I'm in a funk. I'm feeling blue. Call it hormones, perhaps. Strange things are happening to this now-36-year-old body. Could just be Satan himself trying to bring me down because he knows how much God & I have been talking lately. Whatever it is, I don't like it. I'm not feeling so much like myself these days. And, why is it when we're down, we feel the urge to drudge up more sadness from the past in hopes it makes us feel better today? Seriously, how ridiculous is that?
"Snap out of it already", I hear you saying from the other side of the screen. Don't get me wrong, I know how good I've got it! I'm blessed with an amazing husband who truly loves me as I am. I have two beautiful, healthy daughters. We live in a wonderful home with great neighbors. I have an abundance of precious friends and a loving family. I have a God that cares about me and accepts me in the raw. I have it better than most, I'd say. So, what's my deal?
I battled depression in my mid to late 20's. I don't know if it was triggered by difficult situations of the time or if it's just a chemical or genetic thing since I know there's a history of it my family. In any case, I'm feeling blah. So, I'm going to go have some chocolate, take a hot shower, say a prayer, and go love on the blessings I have! Thanks for letting me have a downer kinda day, friends.....
First Quarter - Check!
I'm feeling better. Don't know if I shared earlier, but I had my third bout of Pink Eye in six weeks. My face broke out terribly with knots, bumps, and splotches. Turns out I had some sort of viral infection that seemed to overtake my left side. (Several people said it looked like Shingles.) Finished up my last dose of meds today and am starting to look more normal. lol Other than that, I'm just feeling a little run down. I've had some emotional ups and downs. I hate losing my patience with the kids, but I feel overly sensitive lately. Don't know if its the virus, hormones, meds, or what - but it's not pretty. I've had a hard time balancing everything the last week or so. Story of my life, huh? We're working some things out though and it really helps. Hubby has committed to taking care of dinner every night. It takes a great load off my shoulders. He's an amazing cook and enjoys it. I am incredibly grateful for that!! I do all the other "stuff", but we are going to have a housekeeper start coming in once a month. I'm super excited about that! I just need a little helping hand here and there. Between homeschooling, the kids, their activities, and church commitments - I just need a little fresh air. What a blessing it will be!!
We are a quarter of the way through school. Can you even believe it?! I think we've found our groove. We still have our ups and downs, but that's part of the parent/child relationship as much as it is teacher/student. We'll be finishing up our first I Can Read It book this week, as well as our first full unit (10 lessons) in Math. That's exciting!! We're still slowly catching up on Science. She still loves her Bible and history stories. Again, still not doing well with the spelling, but we're enjoying a great free website a friend recommended: www.SpellingCity.com. Check it out! It has some great games to play using their spelling words. We may start adding in the Sign Language soon, too.
We did get some disheartening news today that I thought I'd share. I know it could be worse, but I'm honestly a little bummed. Audrey had her repeat EEG a couple of weeks ago. We were hopeful that she had outgrown the Epilepsy, but the seizure activity has actually increased. The test shows that even on medication she is having seizures in her sleep, when she takes deep breaths, and now with certain lights. We now have to be cautious of places with strobe lights, as well as monitor her television & computer exposure. She can't sit too close to screens or watch in the dark (which isn't good for you anyway). Her medicine is going to be slightly increased. And, she we will have to continue the meds and monitoring for two more years before they'll retest her. Again, I know that it could be so much worse. We're truly blessed that we're able to treat this and keep it under control. Please continue to pray with us that it will eventually go away completely.
Hello Fall!
Hello, out there! Shew, have we had some happenings around here! The blog is falling to the wayside again. Sorry. Where should I start? How 'bout if I break down like this....
School: We've almost completed 7 weeks. We've had more good days than bad. (Yay!) I really do see some improvements in reading. I'm working with her to build her confidence. She is capable of reading much more than she is. She surprises herself at times. :) We've just finished reading The Hundred Dresses and will be starting Johnny Appleseed this week in our read alouds. We've discovered the books on CDs. It's a great reward for her. She just finished Beverly Clearly's Beazus and Ramona and is currently listening to The Secret Garden. Her handwriting is continuing to improve despite her aversions. :) She's moving a little slowly in math right now, but I want to make sure she "gets it". Still behind in Science, but we'll keep working! She loves history! Last week we starting studying Medieval times so the whole family went to the Medieval Times Dinner Theater last night. The girls LOVED it! Maddie was mesmerized by the horses. :)
Health - I've been totally depressed about my health and weight lately. I've had pink eye twice in the last month. Then I had some sort of virus and my face broke out in sores. Looks awful! Then, got bit by a spider and my leg turned red and swelled up. Not pretty! I'm feeling better today. I even got myself to the gym (and Greenway) and worked out twice. Hubby and I rode 10 miles on the Trikes today. It was wonderful! Earlier in the week I walked a 5k. It felt good to exercise again. Gotta keep it up!!
