Tribe Time

What is your definition of a friend? I was posed this question and could not answer it. As per usual, I'm analyzing and pondering out loud (or rather just in this post) the eternal question: what is a friend? Pardon the stream of consciousness but this is the way I work through problems and hopefully it will help those out there that feel isolated or without a tribe. "Tribe" that's the word being used to name a group of women who seem too idyllic to be true. Women helping other women? Women hanging out on a regular basis, weekly? Women who get together with their families on a more than once a month basis? Women who don't annoy each other? Does that even exist? In my experience.......this is very farfetched. In the last 5 years or so, my experience with other women, when trying to be friends, has not been very positive and has led me to some deep contemplation on this topic. I read a post that dealt with this issue and the writer said that she was happy for those women that have a tribe, I'm not there yet. She assumed that it was because she was an introvert or that she liked to stay home or that she was an acquired taste. I can only relate to the last part; I know I am an acquired taste. But to this point of being acquired taste, I was thinking that well maybe those women who have that tribe are women who only talk about the surface things and don't dive deep. Women who know how to suppress their "real" selves and who "make nice" with everyone. I'm not one of those women and I don't want to be. Is being that way needed to be one of the "in crowd"?  I am complex, and I guess my definition of friendship needs to be complex too. Someone who I can talk to everyday about things going on in my life, from the mundane to the intense. Someone that challenges me but allows me to challenge them right back. Someone who won't want to "fix me" or pander to me or make me feel like a child.  Someone who doesn't get upset easily by things that might fly out of my mouth because of a low filter. I want to be free to be me in this person's presence. Are you that person? Does that person exist? Are you worth the wait and can you deal with a broken soul? Am I that person to others? I think that in the end, the people you will call "friend" changes as your season in life changes and you grow as a person. This is not the end of the discussion or of my analysis. I know that there are many more areas that I need to look at and really hash out before I come to a satisfactory conclusion, but until then, I am here and I'm learning to be better, I'm learning to be content and wait.

My Plan, Stan

I am on FIRE with my homeschool this year!!!! I am so excited about the direction that it is going, but bummed that it took me this long to get here. When I started homeschooling, I just did it on what I remembered from my childhood and being kinda of a punk, I thought I knew it all and I could recreate the wheel. Boy, did I waste so much time being a child about it, when I could be sitting at the feet of the masters. If I have an idea and you have an idea and we share our ideas with each other, then we have two ideas each. Being in community with other homeschoolers and being humble enough to ask questions and learn from others, can be the biggest boost for your home. But, on the upside, I spent those early years doing alot of research (still love doing that) and I love helping new homeschoolers or homeschoolers looking for change and all of my research and experience helps with that.  AH! So excited!!! So, I wanted to share what I am doing and how we are doing it.......again, as always with things like this, I want to give a caveat. This works for US.....take it or leave it, try it and see, if it doesn't work then find something else. To set this up, I have 5 children (12, almost 10, 6.5, 4.5 and almost 2), we are involved in many extracurriculars, I run my own business and I am knee deep in my homeschool group with setting up events and such, plus an array of many different things. With that all being said, I am not sitting around eating bon-bons :) So here we go.....

Morning Time

Morning Time has been crucial in my homeschool, I was doing it before I had a name for it and some guidance on how to do it. Basically, morning time is when we all get together and do certain subjects at the same time. It is always the first thing we do before any other schoolwork and we usually start around 11am (more like midmorning time). Here is the order of what we do:

1. Prayers: I call the kids to sit around me by playing this and then we pray an Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be and the St. Michael Prayer.

2. Poetry: We then recite poetry or work on a poetry selection. So far we have learned "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll and "The Eagle" by Alfred Lord Tennyson, we have finished these and we will be going onto Elizabeth Foss's poetry selections.

3. Memory Work: We have been using Catholic Schoolhouse memory work material and my kids really love it.

4. Scripture Study: We are reading through Matthew 7 and hopefully memorizing it and unpacking the meaning of the text (this is the fun part for me)

5. Religion: We are reading "My Path to Heaven" by Geoffrey Bliss S.J and once we are done we will be reading a saint biography. Religion is basically me reading out loud from a book of faith.

6. History: Currently reading "Norse Myths" by D'Aulaire, it is part of the book list from Connecting with History   and we will just be going down the list of books and choose whatever we can get at the library.

