog. I've cut way back on my computer time since September. I'm getting more done in other areas of my life, but my blog has suffered.

I often think of something to say, write long, thoughtful blog posts in my head, contemplations of real life as I'm going about my business, but then I get to the keyboard and it's all gone. Poof. Vanished into the ether.

And then there's reality. I mean, blogs and homekeeping hints and homeschooling seem so trivial against the backdrop of the terrible events this week. The mall shooting was at a mall I used to visit on occasion. Haven't been there in years, but people I know were there; friends of ours were in the food court at the time the shooting started.

Then in the same week, tragedy in an elementary school. I don't have to say any more about that. You're probably up-to-here with the news reports, and no real answers. At least I am.

Last night we went to a Christmas program at a local church. They've been putting it on for 25 years, a gift to the community, with three choirs, handbells, and an orchestra. It was beautifully done, polished, colorful, and joy-filled -- though there were traces of tears. I wiped away a tear when the children's choir came out with its mix of mischief and sweet song. One of the soloists in the adult choir choked up during his song, but made it through almost to the end. Somehow, leaving off the last few words of the song about the coming of the Christ Child, "When Love Was Born," and having the orchestra finish out the phrase that everyone in the audience was thinking (having heard the refrain throughout the song), was even more poignant and meaningful.

You know, tragedy can make the everyday feel futile, and yet... The everyday tasks, the being faithful in little things, seeking the Lord, praising Him in all circumstances, that is what this life is all about. I'm afraid the bustle of life has caught up with me, and there is a lively conversation now going on just a few feet from me, and the dog is nudging my elbow, and so I can't put down all the lovely ponderings that were going on in my head a little earlier. So all I can recommend is that you meditate on this idea. I'll try to post more, later.

Timeline series

Just finished writing the second in a series on using a timeline to help put historical events and people in context in your history studies. It will appear later this month at Homeschool Mosaics -- I'll post the link when it's available.

In the meantime, the first article can be found here and talks about getting started with using a timeline, and how to make it more interesting and relevant for your students.

You can find a list of my HM articles at this link, including several reading lists, books that we've enjoyed over the past two decades (!) of homeschooling.

This is the day that the LORD hath made!

...you do know what comes after, don't you?

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

It doesn't matter if you got less sleep than you needed last night. It doesn't matter if you (or someone else in the house) is sick -- either temporarily or chronically -- and having a hard time dealing with it. It doesn't matter if someone just dropped a pitcher of orange juice all over the freshly mopped floor.

Okay, that last bit is not something that happened in our house this morning, but it has happened in the past. More than once.

It doesn't even matter if everything is going right, you got up before the alarm sounded, even, and the baby didn't keep you up all night for the first time ever, and breakfast was all ready, in the crockpot and since the table got set last night before bed and the kids know -- and do -- exactly what they need to do between getting out of bed and breakfast, there's really almost no work needed to get from there to here...

No matter what...

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

(Yes, it's easy to rejoice when everything goes right. But it's just as easy to forget about the Lord and His benefits, and cruise along thinking how you've got everything together. Been there. Done that.)

 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. (Phil. 4:4)

Long hiatus...

It has been a long time since I've checked in here. You see, I was spending too much time on the computer and not enough time on things that needed doing in "real life." With the approach of the new school year, I knew that something was going to have to give.

Now I know as home educators, we don't have to stick to society's school calendar. We can start our academic year in August or September like everyone else, or we can start in January with the calendar year, or we can just sort of keep on going, year-round, starting new material as we finish the old. However, our outside classes and activities (choir, debate club, speech class, art class, etc.) run on the September - May/June academic schedule, and so we tend to do the same.

Anyhow, as I was saying, I needed to spend much less time online. I cut back on online commitments. I limited my email and web-browsing time. I set aside time for the girls to use the computer for their academics. (They also spend too much time online, and I'm not talking research or academic pursuits, but that's something we're still trying to work on, and if we ever do manage to straighten it out to my satisfaction, I'll let you know.)

The computer situation at our house has also dictated less computer time for me, as one by one our rebuilt bargain-priced laptops meant for academic use (listening to lectures and doing writing assignments) have deteriorated and died, leaving us all competing for computer time on the remaining computer. (How do people manage, on a homeschool family budget, the cost of student computers, anyhow? The cheap rebuilt route has not worked really well for us. We're not going to sign up with a government school-at-home program just in order to get laptops for the girls. I'm open to other suggestions...)

It's been occasionally rough. My email box has burgeoned to unbelievable proportions. I've missed reading emails that I needed to read, if only to be informed of events going on at church or connected to our extracurricular activities. I have not blogged since August. I signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month -- where you aim to write a book in 30 days' time) with the girls' encouragement, put in one day of writing, and then my own laptop and the last remaining student laptop got very sick at the same time, meaning that the five of us were now sharing one semi-working desktop computer. As you probably have figured out, that book didn't get written. Yet. (As my mom used to say, "If it's important, it'll come back to you." We'll see. It just wasn't a priority right now.)

I have a phone that can browse the web, which has been handy for web-based research when out and about (doing Language Arts with Youngest in a coffee shop, for example, and needing to look up a grammar rule), and browsing blogs while waiting for the girls at classes or appointments, so it hasn't been a complete break from the internet. I've found encouragement and helpful how-tos on blogs, recipes for gluten-free foods or homemade cleaning products or just plain food for thought. I can read email on my phone, although for some reason I can't send email, so answering emails can still be a problem (depending on when I can get on the desktop at home, and also if I remember that I needed to answer something).

