Weekly Wrap-Up: First Week of School

Homeschool:  We finally started our school year this week! We went with a late start this year because of a late summer vacation and to coincide with Harrison's school year.  The first week was pretty low-key and flexible - it really had to be, because Harrison hasn't fully moved into his apartment yet, and that meant he and I were spending part of each day commuting.  But we did get started with some things - Landon and Kennady are working on Math and Language Arts, and we may even get started on Science today.  Spencer is working on Biology, Algebra, and World History/Bible/World Lit.

Spencer and Harrison started refusing the official first-day pictures years ago, and this year Landon decided not to cooperate.  I may have to sneak a candid shot at some point and call that the official first-day photo, just because I'm mean like that.  ;-)  Thankfully, Kennady still plays along and usually likes her picture taken.



I really felt compelled to take a "first day" picture of Harrison - after all, it was his first time attending college! - but he also declined.  His excuse being that it wasn't actually the start of CLASSES, only orientation this week.  And yet I don't know how I will manage an official first-day picture, because I won't be on the scene on the real first day.  I grabbed a quick shot of him walking towards the school on Tuesday when I dropped him off though.



In Other News:  Things are starting to gear up for the fall at church as well.  I missed the previous week's youth leader planning meeting, but was able to attend this week.  Good thing too, because there was pizza and cheesecake!!  All right-thinking people would agree that cheesecake makes meeting better.  :-)   I also noticed that at least half the tangents we went on at the meeting involved the recently popular Carroll County Gangsta rap video - yo.  Guess we were all in a CC state of mind.  LOL

DH challenged our family to work towards a "minimalist" existence by reducing the amount of stuff we have.  Current challenge is for each family member to get rid of at least 5 items per week.  The unneeded items can be trashed, donated, given away, or sold, but they are supposed to leave our premises.  Not just get repackaged or moved to another part of our house.  We will probably have to be flexible about things that we really prefer to sell, but it is a good starting point for simplifying.

On the Bookshelf:

• Gold Fever - A Klondike Mystery by Vicki Delaney


• The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart (juvenile lit that we chose for book club this month)


• The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory


• The Skin Map by Stephen R Lawhead