3/27/13 written Thursday 3.14.13 school project...

Maggie did a cool project at school yesterday. They are studying addictions. The kids had to write a different good trait of theirs on three sheets of paper. On three more sheets of paper they wrote the names of three friends. They wrote three activities that they are in and three of their favorite possessions. The teacher said to pretend that they had made a bad choice of starting to drink. One of their friends finds out and won't be their friend any more. So the kids had to pick one of their friends listed on their papers and get rid of it. They lost one of their good traits to the drinking, so they had to pick a trait to get rid of. Then they were drinking and driving and got picked up by the police. Since they were in jail they couldn't do two of their activities, so the kids needed to throw two papers with school activities away. Then they needed to pay court costs so they had to sell two possessions, the kids chose two possessions to throw away. One more of their friends left because of all of the trouble that they were now in. Then because of all of the problems, their life and their decisions were not their own, so the kids had to go to someone else in the class and that person got to choose two of their remaining papers to get rid of. Margaret was so sad when she got telling about this activity. She said that only one bad decision was made, but she lost everything because of it. It was a really good visual assignment, I think that the memory of these pretend losses will stay with Maggie for a long time.

3/26/13 written Sunday 3/10/13 grills and learning...

We are going to get a grill and some charcole. The kids need to learn a new skill. They are in college and high school, so they are old enough.
Two summers ago we got a drill and we all learned to use it. The safety talk took a while...we had to talk about how permanent damage would be if there was an injury, and we all had to use safety glasses and ear plugs. Everyone did really well.
The year before William started using the hedge trimmers to cut the front bushes. I was really glad that he could take over that responsibility. When I cut the hedges, they always end up looking like two eye brows. William can get a neat, straight, cut.

3/25/13 written Sunday 3.10.13

We need to sign William up for school for this summer. He never says how things are going, but he smiles a lot, so things must be OK. Maggie had spring break last week. Her dream for break was to go to the library and get a lot of movies and books.  She went to grandmas each day. They took Beth to school each day. Maggie had a great time.

The kids helped me clean out some of the basement. We combined boxes and sorted out things for Goodwill. The basement looks a lot better. We still have a long way to go, but this is an improvement. When I am not cleaning out the basement, I think, we should be able to get rid of a lot of things, but then when we are actually sorting, it is more difficult to do.

3/24/13 written 1/17/13 homework, Christmas ornaments and school...

William is doing his homework at home each day, I am not sure why he isn't going to the computer labs at school. He looks happy.  It is nice to have him home for dinner each night.

I am hoping to take the Christmas tree down today. We had so much going on in the beginning of the month that we didn't get to it. Also, we don't like to take it down right away, it is nice to keep the Christmas feeling. Last year we got a big plastic container for all of the decorations. We put the lights in first then added the ornaments. When we were ready to put the tree up this year, we needed to take out all of the ornaments and put them on the couch and table to get to the lights. What a mess. When we take the tree down this year, we need to put the lights into the container last.

Beth had her last final today and has tomorrow off. Maggie has school tomorrow.

3-18-13 written 1-7-13 school, projects and calanders...

William was excited for school to start today. He was up before I called him.  Maggie does not have any night classes this semester, so when the kids are picked up tonight, I won't need to go back out and get anyone. Cheer cheer...
I have some projects that I want to work on this year. We have an extra calender that we can use to put the project items on. We have tried to put projects on our regular calendar, but if our family gets busy, it is the projects that are skipped and the calender becomes a mess. If the projects are on a separate calender, they won't interfer with the regular calender.
The regular calender needs to be updated with yearly events, like birthdays. Also, school days off need to be added. The kids have dinner jobs and the laundry and dishes job needs to be added. The quicker I get the new calender updated, the easier my year is.

3-17-13 written 1-6-13 looking at last year and school starting...

This is a new year. At church today the talk was about taking control of your schedule. He said to look at what activities fill you up and which ones drain you. The talk last week was about new year resolutions, and looking back at last year to see what went well, what didn't go well and where God was pointing you. I did that. It was very surprising to see an overview of the year. Today's talk was about looking at what drains you and fills you up.
William starts school tomorrow. Maggie started school last week, but her college classes start tomorrow. Beth starts school tomorrow.

3-16-13 written Wednesday 10.31.12 Halloween...

Beth wants to go trick-or-treating, but we are waiting for the sewer man to come and see if the new gas lines that were put in have punctured the sewer lines. Maggie needs to be picked up at 8:15 tonight from art class.
We went trick or treating tonight. It was fun. Beth and I went, she wanted to run to each house. We ended up walking fast. There were a lot of kids on some streets, and a lot of the houses were decorated, not with a lot of decorations, but with some lights and pumpkins, it was festive. We were out for about an hour.
The man from the sewer company didn't come over. I called him and heard that all of the work was cancelled for today because of the weather. He said that the gas company may call if they want to come and look at the pipes.
Maggie had art class tonight. They took pictures of their faces, close up, and they had the pictures enlarged to 8 1/2 x 11. Then they started gluing pieces of newspaper over the picture. She has used one color of newspaper for the hair and a different color for the back ground. They haven't finished the whole face yet.