Accountability Thread 1/26-2/1

[Critterfixer]

Morning! Big planning day here: house, groceries, school, and then on top of that, I have more editing. Better get moving!

[Critterfixer]

Morning! Last week of January. Next week, let the Februaries begin! (Already have a week off planned, and if I can, I want to go see fish swimming somewhere)

Today's work: 

House-laundry, dishes, cat boxes, bed/bath

School-boys have regular work, starting new Henle, and I have Henle 1 work to do.

Cooking-chicken strips, mashed potatoes, broccoli, peach cobbler (no bottom crust)

Writing-finish editing chapters 34, 35, proof both, review synopses for this MS, send all to agent. Also a blog post, emotions exercise, some character work, and personal reading.

Art-finish that darned project and maybe start new cover art for another book that I've written, but want to do a new cover for, now that I have more experience with watercolor.

[serendipitous journey]

Morning!!! 

I've missed y'all.  I ended up deciding, last Tuesday or so, to run this Monday's role playing game and it was a huge time suck.  Plus felt weird to schedule around, you know?  As in: is it criminally negligent to drop the children's school so that I can prep to run an imaginary adventure in an imaginary world and help keep our social circle glued together?  Hope not. 

Well, the crisis that may have been developing in our group has been averted; good feelings are, if not restored, at least flowing back in; and I am sure that everybody at the table last night 1) had some fun and 2) got a bit of an ego boost from their awesome knowledge bases: I'm pretty wobbly on the actual mechanics of our games. 

And: my giant, acid-tipped dandelion puffball trap was a hit! 

So today.  Oh my, this morning hit like a sandbag to the head AND we're out of our generic-Excedrin-pills.  Ibuprofen is just not cutting it so I am glugging tea and added a little Tylenol.  Lots of tea and water. 

And this week.  !!!  MIL's birthday tomorrow, she wanted to invite a couple of guests (when she had said that no one could possibly come) and of course I am happy for them to come & her to have a friendly birthday: she is old enough that I feel like it is almost the same situation as little one's birthdays: the details will have been forgotten by the next year, but every. single. one. is a milestone & seems important & ought to be made to feel quite special.  But, real life being what it is, we also have friends coming over tomorrow afternoon (scheduled a while back) and school to do, so the birthday dinner will be good food we get from a restaurant + homemade desserts.  Thank goodness it is the love that counts.  I hope.  Also, the clean floors. 

Today: half-pace school; double-pace cleaning, exercise all around; get my act together for a fabulous, gluten-free dairy-free dessert (FWIW, butter + heavy cream + sugar & flour is, under normal circumstances, my ideal solution to any little problem life throws my way).  Be civilized loving and great-spirited to my children.  Have some time to catch  up with sweet DH, who's gotten a bit back-burnered.  Help make a space of grace. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

Met with dd for school but she's in the middle of assignments and had nothing to grade.  So really, I just sat there and drank my tea.  It was good tea though! 

[Critterfixer]

Afternoon. The boys have finished school, but I got busy with some short stories this morning and forgot to make my to-do post! Which means I have a few chores to finish this afternoon because I didn't do them this morning.

House: laundry, dishes, cat boxes

School: boys done

Cooking: none, lots of leftovers

Writing: ARGH! I sent my novel off to my agent yesterday which means I'm out of work at the moment. I revised and sent out two short stories to magazines, and I'm working on character backstory for another novel I want to revise in April, but I am so bored! And a bored writer is about as safe to leave alone as an unemployed Border Collie.

[Critterfixer]

Absolutely fine to whine. That sounds completely miserable.

First week or so of new policy is always the roughest. It sometimes helps here when I say we will evaluate how things went weekly and adjustments will be made if necessary. Most of the time, once the household gets used to how things work better with a certain amount of organization, the complaining goes down, even if it doesn't go away. It's just new, and everything new is a little tricky at first.

For me: I got next to no sleep last night. I'm probably going to stumble away from the caffeine in a moment, and then try to get my cleaning done before starting up my character work and reading today. Better to take it easy.

[serendipitous journey]

Morning! 

@happysmileylady: good on you for keeping on keeping on.  That feeling of just getting things together & then having things get hard/uncomfortable/painful again is no fun & is just cause to come 'round here and "whine".  And it is encouraging to hear about your charts & getting school & life stuff done. 

And Critterfixer, hoping for functionality for you today & better sleep tonight. 

Today is officially mellowish around here.  Just one language each, piano, memory work & exercise all around, plus chores &c.  For me, alternate cleaning & planning & get some exercise, too.  Friends are coming over this afternoon & then my MIL and a couple of her friends will be here for dinner. 

I really, really want to focus on knocking out our school and will be glad when this chunk of extra stuff is past.  Lord willing & creek stay low, we'll have several weeks in which to focus on our basics & can put any extra social stuff on hold. 

