Alison Hodgson

Expert on the etiquette of perilous times.

Today thus far

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Have done:

Awoke to sinus pain at 2 a.m.

Read a book until some time after 5 a.m.

Passed out again

Crawled out of bed at 8 a.m.

Rescued two toads from the love of the Bean

Taught school

Made a run to the pharmacy to get meds for allergies

Commanded everyone to wear shoes whilst in the construction zone

Removed the last of the cedar shakes

Had a long phone call regarding a ministry for which I volunteer

Busted up a brawl between the homeschoolers that broke out while I was on the phone

Gave First Aid to a Bean who slipped off her shoes and sliced her toe in all the excitement.

Negotiated peace between the warring parties

To do:

Take a Bean to the doctor for a tetanus shot

Go to the library

Shop for groceries

Make dinner

Workout

Launder all of our laundry

Pick up the dining room and our bedroom

Walk the dog

Sleep through the stinking night

Twenty-first day of school

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The pool is blue! Paul and I can, once again, hold our heads high…well in this regard.

School is out. We got a late start, but worked hard and and finished early. We still haven’t moved our schoolroom back upstairs. Today I called every one up to help me carry the cedar shingles downstairs. Why did we have cedar shingles? Brace yourself. Just because walls of every sort of paneling, faux brick and faux rock were not enough, the former owners just had to have a wall of cedar shakes.

If I was that sort of blogger I would have taken extensive before pictures…I didn’t. Picture hideous and be satisfied. You can’t handle the truth. I certainly couldn’t. The kids and I are going to be redoing our schoolroom this week. A month ago they help me remove the shingles. Today we put them in the garage and tore out the carpet in the front of the room. Our upstairs is one giant 55 foot long room, but about a third of the way down there is a step up. We have the declared the schoolroom the first third and plan to take down the wallpaper, paint the paneling, the walls and the floor and, hopefully, have a skylight installed and call it good for now.

I want to do this with the kids, for this to be our project and to have fun working together. Paul and I were both taught that work is long, arduous and fraught with anger, frustration, bitterness and fear. We started to teach what we knew and then decided to learn something new. We’ve been working on our work ethic the last year. I want the kids to know that work is just another way of being together and that we all – oh dear I am beginning to sound like a bad corporate employee campaign – who cares.

What if I really believed that Together Everyone Achieves More? Seriously, what if my kids, and Paul and I really GOT that there is a work God has begun in us as this little family and that it will only be brought to fruition as we love and value each other, as we fully receive each other. That’s what I want. I want my kids to know that together we have a work, that only we get to do and I want us to look for it and then do it with joy.

The Electric Slide

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It’s not in the curriculum I purchased, but it’s on the agenda this year for the homeschoolers. I have never learned it, although I have gotten really close at the back of many a dance floor during wedding receptions throughout the years. Just when I am starting to get the hang of it, the song ends and another couple years pass before I am able to have another go.

No more. The whole family is going to learn it, Paul on down to Eden. I mentioned this in passing to my brother, Nathan, and the phone went silent “You shouldn’t tease people, Alison,” he said after a moment.

I assured him I was dead serious.

Now I just need to find an instructor.

Online-ish

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Paul is wireless as he has a PC and was able to follow the online tutorial. I didn’t have the call to India in me yesterday so I am sitting attached to the modem. I heart wireless! Why won’t it heart me too?

Saturday Paul and I attended his 20 year high school reunion. It was a reunion for me too as we went to school together and I was a grade behind.

We had a great time. After the majority of people left, around 1 a.m. a small group of us sat down in the lobby and talked for hours until Paul and I got up at 6:00 because I needed to be at church at 7:30. If I hadn’t had to go, we might all still be there.

We’re done with school for the day. This is our fourth week of school. After two years of getting August blues and then starting the week after Labor Day, exhausted from a busy summer with the entire school year looming before me, I decided to change it up. We took June and July off and then started the first full week of August. That Monday I had the “Oh yeah we’re starting school, I better get my act together!” moment and then did what I could with what I had prepared.

Almost every homeschooling parent has the low level dread that his or her kids aren’t getting enough, that he or she isn’t doing enough. Starting early, or rather, shifting our year is my antidote to those poisionous thoughts. We hit walls around here, as most readers of this blog know, and that isn’t just a metaphor. (Eden will happily point to the dent in the door where I whacked it with a ladle on a dark – again not just figurative, it was a winter in Michigan – day when Paul was out of the country.)

It has been going really well. I feel like I’m cheating. Out and about I hear everyone checking in about back to school, “Are you ready?” and I breathe a sigh of relief, counting the weeks we already have under our belts. Putting in this time allowed me to start slowly and establish a routine without guilt and dread. It also frees us to take frequent breaks throughout the year and to end by Memorial Day. Cue the Hallelujiah chorus.

For now, we are focusing on Science and History, doing all the projects and every stinking experiment. And, amazingly enough, we are all having fun.

I am learning to shoulder the weight as well as enjoy the freedom that carrying the full responsibility of my children’s education brings.

But now I need to go cuddle with a four year old and read some books.