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Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Think Back Thursday ~ Tired tomorrow



Tomorrow, August 1
Sleep / Sleepy / Tired

http://zaazu.com

Who's tired???
You???
The kids???
Dad???
Show us photos of someone who is asleep, sleepy, tired, bushed, exhausted, wiped out, beat, burned out, tuckered, done in, spent, weary, fatigued...

got it?
I'm sure you do.

I have some photos of my kids asleep in strange positions.

Gotta spend some time today locating them. LOL
But I'll have my post ready in the morning.

http://zaazu.com

Future Themes
August 8 - Garden / Gardening
your garden or one you visited, flowers or vegetables
August 15 - Stream / River
August 22 - Path / Road
August 29 - Architecture

all content on my blog is ©

Monday, July 29, 2013

Goal Planning Monday ~ First Week of School 2013-2014

The ultimate goal of a more effective and efficient life is to provide you with enough time to enjoy some of it.  Michael LeBoeuf
 
What do you think? Does setting goals help you to have more time to enjoy life and still get more done?

This week I took off Sunday, well part of Sunday. I wanted to take off all day but I did not quite get all my planning done on Saturday. I guess I should have done more on Thursday and Friday, I underestimated how much I still had to do and wasted some time those days. I think it worked out for the best though because no on really wanted to play games with me anyway. I did get Rachel and Jessica to play one game with me and that was fun. Then we watched an old Cary Grant movie from 1948 - Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House It was one I don't remember ever seeing before. It was good too. One of his better ones.


Today is the first day of school. Last year Christopher did all his subjects on his own. This year we are doing Bible, Philosophy Adventures and most of science together. I am excited about him wanting me more involved. We only have 2 more years together, counting this one, and that time will fly by. Then I will be completely finished homeschooling. So I am glad to be a little more involved this year. We will also start out the year doing a doodle/drawing time together on Fridays. I don't know if that will last or not. but it excited me to hear Christopher was interested in doing it. That will help him get his Fine Arts credit done. 

I had a really good week. I got all my goals accomplished except for exercise and cooking my cake. I hope to MAKE myself add that in this week.

Participants... It is not a requirement to comment on each others blogs but it would be nice to encourage each other. Please try and come back and check who else links up and go comment on their blog post. And comment on mine as well, we ALL could use some building up and community.

My top priorities are marked with a *

My goals for this coming week:
Spiritual Goals   
  1. *Morning Devotions - including Bible reading(Proverbs), prayer, listening to music and reading a spiritual One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Arebook. Prayer will be a focus this year as that is my word for 2013. I am reading One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Done - I finished reading One Thousand Gifts yesterday.
  2. Participate in the Joy Dare in 2013. Writing down 3 things each day that are gifts from God, things to be thankful for totaling more than 1000 gifts in 2013. Done - I am all caught up.
Homeschool Goals
  1. *Work more on planning History. Done
  2. *Check with Christopher on what extra subjects he wants to do this year. Done - we are going to be doing Home and Life Management and Building Life Relationships
  3. *Buy the curriculum I want. I am going to buy The Wise Woman with Literary Analysis Journal Questions. It is a suggested resource for the Philosophy Adventures program we are doing this year. I am getting the download so it doesn't cost much. I also may buy Chemistry 101. I asked about doing a review of the dvd set. I am waiting to hear. I have plenty of other Chemistry materials to get us started so I don't have to have the dvd's before we start school. Done - I bought The Wise Woman and decided to wait and contact the companies again about reviewing Chemistry 101 since I don't have to be in a hurry because we have things to start the year with. I don't really like that, but hubby thinks it is best. I HATE waiting. I have so many things in my life I am already waiting for, it is hard to add another. I just want to buy it and be done. But, I am deferring to hubbies decision, though I don't much like it.
  4. *Get the log sheets made, where I write what we get done each day. I make my own with Libre Office's Spreadsheet. Done - all ready to go for the first day of school.
  5. *Make sure any pages we need printed for the week are ready to go. Done
  6. *Pick all the reading material we need for the week. Books have been ordered from the Library. Hopefully they will come in in time. Done
  7. *Get Christopher's box prepped with everything he needs for next Monday. Done
Fitness Goals
  1. I hope to get back to exercising this week. Working out on the Wii. Not Done - not because of injury... just because of laziness.
  2. *Get my Weight Watchers dessert made... MUST DO! I know... I have said it so many times you are sick of seeing it. So am I and I want to eat the cake so I hope to get this done early this week. Not Done - laziness again
  3. Eat fruit and veggies and drink water. Done
Blog Goals  
  1. Comment on everyone's blog that links up to the Goal Planning Monday linky. Done
  2. Post reminder and future themes for Think Back Thursday on Wed. Done
  3. Post Think Back Thursday. Done
  4. Comment on each person's post that links up for Think Back Thursday.  Done
Personal/Other Goals 
  1. Read. Done
  2. Attend as many of hubbies cardiac therapy appointments as he wants me to. He has appointments Mon., Wed. and Friday. Done - I went Mon. and Wed. and not Friday. I guess I won't be going with him any more now that school has started.
For this week that is 16 Done, 0 Partly Done, and 2 Not Done.

