I love it when it seems the trees are coming back to life with the first fresh, vivid green baby leaves and buds! But...we did not have 1 flake of snow this year! Jake's winter jacket may as will still have the tags on it. I made him wear it 3 or 4 times (even though it really wasn't ever cold enough to need it) so that if it doesn't fit him next year I won't feel like we didn't at least get some use out of it. I am ready to see the green buds...Not so sure I am ready for the heat already (it was 84 degrees out yesterday and it has to be right around that today). I am REALLY hoping since it was a mild winter that it will be a mild summer too...For now I will be happy it is spring and see if we set a new record this year of having to turn on the air conditioning before we even hit April....
*I learned that I love the Little House on the Prairie series as an adult as much as I did when I was a little girl. I am excited that Jake and I are going to start reading Farmer Boy together. He could read it very easily and quickly on his own but it is fun to read books together. :)
*Pinterest looked different today when I got on to pin things I think I am going to do but most likely never will. I am trying to decide if I like the new look or not....Do you?
* I learned last night, as I was staying up late reading Mockingjay, that I will be very upset and totally hate the whole series if it doesn't end the way I want it too. I like a happy ending and I am really crossing my fingers for it in this series. I learned that I thought I would hate The Hunger Games series but I don't. It is scary and morbid. It has violence and death. I don't want to read it but I can't stop because I have to know that the characters are going to be okay. If I hadn't grown so attached to the characters I would have stopped reading it a long time ago. It is controversial. It is scary because it isn't completely an unbelievable plot. It is scary because there are aspects in our culture that make me think it could actually happen (to some extent) if we allowed it to happen. I put my name on what I was told was a long wait list for this book at the library on Monday and was surprised...excited even, I am sad to say, that they already had it for me when I took Jake to his book club there yesterday. I did refrain from reading it the moment I received it in order to finish the last couple of chapters of On the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Talk about reading on a very wide spectrum!
*I learned (again) that Heavenly Father is mindful of my family. His tender mercies remind me daily that we are taking the right steps on the path of the plan he has laid out before our family. I am so thankful that Jake is old enough to recognize that hard work, prayer, sacrifice, and faith can bring you through hard circumstances and make you stronger.
*I learned that when you are at Sam's Club and your child sees a book that he has been dying to read, that isn't at the library, and it is only $4.38 that...you buy it! You are a hero for buying an unexpected treat and it is a BOOK. I want to read them too so it is a win-win. It is fun to read the same book as Jake, talk about what we think is going to happen next or discussing our surprise when this or that happened...He doesn't even realize that is part of homeschooling. :)
*I relearned how amazing and important the wonders of modern medicine are to my very existence. I learned my Advair inhaler really does help me breath so much better. It ran out before our new insurance kicked in and I had to use Jake's (less powerful...) inhaler for almost 2 weeks. I finally got the insurance card in the mail and got my inhaler yesterday and I remembered how wonderful it is to breath deep breaths. This all means I have to restart the couch to 5k training I was doing. At least I learned my lesson in the fall and didn't push more poor lungs past the point of no return like I almost did last time.
*I learned even more this week what an amazing thing it is to be able to homeschool Jake. On Tuesday Jake had the 1st of seven weeks of a soccer homeschool clinic with some of the Charlotte Eagles soccer players. They are professional soccer players that just happen to be strong Christians and are missionary athletes trying to make a positive influence on the surrounding communities. Jake had an AMAZING time and can't wait for next week. I had an amazing time sitting and talking to the other homeschooling moms After it was over we ran to Target and I realized just how awesome it is that the other kids we saw at Target had just gotten out of school and instead Jake had just gotten done a hour and a half of soccer. I am not sure why that hit me the way it did. It was just a moment of recognizing my blessings I guess.
By the way Tina, he wore his Ukrainian soccer jersey you guys gave him and the Charlotte Eagles guys thought it was pretty cool. While we were at Target a girl in her early twenties said that was her favorite soccer player! She even said the his name, which I can only assume she said correctly because I had no idea how to say it. :)
*I learned that I have many favorite posts of the week...(I am cramming these into one post this week since tomorrow is St. Patty's Day).
I got some great ideas over at Latter-day Homeschooling from these 2 posts that I LOVED :
1.) Iditarod: The Last Great Race- It is a little sad how little I knew about the Iditarod. This post has great info. on it that sounds like a fun thing to take a day or two away from our "March=Math Month" and study. Dog heros, snow, and the power of serving humanity. I love all the resources that Stephanie added also-it makes it so easy.
2.) Free books at your fingertips!- If you have been here a while than you know I love my Kindle. This post tells you where to find a whole bunch of free books and gives you ideas on how you can use it in homeschooling.
I know this post was technically last week but I don't care. It is called The Best Mom That They've Ever Had...Or Maybe Not. Melissa is a friend (I actually know here in the real world-not just the blog world) of mine that is all sorts of amazing. I am a better person for knowing her.
