Think Back Thursday – Graduation

I’m joining my friend, Debbie, for Think Back Thursday. All you have to do is click the button and you can join in and share some memories from your past as well.

Today’s theme is graduation as Debbie’s son just graduated from homeschooling highschool! Way to Go!

My kiddies are pretty young so I don’t really have many graduation photographs but I will see what I can do (you never know what you might find if you look!).

Last year my daughter “graduated” from our local library’s preschool program. She was a little bit older than the other children as a kindergartener but she enjoyed the program a lot in her 3 years of attending one morning a week and I think it was nice that the teacher gave the kids a little graduation at the end of the year.

Once upon a time I graduated from highschool. It wasn’t a very good time in my life and I was actually in the hospital when all this graduation stuff was going on. I was eager to go to the graduation ceremony (seen here with my father and his girlfriend) but less interested, by far, in the prom (above). My doctor told me that if I didn’t go to prom I’d regret it for the rest of my life (I think maybe she must have been a social butterfly or something in school). My best friend from my childhood came with me and that was nice (they’d arranged for me to be accompanied by a guy I barely knew since I wasn’t around to ask someone myself). I’m so glad my friend stepped up and my freedom from the hospital for a few hours that night was good. It was nice.

I went on to get about a billion and one credits in college/university but they never quite came together into any one degree so I guess I’ll have to wait for my children for my children before I see another graduation!

And for your musical pleasure, my graduation song, Wind of Change.

Hey, Where Have You Been?

Yeah, I know, I have a blog. I should make use of it. However, in all honesty, if I were to post it would be all whiny and not much fun so here’s the updates in one post, for your reading (dis)pleasure:

1. We worked like crazy for 10 days to try and up the value of our home so that we could get a loan to get some repairs done and the house value came in waaaaaaaay under the amount we needed.

2. I swell to looking 6 months (if not more) pregnant for about a week each month and after a home test yesterday I suspect it might be a gluten sensitivity and well, that just sucks.

3. I’m discouraged with my children. There are behaviours that I’ve been trying to curb for years, yes YEARS, and they are continuing and it’s to the point where I’m just so tired. This wasn’t in the game plan.

4. I feel a bit depressed and unable to handle things.

5. My husband is always gone and the days are long.

6. Writing with kids is nearly impossible…..STILL.

7. I don’t know who my audience is and what I’m hoping to acheive here on this little blog.

8. All my recipes are just not turning out….and that’s just not a common occurrence in my kitchen.

9. And…

10. And….

11. And…..

I hope to get back to blogging with a new attitude soon.

What do you do when you get a case of the blahs?

Goal Planning Monday -Week 74

Welcome to Goal Planning Monday!

Sorry, I’m a little bit late this week. It has been crazy hectic here and I’ve been a bit under the weather with my neuralgia. I’m here now, though!

If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines and join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.

Well, I didn’t do so well with my goals this week but still managed to accomplish a whole lot. We’ve been trying for the last three months to get a grant for some major repairs on our home and it is right down to the wire now. We have to get a mortgage on our home (which would help in a million ways) but our house has to have a market value of 75 000. Umm, not sure about that. I think I mentioned somewhere that we paid 20 000 for it, right? Well, it is certainly worth more that that but 75 000, yeah, not sure. Well, we’ve been trying to make it look at good as possible as we cannot to any major repairs….Looks can be deceiving, right. There’s lots of goodness about the place but without the updates (which they initially told us that they’d count when appraising the place), I’m not sure…..so yeah, crafty goals were displaced by house stuff.

This week’s goals:

1. Renew my Mister Linky or look into Linky Tools. DONE! I’ll likely be switching over to Linky Tools. We’ll give it a go next week, okay?

