Weekly Wrap-Up: Catching Up

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Thank goodness it’s Friday! Please tell me it’s not just me and that you, too, have noticed the weeks just flying by without a chance to even catch your breath. You know how last week I said I was going to take time over the weekend to catch up? Yeah, that didn’t even happen.

We started off Monday just as behind on housework and laundry as ever. However, thanks to a couple of days where we didn’t have to go anywhere – at all – we were finally able to start getting caught up and I actually feel like I’ve got a little breathing room now. There are still plenty of things on my to-do list, but they don’t feel quite so overwhelming.

We were supposed to spend time catching up last weekend, but we just wound up having fun instead, which is okay by me. Brianna had a slumber party with her volleyball team last Friday, so we let Josh and Megan each have a friend over. Megan wanted me to take her and her friend to Lowe’s for their Build and Grow clinic on Saturday.

Have you ever been to one of those? Megan had been a couple of times with my niece, but, since we’re not morning people, I’d never taken her. She asked me to a couple of weeks ago when we had our shopping day for her birthday and it was so fun, we’re going to try to start going on the two Saturdays a month when they’re held.

Kids build a free wooden project, which comes in a kit with everything they need to complete it, and they get a certificate and a badge when they’re done. The badges can be sewn onto their own, kid-sized Lowe’s apron, which is also free the first time they do a clinic. It’s a lot of fun!

This last week, they were supposed to build a fire truck. When we got there, they had this whole little fire safety clinic set up, complete with a real fire truck and ambulance the kids could climb through, the fire safety trailer that goes around teaching kids about fire safety, and the sheriff’s department doing fingerprints. Megan and her buddy had a blast!

The rest of the day Saturday was spent running errands – including a trip to the army surplus store that totally thrilled Josh and his friend – lesson plans, and trying to do some work on my computer. Of course, Sunday was busy with church and there we were back to Monday again.

I worked on a little laundry before school, then, we started on what proved to be the most difficult day of the week. Before the chaos started, we did manage to make these cool survival bracelets, a project that Josh really enjoyed:

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I thought it sort-of-kind-of tied in with our history unit on explorers since a modern-day explorer would probably wear one of the bracelets.

By the time Brian came home, I had to pull him in for a very frustrated “parent-student-teacher conference” about Josh and his reading. Basically, he’s tired of working back through Phonics Pathways trying to shore up weak areas, but he doesn’t like any of my suggestions about what he could be reading. He only wants to read easy things – as in, stuff that he has memorized.

After basically laying on the line what his options were – do Phonics Pathways, read a book I suggested, look into tutoring from someone other than me lest I strangle him, or go to the library and let him choose a book that I would approve – he chose to go to the library with Megan and I.

We wound up all going so that we could go to dinner afterward. I told Brian if I were a drinking person, I would have needed a stiff drink after Monday, but since I wasn’t, would he please, please not make me have to cook and take me somewhere with good sweet tea. He did. I love that man.

Tuesday was much better. In addition to school and laundry, I was actually able to get the master bath cleaned – including tub, toilet, and mopping – and get the bed made and our room vacuumed. I would have dusted, too, but a certain child who shall remain nameless who never puts anything back where it goes has lost the furniture polish.

Oh, and Josh’s reading time actually went pretty smoothly. He read the book he picked out, without complaining – and read rather well.

Megan had a very creative idea for a use for the extra paracord and the little bits of string that she pulled out of it.

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It’s supposed to be one of those beaded things that you hang in doorways. It hasn’t worked quite like she’d hoped, since the cord keeps falling off her door and the strings keep getting tangled, but I still thought it was a pretty clever idea.

Speaking of creative, Josh has been drawing things in MS Paint on his computer. I think he draws better on the computer than I do on paper. Maybe he’ll be some sort of designer someday. Can you tell what it is?

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We’ve started studying rocks and minerals this week, always a favorite. Geology studies means it’s time to pull out my rock collection.

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I’ve very proud of this collection because many of them came from a rock exchange I did with some online friends several years ago, an activity I highly recommend. Basically, you send each other interesting rocks from your part of the country. We would up with some great stuff that I never would have found around here, including flint – which we love to take in a dark room and bang together – kaolin (from which Kaopectate is made), quartz, and mica.

And, if you’re a fan of WUHS on Facebook, you’ve probably already seen our creepy spider. There’s no need for use to buy fake spiders and webs for Halloween when we’ve got this big creepy guy building them for us:

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Today was Megan’s American Girls book club meeting. She loves it! I kind of wish we’d done it sooner, but I don’t know if she’d enjoy it as much as she is now. I was so proud of her – she read the whole book by herself. Last time I had to help her because we didn’t have much time by the time we found out about the meeting and got the book from the library. This time, she had the whole two weeks, though, and read it herself.

