Homeschoolin'

This is my second full year of homeschooling and I've noticed lately when I think or talk about it, it suddenly feels comfortable.  Very quietly, the feeling of being at peace, of knowing I'm doing the right thing, of feeling this is normal and not some temporary aberration, has stolen over me.  It's as much a part of our lives now as going to work or cooking dinner. I don't know if I'll ever feel like it's a cake walk, but I no longer feel any inner turmoil about whether I should be doing this or whether I'm doing enough.

At the start of the year, I was still in turmoil partially because I'd gotten Sam's MSP scores from the previous year.  And he didn't pass.  Not by much, but still.  And it bothered me.  As I'm sure many parents feel, when our kids fail at something we blame ourselves.  Yet at the same time I was berating myself for not doing a good enough job teaching him, the other side of my brain was suggesting that maybe Sam just didn't test well, that he hurried through it due to lack of interest, and that his teachers had no concerns whatsoever with where he was at.  All those thoughts were reinforced during my first meeting with his teacher in November.  Mr. N. said the exact same thing - kids are not test scores.  He reaffirmed what I already knew:  Sam is very bright, very quick and when he cooperates and is interested, he's a freaking wizard.

This year, Zoe started Kindergarten so I am schooling two instead of one.  She would probably do just fine in a traditional school setting, but then again, she's a little girl.  But I'm not having my kids on two different schedules, in two different schools.  And I'm certainly not sending her to the school that Sam went to.  I'm happy to report, she is doing splendidly here at home.  She's zooming through her work and making great progress.  She's a very eager learner (most of the time) and seems to be especially loving math right now.  I'm pretty sure she'll finish up the Kindergarten level work before the end of the year.

One of my biggest complaints about this whole endeavor is just not having enough TIME.  I work several evenings a week, so schoolwork has to be done before I leave.  And because I work several evenings a week, it doesn't leave me a whole lot of time to really plan.  I could spend several hours every Sunday evening getting our week planned out, researching things, printing out stuff, and hunting down fun games, projects, etc.  But I just don't have the TIME.  I mean, I could hole up in my office on the nights I'm home and completely neglect my family and house, but that wouldn't do anybody any good.  So for now, we piece it together day to day. 

This is how our day has looked today:  I woke up about 8:45am, the kids were already up watching cartoons.  I drank my coffee and woke up, they played and watched TV.  Then about 10:00am, I made them some breakfast and they got started on schoolwork.  Sam started with English, learning about singular and possessive plural nouns.  Zoe occupied herself with drawing in her journal.  They took a 15 minute break, then came back and worked on Math.  I went back and forth between them, providing direction and help as needed.  Then Zoe moved on to practicing her handwriting in a dry-erase book, while Sam did his reading comprehension exercise and his spelling practice.  Meanwhile, I puttered in the kitchen, making some homemade granola and cleaning up breakfast stuff.  Currently, they are playing in the living room, shooting each other with Nerf guns.  We'll call that PE.  While I'm in the shower, Sam will do his phonics work, a page from his Map Skills, a logic puzzle and possibly some writing.  Zoe will also do her phonics work and maybe a sequencing exercise.  (Yesterday we didn't get a lick of work done because I had a doctor's appt so we're doing a bit extra today.)  When I'm done in the shower, I'll have the kids clean their bathroom, and we'll call it a day since I have to head to work.

It's been a full day but pretty typical. 

Getting back on the horse

I think almost daily about this space that I possess, where I once wrote and recorded the minutiae of my life.  Then that minutiae buried me and Facebook became easier.  But Facebook doesn't keep the same record a blog does.  So, here I am, yet again, trying to get back on the proverbial blogging horse.

I changed the name of this space, not because my life is no longer crazy, ho ho, NO.  But because I am in constant pursuit these days.  It ties in with my all-time favorite quote (see the side bar ---->).  The pursuit I am talking about is not the kind where you're desperately chasing something that is getting away from you.  Instead, I'm talking about pursuing something.  And in my case, pursuing MANY things.

I turned 40 last summer and it was like it flipped a switch in me.  All of a sudden, I felt like things came very sharply into focus, or at least more focused than they'd ever been.  The things I wanted to do, who I wanted to be, HOW I wanted to be, how I wanted to use my time and talents.  There's just so much I want to do that it suddenly all just clicked that NOW IS THE TIME.  GO, GIRL.   And so, here I am, exhausting myself in the glorious pursuit of my life.

