Cindy's Life as She Knows It

Today would have been my father's 84th birthday.  What I wouldn't give to be able to visit my childhood home and find him on the corner seat of the couch watching All in the Family or Star Trek and see his smile, watch his very blue eyes twinkle and give him a big hug.  He was a vibrant, fun loving man who was crazy about his daughters and his grandchildren.  He made some mistakes in his life, but he was learning from them as he got older.  He loved the fire department.  He loved bowling.  He had so many friends!  He was Lou Boeh!! and sometimes he was larger than life.  He was a good time.  He lit up a room. Sigh.  I want to write about alot of memories I have of him.  I want them to be here for my children to see because my girls were young and I am sure some of their memories have grown fuzzy and my sons and my grnaddaughter have no memories of him to cherish at all, but I don't have the time right now to add them.  I know...

I have been thinking alot about resolutions lately.  It's that time of year, but my reflection this year is much more intense than in years past.  I have had a tough year emotionally and I have learned many things about myself.  I am strong, but not as strong as I had thought.  I have found my strength depended alot on other people and that this is not a good thing.  Other people have other agendas.  Children grow up.  Spouses are independent of you and may have ideas that differ from your own.  My most important of resolutions this year is to get a little bit stronger every day so that when I need to stand on my own two feet and take care of me, myself and I, I can do it.  I love my family and I am devoted to them.  I have nurtured them for 28 years now and I am proud of who they are and who we are as a family.  This year I realized that I am not proud of some of the things that I am without them.  They look to me to be strong...

Twas two weeks before Christmas and all through the house not a present was wrapped up, barely one in the house.  The stockings are stuffed in the box in the hall, but the decorations they do hang up high on the wall.  The granddaughter has pushed every button around to get all the animatronics to make a loud sound.  And I in my pjs and dad in his jeans, are hoping to hurry and fulfill everyone's dreams.  With wrestling on Wednesday and basketball too, the shopping has waited and now it's a zoo! But when Christmas Eve comes and Santa drops by, I am sure that everyone will take a deep sigh. The presents will be tucked safely under the tree, I will head to my bed....Merry Christmas to me!

We woke up this morning to another dreary, gray day so getting started was slow.  We finally got motivated to do morning work around 10am and then watched a Netflix video on dinosaurs while Dakota had some imagination time with his dinosaurs on the floor.  That's not something that happens much anymore now that he is older, so it was nice to see.  Afterward, he got to do a Dino Dig kit that I had gotten at the store.  It doesn't seem to matter what company I get these from, they are always harder than they look and the darned dinosaur bones are minute....putting them together in "puzzle fashion" tomorrow will be great fun... After lunch we read/sang Christmas songs that we had books for and then read a review book on ancient Egyptians. We will be moving on to mummies and pyramids tomorrow and hoping to pick up the pace before the holiday arrives on this unit.  Some math, spelling and a Christmas Across the USA unit later, we were both done.  I am so ready...

Today is a dreary, cold, rainy Friday and Dakota and I are just not feeling alot of schoolwork.  I am right there with him in the "I'm tired and feeling lazy" vibe so currently he is reading his Magic School Bus Dinosaur Detective chapter book and I am on the computer.  He has only painted a wreath and watched a Magic School Bus holiday video so far. Natalie just went down for her "long winter's nap" lol.  It's blessedly quiet save the thrum of the dishwasher going in the background. Yesterday we got in alot of work.  He did all his morning prep work, we made a dino fossil out of plaster of paris from his MSB kit and read about Tyrannosaurus Rex.  We worked on a dino packet and some history worksheets, got in some math, wrote a letter to Santa, read a Christmas book and some other things.  I think today I am going to be a couch potato with him and start the weekend early.  Our house is decorated inside with lots of fiber optic trees and snowmen, Winn...

Monday was the start of a fun new group learning experience for Dakota.  Sometimes it gets a little lonely being an only child homeschooling so we have invited a family with four kids, 8, 7, 5 and 4 and a little one, the same as Natalie to come over on Monday afternoons and work with us.  Yesterday we worked hard in the morning to get our Magic School Bus dinosaur science unit started doing a sequencing activity about fossilization,got our math and reading in, so we could be ready for an afternoon of history learning following the Story of the World, Volume 1, the first few chapters. Our friends arrived at 12:30 and we got right down to learning.  We started with a group discussion about the Egyptians and the Nile, talking about the nomads, the fertile crescent and the story of King Menes.  Then we read Chapter 3 about hieroglyphs and cuneiforms and used another book to learn about Rosetta Stone.  I gave each of the kids a piece of tagboard that I had cut...