My Latest Projects

Project 1: Mind Organization:

Guess what?  I am learning to organize my mind!  Isn't that exciting?  For those of you who know me personally, you know I have a lot of goals and passions and idealistic pursuits, but my follow-through is sometimes lacking.  I jump from one ideal goal to another before I have firmly established habits and then I look back and remember how awesome that one goal was and I try to bounce back to it again.  While this is kind of fun and keeps life exciting,  I know that if I was a little more organized in my goals and ideals, my family would benefit so much.  Normally, I just have a hard time holding on to thoughts for very long - I misplace so many things because my mind is racing through several thoughts and is not quite aware of what my body is doing sometimes. 

I have a friend who is really into organizing and she told me of this great program called "Mind Organization for Moms".  As I've been implementing it for about three weeks now, I am so much more at peace! I no longer do things with the worry in the back of my mind that, "I ought to be doing something else that is important, but I can't remember what it is".  I have a time and a place for all of my ideas and goals.  Refreshing.  I am not perfect at it yet, but it has been such a blessing for me and my family.  Being more present with my children has been the biggest blessing, since I am not tripping over thoughts all of the time.  You can find more information about it here: http://powerofmoms.com/store/m-o-m/

Project 2: Quality Family Work
Our family has gotten relatively good at our schedule, but I often found that the quality wasn't quite up to par.  To work on quality, I made some checklists, put them in a page protector, and put them on a clipboard with a dry erase marker attached with some yarn.  They check off their checklists before asking me to check their work.  It's pretty detailed - it says things like "Check behind the door" or "Put cleaning supplies away" - the little things that often get neglected.  I've even had to make a couple of revisions when I notice a detail that often goes unnoticed. The house has been looking so much cleaner!  While I am determined to keep at it for at least 6 weeks until the habit is firmly established.... follow through is the hard part.  Being kind of a softy, I don't always make them check their checklists on days that they are "too tired" or busy (or that I was), but I have to remember how important it is to their character and be strict about it.  On the days that I have let things go, I could sense that it was not good for them - so I'm putting on my determined mind right now and sticking to it! :-)

Project 3: Vanguard - wrapping up the year
The other thing that has been on my mind lately has been the end of the year activities for our homeschooling youth group.  I can't believe it will be over in a month!  The year went by so fast.  What a blessing it has been!  I am developing a testimony of the Lord's methods of education.  As we have tried to incorporate the principles we have learned about from great books such as "Increase in Learning" and others, the youth have thrived and are catching the vision of how/why the Lord would have them learn.  Mentoring this incredible group of youth has been amazing - their insights are profound and I feel edified every time I get the opportunity to be around them.

Watching Spice "increase in learning" as she applies the things we have taught her at home, and as she is inspired by her peers and by the truth she learns, has been a delight.  Below are  all of the books and articles that Spice has read and discussed this year.  The youth are asked to prepare to teach something from their reading before they come to class, so she has also had a chance to teach from these readings.  These are the readings from the last 7 months of Vanguard that she completed:

TJEd for Teens

most of 5000 year leap

7 Miracles that Saved America

Otto of the Silverhand

Trumpeter of Krakow
Child's History of England (through ch 22)

Music Talks for Children

Three Questions by Tolstoy

The Journey of Al & Gebra in the land of Algebra

Several short mathematician biographies

Racing to the Moon

Men of Iron

The Hiding Place

The Happy Prince - Wilde

Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers (chapters 1-7)

Story of Liberty (3 chapters)

The Story of Europe

Genesis Chapter 1 (very slowly with a lot of word studies)

Several LDS articles (You were Born to Lead; Decisions for which I've Been Grateful; Perry talk; Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge; Finding Inspiration in the Arts; Terror, Triumph and the Wedding Feast; The Constitution - a Glorious Standard; The Arts and the Spirit of the Lord)

The Message

Unlikely Heroes

The Story of Rolf and the Viking's Bow

The Proper Role of Government

Science books/chapters of own choosing (about the weather, rock and water cycles, astronomy, human body, and others)

6 short biographies of artists

The Story of the Crusades

Declaration of Independence

Magna Carta

The Constitution

The Living Christ
The Nicene Creed

Sleeping Beauty

Mystery of the Periodic Table

Bill of Rights

Beowulf

The Travels of Marco Polo

Jungle Book

Yearning for the Living God

The Merry adventures of Robin Hood

Remembering Isaac

Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Fascinating Fibonacci's

The Traveler's Gift

Joan of Arc by Twain - vol 1

Galen and the Gateway to Medicine

The Giver

The Chosen

This means she has read 28 books, 5 partial books, 19 articles or short stories and quite a few short biographies and science concepts.  Not bad for 7 months!  I am so happy with the education she is choosing (none of this was mandatory or graded, but she wanted to do it since she values getting an education - how cool is that?!)

Those are pretty much the latest projects (besides de-junking and spring cleaning - how do we pile up so much stuff so quickly?! And implementing some of the great ideas I got from general conference - I'll have to find time to blog about that too - wasn't it awesome? And I now have an organized way to follow through with the great inspiration!)  I have several pictures I need to download and memories to record, so hopefully I will get to that soon also.  I just didn't want to let another week go by without an update.