Category Archives: Management

About doing and coordinating

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Another Amazingly Productive Day!

It started yesterday, and is nearly done today: the house transformation.

And we had a cool Christmas, too.

I stayed up late moving some furniture and finishing a little “Melody” dollhouse doll (each family member had a doll in their stocking) to go with the dollhouse we gave the girls this year.

Both girls loved their little parka dolls from Teena, making up elaborate stories all morning, and Elisha asked for his new puppy toy to sleep with during nap.

Yesterday Jay and I brought home our new bedframe and mattress.  He assembled it last night (we’ll be buying the plywood to go under the mattress tomorrow) and I spent most of today working around the children to move the last of our room into its new home.

To update:

Last weekend, while the kids were at a hockey game with Gma Florie and Papa, we moved the bookcase and file cabinet out of the yellow room, and moved their beds in.  Over the time since then we’ve been transforming the (former) master bedroom into the playroom, and the kids’ old room into our sleeping place and my office space.

The frame we bought (we did end up buying a frame) is a double-loft with a desk underneath.  My dresser fits under the edge of the desk nearest the wall, making my workspace an L-shape, and I’ve set up the tiny built-in shelf with my small collection of knick-knacks.

My favorite thing about this rearangement is that each room (that the children use) has a very specific purpose which (psycologically, at least) makes it easier to keep it in order.

The kids have been in their new room a week now, and every night the floor is clear before they go to sleep.

They had their first day with their play-room today, and every time they left something I could (and did) direct them to go back and finish putting it away.  Thanks to having a space for e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. it was straightforward and eaisially done.

They’ll probably be 14 before they’ll know where to put everything without direction, but it’s consistently worked better than the toybox method as long as I’ve been available to direct them.

And I washed *all* the dirty clothes in the house.  After folding and putting away about three loads yesterday.

I have six baskets of clean waiting to be folded tomorrow– and everything (after today’s work) is going to be going to its real keeping place; the moving’s all done.

In a week.

It seemed both very fast, and an eternity.

I am very pleased to be finished.

Aside from the laundry (and the stuff that’s under a foot of snow now–and I’m mostly used to living without) all I have left to do is to set up my writing area.

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7 Quick Takes

Again, from Jen’s idea.

~ ~ 1 ~ ~

Jay’s talking about wanting a pellet-burning stove.  I’m asking where it will go.

I’m asking for a double bed with drawers.  It will take up less room (in our little room) than the queen-sized bed (we never use all that space anyway), and let us get rid of at least one dresser.

Both changes will make more room for book cases 😉  Eventually.

~ ~ 2 ~ ~

The cast list was sent out last week, and my name was by “doting mother,” which comes just before a list of “my” seven children (a boy, three girls and my own three kids).  This might have seemed really cool, except just a couple days before Jay had fielded a call while I was out, inviting me to play “the matron.”

Leaving aside the self-image rearrangement that I looked more like a “matron” than a lady (hmmm?) the description of the role he was given created some questions that have yet to be cleared up.

  • The role was described as comic relief
    • I’ve never actually done “comic relief” before.  My humor is more about situational stuff and wordplay.  It would be a new thing to learn.
  • Am I the “doting mother” or the “matron” who’s constantly dumping her seven kids on Cinderella (highlighting her helpless plight)?
    • The compatibility of the two alludes me
  • What is the behavior of these 7 children?
    • I have yet to see a comedy where the children behave properly
    • I e-mailed the director and said I would be willing to herd 7 children, but not 7 brats (I suppose that was horrid, but it’s true.)
    • I’ve often thought that more intimidating than unruliness (and less-frequently explored, perhaps because it’s more complex) is the “perfectly behaved” children who are positively devious and make their digs by cunning rather than brute-brattyness.
      • This possibility actually creeps me out more than spiders.  Or at least as much.

~ ~ 3 ~ ~

I have my latest project (with Christmas for the deadline): dollhouse dolls.

