“Passion rules reason, for better or for worse.” – Terry Goodkind 🕊️

Last Week: Self-doubts.

This Week: Hit a mental low.

HEALTH OVERVIEW:

Mental Health: I was worried about our art director because she had to move all of a sudden, now she is moved, it’s just a bit better, but I still feel unsettled.

Physical Health: Want to pull the trigger on exercising more, and getting more energy each day, the kids are getting a bit more independent also, so maybe I should just start with 5 minutes.

Social Health: My Fridays switched from my house to downtown, so maybe we can drive in with my sister, and then pick her up, and then have her drop us off, then have my husband pick us up.

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LIFE JOURNAL:

“Without forgiveness life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.”

– Roberto Assagioli

“There is no small act of kindness. Every compassionate act makes large the world.”

–Mary Anne Radmacher

Saturday: Last week the cave trip was really cool. This week we went on a road trip and watched the kids play. It reminds me of better times, when we used to take the kids out every weekend and often go to RIE class, when we used to go on hikes. The pandemic really seemed like a war in the end, shortages, trauma, drama, sadness, the times before really seemed better in retrospect than the pandemic and the time now seems to be a hard climb back to ground level. Is that just in my head?

Sunday: Last week noticing my kids are bigger and older, noticing how they have grown. Helped clean up a friend’s closet, which I said I would, so that feels good, I like to be the person I say I am. I just have to be careful what I say I am.

Monday: Last week tired, hopeful, and trying to be responsible. This week we took my dad to eat for father’s day, which didn’t feel authentic at all. I was so itchy in my eyes, it felt like they were covered with glue and poison ivy. I’m becoming very resentful about how much pet grit we live in on a daily basis.

Tuesday: Last week my son hit a hard spot in math. Six weeks ago I wrote some school notes: that I wanted to focus on enthusiasm, breaking skills down, patience, more enthusiasm, and changing the system as needed to fit the student and encourage the kids to study smarter so you can learn more and contribute to your own well-being and that of others. This week my son did a ton of math to earn his monster truck, it was cool, seeing him fight through the class and review, a few m&ms helped, and then muffins, then he made it through the 20-question review and 40-question final, there were two points that he is still working on counting money and double-digit addition and subtraction, but I know they are covered in the next course, so no reason to review the other 90% of the class he already did master. Using animal counters on a 100-number square helped him add under-stress things he usually could do with no counters. I’ve seen my daughter use a number line under stress for things she does mentally with no stress. The kids were crazy and needy, I don’t know exactly why, but I’m at my limit with my eyes and skin itching. I cleaned up my room and usually, that helps, but it didn’t help as much as I wanted.

Wednesday: Last week we took big blocks and the big blocks were so fun, I don’t know how long they will be fun for, but they were fun again today and that was nice, a friend took them home I am so grateful for that. Today I had a mental breakdown about being sad my family chose to have pets even though I have always had pet allergies, the way they don’t prioritize my health, I don’t want to be bitter, but I can’t find a way to stop. I don’t think at this point I will ever forgive them and if I can I will find a way to get even someday for them constantly disregarding my well-being if it didn’t match what they preferred. Saying I will find a way to get even makes me feel better. I purchased an $80 and $150 air filter, but I couldn’t go on any longer without them, I really couldn’t, buying an emergency apartment would have been much more expensive than that. I had fun with my friends, at the end of the night the car wouldn’t start, it wanted to turn over, luckily there just happened to be someone there who knew about cars, they disconnected the battery and that helped, the car started right up after that.

Thursday: Last week I went to help a friend who had moved. This week really sleepy, did math with my daughter, did phoincs with my son. I am hunting for orange pool noodles and bought a small boat. My house smells because my dad keeps his room nasty/gross/disgusting I don’t like cleaning around his random new and old boxes all over the floor, but it’s time to figure out if I am moving out soon or cleaning up somewhat because it’s hit an unlivable point. I don’t really know what is wrong with my dad, but it’s becoming clear that something is.

Friday: Last week I went over to them again to help friends clean, this week I cleaned my own living room. Camping is coming up soon, I’m excited, ordered some skateboards, pop up tents, pop up “scout cabin,” an axe and a flint rock, if nothing else the day was epic for that combination of items. The living room was pretty gross, but it feels a lot better now. I do have a corner of it and the windows left, but even the portion I did took over an hour. The kids are getting a bit more independent with their school work, so it gives me a bit more time to handle cleaning and laundry, though deciding what goes where and keeping up with it are both pretty hard for me still.

