Saturday Success Story? Or Did I Not Follow Through on Friday?

Random photo to start the post

Did I get my three Follow Through Friday tasks done?

Short answer: no.

Long answer: to follow.

1. Finish The Homemaking Cottage articles.

Actually, yes, I did do this. Just now. Three of them were posted by yesterday, the due date. Two more were posted this morning, after Erik did me an enormous favor and let me sleep in.

2. Return library books.

Yes. I went to the library by myself! I like doing that. Came back with way too many books for myself, but also some good ones for the kids. We shall see if I can finish my big stack of books before my renewal limit is reached. (I am with you, Jean!)

3. Clean.

I cleaned the guinea pig cage. Hurray! I did not clean anything else. Moreover, I made hot dogs and french fries and strawberry slices for dinner. Pretty lazy, right?

On the other hand, Erik did all the dishes and gave the kids baths and clipped their nails and put them to bed.

What did I do, you ask?

I went running! I'm actually quite proud of myself. It was over 95 degrees but it was evening time. I didn't think it would be a big deal but it kind of was. I brought a little bottle of water with me. It turns out I wasn't that thirsty (though I did really wish for chapstick) but I wanted water poured over my head. That really helped. I talked myself into continuing for 50 minutes. At first, I was all inspirational inside my head. Then it degenerated into, "Just don't let this carload of people see you stopping. Okay, good, now don't let this car see you stop. Now this one. Now this one. Okay, stop and stretch. I won't judge you."

So today, after I get out of my pajamas, I will quick-clean things around the house for an hour or so, meet friends at a splash park, get home and cook a big pan of lasagna, and have friends over for dinner. Follow Through Saturday? Perhaps.

(I think the real hero of this duo of posts is Erik, don't you?)

Follow Through Friday With SoNotOrganized.com

Hi, Jean!

I am going to link up with Jean at SoNotOrganized.com for her Follow Through Friday. Each Friday she's done this, I had projects I needed to get done, but it was like Emergency Go Time and not Post a Blog Post Time those Fridays.

Today, I think I have time to post and work. And laze around. Because it's the 5th of July. We're tired.

One of the "emergency" things that got done was booking a place for our vow renewals! I mentioned this on Facebook but not on this blog: Erik and Jeremy planned for a year to ask me and Leslie if we would renew vows with them! Because we had a double wedding ceremony back nine years ago, we are also going to have a double vow renewal. Too cute for words, right? Or is it Too Awesome for words??!! To get back on track, we are doing this on a pontoon boat during the week they are visiting us before they move far away. *tear* It will be us couples and our four darling kids.

So now, to follow through on some things...

1. I need to write and upload four more articles for The Homemaking Cottage today.

2. Just like Jean, I need to go to the library or renew all our books and DVDs.

3. Some cleaning should really get done. We are having neighbors over for dinner tomorrow night after a busy day. "Some cleaning" is too vague, right? Hmmm. I will clean the guinea pig's cage and vacuum all the floors. If I find the energy, I will also clean the master bathroom. Cleaning the hall bathroom will have to wait until tomorrow. As it should. We have two little boys here.

This was after I cleaned it many months ago - yes, I have cleaned it again since then... I'm sure.

I'm It!

I got tagged with an Alphabet meme by Jean at So Not Organized. I love reading her stuff because she tells it like it is, including the times that life is not picture-perfect. Loving life when it is not picture-perfect is such an important skill to have! Plus her boys are eight and 12 years old. I am taking mental notes for the future. :)

Here are my important thoughts:

Alphabet Meme

A. Attached or Single?

Attached. Married to my perfect counterpart (meaning we are opposites in a lot of ways, but we have the same overarching values).

B. Best Friend?

Still counting a small number of high school friends as my best friends forever. :)

C. Cake or pie?

Ice cream cake.

D. Day of choice?

Friday.

E. Essential Item?

Coffee, yes. 

F. Favorite color?

Don't have one. 

G. Gummy bears or worms?

Gummy anything, thank you.

H. Hometown?

I guess I consider Prior Lake, Minnesota, my hometown, but I grew up a little bit in Kentucky and Texas, too.

I. Favorite Indulgence?

Sour Patch Kids.

J. January or July?

Neither one. I'm feeling contrary today. March is a nice month. :)

K. Kids?

Two boys. Love them.

L. Life isn’t complete without?

Running. No, really it's family and friends who love you, but running adds something important to my life.