2. Write up the children’s end of year evaluations. DONE! Both children are moving on to the next grade.

3. Do the next unit on bread in my Vintage Remedies course. DONE! 100%

4. Go to bed earlier. NOT DONE. I may have gone to be by 11pm, once, and my goal was around 9:30.

5. Comment on everyone that links here. NOT DONE. Had problems with links on my blog the day I was trying to do this.

6. Promote Goal Planning Monday in a few places. DONE.

7. Write a little more frequently on my blog. NOT DONE. I started a couple different posts, though.

This week’s goals.

1. Do next two units/exams for Vintage Remedies. I’m only missing the exam in one and the next is a profile of herbs. Most of which I am familiar with already.

2. Write up Liam’s registration for homeschooling for the next year. Morgaine’s is done and I need to send them in at the same time as last years report.

3. Spend less time on facebook. Silly computer.

4. Sleep. A lot.

5. Cut down on refined sugars. I’m more than a bit moody these days.

6. Drink water.

7. Look into a bit of a gentle detox, if only with food. I can’t do anything too deep with me still breastfeeding so much.

8. Hopefully get enough done this week so that I can take a “week off” next week and just enjoy the kiddies.

9. Try that apricot desert that I had in mind. I have apricots now…..hopefully, fingers crossed, it will lead to a blog series on whole foods.

Be sure to stop in and let us know what your plans are for this week!

Goal Planning Monday – Week 73

Welcome to Goal Planning Monday!

Sorry, I’m a little bit late this week. It has been crazy hectic here and I’ve been a bit under the weather with my neuralgia. I’m here now, though!

If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines and join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.

Well, I didn’t do so well with my goals this week but still managed to accomplish a whole lot. We’ve been trying for the last three months to get a grant for some major repairs on our home and it is right down to the wire now. We have to get a mortgage on our home (which would help in a million ways) but our house has to have a market value of 75 000. Umm, not sure about that. I think I mentioned somewhere that we paid 20 000 for it, right? Well, it is certainly worth more that that but 75 000, yeah, not sure. Well, we’ve been trying to make it look at good as possible as we cannot to any major repairs….Looks can be deceiving, right. There’s lots of goodness about the place but without the updates (which they initially told us that they’d count when appraising the place), I’m not sure…..so yeah, crafty goals were displaced by house stuff.

Last week’s goals:

This week’s goals:

1. Finish painting exterior trim. Mostly done.

2. Finish painting interior trim. Mostly done.

3. Add moldings to the entrance and laundry room we tiled on the weekend. DONE!

4. Put new door knobs on door. DONE!

5. Buy a couple interior plants. Not done.

6. Patch hole in bedroom wall (it’s been there since we moved in…..if nothing else, this crazy mortgage thing is making us take care of things we just haven’t got around to doing.) DONE!

7. Paint above mentioned bedroom. DONE!

We did decently well we our home renovations. We decided to add more moldings to certain doorways/floors and I’ve done as much as I can do inside. The evaluator is coming this Wednesday so we’ll continue fixing up all we can until then.

A few more personal goals as I want to keep up with my stuff, too:

8. Make Not Done (9. and blog about, if it turns out Not Done) an apricot coconut desert that sounds good in my head. We didn’t have time to go to the bulk barn to buy dried apricots and I wasn’t paying 7 dollars for a small bunch at the grocery store.

10. Complete the next unit of my Wellness course. DONE! 100% Goodbye micronutrients and on to bread!

11. COMMENT ON EVERY POST THAT LINKS HERE!!!!!! Not Done. 😦

This week’s goals:

1. Renew my Mister Linky or look into Linky Tools. My membership is about to expire.

2. Write up the children’s end of year evaluations.

3. Do the next unit on bread in my Vintage Remedies course.

I’m thinking around 9:30. I need a few hours of sleep before the kids all night nursing marathon begins.

5. Comment on everyone that links here. If I do nothing else, I want to do this.

6. Promote Goal Planning Monday in a few places.

7. Write a little more frequently on my blog. There are so many things that I want to write about but I never seem to make time to do it.

Be sure to stop in and let us know what your plans are for this week!

A Little Bit of Beautiful…..First Thing Monday Morning.

