Reading Challenge ~ January Update

My goal for reading this year was to read 52 books or more in 2012. Each month for the Reading Challenge we are supposed to do an update and link up. This month I read....

Julia's Last Hope

Link to my review on my blog 

By Wagon and Flatboat
 
Review on my blog that I did for Read-Aloud Thursday of By Wagon and Flatboat

The Centurion's Wife (Acts of Faith, #1)
I got this for free for my Nook. I got my Nook for Christmas. I liked these enough to buy the next two in the series for my Nook with a gift card my friend Michele got for me for Christmas. These books are fiction but use biblical characters and events that actually happened and then build the fictional story around those things. This one is about the centurion from Luke 7: 1-10. Pilate and his wife, the one who had dreams about Jesus, are also in the book, as are other real people from the Bible. Another important and stirring part of this is the description of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the believers. I am currently reading book 2 The Hidden Flame (Acts of Faith Series #2) This series is Great! and I love Janette Oke and Davis Bunn and together they are a killer combination.

The Romance of a Christmas Card
This was a fun little free book that I got for the Kindle app but I was able to change it to a epub and put it on my Nook. I read it early in January when I was still in a sorta Christmas mood. It was short and had a spiritual dimension to it as well that was great. It is a coming home kind of story.

Something Old, Something New (Tales from Grace Chapel Inn, #10
I love, love, love the Tales from Grace Chapel Inn series. This one is based on a wedding! What else could it be with a title like that??

We Have This Moment (Tales from Grace Chapel Inn, #11
This book is mostly about old love renewed, for older couples. 

That is 6 books in January!! I am 2 books ahead!
I hope I can keep this up... or even read more. It would be soooo cool to read 100 books in 2012... but that would mean I am 2 books behind... not 2 ahead! I will just leave things as they are and do my best to read 52 books... or more... in 2012.

I am Currently Reading 10 books -

• All in the Timing , by Melody Carlson (personal Christian fiction, for fun)
• The Hidden Flame (Acts of Faith Series #2) , by Davis Bunn (personal Christian fiction, for fun, on my Nook)
• How People Change (VantagePoint Books) , by Timothy S. Lane (Spiritual)
• God's Priorities for Today's Woman: Discovering His Plan for You , by Lisa Hughes (Spiritual, for ladies Bible study)
• The Power of a Praying Wife , by Stormie Omartian  (Spiritual, to pray for and encourage my hubby)
• My Utmost for His Highest , by Oswald Chambers (Spiritual, year long daily devotional)
• Reshaping It All , by Candace Cameron Bure (Health and Fitness/Spiritual)
• Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear , by Max Lucado (Spiritual)
• With Wolfe in Canada , by G.A. Henty (Historical Fiction Read-Aloud for school)
• Evangeline and the Acadians , by Robert Tallant (History Read-Aloud for school)

 
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A Mile in His Shoes ~ Review and Giveaway « Mama Manuscripts

I have entered a lot of these giveaways and have not won yet
I really hope I win! I have only a few chances left.
But, even though it will make it harder for me to win, I guess you can check out this giveaway my friend is doing on her blog.
A Mile in His Shoes looks like a great movie.

A Mile in His Shoes ~ Review and Giveaway « Mama Manuscripts


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Blast From The Past ~ Visiting Aunt June and Uncle Frank 01-19-96

Today I am featuring family photos from a trip in 1996.
Our trip started because of a family wedding. My daughters were in the wedding.
The wedding was in Michigan.

Then we went to Wisconsin. My husband was considering moving there.

On the way home we stopped to visit my husband's Aunt and Uncle in Western PA.
These are photos from that part of the the trip.

Why did I choose these photos this week??
Because last week I went back to Court's Aunt's home,
for the funeral of her husband.
These photos were from the last time we were at Aunt June and Uncle Frank's as a family.

I am thankful that Court and my dd Jessica were able to go visit the family a week before he died. I am really thankful that he accepted the Lord as his Savior recently. I am also thankful to have been able to attend the funeral with my husband. I love my family on both sides and Aunt June is precious to me. My only wishes were that I had taken more photos during this visit and that I had a photo of Court's Uncle from this trip.

Enjoy!

Nathan

Aunt June

Court's Cousin Greg

 Rachel
(Rachel was not feeling well and actually spent a bunch of the time at Aunt Junes in an upstairs bedroom. Maybe that is why I did not have more photos, I was busy taking care of her.)

Nathan

          Jessica,    Nathan, and Rachel

 

Rachel seems to be feeling better in the photo.

Now it is your turn!

