70 Degrees of Freedom

I remember working in the office when the first warm day of "spring" (whether official or not) came along. I would stare longingly out the window at the people playing in the park across the street and usually I would come up with an excuse to walk downtown for lunch.

This year, I got to spend a warm St. Patrick's Day with the most important people in my life: my wife and kids.

After a picnic lunch, playground time, and birding at Gallup Park in Ann Arbor, we came home to get a couple chores completed. When Tiffany left for a dinner shift at the restaurant, the kids and I loaded up the wagon and headed out to soak up some rays on a walk around town.

Three and a half miles later, we were back home and none the worse for the wear. My feet are a little sore now, but I'll get over it. It's so good to be back outside again!

Too Late for Resolutions?

So, co-op went reasonably well yesterday, although Isaac was barefoot through half of his second class. Nobody seemed to mind much, so I'll just roll with it. That's one of the dangers with cowboy boots - easy (for him) to slip off. He didn't seem to be much of a behavior problem though, so that's always good. We are beyond ready for his sleep to get sorted out again - I want my well-rested, well-behaved son back!

I've got a new responsibility at co-op: running the canteen/concession stand/yearbook-fundraiser snack counter. Seems pretty simple so far - the hardest part is lugging everything upstairs for lunch on a REALLY SQUEAKY cart. I think every teacher along the back hallway stuck their head out to see who was making such a racket!

- - -

On the homefront, there are a few things I need to get nailed down. I'm not my wife and I can't juggle it all in my head. Printouts on the fridge, here we come!

Number one: we need to get a schedule. I wish Isaac and Esther could read it and follow it, but that's probably hoping too much. At the very least, I need to have it in front of me most of the day so I can, oh, start dinner sooner than 6:30 at night. And having a designated computer time about which I don't feel guilty would be great too.

Scheduling leads in to #2: meal planning. If I'm going to be the one at home all day and preparing meals, I need to have some sort of plan. I'll be happy with weekly for now; if I can actually get a whole month planned out, great! This should help out with grocery shopping and budgeting (four weeks of grocery budget spent in three this month - eep!), as well as getting meals in the kids. Tiffany's tried a couple times to tell me what the kids will eat, but I never remember it for more than a couple days, so Isaac ends up eating what he wants to tell me (usually, a tortilla and a glass of Maryland milk) and then has a meltdown later because he's hungry.

The last thing for now is getting an adult responsibility chart set up again. I tried early last fall to divvy up household chores between me and Tiffany, but it didn't take so well. I'm hoping that the combination of a new daily schedule (with designated 'chore' times) and a more realistic (read: more succinct) list of chores will prove to be a workable solution. I'll let you know how it goes.

Do you have any good tips for managing any of the three items above? How have you set up a meal plan for your household?

Psalm 46:10

In this past Sunday's church bulletin, we received our monthly Focus on the Family insert. One of the articles therein addressed the practice of observing a Sabbath, a day of rest.

Sabbath has been rattling around in my brain for years. I don't like to work for pay on Sundays, and I try to focus Sunday activities more on family time than other things.

I don't really want to get in to a deep study right now, but both the Old and New Testaments talk about observing the Sabbath and proscriptions for activity during the period of rest. I've also got a book at home called Sabbath Keeping by Lynne Baab; I'm about two-thirds of the way through that. I'll probably do some more in-depth study and writing about Sabbath once I finish the book, but that'll probably be posted somewhere other than KU.

That said, there's no time like the present to begin new practices and forming new habits. As of sundown Saturday, I plan to observe a 24-hour sabbath. My basic guidelines at this point are:

• Mark the beginning of Sabbath with some type of ritual. For now, I think lighting a candle will be in order.
• Take a leisurely shower either Saturday night or Sunday morning to refresh the body.
• No work for pay, no housework (dishes, laundry, yardwork, etc.), minimal cooking (flameless, if possible)
• No electronics, which is mainly the computer since we don't have a TV. Cell phone will be on for incoming emergencies, but no outgoing calls.
• Enjoy my rest with my family.

We'll see how this goes and how the practice evolves in our household. How do you explain Sabbath to a four year old and 1.5 year old? ;-)

Do you practice sabbath in your home? What does it look like? Share in the comments below.

Shalom, my friends.

Library Day

So, clearly, it's easier to set up a blog than to maintain it. Oh well.

Isaac and I just got back from a walk to the library. Some helpful (friendly, courteous, kind, ...) Eagle Scout cut a new path through the woods behind the library to the park near our house. It's much more interesting to walk through nature and along the old railroad tracks than along the residential sidewalks. Now we just need to remember the mosquito repellent!

We took a bunch of books back and got a bunch of new ones, mainly on trains (natch) and Pennsylvania, which is our next state about which to learn. I also grabbed a book on woodchucks (groundhogs) in honor of Punxsutawney Phil, a geography DVD, and Isaac added a Signing Time DVD and two other books that caught his eye.

My administrative home education goals for this week include hammering out our educational philosophy and typing up the curriculum guides that Tiffany and I worked on during our drive home from Tennessee over Labor Day weekend. I know I want to take it easy with the formal curriculum plans this year, but I still think we should have some broad goals to work toward. I also need to sort out a rough schedule for our weeks, so we don't get to Saturday and wonder why nothing got done.

Sorry for the lack of updates. We had a great learning day at the fair last week - lots of baby and adult animals to discover. Tiffany and I picked up a bunch of workbooks and flashcards at Target yesterday for 70 cents each - check out your local Target's dollar section if you get a chance.

Time to cook dinner and read - Tiffany and Isaac have already started in on one of the steam engine books!

On Task and On Time

As I start into the realm of home education--and, in the larger context, being at home all day--I wonder if there isn't something akin to deschooling for the new stay-at-home parent. Here I am in my first day of being home all alone - no kids, no wife - and I'm still in my pajamas and stuck on the Internet. It's not that I don't have things to do; it's just that I can't seem to motivate myself to do them.

I rationalize by saying that it's "me" time, or that I'm doing research in preparation for homeschooling, or that I'm updating the blog (!), but really, am I getting anything productive done? I need to prepare my Bible study lesson for Sunday morning, I should shower/shave/get dressed, I should wash the dishes in the sink, I should finish the Scrabble board for Saturday's market, I should, I should, I should...

But back to the deschooling idea - do I just admit I need a period of "de-corporating"? Or is it just an excuse for laziness? And when is my decorporation* complete? Will it be? The sloth in me likes the "one month for every year" guideline - that means that sometime in January I'll be ready to go. Just think of all the pajama-wearing web surfing I could get done by then! I might even reach the end of the internet.

Or should I take lessons from my business life and create a schedule for myself? Allow time for Facebook/Twitter/blogging, but limit it accordingly. Put to together weekly and daily task lists? I think I like this idea, if only because it feels like I'm doing something - and as you'll likely come to find out, I like to look busy.

Maybe I'll think about it in the shower...

-----
*Is this like decomposition? It feels like it after skipping shaving for a week!