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The week ended cleaning up my own home and dreaming about the future, it feels good over all.

Something new this week: Moved the living room sofa, I think it feels better.

Something good this week: Bought skateboards, I used to love skateboarding, and I can’t wait to start that again.

Something unexpected: I didn’t know there was a skatepark in Hilo, so I am looking forward to going there. I also helped rescue a lost dog, even though it was easy, I still felt pretty cool.

🛹

“Kindness and good intentions can be an insidious path to destruction. Sometimes doing what seems right is wrong, and can cause harm.” – Terry Goodkind 🕊️

Last Week: I wonder if I can be the person I want myself to be? If I can keep growing into it, or if I will burn out and backslide into who I was.

This Week: Our scout group keeps doing well and growing, sometimes it scares me because I wonder if I can keep up, I wonder if I can be enough? But as long as I try maybe I can.

HEALTH OVERVIEW:

Mental Health: I was worried about our art director because she had to move all of a sudden, now she is moved, it’s just a bit better, but I still feel unsettled.

Physical Health: Want to pull the trigger on exercising more, and getting more energy each day, the kids are getting a bit more independent also, so maybe I should just start with 5 minutes.

Social Health: My Fridays switched from my house to downtown, so maybe we can drive in with my sister, and then pick her up, and then have her drop us off, then have my husband pick us up.

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LIFE JOURNAL:

“Without forgiveness life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.”

– Roberto Assagioli

“There is no small act of kindness. Every compassionate act makes large the world.”

–Mary Anne Radmacher

Saturday: Last week fighting off being sick and then I didn’t get sick, so totally worth it to get some rest. We lost our pet lizard to probably botulism, my daughter was crying at night, then I drank a lot of coffee to go to the cave, my husband was going to bring my kids, but took them shopping instead. 🥀 It was hard to get going, but I felt like if I could get going then I would be okay and be glad I did and it was true. This week was a super special cave trip, I’ve gone to the caves many times, but going together with 12 of us scouts was even more fun. We had 4 girls and 8 boys, I always liked that. Many of us have boys and girls, so making two trips to two different clubs would keep one or the other kid out of scouts altogether. Also in “Smarter, Better, Faster” a book on the neuroscience of teamwork, by Charles Duhigg they say mixed-gender groups outperform both male and female only groups. A lot of scrapes happened, but there were beautiful spots of light and green coming through the top, or speckles of rose, gold, and silver minerals on the cave ceiling, and many types of lava. In the future we could have cleaned the table with a rag and vinegar, but we did the best with what we brought, one scout used flint to start a fire, four tried and got sparks, everyone who wanted got glowing dino legos to remember the cave. I think overall people had a good time, the more you scraped yourself it definitely affects the immediate review, but in memory I wonder if they will remember more the beauty that they were there, being with friends, or the scrapes? We raised $360/600 for our 501 fee and it feels like we will get there soon, I’m excited that the group feels cohesive, like we are working together and sharing the burden, and that we can grow into what we want to be available for our kids.

Sunday: Last week I saw the big dipper with my husband. This week was a bit thrown off by the rotors of the car needing to be replaced, my husband was working on that but needed a certain tool he didn’t have to release a pin or something, so in the end, he didn’t get it done and was frustrated. My sister and I took a load of trash with an old chair, old cabinet, trash, and the lizard cage. We aren’t planning to replace my daughter’s lizard, it was nice having it, but we aren’t going to keep getting crickets and changing the water and all that, it was an experience and now it’s over. I feel like it’s the end of an era of my kids being really young, now they are 3 and 6, starting to get more able to do things, both pretty potty trained, both able to talk. The little one is still pretty little, but we have no more babies, toddlers and up now. All of us are starting to get more responsible now, I see I’ve grown up a lot with my kids.

Monday: Last week my husband stayed home and took us out for boba, burgers, and walking the town. This week it’s a kind of normal Monday, I woke up tired and was taking it easy. I want to buy an archery bow, but didn’t, I’ll make a note of it and wait for a good time instead of just impulse buying it. Instead, I paid $176 for my husband’s speeding ticket, or I guess he did… I’ll ask about when I can get the bows.

I made this graphic today, if anyone wants to help you can donate via Patreon for $1 or $10 ext. Anything helps right now that we are in an in-between phase to be able to start qualifying for government grants, also if anyone knows about current grants for STEM or Early Education Learning please email info or links to adventurescoutshawaii@gmail.com we are lacking someone who knows how to handle the business side of having a Non-Profit still.

