Catching Up...

*  I hope my good blogger friend, justgottalaugh, doesn't mind if I borrow her outline for a quick update post!  I thought this might be a great way to catch up since it has nearly been a month since I posted.


What I'm Learning: Still working on learning to play piano.  A dear pianist at our former church bought me an electric piano with weighted keys and a full keyboard.  I already know how to read music from choir and playing clarinet.  I just need to teach my brain to read two staffs at once.  That is the hard part!


What I'm Reading: When I was immobile for over a week, I read about 10 books.  I really enjoyed that time.  Now I am back to mostly trying to keep up with the girls' school readings and lesson planning.  Right now I am enjoying  The Story of the Greeks and Animal Farm.  These are two I have never read before.  Some of the Greek stories have led to some great discussions of the Bible and man's depravity so this has been really enjoyable.  I don't have a final opinion yet of the Wells novel yet.  So far I have to say I am not that impressed with the allegory, but maybe I am not familiar enough with the details of life during postWWII Europe/Asia.


To What I'm Listening : Christmas music of course!  Also bells are ringing at my house regularly as we are practicing for our church Christmas program with the children!  Also, Lydia is reading and I am loving the sound of that!  Btw, if any of you regular readers remember that she has struggled since she began talking to be understandable, she has really come along this last year.  Nearly all her pronunciatons are correct now except for her L-blends and R-blends.  That is a praise!


What I'm Eating: Well for the first two weeks after breaking my ankle, I ate whatever my dear Rose brought down to me!  She was my personal Jenny Craig and I lost 5 pounds!  Now that I can walk the stairs and have been celebrating Thanksgiving and my birthday, I have indulged of course!  This Monday it is back to the ELF diet! :)  I can't wait until I can get back to the gym and the pool!


What I'm doing for a Workout: Walking anywhere is my work out right now.  Standing for any length of time to do anything is a workout as well. 


To What I'm Looking Forward: Other than Christmas, we have our oldest daughter turning 12 on the 8th and daughter #2 turning 11 on the 13th!  Also, we are all excited that this is the final week of school before our Christmas/winter break.  We will be off from the 10th of December until the 8th of January!!!  We will have completed 18 weeks which is half the year!


What I'm Laughing About: My children and husband help me to laugh daily, but nothing specific comes to mind just now.


What I'm Thankful For: God blessed me with 40 wonderful years of life already.  I have the husband of my dreams and 4 beautiful girls.  My extended family, church family and friends have truly blessed me all my life.  I have the privilege to stay home and teach and learn with my own children.  Just some examples of God's mercy and grace in my life!


What's been working for us: Memaw Rose gave the girls her old laptop.  Kind of funny because my DH bought it, then gave it to a friend, who then gave it to his son, who then gave it to Memaw Rose, who now lives with us, and gave it to the girls when I gave her mine (because she needed wifi built in and I didn't really use it, and it was also DH's old one).  Did you catch the irony in all of that?  Anyway, it is old enough to run the girls favorite CD game:  Carmen Sandiego Think!  They love this quiz game and I love hearing them celebrate when they know the answer because of something we studied recently in school.  Over Thanksgiving they answered questions on constellations, music, art, history, etc from just this year's lessons!  It is also something they can all play together.  I love to see them huddled around working together to answer the questions or break the codes.


What I'm Praying About: For the family of a dear lady in our church who is leaving this earthly body tonight (more than likely).  Praying for her family to be drawn to God which is her greatest desire and final wish!  For God to use DH, our family and our church for His Glory!  Thank you for praying with me! :)
 
With All My Heart~