7. Alternate subjects: All of the above are things that we do everyday, but we then add 2 extra subjects to tack on the end. We do a read aloud as an audio book in the car, so it's on instead of the radio most outings and for the next couple of weeks we are alternating between music appreciation and Shakespeare.  After we are done hearing and learning about Baroque music and A Midsummer Night's Dream, we will go onto science (light and sound) and art appreciation (Fra Angelico) and after that I have a whole slew of subjects to pair up (geography, nature study, life skills/handicrafts, logic, foreign languages etc.) and then we will come back to Shakespeare, music, art and science.

All that takes about an hour and then we usually break for lunch and then when we come back we go into binder work......

Binder Work

Each child has a binder in which I write each of their subjects that they need to do independent from each other. I just put lined paper, write the date at the top and list each subject (math, language arts and practice instruments are the only things on there), with a little box on the end so they can check it off when done. Here is the breakdown of what each kid does:

6/7th Grade   

Math- 2 chapters of Life of Fred (she started at Apples at the beginning of the year and now is at Kidneys)

15 min of piano and flute practice

Writing prompts (I take the prompts and we work on them until the are a really good page or so)

She reads on her own so I don't assign this, since I know it will get done.

4th Grade  

Math- 2 chapters of Life of Fred (she started at Apples and is currently in Farming)

30 min of oboe (the girl needs more practice)

Daily Grams- 2 pages and often she does more

Read one chapter

Wordly Wise- finish one lesson

1st Grade  

Math- 2 chapters of Life of Fred (she's in Cats but she also has a workbook of first grade math from B&N)

Reading- we go back in forth from AAR (All About Reading 1), Explode the Code 1.5 and Starfall online

Writing- she just finished a handwriting book and is doing Spelling You See A

Pre-K  

So, I really wasn't ready to school Pre-K, I try to wait until they are 6 to do school, but my son was insistent that he should have a binder. So for him I just find little workbooks and tear out pages for him and have him work for as long as his attention span permits. He also has older siblings who read to him before bed, so I know he is taken care of there.

And that's all she wrote guys.....that's it! That is our homeschool day! It's so much fun and I love learning alongside of them and see them make connections. Have any questions? Don't hesitate to ask, I LOVE questions!

 

The Non-Negotiables

I am really trying to channel Elliot Ness in the title.......not sure it worked :)
Oh well, I wanted to write about scheduling and organization. Now before you switch to Facebook or go check your email, here me out. Time is money, and even if your job is to be a homeschool mom and homemaker it still is a valuable skill to have in ordering your time. In my 12 years of parenting my organization methods have changed and it will most likely keep changing as the children grow or we have more children or just the weather can put things into disarray. In this particular season of my life, I am working on a daily planner and focusing on my 4 non-negotiables. What are these 4 tasks? These are the top 4 things that if I can do them every day, will make me feel as if I've accomplished something. And even if my day is a bust, if I can squeeze out these 4 things I'll be able to sleep at night knowing that the day was ordered to the greater glory of God. Now, here is the caveat, these are MY top 4, you need to choose your own and they might be different and even if they are not different, the way you approach them or do them will be different in some ways. Keep that in mind as you read on, there is nothing more frustrating than trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. For me, my 4 are: workout, clean, school, and get 5, let me explain:

1. Workout: I need to workout every day. My food choices aren't stellar and so to combat that and make me feel good, I set aside 30 min in the morning to workout. I've tried to workout in the middle of the day or evening, but for me I like to get it out of the way so I can get my shower and makeup on and get on with the other daily activities. Now, I don't get to workout on the weekends most times, but I make it a point to be somewhat physically activity on the weekends. Daily Burn is my drug of choice, but find something that works for you, if working out is a high priority in your life.

2. Clean: The older I get and the more children I have, the higher value I place in a clean house. It totally seems counter intuitive, but there it is. I have tried a gazillion different cleaning schedules and methods and none of them ever work for me. The only thing that has worked, so far, is zone cleaning. Monday we clean the kids rooms and keep the first floor tidy, Tuesday is the master bedroom (you'd be surprised at how much kid stuff lands in my room) and keep the first floor tidy, Wednesday is first floor overhaul clean, Thursday is homeschool room and keep first floor tidy and Friday (weekends as well) are reserved for specific areas that need the most attention but the first floor is always kept tidy. I realized that I can't function if my first floor living space is in disarray so we put a heavy emphasis on that area. Laundry is done in shifts and I am happy with the results.