A friend of mine from over at Home Sweet Home(school) has started a new linky/bloghop thing-a-ma-bobber on learning to calm the chaos of our homes/routines/life, etc. Well, what perfect timing as I’d already snapped a few photos this morning for a blog post that was already simmering in my mind. It’s perfect for this week’s questions I think!

What’s motivating you to do things differently? What’s your pet peeve right now, in terms of your home and schedule, something you have the power to change?

A few years ago we had a friend stay with us for a couple months after an unfortunate situation at the appartment where she’d be living. Her view of life was a little bit different than mine. Perhaps it was because, as a single she had more time for herself. Perhaps she just knew the secret to happiness. I don’t know. She taught me, though, that life was for living and it was important to do little things that make you happy. A special bottle of wine, a piece of rich dark chocolate, a bouquet of flowers, a new handmade soap. The little things that you do for yourself can totally change your outlook. After she left, I tried out her theory and she was right. It felt good to treat myself nice. One of the main ways that I did so was to create beauty in my home. Gathering flowers, arranging center pieces or just little nicknacks on a shelf, baking something with quality ingredients to make the house smell wonderful. I was proud of making my home a nice place to be but mostly, I was doing things that made me happy.

Somewhere along the line I stopped doing it. I think it was moving to a more run down home where, try as I might, I had a hard time seeing the beauty. The place was too small for the amount of things we’d accumulated over the years. Being a 135+ year old house it had one closet in TOTAL. With a home business and homeschooling it was crowded. Throw in a baby and it was chaos. However, I’m beginning to remember how nice it felt to make things beautiful for the family. When Morgaine asked to pick flowers, I told her she could. They are lovely, aren’t they?

It’s just too bad that the rest of the room looks like this……

 

It’s not terrible, but there is stuff around. Lots and lots of stuff. It is really, really rare that all my dishes get done. The dish rack NEVER leaves my counter. It is usually especially bad on a Monday morning because my husband doesn’t understand my need for order and spends all weekend telling me to sit down and relax when I try to clean. It leaves me playing catch up ALL week only the have the weekend come again, and the place to blow up.

I’m motivated to come up with a solution so that I can feel comfortable creating beauty in my home again. I miss it and it makes me a much happier Mum to be around. I want to be more present to my family and not always feel like I am lost in a never ending maze of chaos. I think the things that gets me the most behind is the fact that I do get behind on the weekend. I think I need to come up with a way to schedule my time so that we can get our errands and projects done, keep up with the basic cleaning things and still have my husband feel like I take time to relax. I’m not exactly sure what I can do, yet, but I’ll work on it. I think it also feels so endless because I take care of pretty much everything related to the house and childcare I need to come up with a way of having people (the big people included) take part in putting away their own things (in the right places) so that when it comes time to the big cleaning I can focus on that instead of spending so much time of the things that I feel like I shouldn’t have to deal with. Any hints for getting people to take part would be greatly appreciated. Right now, it is only the baby and I that seem to thrive on order!

I look forward to participating in this linky on a weekly basis, on Mondays, so that I can stay motivated to make the changes that I think will bring more harmony to our home. I hope that you will visit Home Sweet Home(school) to check it out as well!

 

Goal Planning Monday – Week 72

Welcome to Goal Planning Monday!

If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines and join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.

Well, I didn’t do so well with my goals this week but still managed to accomplish a whole lot. We’ve been trying for the last three months to get a grant for some major repairs on our home and it is right down to the wire now. We have to get a mortgage on our home (which would help in a million ways) but our house has to have a market value of 75 000. Umm, not sure about that. I think I mentioned somewhere that we paid 20 000 for it, right? Well, it is certainly worth more that that but 75 000, yeah, not sure. Well, we’ve been trying to make it look at good as possible as we cannot to any major repairs….Looks can be deceiving, right. There’s lots of goodness about the place but without the updates (which they initially told us that they’d count when appraising the place), I’m not sure…..so yeah, crafty goals were displaced by house stuff.