My goals for this coming week:
Spiritual Goals   

  1. *Morning Devotions - including Bible reading(Proverbs), prayer, listening to music and reading a spiritual book. I am starting Confessions of a Prayer Slacker for my next book. Prayer will be a focus this year as that is my word for 2013. 
  2. Participate in the Joy Dare in 2013. Writing down 3 things each day that are gifts from God, things to be thankful for totaling more than 1000 gifts in 2013.
Homeschool Goals
  1. Do school with Christopher.
  2. Grade and Record work done, DAILY.
  3. Prep the next day's school, especially science!
  4. Order more book for history. Especially if he reads a lot this week.
Fitness Goals
  1. I must get back to exercising this week. Working out on the Wii.
  2. *Get my Weight Watchers dessert made... MUST DO! I know... I have said it so many times you are sick of seeing it. So am I and I want to eat the cake so I hope to get this done early this week.
  3. Eat fruit and veggies and drink water.
Blog Goals  
  1. Comment on everyone's blog that links up to the Goal Planning Monday linky. 
  2. Post reminder and future themes for Think Back Thursday on Wed. 
  3. Post Think Back Thursday. 
  4. Comment on each person's post that links up for Think Back Thursday.  
  5. Work on and post monthly reading post.
  6. Work on and post yearly goal update for July.
  7. Work on  Not Back to School Blog Hop posts, though I have not seen any information about the hop for this year.... any one know if they are doing it? If not I will just post the stuff anyway but skip the link to their hop.
Personal/Other Goals 
  1. Read. 
  2. Save files to external drive.... time to get back to doing this and get it finished so I can set up a weekly schedule to keep up and not get so far behind that it takes WEEKS to back up my stuff. 
  3. Doodle
  4. Work on, maybe even finish, 2 digital scrapbook pages for my Creative Team 'job'. I have a school kit and I have not made time to work on it.
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Thursday, July 25, 2013

Think Back Thursday ~ Extended Family



Extended Family
Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Nephew's, Nieces, Cousins, etc.

Today I will be sharing SOME of my mother's side of the family.
These are my grandparents on my mother's side. My mother's mom and dad, George and Bessie Reinhart. My grandfather lived from 1878 to 1959. I was not born until 1961 so I never met him. My mom-mom was born in 1885 and died in 1970. I remember a little about her, but not much. I was 9 when she died.

 
They are buried just a little way from my dad. We usually put flowers on their grave when I visit my daddy's.


 In the next picture... front row right, seated, is my grandmother, mom-mom Reinhart. Next to her, seated left, is her sister Annie. Behind them on the left is mom-mom's brother Cleavy. On the right is mom-mom's brother Clarence. In the middle is mom-mom's son, the oldest child, my mother's brother, Franklin. He looks a LOT like my grandfather. As you can see on the side this was printed in Feb of 1969... it was probably take summer of '68.


I remember nothing about Great Aunt Annie, she may have died before I was born, or when I was very young. I don't remember anything about my Uncle Franklin (my mom's brother) I know he died before I was born.

I do remember my Great Uncle Clarence and my Great Uncle Cleavy. I remember visiting in their homes. I remember the pool table in Great Uncle Clarence's basement and the big garden they always had. I remember the men in the basement smoking cigars and playing pool. I remember helping pick the veggies from the garden and helping get them ready to eat. They both lived, not far from each other, in New Jersey. We went to visit them often and had big family parties with Great Aunts and Great Uncles, Aunts and Uncles and lots of cousins.