At home my daughter is doing really well in science, she is doing dimensional analysis in General Chemistry right now, and the combination of Eureka’s explanation as well as the other stuff we have done is making this hard subject more approachable. My son, who is 3, is doing 2-digit by 2-digit subtraction, I’m explaining it as bananas and boxes of 10 bananas and he is doing alright, at first I’m showing him how it goes, then he participates halfway. Right now, we are not quite at the stage my son does the math independently and that’s okay, I’m only even covering it because that’s where we ended up in the 1st-grade math class we are working on.

My daughter played games for an hour today with her best friend, then took a lunch break, she said “It is better to take a break after playing games.” It took a long time to get there, either one or two years. I really like games, but it causes fights, it causes more work of having to set limits, but then it creates discipline, it creates a bit of choice, tech skills, perhaps math or creative skills. But there is the idea that too much isn’t good, consumption without creativity becomes hollow, and addiction doesn’t help life become balanced. My husband doesn’t want any more than 2 hours of non-educational games, but I can enforce that, that seems fair, it seems fair that he excludes educational games for language or math ext. I didn’t like when he would make comments that he didn’t want the kids playing games, as if he was a victim, instead of being proactive and just saying I want this limit, how can we do this? But now that I know his limit and it seems fair I like the harmony of his limit and mine matching up as parents. My daughter gets her math and chemistry, language, and piano done right away to play her games, so in that way they are educational and I always check up on what she is playing so I know it’s not too scary or more violent than we are comfortable with or too whinny in tone (which a lot of games are). I don’t like a victim mentality, nor casting women in outdated gender roles, so I check games for that, it’s good to check for whatever you don’t want in your children’s life trying to sneak in, no matter what it is you are trying to exclude.

I’m starting to grow into my role as a guardian, I found it consuming for a long time, now after about 7 years, I’m starting to be at peace. I’m starting to see success in some ways and that makes the work worth it, but it’s scary not knowing if the hard work means something or if one day a bad decision will cause your kid to show up at an elementary school as a shooter rather than an alumni guest speaker.

Tuesday: Last week I was trying to sort through my things. Five weeks ago I wrote some school notes: that I wanted to focus on enthusiasm, breaking skills down, patience, more enthusiasm, and changing the system as needed to fit the student and encourage the kids to study smarter so you can learn more and contribute to your own well-being and that of others. My daughter continues to do really well in the academic side of life, my son hit a bit of a difficult bump with math, I’m sure he will sort it out, for awhile we will cover other subjects so he can keep thinking about it, then we will come back to it with pictures.

Wednesday: Last week my son was very needy and I had patience with it and we had a nice time at the beach. This week I was a little too drained to cater to my son more than my normal, his dad came to hang out with him, but had to leave to drop off someone with a broken car, it becomes a pain that the car is broken, or a loose end at least. We took big blocks and the big blocks were so fun, I don’t know how long they will be fun for, but they were fun again today and that was nice.

Thursday: Last week I was kind of resting up for the cave trip. This week I went to help a friend who had moved, we scrubbed a lot of baseboards, couldn’t do the floor too much, maybe halfway, because things were getting unpacked. We did a lot, we covered just a bit of digital drawing.

Friday: Last week had my coding/math/baking friends over. This week I went over to them again to help with their move, but we also did the cooking over there. We didn’t cover coding, but we did cover the first element of General Chemistry. We also cooked green onion pancakes, and pizza, and mochi.

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The week ended cleaning up together and cooking with friends, it was nice, it really felt like a healthy community.

Something new this week: Made good pizza, almond flour might be great for cookies, but regular flour workers much better for pizza, the almond flour we have is bitter, either it’s old or it’s just too bitter for pizza.

Something good this week: Able to help a friend.

Something unexpected: I really liked the Okonomiyaki pancake sauce with vinegar and fresh ginger, I wasn’t really interested in eating it, but when I did eat it, it was delicious.

🧹

“People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it’s true, or because they are afraid it might be true.” – Terry Goodkind 🕊️

Last Week: Trying to move from survival mode to thriving, but it feels like I’m climbing straight up sometimes.

This Week: My husband came back, it does feel good, he hasn’t figured out our next step, but I am happy being here right now, even though I want my own space just knowing it’s coming helps.

HEALTH OVERVIEW:

Mental Health: I’m having fun teaching, having fun with our group, having fun with summer school, trying to cook and clean more, but I have a lot of good moments where I see the kids empowered and I know I had something to do with it, I like to see my kids happy, I like to see the other kids happy, I know they both bring each other up.

