I hate dieting!

I really hate it. I've been doing horribly at it as well. Lately it seems that Ken and I start a new diet everyday. It's not that we have less will power than previous attempts. It's just that we are so tired of dieting. Losing weight and keeping it off just don't come easily for us.

Maybe I'll change the focus off of losing weight and onto eating healthier. I know that the two should go hand-in-hand, but sometimes the scale takes over and all you can concentrate on are the numbers. If you go up half a pound, you feel defeated. I wish I could convince Ken that green food is not his enemy. Unfortunately, he wasn't expected to eat them as a child and I doubt I'll ever change that.

I'm just hoping that something will click, and the desire to lose will win over the desire to eat.

On the homeschooling front, I filled out my schedule for finishing this year's school books. Since I stopped homeschooling for a few months while sick, I am now behind in all subjects. I started with 80 days left which would take us all the way through August and into September. That means we would have absolutely no break. I was able to condense the work (more per day) to get it down to 50 more days of school. Basically when we finish one book, we double up on another. Since we'll finish our science book first, we'll start reading two history lessons a day. When those are finished, we will do 3 pages of grammar a day. My goal is to finish our history, science, grammar, and Chronicles of Narnia books. During this time, we will continue with Bible, math, reading, spelling, and handwriting.

It's nice to see the finish line, even if it still seems far away. I have a goal to work toward. Thankfully homeschooling is not a sprint, but a marathon. This allows for plenty of wiggle room for our human errors and personal plights.

Great Websites

I've been cleaning out my list of favorite websites so that I can find what it is that I really like. Sometimes I add sites into "my favorites" so that I can go back to them later. When I do finally get back to them, I can't remember why I put them there to begin with. Well, I added some new sites and found some old favorites that I will be using more often. Here are a few that I highly recommend for fellow homeschoolers.



LearningPage.com~This is a great website for the early elementary age. Membership is free and they have great unit studies with plenty of worksheets.



Storyline Online~I love this website and so do both of my children. Are there ever those days when you just don't have time to sit down and read a good book to your kids? How about setting them at the computer and letting some famous person (some of whom I don't know) read them a story. You can choose from 21 picture books. There are some great books such as Stellaluna and The Polar Express.



Sheppard Software~This is a website I definitely plan to use for the upcoming school year. Although they offer many different subjects, I especially like their geography. You can study the United States, another country, or the entire world. If you wanted to learn where all of the states are, you could use the tutorial. Then once you feel you know them better, take the beginner quiz. The quizzes get harder until you are an expert on the states. They also have this option for the countries, capitals, topographical regions, oceans and continents, etc. I think we'll have a fun year of geography with this tool.

Explorer Bible Study~You can sign up for free and receive 30 weeks of bible lessons for preschool through high school. I just signed up and printed out this week's lesson for both of the kids. They will be studying the same thing at their own level. Each week, just visit the website to download the next lesson. It's as easy as that.

Have fun checking out the different websites, and let me know your favorites.

School Stuff

I bought a workbook recently to help children take the standardized test for 4th grade. I decided to pitch it. I hate it. Some of the things on their math section won't be taught until Nathan reaches pre-algebra. I actually looked these items up in the scope and sequence of his math program. This is when I learned them too. In fact, I had no clue what the answers were until I looked them up. Some of the words that the kids were expected to know were very difficult. I think vocabulary is important, but I also think Nate's vocabulary is fairly good for his age. He had a hard time with about half of the words.

This book just made me feel inferior and defeated. It also made me frustrated with Nathan for not "knowing it all." I don't want our homeschool to look like that. I know that Nathan is learning every day. This has been a rough year for us, but I don't think it has been a waste. In fact, Nathan has learned a lot this year. Here's a small list of what he's done or learned:

He's read numerous books; increasing his speed, ability, and vocabulary.

He's learned how to write in cursive, and it is improving all the time.

He memorized over 100 Bible verses.

He studied the lives of Moses, Jesus, Jacob and his 12 sons, and Noah in depth.

He learned about ancient history, going all the way back to creation.

He learned about rocks, plants, weather, and animals during science.

His spelling has improved over the school year.

He enjoyed snuggling with me while listening to a good book.

He's become a better brother while caring for his sister.

He's become a better son when I needed taken care of.

He's grown both physically and emotionally.

I'm proud of my soon to be fifth grader. We will continue on through the summer to help "catch up," but I really believe that we are just where we should be. I already told Nathan that next year will be much more tough. He will be using a strict textbook type method of homeschooling (Rod & Staff). I think he is ready for the extra load. I think he is more mature and capable of handling increased writing along with independent work. He was excited to hear about the challenge of next year, although slightly intimidated. I pray that I am continually following the Lord's lead in our homeschool.

Recent Photos

Here are some recent photos taken from one of our co-op groups. The first are taken from a field trip taken at a local nature center.

Nate climbing on top of the only natural occurring cave in Illinois. (He has the red and black jacket on.)

This is about half of the kids on a lookout over the Fox River.


The cave looks small on the outside, but we have about 25 kids in the cave.



Our group in front of the cave.


The next two pictures are from last Monday at our graduation ceremony for the kids.

We had the ceremony at one of the mom's house. She has a creek running through her backyard with a large wooded area. The kids played back there for hours, and I took home two soaked children at the end of the day. We had a great day. They're both very proud of their certificates.

Recent Events

I know it's been a long time since I've blogged. Depression has really gotten the best of me over the past month and I don't feel like doing much out of the regular day-to-day. Anything extra is out of the question unless my family encourages me with a swift kick in the tush.



Here are a few of the things I've been doing or dealing with lately. First, I'm trying really hard to lose some weight. I cannot completely blame the meds. or my illness for my weight gain, but they do play a role. I'm currently doing the Atkins diet to work on losing at least 25 lbs. I'm down 5 lbs. so far. I'm not crazy about the diet, but it seems to help me get the weight off without thinking too much about the food I eat. I was just given 8 large garbage bags filled with clothes for about 2 sizes smaller so I must lose the weight to try on all the new clothes. Yeah! Nothing like new clothes to help me stick to a diet.



We have been trying to get outside on the nice days lately. Here are some pics of the kids at the park near our house. We have plans to get together with other families over the summer to go to the park together also. I think it's important to keep Nathan and Katie in touch with their homeschool friends throughout the summer.

Katie gravitates toward the sand as usual.

Why do kids like to climb the slides so much?

Nate on the far side of the park at the basketball hoop. Thankfully we have a hoop at home because this area is usually ruled by the high school boys. He likes to play here while they're in school.

We also went to our first baseball game of the season. It was actually a doubleheader because they were rained out the night before. It was very windy and a tad cold, but we had fun anyway.

Nate was given a ball by one of the coaches during their warm up.

Katie loves to wear my sunglasses. She's so cheesy!

The Cougars won the first game.

They lost the second.

The end of a school year means a slow down in activities. One of our co-ops ended last week and our other co-op ends tomorrow. We have a final get together and the children receive end of the year certificates. Awanas finished with an awards night. Both Nathan and Katie received awards for finishing a book. Katie learned 25 verses this year and Nathan learned over 100 verses. Nathan also was given McDonald's bucks for learning the most verses out of his fourth grade boys class.

I'm hopefully creeping out of my funk that I've been in lately. I pray daily for God to continue to heal me and help me each day to do my best. There are days where my best is homeschooling, cleaning house, playing with the kids, running errands, and having dinner on the table when Ken gets home. There are also days where getting out of bed, reading with the kids, brushing my hair, getting dressed, and ordering pizza is about the best I can do. I'm lucky to have such a supportive family that looks out for me and helps me through the rough patches.