I set some goals for 2012 - some ambitious (run 400+ miles), some pretty mundane (repaint master bath), and some that are more To-Do's than goals (build garden boxes).  Some are silly (get another tattoo), some are for personal satisfaction (get family photos taken).    But aside from those that I wrote down, I really just want to push myself this year.  I want to find out what I'm capable of. 

One of my blogger crushes, Beth, wrote something today about runners that I think is so true:  "Running is expansive – it opens you wider than you thought you could go. It gives you courage and confidence to tackle other parts of your life that might otherwise feel unmanageable or impossible." 

I swore for years I hated running, couldn't do it, had no desire to do it.  And yet somehow at 38, I discovered I loved running.  I was amazed that I could train myself to do something that was SO hard and that I had previously thought impossible.  I'll be honest, it hasn't been easy.  I've never worked as hard at anything (other than parenting) as I have at becoming a runner.  But it's proved to me that I can do hard things and that it is worth it.  Doing something so physically challenging, rather late in the game, has opened my eyes to a whole world of possibilities. No longer is anything out of reach, because by George, if I can drag my almost 40 year old body through 13.1 miles, who knows what I'm capable of!

On that note, I'm going to drag my exhausted body to bed.  Because tomorrow is a whole 'nother day full of pursuits.

Inked

Tired

I haven't the creative juices this morning to string together any witty repartee because my job has sucked the life out of me.  I picked up some extra hours this week which left me with only one day off and a couple particulary long shifts, back to back.  Over the last two days I've worked 26 hours.  The day before that I did my normal 8 and today I have a measly 8 hours to grind out.  So all in all, I will have worked 42 hours in 4 days time.  I think the total for the 7-day week is 58 hours. 

I used to do this almost every week when I was in my 20's.  I worked two jobs and typically worked 19-20 days in a row every month without a day off, most of those days being 12-14 hour days.  Ah, youth....

Hopefully I won't be having to pick up many extra hours in the future because thankfully my hubby has found a full-time job.  Work has been kind of patchy for over a year now and we've really been struggling financially.  It could have been so much worse, I know.  There are thousands of people out there who are losing everything, but it sure wasn't fun every month stressing about how we were gonna pay the mortgage.  But we paid it.  Every month.  So now, I think we can start to breathe a bit easier and Momma can get back to doing what she does best - taking care of her family.

And sleeping.

Spring Fever

Aside from being desperate for warmer temperatures and drier days, I *really* need some better weather.  I am positively twitching in my yearning to get outside and run.  I've been doing all my runs and workouts at the gym which is lovely in that I have that option, but for some reason this year running on the treadmill for longer than about 30 minutes makes me very stabby. 

Last year when I was just starting to run, I'd slog through 60-75 minutes on the treadmill, gasping for breath and mentally willing my legs to keep turning over.  Whether it's a sign of progress in my ability or a decline in my level of patience, I don't know, but I just can't handle the treadmill for very long anymore.  Which means I'm not getting as many miles as I'd like in.  I've been bailing off the treadmill and switching to the elliptical after a few miles and that has helped.  I really do love the elliptical and try to tell myself that at least it's a similar motion to running and better than doing nothing.

I should point out that I'm kind of a big wimp when it comes to running in less-than-decent weather.  I don't readily head out in the pouring rain to run, or if there's wind, or if it's too cold.  (Ironic since I'll plow through mud and awful terrain and whatever weather there happens to be on a race day.)  There have been several days when I totally could have run, probably rather comfortably, if I'd just sucked it up and gone.  

I'm getting to the point though that I *really* want and need to be doing longer runs.  I'm dying to get out and RUN.  I miss running on the trails and roads around here.  

And my list of To-Do races is growing at an alarming rate.   So far I have a 5K in both April and May, a 1/2 marathon in May, a mud run and 1/2 marathon in June and a 15k and a 1/2 marathon in September.  Haven't lined anything up for July or August yet.  Those are busy months to begin with but I'm sure I'll find something.  I know there are races around here during those months, I just haven't nailed down the dates yet.   But you can be sure I will!

