Weekly Happenings: Trying Not to Fizzle Out

I can tell we're all getting tired and need our summer break. Even I feel a tad unmotivated! But I want us to finish the year with more of a bang than a fizzle, so I'm going to have to put some oomph in my step. And resist naps!

I've continued with my new schedule of getting up between 6 and 6:15 AM in order to do some writing, blog reading, and planning. I'm psyched this is still going well because I have a track record of beginning new things and then scrapping them fairly soon after. This is why I refuse to make New Year resolutions. I don't know about you, but I feel guilty about enough things already and don't need the extra pressure.

Most subjects are tooling along fine. Here's a peek at some of our readings this past week:

• Abraham Lincoln's World: a look at Asian history when Lincoln was an attorney in Springfield
• This Country of Ours: Gettysburg and Sherman's March to the Sea
• Oliver Twist: unsuspecting Oliver begins to learn pickpocketing techniques from Fagin and later gets hauled off for committing that crime -- except he's innocent
• A Passion for the Impossible: Lilias Trotter decides between life as an artist or in complete Christian service
• Mapping the World: atlases and hemispheres
• Story Book of Science: months and seasons, Earth's revolution and rotation

Miss Priss wrapped a successful first year with her drama troupe this past weekend with A Tribute to Broadway. Our church's Wednesday evening programs concluded for the summer. Tiny Girl had her final rehearsal for the Mother's Day musical, The Tale of the Three Trees. Since she's finishing up fifth grade, it's her last children's choir musical. There's just one more piano lesson for each child before the recital.

Here's our week in pictures:

(From left to right, starting at top row) 1. Miss Priss liked this curl of mine. I have curly hair; she does not. 2. I love no-knead bread! 3. The girls reading Abe Lincoln's World together. 4. My basil plant. I pinched it back today and hope to make pesto. 5. Playing with homemade paper dolls. 6. Choir rehearsal at church. 7. A statue I love in our church garden. 8. Our historic sanctuary, which served as a hospital for Union soldiers in the Civil War. 9. Happy Georgette!

If you haven't yet read my series on Enjoying Poetry with Your Children, have a look-see!
Six Tips for Enjoying Poetry with Your Children
Four Tips Guaranteed to Kill a Developing Love for Poetry
Poetry Pushback: Working Through Resistance in Younger Children
Poetry Pushback: Bridging the Disconnect with Older Children
Poetry Pushback: Jolting Older Children Out of Their Apathy

Next week, I'll wrap up this series with a slew of poetry resources for you and your family. So check back soon!

I'm linking up in lots of wonderful places this week. You just never know where I might pop up!

Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers
The Homeschool Mother's Journal
Collage Friday @ Homegrown Learners
Camera Phone Friday @ My Home Sweet Home
Friday Favorite Things @ Finding Joy

Happy Mother's Day weekend! Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog; I hope you found something useful. I'll leave you with two quotations to celebrate mothers:

No language can express the power, and beauty, and heroism, and majesty of a mother's love. It shrinks not where man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, and over wastes of worldly fortunes sends the radiance of its quenchless fidelity like a star. ~Edwin Hubbell Chapin


A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ~Tenneva Jordan