I was so excited to see Barbara Curtis’s post about the hugely discounted M&D dollhouse that I bought it the same day (it’s still going for under-retail now, but then it was $47.99, I think).  Local retailers ended up being out of the little dolls, so now I am in the process of making little flexible family members to live in said house.

It may even turn into an “entrepreneurial opportunity” as one owner of a sold-out shop emphatically affirmed her store would be very happy to offer locally made dolls.

(We’ll see how interested I am after I finish our own bundle)

~ ~ 4 ~ ~

I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday, considering all the delicious ways to spend a gift card, and the oddest thing happened as I cruised the section of the children’s department where I read the most.

I felt a claustrophobic tightening in my chest.  Just standing and looking at books was making me dizzy, and not in a good way.

This I’ve noticed only once before: when perusing the Lloyd Alexander section in my local library.  Dude’s got a gobzillion books out!

I can only suppose the feeling is a goulash of emotions: anticipation (someday I’ll be there), anxiety (when will that be?  When will I be done?), overwhelmed-ness (at the prolific-ness of other writers), and maybe even jealousy (at the freedom they seem to have in order to be prolific…)

I had to make myself be still and pray, waiting for God settle my mind and emotions before I could finish looking for the book I wanted that day.

Unreal, but making me again thankful I have a God who’s bigger than my emotions.

~ ~ 5 ~ ~

Once that was over I propped myself in one of the cushy chairs by their circular fireplace and worked some more on the timeline of my novel.  I had two distinct packages emerge in the process, and solved a squished-time dilemma (I’ve needed an extra day and just found where it belonged).

So, I have to give Jay’s fireplace idea some credence.  There’s a lot to be said for watching the flames.  It’s like a shower for your brain.  At least for me, having something visual and real, but inconcrete, was very useful.

~ ~ 6 ~ ~

I’ve decided I like to eat too much for weights or Pilates to be enough exercise.

Not that I eat a lot (I imagine I’ve got that under control) I just like, a lot, to eat.  And the stuff I want to eat, that I’ve been eating, has maintained me 13-lbs above my target weight (trust me when I say my target is not unrealistic, or even low, for my height).

The trick, as with all exercise, is finding something sustainable.

Free weights and Pilates are doable because I can take from books and do them in my living room.  The walking with my dog has been put on-hold because sub-zero walks are far from the motivating delight “normal” walks are.

I’ve considered a step, as I like the space requirements and exercising to music, but I’ve not taken the plunge yet.

We did see one in the same place Jay noticed a pull-up bar he wanted, so we may end up getting both together.  Maybe for a new-year’s project.

~ ~ 7 ~ ~

After looking yesterday at all three furniture stores in-town, Jay decided he wants to build the bed frame himself.

His goal is to get the main support and frame built this weekend (so we can buy a mattress and get our bed off the floor) and to design it so that a later-constructed set of drawers may be slid under it whenever they are completed.

This was the design we liked best out of what we saw, only most of these drawers were simple “friction” drawers, where you needed to drag a wooden box out of a wooden hole.

Jay knows he can do better than that, though he/we might not even have bothered, truly, if it weren’t for the exorbitant cost of new furniture.  If I’m paying over a thousand dollars for an item (we’re pushing a house-payment here!) I expect to get *exactly* what I need.

I suppose we could be considered unreasonable consumers.  But there you are: Jay will take on a project, same as me, when he knows he can do it as well, or better, then what is otherwise available.

So the bed will come before the fireplace– but I expect the next time we’ve saved some house money the fireplace will be next.

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First sub-zero Walk

-6.2 degrees F on the thermometer when I got back.

And when I got back I realized I’d been wearing my expensive birthday-present earings on a cold walk in the soft snow.

It got my heart beating imagining having to look for one of them out in the dark.

Challenges “Needle in the haystack” with “Earring in the snowdrift.”