 My mother had 6 sisters and one brother. This is their order of birth: Franklin, Ruby, Pearl, Mabel,  Beatrice (my mom), Evelyn, Grace, Charlotte. The brother, Franklin, is in the picture above with my mom-mom, Great Aunts and Great Uncles.

This is my Aunt Mable, one of my mom's sisters, with my brother Lew and my sister Chris.
I am sorry to say I don't remember her at all. As you can see from her tombstone below she died when I was almost 7. I should remember something. I have other memories from that time, but I just don't remember her.

She is buried just under mom-mom and pop-pop, which is just up from my dad's grave.



Here is a picture of my mom with her sisters.
Left to right is Pearl, my mom, Evelyn, Grace, and Charlotte.
I remember some about Aunt Pearl. She was nice and she had great kids that I loved playing with, they were always nice to me, though older than I was. Her daughter Grace was especially nice to me at family gatherings. Aunt Pearl's husband, Raz, was a hoot.
I have a lot of memories of Aunt Evelyn. We spent a lot of time at her house. My dad liked to go on rides on Sunday after church and we would end up at family members homes often, those that lived close enough, and Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Jack's home was one of those. I remember many times having family parties at her home. I remember churning ice cream by hand for family parties on her porch and getting stung by a bee on my stomach when I laid on the bee under a picnic table at one of the family reunions at her house.
Aunt Evelyn is the only sibling my mom has left alive now. Mom is 90 and I think Aunt Evelyn is just a year younger. They did not talk to each other for 15 years but since my Aunt Charlotte died last year they have been talking on the phone, often. It is amazing what God can do in restoring relationships.
I will talk more about Aunt Charlotte and Aunt Grace after the next picture.


My mom and some more of her sisters in the next picture. This is more recent than the last picture. I would say some time in the late 60's or early 70's because of my mom's dress.

My mom is in the back. Middle left is Aunt Ruby, right is Aunt Grace, down front is Aunt Charlotte.
  I am happy to say I have many happy memories of all three of these Aunts. Especially Aunt Charlotte and Aunt Grace.

Aunt Charlotte used to work in the kitchens of the elementary/middle school where I went when I was growing up. I used to stop by often, in the kitchens or her office. and chat with her, and get a treat, usually some kind of ice cream. At that time they lived just one little town away from us but in the same township. Aunt Charlotte died just last year.

My mother also worked in the kitchens at the elementary school when I was growing up, so that was cool, they could work together and I saw my mom at lunch every day. She was off from work when I was off from school, it worked very well.

We used to visit my Aunt Grace often. Mom-mom lived with her in her later years. Our cat Tuffy was given to us by Aunt Grace, they found her in a box car that had come all the way from California to her work. She was declawed, skinny and had lost her voice (no meowing) from meowing all the way from California, trying to get out. We fattened her up and had her a long time. I loved Tuffy. She died when I was in college. We also had a yearly tradition, for a long time, of visiting Aunt Grace on the weekend of the finals of the Wimbledon tennis competition. We had lots of family parties at their home also.


Aunt Grace's grave. She is buried just under mom-mom and pop-pop Reinhart next to Aunt Mable.


So, those are some of the family on my mother's side. I actually had pictures of all her siblings. There are lots more cousins and extended family we hung out with when I was growing up... and there is the whole other side of the family... though I don't have as many photos of them.

I miss those days of family reunions and frequent family gatherings. I hardly see any of the extended family now.

What extended family members are you sharing today???
I can't wait to see.

http://zaazu.com

Future Themes
August 1 - Sleep / Sleepy / Tired
August 8 - Garden / Gardening
your garden or one you visited, flowers or vegetables
August 15 - Stream / River
August 22 - Path / Road
August 29 - Architecture


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Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Think Back Thursday - Tomorrow and August's Themes



Tomorrow July 25th
Extended Family
Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Nephew's, Nieces, Cousins, etc.
http://zaazu.com

