Unraveling...

...the stream of consciousness line of thought from yesterday just a wee bit more... ;)

I wanted to mention, too, that I've been thinking a lot lately about what I want to be when I grow up. Lately, I've been seeing friends and family members getting jobs and trying to get jobs and trying to restart careers after raising kids. (This particularly plays in with homeschooling friends whose kids are heading off to public school.) I think that's fabulous and am so happy for them. :) Meanwhile, I also have people asking me periodically whether I plan to return to law (I have my law degree from Duke and worked in a city attorneys office before Asher was born) or publishing (I've written a scrapbooking book and had a monthly column in a national magazine for a couple years) or something else (I've actually held a lot of different jobs, lol)...and I found myself asking the same questions. 

The answer...is no. Actually, I don't have any plans or desire to return to work right now. I thought about it long and hard and wondered whether there was something weird about me that I didn't have any aspirations like that, lol. But, I came to the happy conclusion that I'm pretty darn satisfied just where I am. Whew. ;) My job and purpose right now is to raise these boys into men. It's what works for me right now, and I'm blessed to have boys who make homeschooling them mostly a pleasure. I sometimes even think I'm doing an okay job at it. ;) 

So. Here's to remembering that and making the most of these days that I've chosen... 

Balance

We're through our first six week homeschooling session for this year. We're actually almost done with our "off" time and ready to get back to it tomorrow. Before we do, though, I wanted to take a moment to ruminate on things...

- Mostly, things followed "the plan" and we tackled our varied curricula just fine. I'm happy with most of our choices and dropped a couple things that I decided were just busy work. :) (I find, too, that I'm very appreciative of curricula with clear instructions...ran into a couple that drove me batty, having to flip back and forth between numerous sources to figure out what the day's lesson was supposed to include. I also can't stick with a program with poor grammar...where reading things aloud to the boys requires me to edit as I go. Ugh.)

- I found, though, that I was distracted. With the combination of Noah getting older (7th grade) and a number of our homeschooling friends opting to switch to public schools this year, I found myself doing a lot of thinking and comparing and worrying. I started trying to add more structure to our days...trying to illustrate to the boys how public school might be and trying to convince myself that I was crossing all my "t"s, if you know what I mean. In doing so, though, I discovered that I was overlooking the point. Yes, I do want to prepare them for the world and some public school ways will help with that. But. I want to do it *our* way...that's part of why we homeschool, right?  

- So. I'm going to work during this next session to make sure to add the fun back into our studies and take advantage of the opportunity to direct studies and exploration to the interests of each boy...to focus on each boy's strengths rather than just worry about their weaknesses...to try to rediscover our balance and enjoy the time we have together. To that end, each year, I ask them for a list of things they each want to learn. Having filtered the lists (I'm *not* teaching Noah to drive quite yet, thank you very much, lol) and such, we're going to try to add electronic gadgetry studies for Noah, clarinet for Asher and astronomy for Micah. 

- (Actually, Asher started clarinet lessons at the start of September. He's loving it and is picking it up really well! He has his first recital at the end of the month. Feeling pretty fortunate that we were able to find lessons next door to karate and at a time just before karate class, thus saving us a trip each week.)

- I'm learning that trying to assign more individual work to Noah (essentially "homework") means more of my time...not only during the "school day" but also at night when he's working on his own stuff. Duh, right? ;) I can see that now, but it was a revelation at the time, lol. Trying to adjust...

- As I've been trying to communicate to the boys, I'm finding that every assignment I give actually has (at least) two purposes...the material at hand AND the importance of time management and responsibility. While I'm not yet ready to require as much work as public schools, I *do* want them to learn how to deal with due dates and personal motivation and tackling things that aren't always fun. I think/hope that I'm getting through to the younger two, who are usually pretty good about this and are diligent workers. Noah's more stubborn, lol. I suppose that comes from waiting to really push this until he's almost 13, right? ;) Lovely. (Yeah, we were butting heads pretty good at the start, but it's getting better as he's seeing that I'm not going to budge. Wish us luck!)

- Along those same lines, I'm realizing that I need to do a better job of letting them fail on occasion. I know myself well enough to know that I have a tendency to make things easy/smooth for everyone...it makes life simpler and less crazy and I appreciate that. :) But. Keeping track of things for them doesn't give them the opportunity to learn to do it for themselves. Working on it. Ugh.

- I'm continually thankful for how generally cooperative my boys are in the first place. I get it. They're pretty good. It's a large part of what makes this work for us. :)

So. Those are some of the things that have been floating around in my head of late. Whew.

Saturday. Oy.

...so, Saturday. We were driving on over Berthoud Pass when...BAM! 

There was a rock in the road (that looked like a piece of snow/ice). Like the Titanic, in retrospect, we should have hit it head on...but swerved to try to miss it, whereby it gouged the side of the tire beyond repair. Awesome. Flat, flat tire:

On the plus side, very thankful that we were close enough to the pass (elevation 11,307 feet) to get to the parking lot area there. (Trying to change a tire on the edge of the switchbacks would have been dangerous and icky.) Also thankful that we had the two vehicles so that we could shuffle luggage and such around without having to set it on the snow/slush (yes, it had snowed the day/night before and was quite chilly despite the sunshine). 

Anyhow, we finally got the spare tire out from under the van (having had to unload our fairly packed van in the first place to get to the dealio that loosened said spare tire) only to discover that the spare was also flat (fortunately just low, not damaged...but too low to drive on). Fun times.