3. School: It is so easy for me to just let school slide and then freak out because I made the choice to let it slide, yeah I know dumb, right?  And again, like everything else, I've tried so many different things and we have finally landed on something that works well for us. We split our day into two segments: morning and binder time. Morning time is a place where we do all the subjects that can be done in a group and I alternate through things (at this moment we are doing prayers, poetry, scripture, religion and history everyday and alternating music appreciation and Shakespeare). After that, each kid has a binder with the independent work or assisted work for my younger ones and they go off and finish them. This simplification has helped me out tremendously in our school time. Another big factor is me being disciplined in organizing what we need to do ahead of time and not waiting until the last minute. Adulting is hard, but it needs to get done to have a healthy, happy mom.

4. Get 5: Finally, there is get 5. If you didn't know, I run a small business as an Independent Beauty Consultant with Mary Kay Cosmetics, I've been a consultant for 13 years and could not imagine doing anything else for an occupation. Being in direct sales is hard, a lot of people have preconceived notions and prejudices, but they are just not educated in what we do as business women. For me, growing my business is crucial to having a good day. So, to get 5 means to make 5 new contacts with potential or current clients each day. It is something so small that I forget to do, but by end of the day if I haven't put any effort forward in achieving my goals or doing my work, I'm kinda bummed. This might seem trivial to some, but this is a passion of mine and I take it seriously. Teaching people about proper skincare and color application is more than just that, it's about reaching into a person's life and making an impact.

So, you are asking what about prayer time or setting aside time for God? That for me is a given, rosary in the morning, divine mercy chaplet at 3, reading books that make me grow as a Catholic, Mass, Adoration, etc. these are all staples in my schedule. Plus, I feel that the top 4 non-negotiables, if done properly,are praising God throughout the day, using the abilities that he has given me, following through on my vocation and occupation, working as God intended us to work. By keeping an orderly schedule and organizing my time, I'm truly living the call of doing everything to the greater glory of God.

Birthing Hips

I think I was born curvy, when I hit puberty I went from little girl clothes to misses overnight it seemed. The natural progression of hitting a major milestone in your life, of course, is to go on a diet, right?  Living with my grandparents during the early years of puberty were hell, they were the biggest reasons for my whole dysfunctional relationship with food and my body. "Thunder thighs" were often referenced and little jabs of how my body looked were an everyday occurrence. My defense mechanism? I would just say that God was just getting me ready for my vocation as a mother, thus "birthing hips". I've been on a "diet" since the age of 11. The sad thing is that I was never "obese", I was just developing naturally but in the process I made it worse by eating my feelings. Mostly feelings of anger and defiance. Once my uncle saw me grab some Oreos and made a comment about me not "needing" those Oreos and I proceeded to eat the entire package, in front of him, just to make a point. You can't tell me what to do! It all went down hill from there.

After I had my 5th child, I was dead set on losing a whole bunch of weight and getting skinny. My sister and brother were getting married back to back over the summer and I was dead set on looking good for pics. I saw a couple of friends doing different diets and it seemed to work for them, as they touted the "incredible" weight loss and energy they had found. So, I jumped onto band wagon after band wagon, hoping beyond hope that this time it would work. I worked out every day, or at least every other day, for at least half an hour and I ate close to nothing. Each time with hope growing that THIS would be it, I will finally be skinny. NO WEIGHT LOSS! Nothing, nada, zilch! Some inches lost but not what I was expecting or wanting, especially with all the time and effort I was giving to this project. Something else that was worrying me, on top of not seeing any results, was that I had lost my cycles at 19, I went from a 28 day-er to absolutely nothing. And after my 5th pregnancy (assisted by fertility drugs) I realized that my body at 32 was different than my body at 21 and I couldn't do this anymore as an overweight person. I want more children, so losing weight and gaining my fertility back was imperative. So, I found a new doctor that came highly recommended from a friend of mine. The answer the doctor gave me was = Lyme disease......I was told that I have a particular hard strain of Lyme in my uterus and thyroid. Hmmmm....no periods and no weight loss....yep,lyme. It's a trial of patience as I have to take 7-10 pills a morning and half of them at night and the pounds aren't necessarily melting off of me, but I do see and feel some change. I only just started on the hard hitting meds and I am hopeful that my results in the next two months will be positive....or in the negative, as I'd like to see on the scale.