Physical Health: Trying to start cooking more, but bit by bit, not all at once.

Social Health: Have the cave trip coming up and summer camping, looking forward to both.

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LIFE JOURNAL:

“Without forgiveness life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.”

– Roberto Assagioli

“There is no small act of kindness. Every compassionate act makes large the world.”

–Mary Anne Radmacher

Saturday: Last week I drove a good part of the day dropping off my husband at the airport 100 miles away, so 200 round trip. This week I was super tired, I think I was fighting off being sick and then I didn’t get sick, so totally worth it to get some rest. It reminded me of what a good idea the Sabbath as a rest day was and the story of queen Ester that I watched with my friends on Purim this year, they left the country and I miss them.

Sunday: Last week I was feeling short of breath so I took it as easy as I could. This week I picked up my husband from the airport, it was a nice relaxing day and then he came in pretty late and we stopped to look at the stars on the way home. I really appreciated it, it was something I wanted to do and he remembered that I wanted to do it, it’s a really beautiful view where we were, though the night wasn’t clear to see nebula we saw “too many” stars, so many it’s hard to see the constellation groups because it’s all lit up.

Monday: This week my husband stayed home and took us out for boba, burgers and walking the town. I want to love him, but it’s hard, because I know he will leave me to move out of state and he doesn’t mind leaving without me. It’s hard to love someone who isn’t committed, he hasn’t ever done anything “wrong” but he also doesn’t prioritize me above himself and never has, that becomes obvious time and time again, he will live with me or help me, when it works for him and if not, then not. It leaves me half grateful and half guarded.

Tuesday: Last week I was nursing a hurt ankle praying it would get better in time for our beach day, it did. This week I was trying to sort through my things. Four weeks ago I wrote some school notes: that I wanted to focus on enthusiasm, breaking skills down, patience, more enthusiasm, and changing the system as needed to fit the student and encourage the kids to study smarter so you can learn more and contribute to your own well-being and that of others. Last week my daughter click-failed a Chemistry quiz/lied about it/I threw such a fit again. This week I’m really noticing a lot of progress in Chemistry class, that’s what tempts me to give my daughter a lot of work, that she is really at the stage of understanding it fully and retaining it, so she may say she doesn’t want to work, but then she does and she remembers, for example, the density formula, density = mass over volume, that week, the next week, she keeps remembering it. So it’s not perfect between us, she is a resistant and sometimes lazy student, but horribly bright at the same time so it’s a weird dilemma to push her or let her be.

Wednesday: Last week we did a magnetic vegetarian fishing contest, most the kids had a lot of fun. This week I gave out the ribbons for the fishing trip, it was nice to have a fast turn around, the kids were happy. Not every week is a big week, but it is fun having the special events like the Science Fair and the Fishing Competition. This time the summer sun felt so warm and the day was extra beautiful, the kids swam a ton, they went to the swings, climbed the rocks and somehow everything felt hopeful in the warm day. My son jumped and jumped to me, we made slime, which was my first science moment. I talked to another mom, who’s first science moment was looking at pond water, we have to do that one too. Each time we do slime it reminds me of the good time I had at the science store at the mall. Another mom brought blocks and it was fun to see a full house of block building and block cart racing after a long day of swimming, most of us stayed to see a beautiful rose red sunset that I wished I would have taken a picture of, but it was just gorgeous. The peace of it, the warmth of it, the fact that it was a different color, the light waves coming through were shorter because the sun was coming straight on, but the summer sun is more intense sending a red instead of the normal pale pink.

Thursday: Last week a friend came over for a shoulder massage, this week I am just relaxing, preparing for tomorrow’s math/coding day and the next day’s cave trip. I had trouble remembering the day, I was still happy from having a nice time Wednesday and seeing the sunset. I like to rest on Thursday so I have energy for Friday to see people and this week to go in the cave Saturday.

Friday: Last week had my coding/math/baking friends over. It was really cool. Wanted to see how much I could clean in 5-minutes, not that much… but finished the basic bathroom in 20 minutes.

BATHROOM: This week started cleaning the bathroom in 5-minute increments, 0-5 filled vinegar, sprayed down floors, baseboards, toilet, sink, mirror, shower, wiped sink top, killed 3 crickets. 5-10 wiped the toilet, scrubbed inside mineral deposits, put legos away threw away small time clutter like plastic for nail clippers ext. 10-15 wiped shower floor and debris, wiped baseboards, wiped cabinets, threw away trash. 15-20 started laundry from room, wiped bottom of towel bucket, put away vinegar.

