Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with the amazing new dryer

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Weekly Wrap-Up

Happy Fourth of July, y’all! (And, to my international friends, I still wish you a happy July 4th, though it doesn’t have quite the same significance.) I hope those of you who are blessed to have a long weekend are enjoying it. I thought my husband was going to be off work today, but, alas, he is not.

Happy 4th of July

Our summer break is quickly drawing to a close. I had planned to start on Monday, but I find that I am just not mentally prepared yet. I think we could start and be just fine, but I also think we’d all enjoy an extra week.

The kids’ schedules are wreaking havoc with my year round homeschooling plans this year. Megan has a youth outing and a mission trip coming up, while Josh is going out of town with a friend for an extended weekend. My plan is to just be flexible and roll with it. We always take a long break between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, so we’ve got some make-up time there.

Y’all don’t know what an improvement that attitude is over the old me. If the current me could go back and homeschool my kids all over again, it would probably be a much more relaxing experience than those first few years were at the time. I think I must be mellowing in my old age.

The highlight of my week was getting a new dryer! Our old dryer was coming up on 23 years since we got it shorty after we married in 1991. Brian has been able to keep it working all this time, but it had gotten to the point that it was taking it a ridiculously long time to dry – like nearly 2 hours per load! It was delivered late Tuesday and I did three loads of laundry in the time it used to take one load to dry! No exaggeration.

Not only did we get a new dryer, but I asked nicely and Brian painted my laundry room closet for me. I just thought that, since I spend so much time on laundry, it’d be nice if the laundry room were a cheerier place to be – except now I’m not spending nearly so much time on laundry. I should have taken a before shot, but here’s the after:

new dryer

See? Blue. Cheery. See that little outfit hanging up? That was the outfit that my stepdad was so excited about giving Josh for Christmas that he had to sneak and show it to me weeks before. He passed away from cancer just a few weeks after Christmas. I will never part with that outfit.

See that iron and ironing board? I can’t tell you the last time I used them. Seriously. I never iron. I hang clothes up as soon as the dryer is done so that I don’t have to iron. Brianna used it last year to iron her cosplay outfit. That was in October.

Last Saturday, Brian and I drove up to Pigeon Forge for a homeschool convention. It was a much smaller venue than what I’m used to, so it didn’t take us long to look around. One of the booths, however, was for the Titanic Museum, and they were offering drastically discounted tickets to the museum. So, we went!

Titanic Museum

We had a great time. We both agreed that we’re not sure it would have been worth the rather high standard admission price, but it was well worth the discounted rates. We’d love to take the kids and go back. My only disappointment was that you’re not allowed to take photos. I could have taken dozens.

It was so enjoyable to be able to spend the day together. We had brunch and dinner out and just enjoyed a chance to talk.

Next week, I’ll have to get busy and make myself start working on lesson plans. I don’t think I’ve really got a lot to do, but we’re using some new history curriculum and it always takes awhile with new curriculum for me to feel like I have my bearings. I’ve ordered student planners for the kids since I’m hoping to move them toward a great deal more independence this year. We’ll have to figure out how using those is going to work since we were pretty comfortable with out previous system.

I’m actually getting excited – just not quite excited enough to be ready to let go of summer break yet. Just one more week.

And in other super-exciting news (for Brianna, anyway)…my in-laws got a new car this week. So {drum roll} they passed their 2006, well-taken-care-of, low miles Honda down to Brianna. Well, technically, they passed it to Brian and I, and we’ve told the kids they’ll have equal share in it, but for now Brianna is the only one driving, so she gets to enjoy it alone for a year or so.

It’s a much nicer car than the van and much more dependable. It’s going to make a great car for her. Of course, right now, I think her favorite feature is air conditioning. That van is so not fun to drive during the summer in the South. The air didn’t work well the last several years I drove it and hasn’t been working at all this summer. I’m so excited for Brianna!

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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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7 Comments

  1. I am so with you on the ironing front. My dad, bless his heart, bought me one the Christmas before he died, with the hope it would encourage me to use it. It didn’t. But I still keep it propped up behind the bathroom door. Well, you never know, maybe one of the children will take a fancy to it and put it to good use!
    Kris, I tried to view the video (thank you for the link) but I couldn’t find it. I’m sure it’s me as I’m naff with all things computer related but you couldn’t point me in the right direction could you?

    1. Oops! Sorry! That was totally me. I gave you the wrong link. I was sent two by the speaker and didn’t realize that was the one for people who missed the presentation and might want to sign up for a different one. The recording is here: https://www.instantpresenter.com/WebConference/RecordingDefault.aspx?c_psrid=EB52D9858446

      I’m glad I’m not the only one with an aversion to ironing. I’ll never forget my grandmother one time making a comment about how neither my cousin nor I seemed to like to iron (referencing kids’ clothes being wrinkled). I didn’t respond to her the way I wanted to because of that whole respecting your elders thing, but all I could think was, “No, there’s no way I’m ironing clothes for a baby. She’s only going to spit up on them anyway.” 🙂

  2. Happy 4th! A new dryer is quite exciting! We had to buy both a couple months ago when we moved and I was so excited 🙂 LOL The things that get us happy as we get old…wiser ! 😉 I hope you have a wonderful weekend and thanks for hosting this link each week! It’s great to see what others do and know we aren’t the only ones that have a hard time letting go of breaks 😉

    1. Yeah, there was a time when I would not have gotten excited about a new dryer. This is not that time. 🙂 And, no, you’re definitely not alone in not being ready to give up summer break. Just one more week.

  3. How exciting for Brianna!!! Sound like this are going well for you this summer. I’m jealous of the new dryer. 😉

    1. Yes, I’m really excited for her. I was grown with a kid (her!) before I had a car as nice as the one she’s driving, so I hope she appreciates it. Oh, and the dyer? Love it! You’re welcome to come throw a load or two in sometime – it only takes them 38 minutes to dry. We could chat while we wait. 🙂

  4. Wow, what it would be like to go back in time and homeschool over again with all we’ve learned! And I’ve only been doing this for three years. I just keep thinking I’ll have more children until I finally get it right. Not sure my husband would agree to that, though. 🙂

    I’m holding off on my next Weekly Wrap-Up until school starts. Just one more week for us as well. I wait until all of the extra summertime activities come to an end. I guess I’m not quite ready to go with the flow just yet. I already have to deal with babies. I don’t think I could add schedule irregularities on top of that.

    No ironing around here either. My husband specifically buys iron-free shirts for work. We tend to only bust out that board when we have a wedding or funeral to attend. Enjoy you last week of break!

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