Weekly Wrap-Up: The One Where I Was Stressed

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I am doing the happy dance today!  Finally, it’s Friday!  This has been one of the busiest, most stressful weeks we’ve had in awhile.  It wasn’t bad, really, just busy — that’s the part that stressed homebody me.  I’ve had trouble just keeping my head above water.  It’s just been a combination of a lot of outside activities, plus really getting behind on Tuesday, our one day that should have been pretty calm.  The laundry is behind, the house is a disaster, and there’s still a volleyball game to get to tonight and groceries to shop for at some point — I bet many of you can relate.

I don’t say all that to be a downer, just to express why I am so thankful that it’s Friday.  Tomorrow, I’ll finally have a chance to get caught up and have a little breathing room.

School-wise, it was a pretty good week.  Brian was off on Monday, so he was able to take Brianna to her Spanish class while Josh, Megan and I stayed home and got some of their schoolwork done.  We were studying the Industrial Revolution, so we’d planned to make a model cotton gin.  Then, it started storming — a really bad storm — and the power went out.  So, we just lit some candles and carried on.

I thought the cotton gin model turned out really nice.  I let go of my control-freak tendencies and let Josh and Megan do the majority of the work with minimal instruction.  All I did was spray paint the box and cut a couple of holes in it with the X-acto knife.  Josh was in charge of putting the “teeth” in the…um, roller thing.  Megan was in charge of gluing seeds (popcorn kernels) to the cotton balls and drawing the grid on the “screen.”  We were all pretty pleased with the final result.

cotton gin

After Brianna got home, the girls and I took a trip to the library.  I love our local library — the people are generally nice and, now that they’ve joined the statewide system, it’s pretty easy to get whatever book you might need…unless you have to look for a book in the easy reader section.  Oh, my goodness that section is such a mess!  I finally had to give up on a couple of books.

Tuesday was another fun, hands-on kind of day — other than the getting off track starting with a phone call from Brianna’s Spanish teacher which resulting in spending extra time helping Brianna with a couple of problem areas in Spanish identified by said phone call, and managing to make two of my kids cry before lunch.  Yeah, lovely morning.  Thankfully, though, we all regrouped and the rest of the day went really well other than being totally off-track time-wise.

 Josh and Megan are learning about the five senses in science, so I set up a science lab with different “stations” to explore each of the five senses.  At each station, they were allowed to use only one sense to identify an object — cotton balls for feeling, bells for hearing, Hershey Kisses for tasting, etc.  It took a little while to set up, but was well worth it.  Both the kids really enjoyed the lab.

science lab

Oh, and being the boy he is, Josh identified the vinegar (apple cider) as “pee.”  Um, yeah, Josh, getting a sample is why it took me a little while to get the lab set up.  Not!  *sigh*  Boys.

Wednesday and Thursday were just blurs of rushing, though I did take time out on Wednesday afternoon to go see Eclipse with my poor, deprived sister who hadn’t seen it yet.  Hey, they were down to one showing a day at the cheap theater; I had to go soak up one more viewing if I’m going to make it until the DVD comes out in December.

Speaking of DVDs, don’t forget to register to win a copy of Your Backyard, a beginning guide to identifying 18 common feeder birds.  It’s an incredible DVD that was produced by a homeschooling family for homeschooling families.

That’s our week as best I can remember since most of it was in fast forward.  How was your week? Be sure to post about it and sign up with MckLinky. If this is your first time to join us, be sure to read the Weekly Wrap-Up guidelines. You can also follow the guidelines link to grab the banner code, if you’d like to use it.

**Remember, be sure to link directly to your Weekly Wrap-Up post so that others can find it easily when they visit your blog and be sure to post a link back here so that your readers can find the Wrap-Up and join us.**

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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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17 Comments

  1. I get stressed doing too many things too. 🙁 But the cotton gin looks awesome! It is so hard to let go, but they did a great job.

  2. Yes, so glad for you that it's Friday! Put your feet up – you've earned it 🙂

    The Crowe family are dear friends of mine – went to high school with Kellie. So proud of them! Everybody needs to own a copy of that wonderful Your Backyard resource.

  3. Tuesday, Schmoozday….thankfully it was just a day and the rest of the week went better. 🙂

    We had one sick kid this week so it was nice that he was a little ahead of schedule and could take it easy.

    Thanks for hosting.

  4. I am stressed for you, just reading all that you have going on! That cotton gin looks amazing and it's obvious that plenty has already been accomplished in your home this week. 🙂

  5. Thanks for the link to the video. On my way to check it out.

    I wanted to say sorry for my weird link title. I put in an apostrophe, and it posted as something that looks like I was trying to use a code for an expletive. No bad words intended! lol

  6. I love the cotton gin — especially the "roller thing." It's my favorite part. I also thought the five senses experiment was fabulous!

    And I ditto you on the busyness=stress. I'm a homebody, too, and when we're rushed and busy, I feel so chaotic.

  7. Yes, a stressful week at my house too. I'm sorry it was so chaotic for you, but it seems like you still got a lot accomplished! Days when I have to leave the house always throw the schoolwork for a loop.

    I'm curious, what was in the hearing bag?

  8. I have had weeks like that. I am a homebody too. I am so thankful when we get to just stay home all day.

    I love your science lab!! My kids would so love that. And, the cotton gin turned out great.

  9. Love the cotton gin. Very cool. I had a similar week. It is so easy to stretch ourselves too thin sometimes and I realized that I've been doing too much of that lately. I also made one of my kids cry this week. Gotta hate math. Really. Thanks for sharing, hope you have a more relaxed week coming up. Thanks for hosting. 🙂

  10. I've been to your blog several times now as I've followed links from others…and finally linked a post today! I'm doing pre-pre school with my 2-year-old but thought that still counts. I really liked the cotton gin (I read a book about the man who invented it, amazing!) and also the senses lab. So creative and fun-looking. I also visited your weight loss blog and it was very inspiring. What an amazing journey you've had. I'm in the boat of working on losing weight and changing my life habits. I'm going through the book "Uncommon Vessels, developing godly eating habits". I wish there was a local group to study this with.

  11. Must be something in the air! The past few weeks have been for me what your week last week was like. Very hard, difficult weeks. Thankful for what I have, am blessed with, and know that it is much, but here is praying for a better upcoming week for both of us.

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