What I've learned in this whole process, is that we are all made in the image and likeness of God but we are all different too. My body and my metabolism, my appetite and my tastes are completely different from others. Just how we take the Myers-Briggs test to see what our personalities are, there are individual temperaments for weight loss. I can't eat certain foods: corn, peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, tomatoes and certain grains, kill my stomach. So I stay away from those and I only eat when I'm hungry; before I was eating every 2 hours and I couldn't do it. During Lent, I'm working on curbing my habit of eating ice cream in the evening, I always would eat a bowl of ice cream around 9:30. Slowly but surely working on bad eating habits that have not served me in the past is all a part of growing up, I guess. I've also realized that working out is easier for me and I'll do it more often than the food part. So, if me eating two pieces of toast with peanut butter and a glass of OJ in the morning, then not eating again until 2 or 3 (sometimes just a can of tuna with crackers) and then eating at 6 or 7 and then repeating it again the next day, works for me, then awesome! If working out 7 days a week for 30 minutes a day, works for me, then great!  Know yourself, be in tune with your body and what it needs and can handle and do it! Stay tuned for my journey........

Buck Up, Buttercup

Whoa! Guys, I was not expecting to get so incredibly deep last post. Have you ever started writing and then the spirit just directs you in a whole different direction? Well, my intention was not to bare my soul, but in a way it was cathartic. Don't worry, there won't be that many of those posts on here, I don't want to to be known as the "crazy, depressed blogger lady". My title is "Buck Up, Buttercup" because even in my lowest points, I still know that I will come out of it better than I did going in. I process things verbally and when I'm anxious or stressed or haven't had enough sleep, I need to work through things and then let it go. My poor husband is usually the victim of my verbal meltdowns....you, dear reader, were privileged enough to bear the brunt this time. Aren't you special? I promise to keep the bleak posts to a minimum if you promise to help me create this blog, deal?

 I do need to find my niche though, which was what I intended to write about last time. I feel like this blog could turn into a mess of crazy posts that range from deep philosophical ideas to homeschool ideas to weary mom posts. I live a multi-faceted life and I love talking about all of it and in real life I don't really have people who I can talk to about all the facets at the same time. I don't know anyone who is Catholic, ENTJ,a mom of 5, a homeschool mom who was homeschooled, a business owner, a reader, a tv junkie, etc., nobody is exactly like me, so this can give me a platform to talk about ALL the things that I love! That gets me excited!

To be able to talk about incites that I might have gleaned through scripture or writings or even my time in Adoration would be amazing. Even if people don't read them and I don't get to be famous in the blog world, at least I'll have a record of all my thoughts.

ENTJ stuff will probably be my favorite to write about because I get to vent about things that bug me. As an ENTJ, I got annoyed very easily :)  And being an ENTJ, even in my most depressed states, I still think I'm better than everyone else.....it's something I'm working on.

Mom stuff and especially homeschool mom stuff is like ALL I talk about and I want to talk more about it. I am finding my footing in the mom/homeschool role, so this will be a fun topic to explore.

And then all the other miscellaneous parts of me will make this blog a hodge podge of reads, but I think that is perfectly me.

Who Am I?