Goal for today: hit those basics, and do some work that leaves me better off when I get up tomorrow: stuff prepped, and/or planned, and/or house nice & neat, and/or meals ready to go, and definitely family members feeling the love. 

[Critterfixer]

Morning. Art for us, too.

Today's work:

House: laundry, dishes, cat boxes

School: art, math, and that's about it. We might library later.

Cooking; making pizza

Writing: 1,000 to 2,000 words of a short story, 5 pages of character work, personal reading, emotions exercise on one of my pieces. 

Art: complete exercise, start a character piece, finish a bookmark, sketch and start a watercolor of jellyfish.

[serendipitous journey]

Morning! 

This AM: a round of exercise for boys; languages + math for younger; languages + literature reading for elder; some cleaning + exercise + planning for me (ETA: note to self -- start memory work organization, look for First Form Greek flashcards), if all goes well.  PM: math for elder, literature for younger, piano and memory work, planning + cleaning, PM exercise (ETA #2: plan for 2 pages younger Greek + 15" elder Greek as my homework for a week or so). 

Y'all are inspiring me: I'm going to try & prep for art + music day tomorrow. 

DH is traveling, so I'm going to try for hamburgers for dinner tonight (DH doesn't eat beef so it is a great meal for when he's out of town). 

MIL's birthday dinner went so well!  Having her friends around softens everyone's edges, I think, so a good time was had by all. 

Edited January 30, 2020 by serendipitous journey

[Jean in Newcastle]

Graded dd's literature essay.  I first checked for spelling, grammar and sentence structure issues and made a couple of notes there.  Then I checked for thesis, supporting statements and conclusion:  not only that they are there but for the quality of the argument.  Then I looked for my grading rubric which I lost when my computer crashed last month.  I couldn't find a paper copy and my online searches were coming up with essay mills.  I posted a plea on the high school board and then my eye fell on last year's grade book.  Fortunately I had a paper still stuck in there along with the rubric so I was able to see the site it came from at the bottom left hand corner.   Phew!  So now I have used the rubric to give an actual grade that I feel is somewhat more objective than it would be otherwise. 

[Critterfixer]

Afternoon! The boys are almost done with school, and DH went to the races today. I probably ought to check in and see if he's had his corned beef sandwich yet.

Today's goals:

House: laundry, dishes, cat boxes, sweep room and kitchen

Cooking: none, eating leftovers

Writing: 1,000 words on a cute short story about swamp trolls. elves, and venomous, disease-carrying fairies. Don't ask. It's awesome and I love it. Character work for my novel. Personal reading. 

Art: background for the jellyfish, work on a character piece, maybe start detailing the background of the picture of poppies too.

[serendipitous journey]

G'afternoon! 

Well, yesterday I abandoned making-hamburger plans for ordering pizza: DH is traveling, and it bought me time to exercise + a clean kitchen. 

Today we gave art a whirl.  Good news: we have something that works for elder DS, who is in a sort of 8th/9th grade mash-up year: Klutz watercolor book + Artistic Pursuits K-3 program.  He detests the Artistic Pursuits middle school books and is having a ball with the young elementary program. so there you are. 

Younger detests his grade-level Artistic Pursuits, so I sent him off to play with Legos & listen to "Beethoven's Wig" while I brainstormed art solutions.  He does like our Ed Emberley fingerprint art book, so I just need to find the stamp pads for that.  And I think we'll substitute hands-on projects in other subjects (geography & science are ones I have some leftover kits for) for art projects in the next few terms, and I'll try to focus on elements of the projects that build up art skills.  Finally doing some art history would probably help; I have Harmony Fine Arts. 

I think that I'm going to move us toward week-long subject foci: a week of art art and poetry, followed by alternating weeks of history & science, each term.  Perhaps a week of philosophy & religious studies?  I'll float our skills work along: languages, English, math, logic, memory and penmanship.  So I need to get a schedule for that today or tomorrow, and prep us for the week of art focus.  It'll be 3/4-time school. 

ETA: EEK!  boys have done no exercise today.  So after lessons, run; our Darebee workout; and RCAF workout (those are all very, very short; we're essentially in rehab for elder). 

Notes for tomorrow: prep art week; adjust schedules to reflect the one-subject focus & print out 3/4 time schedules for next week; spend time looking at Homeschool Planet and decide whether to use it or not; prep for RPG & keep planning, exercising & cleaning. 

Edited January 31, 2020 by serendipitous journey

[serendipitous journey]

Afternoon!  Today is working through the list I began yesterday (prep art week; adjust schedules to reflect the one-subject focus & print out 3/4 time schedules for next week; spend time looking at Homeschool Planet and decide whether to use it or not; prep for RPG & keep planning, exercising & cleaning) cycling through various sorts of chores and being in recovery mode.   + locate my early-years art book. 

For next week: over the course of the week I'd like to clean out the kitchen shelves that have our school books &c and maybe make space for chemistry stuff. 

Edited February 1, 2020 by serendipitous journey