Audrey - She had her EEG last week to see if the Epilepsy is gone. We should have results hopefully this week, if not, definitely by the next. I'm praying for complete healing! I'm hopeful she can come off her medicine.
Craziness - Two nights ago, both of our cars were broken into. Sucks. But, I'm fortunate that they didn't take my van. The spare key was in D's car, which is how they got into my van. They only took my GPS (and a half a day of time lost hanging out with the police). They hit several cars in our neighborhood and the one across the street. I'm ok with the GPS, but admit I feel violated. :(
Needless to say, with our week, we had an impromptu "fall break". With Wednesday's EEG, I had to sleep deprive her the night before, so that day was out. Thursday is my normal morning commitment to Bible Study, but the afternoon (usual school time) was filled with outings and getting the van fixed. Then, Friday was a day with the police because of the break ins. We will be finishing up last week's lessons this week and starting on the next week. Thank goodness for flexibility!
That's it for now!
School: We've almost completed 7 weeks. We've had more good days than bad. (Yay!) I really do see some improvements in reading. I'm working with her to build her confidence. She is capable of reading much more than she is. She surprises herself at times. :) We've just finished reading The Hundred Dresses and will be starting Johnny Appleseed this week in our read alouds. We've discovered the books on CDs. It's a great reward for her. She just finished Beverly Clearly's Beazus and Ramona and is currently listening to The Secret Garden. Her handwriting is continuing to improve despite her aversions. :) She's moving a little slowly in math right now, but I want to make sure she "gets it". Still behind in Science, but we'll keep working! She loves history! Last week we starting studying Medieval times so the whole family went to the Medieval Times Dinner Theater last night. The girls LOVED it! Maddie was mesmerized by the horses. :)
Health - I've been totally depressed about my health and weight lately. I've had pink eye twice in the last month. Then I had some sort of virus and my face broke out in sores. Looks awful! Then, got bit by a spider and my leg turned red and swelled up. Not pretty! I'm feeling better today. I even got myself to the gym (and Greenway) and worked out twice. Hubby and I rode 10 miles on the Trikes today. It was wonderful! Earlier in the week I walked a 5k. It felt good to exercise again. Gotta keep it up!!
Audrey - She had her EEG last week to see if the Epilepsy is gone. We should have results hopefully this week, if not, definitely by the next. I'm praying for complete healing! I'm hopeful she can come off her medicine.
Craziness - Two nights ago, both of our cars were broken into. Sucks. But, I'm fortunate that they didn't take my van. The spare key was in D's car, which is how they got into my van. They only took my GPS (and a half a day of time lost hanging out with the police). They hit several cars in our neighborhood and the one across the street. I'm ok with the GPS, but admit I feel violated. :(
Needless to say, with our week, we had an impromptu "fall break". With Wednesday's EEG, I had to sleep deprive her the night before, so that day was out. Thursday is my normal morning commitment to Bible Study, but the afternoon (usual school time) was filled with outings and getting the van fixed. Then, Friday was a day with the police because of the break ins. We will be finishing up last week's lessons this week and starting on the next week. Thank goodness for flexibility!
That's it for now!
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| Enjoying a day at the park |
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| Fun times at the quiet park ;) |
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| Line leader on picture day |
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| BFF's waiting for pictures |
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| One of Audrey's new favs - Pattern Blocks |
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| Medieval Times - The knight threw the flower to Maddie =) |
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| Perfect attire for our evening at Medieval Times |
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| First Grade Picture Day |
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| Picture Day outfit chosen by the 3 year old herself - and then there were press on Princess nails =) |
Week 5 Recap
So the last couple of weeks have been a bit rough. No pretty way to put it. We've had some good days and some bad days. Our schedules did change a bit last week with the addition of some activities, so we had to adjust. Audrey just wasn't in learning mode so much. We had a few meltdowns - and yes, I said, "We". Mama's not proud, but it is what it is. I'm better now. :) I will say that this week has started out MUCH better!
Despite the ups and downs, we did accomplish some things. She continues to do well with her reading. She lacks motivation when it comes to spelling. She can spell most things phonetically, but that's a problem when it comes to double consonants and sight words. Couple that with her lack of love for handwriting and I had to get creative. I wrote spelling words all over the room for her to copy - on the chalkboard, whiteboards, paper plates, paper, etc. with different writing tools. It seemed to work. She was more enthusiastic about copying and working on her words.
We spent awhile on Lesson 8 with math on finding the unknowns. But, we did start Lesson 9 at the end of last week with adding by 9's. We'll review another couple of days and possibly move on to adding by 8's the end of this week.
She loves history! Last week we learned about the Vikings. We learned about where they lived, what they did, what they ate, etc. Audrey made her own Viking Longhouse.
