With all the lesson planning and grading and keeping the house straight while homeschooling (plus, you know, actually teaching), sometimes menu planning gets pushed aside during the school year. Honestly though, when menu planning slips, mealtimes can become a source of stress. We are about to start our 3rd year and whether it’s getting breakfast on the table to start the day, taking a lunch break or finishing up for the day and starting on dinner (or fielding 10,000 snack requests throughout the day), knowing what you’re going to serve before it even comes up can really make your day a whole lot smoother.

For breakfasts, I like getting up before the kids do (mainly to help my husband get out the door early) and then I can make fairly simple hot breakfasts while I’m waking the kids up. They have said that waking up to the smell of breakfast cooking gets them pumped for the day more than a bowl of cereal could! Also, I try to save cereal for when I’m sick and exhausted. 😉

This is my basic menu plan for an average week. Monday breakfast is usually a big deal in an effort to make Monday less awful haha.

Monday – Bacon, eggs any way they want and toast
Tuesday – Pancakes
Wednesday – French Toast
Thursday – Popovers These also make a great lunch snack
Friday – Brown Sugar Muffins

            

*Basically, ‘bento box lunches’ are just visually appealing finger foods in a box. My kids love, love, love the happy rice triangles, so I make them all the time.
If it’s a picnic lunch at home or a field trip lunch at the Science Center, it’s easier when it is already put together.
Monday – happy rice triangle, sliced banana, baby carrots, pinwheel ham sandwiches and mini cereal square
Tuesday – happy rice triangle, apple rings, celery sticks, homemade chicken pieces, mini cupcake
Wednesday – happy rice triangle, berries with yogurt, corn, teeny tiny cheese sandwiches, brownie shapes
Thursday – happy rice triangle, orange slices, nuts, mini hot dog octopuses, mini cookie
Friday – spaghetti nest w/ mozzarella ball birds, sliced peaches, pretzels, cute cutout face sandwich, lollipop

I usually make these on the weekend and put them on out the ‘lazy Susan’ for the kids to snack on.
Homemade Granola Bars (wrapped in parchment paper)
Chia Seed Peanut Butter Cookies (in zipbags)
Pretzel Bites (in zipbags)
Fruit Roll Ups (rolled in parchment paper)

            

Most of these recipes are slow cooked on the stove all day, but you can just as easily make them in the slow cooker. Some are quick meals you can make even quicker with a little prep.
Monday – Chili and Cornbread
Tuesday – Chicken Alfredo (prep the chicken earlier in the day and either make your Alfredo sauce in advance)
Wednesday – Dr Pepper Shredded Pork
Thursday – Spaghetti
Friday – Pizza Night (combo game night, so no prep and no cleaning makes the night smoother and way more fun)

            

I have found it necessary to plan meals and snacks so I can just pull it together or offer it immediately without having to look through the cupboards to see what we have, plan what to make and get started. The time lost throughout the day really adds up, especially when you’re trying to teach two children and a teen and keep your home from falling to shambles!

Wait a minute! Nine weeks already?!

It’s almost like time passes even faster when you’re watching it. Or at least when you’re tracking what you’re trying to accomplish and finally really realize how quickly a week can fly by. We completely lost week eight to a nasty bug that tore through our sinuses. Since moving to California, we have had about one cold a year, and this year really hurt. Two out of five have sinus infections, two went mostly unaffected and the last one to catch it is still fighting it. Week nine was mostly a week of doctor and pharmacy visits and recovery and I am so grateful that we live nearby to our general practitioner, our pediatrician and a 24 hour pharmacy!

Not much was accomplished in the way of working on the blog or editing the family photo site, though I’ll go over that stuff anyway. I was sick, so guess what? I knitted a lot! Yay sick knitting! The one upside to being sick is that since I am fairly on top of things otherwise, I can slack a little when I’m sick and our lives don’t fall apart.

Here we go, week nine! I am still striving to get this out on Fridays, though that has only happened once so far. 😉

1. stay at least one week ahead of our homeschool schedule
We were almost exactly a week ahead and then last week we were all attacked by the worst head cold we have ever had and cashed in all that extra work! So once we finish Monday’s work, we’ll work a little on Tuesday until we are ahead again. It was such a blessing to be able to not stress over school work while caring for sick kids and dealing with a pounding sinus headache.

