We try to take the time to send thank-you notes (or make phone calls of thanks) as soon as gifts arrive, even if we end up doing less schoolwork or chores because we are taking that time to do so.
For what profit it a homeschooler if he or she learns all the facts and grows up to get a great job, but isn't even courteous enough of an adult to send thank-you notes?
Some days I am excited.
Some days I do a lot of crying realizing how much I'll miss her.
I have always homeschooled her, and I was always a parent first, but in the last several months to a year, my daughter has become a true friend and intellectual companion, so it will be a real loss for me when she goes away.
She's graduated, but she actually has just a few more Physics assignments to complete for me before June, so she's technically not entirely done with her academic work.
She's working (almost full time) to pay for college tuition and housing next year. She'll be going to school without taking any loans and accumulating any debt. So she's trying to manage her Physics, household chores like laundry, and hobbies like piano in the time left over at the end of her work days. I'm giving her some advice about that, but also giving her more space to fail than I have ever given her before. Managing life and work will be a life-long struggle, will it not? I didn't make my bed on a regular basis until my thirties. I hope things will be different for her, but I realize they may not be.
She's driving herself to work now and taking trips to church or friends' houses by herself, enjoying that freedom, but also experiencing the responsibility that comes with it, too.
We're helping her formulate a budget and starting to give her access to credit and debit, etc. Lots of important, practical conversations are being had.
She applied for a lease on an apartment with the other freshman girls at her college. She's actually too young to legally be on the lease for at least a few months still, but we couldn't be more proud of the way she's stepping up and handling her business, coordinating with property managers, etc.
She's been a reader since she was four, and she is still reading enthusiastically. Her pre-ordered copy of Wes Callihan's Iliad came in the mail the other day. (See picture below.)
And she's been a writer since she was in grade school. She still writes creatively in her free time. She's up there now, typing away at another story.
She often talks to her siblings in the evenings, too. And even though they seem to get loud at just the time I wish the house were getting quiet, I let them talk anyway, since I recognize the time is precious and I love that they love each other and are actually friends.
She's generally setting a stellar example of what it means be an excellent young woman for her younger siblings who are watching and rightly admiring her. I honestly think parenting her siblings is easier for me because they watch and see her respect me and then they emulate her.
While there's some anxiety, of course, there's also an abundance of peace knowing who she is in her character and where she's headed and that the Lord is certainly with her.
Strange New World
The Garden of God
Teaching From Rest
Another Sort of Learning
Mere Christianity
Oedipus Rex
The Complete Poems of Keats
Skyward
Starsight
Books, audio and printed, I am reading or rereading:
Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh
Cytonic by Sanderson
Plutarch's Lives
The Great Tradition by Gamble
The City of God
My husband Dwayne was planning a camping trip with some male friends from church, but the friends had a family emergency, so our family decided to use the site for an impromptu camping trip instead.
The girls stayed in their own tent for the first time ever. Shown below is their attempt to put it together without our help. The eight person tent we bought when the oldest was a baby was too cramped the last time we all slept inside it, so it was time they graduated to their own tent.
This is one of my summer reading goals to improve as an educator over this break.
"One look and my stone heart crumbled; It was a valley as green as jade. I swear it was the color of hope. You've turned a stone into a rose. Hosea!" -Lyrics from "Hosea" by Andrew Peterson
There's one day in spring, maybe two, when the leaves are new, when they are still unfolding, when they are the exact color of jade. I tried to capture it in pictures.
With more margin for arts and crafts, the girls usually watercolor every other day of summer vacation.
They often like to follow along with Let's Make Art's You Tube tutorials.
With the right supplies on hand, assorted paints, watercolor paper, brushes, etc., they can do any project.
On Mother's Day, after church and Bible study, Dwayne took me brunch without our kids. As we left them home to make their own lunch, our oldest made a remark such as, "So basically, on Mother's Day, you want to a break from mothering." She was speaking in jest, and we all had a laugh, because yes, that was the truth of it. At brunch, I had my first Bellini made from Prosecco and peach nectar. Wow! Actually, I probably had my first three Bellinis, since the waitress continued to fill my glass as I sipped. It was a lovely drink, a lovely brunch. Later, I had a long nap and awoke to work on my jigsaw puzzle while listening to an audio book. Altogether, it was a lovely, delicious, restful Mother's Day 2022.
My three students, including my oldest daughter, wrote twenty page thesis papers on topics of their choosing including:
Christian Education and the Public Schools
Masks Mandates Were a Mistake
Modern Dating is Ineffective
Then they had to share their papers with a panel of judges two weeks ahead of time and then stand and present an abstract of their paper to an audience and answers challenges from a panel of judges for thirty minutes.
They all did a great job!
It was a rewarding culmination of several years of the rhetoric, logic, debate, composition, research, and public speaking they have done through the Classical Conversations Challenge programs.
Avril was part of our church's production of the play "And Then There Was One," a spoof on Agatha Christie's famous murder...