M. Marriage date?

August. It's been almost nine years!

N. Number of brothers/sisters?

One brother, one sister. Thank God for them.

O. Oranges or Apples.

Clementines, yes.

P. Phobias?

Cockroaches, water bugs. 

Q. Quotes?

I still really like this one from Woody Allen: "My relationship with death remains the same. I'm strongly against it." The one on the heading of this blog is important to me: "Day by day, what you do is who you become." And my always-favorite Bible verse is: "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

R. Reasons to smile?

My husband and children. Positive people. Humor/comedy in good spirit.

S. Season of choice?

Fall.

T. Tag 5 People.

Decline. I'll tag Wee Irish Family, but feel free to ignore if you want. :)

U. Unknown fact about me?

I have visited or lived in eight countries.

V. Vegetable?

Any of them. I eat all my vegetables.

W. Worst habit?

Reading up on and scheduling out something that I don't make time to actually DO in real life. At least not as consistently as I read and think about it.

X. Xray or Ultrasound?

There are situations when each one is pretty necessary... Otherwise, I say avoid recreational use. ;)

Y. Your favorite food?

Cookies 'n cream ice cream, or tuna noodle casserole.

Z. Zodiac sign?

Pisces. I'm touchy.

Day 20

What a nice day today was. We had sort of a leisurely morning while I finished packing up a few packages to go to the post office. Then we dashed off to a service project led by youth from this area who do environmental service projects. It was at a really nice park and there were lots of kids around our kids' ages there. Xander and I helped plant two trees and then the kids had a nice free-for-all on the playground together. It was like recess. :)

We had barely arrived home when Erik drove up. He's been out of town this week for work and we were so happy to see him.

As for the Money Saving Mom challenge, I did 1) get dressed in something I felt great in.

When I tried to start a load of laundry this morning, our washing machine did not respond. Erik has been looking into it and so far there is no hint as to what is wrong. This could be bad, but I am keeping my rose-colored glasses on for now. (By the way, how awesome is my husband? He just walked in the door from a week out of town about half an hour ago, and he is already deep in research mode for fixing the washing machine.)

Update: How awesome is my husband? This is like five minutes later and the washing machine works.

2) I made a list of 10 goals for today. It seems too long, I know, but one of them was advent activities and one was to pick up Erik at the office, which didn't need doing after all.

The goals:

1. Tree planting service project.
2. Pick up Erik 5:00.
3. Homeschool.
4. 4 Weeks task: 3) organize and clean out medicine cabinets.
5. 4 Weeks post.
6. Drop off packages at post office.
7. Advent activities: bake more cookies, open advent calendars, light advent candle, read a selection from The Christmas Treasury.
8. Read Christmas books.
9. Make potpourri sacks.
10. Exercise videos at nap time.

Homeschooling we did not do. I've decided to take off the last three days of this week and make them up in the week after Christmas. However, we did do an outdoor service project which to me counts for a lot in terms of education. Also, we had a mini drawing lesson at Xander's request. He wanted help drawing a Star Wars Republic Attack Gunship. This is the result (I helped a bit):

4) Then I was supposed to take 15 minutes to do something relaxing that I enjoyed. I can count our service project for that enjoyment. I felt good doing something and was so happy to finally find something that my children can help with (okay, Xander was help, Nick was not). Getting outdoors always makes me feel better, too.

Our "medicine cabinets" - one is a children's medicine basket and one is an adults' medicine basket 

On left: the thumbprint Christmas lights by me and Xander
On right: Nick's paintings of monsters

Day 19 of Money Saving Mom's 4 Weeks Challenge {Simplified}

I believe today and tomorrow are the last days of this challenge. Unfortunately, I have fallen behind in the last two days. What I did do yesterday that I was proud of was to do about 15 minutes of a workout video, take 15 minutes to pick up the house, finish packing and addressing a Christmas package, and finish three loads of laundry. I took the kids to the weekly library story time, which was also nice.

Oh, and I let Nick paint and play with Play-Doh at different times during the day yesterday. Usually I don't like to set up for that kind of mess. He was good with the paints, for a three-year-old, and the Play-Doh was not as messy an undertaking as usual. Xander and I made some thumbprint-Christmas-lights cards while the paint was out, so we got some more cards made at the same time.

Oh! The more I think about it, the more things I did get done yesterday. I uploaded the last of my articles due this month for The Homemaking Cottage.