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In the March Runner's World magazine, there are a bunch of quotes from Dean Karnazes. My favorite was his response when asked "Doesn't running hurt?"  His reply?  "It does if you're doing it right." 

Gettin' Down & Dirty

Last fall my running pal, Heather, and I drug our men to a little event called The Warrior Dash.  We had all kinds of dirty fun and left feeling really badass.

This year those crazy lovebirds are already signed up to do it again, this time in our home state, but I waited too long to decide and now it's full on the day they're doing it.  I procrastinated because the race is the weekend after my 40th birthday and I am thinking about throwing myself a birthday bash that weekend.  And since the race is a couple hours away from home, I wasn't sure it would work.  So basically the fates decided for me.

This year, via the ol' Facebook, I learned of a different dirty race.  And since my mud buddies are already signed up for it, there was no way I was gonna miss out.  This one is the Survivor Mud Run and it is the weekend before the Seattle Rock 'n Roll 1/2 marathon.  Unfortunately, there is no fire to jump over at this race, but there appears to be a heckuva lot more mud.

Can I tell you how much I love that since mentioning this on Facebook I've had multiple friends grab me and say "I wanna do that mud race!  Can I come too??"   Seriously, I have the raddest friends.  And we're all gonna get down and dirty together.

Food is My Friend

So yet again, concern has been raised about whether I'm eating enough.  Let me say right off the bat - I EAT ENOUGH.  Food is my friend.  Yes, there are days I get so busy that I forget to eat three actual meals, but I'm not starving myself and trust me, when I forget to eat and I am suddenly reminded of that fact by my stomach gnawing on my backbone, I start stuffing whatever is closest into my pie-hole regardless of its nutritional value.   But when I have the time (which is almost always), I eat a healthy and balanced diet.

Lately I have been salad crazed.  I recently discovered that, unbeknownst to me, I actually DO like spinach - baby spinach, that is.  Here I've lived almost 40 years believing that I didn't like spinach when lo and behold, I DO.  'Tis nummy.  And this discovery I believe has re-fueled my salad-crazedness.  (Is too a word.)   I have been inhaling a large bowl of salad almost every night for dinner, especially at work.  Like, such a big bowl it would normally serve a family of four.

Today I went for a nice run at the gym and came home hungry so I built myself the following masterpiece:

Ingredients as follows:

2 handfuls of organic baby lettuce
1 handful of organic baby spinach
1/3 cup (or so) of shredded carrots
Almost half a red bell pepper, diced
Half an avocado
1/4 of an English cucumber
1/4 cup of crumbled blue cheese
About 2 Tbsp of dried cranberries
About 1/4 cup unsalted toasted almond slices

Dressing:  1 tsp dijon mustard, 1 1/2 Tbsp muscat orange champagne vinegar, 1 1/2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, fresh ground pepper.

According to this site the total calories in this salad were 809 calories.  That's a little on the high side for a bowl of rabbit food, but take into account the high fat content of the avocado, nuts, blue cheese and olive oil.  Now, except for the blue cheese, all those things are high in GOOD FATS.  So frankly, I consider this salad a success.  And having had my lipids all checked last week and finding out they are AWESOME, I'm not real concerned.

As I get to where I'm doing longer runs and more training, I am VERY aware of how much I eat.  Not just because I'm hungry all the time, but because I make sure to give myself enough of what I need.  At almost 5'9" and around 130 lbs, I know I don't have a lot of wiggle room for weight loss.  That's never been my goal.  I use an online site to track my daily calories, adding back in those I've burned on workouts.  I eat even when I'm not hungry.  I eat when I get home from work at midnight if I haven't had enough calories during the day or if I'm just plain hungry, even though that goes again everything we've ever heard ("Don't eat after 7pm").

I know I'm questioned and criticized out of concern (mostly) but it frustrates me that when you are thin, the world thinks it's okay to share their opinions about your body, something most people would never do to someone on the other end of the spectrum.  I mean seriously, would you ever say to an overweight person "I'm just really worried that you're eating too much.  Maybe you should lay off."  I'm much happier with the body I have now then when I weighed the same but was three sizes bigger.  I obviously had some extra padding if, when getting serious about exercise and diet, it melted away. 

I'm hurtling toward my 40th birthday and I'm actually excited about it, to be honest.  I'm proud to be heading into a new decade of my life, being fit and feeling fierce.

Bring it on.