I think I am ready for inspection. I have done everything there is to do except vacuum the foyer stairs and make one of the beds. I don't know why I am so worried about it. I guess it is because no one ever sees our home and so when someone finally does, I want it to look nice. I guess it must be a girl thing. It doesn't even matter who is visiting or how long they will be here, it still matters a lot that everything is right.
My oldest little person is now working on his last packet of worksheets from his huge Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills Grade Two workbook. As soon as I get the last pile of completed projects logged I can make an appointment for evaluation. I would like to read some more books and take a couple of field trips before we do the evaluation though. We have a lot of workbook work to show and not much else.
I need to find my littlest person a dress to wear to the wedding in March. I will also need a new pair of shoes for her and myself. This is fast becoming an expensive event. I wish my dress would hurry up and get here.
Posted by gwendolyn on February 28, 2001 at 10:07 AM
Day two of cleaning. I am tired and sore. I am not sore from cleaning. I am sore from lifting weights. I am a wimp. But if I am going to justify buying a $138.00 swim suit, I am going to have to tighten up a little. No, make that a lot. Please hurry body. I don't have much patience with it at the moment.
Anyway, I shouldn't have to clean again for at least six months right? I am going to officially make this my "spring cleaning" session. I don't think I can do it again until next spring. I am off to shampoo the dining room carpet now. You ain't got Domestic Goddessness like I got Domestic Goddessness today.
Posted by gwendolyn on February 27, 2001 at 02:43 PM
I am on another mission today. Today I am busting ass to get my house ready for my inlaws to come stay the night on Wednesday. I smell like bleach. I hate that.
Posted by gwendolyn on February 26, 2001 at 03:32 PM
I am doing it again. I have been finding all sorts of cool curriculum online today. My printer has been busy since about 9a.m. If I keep it up we will have to pretty much rule out unschooling as an option again next year.
Posted by gwendolyn on February 23, 2001 at 02:25 PM
How am I going to justify filing a lawsuit against my doctor for malpractice if I forget to show up for my appointments to yell at him about my agony and suffering twice in a row?
Posted by gwendolyn on at 07:54 AM
Well, I just spent another entire morning at a different mall searching for a dress. I didn't know shopping could be so much of a pain in the ass really. I was basically looking for a dress like the Chadwick's dress. I didn't find it. So, I broke down and ordered it. I am still not sure about how formal or informal this wedding is. I want it. I guess I pretty much decided that two days ago. I like the Spiegel dress too. And I want it too, because I am a spoiled brat. But I won't order it. I have done enough damage for one day. Now I have to find some sexy shoes. I just love sexy shoes.
Posted by gwendolyn on February 22, 2001 at 02:22 PM
I am so tired of looking for a dress. I just spent the entire afternoon dragging my little people around in the huge outlet mall. I didn't find one dress that I thought would be appropriate. It is starting to wear on my nerves a little. I have found two online that I like. One is a little less formal than the other. I don't know what to do because Terry liked both of them and now he doesn't like either of them. We are attending a wedding on the last weekend of March. It is an evening wedding. It is outdoors at a fancy Bed and Breakfast in central Florida. I want something romantic and feminine looking. I am putting it up for discussion. If anyone out there in the big ol' world has an opinion of either of these dresses please enlighten me.
The Chadwicks of Boston dress
The Spiegel Dress
I personally like both of them. I just am not sure how formal an evening outdoor wedding at a bed and breakfast is supposed to be. Also, please take into account that I will be dealing with three small children. Comfort is an issue.
Posted by gwendolyn on February 21, 2001 at 04:19 PM
I didn't make it to the slinky dress hunt last night. So I am going to do that this afternoon after school and lunch is over with. I did accomplish everything I wanted to yesterday, and then some. It is always good to reach goals even if they are small and relatively unimportant to the rest of human kind :)
I need veggies. Soon. We ate breadsticks and pizza sauce from Papa John's last night. They always appeal to me until I have eaten a couple. Then I feel like someone threw a brick into my stomach. No more breadsticks for me. I chanted that silently in my head as I ran on the treadmill last night. I just know what my body needs. It needs fruit and veggies and water the most. That is what makes me feel the best.