So. John & Nathan took both the spare and the flat tires in the rental car and drove down the mountain to find help. Meanwhile, Nancy and I took the boys to the restroom building for a bit over an hour while we waited. Oh, and it was lunch time, so folks were getting hungry. Still...feeling pretty fortunate that the restroom building was there so we could sit in the warmth and play games and eat some of the fruit and the marshmallows that we had in the van. (Lunch/snack of champions, eh? lol)

John & Nathan weren't able to find a replacement tire so just filled up the spare and brought it back...whereupon we put it on, reloaded and drove down the mountain at low speeds. We stopped in Evergreen to find a tire (at the second place we looked) and eat a late lunch before seeing John & Nancy off to the airport (a bit behind schedule). We then killed time at Walmart waiting for our tire before finally getting back on the road. Sigh.

From there, we thankfully remembered that we'd left Nathan's car in Longmont, so headed home by way of Boulder (and the Apple store) and Longmont. We finally made it home about 3-4 hours (and the cost of a tire) later than anticipated. Whew. Still...feeling pretty fortunate for how it went down. :)

Granby

So. We spent last week in Granby. Did you miss us? ;) 

Anyhow, here's a quick run down...

Monday: Took the younger two to Options while Noah and I finished up the packing and loading. We then picked up boys and drove down to Longmont to pick up Nathan from work, eat at Proto's and continue on our way...glad that Nathan was driving the rest of the way to Granby. (We had to go the "long" way around (south to Denver then west and north again over Berthoud Pass) since the road to Estes Park is out due to the flooding. Granby is just on the other (west) side of Rocky Mountain National Park.) We arrived at the WorldMark resort where Nathan's parents had reserved a couple units for us all and settled in. :)

Tuesday: We finished up a Scrabble game that the boys had begun the night before then headed up to Grand Lake for lunch. After that we headed into the park to hike to Cascade Falls (about 7 miles round trip). The weather cooperated beautifully and we thoroughly enjoyed the beginning fall colors. Here we at the falls:

That night, we had dinner at the unit and spent some time in the rec room where the boys enjoyed playing/learning pool and foosball.

Wednesday: Spent the morning at the unit and doing lunch then split up...John & Nancy went for a walk around Grand Lake while Nathan & I took the boys to the rec room to play more pool and foosball (they really liked the rec room, lol) before hitting the pool and hot tub for awhile.

After getting boys bathed and warmed up (it was windy) and becoming a group of seven again, we did a late dinner then played some pinochle, cribbage and such.

Thursday: Up earlier (I used the resort's fitness room) to do brunch before heading to Monarch Lake to hike the 3.9 mile loop. Here are the boys with their grandparents at the start of the hike:

The boys enjoyed skipping a few stones, too. ;) We then headed back to the unit to clean up and snack before Nathan and I got to go out to dinner on our own. Btw, if you're over that way, we HIGHLY recommend the Tabernash Tavern...which you'd miss if you didn't know to go there. Our meals were fabulous and dessert was just plain awesome:

(Banana Fosters Creme Brulee)

Meanwhile, boys played games and ate dinner with their grandparents. Played some more pinochle once we got back, enjoyed more of the ice cream we'd made (yes, we packed the ice cream maker, lol) and then crashed for the night.

Friday: The morning started out with a lovely fire alarm malfunction...which went on and on even after the fire department arrived. (Something about condensation and a faulty system and apologies from the management.) Given the rain/snow falling most of the day, we spent it indoors playing games (mostly the boys and their grandparents while Nathan worked on some personal projects and I worked on school planning for next month). After the board and card games, we hit the rec room again for some physical activity...where Micah and I thoroughly enjoyed our time at foosball. We named all our players. ;) It helps if you yell their names while you play. Honest. ;)

We went back to the unit for dinner and more games and more ice cream and some preliminary packing. 

Saturday: We enjoyed the returned sunshine as we packed up everything and loaded the vehicles. (John & Nancy had rented a car in Denver.) We managed to get on the road at our proposed time and were so enjoying the scenery and the drive back over Berthoud Pass...

Stay tuned for the conclusion of the story... ;)

In search of...

- information on where I can take donations of used (and new) items (especially clothes and blankets) locally to help flood survivors...preferably someplace where I don't have to drive on/around flooded roads to get there (so, in Fort Collins or Loveland would be preferable to Longmont or Boulder, though I'll take any and all information)...

- recommendations on first aid apps for my iPhone, because, ya know, it seems like a good idea to have that information handy ;) (Fyi, I already downloaded the Red Cross free app but am wondering if there are other, more specific/helpful apps out there.)

- also recommendations on an app to remind me how to check for concussions (not to name any names but let's just say that a certain middle son reminded me of this need over the weekend when he smacked his head into a metal bar literally moments after I pointed out that he should watch out for said bar because it was likely he was going to hit it (and he scoffed and assured me this warning was not necessary), lol...he's totally fine, just has a big knot/bruise)...Nathan would also like to know if any apps exist that actually do that eye test thing that paramedics do...

- the means to not look like I'm moving in slow-motion today...let's just say that yesterday morning's boot camp kicked my butt, yet again (190 pushups, 190 squats, 190 burpees, 190 jumping lunges (per leg), 20 flights of stairs (up and down counts as one flight...btw, stairs suck!) and a 90 second plank hover...all in less than an hour!) 

Thanks!