BEDROOM: Did a 15 minute timer and time seemed to go slow, the floor and windows were already pretty clean and beds recently washed, so just making the bed, putting away legos with legos, balls and soft blocks in a bag, trucks in the toy box, clutter in a medium sized box in the closet, books with books, sprayed and wiped the floor, but it seemed to go fast.

PATIO: 20 minutes was perfect for the floor, tables, outside fridge, watering the plants, scrubbing the deck, surprising how much I can do in 20 minutes in some rooms and how little in others.

KITCHEN: My timer was stopped by my son, so I don’t know how long it took, did the floor, got some glass off, wiped most the cabinets, the counter, the stove, dried the dishes, washed some dishes, threw out some lids, wiped the coffee maker, put some clutter together on a tray to get cleaned up “sometime”, wiped the fridge down, wiped some seats off. The kitchen looks a lot better, I think cleaning the floor with a rag is faster than vacuum and mop and better at picking up crumbs, maybe an alternating combination would be best.

I’m pretty tired after doing those four rooms, bathroom, bedroom, patio, kitchen. That isn’t the livingroom, office or hall… I think cleaning the garage (laundry area), hall, office and livingroom on a different day would be best, because I’m pretty tired after those 4 sections. The outside, could really use a lot of work too… I washed a load from the bathroom and one from the living room and folded one as well.

It was nice having friends over, when I cleaned the kitchen after we cooked, it was cleaner than this morning, the bathroom and patio were cleaner the bedroom was cleaner than this morning. It was nice having people over, I have curry for tomorrow, I enjoyed cooking the pizza. We covered some math, some computers, some digital art, did some cooking, had fun, it was nice.

I’m happy a student moved through coding, but of course it’s more the honor of being trusted with another student to diversify their education, that shows a lot of trust from their parent home schooling them and from the student as well. It’s good to be trusted, but do I deserve the trust? I hope so. I hope at least to keep becoming someone who can deserve the trust other people put in me.

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When my week was ending I was getting ready for a cave trip with the scouts, looking for flints I already had, glow dinos ext, so that I didn’t feel like I had time to think about the past week, I think that was the first time I felt like there wasn’t time enough to think. I don’t know if I like it or fear it, I’ve spent a lot of life without thinking and I think I don’t want to go back to that.

Something new this week: Ran out of flour and used half-almond flour, we ate the pizza, but it did taste weird, almond is so good for cookies, but not so good for pizza. It was fun having the little kids make little pizzas they seemed to enjoy it and ate all their little pizzas, it was cute and I bet it was a happy moment for them not only to have pizza, but also to have some control of their creations.

Something good this week: I got to give two sunflower clippings and it was an honor, because that was something I had wanted to do, provide starts for the community from my garden.

Something unexpected: When my husband came back, it was as if he had never been gone, even though we are independent, we also get along fairly well, especially him and the kids, he does the right things for me, but then he says something mean, I would really enjoy his company if he just didn’t say mean and stupid things as much, but after 10 years I expect he just will continue to do so.

🌻

A Month of Emotions

Looking at this month in review I can see that I was coping with stress and making progress with my goals, but at the same time totally guilty of overspending as well.

The first week was late entry science fair and making videos for that as well as finishing a robust school year. I felt joyful, greatful, exhausted, inspired, exhilarated, thoughtful, and blissful. So the tournament marked a new beginning in my life, with new friends, I’ve gotten closer with two other families I didn’t know well before and that is cool, even though I wouldn’t have wanted to put myself out there while missing my other friends, I got stuck with commitments to things that tie us together and then I find they ease the burden of living and add joy to my life.

The second week was we told my dad we were moving out of state when we could and he didn’t take it too poorly. I felt festive from buying legos unexpectedly for the first time in a long time, enraged the next day when my daughter just submitted a failed test without trying and lied about trying, then exhausted again trying to clean and organize and find a way to live a good life. I felt disheartened not to already have a place in life, the very next day I felt blessed when a little girl making slime said it was the best day of her life (I don’t know if she says that every day, but either way it was a cool moment). The next day I was angry that I do so much of the cleaning at home, the next day I felt hopeful that both I can help teach some kids some coding and that they will make a better world then we did. I was looking to sort out my items and my mind, but interrupted by life and the projects I start.