The assignment today is to:

• Get dressed in something that makes you feel great.
• Sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and make a list of 5-7 daily goals based on your weekly goals.
• Set the timer for 15 minutes and wipe down your windowsills and trim around your windows. If you have time, wash the dirtiest windows.

This is what I did:

• Got dressed in something that made me feel great. 
• Checked my list from yesterday. I still had 7 tasks that weren't completed yesterday, so I took those for my goals today. Like I mentioned previously, I tend to write over-optimistic to-do lists. I actually don't mind doing it this way and then carrying over the other items to the next days. Most of the things on my lists should be done this week but not necessarily on a specific day.
• Took 15 minutes to wipe down windowsills and trim and then to half-heartedly clean some of the windows. I find my windows very hard to get to for cleaning.

Update: I also vacuumed during the commercials of the show Erik and I always watch on Thursday nights. That was a task from yesterday or the day before. :)

Windowsill After

As for my to-do list, I:

• Finished a load of laundry.
• Got the car in for new tires (Ugh. No wonder I procrastinated. This is expensive.)
• Made a medical appointment for myself.
• Finished knitted accessories for a little gift I'm sending someone.
• Made my grandma's traditional Christmas wreath cookies. Double batch, of course!

This is what the house tends to look like when I focus on making cookies with a time-intensive recipe without having the boys help me.

A Happy Thing

I have been feeling a wee bit negative about my capabilities the last few days due to a couple of minor challenges. So let me take this moment to focus on something positive that is small but cheering. I spent a bit more than I thought they were worth on some green ornaments that smell like pine (because we have an artificial tree). I hung a few on our tree and one or two on our door wreath. Multiple times a day I catch a whiff of this scent and I just feel good. I have also been making homemade potpourri with these really strong-smelling cinnamon-scented pinecones. The house has been smelling great for a week or so!

Day 15 of 4 Weeks Challenge

I did the stuff prescribed, which was:

Get dressed in something that makes you feel great.

Make your daily to-do list from the weekly list.

I have been rolling over things I didn't get done from previous days, which works great because I tend to put too many things on my list initially. I was excited yesterday to get my reminder signs posted, which had been on my list for a week or so.

Wipe down your computer, clear your email inbox, organize files and photos if you have time. 

I did this but didn't feel the need to organize files because of my naming system. I use a heading for most of my files followed by what I want to name it. For example, I write for The Homemaking Cottage and I start the name of each document for The Homemaking Cottage with HMC. Then when I go to my list of documents, I scroll down to the heading I want and then look through that list for the right document.

Set the timer for at least 15 minutes and do something that relaxes you and that you enjoy.

I splurged and bought this album for myself for $5 (The Joy of Christmas). I was so excited to listen to it. After Nick went down for his nap and Xander promised not to go into my room, I started wrapping presents while listening to the beautiful music. That was nice, but actually not relaxing at all. After 20 minutes or so, I put the new album on my iPod and laid down in bed listening to it and reading Londoners. Now that was perfect! The book is enjoyable thus far. One of the nicest things about listening to the music on my iPod was I didn't hear any of the normal childish rustles that make me worried that one of them is going to wake up. Xander, for example, can run down a hallway in sock feet like Puddleglum. And the stage whispers of children? Those alone could wake someone out of a sound slumber.

I have loved this day so far! I am just hoping Erik comes home soon to start his weekend. Lately I have decided to keep Fridays simple (in terms of homeschool) and now we seem to have time to savor our activities instead of feeling like we'll never get to it all.

Whew!

I have had a day already, and it's only 11:30.

First, I made my first-ever batch of baked doughnuts with chocolate glaze to go on top. They were well received by the boys. Erik had already left for work by the time they were done - he went in very early this morning.

(I took quite a few photos for today, but Blogger is still rejecting my right to add more pictures, even though I have been deleting old photos from the blog. Grrrrr. I'll try again tomorrow.)

I've been shirking some of the Money Saving Mom 4 Weeks challenge in the last two days and I knew I had those tasks in front of me. I took the first good excuse to put Nick in independent playtime and did school with Xander. We finished all of that except for the playing outside and the recorder practicing.

I found a good idea for showing the value of different coins on Pinterest, and we made our version with Trio blocks. This worked well for Xander.

