Ignore the Naysayers

I have a friend that I have known for many years.   I met her while working with my dad right after high school.  The business was expanding rapidly and she was hired to take over some of the work that I had been doing.  Being the only ladies there at the time, we tended to gravitate toward each other.  Even better, we got along quite well.  In fact, J was in my wedding.

Well, she did something she was told for years she would not be able to do.  She just completed her graduate degree (she still hasn't gotten her final grades, but knowing her it was just a matter of submitting her final paper on time - which she did)!  Unfortunately, years ago she had someone in her life who convinced her that she wasn't capable of getting her associates degree much less anything more complicated than that so for a time she had actually given up on college.

Luckily, she now has someone in her life (her husband) that has supported her through this process.  I am so proud of her for following her dream and for not giving up even though to so do would have made her life so much easier.

And for those of you out there who are listening to those voices (people) telling you that you aren't strong enough, smart enough, rich enough, or X enough to follow your dream... Go find a new voice!

Busy Times

The last few days have been a busy time for this Mama (and my house shows it).  The family is going to be visiting my nephew in Virginia soon and before we go, we've had a bunch of things to get done (mostly for school).  We've been creating a paper mache earth for a presentation they will be giving the day after we get back (a multi-day process).  We've also tie dyed some t-shirts that we will use for field trips (as well as in the airport).

A couple nights ago we were also able to use the certificates we got when we got our library cards.  I have always loved sunsets and sunsets on the water are even better so to be able to enjoy a dinner in a restaurant at the end of a pier followed by an hour on Charlotte Harbor was a wonderful thing.  The charter company this was through, also offers other "cruises" that I might just have to try out one time.

 We had visitors

 So happy

 This ones for you Dad.  Jon was drooling too.

 Love how I actually got the bird in the pic (that never happens).

Beautiful.

That Time of Year

Well, it's that time of year again...time to start thinking about school.  I remember back-to-school shopping when I was younger.  A part of me loved it (I got new stuff) and a part of me hated it (summer vacation was almost over).

Hubby and I used to talk about the joy of being able to send our kids off to school like our parents used to do and how we were sure our parents loved back-to-school shopping because it meant school was about to start (freedom from kids).  This year, things are different.  This year, I have to get ready for school long before my kids do.  I've already purchased the text books, but I really need to start figuring out what I'm going to teach when.

It brings me back to my time in school.  I really want to procrastinate, but I know that if I do, I will not do as good of a job.  I guess it's finally time to suck it up and get cracking... in a couple days.

Progress

Well, we started school again this week after taking off essentially two weeks.  Yes, we went to Kennedy Space Center last week and that was educational to say the least.  And when we saw the rocket launch on Saturday, we made sure to explain why it took so long for us to hear it (we never turn down an opportunity to teach if our children ask us a question).  I guess it would be more appropriate to say that today was the first time in 2 weeks that we had "formal" classes.

And what a day of classes it was!  I started a new math program with my son.  I'd been noticing that he's been struggling with a few concepts and I think part of that is because we haven't really been using a curriculum for math.  To that end, I found one for him for second grade and rather than just start him at the second grade level, I'm going to go back a bit and do a "refresher" of sorts to get him up to speed on the system itself.  We made progress on some things and I think this was the most engaged he's been in a long time (and he likes math too).

I've also been working on letter sounds with my daughter for a while now, so today I decided to push her a bit and see what she could do.  I wrote out a few letters (which happen to spell a word) and had her sound them all out.  After a couple of tries she figured out it was the word sat.  Then we moved on to a few rhyming words (cat, bat, fat, rat).  It was awesome to see the "light" turn on with each new word she figured out. 

There is one other "aha" moment I feel I must share.  I've been covering the basics of government with my son and one day while we were in the car (can you say captive audience?) I decided to do a little review.  We were talking about who the president was.  What his responsibilities are.  And how we pay taxes so that the government can provide services to us as well as other people who don't have money.  My 4-YO daughter said "Obama can take some of my money and give it to poor people.  That would be nice."  Then she got quite for about 10 seconds and said, "But wait!  What if I want to buy toys?"