Quickie post

This is just to say I am ALIVE.

; )

Oh, man. Life feels really new these days--new kinds of hard, new kinds of good. I've started several blog posts in the past couple of months and never get them done, so let's see how brief I can be:

--Tomorrow is the second day of my third LitWits Master Class workshop. Whoo-wee!  This has been such a big part of my life this Fall, and very good. Reading good books, thinking critically, doing LOTS of writing. . . all a new challenge for me, but using my brain and doing something I enjoy really feels good.  The first two workshops--Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles were SO hard though. We were trying to do too much in the workshops, and Jenny (my dear Becky's sister--the other half of the LitWits team) and I were creating more than 20 pages of writing for each workshop. Often completely from scratch. I'd let the novel lead me naturally to the topics the students and I would work with in the classrooms--so for example, Sherlock Holmes quick naturally led to deductive and inductive reasoning, and also logical fallacies. Perfect, right? Except I didn't really know much about those things, and so I'd first have to educate myself about them, and then take what I'd learned and make it into a (hopefully) clear and instructive handout--with activities. Whew!  And of course the bigger goal of each two-day workshop was writing an essay. . . . A lot of work, but we wanted parents to feel like they were really getting a lot of meat for the price of the workshop, you know?

Well, that was not sustainable. : )  So the three of us--Becky, Jenny and I--met after the second workshop and brainstormed what would be just as good for the students but with much less work on our ends. Besides--while all that writing was important high school stuff and met the high expectations of our homeschool charter's college prep track, I imagine it would have burned out the students over time too.  And so for the November workshop, we pared it down to one in-class writing project, and a group one at that: a persuasive speech!  The novel for this month is A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, and so it could not get more perfect than the students being divided up into three groups (one representing the French Revolutionaries, one representing the French Aristocrats, and one representing the American Revolutionaries) and having to write and present a short speech with their groups in which they either defend the correctness of their stance and actions, or . . .

There I go, being long-winded! Short version: this third workshop I still had to do lots of self-educating beforehand (I had never studied the French Revolution prior), but the writing prep was SO much easier, but the kids really seemed to enjoy the first class and I have a feeling tomorrow's class will be even more fun, since they make their speeches. And then I will let them eat cake. Of course.

In conclusion: new job was very hard, now getting much easier, still work but not too much, overall one of the most rewarding things in my life this Fall, even if one of the hardest. DH is entirely supportive which of course is what makes it work.

--Schooling. The transition into high school has  been a disaster.  Too many things to say at the moment, and its my birthday and I don't feel like thinking about the negative today, but let's just say I had NO idea what I was getting into, and our homeschool charter also had to make some new rules after school had started, and my lovely thirteen-year-old daughter has not willingly complied with any of this new rigorous schedule. Homeschooling independently so we could do the work we thought was important and go at our own pace would be my ideal--and that's pretty much what we have been able to do all this time for the lower grades. But that's not an option right now, as DH wants us to stay under the charter umbrella, for many reasons, which I completely understand. But WOW has this been hard and very unpleasant. And is ongoing. And which I am finally realizing I won't be able to resolve just with my own efforts of better parenting and more structured schooling--so my wonderful school liaison Terry is so graciously stepping in and Sunny will be accountable to her now instead of me for getting her school done. I'm trying to not feel like a failure about this, but instead see it as wise use of resources. ;  )

Still, once again I'm so aware of all of the blessings wrapped up in this struggle. That we can homeschool.  That we have Terry. That we have bright kids who I need to remember God will turn out the way He wants them, if I leave over the feelings of control for their outcomes to His Holy Spirit.

--Parenting.  Yeah, it's been hard. I'd rather not go there. ; )

--Wifery.  My Dear Husband and I celebrated 19 years of marriage last month. And by celebrated I mean forgot about until the next week and then verbally acknowledged to one another. Yeah, we're not big into celebrating that. I've always wondered if there was something meaningful about that, but I've decided it means we care much more about the big picture than one day a year.  That and we're assuming we'll be together as long as we are alive, so what's the big rush celebrating. We'll do something special next year. ; )  For some reason things have been harder between us this Fall too--maybe related to the other stressors in my/our life?

--House Falling Apart. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.  I'll maybe say more about this another time. But again, trying to focus on the positive. : )

--I had a strange, chronic pain down both arms for weeks and weeks.  It was probably caused by some kink in my neck, and it made my whole upper body hurt all the time, esp. my arms and shoulders.  But just yesterday  I realized it feels almost normal again!  Yay!  But really, overall we have all been very healthy this year so far, for which I am grateful. I have come down with a bit of something a few days ago, but so far it is a mild cold, maybe a touch of fever but not bad. I can breathe through both nostrils at night, so you all know I'm content!

Yes, things have been unexpectedly hard the past three months.  But even with all that, I feel pretty good about life and the things I've still managed to get done. For example, I cleaned the house top to bottom--that end of the summer necessity. I am this week listing a whole bunch of clothes on Ebay to sell, to hopefully make a little money for Christmas. DH and I may be a bit overwhelmed with house issues at the moment, but we are also being productive, slowly taking care of things, and it feels good. I hope to show you some of our finished projects soon!

Maybe none of these things seems like a big deal, but together they have all added up to a very full and very HARD fall season this year.  I'm trusting that we are slowly getting things under control and moving forward as we can, so that we will enter the next school semester so much better than we went into the last one.

Ok, so that was long. But not nearly as long as it could have been!

It's not really what I would love to share with you all, but it seemed necessary to get any of you interested readers up to speed with life here in the little house under the redwoods.

I fully intend on blogging the BEST stuff today too. : )

Or maybe tomorrow. Or soon. ; )

Much love to you all!