Well, it's certainly been an unusually busy time for us lately!
Aside from preparing for Easter, Eldest, who has finished her online writing course, is now in the middle of a philosophy workshop. A local fellow home schooling mom brought in a rather interesting fellow to do this for us - her own dad, who just happens to be one of those genius renaissance scientists who's gone through several fascinating careers (including one at NASA), so this is a pretty cool opportunty. He's only out for a short time, so they've crammed his days full with different workshops aimed at different age groups. The guy's gonna be worn right out before he gets to go home! *L*
I'm certainly thankful for our van right now! There's no way we could have taken advantage of this at all if we didn't have transportation of our own. The location doesn't have any bus service. Still, I'm glad Youngest didn't have a lesson with her voice coach during Spring Break. Otherwise, we would have had to drag Eldest along, then go straight from one to the other. With the workshops already being 3 hours long, that would have been one heck of a long day for her.
Meanwhile, we've got all our usual running around, plus a few extra runs that come with a major holiday on the way. We're now ready to start colouring eggs - I plan to try doing drapanki this year - and need to bake bread. Besides that, we've got everything we need for this year's basket. I even got a new basket. Aside from the old one being full of yarn right now, I found it a bit too deep. Between the depth and the sloped sides, it made it hard to keep things from falling on top of each other. This basket is actually smaller in square inches, but the bottom is larger than the old one, so things can be spread out nicely, I think. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out.
With Eldest taking part in various things, it felt like we were doing lots for her, but other than the voice coaching, not much for Youngest. In asking her what her interests might be, she brought up wanting to do something more physical, like martial arts. Dh has been teaching them off and on, but he wasn't been able to maintain it. We aren't able to do formal lessons right now, but I can at least show her the basics of karate I learned in my youth. Today was the first day we started on that, and it was only a quick session in between trips. Just some stretches and exercises, along with the basic blocks. Once she's got the blocks down, I'll move on to punches, then kicks. I'm appreciating the opportunity myself, not only to get my own skills back up at least somewhat (some things, I am physically unable to do anymore), but to fill in for the walking I haven't been able to do in the last couple of weeks. We haven't even been making our library trips lately, other than to quickly drop off what's due and pick up holds. Or should I say, the girls do that while I try to find someplace to pull over, because people are parked in the passanger loading zone, which is supposed to be for people who are quickly dropping off/picking up books. :-/
A bit of a brag moment. Our family was featured in the latest newsletter for an hs group we're a member of. There's even a photo of the girls. The editor had sent a question out to the group for some feedback from people who've been hs'ing for quite a while, and my answer ended being the basis for a whole email interview. It was fun. :-)
A moment to share a brag for a fellow hs'ing mom and friend of mine, too. :-D Youngest and I just got back from seeing a movie this evening (in the second run theatre) with a whole bunch of other hs'ing folks in support of one of the teens, who is an actor. He was in the movie, sharing a scene with a couple of the main characters. Not a big part, but any part with lines, never mind a conversation, is good for the career. Especially when the scene is shared with a rather big name in the acting world. It was pretty cool to see him on the big screen. When his scene was done, everyone cheered for him. Then at the end, we all hung around until we saw his name in the credits and cheered him on again. :-D I'm quite happy for his success, and look forward to seing how his career progresses. It does make it hard to get together with his mom, though, since she's flying all over Canada and the US with him for auditions and parts. One of these days, we'll finally get together for a cuppa! *L*
All the running around with activities is kinda fun, but I have to say, I just don't know how some families manage to keep up schedules even busier than this, all the time. I know a few families with their kids involved in teams, clubs, and classes all over the place, and they're always on the go. I guess it's worth it, but I really appreciate the much slower pace we maintain most of the time. Having one or two regular things, sure, but when it gets into 4 or 5 things going on at once, it would drive me over the edge. *L* I really don't understand how families with kids in school manage it without everyone burning out completely. Then again, maybe they are burning out. I'm certainly reading enough articles about stressed out children and families.
Things will get back to normal for us after Easter. This school year is going to be a short one for us. We'll be getting our facilitator visit at the end of April, and once the paperwork is finished, we're officially done for the year. Not that that changes much in our routine. *L* It would be a good time for Eldest to start looking for a summer job. She's been wanting to for a while, but Dh isn't too happy with the idea of her working during "school" hours, of working more than a few hours a week. That sort of kills off her chances of getting anything that's out there for someone just entering the work field.
She and I, however, will be collaborating on a project together. Somehow or other, I'd ended up telling her about a book I'd started to write shortly after Youngest was born. She's encouraged me to dig out the old manuscript (which was among the boxes we brought back from storage in MB last fall). I'll be working on the text portion and she's going to be my illustrator. Which is going to be extra cool, since she and her sister are in the book, so she'll be illustrating herself as a 2-3 yr old, and her sister as a baby. :-D When things quiet down, I'm going to have to set aside regular time segments to work on it, as part of the book will require a fair amount of research. I mostly need to get my a$$ in gear, and prevent distractions from dragging me away.
Speaking of distractions, I've discovered the new layout options on blogger. I think I'm going to go play around with this blog's layout for a while. :-D
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