2. celebrate everyone’s birthday (local and long distance) with a card in the mail.
Doing several things rushed or halfway is worse than not doing them at all. So, yeah. I give up on this one guys.

3. keep our family photo site updated (in the 10 years we’ve had that site, we’ve always been about 3-5 months behind)
I made no progress at all this week, but last week I actually did get most of the index pages up for each section that was missing one and I converted a load of wmas. Maybe I’ll even end up uploading them next week! HA!

4. start a ‘what we did today’ journal (index card version is cute)
I love it. It’s so neat!

5. quit social media that’s not blog related basically I just wanted to quit Facebook
Ok so I am still not on Facebook. My issue is that after three months away from it, I can see how it was bad for me but I can also see that a lot of the ‘but how will we keep in touch?’ concerns from friends and family were true. I spent a lot of unnecessary time on Facebook when I’m sure I should have been doing more productive things. Closets usually need straightening, bathrooms need scrubbing, that kind of thing. At the same time, I miss seeing my Texan girl Jennifer’s posts of her kids who I miss so so so much and I miss getting rando messages from my uncle in law about everything that is going on in our absence. There are a lot of friends and family that are just not on other social media and either don’t have a smart phone or don’t use an IM apps on their phone. Who does that, right? Most of our family, that’s who! I’m not sold on rejoining Facebook, but I’m leaning towards a totally locked down profile with no extras.

6. blog 3-5 times a week
I only blogged once this week. Ahem.

7. make a lightbox and get better at food photography
My shopping trip to Home Depot was postponed so I could nurse my sinuses but I know what I need for the lightbox and staging! I may just give up on actually going to Home Depot and order it! This tile is meant to be a backsplash but a few of them together would make a pretty backdrop for a black plate. I also really love this black and grey tile for bright knitting. I am going to get these and a couple others to play with this month and see how they look.

8. a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four
Week Five
Week Six
Week Seven
Week Eight – not posted
Week Nine – coming later

9. bake a cake every weekend
Week One – Nutella Icebox Cake
Week Two – Orange Creamsicle cake
Week Three – White Chocolate Strawberry cupcakes
Week Four – Pink Lemonade cupcakes
Week Five – Red Velvet cupcakes (with cream cheese icing)
Week Six – Dark Chocolate cake with Strawberry Filling
Week Seven – Pink Strawberry cake with Strawberry Frosting
Week Eight – Dutch Buttercake

10. participate in sockdown 2014
One upside to my sinus infection over the last two weeks has been a lot of knitting! I am almost finished the socks I casted on in January and then promptly dropped for school and life in general. Then I can cast on and knit the socks I should have knitted last month. Whoops.

11. finally finish my knitted beekeeper quilt
Still working on puffs!! Making a dent in the additional 100 that I need for the quilt.

I also said I was going to replace alcohol with coffee and I still haven’t had any alcohol since just before Christmas! I get my bloodwork done every 3 or 4 months to make sure my thyroid medication is still doing what it’s supposed to so I’ve been trying to meet my vitamin and mineral levels since I get to see them a few times a year. I had my bloodwork done in January and I will go back in April so we’ll see then how I’ve done so far.

Here we go, week seven! This is only my second time posting this on a Friday which is what I had originally intended to do! Thinking about my resolutions every week it’s crazy how fast the weeks fly by! Seven weeks already?!

1. stay at least one week ahead of our homeschool schedule
We are about 3 or 4 days ahead of schedule right now. There are some other long term projects (like my 8th grader’s research paper and my 3rd grader’s science project) that they have been working on overtime since they were assigned, they’re not due for weeks and they’re both almost finished. This is really helpful for both freeing up days for field trips or other outings and for covering sick days throughout the year.

2. celebrate everyone’s birthday (local and long distance) with a card in the mail.
I have been horrible at this! Usually I’m really on top of this until March or so, and then I sputter off into oblivion. This year, I’m so caught up in other things, I have been late with every card I’ve sent and I’ve even missed sending notes as well! I hate the idea of scrapping this, but doing something poorly is worse than not doing it at all. :/

3. keep our family photo site updated (in the 10 years we’ve had that site, we’ve always been about 3-5 months behind)
Making progress!!