At some point, I got into my outfit for the day and put on makeup. My daily goals list was made. I did one of the extra tasks for today, which was to thoroughly clean out the miscellaneous utensil drawer. I use two handmade mugs for our dinner prep utensils: one for things that are used to open cans and stir and make things up, and one for things that are used to help serve the food up. The utensil drawer holds baking tools, twist-ties, candles, ice cream scoop, meat thermometers, chopsticks. You know. That stuff.

I am happy to report that all those places are now very clean. I even rinsed and dried my cookbook stand because it is easier to do that than to dust it.

Nick came out and the kids played with Sandy (who gobbled up red bell pepper meanwhile) and I started working in the kitchen. I had a lot of work to do on the stove and oven, which is the main reason I shirked the Money Saving Mom stuff when it was appliance day. They are now as clean as they get without an hour-long scrubbing.

I cleaned the top of the refrigerator. I found on top: a large red cookie tray, our chocolate advent calendar for this year, a child safety identity kit, and a bag of Alexander the Great warriors from Hobby Lobby. In my humble opinion, most of this is fair game for top-of-the-refrigerator territory. The large red cookie tray won't fit anywhere else and it will be used this season. The chocolate advent calendar has to be kept up somewhere high, I'm sure you'll understand, and I wanted it near our quilted advent activity calendar which is just outside the kitchen. The bag of warriors is waiting for Xander to make it one more school day without complaining about school at all. Then he earns the right to keep and play with them. I do need to use that child identity kit, so sometime today I will take Xander's fingerprints with it. We already have a sample of Nick's DNA (in the freezer) that the hospital gave to us when he was born.

I did do the vacuuming that was called for yesterday. What is left from previous days is a quick clean of the hall bathroom and a wipe-down of all the kitchen cupboards. I should really clean the inside of the microwave, but we'll see. I'm a bit exhausted from tackling that oven and stove. What is left of today's assignment is to clean all the glass doors and tables and such. If I don't get to that, I'm sure Nick or Xander will happily do it for me. :)

Off to post some photos on Facebook, since Blogger is not my photo friend right now.

Money Saving Mom's 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home - Day 11

Today's instructions were to:

• Get dressed in something you feel great about.
• Sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and write 5-10 goals for this week.
• Set the timer for 15 minutes and pick up the house.
• Clean out the silverware drawer, to the extent of taking everything out, vacuuming with an attachment, wiping, and reorganizing and returning the items to the drawer.

I liked my outfit today. I did sit down with coffee to write weekly goals, which I will share in another post. I picked up the house for a little longer than 15 minutes. Just as Crystal said, my house needed some help after the holiday weekend. I would have done another round, but I used that time to clean out our guinea pig's cage instead. He needed it more than the house.

Our old silverware drawer was housing coupons, coupon binders, scissors, miscellaneous kitchen implements like a strawberry huller, wine bottle stoppers, a tiny bottle-cleaning brush, and extra rubber bands, and the good silver. Plus crumbs. 

I put the good silver away in silver-keeping cloths in a high cabinet, put the wine-bottle stoppers on our drinks tray, removed the strawberry huller to a different kitchen implements drawer, stored the bottle-cleaning brush up in a cupboard with our sponges and dish soap, and put the rubber bands in my rubber-band-twist-tie-candles baggie. A few coupons were put in the right place. All the crumbs were sucked up by my great little hand held vacuum.

Our actual utensil drawer is not much to look at because it's a drawer in a utility cart with improvised cardboard dividers. I like it. I like having stuff handy for setting the table, because I try to always have the kids do that chore. However, the cardboard dividers do leave "dust" in the drawer. That is all clean now.

Messy room today. I got new jeans that are comfortable and that Ann Taylor Loft sweater was a few dollars at Goodwill!

After

After

The Boys' Accomplishments

I've been writing up all the things I've done for Money Saving Mom's online challenge, but Nick and Xander have really been pulling their own weight around here, too.

Yesterday, Xander wiped all the switch plates for me, which was a Money Saving Mom task. I got to mop the kitchen floor while he was doing that.

Nick has been making his own peanut butter honey sandwiches.

They have both been great at doing their Morning Cards, which includes wiping down the counter, sink, and toilet or potty chair in the hall bathroom. I adore walking by and smelling the fresh scent of disinfecting wipes when I haven't used them myself. It's like magic!

Then he celebrated being done with chores by listening to audiobooks

Erik worked from home today. When he was done, I was able to go to the post office and gas station by myself. Errands are much quicker without the kids. He wiped the living room ceiling fan blades for me, because I cannot reach them due to their height.