Here are the Rules for participating:
The purpose of Blast From The Past is to link up a post about something from the past. You can reach back all the way to your childhood and bravely post pictures of you in your wild clothes and hair styles or post something from last year and tell us about it. I'm not picky. Hey, even yesterday was the past... LOL My posts will mostly be about events that happened prior to blogging, as a way to share those things with the world.

• It can be about you, about your kids, about your parents, about whatever. For ideas check out the other posts in my label Blast From the Past. 
• Please use a permalink that sends readers directly to the correct post. If you are not sure what that is click the word permalink for an explanation. 
• Mention my blog and offer a link back to the main page of my blog. http://debbiesdigest.blogspot.com/ This is a requirement to take part and a kind gesture to me your hostess as well as your readers--they will know where to join in the fun, too. You can put the Blast From The Past button on your site and in your post. You will find it on my right sidebar. Please use it to link to my site, to spread the word about my meme. Using the button will help others know how to find me and how to join. Tell others to click on the button in your post to find us here.
• Leave me a comment. First so that you can let me know what you think of my pictures and secondly so that I will know a new post has been linked up and I can come visit your blog and comment on your photos.

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Goal Planning Monday ~ Week 53

 Time to write some goals and strive to accomplish them this coming week??

Join us by clicking on the button above...
after you read my goals.

This week held a lot of unexpected things. Sunday my husband decided that he was taking me with him to his Uncle's funeral service in PA, 6+ hours from our home. I had a lot of last minute things to get done. So, Monday - Wednesday held lots of reading in the car Mon. and Wed. while traveling and Monday evening and Tuesday it was full of family and talking and some tears during the actual service on Tues. Tues. night I did not feel well and kept my hubby awake as well. Wed. we left later than planned because of our lack of sleep the night before but did well on the road. I slept part of the way and read the rest of the way. So... I got a lot of reading done this week... but not much else. Thursday and Friday I was exhausted from the trip and still not feeling well. My boys did school but only the minimum on their own. I was not up to reading to them or doing school with them. Saturday was a full day of catching up on things and Sunday we had Sunday School, Church and then a dedication service for our new building. We left for church at 9:30am and got home at 7:00pm this evening. It was a great day, full of praise to the LORD!

My Goals from last week and how I did:

Spiritual Goals 

1. Read my Bible Daily. Partly Done I read my bible and listened to music some days but not all of them.
2. Read a Godly book, daily, as part of my morning Devotions. I am currently reading Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear or the spiritual/fitness book from my fitness goals below - Reshaping It All.   Not Done
3. Listen to Godly Music Daily, as part of my morning Devotions. Partly Done
4. Write in my Spiritual Journal Daily, as part of my morning Devotions. Partly Done
5. Read Power of a Praying Wife and leave hubby a note for each chapter I read. He needs the extra prayers and encouragement. Not Done
6. Read as much as possible of the new books I got for our Sunday School study. How People Change and How People Change Study Guide: How Christ Changes Us by His Grace I am behind because I got my book late. I want to keep up with the current chapters and catch up as much as possible when I am able to do extra work. Not Done

Homeschool Goals

1. The boys are taking off while I go to the funeral with my hubby, we will get back to homeschooling when I get back. Done
2. Keep up with logging in the boys work and grading whatever we get done on Thurs. and Friday. Done

Blog Goals    

1. Work on the Virtual Curriculum Fair post for next week. Done It was the last week of the virtual fair. It was lots of fun and gave me topics to write about on my blog. I missed last week's because of going to my husband's Uncle's funeral. I plan to make it up this week one day.
2. Join in some favorite memes that I like to do. Done

Fitness Goals    

1. Exercise 3 days for at least 15 min each time. Not Done
2. Eat Better, more fruits and veggies and write down what I eat. Not Done
3. Drink 48-64 oz of water daily and keep track. Not Done
4. Read some of Reshaping It All: Motivation for Physical and Spiritual Fitness by Candace Cameron Bure. Not Done

Personal/Other Goals

1. Comment on all the other GPM ladies posts. Keep track of their names with links here so I know whose I have done. Done I commented on the participating blogs at Our Hostess @ Mama Manuscripts, Paisley Parmer @ Home School Tweet,  Kym @Homeschool Coffee Break
   
2. Purge and toss some unneeded items making room for my hubby. He says he cannot be creative with clutter around... so I need to get rid of some stuff to make room for him. Not Done
3. Read, Read, Read! I will be linking up my reading this year to I am currently reading a number of things... for personal, fun, fiction reading I am reading  Something Old, Something New (The Tales from Grace Chapel Inn Series #10). I should finish that and will probably start the next book We Have This Moment (The Tales from Grace Chapel Inn Series #11) Done Finished Something Old, Something New and started We Have This Moment. I am also working on reading Emma and The Hidden Flame (Acts of Faith, Book 2)
4. Keep up with making dinners and doing kitchen chores. I am doing all the cooking until the end of January. Partly Done Rachel did most of the cooking last week. I was gone 3 days and then not feeling well. I cooked on Saturday, Sunday we had sandwiches for lunch at church that we took with us and then there was a church dinner after the dedication. I will be back to cooking this week.
   