I had better go get lunch on the table for my man and my crew of little people. Momma has some power shopping to do today and we won't be stopping for food every ten minutes.
Posted by gwendolyn on at 11:32 AM
It was an interesting weekend. We went north for a couple of days. It was one of those "make you appreciate your home and your own bed" weekends. Long drive. Screaming baby. Sleeping with children kicking you in the head. Trying to entertain little people in a non-little people environment is very difficult.
Monday was sad. Death is a very big horrible deal to me. I fear it. I worry about it. I cry about it, sometimes for weeks at a time. I think about it entirely too much. So, when it happens and I am aware of it, I mourn. Even when it isn't someone close to me. I am a freak.
I am on a shameless vanity mission again. I booked myself up for a lot of pampering over the next month. I am going to give myself a facial, manicure and pedicure in a little while, and I had my hair and brows done this morning. Later, I am going on a slinky dress hunt for the wedding in March. Then off to another vanity appointment. And if I have any energy left after that I am going to work out before bed. I hope I make it through it all. I pretty much feel like a princess today though :) I think I just need to do this for myself once in awhile.
I apologize for the lack of new things to read and look at in the other sections of this site. Life just got really busy. My mind is pulled in a million directions and that writer wannabe, being just one of my many personalities, just got pushed onto the back burner for the moment. Hopefully, when it all comes out it will be worth the wait.
Posted by gwendolyn on February 20, 2001 at 03:01 PM
Goodbye Mr. Earnhardt. I'm very sorry to see you go :(
Posted by gwendolyn on February 19, 2001 at 08:40 AM
Well, my plans for the pool got a little side tracked over the last three days. I will try again next week to meet my goal. However, I may still try to go rollerblading later. It depends on how my date with the laundry goes. At the moment, it has me pretty much tied down for the day.
My oldest little person has resolved to finish up his second grade curriculum quickly so that we can move on with our lives. He even mentioned working through the weekend. He is very excited by the prospect of being able to call himself a "third grader" before public school is finished for the year. I am trying to wean him from a lot of the compulsory school thinking. I want him to not think of himself as a certain grade level. Even the school district no longer thinks of him as a grade level. If I were to take him back to enroll him in public school he would have to take a placement test. I don’t think it is going to really hit us until there is no graduation. That, for me, will be odd. Chances are he will complete “high school” much earlier at home than he would in public school.
We have discussed the different methods of home schooling with him over the last week and much to my amazement, he wants to try a variation of the Unschooling method. I am going to read as much as I can on the subject over the next few months so that I can make an educated choice at the end of this “year”.
I think that it is pointless to take the three months of traditional summer vacation off when we are already in the learning routine. Summer would indeed be a complete bore if we tried not to learn at all. Besides, the summer here is wretchedly hot. I would much prefer to sit in the comfort of air conditioning and read books and surf the Internet for interesting topics and watch Discovery Channel and the Cooking Network during those months. Then we could spend the mild “winter” outdoors while other children are confined to their desks.
Posted by gwendolyn on February 16, 2001 at 08:45 AM
I want to be a good teacher. I want to. I want to I want to. So, what does that mean exactly? I am in a mental tug-o-war about the whole thing.
The laws here are so flexible that it allows me to declare that family time, going swimming, and playing in the park are sometimes even more valuable than writing with proper sentence structure and being able to multiply in our heads. That is basically who I am. I didn't used to know this about myself.
I think that a lot of what is wrong with the world today comes from people being so uptight and conforming. I also think that having a mid life crisis and quitting your job, moving onto a boat and drinking orange juice and Captain Morgan's while sitting in a lounger watching the sun go down over the horizon is basically just a delayed realization of what is really most important in life. It is all about quality. It has nothing to do with quantity. For me that would be time well spent. There are things to see and do. If you are sitting with your nose to the grindstone all of the time your life will pass you by.
This is not to say that I want my children to grow up uneducated and unrefined. I want the exactly the opposite. But I think having freedom and independence in learning makes children resourceful and more uninhibited in pursuing their own interests.
My children are very bright and have a natural capability of learning. I believe all children have that. I just think that there aren’t many adults out there willing to allow them to learn at their own pace. I am fortunate that mine learn very easily and quickly. I feel for many parents out there with children who have special needs and are either fighting the system that holds them back because of those needs, or completely unable to provide the environment that their child needs to strive and be successful.