Last week’s goals:

1. Finish the icky gross cleaning by cleaning the ickiest thing! DONE! It was icky.

2. Actually WRITE up the children’s end of year reports. NOT DONE.

3. Write one review. DONE

4. Link to a Blogher Book Club discussing, for well, the Blogher Book Club. NOT DONE. I participated in all the discussions, though.

5. Crochet the flowers for Morgaine’s skirt. NOT DONE.

6. Take some pictures of the quilt I started this spring and contemplate finishing it (note: finishing it is NOT a goal this week!) NOT DONE.

7. Try to be more positive. DONE! For the most part, anyways.

8. Comment on everyone who links here this week within 24 hours of them writing. NOT DONE. I don’t feel like very good hostess these days.

9. Get to the Bulk Bark to stock up on some healthy goodness. DONE!

This week’s goals:

1. Finish painting exterior trim.

2. Finish painting interior trim.

3. Add moldings to the entrance and laundry room we tiled on the weekend.

4. Put new door knobs on door.

5. Buy a couple interior plants.

6. Patch hole in bedroom wall (it’s been there since we moved in…..if nothing else, this crazy mortgage thing is making us take care of things we just haven’t got around to doing.

7. Paint above metioned bedroom.

I’d love to get all the house stuff done by Wednesday so that the appraiser can come in soon but Mike works pretty full time so we will see.

A few more personal goals as I want to keep up with my stuff, too:

8. Make (9. and blog about, if it turns out) an apricot coconut desert that sounds good in my head. It’s only in my head and I am using unfamiliar ingredients so I don’t know if it will be quite as good as I am imagining it.

10. Complete the next unit of my Wellness course. Baby has started napping again and that has been eating into my studying time in the evening as he doesn’t go to bed until I’m exhausted and crawl into bed beside him.

11. COMMENT ON EVERY POST THAT LINKS HERE!!!!!! I’m so grateful for you all joining in each week but I haven’t been showing it!

Penpal Kids Club – Review and Giveaway

My older son loves to connect with other children. He also intends to be a world traveller. Last year we had the chance to be introduced to Pen Pal Kids Club when it was pretty new. We loved it then so when we were given the opportunity to review it again this year we jumped on it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get as much time to use it as I would have liked but from what I see it is as wonderful as it was last year for connecting kids around the world and teaching them about various cultures and locations at the same time. I am so glad that we were given a 3 month membership so that not that things are settling down here we’ll be able to explore it more.

Until then here’s a little bit more about Pen Pal Kids Club:

– Encourages a love for learning about other cultures
– Helps children embrace similarities and differences
– Kids can write and receive digital postcards from around the world
– Postcards are translated into 7 languages:

• English
• French
• Spanish
• Italian
• Japanese
• German
• Chinese

– Advertiser-free site with built-in parental controls offers the ultimate in online safety

-TRUSTe Children privacy certification

About Pen Pal Kids Club from Shelley Aliotti the Creator and Founder:

The concept of Pen Pal Kids Club started when I was a kid…like many kids back then, around the world, I had a Pen Pal – Michi from Japan. Through her letters and mine we shared, learned and forged a unique friendship. That relationship, and fun, stayed with me as I grew, married, became a mom and now a grandmother.

In 1995, I decided to share this experience by creating My Pen Pal Scrapbook. I traveled to schools, groups, organizations and more. My Pen Pal Scrapbook made it easy and safe to share, learn and create friendships for life…worldwide.

I am proud to say that the original My Pen Pal Scrapbook has been read throughout the world. We are very excited that Pen Pal Kids Club has become more interactive, exciting and…much easier to use. Now as a global website, kids can Explore,Play and Share – within a completely safe site…from any computer! Kids are able to send digital postcards to one another and, with the speed of the internet, they can quickly see, that despite their physical and geographical differences, they are all much the same inside.

