Happy Thanksgiving!

Don't worry little fella, no turkey at our house this year. My family loves the turkey breasts but they were just too expensive. So we are going to have chicken and dumplings, dressing, and all the other traditional stuff, just no turkey. Everyone okay with that, they love chicken and dumplings.

I thought I would go ahead and wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving! The next 5 days will be busy around our house and I may not get to post for a while.

Our plans for the next few days are to spend tomorrow getting the house and ourselves ready to go to visit my hubby's apartment Friday. That way Thanksgiving day can be spent having fun and decorating for Christmas. Friday we plan to take some furniture to my hubby's apartment and spend a few days there. I hope to do a little Christmas shopping and maybe some ice skating.

We have always spent the Friday after Thanksgiving decorating the house for Christmas, watching Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase and eating left overs. But this year we will be doing all that on Thanksgiving Day, and then we are off to hubby's place.

So far I have almost all of Poogie's Christmas presents. Just a few small things to get. She was easy because everything she wanted was for her American Girl doll, so I just ordered it online.

TT has made it hard this year. He doesn't even have a list yet. It is about to drive me crazy. I finally got him to pick out a few PSP games last weekend, but that is it. He really wanted a Wii or PS3 but those just aren't in our budget this year. Sigh. I hate budgets. I wanted a Wii too so I could play the boxing game.

This will be a year of no real presents for my hubby and I. That usually wouldn't bother me but we didn't get presents for our anniversary either. Those are two times during the year that I can get something nice and not feel guilty about it. I hope next year is better.

I feel bad even whining about no presents when the economy is so bad. I fear it will get even worse, but I'm like a kid at Christmas. I like presents too.

On a happy note I wish all of you a Happy and Safe Thanksgiving.

The wait is finally over!!!

YES! I finally got to see Twilight this afternoon and it was so worth the wait. As usual it did not even come close to be as good at the book, but it was still a good movie.

I was giggling like a girl when Edward walked into the lunchroom for the first time. I loved all the actors who were in the film. I think they did a great job of capturing the important essence of each character.

I wanted to see it with my hubby but since he was away working I took TT and two of his best buddies. I think they enjoyed the movie even thought they were three of maybe five guys in the theater. I don't think that bothered them much;)

A Better Day.

Today was a much better day. I spoke with my hubby last night after I posted and we both decided that if there is anyway possible that we should keep homeschooling the kids, no public school! That took a load off of my shoulders. We have a plan and hopefully it will work for us financially so that I don't have to return to work.

Thanks to all my friends both online and those that I see in person that have listened to my drama. It's nice to have peeps to chat with. It helps. So thanks ladies you know who you are.

I just need to share

I just need to share a little of what has been going on in my life lately. I don't usually like to do this on a blog but I am really down tonight and need to "talk" it out.

As you may have read in some of my earlier posts my hubby took a new job in a new city. It is over 2 hours away so we have to relocate. Now this doesn't seem so bad at the surface. But when you look at it deeper it becomes quite stressful. You see for 12 years we have lived here in West Tennessee and to say we were unhappy would be putting it lightly. We never really have had any friends. The kids were miserable in school and any type of extracurricular activity we tried in the area. We have all moaned and groaned about wanting to move away.

Now fast forward to this year. It felt like everything was coming together. We were financially comfortable. The kids and I were finding our groove when it came to homeschooling. And thanks to our YMCA group all of us were forming great friendships and enjoying ourselves. It was to good to be true. Well, it was.

My hubby decided to leave his job for a new one. The other job was changing for the worse so he got out. Fine, I can deal with that. But here comes the financial stress of changing jobs, being able to afford a place for him to live there while we complete our year here. Poogie wants to finish her year in ballet, we have already paid for everything. TT wants to complete his year of YMCA with his buddies. Even if we did move with him we still have the financial stress of a place here and one there.

I am afraid when we move that I will have to return to teaching and put the kids in school. I have just about made myself sick over it. I have figured out our budget every which way and I just don't see any other option. The only way I can stay home is if Brad's job really kicks in. And it has the potential, we will have to wait and see.

It has always been an issue when money gets tight that I need to return to work, but I was hoping we were past that. I guess not.

I also feel guilty because a little part of me, just sometimes, misses working. I miss teaching. I miss making my own money. But the thought of trying to juggle two kids in school, a job, my mother and my hubby gone 99% of the time is just too overwhelming.

I really wanted to just spill without someone telling me " I told you so", or "It will work out". I know it will, but the options of what may happen have been pretty hard to deal with.

Thanks for "listening".

I am Inspired!

A lot has happened since I posted the previous post this morning. After I posted I went through and looked at the rest of SOTW 4 and decided to chunk it for now. It just doesn't work for us.

I sat looking at what we are doing, and asked what could I change. Yes, I paid good money for some of this stuff but if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. TT decided to read The Call of the Wild by Jack London this month and that got me to thinking. I could fill several holes in my curriculum with this one book. We could do lessons in geography (Alaska and Canada), history (the gold rush), science (precious metals and dog breeds), and of course literature.