The third week I felt satisfied when we got large blocks, like some wish in my heart was finally come true, the next day I felt energized and did some rare weeding, I felt proud of my daughter when I figured out how much work she had done with me this past school year (our first official year together, homeschooling), I was (fixated) inspired to make oil and water charms with the kids, I felt serene at the beach due to being weirdly tired from not sleeping the night before, it was a different experience than normal, I was so proud of my son for finishing the Foundations of Music class and final, which was a decently hard class for his age, I felt like I did good teaching him and he did good learning and we make a good team overall. I felt joyful at the end of the week hanging out with some nice and fun people who like music like we do.

The fourth week I felt hopeful that the summer will be a good time between tense times not getting along and the hustle of future moving, the next day I was drained from the stress of the kids acting up since my husband left. The next day I was furious because of the same issue with my daughter just submitting failed tests instead of trying. The next day I had a hurt ankle and was both physically and emotionally spent. I felt really grateful to have so much help, participation, and enthusiasm from the parents and kids about the fishing event, I have this silent belief that God is always helping us have exactly what we need make it to all our meetups, it’s weird, but if feels right. I felt satisfied helping a friend for a bit and passing the time together, and then blissful teaching a lot of math in an integrated way to our mixed age summer school.

Today is June 6th, I didn’t know last month fighting the tournament would have a positive impact on my marital arts class and life in general, that’s something unexpected.

Meta Emotion: Looking back at the fifth month I was getting by a difficult transition period for me with some healthy and some unhealthy coping mechanisms from hanging out with friends, doing the best I can for others, but also over spending on robots and legos and craft items…

There is a sense of being out of control, but doing my best, a sense of hope as well as doom, a weird mix of stress and optimism, a hope for change and fear of the work of change and fear of the unknown mixed with hope something better is around the corner.

Physical Health: Well and then sick, want to start exercising soon.

Social Health: Surrounded by nice people lately and that feels good.

Mental Health: Dealing with being frustrated and lack of personal space the best I can. My projects and friends help take the edge off.

Something New: Our Adventure Scouts did our first fishing event, I can’t always do big events, but I am happy to have some cool ones under our belt.

What helped: Knowing a lot of us parents are struggling makes me feel less horrible to not be perfect or even stable or even organized.

DID: oil and water crafts with the kids, fishing with magnets with the kids, math and coding with the kids.

BIG GOAL: Organizing my stuff to live.

Physical Goal: Start exercise again.

Social: Keep up the Scout Group. (Going Very Well)

Mental: Fix the pond leak sometime, which means finding it, I have a lot of liner, I have waterfall foam, now it’s just move everything out, check everything out and rebuild.

🎣

My three-year-old son just completed (Acellus’s/Power Home Schools) “Foundations of Music” course, I was so proud of him. He really enjoyed “Rock and Roll” “African Music” and “jazz” (which I don’t like) he enjoys describing music as “high” and “low,” “fast” and “slow,” he plays the piano and sings the note names knowing A goes to G and starts over again. He listens to hear sopranos vs altos, bass, baritone and tenors.

In this course, we saw Irish music, Japanese music, Australian music, and a lot of other things we don’t listen to at home, like spiritual music by Handle.

My daughter took the course first when she was five. There is very little reading and a lot of enjoyment, but also a lot to learn. Lots of instruments, some music theory, a lot of the history of music.

My son failed the final at 68% the first time and had to retake it passing with 78% the second time after watching the targeted review videos, I think that speaks to the usefulness of the targeted review. He did say he was tired of taking the long final, but we pushed through anyway and when his father comes home my son tells him that he is “doing good music class”.

I really like Acellus, I don’t at all care about the negative remarks some people make, it’s more than a million people liking it and some people not liking it, and the negative voices often overshadow the positive masses.

Foundations of Music was such a cool class, it was the kind of class you take in college and enjoy learning things you never knew about the world. I really enjoyed the instruction, my son and daughter did as well. The teacher was exciting, but not fake, it was one of the most enjoyable classes I’ve seen.

My daughter’s favorite song before was Louder by Charice, now it’s the Queen of the Night’s Aria by Mozart. The class really had an impression on my daughter who took it in Kindergarden.

As a homeschool teacher the creative classes are the harder ones to teach. I used the Acellus course with Prodigy Music lesson by Rob Young with Youtube videos of music like Wintergatan and Vitalle Sax. It was great having the structure of the Acellus course to bridge off of, then we can use a keyboard, ocarina, ukulele, guitar, violin at home for hands on with the Prodigy lessons or Youtube.

If it were not for the Acellus class I wouldn’t have fallen in love with Frederic Chopin, my sister let me know there was a Nintendo game for that “Frederic: Resurrection of Music” (I and II). I just missed that learning about Beethoven and Mozart in Choir class, they don’t mention Chopin.

