HippieMommy

posted by amanda on Jan 19

Sorry for slacking… it has been a crazy week! My phone rang last Thursday, and it was the University of Colorado (which calls themselves CU for reasons beyong my understanding). They let me know that I had been admitted for Spring, even though I had been planning on starting in Fall. Ack!

So, I had to scramble like a mad chicken to get everything done in time, and I started classes Tuesday. Yipee! I spent quite a few hours beating my head against walls as we went over my transfer credits. In the ultimate exercise in frustration, they reminded me that I had 117 credits. That’s right, folks, just 3 away from my bachelors… Ugh.

With the new program it looks like I’ll have a little over 40 to do now. So frustrating. Oh well. That’s what happens when you get knocked up I wouldn’t trade it for the world though!

We’ll see how much time I have to blog. It looks like it’ll be a crazy semester. I’m one step closer to my dream of Joe and I becoming “Dr. and Mr. H”, hehe. Soon my title will be superior, bwahaha!

posted by amanda on Jan 13

We who teach should make it clear to ourselves that our aim in education is less good conduct than good character. We may mold good conduct in our children, but it is of value to the world only as it has its source in character. - Karen Andreola in A Charlotte Mason Companion

This is my quote to ponder for the week

I have often searched for the words to describe this concept, but Karen Andreola wrote them far better than I could. It seems to me like so many parents work hard on getting good conduct (via punitive methods) and yet they completely miss the goal of creating good character in their children. It doesn’t matter if you have kids who only comply. Grownups who comply and don’t have character certainly aren’t a benefit to society. I want my kids to have enough character to question authority when it is wrong. I do not want them to blindly accept what those above them tell them. I want them to be able to make decisions of good character when I am not there to spoon it to them

One of the things that I respect the most about my parents is that if they said something wrong and we challenged them, they would admit their err and dialogue with us. They were not all-knowing and all-powerful, although they were an authority in the home. Knowing that they were willing to admit their mistakes made it much easier for me to admit mine.

I am so glad that Mrs. Andreola wrote this out so well

posted by amanda on Jan 10

Last night I was reading the above book, and I had a really nice moment of clarity. Although the book was referring to not beating yourself up if something happens in life that makes it so that your school schedule gets thrown off, I realized that I do that in all aspects of my life. It is really easy for me to get stuck in my schedules and then I make myself feel like a failure for things that are beyond my control. Here is the quote that made me think

One priority is to complete most of our academics in the morning hours. Expect interruptions and intrusions - those things that throw us off schedule or prevent us from reaching a goal. This is “real life” education. It could be that Mother has another miscarriage, Brother gets chicken pox, the family car dies, the water heater malfunctions, another appliance catches fire, the house needs major repair, Father loses his job or changes jobs, and it becomes necessary to start packing boxes in preparation to move to a different town or state yet again. All of the above and more have occurred during our homeschooling years - experiences probably shared by many of you, too. Habit and order preserve weary homeschooling parents so they can keep to their original priorities and get back on track again. Getting off track wasn’t a “bad” thing, it was a “real life” thing that God will work out for good if we are truly His children. Old faithful habits make order out of disorder and leave space for both practice and play. We can be content to be God’s children through life’s challenges.

I have been focusing on “habit training” just like Charlotte Mason encourages us to do for our chlidren. This is something that I would like to work on as well. I used to be very flexible in my plans and then I rebounded a bit too far in the opposite direction. I need to work on a happy middle ground.

On an unrelated note: my emails are acting funky, so I’m going to wait on the chore list until I can get it working. Silly servers.

posted by amanda on Jan 4

Well, I decided that it only makes sense for me to start taking some small steps towards my goals, so I’m going to try to do something each day

In order to advance myself on my goal for finishing a triathlon, I signed up for classes on lane swimming. It covers etiquette and other things that I never learned, despite swimming nearly every day when I was growing up. We had a pool, so we swam in there, or we swam in the ocean. Lap swimming is whole ‘nother kind of beast.

I am also trying to select my race. I think I like the looks of the Prospect Lake Triathlon. I am just not sure about swimming in the lake. Its a man-made lake that they just finished, but it seems a little… icky. I’m not a swim-in-the-lake kind of girl. We’ll see though, maybe I’ll become one by the end of this

Oh, and I’ll need a good bike, although I think I can borrow my friend’s. So many decisions, but they can wait for another day. The point is that I’ve taken one small step toward my goal! Now I need to go run

posted by amanda on Jan 2

Hey, everyone needs some, right?

So here goes:
Spiritual Disciplines
Quiet Time
I want to continue my quiet time schedule, but I want to add to what I’m doing. Last night I prayed first that God would give me a verse that dealt with what I was struggling with, and then I wrote the verse and prayed over it. I really liked that, because it helped me to focus more on listening and not just blabbing all of my thoughts to God I’m already involved in several Bible studies, so I’ll just keep up with that and hopefully allow extra time for God to guide me in a more free-flowing kind of way. Its not like I think God can only speak to me through the book of Luke and Beth Moore studies

Fasting
This year I’d love to get into a regular fasting schedule. It doesn’t necessarily have to be food, but I would like to fast something at regular intervals (how’s that for vague?) I need to pray about this one some more. My hypoglycemia may make fasting food a difficult venture, but we’ll see.

Exercise
I want to continue to work out 1000 minutes a month. I’ve been doing pretty good with that schedule, and I like the day-to-day freedom that it allows

Oh, and I’d also really like to get a triathlon under my belt this year. We’ll see how my lane-swimming lessons go. I grew up swimming ALL THE TIME, but I’ve never done laps, so we shall see…

Household Duties
Ahh, my beautiful, feminist friend would love this category, hehe.

For my chores, I think I’m going to go back to my old system, because it worked the best for me. I made up these really cute printables a few years ago, and I’m just not sure which one I should use. I have them both in my notebook and right now I just go back and forth between them. What do you think?

ETA: they don’t shrink down very well, so I’ll include the full-sized links when you click on them. You’ll just have to take my word that when I print them, they are pretty, even if the shrunken ones aren’t, hehe.

#1

#2 (More complex, but I like it better - the images are based off of the household notebook at www.organizedhome.com)

All of my unfinished projects
Um, I’d like them to become finished projects instead

Personal Growth
I really want to continue to get over my anxiety issues and work on my tendancy to be critical. Its not that I want to continue teaching myself to not say them, but I want to work on changing my thinking altogether.

Educational Goals
Hopefully I will be returning to school. We just have to pray that the timing and finances work out. Either way I want to continue in TWEM

OK, I’m off to clean clean clean. I’ll keep adding to the list!