Before all that happened, I, of course, got dressed and made my list of daily goals.

Then I wrote down Xander's list for today. It's a lot shorter than normal because it's a special Friday routine. Two of the activities, Nature Walk and Journal and Tea Time, take time to prepare, do, and follow up on, so other activities are not done this day. It's a routine very similar to what Lindafay posted on Charlotte Mason Help.

One thing I added was spelling work. On Monday, Xander saw his spelling words for the week: boy, girl, man, woman, baby. He wrote two of them in sidewalk chalk outside and one of them with Do-a-Dot markers. Later in the week, he wrote one on a small chalk board. Today, I gave him a test. He got boy and man correct and did a good job trying the others. I made index cards of the ones he did not get right and we will look at them next week along with the new words. I was proud of him, mainly because he has inherited my tendencies to anxiety, and we both kept it calm while he tried spelling these words. I gave him encouragement and praise for what he did right and simply showed him the correct spelling when he had not written the correct one.

Recorder practice went well today. He had been wanting to skip it and feeling (I think) a little overwhelmed as the lessons progressed. I let him go back to previous lessons a lot and also let him skip some days. Today he did really well (and I allowed him to play songs he made up with the notes he knows). His dad was very impressed. Xander showed Erik how to play the notes he has learned so far: B, A, G, and C.

We all went to a nice county park for our nature walk. It was a beautiful day, sunny and almost 60 degrees. Erik went disc golfing while the boys and I went for a hike on the trail. We saw rocks, flowers, butterflies, wasps, birds, quartz, and other things, but we were not able to stay quiet to try to find animals. Nick did not want to do that. Then we joined Erik on the disc golf course. Everyone tried their hand at it. Nick did a lot of jogging and throwing and is now in his bed for a nap that will probably be a long one.

Xander took several of these photos 

And I took several

Later, I picked up some supplies we needed, including two new light bulbs for our living room light fixture. I cleaned the other ceiling fans. Oops! I just remembered I never did Nick's, because he was taking his nap while I did this task. Someday soon. :)

I spent 15 minutes or so laying on my bed, reading Elizabeth & Mary and eating a snack.

Last night, we had the most amazing family time. Erik had the idea of lighting a fire in our fireplace and reading Shel Silverstein poems to each other. Before that, we practiced our manners eating Chicago-style hot dogs (okay, I tried, but they weren't perfectly Chicago hot dogs) and french fries. The boys have very good manners! I mean extremely good manners. I have to expect more of them from now on!

Then Erik started the fire and got out the poetry books. Xander presented himself with professionalism and asked for our attention, please. We listened to him playing a song of his own composing (on the spot) on the recorder, using the notes he has learned. Then Nick played some things for us on the flutophone. We each took turns reading poems from Where the Sidewalk Ends. Even Nick took his turns "reading" to us. We ate pieces of a pecan pie that I had picked up at the grocery store.

We also put leaves on our Thankful Tree. We tried turning out all the lights in the house and just watching the fire. The evening ended with the kids watching a little bit of a Pokemon movie before we all went to bed early. We are  now up very early (for Xander and Erik, at least) so we can go to this local 5K. I'm going to take the plunge and run my first one in many years. Oh my gosh, it's been 17 or so years, now that I think about it. I think I'll stop doing the math on that in future.

Day 9 of Money Saving Mom's 4 Weeks Challenge {Simplified}

Great day! Got up a little early and did chores while our youngest son slept in past his normal early wake time. It was fun working around the house because my husband got up early, too, to make food for his work Thanksgiving potluck, so we were working around and with each other. Our oldest son slept in even later while I got almost all my chores done for the day.

Per the 4 Weeks challenge, I got dressed in something I felt pretty good about, made a list of daily goals from my weekly goals list, cleaned the master bathroom, and then mopped the kitchen floor while Xander did the last task entirely by himself: wiping all switch plates in the house. Hurray for learning chores! He is still really good about doing chores without complaining. (He chooses to complain about other things.)

my to-do list

After

After

the shiny kitchen floor which I mopped while Xander was doing the switch plates

Today Feels Like Victory

Today was a busy day, for our standards. Anything I've put in larger print is a task for Money Saving Mom's 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home {Simplified} series.

I went running before Erik left for work. Breakfast was served, the Money Saving Mom challenge post from yesterday was posted, email was checked, Bible section was read, and similar things were accomplished. I ordered a $0.99 copy of Money Saving Mom's new ebook Celebrating and Savoring a Simple Christmas. I made a list of goals for today.