So I really got into minors and back into piano. Both my kids wanted to play the violin after learning about Joseph Haydn, so for less than $100 we got decent violins on Amazon and basic practice videos on Youtube and they got that chance to see how they like strings. They both went back to piano after, but it was nice for them just to see that there are so many instruments, that they can try them out, they are there for now or for later.

Usually, I really like “free stuff” but I did find the $25/month for Acellus via Power Homeschool totally worth it.

I really enjoyed “Foundations of Music” much like “Robot Dance Programing” I find it a good class to warm up on. The AP Chemistry is a very hard class, sometimes looking at other classes you might think Acellus isn’t hard enough, but I don’t agree, each class is hard or easy based on the content, the national core standards that are reflected by most schools in curriculum pacing and content, and the learner.

For my three year old the course was hard, but he didn’t mind correcting his mistakes, like Timpanis being made of calfskin or the tiger being the national symbol of India. For my daughter, the musical periods were pretty much the only difficult part, from Baroque to Classical to Romantic to 20th Century and a few of the instruments such as oboe vs clarinet were hard. For me the musical periods are hard as well, I don’t really understand George Gershwin and especially jazz. Also rock vs pop or classical vs baroque, I can’t listen to a baroque song and just “know” it isn’t classical.

I really enjoyed going back to some composers I haven’t listened too in a long time that I like a lot, like Bach and Beethoven. I just loved the way the course was covered and it made it so much easier to cover music by deep diving into interests instead of spending time looking for images of notes ext. It allowed me to coast when I needed to and do crazy things when I had energy instead of spending most of my energy gathering the basics.

I just loved the course and I want to thank the instructor Dr. Adrianna Marshall from all of us.

Some of things I was able to do with time not spent organizing music class, work with sound files on Movavi to add sound tracks to 12 science fair videos, load Sim Tunes music emulator onto our windows computer making music composition easy and fun for my daughter, work with the Prodigy Music lessons with the opposite child as the one learning the Music Foundations.

I really loved the positive attitude, the integration of music appreciation of the everyday world and the exploration of world music on top of the music theory/music history.

Thank you so much to Dr. Marshall this course was a fun one, but it gave me a deeper appreciation of music and led me to feel more confident homeschooling, because I wanted access to something that would cover the creative realm not just math and reading.

🎶

“Mind what people do, not only what they say, for deeds will betray a lie.“ – Terry Goodkind 🕊️

Last Week: Doing some good things, but not super consistent yet.

This Week: My husband traveling is throwing me off more than I expected.

HEALTH OVERVIEW:

Mental Health: Still stressed, but I think I’m going to be like that until I pick my husband up Sunday from Florida, during the pandemic we spent a lot of it apart, yet I knew he was comfortable at his mom’s house, having him just on the road feels different. I know he will be okay he was in the army and has traveled, but at the same time it doesn’t feel good, it just feels unsettling.

Physical Health: Wanting to start exercising again, but didn’t, ran through some kind of respiratory bug so it’s okay with me. Starting to drink two bottles of water, cook more healthy foods, and be more patient with the kids also playing a bit of computer games really takes the edge off of my stress, even though there is no direct pay off it’s a huge stress reducer, of course so is alcohol, no offense to alcoholics, but games function for me in that way so I have to be careful not to neglect my kids, pets, and responsibilities if I am playing. It does make me feel happy to be alive, I guess there isn’t dopamine in much else I do since I eat healthy, a lot of people get dopamine from sweets and junk food.

Social Health: Passed on our violins, I hope the kids who borrowed them enjoy them, if not nothing lost.

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LIFE JOURNAL:

“Without forgiveness life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.”

– Roberto Assagioli

“There is no small act of kindness. Every compassionate act makes large the world.”

–Mary Anne Radmacher

Saturday: Last week was the last week of school for first grade. This week is summer school, even though we are doing mini math and mini science it feels like less pressure, which feels good. I drove a good part of the day dropping off my husband at the airport 100 miles away, so 200 round trip.

Sunday: Last week I went out into the garden. This week I was feeling short of breath so I took it as easy as I could. My sister was grumpy that the dog pee pad smelled bad in the dining room, she wanted to move it somewhere else, I think it just needs to be cleaned more no matter where it was so she was frustrated but came around to the same position after an hour when the dinning room smelled just fine after the pad was switched. One thing about open concept is open smell, not that I agree with just transferring the problem, but even if we wanted to it’s not that possible.

