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.

🍛