thoughts
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January Diary Post
If I just start writing, then it is as if I never disappeared, right? Let’s recap, shall we… I stopped participating in external review organizations. I added a fifth child to my duckling repertoire. We decided to go with school-in-a-box plus other frosting on top. My Enginerd is working from home, which is blissfully wonderful. We have taken hiking adventures and cabin camping to the mountains of North Carolina, east Tennessee, and camping journeys through northern Arkansas, and more. We are loving off-roading and Overlanding. When I say camping, I mean tent and freezing 2 am bathroom runs in a full moon, no glamping for us. I now have two…
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Now! Jump to revamping with a little blast of that awesome blogging genius
Does anybody remember when blogging was just a fun hobby without so many complicated dos and don’ts? Man, do I. Once upon a time, about 14 years ago, I started a blog with a long name title of Creative Madness that makes me myself because, well, why not… after a few months my craft blog turned to book reviews and after a few years I went from maternity to baby and on to homeschool and children’s books. All of those things are still me. All of those things are bits and pieces that I’m glad to talk your ear off about, but blogging became complicated. Blogging became complicated Well, that’s…
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What I’m Stitching: August 2020
In June, I last gave you an update on my stitch-y progress and WIPs (works-in-progress), therefore, I guess it is about time that I got caught up here again. If you’re interested in these posts, let me know and I can make them a priority more often. I’m not sure I ever admitted as such but I stopped making flosstube videos because it seemed I wasn’t making much for an audience. If you are interested in those, let me know and I’ll consider it. It has been about two years, I did a few Instagram IGTV videos since and a new baby from those old videos. Okay, pity party over,…
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What We’re Reading in Our Homeschool: August 2020
It is incredible to believe that the last time I gave you a full update on what we’re reading in our homeschool was around St. Valentine’s Day. Unless of course, you count the odd post on epidemic reading, what a strange year this has been. However, the school work continues and so does our reading list. There are so many things that I could talk about here. For the most part, I’ll let our Instagram memories tell the story. I am trying hard to take a picture when I finish a book. I have not succeeded across the board but I’m getting a decent start with it that way. In…
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Goals for the New School Year 2020-2021
New School Year We run a little one-room schoolhouse. My students are learning how to be life-long learners and we study year-round. Right now, we are transitioning from one year to another in some subjects, other subjects will need a bit longer to complete. Unlike a traditional school, when the school year ends your time ends, we can use as much time as we want and continue or cease the study when we are ready. We have a baby in the house who is focused on teething and learning to walk as he has mastered the craw. An excellent snuggle buddy and distraction for all. Viking Dragon (9 months) This…
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Fifth Grade Check-up and grades
*drafted on July 21st, 2020 Does the feeling of constantly being behind ever leave you? We are headed in a million different directions and I’m always looking ahead with excitement. My current Fifth Grade going on Sixth Grade student is my oldest daughter. She is ten going on eleven, this summer. This year we started strong had about 7 weeks of illness in October, had a baby, caught another illness for 7 weeks or more from February to April, and then just life. First Form Latin (Memoria Press): Today, we worked together through Section I of Lesson XIV. She is starting to get the hang of going back to using…
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ICYMI: Very very very very very very bad sprain
View this post on Instagram So, uh, I did a thing today. X-ray apparently says not broken, which is yay. But… it hurts, a lot. 😭😖😩 Now, what about that baby who is getting into anything and everything? What about that toddler that is in the midst of potty training and causes chaos for attention? How am I supposed to track down her mischief? How exactly am I supposed to get him in the night, when I can hardly get to the ladies room, hop hop.hopping… 🥺😕 It is going to be a long few weeks. Give me your best severe sprained ankle tips!!! 📣📣📣 A post shared…
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I’m allergic to the flu shot…
No, really. My doctor has told me to forever refuse and acknowledge that I am allergic to the influenza vaccine. In 2017, I had a baby in the late spring, early summer. In late summer, I had my annual influenza vaccine. I thought I was going to die. My responses were so out of it. As a mother to four now, I was exhausted and tried to write it all off as newborn post-partum exhaustion. It was until nearly three weeks into flu-like symptoms that I tracked it back and emailed my doctor and told my doctor all about it. I figured my doctor would tell me it was just…