You would think that 30 some years on this earth would make this an easy question to answer, but everyday I come across certain things or people that make me question my very existence. You probably don't have that problem, you most likely have your s**** together (pardon my french). I feel like a teenager still swimming upstream and fighting tooth and nail to fit in. I read blog posts from friends and think, "Oh man! I don't sound anything like that when I write. They are so much more polished than me". Or I listen to people on podcasts or on periscope and think, "I would never be taken seriously and people wouldn't want to follow my podcast or periscope. I'm just not as cool as her." It's like I am stuck, permanently, in my teenage years. I just can't shake the idea that I just am kidding myself, I am not the "voice" that people want to hear. I'm never going to be asked to co-host any new thing or be asked to speak or be asked to lead in any capacity. People find me laughable, or at least that is the tape playing in my head. I wanted to give up writing here, who actually reads this crap anyway? But, I have to give myself a chance. I am late to the game and blogging is being replaced with other forms of communication. Could I do more with this? My head says most likely not, it plays the tape of the parent telling me that I couldn't make it as an actress, even though it's all I every wanted to be (other than a mom). It plays the tapes of the two failed auditions, the room full of pretty popular girls in a PR group that I wanted to join, but once I got there and saw them I turned around and walked away. It plays the tape of all the boys I had crushes on who never gave me the time of day or who made it there personal mission to humiliate me. The tape overrides every good thing I have done and replaces it with yet another failure that looms ever present, growing larger with each passing day, eventually blocking out all happy tapes completely. I don't even know what I can pull from as a successful moment in my life. This is hard! Sitting here typing and knowing that it most likely will all be a waste of time, is SO hard for me. I have always wanted to be the best at everything, I learned random facts just so that I could pull them out in conversation and feel important. I like knowing everything so that people come to me for help, it makes me feel important and sadly I feel like they will love me more if they need me. Sad,huh? I was never the artist like my sister and I wasn't a good baseball player like two of my brothers and I wasn't the autistic one like my youngest brother. I was just the annoying older sister who tried too hard, wore her feelings on her sleeve, made it easy to pick on and who lived her best days lost in a world of make believe because at least there it would be nicer and I could be someone special. Even writing those things makes me so mad at myself....boo hoo! woe is me! What an idiot! I can hear my whole family say, "You are too sensitive, Maria!"  And the saddest part of all, is that even with all that, I still try so hard to be better. I still try to be find myself, I still work everyday at doing what I would like to do, even if I do it badly. I have high expectations of myself and when, inevitably, I fail then watch out for the waterworks. I wonder if I'll ever just give up and stop trying so hard. I wonder if I'll ever just say, "I'm nothing special, stop trying and just go through the motions of life and wait for death." My heart hurts, but it keeps telling me to keep reaching, keep moving forward. Am I just kidding myself or will it work out in the end? Jury is still out for that one.

     I went to a Catholic Women's Conference over the weekend and I heard about God's mercy and how much He loves his daughter's.......I nodded along......I believed every word of it, but only for those around me, it was hard to think of that mercy and love being delivered to me. I am nobody, I am not very good at many things and not sure if I'm good at anything. I know that this is a pity party and I am upset with myself for writing all this out, it makes me feel weak. But, there it is......who am I? I'm a hot, lonely mess.....wishing desperately that I could be someone else, someone cooler and more talented, someone prettier, thinner, better with words, likeable, loveable, anybody other than me.

What You Learn In Between Posts

I gave myself a challenge to write on the blog everyday during Lent, mostly because I don't think of myself as a great writer and want to get better and mostly because I see all these fun ladies who are blogging and podcasting and I feel like I'd like to join their group. Life happens and I got sick and couldn't formulate coherent sentences (no, I'm not currently sick so all of these sentences are me actually trying), but I want to give you 5 things I learned during my writing hiatus:

1. God talks to you DAILY and most of the time it can be quite LOUDLY! I am so surprised at how much I hear Him now in my everyday, I see Him in every twist and turn of my day. It's comforting and scary all at the same time. He knows me SO well that I worry about the people, situations and conversations that He might lead me to. I am, also, very aware of when I fail the mission with my incredibly prideful humanity. Yet His Mercy knows no bounds and I get the chance to try again.
2. I am LOVING Homeschooling! I feel like I've finally entered into this season of life where I know who I am and I know what I want and I can do the work to keep us on track. What a joy! I truly love homeschooling and teaching in general, I'm so thankful to the pioneers and ladies that have spoken into my life to help me get to this place.
3. I am learning to love books and learning again. I started 2016 with an idea to grow in knowledge. I find myself formulating arguments and essays on different subjects and most of the time I've thought all my arguments thoroughly, but there are certain people in my life that look at me as if I was stupid and make me feel stupid. I know I'm not but I have an overwhelming desire to prove them wrong. I know it's unhealthy, but gosh darn it and I want them to see me for the smart person that I am!!!! Sticking it the man always makes me feel excited!
4. This blog can't only be about me writing through my thoughts...I am a complex human being who lives a life uncommon and I need to write about it. Others out there like me, might appreciate my life story. I'm excited to write more about things that are unique to me.
5. I talked about my prayer list and my calling to offer up my little inconveniences and sufferings up for another. It has become very powerful! Little menial tasks when done with another in mind, can take on a whole new form. Why haven't I done this before?!

Well, to wrap it up, I'm excited about a lot of things and a lot of things are being revealed to me. Life is amazing, guys, what an adventure and what I great Guide we have.