I am happy to report that this post is brought to you by the pretty, windowed portico in my library.
For the past year our library has been limiting us to 30 minutes per visit, with the self-assigned mask-police following us around making sure our noses are covered. In other words, the library has not been pleasant for a while, and over the last year I frequently just sat in the parking lot and called the number to have the librarian deliver books to my car instead of putting up with that nonsense. But our state has dropped it's mask mandate, the library has dropped theirs and now I'm sitting at a desk covered in dappled light, admiring the view of the woods, and drinking a white mocha while I type this. Where are the kids? Vacation Bible School, another thing that we didn't get to do last year. Cheers to normalcy!
We actually finished school three weeks ago, but for some reason we decided to jump right into back-to-back spontaneous weekend trips. I'll share more in another post this week, but we visited a historic fort and three national parks over the course of two long weekends (one of which included tent camping). And we did all this right before the busiest month of the year, June, which is typically packed with family birthdays, Father's Day, the homeschool conference, VBS, and this year we also scheduled in two more weekend trips.
Basically, I'm tired. Thrilled that things are nearly completely back to normal, but tired.
This week, the first quiet week we've had since we closed the books, I am anticipating lots of time for the following:
Reading. May really should have been a better reading month with all that weekend-tripping, but my vacation days never work out very well for reading. I'm the kind of person that goes away from home to do and see things I normally wouldn't - I don't want to sit in a chair and read! I can do that at home. I also have a horrible time reading in my car, unless we happen to be driving across a flat state. Mountainous roads? Forget it. I'll be too sick to eat anything in approximately 30 minutes. So during my one quiet week in June, you can bet I'll be working on some books. First up is Wait Till Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Blogging. Where have I even been the last couple months, guys? I have a lot of posts bursting to get out. You'll probably get several this week.
Planting flowers. This last weekend was technically an off weekend, but I spent Saturday and Sunday catching up on the necessary shopping - first for groceries on Saturday, which takes forever because I do once-a-month shopping. And then on Sunday for a summer wardrobe for Gwen (I already bought Wyatt's, and the rest of the kids get hand-me-downs with a couple new pieces each).
As an aside, I was about to go into our normal discount clothing store, but they had a huge sign and window display insisting that any kid above the height of their (short) mannequin was required to wear a mask. That's more than even our state or the CDC ever required, and sorry, but I am DONE with dealing with all that. I turned back around and we went to JCPenny. instead, which conveniently, was having a pretty good sale.
Anyway, on the way home we stopped and bought this year's flowers for my pots and for the weird little strip of dirt by our front door, which I feel needs some plants. I happen to kill plants really easily, so I'm not sure how it's going to go with our front-door dirt, but I'm going to try. If it wasn't for Derek watering all the flowers I plant each year, this would be a colossal waste of money, but I know I can count on him. I'd like to get everything planted this week.
Planning for the homeschool conference. Our homeschool conference is on this year, hooray! I need to sit down with a curriculum catalog and come up with a homeschool budget so I don't go overboard, which is very easy to do in the curriculum hall.
Possibly drill on grammar terms. This year is the first year Wyatt has to do testing. Our state/umbrella school requires testing or an evaluation ever other year after 3rd grade, and we are due. I feel pretty confident that we prepared enough for him to do well, except perhaps in the area of grammatical terms, which I'm not sure will even be on the test (but we’re going to practice a bit anyway). When did you all start learning grammar terms (you know, adjectives, adverbs, etc.)? Because from my personal experience, I don't remember covering grammar at all during my years as a student in public school (1st-3rd grade), and then I was totally overwhelmed with my 4th grade English book when we started homeschooling, because I had no idea what it was talking about. So in comparison, I feel like it'll be fine?
Thanks for visiting and reading my ramblings, even when I get overwhelmed and don't touch this blog for weeks. Sometimes it's difficult to find energy to sit down and write, but I am always storing up things I want to share on here. Especially since getting off Instagram, I know those of you who take time to read here instead are the best kind of online pals.
Hopefully coming up in the next week or two...
-Travel Photos
-May Book Recap
-Reasons You Should Go To A Homeschool Conference
-Podcasts I'm Enjoying
-Top Book Recommendations For Homeschool Moms
-Any other topics that come to mind (suggestions welcome!)
I was hoping your blogging break was because you were doing fun things and it sounds like that is the case; glad you are back and have more posts planned. With regard to grammar terms, I know that in the public school where I sub, as early as second grade students learn the most basic terms like noun and verb. Gradually, throughout elementary, they learn more. My daughter, who just finished up Honors English in high school, had to know every term from as basic as adjective to the more complex grammar terms (which you would expect in high school).
Maria, thanks for the insight on when to teach grammatical terms! That’s kind of what I was thinking. We’ve done basics like nouns and verbs, and I’ve gotten a little bit into some other terms with them, but not anything too complex. So hopefully there aren’t any tricky grammar questions, ha!
yay for no more silly library rules!
Looking forward to all your upcoming posts 😊😊
Our state just dropped the mask mandate too and I cried actual tears of joy. Our library said they would still require masks, but when I went in the other day, the employees were still double masked (eye rolls), but customers weren’t wearing any. I was so glad! I wouldn’t have taken my kids in that store either. Gracie was consistently the ONLY kid older than a baby at church who didn’t wear a mask. I refused to make her.
Gosh, I've missed reading your posts! I must catch up! Our library sounds just like yours, although I haven't been back since our Governor announced that the mask mandate would be ending June 11. As soon as he said it, most people and stores quit mandating them anyway. Hallelujah. May your summer be fantastically refreshing! Camping, VBS, and homeschool planning sound like a wonderful start!
I’ve so missed you these last few months. I need to find a better way to keep blogs I read at my fingertips since you aren’t on IG anymore! Hope y’all are doing well!
Michelle, I totally understand the tears of joy! And same with me and my kids. I refused to make them wear masks unless we really had to go somewhere that wouldn't let them in without them (which happened maybe 2 times all year).
Amanda, it's so exciting to see things opening back up! We need to catch up, my friend, maybe let's get back to our text conversations. I miss you!
Brittney, you are one of the people I miss most since I'm off Instagram! I vote for you re-posting your IG posts to your blog. :-) Also, my favorite blog reading app these days is Feedly, if you need a suggestion - it's really clean and easy to use on my phone!
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