My husband spent last week in France and Spain on a business trip. We missed him terribly while he was away. While he was touring company distilleries my mom decided to visit with us. I wish I could say it was a wonderful week but it wasn’t. Mom seemed rather miserable, enough so that even the kids commented on her lack of joy. A few times I wanted to ask her if she would rather just go home but I was afraid that she would feel insulted. I know that she is having a hard time dealing with my brother’s abandonment so I tried my best to be understanding. But the truth is I just do not understand her feelings. She took a bit of her bad feelings out on me but I just let it slide. The only people who heard about anything that was said are my husband and my friend Camie. They helped me get through the week even though they were in the far away lands of Europe and Utah.
So, while my mom was visiting and ignoring me for the most part, I tore the school room apart. I emptied every cabinet and drawer. I ended up tossing three garbage bags of old stuff! I made so much room that the kids each ended up with their own drawers. Purging feels good. I didn’t get a chance to clean out last year due to Sparkles’ illness. I also prepared my lesson bujo and finished writing my lessons for faith studies. I wrote my own lessons plan for our Christian studies this year. We haven’t studied the Bible for about three years. I could not find anything that wasn’t full of fluff. Hopefully this weekend I can sit down and post about our curriculum for this upcoming year. I also put together a science curriculum for Sparkles to help her understand her disease. I found Ted Talks and several wonderful resources to help her deal with her illness. My hope is that by the end of this school year she will have the information she needs to face her
illness and a box of fifty recipes she can turn to during flares. Her final project will be to write and illustrate a children’s’ book about UC. She is more than up to the challenge!
For the past couple of weeks we’ve completed half days of school. Our state law now wants us to complete a certain number of hours of instruction per academic year. So now I have to track hours instead of days! Stupid laws!!!
Next year my oldest begins high school. Yikes!!! I’ve got so much to figure out between now and then about college, transcripts, duel credit, ACT exams, apprenticeships…My heart hurts just thinking about it all.
We have a big weekend coming up! Tomorrow I will be meeting with a blog friend for the first time. That will be really fun! We will have more guests over the weekend. I had planned for Monday to be our first full day of school but I think I’ll just do another week of half days instead.
in pursuit of wild things 
July 27, 2017 at 8:34 am
What your daughter is doing for science study will be so helpful for others, I hope she writes it up and shares it, for other kids going through it too. All the pics, wow!! Glad your hubby is back! Cleaning is my go to for stress-relief, so purge on sista!
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July 27, 2017 at 11:29 am
You helped me last week as well. 💖 I purged a lot of old homeschool stuff recently, but from our den. (I wish I had a homeschool room! Yours is amazing. I know I’ve said that before. 😅) I love your plans for a new homeschool year. Don’t sweat the upcoming high school years. You’ve got this! Half days work just as well especially in summer. We’re still so busy here. My son left on a high adventure scout camp this morning. Oh and, homeschool laws are the worst! 😕
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July 27, 2017 at 8:28 pm
What a hardship for Shannon taking that business trip. Pictures you posted wer beautiful. Liked your selfie.
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