At Pen Pal Kids Club there will be no outside advertisers, members or hidden traps – this is a completely safe site. We sum it up by saying that, by joining Pen Pal Kids Club now, your family will begin safe, new adventures in Exploring, Playing & Sharing – in your home…and around the world! At Pen Pal Kids Club, on this virtual global playground, children everywhere will find that “The world is just a friend away.”

I do have the pleasure of giving away a 3 month membership to one of my lucky readers. To enter all you need to do is leave me a comment and tell me if you have ever had a pen pal and what that experience was like for you.

Addition entries (please leave a comment for each).

1) Like Real Life: Unscripted on facebook and tell me about it.
2) Follow me @mamamanuscripts on twitter and tell me your twitter ID so I can follow you.
3) Tweet/retweet about this giveaway and let me know.
4) Blog about this contest and give me your link (3 entries) – Don’t forget to comment 3 times for this one!

Comments close at 1pm Friday, June 8th, 2012 and a winner will be drawn at random.

“Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

I blog with integrity and will not endorse a product that I would not feel comfortable using within my family. My blog posts reflect my honest opinions of the products that I choose to review.

Goal Planning Monday – Week 71

Welcome to Goal Planning Monday!

If you are new here be sure to check out the guidelines and join in. We would love to have you! If you are returning, I hope you had a good week. Thank you for stopping in and sharing with us. Be sure to keep sharing with your friends as we all could use some accountability from time to time! I hope to see some new members this week. Keep spreading the word as we could all use some encouragement and support as we go about achieving our goals. If you have a moment get sure to hop over and see what others are doing.

Last week’s goals:

1. Icky dirty cleaning that I’ve been avoiding. Partially done. There’s still more, though.

2. Send in my first test results for vintage remedies. DONE! I completed the first two, actually. I ended with more uninterrupted time for my course than I thought (and less for other things).

3. Blog 3 times. Partially done. Not sure I should even say that! I made one post last night!

4. Find some kind of project/lapbook for Morgaine. Not done.

5. Try to be more positive. Sort of. Spent some time looking into medical issues and feeling icky so wasn’t as happy as I could have been, for sure.

6. Eat more veggies. DONE!

7. Avoid weiners/sausages. SO DONE! They completely grossed me out!

8. Start writing up the children’s end of year report for the department of education. Partially done. I thought hard about it and looked through our homeschooling basket.

This week’s goals

1. Finish the icky gross cleaning by cleaning the ickiest thing!

2. Actually WRITE up the children’s end of year reports.

3. Write one review.

4. Link to a Blogher Book Club discussing, for well, the Blogher Book Club.

5. Crochet the flowers for Morgaine’s skirt.

6. Take some pictures of the quilt I started this spring and contemplate finishing it (note: finishing it is NOT a goal this week!)

7. Try to be more positive.

8. Comment on everyone who links here this week within 24 hours of them writing.

9. Get to the Bulk Bark to stock up on some healthy goodness.

When it Feels Like we Haven’t Gotten Anywhere

Officially, another school year is coming to an end. I’m getting ready to write my end of year reports to the department of education and am looking over what I wrote last year and what my goals were for the year. Liam accomplished above and beyond what I set out for him to do. Morgaine, well Morgaine, it seems hasn’t quite progressed as far academically as I imagined she might have.

What do I do in this case? Is it time to start panicking? Some might thing so. What if she never catches up? I choose to see things a bit differently. Perhaps, she was very busy learning other valuable lessons this year. Maybe it was more important for her to spend time nurturing her baby brother. She spent many a day immersed in colouring and using various art techniques. She explored our yard and grew things with her own two hands. She danced and sang. She was a free spirit. She was happy.

Sitting her down at a desk and forcing her to do thing that she isn’t ready to do, likely would have been disastrous. It would likely make her feel stupid. It would have made her hate learning. So we let things move along more organically. We remind people that she isn’t really reading yet. There are times when we want to say, “If you could just read…..” but we hold our tongue and read the menu, or the book, over and over again. We’ve caught her tried to read and progress has been made so we are gentle and we wait and we know that when her time comes she will learn to read and it will all be okay.