I found a great free literature unit study to follow to go along with the book. In fact, all I would have to supplement would be grammar, math and spelling. Now all I have to do is follow through with it. TT is excited so I guess I need to get excited too.

To futher inspire me, I went to the library to get books on Alaska, the gold rush and dog sledding. I picked up a favorite movie of mine, Freedom Writers. TT loves it to, so that is what we watched this evening.

I cried, I laughed and somewhere along the way I felt good about teaching again. I mean with my hubby's job being so up and down the thought has crossed his lips that I may need to return to the class room to help out. I cannot say I was excited about the idea. It seems to be the answer in our home when things get rocky or tough, send me back to work. This idea would be fine, but when you homeschool your children it is not so easy.

I admit I miss the classroom every once in a while. Then, I think of sending my own children back to public school and I feel ill. I believe Poogie would be fine, but TT would not. The system would drown him. I have worked so hard to build up his self confidence, and all it would take is one horrible teacher to tear it back down. I'm not saying he is weak or cannot handle life. he is just not ready to be treated like an adult yet, and that is how many, many middle school teachers tend to treat kids. They are not ready for it.

So to say I am struggling with a lot right now would be understating it, however I found a small light today and I am going to let it shine.

The let down.

You know how it is when you buy a curriculum for your kids and you are excited about it, they are excited about it, can't wait to start it. Then the let down comes when it isn't all you expected or it just doesn't work with your child or your children.

I have had a few of these this year. The main one has been Story of the World Vol. 4. My ds and I used SOTW Vol. 1 last year, it was okay. We didn't love it but it worked. Volume 4 has been horrible. My ds doesn't like the reading. He isn't interested in most of the subjects and the one's he is interested in are so generalized and shallow. I know it offers novels and other works to supplement but most of those cannot be read within a short time frame before we would move on to something else.

The activities in Vol. 4 are not our cup of tea. Many of them are long memorization lessons, or recipes. The recipes would be fun once in a while but our time and resources are limited.

I am planning a unit study of the Civil War to begin in January. Then we can finish up the year with some SOTW and other resources. I am looking towards next year and I may look at BJP or Abeka. We have been happy with BJP for the most part, although the Reading 6 is not that exciting.

As for my dd we just started SOTW Vol. 1. She doesn't find it that interesting. I wish we could do Vol. 2 since she loves the whole knights, kings and queen format, but alas I cannot buy anything else right now.

I am hoping to purchase Teaching Textbooks 6 for TT to supplement Math U See. I feel that he needs exposure to other subjects other than just fractions at this level. Plus, some of the teaching strategies in Epsilon have not clicked with TT. I have ended up teaching several of the lessons in a totally different way. That is fine but adds to the already long time it takes to complete our math lesson daily.

I dont' think I will be using Math U See with Poogie next year unless something majorly changes. It is just to slow for her.

Science is another area that I will have to make major changes in next year. TT's Harcort book is great but I wish it had more to go with it. Poogie will need a more structured curriculum. This year we have mainly used unit studies.

So many decisions and only one me.

Weekly Update.

I know I haven't posted in a bit. It seems like things have been busy, but when I reflect on the past week, maybe I have just been a bit lazy.

Monday was spent doing school. It seems like Mondays are hard to get through. Everyone is moving at a glacial pace. We made it through it thanks to the fact that I scaled down TT's curriculum. I took out German and Guitar for now. He really needs to focus on writing and math.

Tuesday was of course co-op day. We actually completed all our lessons before going. That was a first. TT went to one of his buddies house while I took Poogie to ballet after co-op. Of course this made for a long day, but it was well worth it.

Wednesday was a day of challenges. TT had his moments of being a typical pre-teen, but we made it through it without anyone being injured;) Poogie is flying through her curriculum. I don't believe that she will be a Math U See person. It moves way to slowly for her. Something to think about for next year, if we homeschool next year. That is a whole other story.

Thursday consisted of lessons, co-op, and a trip to the grocery store. Now that we are on a tight budget due to my hubby's recent job change a trip to the grocery can be down right depressing.

Friday, we did lessons, got TT a haircut, and spent time around the house. Hubby was home so it was a fun but lazy day.

So far this weekend all we have done is just spend time together around the house. The kids rode 4 wheelers yesterday while I attempted to scrapbook. I will attempt again today. We went out to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant last night and then watched Sweeney Todd on HBO. I know it is bloody, but my kids love it. Go figure.

So there it is. An update of my boring daily life. Some weeks are more interesting than others.

Math Lab

I found a great activity for remembering equal measurements on another blog, I wish I could remember which one. If any of my readers happen to be the one I found this on I am sorry.

The activity can be found on MathWire. I thought it was a fun activity that will help with my ds TT ability to remember facts such as how many pints=a gallon. For Poogie this was a fun introduction to the concept. Of course, Poogie posed for pics. I know it is hard to see on my fall table cloth, but I hope you get the idea.