4. start a ‘what we did today’ journal (index card version is cute)
I’m so glad we are doing this, it’s so sweet!

5. quit social media that’s not blog related basically I just wanted to quit Facebook
While I am still fielding ‘why would anyone ever leave Facebook?’ emails and messages from well meaning family and friends, I am still happily not on Facebook and I only use social media as So Very Domestic.

6. blog 3-5 times a week
I only blogged twice this week. Boo!

7. make a lightbox and get better at food photography
I finally know what I need! Right now optimum photo taking happens between 11am and 2pm by my kitchen window. With a lightbox, I can take lovely pictures whenever, like you know, at 1 am when I am most likely to be finishing up some crazy kitchen creation. I’m also looking for large tiles as backgrounds!

8. a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four
Week Five
Week Six
Week Seven coming tomorrow!

9. bake a cake every weekend
Week One – Nutella Icebox Cake
Week Two – Orange Creamsicle cake
Week Three – White Chocolate Strawberry cupcakes
Week Four – Pink Lemonade cupcakes
Week Five – Red Velvet cupcakes (with cream cheese icing)
Week Six – Dark Chocolate cake with Strawberry Filling
Week Seven – Pink Strawberry cake with Strawberry Frosting

10. participate in sockdown 2014
I’ve been pretty terrible at this as well so far but there is more than enough time to recover. I casted on for January’s lace socks and life got in the way and I haven’t touched them much at all, but technically I have until the end of February to finish them and as long as I cast on for February’s socks before the end of February and finish them before the end of March they count!

11. finally finish my knitted beekeeper quilt
Ugh. So many puffs to knit still! I have almost 400 hexipuffs but it looks more and more likely that I will need 500 before I can sew it together and actually use it.

I’m replacing alcohol with coffee this year! That means late night coffee drinking with girlfriends instead of wine fueled knitting and so far, so good. Even just a couple glasses of wine with a full meal can make the next morning not so fun for me. This life is way too busy for me to spend Sunday morning nursing myself back to health. Also, I think I get more knitting done this way, even if I have yet to prove that this year!

Every week, I’m looking at my goals for the year and going over my progress one at a time in an attempt to help me achieve them. I intend to do these on Fridays, but I’ve only managed to get it out on a Friday once. This weekend marks the end of the 6th week, the year started on a Wednesday so for this purpose and for counting cake weeks, I’m totally ignoring that week. 😉

I skipped last week because the transition from homeschooling through the local school board to doing it through California Virtual Academy has been more challenging than we had anticipated, but I think we are ironed out the issues in our schedule.

1. stay at least one week ahead of our homeschool schedule
This was my original resolution related to school and then we started a new program (which we love, hooray for California Virtual Academy) and our goal became to stay on top of the new schedule. After two full weeks of this program, we’re finding a groove and we are able to get a little ahead of schedule to allow for some wiggle room and we have found time for review to make sure the new concepts are really sinking in. Today we were working on some assignments due on Tuesday (we don’t have classes or assignments this Monday), so we are barely one day ahead, but given how challenging the move from standard to advanced curriculum has been I think a day is pretty good. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we’ll be an entire week ahead. 😉

2. celebrate everyone’s birthday (local and long distance) with a card in the mail and a little letter an email.
I hate to admit that I can’t follow through with something but it’s so much worse to do too many things half way. I’m learning my limits and I’m changing this resolution to sending everyone an email on their birthday. The idea behind the resolution in the first place was to stay in touch with long distance family and friends outside of holidays.

3. keep our family photo site updated (in the 10 years we’ve had that site, we’ve always been about 3-5 months behind)
I went to start working on this last week and I came across a whole lot of messy code I had left for myself. My husband made it easy to include php files for me (because he is the raddest) making updating so, so, so much easier, but I am going through my folders of pictures to untangle the mess. It should be another few days of sorting through it all before I can actually start adding new photos and videos.

4. start a ‘what we did today’ journal (index card version is cute)
Still doing it, it’s so cute!