Persistence would find either one, but not usually before the cost/benefits ratio started jumping up and down waving at you.

I lost a very special ring one year after the first snow fall.  I still question the legitimacy, now, of calling on “found ring” ads on the random chance I’d find it again.

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Story Prompts (#1)

I have this game I bought a couple years ago to use for the storytelling class I was developing at the time.

Looking for something new to do with the girls (I’m experimenting with letting Melody skip naps) I pulled it out and tried on the fly to see if I could adapt it to their level.

The gist of it is to tell a story using the elements shown on your dealt cards to reach the ending written on your “happily ever after” card.  Complicated to explain, simple enough to do.  With a little practice.

Anyway, I only got so far as to say it’s about telling a story from a card and laying out three “place” cards as examples when Natasha said, “A forest!  I have a story for that one!”  And Melody picked up the Island and said, “I can tell a story from this one!”

So I put away the other cards and came to the computer to write down what they told me.

I couldn’t type nearly fast enough; certainly not enough to catch the inflection and pauses that (seriously!) added so much to the basic stories their words expressed.  But it was only our first time, so I hope we’ll both get better at this.

Natasha’s story:

Once upon a time there was a princess and one day her father who had a beard wanted her to go to the forest.

Now, the princess didn’t quite want to go, but her father insisted because he wanted her to go so she had to go.  But because it was a dangerous place ….he made a good solution they would both go to the forest.
…

Still the king would protect.

They all loved their educational ride through the forest and one day they soon died from a very bad forest fire from a dragon that burned the whole huge forest.

Melody’s story:

Once upon a time there was a king, an island, who wanted his queen to go to the dangerous land of the deep, deep, deep stream of futures.  And there’s trolls in the water.

So the king went himself and killed all the trolls and then he walked silently through the water until he came to his home again.

The end.

“That’s the short story,” she finished, in her normal voice.

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We have a dog again.

Chocolate lab, already semi-trained, 3-years-old and loves to cuddle.

The girls adore her and we’re teaching Elisha that “long-suffering” does *not* equal asking for more suffering.

I am so thankful to have found her.

The short story: We’ve been looking at the shelter a couple times a week the last few months.  We’ve looked at a number of dogs (even tried two out in our home: one for a few hours one for almost two weeks), but this is the one who is fitting.

She was an owner surrender with “not enough time for her” listed as the reason for giving her up.  She had a restless first night and barks more willingly than we like just now, but she has been perfect with the kids, strangers and the other dogs we’ve met in class and at the dog park.

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We’re all Sick

But we’re on the way better.

On top of the general yuckiness we all feel, Melody seems to be in that rough transitional stage between keeping naps and leaving them behind.

This morning Melody desolved over something and wouldn’t tell me what was wrong.  I found her bubbling in her room and scooped her up, pretending she was my doll and crawled into her bed with her protesting all the way.

I snuggled us both under the blankets and made all the silly comments about my squeeky doll (it’s a game we play reletively frequently) until she was giggly then calm, and we just lay together getting warm before she looked at me, all bright-eyed and cheerful again and we could just talk.

It’s interesting to me how much warmth, touch (and food, to complete the Comfort Trinity) work near-magic with these kiddos.  So sweet.

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Schooling Continues

I have a passel of pictures to upload once pictures are working again, but for now I wanted to say our approach to Kindergarten has morphed a few times now.

I’m glad I haven’t been saying each thing as we were doing it, but to recap, we began with the intent of hammering out the “3 Rs” during Nap-time so that it would be just me and Natasha, and got over with quickly so we could return to “regular life.”

The difficulty with that was we were neither of us in our best mental state during nap-time, and making school just the school work was too stark for Natasha.

So we’ve shifted to doing school in the morning, and we’re doing games during “school time.”

The kids have to be dressed before 9 a.m., but can play however they like until 9, when “Performance Today” starts on NPR.  I don’t usually have the radio going during the day (I like better the control the iPod offers) but so far I like the classical music (with the commentary/introductions) for the backdrop of our working time.