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October 2007 to now (May 2020)
It was in October of 2007, I wrote my first real blog post about quilting. Later that month, I also wrote my first bog book review. I think it was September that I discovered Goodreads and the world of book review blogging. Over the years my main topic has varied. Quilts, cross-stitch, books, maternity, newborn, homeschool, and back to cross-stitch again. Before this blog, which started on Blogger in 2007 and moved to WordPress in 2010 (I think), I wrote a diary blog on Xanga. I searched for it the other day, it doesn’t seem to exist anymore, my blog not Xanga. For years, I was on a roll and…
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What We’re Reading in Our Homeschool: January 2020
A few weeks ago, I really enjoyed writing about what we were reading in December 2019 and now it is time again to write about what we are reading for January 2020! Reading much lately? In an effort to be more routine and sharing with what we are up to I am trying to take inspiration from those that inspire me such as Candice from Homeschool on the Hill. While she is a vlogger and I am more of a written blogger she has great routines with sharing their homeschool experiences. One of which routines I want to pick up is discussing what we are reading in our Memoria Scholé Academy…
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Homeschool Update: January 2020
How are things going in your homeschool? This is what we have been doing in our homeschool in December 2019 and January 2020. Right now is still a time of transition with a new baby at home. Beyond just having a new babe in the routine, things had also been pushed a bit off track since in October we went out of town for a little over a week and returned home with a stomach virus that lasted a fortnight and was followed by an equally as long upper respiratory infection of croup that was passed between the children. All of this followed by prodromal labor, the birth of our…
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So, you had a baby.
Hey. October through December has been quite the whirlwind. I did not have a Halloween baby, nor did I have a Thanksgiving baby, I had a beginning of November babe. I can hardly believe that December is coming to a close and the new 2020 year is right around the corner! So, I had a baby. The birth of a baby can throw any routine out the window and we have been incredibly blessed through a very different situation. All of my children have been early with the Mermaid Warrior being the earliest at 35 weeks. Well, the Dragon Viking made it past 35 weeks all the way to 37…
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What’s up mama readers?
Can you say it’s been a long year? Yet, at the same time I’m having a hard time believing it is so near to the end of 2019 and I’m starting to plan for 2020. This year started with a horrid sinus infection from a tooth infection that took five months to accomplish treatment and a root canal even though I knew what it was as of December 26th last year. As soon as that was in the works to be taken care of and I thought that I would start back with forward progress on my health journey (I lost 57 lbs in 2018) we discovered we were pregnant…
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Our Homeschool Space
When I first started organizing things to teach my girls I planned to share my crafting space, the Quilting Den, to teach and for a while that worked well. That is where I have the oil drip pan fastened to the wall for magnetic letters. The wall in that room holds our pocket-chart calendar and our pretty big pocket-chart that can be used for sentence strips or anything in between. My large font clock is in there with the adorable colorful pastel numbers per minute changes taped around it and more. After a while, we moved out of there, because in the summer it is not a comfortable place to…
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August, oh August, what am I to do with you?
I just heard that the local library has announced their homeschool activities and I’m hoping we can perhaps make those a routine as they start-up in September. I have downloaded a plethora of backlist and new released Christian Historical Fiction titles and I’m on a Mary Connealy and Karen Witemeyer kick. In the Crew review world, we are working on CTCMath, which may be our overall math choice for the year to help with the chaos that this fall is going to bring as well as dipping our toes into Music Appreciation, Easy Grammar, and Times Alive. I haven’t so much as lifted a needle in quite a few weeks.…
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Mid-year check-in?
Goodness me, it is hard to believe that it is birthday season again! Although, as of this Thanksgiving we will have a second birthday season it seems both for the parental units as well as the newest addition. The kiddos are going to be 10, 8, 5, and 2 by the end of August and I’m really getting in gear planning for the new year. I’m not sure if I’m nesting or just summer-end new-year prep planning. But either way, lots of things are going on! Many large haul library trips have filled hours with entertainment and soon we will need to buckle down and study organized tasks and a…