Ok...I actually had a request to update this, so....
I don't have a lot of time to post much now, but in a nutshell here's what I've been up to. We had a great Christmas. Except for the rotten ham I didn't find out about until I was ready to cook it for Christmas dinner. And all the stores were closed on Christmas day. (Where are all the people who are offended by Christmas? Don't any of them work in a grocery store?!?)So we had cheese and crackers and lots of cookies.
The whole two of you that read this know about our troubles with step-daughter B, age 14. She's been keeping us very busy this month, although she isn't even living at our house right now. A few court appearances, a visit from DCFS, and about 100 phone calls and e-mails.
I've also been busy the past two weeks getting caught up on finances and schoolbooks. Hubby's been laid off since before Thanksgiving, and money was very tight. I guess the economy's hit us, even though I thought we were too poor to notice. : ) We managed to get caught up. I had a lot of debt to pay off...the power company, the water company, the phone company, car insurance, father-in-law (Thank you for helping us out for food throughout!)and sadly, even our daughters savings was dipped into, but I repaid them double what I had to borrow.
After paying off bills and debts I had to get ordering schoolbooks. Little E, 5, was sorely in need of 1st grade materials. She's been doing nothing but phonics, math, and health for 2 months. C is moving through her 4th grade much faster than I thought, and was needing 5th grade books for next year. She only has 30 lessons left in math. I also finally was able to order her more appropriate Language Arts/English books to finish out this year, as we gave up on her Abeka sometime in December.
I intend to write a post and maybe some curriculum reviews on both old and new books soon. Note....I said intend so don't stone me if it takes awhile to truly get around to doing so. : )
Another thing I've been trying to spend time doing daily is reading the Bible. I happened to start January 1st, but it wasn't even something I planned or made a resolution for. Prior to 1-1-09 I tried to make time each morning (and some evenings) to read a bit in Proverbs and the NT. I began on New Years Day at the beginning...Genesis 1:1, and have found it fascinating reading this time through. I just finished Deuteronomy this morning, and will be moving on to Joshua. I am gaining much more perspective on the history leading up to the New Testament. Many have said only the NT is important in these times to Christians, but as I read more and more I have to disagree. Read Numbers 22-24...the story of Balak and Balaam. Read carefully Balaam's fourth oracle. Clearly prophetic, and very interesting. (to me, at least). In all my life I'd never come across that story before, or if I had, I'd never noticed the prophecy in it.
Please excuse any typos in the above. : ) No time to proofread....