Future Themes
August 1 - Sleep / Sleepy / Tired
August 8 - Garden / Gardening
your garden or one you visited, flowers or vegetables
August 15 - Stream / River
August 22 - Path / Road
August 29 - Architecture

all content on my blog is ©

Monday, July 22, 2013

Goal Planning Monday ~ One Week 'Til Homeschool Starts

“If you're trying to be miserable, it's important you don't have any goals. No school goals, personal goals, family goals. Your only objective each day should be to inhale and exhale for sixteen hours before you go to bed again. Don't read anything informative, don't listen to anything useful, don't do anything productive. If you start achieving goals, you might start to feel a sense of excitement, then you might want to set another goal, and then your miserable mornings are through. To maintain your misery, the idea of crossing off your goals should never cross your mind.”
John Bytheway, How to Be Totally Miserable

This quote was taken from Goodreads. What do you think of it?

I do have goals. Some weeks I do better than other weeks. If I did not set goals, and just went through my week, I would get a lot less done. If I did not write my goals down I would still have things on my mind that I needed to get done but more things would fall through the cracks than they do now, and I do still forget to do things. One thing that causes me to NOT get more done is not writing my goals on paper. I just do not check my goals on my blog daily. I like better to transfer the goals to paper and check that daily.

The last few weeks I have been concentrating on getting ready for school. We have one more week of summer vacation. I have many things to do. My big goal for the week is to be completely ready to start 11th grade with my son by Saturday evening and to take Sunday off and spend it doing things with my family.

Participants... It is not a requirement to comment on each others blogs but it would be nice to encourage each other. Please try and come back and check who else links up and go comment on their blog post. And comment on mine as well, we ALL could use some building up and community.

My top priorities are marked with a *

My goals for this coming week:
Spiritual Goals   
  1. *Morning Devotions - including Bible reading, prayer, listening to music and reading a spiritual One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Arebook. Prayer will be a focus this year as that is my word for 2013. I am reading One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by . I am done reading Praying God's Word but still have plenty of verses to read over and pray back to God. Do the study of the Book of John from Hello Mornings. Done
  2. Read through Proverbs each month in the evenings. Done -  just one day but done. I think I am going to stop trying to do the John study and reading Proverbs and just do Proverbs.
  3. Participate in the Joy Dare in 2013. Writing down 3 things each day that are gifts from God, things to be thankful for totaling more than 1000 gifts in 2013. Done, I also started a new notebook for writing my own things to be thankful for. I bought a little notebook for my purse and I want to get a new notebook for at home as well. I want to see the things God is doing in my life every day and learn to be thankful for the hard things as well as the good things God is, does, and gives every day.
Homeschool Goals
  1. *Work more on planning History. Done - got a lot done... lots more to do. Ordered books from the library for the first couple weeks of school.
  2. *Check with Christopher on what extra subjects he wants to do this year. Not Done
  3. *Buy the curriculum I want. I am going to buy The Wise Woman with Literary Analysis Journal Questions. It is a suggested resource for the Philosophy Adventures program we are doing this year. I am getting the download so it doesn't cost much. I also may buy Chemistry 101. I asked about doing a review of the dvd set. I am waiting to hear. I have plenty of other Chemistry materials to get us started so I don't have to have the dvd's before we start school. Not Done
Fitness Goals
  1. Exercise 1-2 days 15 min each time. I hope to be feeling well enough to start back by the end of the week. I don't know when I should start exercising again or even what to do once my hubby allows me to do more.
    Not Done
  2. *Get my Weight Watchers dessert made... MUST DO! Not Done
  3. Eat fruit and veggies and drink water. Done - went out with my hubby for our anniversary and bought some peaches. They were ok but not great. The first one I ate was really pithy, the last one I ate was better but still not great. It was a change though, and that was nice.
Blog Goals  
  1. Comment on everyone's blog that links up to the Goal Planning Monday linky. Done
  2. Post reminder and future themes for Think Back Thursday on Wed. Done
  3. Post Think Back Thursday. Done
  4. Comment on each person's post that links up for Think Back Thursday. Done
Personal/Other Goals 
  1. Read. Done - finished reading Mixed Signals by Liz Curtis Higgs and started reading Small-Town Reality (a book from the Tales from Grace Chapel Inn series)
For this week that is 10 Done, 0 Partly Done, and 4 Not Done.