5. quit social media that’s not blog related basically I just wanted to quit Facebook
Still not on Facebook! It’s funny though how many people are almost personally offended and ask how we’ll be able to stay in touch without out it! You can just email or text or even use Instagram or Twitter or Tumblr! I have also been asked what triggered the decision to quit, like it had to be some big event and my solution to it is quitting. Really, it all boils down to a pretty simple concept that we all already know. Without Facebook, the shelf life of some friendships (and most acquaintanceships?) would be a lot shorter. It is such a cultural norm to add acquaintances on Facebook from your neighbors to people you haven’t seen in 10 years to randos from the gym and on and on. I had quite a collection of acquaintances that I really didn’t want to have, but every time I deleted someone, I’d get a message from them asking why I deleted them. As if knowing that we haven’t spoken, even online, in years isn’t reason enough.

6. blog 3-5 times a week
Yikes, I only blogged once this week!

7. make a lightbox and get better at food photography
I have been looking online at Home Depot to find some plain tiles to use as backgrounds in food photography. Still need to research more.

8. a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four

9. bake a cake every weekend
Week One – Nutella Icebox Cake
Week Two – Orange Creamsicle cake
Week Three – White Chocolate Strawberry cupcakes
Week Four – Pink Lemonade cupcakes
Week Five – Red Velvet cupcakes (with cream cheese icing)
Week Six – Dark Chocolate cake with Strawberry Filling

10. participate in sockdown 2014
I mentioned last update that January’s techniques were lace and intarsia, and that I went with lace since I’m still fighting with epic intarsia socks. I have hardly knitted at all in February – I haven’t even finished January’s socks! Tonight is a marathon knitting fest, if I finish January’s socks this week, I’ll cast on and try to finish February’s socks.

11. finally finish my knitted beekeeper quilt
I have knitted about 10 more puffs for this blanket, maybe another 90 or so to go? I laid out my 360 puffs to see how big the finished blanket would be with just that many and decided I’d need about 100 more. I’ll check again when I have another 100 to add.

Every week, I’m looking at my goals for the year and going over my progress one at a time in an attempt to help me achieve them. I intend to do these on Fridays, but you know…

1. stay at least one week ahead of our homeschool schedule stay on top of our new homeschool schedule and attend social events
We have been struggling with wanting to send our kids to school so they have a ‘normal childhood experience’ and with wanting to keep them home because we have seen the benefits (both academically and socially believe it or not) that have come from homeschooling. We have finally found a hybrid alternative with an online virtual school. We finished up our last day with the LAUSD’s ISP program on Friday and we start the new program today! We have chosen this both because while the kids are still at home and have our full support, they are lead by teachers online which is especially helpful for our oldest who is in his last year of middle school and will soon be tackling subjects I’m a little rusty with. Trigonometry, anyone? And also because this program has field trips and social events with the whole group which is really the only thing lacking in the program we are were using. There is a high school graduation ceremony and even proms, sporting events and dances. Who knows if they will want to do any of that, but having the option is what matters. I’m changing this resolution because as far as I can tell, you can’t get ahead of schedule with this program. If one of the kids understands a concept already or catches on right away, they are able to move on to the next concept. Once we start I will be better able to know how to word this goal!

2. celebrate everyone’s birthday (local and long distance) with a card in the mail and a little letter
I think I will make a little page to keep track of the birthdays and the cards we send out to see it coming together. Last week we sent out cards to my dad and Melissa. This week we sent out cards to my husband’s long time friend Jon and the first friend I made online (waaay back in 2001) Nichole. I should note that these four always get birthday cards. I am usually really good about this until sometime in March or April. Then I tend to totally forget about it. I know, terrible! So far, so good!

3. keep our family photo site updated (in the 10 years we’ve had that site, we’ve always been about 3-5 months behind)
It is so embarrassingly behind! I haven’t touched it at all this year. :/

4. start a ‘what we did today’ journal (index card version is cute)
I’ve been keeping up with just writing a line about what we did each day! This will be especially cute next year so we can look back and see what we were doing a year ago. Cute! I got index cards and a date stamp, and have been pretty good about making notes every day.