My son is an artist. He will be artistic when he grows up. He knows it. His dad knows it. I know it. We all know it. An education will definitely help that dream along, whatever he does with it. In the long run though it will be his artistic creativity that makes him happiest.
And yet I still plug along each day, assigning workbook pages and reading assignments and battle him over the lack of interest in writing projects. I obsess over curriculum and whether I am doing enough. Is our stack of completed papers big enough for the evaluator? Has he read enough books this year? Were they challenging enough for his reading level?
Why? When I know that if there wasn’t someone there at the end of this road judging us both, I wouldn’t be overly concerned with curriculum and standards.
I hate that what I do, I do for the approval of people I don’t even know or care about. Everything in me says to do it my way. I don't know what I am waiting for.
Posted by gwendolyn on February 14, 2001 at 04:54 PM
Maybe I shouldn't write anything mushy on the card...maybe I should find a pretty red thong and just tape the card over my chest and greet him with a big smile when he gets here. It already says "To My Valentine.." Yeah, that is way more Gwen-like.
Posted by gwendolyn on at 02:47 PM
It is killing me that I have been sitting here for the better part of today trying to write something totally romantic and perfect for the card I am making for my Valentine. Me, the mushy love poem writing fool. Why isn't it happening? I think it is because I have lost whatever ability I had to get what is in my heart to pour out through my fingertips. It isn't that it is not there. It is there. I can feel it churning. I know it is there. I write, revise, delete. Over and over and over. I am frustrated.
Posted by gwendolyn on at 02:41 PM
My apologies for not posting for so long.
I have resolved to spend four out of five mornings at the pool this week. I have also resolved to lose the last twenty pounds that is still looming. This is going to be a very difficult task if I spend my days in front of this screen. I think that I have modified my eating habits to the point that I couldn't eat any healthier unless I became a rawist. Which I have considered but believe I would not do well at. I am also considering making time each afternoon to go rollerblading. All of this has to be secondary to our school work, of course.
Posted by gwendolyn on February 13, 2001 at 08:41 AM
Today, I am so so thankful for the unconditional love of my three children.
Posted by gwendolyn on February 08, 2001 at 08:55 AM
I hunted around all day yesterday for my optimism. I think I found it. I guess the only way to learn our life lessons are to have those really bad moments that make us think that what we have may very well go away. It is then that we either really appreciate the way things are and want to keep them that way, or we realize that maybe having it all go away is what we really want.
It is really scary when you aren’t sure which way it went for the people around you.
Posted by gwendolyn on February 06, 2001 at 09:35 AM
I wish I could say that everything is perfect. I wish I could say that I didn't wake up this morning with the feelings of uncertainty, insecurity, depression, sorrow and self-pity churning in my gut for the millionth time this lifetime. I wish I could say I am not sitting here wallowing in it all right now. Wallowing doesn't solve anything.
Posted by gwendolyn on February 05, 2001 at 11:24 AM
We just got back from blading over to the clubhouse to pay the rent. It is getting hot again already! That was THE most unusual winter I have ever experienced. I guess all northerners probably feel that way after their first winter here. We have even turned the air conditioning back on.
It never fails, each time we are out in public during "school hours" we get unusual looks and prying questions. Today was no different. Sometimes, I just want to tell people to mind their own business. Other times I just think it is funny and smile and go on. Today, I just wanted to flip them off. That would have been a bad thing though right?
Posted by gwendolyn on February 02, 2001 at 12:04 PM
I am baking pumpkin pie. It smells wonderful.
I am also cleaning...again. Sort of. It mostly consists of cleaning the same three messes up continually all day. The kitchen, the dining room, and the girls room. I am trying to work in a bathroom or two and some vacuuming here and there. Now if i could just keep up with Mt. Bigasspileoflaundry. It is a lost cause I think. I am positively domestic goddessy today.
I have some bits and pieces ready to add to ebb. I am hoping to find some time to pencil in some "me time" soon. I am losing whatever it was that drove that part of me. Maybe it is the now non existing relationship between me and my old friend Captain Morgan. Maybe I will invite him over for a drink later.
Posted by gwendolyn on February 01, 2001 at 02:47 PM