I have the younger two go off and play by themselves (all my children are *very* good at this) and we alternate the reluctant writer with games and other elements of learning that I’ve been given or am collecting from my reading.

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Not Ready to Go Away

School started today all across the district, so yesterday I told Natasha she’d be starting too.

This seemed to bother her quite a bit, and she said she wasn’t ready and didn’t really want to start Kindergarten.  She was so (quietly) intense about it, I was ready to say, You’re only 5, we can wait, before I got her talking more.

“I’m not ready to be away from you all day,” she said.  “I’m not big enough.”  Poor baby thought I was going to send her away to school (and with only one-day’s notice)!  I reassured her that I agreed she was too young to be gone, and that’s why we were homeschooling.

So we sat on the porch in the sunshine during nap yesterday and talked about what we would be studying today.

Today she excitedly told the mother of a friend that she was starting school today, and the fear seemed gone.  She wasn’t really interested in knuckling down to actual work when it was time (Can we play a game together first?) but since we’re doing such a focused (limited) time of work already, I didn’t feel a need (not yet anyway) to break up our school time with games.

So we had some “calendar time” where we practiced dates and the pattern of weeks; then I set a 15-minute timer and she worked on her letter tracers while I hand-wrote with her at the table, on a scene for my novel; then I had her pick which type of reading she wanted to do today and she chose to read aloud two stories from her sister’s “Beginner’s Bible.”

She wanted a nap after that (she ‘d been complaining of a tummy ache much of the morning) and now with all of them asleep after 3, I’m stuck again in my “mother’s quandary” of needing to actually wake a quiet house…so they’ll be ready to sleep at bedtime.

*sigh*

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Trying again to say this (Homeschooling from scratch)

I don’t want anyone to worry about my children’s education.

That said, I’m not very good at expressing myself when I attempt to dispel concerns.

Last Sunday a retired teacher noted the rapidly approaching school year and said, “I bet you’re really busy planning now!”

Did I say, “I began researching in January, stopped buying materials in March and simplified my curriculum in July”?

No.

I told this career K-2 teacher that no, I wasn’t in the midst of planning, that I was only going to focus on reading, writing and arithmetic (feeling that’s plenty for a 5-year-old), and as Natasha can already read and we do other activities together already, “school” wasn’t going to look much different than life right now.

I know this lady trusts me, but I bet you a nickel she’s trying really hard not to worry right now.

I love the books I collected for teaching, but the reality is that at this point they are more for my comfort and enjoyment than to apply on my own child (just yet).

Tomorrow I will be attending a meeting for “independent homeschoolers,” a group defined mostly by it’s members’ choice to homeschool apart from state aid or direction.

I’ve been asked by a number of people (usually more than once!) why I’m not “taking advantage” of all the “great programs” that are designed to “give me money” to “do whatever [I] want.”

The easiest out is the one my mom suggested  yesterday: it’s genetic.

Mom taught (and I learned) out of a random-yet-comprehensive collection of books salvaged from the school district’s annual text-dump (that, unfortunately, it doesn’t do any more).

My one experience with a structured curriculum, with daily assignments and a set amount to get through in a year was Calvert.  Two years actually: 4th and 6th, if I remember right.  I hated it and hope I would never do that to my children.  There was just this unmitigated *weight* of never being done.  Ever.  It just dragged on and it was impossible to get ahead.

And I thought it was horribly wasteful– you couldn’t use the curriculum or any of the books from one kid to the next (I’d never have the pleasure of watching my little brother re-live my misery) but had to re-buy the whole set for the next kid.

Anyway, I’ve been told there are other experiences to be had, but  as the mom/teacher, I’m going to stick for now with what I enjoy.  And that means playing at school before I need to, in order to prove to myself and anybody who cares that I can do this without someone “official” hanging over me.