5. quit social media that’s not blog related basically I just wanted to quit Facebook
I currently only use social media as ‘soverydomestic’ and so most of what I post and do is blog related (though really, since this blog is mostly about what I make and do, it’s kind of the same thing).

6. blog 3-5 times a week
I blogged 4 times last week!

7. make a lightbox and get better at food photography
Next week? I didn’t even think of this much this week.

8. a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014
Week One
Week Two
Week Three

9. bake a cake every weekend
Week Three – Neapolitan Cake

10. participate in sockdown 2014
This month’s techniques are lace and intarsia – and since I’m still working on my Ravenclaw Pride socks, I went with lace. The pattern, Anna, is a 10 row repeat with something a little different on the first row! You knit two stitches together, leave them on the left hand needle and then knit just the first stitch and slip both new stitches off. What? Really simple and looks good. It has a 33 row cuff which is something that would probably dissuade me from wanting to knit these socks, but once I saw the cuff coming together I loved it!

11. finally finish my knitted beekeeper quilt
I have knitted about 10 more puffs for this blanket

I also planned to replace alcohol with coffee, I thought it was a great idea and then my husband who drinks alcohol only once every few years, suggested we start having a drink with dinner. We had both recently read about a slew of health benefits to having one drink a day. So maybe we’ll alter that to having one a day and try to make it fun? I should note that 27 days into the new year and neither of us has had any alcohol so who knows which way we’ll go with that.

When we first started homeschooling through the LAUSD, it took a little while to get into the swing of things. The way that I ended up finding it best to organize our work was binder style. Once a week, we meet with our check in teachers and hand in the work from the week before.

Since the work is organized by week, I organized the binder the same way. The start of each section had a sheet protector with that week’s assignment sheet in it. Then, all the work for each subject is hole punched and put in the binder – and each subject is paper clipped together to make handing it in easier. When I’m setting up each week, if I am missing something I remind myself to print it later or order missing items by putting a sticky note on the sheet protector so it’s the first thing I see for that week. For assignments that don’t fit in a binder, I write down the assignment on a sheet of paper and put it with the other assignments. I do that honestly so we don’t forget to do it, or come back to it if we have started it and set it aside to work on something else. Generally, we were easily able to finish what was assigned for each day long before it’s time to call an end to the school day.

That was a good thing and a bad thing. It was a good thing because we supplemented with other curriculum to both fill in some holes and to reinforce concepts we were working on, and it allowed a lot of free time to work on things that are important to us but not part of standard curriculum, like programming and their physical pursuits like competitive dance and jiu jitsu. It was a bad thing also because while the free time was good in a way, I feel like there was too much free time because the kids were not being challenged enough, also because there is not a lot of opportunity for social interaction.

Socialization with homeschool kids is for sure the biggest issue, both to us personally, and it seems to other homeschoolers as well (and to all the randos who want to weigh in on this kind of thing). I have met a lot of homeschooled kids at meetups when we first started doing it and were searching for ways for the kids to make friends. Some of them were great kids – and some of them were the version of weird that is the stereotype of homeschooled kids. I mean obviously there are weird kids in public school, Catholic school, and private school too – but we’re not talking about them. 😉

It’s been almost two years now that we have been doing this and I absolutely feel that I am way more focused on my kid’s social lives than I was when they were in school. Between dance, jiu jitsu and playgroups, all three of them have found great friendships here and unlike friendships cultivated at school with kids I don’t know from families I don’t know, I have a much better understanding of what they are up to. I understand that when they are older they need to be able to judge for themselves who they should be spending time with, but I really believe that they need more time than just elementary school and honestly even middle school to be able to make those judgments. I’m a big fan of The Mommy Mess, and back in September she posted this about her kids not having formed their social circles yet – and I totally agree that it is a good thing!

Next week, we are starting a different homeschooling program, based mostly online. There are two big reasons we decided to switch programs, the first was the community days in this program where we will have the opportunity to meet other kids doing the same program, in a social instead of academic environment (knowing that there is a traditional graduation ceremony for high school was a pretty big bonus too). The second reason was the curriculum, this program has great curriculum that I am looking forward to starting. The more I looked into the program and the more research I did, the more excited I got about it. As soon as I was officially able to log in and check out the interface this week, I was impressed. Every morning the kids will check in online and they have a list of tasks to do and a list of materials they need for those tasks. I have already sat in on a few workshops that were full of great ideas.