My goals for this coming week:

Spiritual Goals   
  1. *Morning Devotions - including Bible reading(Proverbs), prayer, listening to music and reading a spiritual One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Arebook. Prayer will be a focus this year as that is my word for 2013. I am reading One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by
  2. Participate in the Joy Dare in 2013. Writing down 3 things each day that are gifts from God, things to be thankful for totaling more than 1000 gifts in 2013.
Homeschool Goals
  1. *Work more on planning History.
  2. *Check with Christopher on what extra subjects he wants to do this year.
  3. *Buy the curriculum I want. I am going to buy The Wise Woman with Literary Analysis Journal Questions. It is a suggested resource for the Philosophy Adventures program we are doing this year. I am getting the download so it doesn't cost much. I also may buy Chemistry 101. I asked about doing a review of the dvd set. I am waiting to hear. I have plenty of other Chemistry materials to get us started so I don't have to have the dvd's before we start school.
  4. *Get the log sheets made, where I write what we get done each day. I make my own with Libre Office's Spreadsheet.
  5. *Make sure any pages we need printed for the week are ready to go.
  6. *Pick all the reading material we need for the week. Books have been ordered from the Library. Hopefully they will come in in time.
  7. *Get Christopher's box prepped with everything he needs for next Monday.
Fitness Goals
  1. I hope to get back to exercising this week. Working out on the Wii.
  2. *Get my Weight Watchers dessert made... MUST DO! I know... I have said it so many times you are sick of seeing it. So am I and I want to eat the cake so I hope to get this done early this week.
  3. Eat fruit and veggies and drink water.
Blog Goals  
  1. Comment on everyone's blog that links up to the Goal Planning Monday linky. 
  2. Post reminder and future themes for Think Back Thursday on Wed. 
  3. Post Think Back Thursday. 
  4. Comment on each person's post that links up for Think Back Thursday. 
Personal/Other Goals 
  1. Read. 
  2. Attend as many of hubbies cardiac therapy appointments as he wants me to. He has appointments Mon., Wed. and Friday.
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Thursday, July 18, 2013

Think Back Thursday ~ Black and White 2



Tomorrow July 18th 
Black and White 2
 ...an old photo taken in black and white or one that you tweak in your photo program to make into a black and white photo.

I made it Black and White 2 because we did this theme before... not that anyone would look back and see what I posted before... but just for my information.

I am featuring old black and white family photos of me from when I was young... we were on a family vacation to Bushkill Falls. In the pictures I look to be about 4yrs. old, maybe 3, I am not sure... there were no dates anywhere. I am also sharing a couple flower photos that I fiddled with yesterday in Picasa. I think they look good in black and white, what do you think???

 Bushkill Falls Photos
 My brother Bob and I in the hotel pool.


He was a good big brother, most of the time. He is the closest to me in age. He was 9 when I was born.



I am adorable... if I do say so myself.




 The picture below is how I know where we were. It is a double exposure. Can you see me on the left under the 'I Can't Bear to Leave Bushkill Falls sign which was NOT right next to those falls?? LOL



 A goose egg we saw at Longwood Gardens. They had ropes up around it to protect it. It was down by the large pond. So cool in black and white. Such fluffy, soft feathers protecting the delicate egg, with a baby creature that God created inside.


 
This was a bright yellow flower... looks good in Black and White. I like the contrast, the center, and the darkened area on the tips of the smaller petals nearer the center.


These flowers were actually white... I just made it black and white to take out the grass color. I think it looks cool.

I hope you enjoyed my Black and White photos.
I hope you enjoyed doing Black and White photos of your own.
Thanks especially to my regular participants.
I had it scheduled last night so it was done and is up on time!!! Yeah!!

Future Themes
July 25th Extended Family
Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Nephew's, Nieces, Cousins, etc.
(I've got LOADS of photos for this)

 
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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Think Back Thursday Themes



Tomorrow July 18th 
Black and White
 an old photo taken in black and white or one that you tweak in your photo program to make into a black and white photo.

 We did Black and White photos before... but I have LOTS of old family black and white photos.  And... I like to play with newer photos to see what they look like with different editing tools in Picasa. I haven't decided what photos to do yet. I will need to work on it a lot tonight.

Future Themes
July 25th Extended Family
Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Nephew's, Nieces, Cousins, etc.

all content on my blog is ©