She is so disappointed that she’s going to have to miss the next meeting because we have a field trip that day – a field trip that she was excited about until we started the book club and she found out there was a conflict.

We’ve got another busy weekend this weekend. Tomorrow, I’m participating in the Scott Kelby National Photo Walk, then, we’re going to see Courageous with our church. Our church rented out the theater so we could all go together. I can’t wait!

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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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16 Comments

  1. I can relate to you. Our weeks are flying by, I am behind on housework, and I have had two conferences with my husband concerning my son's writing (or lack of)! Ha! 

  2. Kris, I love that photo of the spider! I think your daughter's idea for the beads was great, even if it didn't work out quite as she hoped. She may need to try to tie something heavy on the bottom of the cord to get it to work better, that way each strand is weighted down.

  3. We are away for the weekend and have not done a weekly wrap up post, but I will definitely link up with you next week!  🙂

    Your rock collection looks awesome!  How fun is that!  My husband actually brought home a rock from Iraq and Kuwait when he was in the war.  That is about it to my collection, lol!  🙂

    Your son did a great job with "paint!"  It looks like a drum and cymbals to me!  My sons love fiddling with that progam. 

    Sounds like you had a great time at Lowe's.  It has been a long time since we've been to them.  You're right, it is so difficult to get them all up and out that early on a Saturday!  🙂  But, they always did have fun when we attended the workshops.

    Have an AWESOME time seeing "Courageous!"  That is great that your church is going together.  What a great idea.  I have been looking foward to seeing it for months now!  Let me know how much you love it.  :-)))

    We are away in Delaware this weekend.  My husband always takes our oldest son to a NASCAR race.  It is a fun thing they do together.  This year, we found a cottage for rent on a military base down here that would comfortably fit all of us and was sinfully inexpensive, so we made it into a weekend getaway for the other kids and I, as well. 

    Many blessings,
    Lisa

  4. Oh, I can so relate to this post….thanks for sharing and I'm with you about needing a good sweet tea and not cook days!  Blessings!

  5. Love the bracelet idea! And I hear ya about the spiders…we have lots and lots of black widows here at our house. For the first time in about 10 years we actually found 1 INSIDE the house. Eeek!

  6. I'm not especially loving the spider either, but as long as he stays in his own space and doesn't build any webs that I might walk into, we can be civil. 😉

  7. Kris, I'm so exciting about the Survival Bracelets!  My hubby teaches at a Bible camp in the summer and I've been looking for memorization prizes for the guys aged 11-15.  I think this could be the thing I'm missing!  Thanks.  Thanks for the homeschooling inspiration, too, always great to get ideas from other moms, especially those ones fresh out of the chute with lotsa' ideas and ambitions.  🙂

  8. You might consider giving the pieces needed to make the bracelets as a gift. My 11-year-old really enjoyed making them. My brother-in-law, who serves in the military, said all the guys in his unit sat around making them at their last training weekend. It's relaxing, fun, and fairly easy once you get the hang of it. The boys at Bible camp might enjoy making their own. Just a thought.

  9. My first comment disappeared into cyberspace, so I will try to remember what I wrote!  🙂

    I love your rock collection!  The only rocks I have are the ones that my husband brought home from Iraq and Kuwait, but they are definitely special to me.  :-))))  That is great that you did an exchange to get them all.  What fun!

    Your son did a great job with his "paint" masterpiece.  It looks like a drum and cymbals to me. (hope I'm right!)  My kids love fiddling around with that program and it is awesome to see some of the "creations" they come up with.

    I'm glad you enjoyed the workshop at Lowe's.  That was great that they had the fire department there, as well.  I know what you mean about getting there early, though.  I took my kids a couple of times, but found it difficult to have all of them up, fed and out the door there in time.  Maybe I should try again.  It was fun and they loved the sense of accomplishment each time a new badge was added to their apron.

    I will try to link-up with you next week.  We are away for the weekend, so I didn't do a wrap-up post today.

    Hope you have a great weekend!
    Many blessings,
    Lisa

  10. The weeks are flying by so fast that I have barely gotten my feet on the ground with our school days. 

    We have our reading struggles here too- I try to tell my boys that it an muscle they need to exercise, and the more they do the easier it will get. 

    Cool spider- I actually love our spiders. I get so upset if someone sweeps their webs off the porches. The only time I agreed to getting rid of one was a black widow- although even that was super cool! 

  11. Yes, it is a drum set — with speakers on one side and amps on the other. I thought he did a great job. I'll have to tell Megan that about the beaded curtains — it might make her feel a little better.

    How is your husband's job search going? I've been praying for y'all.

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