This program being mostly online with some offline schoolwork to be done each day fits well with us as a family. We’ll update as we get into it!

I thought checking in once a week would be a helpful way to stay on top of my resolutions. Or maybe make me feel like an epic failure. Only time will tell – stay tuned!

1. stay at least one week ahead of our homeschool schedule
School in our district technically doesn’t start until Monday, but I started the littles this past Monday, so goal #1 of being one week ahead of our homeschooling plan is in full effect! Maybe I can get even further ahead at some point so we can take longer breaks? I’m sure they’d love that!

2. celebrate everyone’s birthday (local and long distance) with a card in the mail and a little letter
There are six birthdays in our lives in January. On Monday, I got out cards for the first two – my dad and my good friend Melissa. Yay!

3. keep our family photo site updated (in the 10 years we’ve had that site, we’ve always been about 3-5 months behind)
Ok so when I made this resolution last week, I didn’t realize just how far behind I was with it. The photo section is updated to Jan of last year, the video section is updated to May of last year, the house tours page is updated to 3 houses ago. The mobile galleries and blog pages are totally bare. This week I fixed some code that was making it take longer to make new additions so hopefully I can make some progress next week.

4. start a ‘what we did today’ journal (index card version is cute)
I just got 365 index cards and a date stamper. I’m hunting for the perfect box to put them in still. I was using The Happiness Project but I need a little room to ramble. 😉

5. quit social media that’s not blog related (this is part of a bigger move to be more present in all of my relationships)
I am officially only using social media for the blog. Though to be honest, I am still chatty on Instagram and Twitter with some friends and family, the main objective was to get away from Facebook as the world’s biggest time suck and I accomplished that! It was pretty tricky actually. Facebook doesn’t allow a page (like the one for this blog) to exist without a Facebook user as an admin. I read a lot of blogs explaining different ways to go about doing this, so naturally I thought I knew what I was doing. I converted my personal profile into a ‘page’, and the instructions I was following said that after I did this, I’d be able to merge this page with my existing blog page. Buuuut, I had no such option and was the proud owner of my So Very Domestic’s FB page, and also a page that looked similar but had my name instead. Ugh. I poked around the settings on my personal ‘page’ and changed it’s status to unpublished. This way, I am not on Facebook as a person, but my blog can still be there.

6. blog 3-5 times a week
Today makes 2! This was our first week back doing school and dance and jiu jitsu. Hopefully, I’ll find a groove!

7. make a lightbox and get better at food photography
I have been reading about lightboxes and I love the idea of getting tiles to use for backgrounds and all kinds of fun stuff I want to put into play. I’m still researching and learning.

8. a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014
Every Saturday morning, I’m going to post the best picture of each kid from that week.

9. bake a cake every weekend
Week 1 – Nutella Icebox Cake

10. participate in sockdown 2014
Sockdown is, essentially, a knitting challenge within the Sock Knitters Anonymous on Ravelry (which is sort of like Facebook for knitters). Each month there are different sock knitting techniques, sock pattern designers and every other month there is a mystery sock (it’s a mystery because you’re given the pattern  but no pictures). For example, this month the techniques are lace and intarsia and the designers are Stephanie van der Linden and Heatherly Walker. I am casting on this afternoon a lacey sock. I think probably this one or maybe this one. Hopefully this will get Work in Progress Wednesday happening again. 😉

11. finally finish my knitted beekeeper quilt
My beekeeper quilt is sitting in a bag, in about 360 pieces. I am not going to like writing that every Friday until I put it together. This weekend, I am going to lay out all the hexipuffs I have knitted and see what it looks like. I don’t think I need more puffs but I will make sure, and if I do I will estimate how many I have to knit and start knitting them. If I don’t need to make more, I will work on piecing it together. So exciting! I started knitting this before we left Canada!

