changes

Life is full of them. Some good. Some bad. Most are never what you thought they would be and certainly never expect!

This week has brought some changes to our home!

We have started homeschooling full time. We are preparing to pull the girls from public school next week with the official letters to the state and local school district. My oldest daughter has started reading "Little Women" and "Narnia". She is already done with the first "Narnia" book and moving rapidly thru the 2nd book. She is struggling a bit with the words in "Little Women" and finding it a bit boring. I have promised her that once she reads most of it I will rent the DVD and let her watch it. Maybe that will help her with the manner of speech of the 1800s.

Hubby has more work than he can do with is job thanks to a re-ordering of the company. Which is good and bad. The good is he is working massive amounts of overtime so the paychecks are nice. We will be able to finish up remodeling our home after all from the looks of things!! But of course so much overtime means he is not home but to eat and sleep and we are missing him dearly. The new stress of added jobs that the other workers left unfinished is starting to weigh heavily on his shoulders. Right now there is too much work and not enough men to cover it and this time of year hiring new help is hard to come by. We are praising God for once again providing for us!!

With starting school and soon 4H I have decided to declutter in a huge way. The children and myself are finding it hard to stay on task with school when there are piles that must be moved just to use the table, or laundry needing done, or biggest of all tons of toys cluttering the floor making it nearly impossible to walk without tripping and someone getting hurt. We have been talking for years about simplifying life. Getting down to the basics of what we 'need' instead of what we 'want' or think we need. It will be hardest on the kids as they are pack rats with enough toys for a dozen children crammed into their rooms. But I confess to owning things for the kitchen or for those formal dinners that I might someday have but in all honesty the things have not seen the light of day except when we packed for a move. I know there will be big objections on somethings as some see them as keepsakes or too valuable to get rid of. What is the value of things though when they are just taking up space, never used for fear of breaking them, or for 'someday when...' and someday never comes. It is time to stop hording up treasures on earth. Our excess it someone else's need.

But ask anyone here and the biggest change this week is with our toddler! We have always had issues with trying to get our children to go to bed as toddlers. With the girls hubby spent hours sitting by their beds until after a few months they could drift off to sleep on their own. Not something we were looking forward to with our son. Then a few nights ago he was very upset and crying because he had missed his daily nap and causing quite a scene. Without thinking I said "go to bed" and to hubby's and mine surprise he did! He went into our room and crawled into his bed, arranged his toys and covered up. Within minutes he was fast asleep! Since that night he has been easier to get to bed and we are hoping it continues. Time will tell.

We will be starting a new schedule come next week. I must get more organized if I am to home-school the children and get the house running properly. We need to be able to be on the go at a moments notice and be flexible enough to have late dinners if hubby's work schedule does not slow down.

I will probably post my schedule and ask for feed back as I am not very good at keeping on task.