For this week that is 6 Done, 4 Partly Done, and only 8 Not Done.  Not a great week, but good considering the circumstances.


My goals for this coming week:

Spiritual Goals 

1. Read my Bible Daily.
2. Read a Godly book, daily, as part of my morning Devotions. I am currently reading Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear or the spiritual/fitness book from my fitness goals below - Reshaping It All.
3. Listen to Godly Music Daily, as part of my morning Devotions.
4. Write in my Spiritual Journal Daily, as part of my morning Devotions.
5. Read Power of a Praying Wife and leave hubby a note for each chapter I read. He needs the extra prayers and encouragement.
6. Read God's Priorities for Today's Woman ch. 10 "The Art of Living Sensibly" for Ladies Bible Study this coming Friday.
7. Read as much as possible of the new books I got for our Sunday School study. How People Change and How People Change Study Guide: How Christ Changes Us by His Grace I am behind because I got my book late. I want to keep up with the current chapters and catch up as much as possible when I am able to do extra work. 

Homeschool Goals

1. Get back to homeschooling all 12 workboxes.
2. Keep up with logging in the boys work and grading as we go through the week.

Blog Goals    

1. Post Blast From The Past on Tuesday.
2. Join in some favorite memes that I like to do.
3. Post the Virtual Curriculum Fair post that I missed from last week.

Fitness Goals    

1. Exercise 3 days for at least 15 min each time.
2. Eat Better, more fruits and veggies and write down what I eat.
3. Drink 48-64 oz of water daily and keep track.
4. Read some of Reshaping It All: Motivation for Physical and Spiritual Fitness by Candace Cameron Bure.

Personal/Other Goals 

1. Comment on all the other GPM ladies posts. Keep track of their names with links here so I know whose I have done. 
2. Purge and toss some unneeded items making room for my hubby. He says he cannot be creative with clutter around... so I need to get rid of some stuff to make room for him.
3. Read, Read, Read! I will be linking up my reading this year to I am currently reading a number of things... for personal, fun, fiction reading I am reading We Have This Moment (The Tales from Grace Chapel Inn Series #11), Emma by Jane Austen, and The Hidden Flame (Acts of Faith, Book 2)   
4. Keep up with making dinners and doing kitchen chores. I am doing all the cooking until the end of January.

Do you have any goals for the week? Post your goals and link up. The button at the top will take you to the meme and you can join up with us. I have been doing this for a whole year now and making weekly goals is really helping me keep focus and achieve more. Have a great week.


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Homeschooling, how do I do it all???

The Topic for this week for the Virtual Curriculum Fair is - The Nuts and Bolts: Pulling it all Together!

Sooooo...
How DO I do it all??

First of all.... I don't do it all. 

Homeschooling means choices. Choices of what to do with my time, choices of what subjects to teach, choices of resources to use, choices of how to approach homeschooling.

First thing every day I try and have my devotions. I am not successful every day, but I am really striving to be consistent in this. It is so important that I have devotions daily. I need the spiritual strength I get from reading the Bible, Godly books, and listening to praise music. It gets me though the days and weeks and helps me grow to be more like Christ, which I desperately need. I am so weak on my own.

We use workboxes. It keeps the boys and I organized. It makes me keep up with the boys work, planning their workboxes each day and lets me know what they have still to do before they can get their laptops and be excused to play. On the wall you see our small whiteboard and next to it are plastic pages in which I place the art prints for our artist study.

When the boys are done a workbox they put it on the floor next to me so I can grade/record the work in the school log. I left this photo large so you can click on it to see the details, also, it will open in a new tab automatically if you just click it. I make my own school log sheets so I can personalize them. I don't want to write down the name of the book daily. It is so nice to just write page/lesson information for most of the items each day. Some things I just have to write out, and that is ok, because I have the shortcuts for the other items.