We got through her Read Aloud early again. We were reading My Father's Dragon. Cute book! We finished a few days early so I found a cool Lapbook for it online. We aren't completely finished with it, but I'll try to remember to post pictures when we do. This week we're reading The Hundred Dresses. I'm not familiar with this one, but she's enjoying it so far. Because she enjoys books so much, we picked up some books on CD at the library. She has already finished Beverly Clearly's Beazus and Ramona. We'll start on The Secret Garden tomorrow. They're perfect when she's working on copywork or waiting for me while I pick up Maddie or something.
Confession - we haven't been working on science as much. We had some experiments that we needed to do with the sun, but we had a week of rain and overcast, so it has fallen behind a bit. No worries - we'll catch back up! Same thing with our additional Bible Study. I love the study, but we're a little overwhelmed right now. We're still doing our daily readings in the Egermieres Children's Bible Stories and a lot of our literature is based on the Bible. Additionally, we're working on her Sparks verses and stories. We'll pick back up with the Apologia's 'Who Is God?' in a few weeks.
We started back to Awanas the 7th. Maddie is old enough this year, so she is a Cubby. Audrey is enthusiastic about her verses. She's doing well! We also started Children's Choir the same week. Maddie is now old enough to participate. :) She loves it! I'm teaching 2nd grade choir and love it. Here are a few pictures of what we've been up to.
Despite the ups and downs, we did accomplish some things. She continues to do well with her reading. She lacks motivation when it comes to spelling. She can spell most things phonetically, but that's a problem when it comes to double consonants and sight words. Couple that with her lack of love for handwriting and I had to get creative. I wrote spelling words all over the room for her to copy - on the chalkboard, whiteboards, paper plates, paper, etc. with different writing tools. It seemed to work. She was more enthusiastic about copying and working on her words.
We spent awhile on Lesson 8 with math on finding the unknowns. But, we did start Lesson 9 at the end of last week with adding by 9's. We'll review another couple of days and possibly move on to adding by 8's the end of this week.
She loves history! Last week we learned about the Vikings. We learned about where they lived, what they did, what they ate, etc. Audrey made her own Viking Longhouse.
We got through her Read Aloud early again. We were reading My Father's Dragon. Cute book! We finished a few days early so I found a cool Lapbook for it online. We aren't completely finished with it, but I'll try to remember to post pictures when we do. This week we're reading The Hundred Dresses. I'm not familiar with this one, but she's enjoying it so far. Because she enjoys books so much, we picked up some books on CD at the library. She has already finished Beverly Clearly's Beazus and Ramona. We'll start on The Secret Garden tomorrow. They're perfect when she's working on copywork or waiting for me while I pick up Maddie or something.
Confession - we haven't been working on science as much. We had some experiments that we needed to do with the sun, but we had a week of rain and overcast, so it has fallen behind a bit. No worries - we'll catch back up! Same thing with our additional Bible Study. I love the study, but we're a little overwhelmed right now. We're still doing our daily readings in the Egermieres Children's Bible Stories and a lot of our literature is based on the Bible. Additionally, we're working on her Sparks verses and stories. We'll pick back up with the Apologia's 'Who Is God?' in a few weeks.
We started back to Awanas the 7th. Maddie is old enough this year, so she is a Cubby. Audrey is enthusiastic about her verses. She's doing well! We also started Children's Choir the same week. Maddie is now old enough to participate. :) She loves it! I'm teaching 2nd grade choir and love it. Here are a few pictures of what we've been up to.
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| Art project - Painting with string |
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| Audrey's Viking Longhouse |
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| So proud |
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| Had to throw one in there of our new student ;) |
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| Day at the park |
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| Good times! |
In Our Class
Here are a few pictures of things we're trying this year. So far they're working pretty well!
