Every now and then you have to stay up late, past your bedtime...or almost all night to read, study, (Oxford coma and yes I still use them) and write. At least I have to and haven't for quite some time so I am overdo. It makes me feel slightly more alive to feel tired from staying up too late reading, studying, and writing.
You see I should feel exhausted, and I will by about 3:00 in the afternoon, but before that I feel more alive from stretching my brain. Very awake...like I am right now...
I haven't been reading, studying, or writing much of anything lately. I have managed to start the habit of reading the scriptures before I even get out of bed in the morning. I can automatically check something off my to list and it feel magnificent. But (there is always a but) some mornings it is through such blurry eyes that not much is accomplished except the prolonging of a newly formed (or in this case rekindled) habit in which case it is a good thing.
I have done a horrible job of keeping up with Jake's school reading. I still have yet to finish Walden, although his final paper has been written, graded, and filed away (and I let him write an opinion paper because that is all I had enough of about the book to grade). But I am excited for the next book (a beloved book I have already read by one of my literary hero's C.S. Lewis. We are getting ready to start Till We Have Faces on Monday---We are actually starting it this coming Monday) and we since we abandoned the last on (Ivanhoe. I have it on good authority-the author of our Literature curriculum, Janice Campbell-that it was okay. I told her of Jake's love of reading and she said by all means move on if it wasn't catching his attention. We read almost half of it and watched the movie...and called it good!) we have got to do an extra amazing job on the next one. Funny how I am saying "we". I am the editor really. We both read (with some exceptions) the book and he writes the papers and I edit and wish he loved to write as much as I do but his mind is mathematical and scientific and as long as he knows the mechanics of what he is doing and (doesn't use as many "and"s as I am right now...) adds in the right amount of strong verbs, quality adjectives, who-which clauses, etc.; (don't judge my punctuation right now...it is too late...or early...) I will live with the fact that he has come so far. He is a boy, young man now, but when we started this whole process he was a boy. And for most boys writing is torture. Not all boys but a great majority. But we have come so far! In fact Jake had 30 minutes before bedtime that he could read and instead he choose to use half that time to write in his journal (that he found in a Rubbermaid container in the back of his closet that is full of random things that need to be sorted). That is progress! But back to what I am doing. I laid in bed for over an hour (after taking a Melatonin and going to bed at 12 something because this is Aaron's basketball night and I am a night owl so I don't go to bed if he isn't home because that is a perfect time to fill my brain with things that will keep me up at night because I can't turn my brain off!) and gave up to come out to the living room and read a book I started yesterday...well Tuesday now-two yesterdays ago...It is called Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen (book #10 for 2015! Double digits finally!). It was given to Jake by Aunt Gloria (have you read it? If not you really should because it is wonderful) and we both loved the cover and couldn't wait to read it and then life happened and we just haven't. From my spot at the dinner table I have the view of the book shelf and that book was right at eye level and has been for some time now. So, on Tuesday I finally took it off the shelf and while Jake was reading The Swiss Family Robinson (he is reading it for a classics book club a homeschooling teenage girl started at the library that meets the first Tuesday of every month...which is much more information on that topic than I needed to include), I started reading it. It is one of those books where you immediately become the main character and it makes you feel happy inside to live another life every time you open to the page you left off on to find out what you are going to do next. Well needless to say I finished it...a couple of hours ago. It is a quick read and I loved it! And after I finished it I picked up another book from the pile I had been working on this evening while both my guys were at church. You see I am preparing to be a Literature teacher...for more than just Jake. We can stumble and fumble along together at home and figure it out...but I am teaching American Literature and Composition at co-op next year so I am in study mode because I can screw up my child but I can't screw up other peoples!...(and i kind of adore it...picture me whispering this...that is why the i is lower case) and I have come up with a solution to our society's failing educational system. I have thought of this before and maybe even typed about it but it is 5:02 am so humor me...I think high schoolers should go to work-you know labor intensive jobs. The adults should go to school. I would do marvelously if I could go back to high school right now and then on to college! I would even enjoy it! Some people could go back to school quicker than others. It took me until I was 34 or 35 to really be ready to study (I am a little slow). Others would be ready much sooner. They would be the doctor, lawyer, engineer types. So basically this is a work until you are really ready to educate yourself kind of theory... But that isn't really what I am talking about here...and since I have officially lost my train of thought (if I ever had one) I will stop here for now (at 5:11am) and see if I can get a couple of hours of sleep that will inevitable just make me feel worse than if I stay up because at this point that will just be a tease...So I may read a little more and take a nap this afternoon...but I will definitely stop rambling right....nnnnnow.
literature and comp class next year. I just started reading the books that we will be reading next year to prepare. I have my binder all set up and...a lot of work to do! We are going to be reading 5 of the 9 books from this particular curriculum and then adding a biography over Christmas break (which
It is a lot of information....
And how funny is it that while I was taking pictures I flipped right too something I over use and use incorrectly just because I can (since this is my blog and I like to throw in comma's whenever I pause in my brain)!..Comma placement. Not a coincidence...
I am sure I will have more on this later...And maybe it won't be me randomly typing in the middle of the night. Which means the odds that it make sense will go up!