Monday: Three weeks ago I wrote some school notes: that I wanted to focus on enthusiasm, breaking skills down, patience, more enthusiasm, and changing the system as needed to fit the student and encourage the kids to study smarter so you can learn more and contribute to your own well-being and that of others. Last week I felt good, this week, not as much. My daughter just click-failed a Chemistry quiz that wasn’t even due today and lied about it, again, I don’t know if this is the fifth time, but something like that. I threw such a fit, she finally seems to get that she has to stop. I feel half ashamed for being impatient and mean, but half satisfied that it got results that will lead to a future for both of us, it’s a weird feeling.

Tuesday: Last week we got a new robot, this week I was nursing a hurt ankle praying it would get better in time for our beach day.

Wednesday: Last week was a day that made me happy to be alive and I felt good about myself and my choices and my family (yes, a rare day). This week was actually even more cool, we did a magnetic vegetarian fishing trip, a lot of kids had fun, many fished for the first time, other than that it was fun swimming and being at the beach. I hope I remember to make the fishing contest graphic soon to put on the back of the ribbons.

Thursday: Last week my son finished Foundations of Music, I am still proud of him. This week a friend came over for a shoulder massage, I think I helped her, which is nice because she is a more dedicated massage therapist helping heal the world more than I want to.

Friday: Last week had musical friends over and that was fun. This week had my coding/math/baking friends over. It was really cool, they have a big age range, the baby liked Number Blocks as well as balls and the four young children also really enjoy Number Blocks as well as block play. The baby had a few balls to explore size and 1-3, the two year old worked out 2×2 or 2+2 on the whiteboard with help after seeing his big sister use the whiteboard and made some cinnamon bread, the next oldest mostly focused on Number Blocks (but for the first time) and made a dinner bread, the next oldest got a small pass but did work on 4×4 and kept working on it after having a bit of trouble, but I found his tell is legos and his theme is dinosaurs, my daughter did her 3×7 under pressure just fine by counting by 5s, which is good. The second oldest did a ton of long division but also 12% of the STEM 1 Coding Course and watched “Hidden Figures” a movie I had been wanting to show forever, it was cool because her, and her mom watched it together, so they both know a bit about how women were at the forefront of coding and especially Katherin Johnson’s math taking humans to the moon. The oldest child in our summer school group did 9% of STEM 1 Coding with no help, I hope to change him to his own interest soon, but he moved from needing help to working well independently so the tech skills in general are helping pave the way for digital learning fluency, which is cool, found out he likes Architecture and Geography, so perhaps later we can transfer to something more passion based. It was fun having them over, it inspires my kids to do math with others and I think it drives them to do better in robotics and coding that my daughter is younger than them, so all the kids get a bit more driven. I think I can help fill in a lot of gaps for them, even though their base is strong, they are more linguistic, ethics and art focused as a family, and out tech influence and STEM influence could be good for them. Three of them enjoy the plasma ball as do my two (and I) so there is that bridge to chemistry that we can take if we want to take that. I love that we cook, so it’s a chance to be counting with the younger kids and measuring with the older ones, it’s a way to feel more comfortable and let the low tech and high tech integrate.

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My week is ending, I know I have been stress spending a bit, no one is perfect.

Something new this week: I am noticing a timer helps a lot with kids taking turns, it’s been that way for a long time, but I am noticing that it “helps a lot” not just a little, it helps the one who has to get off and the one getting on, the one waiting and the one getting a full turn, it makes it feel doable to wait for 2 and 3 year olds, it makes it feel fair, they seem to enjoy their 1 minute turns a lot, which to an adult mind isn’t a lot of time. Then sometimes they stop needing a timer after a certain amount of turns.

Something good this week: Taking three breads out of the oven, one baked by a two year old, one by my three year old and one by the five year old, I think they felt empowered, but I’m pretty sure they did it because they see their older sibling baking bread so that they know it’s something “real people do.”

Something unexpected: How happy I am with my friends and my kids, when my husband isn’t here, I want to miss him helping, but I don’t, since he doesn’t. I’m not mad, he handles working and finances, but I imagined it would be more of a split between money, child care, and educating the kids together, and it isn’t, it’s like a Ying Yang where he contributes nearly all the money and none of the emotional support or educational motivation or instruction and I contribute almost no money and almost all the emotional support and educational motivation and instruction.

I thought we were modern people in a modern world, but if we are, then we are modern people still stuck in traditional roles, while in a modern world with many traditional mechanisms still operating.

🍛