I took a shower and got dressed. Although I don't want to spend too much time thinking about clothing and fashion right now, I went ahead and asked for the free copy of Frumps to Pumps from Sarah Mae that Crystal keeps mentioning. I could use some help, so I will be reading that at some point.

The kids did their Morning Cards and got all ready just in time to go to the doctor. Xander ran over his foot with a tricycle on Sunday and it is still red and swollen and painful. Both boys were well-behaved and entertaining (in their own ways) during the doctor visit.

After the doctor, we had time to make it to preschool story time at the library and also to pick out books and magazines and DVDs.

Then lunch and some cleaning. I did the 4 Weeks task of cleaning out my messiest drawer. Actually, my clothes drawers are all pretty neat, so I chose a rolling shelf unit in the closet that is used to hold my knitting projects.

Before

The rolling cart has only three shelves. I had six projects out and underway. Since this phase of life is not a good time for me to finish a lot of knitting projects, I decided to cut my losses and whittle projects down to three, to fit the shelves. First, I discontinued the robot I was knitting for Nick. He had no interest in the picture of the finished product and liked what I had done so far. Two little pieces can fit over his fingertips and one is a long thin tube that was supposed to be the robot's antenna. I gave Nick the three little pieces and cut that project out of my life. Nick calls the pieces robots anyway. Win win.

Next, I decided to go ahead and send my friend the baby hat I finished without waiting for some mythical day when I would finally finish the booties. If I have time to finish the booties, I can always send those later. This makes me feel a little uncomfortable, but if I don't send something soon, her baby will be too big to wear any of it.

The remaining yarn from my ditched projects went into the appropriate places. I have a bin for acrylic yarn and a drawer that holds wool yarn and cotton yarn along with my knitting books.

I kept my 1) very portable Mother Bear project, 2) mindless bathroom hand towel project for TV nights, and 3) mustang and cowboy project that I said I would make for Xander.

After

I just have one straggler that I think maybe I should finish. All I have to do is finish picking up stitches to make a chain border around a pot holder. (Or something like that; the reason it's taking me so long is I've never done this type of border before and I'm hesitant.)

Back to our regularly scheduled day.

We then did homeschooling and preparing dishes for having a family over to dinner tonight.

Then some more cleaning, including cleaning our guinea pig's cage. Xander and I also wiped down all the door knobs in the house with disinfecting wipes. I did the remote and iPod Touch and cell phone for good measure, too. I had taught Xander how to do this task just last week, so it was good timing to practice it again.

Will be back later!

Day 7 of Money Saving Mom's 4 Weeks to a More Organized Home {Simplified}

Today felt wonderful. The assignment was to:

"::Get dressed in something that makes you feel great {there’s something about dressing in clothes that make you feel great that just gives you more energy and zest for life! Get your free copy of SarahMae’s ebook, Frumps to Pumps, if you need more motivation in this.}

::Sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and create a list of weekly goals. I’ll be posting my weekly goals later today along with a link-up so you can share yours, as well.

::Set the timer for 15 minutes and vacuum the main living areas of your home."

I did all of the above plus the car clean-out and vacuum from yesterday. The floors needed it SO badly.

Before picture of the back of the car

After - how beautiful

These are free things we got today through coupons and deals listed at Money Saving Mom! Yay! Free!

reading for school

Ew - dirty floors

Ooh - sparkling floors!

Homeschool went pretty well today. We got quite a lot done in a relatively organized and cheerful way. We read the final story in Norse Gods and Giants, a story from Everyday Graces, ten minutes of The Hobbit, the introduction and first section of The Golden Picture Book of Science, the introduction (hilarious!) and first poem of Now We Are Six, and the end of Chapter 6 in This Country of Ours. We also read about nature journaling with this Smithsonian.org lesson plan I found today. 

Xander did 20 minutes of Spanish with Oh Noah!, one section of the Singapore Math textbook and one exercise in the accompanying workbook, one session of Xtra Math, a Spanish song sing-along, morning chores, do-a-dot spelling words for the week, and drew both a picture of his choosing and a picture narrating what happened in the chapter of This Country of Ours. For both, he wrote a caption. His handwriting is improving since the beginning of the year. We also did pledges to the flags and learned facts about the second president of the United States, John Adams.

I feel really good about all of that. Now to make dinner and do a general clean-up of the table and dishes.