Back in the Saddle Again

Back in the book work saddle!  Every day is basically a school day here, but, at some point, we always need to get back around to the book work.  

We take our "steady plodding makes good progress" approach literally when it comes to book work.  I figure how many school days out of our 180 days that we will spend not on field trips and hands-on education.  We take the number of pages and lessons we need to complete and divide them by the number of book work days.  That's how much we do every day.  It sure quells the panic come end of April.  

Every day amounts to a bit of steady plodding, whether we're feelin' it or not.

No day is perfect here and over the years, I've realized that nothing magical happens on the first day of book work in a new school year.  It's still work and the fallen nature of man doesn't love the toil and labor involved in work.  

No matter how good of a teacher I am, 

no matter how colorful the curriculum is, 

no matter how fun I try to make it,

no matter how bright my child is, 

it will always eventually come back to toiling and laboring.  

And we get through that toil in much the same way that we parent them through doing the dishes, cleaning out rabbit pens, stacking wood, and mopping the floors.

There hasn't been too many surprises as to the first few days of book work.  We've had more technical issues than I expected, which I hope will calm down once all this hurricane rain quits blowing through.

I also moved our Rise and Shine time back to 6:30 am.  The last two years, I allowed the girls to sleep in til 7:00 am.  This year, I felt that our mornings are more crucial than ever and now that Blossom1 and Blossom2 are always wanting to stay up later, this might help us stay on the same basic schedule as the Rugged Mountain Man.  All alarms start buzzing at 6:30 am and it seems to be working well.  Devotions, breakfast, outside chores and then, inside chores, all get completed before we start school at 8:30 am.  I'm not fooled though.  Our discipline will be truly tested months from now, in the throes of mid-school year.  

I am so thankful to be on this journey, to be here ~ amidst the hard work, the mountains, and the valleys.