Anyhow, I'm going to try again, if only a little something every day. It's a way of connecting, for one thing, joining an ongoing conversation, as well as organizing information (Now where did I put that recipe...?). I'm just a bit wiser than I was (at least I hope so) when I was blogging earlier. I use a timer these days, for one thing.

Thanks for listening.

007's newest secret weapon: exploding glass stove

I think I'm going to be picking up/sweeping up glass in my kitchen for days to come.

Yesterday, the glass front of our range's oven exploded. All it took was a little bump, from what I heard. I wasn't in the kitchen; I was hanging out clothes and didn't hear a thing, until Youngest came out of the house, distraught and apologizing and saying the stove was broken and she didn't mean to do it.

We bought the stove used a few years ago, so I don't know if the glass pane replacement part is available anymore. (From what I've been reading online about glass stovefronts exploding or disintegrating, maybe I don't even want that type of stove.)

Although I was rather hoping to replace the ancient and ailing refrigerator first (and we still might have to do that), I am still counting my blessings.

1) The oven wasn't on at the time.

2) I hadn't gotten around to running the self-cleaning cycle, which is a few months overdue. Just imagine that big panel of glass deciding to let go right about the time the oven hits 500 degrees.

3) No pets were in the kitchen at the time. Even though it's "safety glass" and fell apart into little cubes, there were still some sharp little shards. Believe me. I've got three small punctures in my fingers and hand to prove it. Though we cleaned up the glass as thoroughly as we could, I still keep coming across little pieces this morning. Necessary decree: No bare feet in the kitchen for the foreseeable future. (Pets are a bit of a problem, there. We'll have to keep a sharp eye out for glass and keep picking it up.)

4) The stovetop still works, unaffected by the oven's trauma.

5) We're in the middle of a heat wave, so I wasn't planning on using the oven anyway. But when crisp autumn days come, it'll be missed.

6) I got a chance to hug Youngest and explain to her once more that people are more important than things. I haven't always been so good at that.

So, any suggestions on replacing our range? Any brands to steer clear of? Any brands you'd recommend, even as a used appliance?

(Of course this all may be moot. We really need to replace the refrigerator first. Ovens are optional. Refrigerators are not.)

First Thing Monday Morning: A Day Late, and...

 ...do you remember the rest of that old saying? (a dollar short, in case you were wondering)

It reflects the frustration of missing an important deadline because you forgot to record the date on your calendar, or you forgot to look at the calendar, or (if you're like me) you looked at the calendar but at the wrong week!

Yesterday I was the poster child for people who are calendar challenged. I got a call early, saying that there was no play practice that morning. That was certainly a relief, because I had not gotten word in the first place that an extra play practice was (as it turns out, it was not) scheduled. I glanced at the calendar and went on with my day...

...virtuously staying away from the computer because I was going to get some neglected things done.

(things can get neglected when you struggle with time-related issues, like calendars and schedules, and self-discipline issues, like routines)

Boy, did I feel good.

...right on up to the point (about 5:30 pm) where I realized what day it actually was, and that I'd missed an important annual event put on by our homeschool group, something we'd all been looking forward to for weeks.

I'm still kicking myself. This is after kicking myself all yesterday evening, diving into housework (scrubbing is a great outlet for anger and frustration) and throwing a grown-up sort of tantrum -- which involves, first, badmouthing oneself out loud, and then when the kids protest, taking it private. The problem with this solution is that it doesn't really solve anything or prevent future flakiness.

I have got -- at this late date -- to establish routines, to get my physical surroundings under control, for starters. I'm so distracted and distractable, I'm feeling less and less of use to anyone (including myself).

One of the reasons for First Thing Monday Morning is accountability, a way to stay on track, though of course you have to get on the track before you can have any hope of staying there. Another reason is to share resources that have helped me. This week's planned-but-not-scheduled-ahead-of-time (I'm learning to do this but I got busy last week and my scheduled blogging time on the weekend didn't happen) was to be a book review. There's this mom who's written an e-book about getting on track. I got the eerie feeling while reading, that we were twins separated at birth.

The book is called 28 Days to Hope for Your Home and has a subtitle of (not for the mildly disorganized). If you want a preview, you can go to this link and see what I read when I first stumbled across the book. (FYI, that link is an affiliate link. If you were to decide to buy the book through that link, I'd get a little pocket money. And thank you.) You can read her latest blog post here. (Not an affiliate link. Just in case you were wondering.)

If you're desperate and want to get started now, and not wait for the book review, you can get the e-book. I'm not trying to hold you to a schedule. (Just me.)

I bought and downloaded her book in a moment of desperation, and have been applying it for about ten days now. It's helping. Things are getting better around here. I've even started the girls reading the book; they need it as much as I do. But I don't have time today to give the book justice, so here's the plan: this week I'm going to be working on next week's post (imagine that, thinking ahead) and First Thing next week you'll see a book review. (If the creek don't rise... as my sister-in-law is fond of saying.)

So, since we started talking about calendars and how slippery and difficult to manage they can be... we'll wrap up with talking about calendars. How do you manage yours? What are your favorite tips for keeping your schedule straight? Share them here in a comment, or please feel free to link up!