I made my own workbox planning sheet also. I needed some boxes larger than others. Using the free LibreOffice spreadsheet maker I made my own page to fit our homeschooling. I used the same program to make the school log sheets. If you would like to see the details of this you can click it also, it will open in a new tab as well so you don't loose your place here. I use these sheets to plan our weeks. The first 5 subjects we normally do together. Then the boys complete their individual work.

I plan our History and Science units myself. I try to get a bunch done each summer so I am ready for the coming year. This summer I got the Science all planned out but not the History. I got some done, enough to start the year and now I am planning as I go, trying to stay ahead of where we are studying.

To keep on task in my personal life I have yearly and weekly goals. I do the Goal Planning Monday meme weekly. I take my yearly goals and break them down into manageable chunks. To keep track of things for me I use the notebook pages my hubby bought me. I write my weekly goals on the task pages so I can remember, review them, and check things off. I accomplished a lot more this year, doing these things, than ever before. I pray this year will be even better.

Choices....

1. When my children were younger I could not participate in ladies Bible studies at our church. Now I have the time to do that. And, it is only twice a month.
2. When my children were younger we participated in a co-op. Now I don't have the $$ to drive to co-op.
3. When my children were younger I needed our homeschool group desperately. The group has changed over the years and I find that I don't need it as much, which is good since they don't meet my needs as well now and I don't have the $$ to be more involved.
4. We do all our homeschool work at home with books and materials we buy. No online classes or co-ops, no satellite classes, no one else teaching my children. This is a choice we made. Partly it is a money issue and partly an influence issue.
5. We use workboxes because they work for us not against us. They are a tool. We use cardboard boxes and a few plastic boxes that we already owned. Again a $$ issue, but, I like the variety of boxes because I can find a box to fit the books/subject that it is used for.
6. We chose for me not to work outside the home, but to concentrate my time and efforts inside the house, raising our kids and "keeping the home fires burning."
7. We chose the subjects and materials that we felt were best for our children each year. 
8. We choose to serve the Lord and pray for his help daily. Without Him our family and homeschool would crumble.

One of the things I most like about homeschooling is that I can do it differently than my friend and that is ok. She/He can do it differently than I do it and that is ok. There are many ways to homeschool, many philosophies you can follow, many books to read, many subjects to cover and many ways to cover them.

If you would like some more information about how we do homeschooling click on the homeschool label in the left sidebar.

If you want more information about how we use our workboxes click the workboxes label in the left sidebar.

If you have any questions, leave a comment. If you don't have any questions... leave a comment!! lol

This is the last of the Virtual Fair topics. I missed last week's topic due to going out of town for my husband's Uncle's funeral. I hope to make it up this week even though It will not be linked to the others. If you missed reading any of my posts for the Virtual Curriculum Fair here is the list of them all.

• History Chronologically and with Living Books
• Math Using Hamburger Paper! 
• Watching Movies for Language Arts Class...

Thanks for reading...
I hope something was helpful.

********************************************************************************
Here are the links for the other participants posts for this topic

Weekly Homeschooling Schedule by Julie @ HighHill Homeschool

Virtual Curriculum Fair: Week 5: The Nuts & Bolts: Pulling it all Together by Leah @ The Courtney Six Homeschool

Our Schedule's Working! by Eunora @ All Things NoriLynn

Homeschooling: How do I do it all? by Debbie @ Debbie's Digest You Are Here

Virtual Curriculum Fair--- Wrap-up Angie @ Petra School

Virtual Curriculum Fair: 5 Ways to Use an iPad in Your Homeschool by Pam @ Everyday Snapshots

A Peek Into Our School Day by Melissa @ Grace Christian Homeschool

A Day in the Life... by Nicole @ Schooling in the Sun

Homeschool and Life: How we get it done by Jen @ Forever, For Always, No Matter What

Homeschooling at My House by Jessica @ Modest Mama

Getting a Grip on Things by Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts and Minds

Making Home School a part of LIFE by Cindy @ For One Another

Now Where's That Pencil Again? by Beth @ Ozark Ramblings

Something About Homeschooling I Really Didn't See Coming by Letha @ justpitchingmytent

Curriculum, Kids, and a Frazzled Homeschool Mama leads to Controlled Chaos! by Laura O from AK @ Day by Day in Our World

The Virtual Curriculum Fair – Nuts and Bolts by Kristen @ Sunrise to Sunset

Staying on Top of Everything by Brenda Emmett @ Garden of Learning

How Does This Homeschooling Thing Actually Work? Fitting it all Together by Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory

Nuts and Bolts: Pulling it all together by Christa Darr @ Fairfield Corner Academy


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