One more thing we do that I need to get a picture of, is a red/yellow/green light for behavior. I just cut out a circle of red, yellow, and green cardstock and glued it to a black rectangle cardstock to look like a stop light. I laminated it. (I made one light for each girl.) Then I took a picture of each girl and laminated them. I added velcro stickers to the back and attached it to the "light". The goal is stay on the green light. If we have issues throughout the day and their picture makes it to red, they lose their outside play time with neighbors. (I'm sure the consequences will change, but right now this is the "biggie".) Yellow is seen as a serious warning. So far nobody has made it to red! =)
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| These are our workboxes. I fill each box at night with her daily assignments for the next morning. She works through them one at a time. It lets her see what she has accomplished and what still needs to be done. It helps me organize all of her assignments and make sure that we get through everything. The boxes are just the right size to hold her books, worksheets, supplies, etc. |
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| These are our rules. I had an old frame and left over material from recovering her desk chair. I just put the material in, printed out our classroom "rules", and taped them on! |
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| This is our reward system. We bought some colorful rocks from Michael's. I already had a cute glass vase. She sets a personal goal she wants to work for (right now she's working towards a new game for her V-Tech). She earns rocks for completing her assignments &chores, for not whining, for going above and beyond, etc. Once she fills the vase, she earns her new game. I figure she'll earn something once or twice a semester. |
Week 3
Just sitting here eating some singed angel wings. Ever had those? They're just toasted angel food cake slices. Yummy! Anyhoo... gonna admit something gross. I've got the pink eye :( I'm praying I didn't pass it along to 100 other choir members at rehearsal last night. I've never had it before and thought I just had a clogged tear duct. I woke up this morning with an incredibly unpleasant feeling in my blood shot eye. I went to the doctor and she informed me of the "very contagious pink eye". Great! I felt pretty miserable this afternoon. However, after my second dose of eye drops this evening, I'm finally feeling some comfort. =)
Schooling is going well. Man, am I grateful for the flexible schedule! I've had to work in a few doctor appointments between Maddie's allergic reaction to a topical cream, my vertigo and pink eye. We've been doing school throughout the day. It breaks up the day nicely though. She's doing pretty well, too. She still has some aversions to writing anything, but we're working on it. How do I encourage her to not be sloppy? I'd love some suggestions!! She can do her work, but she doesn't care that it's a mess. And, she loves to doodle on all of her papers. I'm ok with that except that I'd prefer that she not curly q all of her "g"s until I know she can write them correctly. lol As for math, we've sailed through to Lesson 8. I think we'll be spending a little more time here. It's definitely a new concept for her (and quite frankly, it seems pretty advanced to me for this young), but she's starting to catch on. The manipulatives have really helped! The concept is finding the unknowns. (Think of finding X in an algebraic equation.) I'm fine staying here until she's ready to push forward. She's progressing well in her reading materials. I just wish I could get her to want to read for fun on her own. :/ She LOVES for me to read to her, so I do not discourage that. We've moved on and added a lot to our reading list.
Maddie started preschool Wednesday (Monday was orientation). I think she's loving it. She's going to the same Christian Academy that Audrey went to - and has the same teacher. She loves that she has to take her lunch to school. ;) Here are a few pictures....
Schooling is going well. Man, am I grateful for the flexible schedule! I've had to work in a few doctor appointments between Maddie's allergic reaction to a topical cream, my vertigo and pink eye. We've been doing school throughout the day. It breaks up the day nicely though. She's doing pretty well, too. She still has some aversions to writing anything, but we're working on it. How do I encourage her to not be sloppy? I'd love some suggestions!! She can do her work, but she doesn't care that it's a mess. And, she loves to doodle on all of her papers. I'm ok with that except that I'd prefer that she not curly q all of her "g"s until I know she can write them correctly. lol As for math, we've sailed through to Lesson 8. I think we'll be spending a little more time here. It's definitely a new concept for her (and quite frankly, it seems pretty advanced to me for this young), but she's starting to catch on. The manipulatives have really helped! The concept is finding the unknowns. (Think of finding X in an algebraic equation.) I'm fine staying here until she's ready to push forward. She's progressing well in her reading materials. I just wish I could get her to want to read for fun on her own. :/ She LOVES for me to read to her, so I do not discourage that. We've moved on and added a lot to our reading list.
Maddie started preschool Wednesday (Monday was orientation). I think she's loving it. She's going to the same Christian Academy that Audrey went to - and has the same teacher. She loves that she has to take her lunch to school. ;) Here are a few pictures....
Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo
Any of you ever heard of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo? Well, after 3+ years of a spinning world, it appears I have been properly diagnosed and treated. When I first started experiencing vertigo, it was ear issues. I just assumed that's what it always was. I'm usually sensitive to my left side and tend to "spin" when I lay on that side, turn my head too quick, etc. A few months ago I went to the doctor because it was really bothering me and I just figured it was inner ear issues again. Instead, my ears were perfectly fine and the doctor suggested it was Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo. She referred me to Physical Therapy for it. Who knew you could get PT for vertigo?! Let me tell ya though - it has worked! Granted, the PT was NOT pleasant. (Is PT really ever pleasant?) Remember those little hand held games where you tilt it around trying to get the little silver ball in the holes? That's what the therapist likened the treatment to. She had to move my head around, make me dizzy, and readjust some things. So far so good!
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About Me
- Kim
- Welcome to my little spot on the web. My name is Kim. I'm a mom of 2 precious girls - Audrey, 11 & Maddie, 8 1/2. I'm married to a fantastic man who I often refer to as "my walking encyclopedia". I love musical theater, singing, crafts with my kiddos, games, and colorguard. This blog is my outlet to share my journey through life. Hope you enjoy the ride with me! Please feel free to FOLLOW ME on this journey! =)
Me and my Sweet Girls
Maddie, 7 & Audrey, 9 1/2
My Wonderful Husband
May 7, 2004