The two other things I’m working on are replacing alcohol with coffee and working on my vitamin levels and cholesterol and 10 days in, I’ve been successful with the coffee over alcohol! Though really, I haven’t had any alcohol since a Christmas party in mid-December. As far as my vitamins and cholesterol levels, I had my bloodwork done on the 2nd and yesterday I saw my doctor about it! Only my D is low, everything else is good so maybe this is a short lived goal haha. I guess it’s about keeping my levels good, my cholesterol is actually higher than it was! I think I got kind of cocky when I first had it checked in July and when it came back good I thought, hey look eating just ok is perfectly healthy for me, and then I started eating even less than just ok. Ahem. I am having my bloodwork done again in April, so I will compare numbers then.

So far, so good I think. I’m off to a decent start. Now, to edit that pesky photo site!

I’m a big fan of setting goals and working hard to achieve them. Some of the biggest goals I’ve had and achieved were not resolutions at all, but I do love the ‘fresh start’ feeling of January, even though it’s already 1/4 of the way through the school year and doesn’t really actually change anything. Ahem. I love January! Resolutions are fun and I usually set a few for the blog and for my knitting and so far I’ve come pretty close to doing what I set out to do. The only times I really fall short of the goals set in January is when I unexpectedly set harder goals halfway through the year and kick my own butt to reach them. You know, like moving to a different country or homeschooling.

Two years ago, I listed all of my goals for the year (2012) in my blog sidebar and achieved almost all of them. Last year, I blogged a list of goals for 2013 but I didn’t add them to the sidebar and I mostly didn’t do them. I think I need the visual reminder. This year I will add them to the sidebar and use that to keep track of them. 🙂

I think I will even set aside a day once a week where I post about them and how it is going. I have noticed that while most of my new visitors are not so into commenting, you’re there and knowing you’re reading is helpful motivation.

Personal Goals
1. stay at least one week ahead of our homeschool schedule
2. celebrate everyone’s birthday (local and long distance) with a card in the mail and a little letter
3. keep our family photo site updated (in the 10 years we’ve had that site, we’ve always been about 3-5 months behind)
4. start a ‘what we did today’ journal (index card version is cute)
5. quit social media that’s not blog related (this is part of a bigger move to be more present in all of my relationships)

Professional Goals
6. blog 3-5 times a week
7. make a lightbox and get better at food photography

Fun Stuff
8. a portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014 (inspired by Miss James)
9. bake a cake every weekend (hoping to match my record in 2009 when I baked more than one pie every weekend)
10. participate in sockdown 2014 aka knit as many socks as possible (technically it goes August to August, but you can jump in whenever)
11. finally finish my knitted beekeeper quilt, I have all my puffs knitted I just have to piece it together

Miscy changes that are not really resolutions…
I’m replacing alcohol with coffee this year. Which really isn’t much of a stretch for me since I used to never drink at all and now my California bestie is more interested in coffee than cocktails!
My doctor gives me a print out of my blood work, which is new for me as none of my other doctors have ever done that, and I’m a little obsessed with stats, so I’m working on my vitamin levels and cholesterol (it’s not bad but it would be nice to make it even better).

Starting tomorrow, I’m going to get into the spirit of Halloween and celebrate by counting down the days with silly and only slightly scary ideas. Before we get to that though, I want to do a little homeschool catch up post on what structure we’re working with in 3rd grade this year. Today is our 40th day of school for 2013/2014. I only know because we’re going to celebrate the 100th day of school this year and I figured that we should be counting so the days don’t get away from me. This will be our second full year homeschooling and I really feel like I have a better way of running our days than I did when we started. This was our schedule and our materials last year.

We work a standard schedule 5 days a week, taking Wednesdays and Saturdays off, though the weekend is usually when our 8th grader reads his assigned literature and our 3rd grader finishes all her art.

Since our youngest isn’t 5 yet, she can’t be enrolled in the same homeschooling program as our other two children. Obviously, she can still do a kinder program at home with me. The program I’ve set up for her is very similar to the junior kindergarten program in Ontario, it needs it’s own post. Our 8th grader works on a three classes per semester schedule and since it is technically an independent study program, he also has options open to add more and more onto what was assigned. I’m really impressed with the way he has chosen to build onto this system, and this will get it’s own post as well. For now though, the grade I think I end up spending the most combined hours on…3rd.