What a week! It’s been ALL. OVER. the place! This past weekend we did some yard work, that believe it or not, was actually quite nice! Princess and I had picked up some flowers and bird feeders on our date night so we potted the flowers, cleaned out the other old flower pots and discovered that one of my baby oak trees from several years ago is STILL ALIVE! Saturday evening we spent with my inlaws and Sunday evening was spent watching the solar eclipse – what we got to see before the sun set. We had a good family-oriented weekend.

Princesses' Flower Pot: Salvia (back), Purple Coleus (far left), Pink Polka Dot Plant (far right), Fuchsia (middle), Petunia (front left), Begonia (front middle), Setcreasea Purple (front right).,

Our last remaining baby oak tree, about 6-8 inches tall (it'll go into the ground this autumn..)

This week has brought a variety of work and play, another trip to the dentist for me (to put on my permanent crown,) an afternoon with my mom and grandma, and plans made for our first big canning day this Saturday.

In our homeschool this week…

This week didn’t go nearly as well as last week did. I wasn’t 100% on top of my game, and I felt like I had to fight for it to keep us going. Perhaps we are ALL feeling the call of the summer break! (But we’re not through til the end of June!)
However, we have 6 more lessons left in our history book – we’ll be done in a week or two! And then I have a few fun things planned for reviewing what we’ve learned this year. We also only have one more chapter left in our bible worldview book as well. Another week or two. So very soon our “load” with lighten and that will free us up to knock out our remaining science and language arts workbooks. We’re getting close to the end of the year!!

Other fun things from school this week: our butterfly pupa “hatched.” (What do you call it when the butterfly emerges?) We discovered a new kind of caterpillar and eggs on our tree. The girls spent an afternoon helping my mother in law prep her dining room walls for painting (they’ll go back and help her paint, too–real life experiences, right?!) I started hammering out our curriculum list for next year. And I read Jimmie’s “Designing Your Language Arts Curriculum” book and THEN discovered a gold mine of things I ALREADY have on computer to teach them language arts next year. Several of them were items I’d downloaded during Scholastic’s last Dollar Days sale and then forgotten about!! (I like free and frugal!) I’ll be getting a list up for those, soon, but in the mean time, I’m feeling very encouraged about language arts next year.

New caterpillars on our tree!

And eggs and a teensy weensy caterpillar, too!

My favorite thing this week was…

Hard to pick one!
Watching the eclipse?
Spending time with my mom and grandma?
Tuesday’s Notebooking Publisher party?

What’s working/not working for us…

Not taking a break… it’s not working. I just realized that it’s been a while since we took a week off and I’m sure that has something to do with our “antsy” feeling. I’ve decided that today (Friday) and Monday are going to be Days Off for a long holiday weekend!

Questions/Thoughts I Have:

I strolled around the wildflowers this week and took a picture of a few that I’d like to identify:

Some wildflower/weeds I want to identify. I know, it looks like a thistle right? But the leaves are wrong, so maybe it's not?

Other wildflowers to identify. I'm pretty sure I've been told the name of these before.

More wildflowers to identify. We have these little red & yellow things EVERYWHERE!

Things I’m working on…

• Paperwork & filing. (YUCK.) But it needs to be done, it feels good to get it done.
• Finishing up the decluttering and organizing of the school bookcases.
• Going through files of e-books & pdfs to see what I have that I can use for next year.
• Finishing touches on the blog. I’ve added our Curriculum Page back in and made a few other tweaks to pages.

I’m reading…

• I’m still reading in Isaiah — I’m not sure what chapter I’m on…
• I found my book I had misplaced, the one we’re reading in our ladies’ group at church, One Simple Act. Caught back up on that one.
• We’re going through the Francis Chan series “BASIC” in our Sunday morning adult class. Each week we have a handout to read through before class the next week.
• This week I read Jimmie’s “Designing Your Language Arts Curriculum” and now I’m in the middle of her “Notebooking Success” ebook.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

A little bit of linky love for you:

• A new set of blog post organizer printables from Homeschoolin’ Mama!
• “What about e-books?” A helpful Squidoo lens about storing, printing, binding ebooks.
• A butterfly unit study from Homeschool Scientist
• Art Instruction DVD set GIVEAWAY at Holy Spirit-Led Homschooling
• Today’s the LAST day WEEKEND (she changed it!) to save on membership pricing for the Notebooking Treasury!
• Free periodic table pages from Five J’s.
• Ami @ Walking by the Way just released her “Copywork Lessons for Future Heroes”  – copywork for boys grades 3+
• Child Training Bible giveaway from Jennifer Janes.
• Adorable printable zoo trivia card to take on your next zoo trip from Meet Penny.

Homeschool Mother’s Journal is hosted by the iHomeschool Network, check it out!

Notebooking pages is a site chock full of free printable pages for notebooking anything you want, both blank and themed. If you choose to become a “Treasury Member” you have access to even more notebooking pages and also the forum (very cool) though if you really just want to get your feet wet and check it out you can totally just utilize the freebies and the notebooking articles that explain more about notebooking, how to do it, how to get started, etc.

I do want to add, though, that if you think you might be interested in buying access to the whole lot of pages, the price is reduced right now because they’re celebrating their anniversary! And members automatically get access to the Notebooking Publisher when it comes out — an online web application that allows you or your child to create your OWN notebooking pages with borders, clipart, pictures, TEXT, and then print them out completed! I really think my oldest will love that feature – though I do expect her to leave some blank illustration boxes because she loves to draw. =)

So really quick, run over and check out the site and the Publisher and read up about their celebration (because Y’ALL there are PRIZES.) And then head over to Facebook for the party at 7pm central time! See you soon!!

1. Free Homeschool Deals – a relatively new site from Jamerrill at Holy Spirit-Led Homeschooling. Many freebies posted every day!
2. Freely Educate – Another freebie (or very low cost) site with a good variety and lots of “good stuff.” I’ve been following this blog for YEARS. Plenty of good stuff (still free) in her archives for searching through!
3. Home Science Tools – My fave site for science supplies. We get our lab kits here and we’ve also ordered an owl pellet in the past and hope to order many animal dissection kits in the future!
4. Simply Charlotte Mason – I’m a big fan of the scripture memory method and this a great source for finding great books (living books, no “twaddle!”)
5. Notebooking Pages – A large selection of free notebooking pages  — AND — an even larger selection of notebooking pages for Treasury Members. There’s a discount on Treasury memberships right now and it’s double worth it because all members automatically receive access to the Notebooking Publisher when it comes out next month!
6. Homeschool Freebie of the Day – Yes, one freebie per day but they are quite often really good freebies! I like to hop in at the end of the week and scroll back through the week’s posts.
7. Online Homeschool Convention -  by Home Educating Family (love LOVE their wonderful “Well Planned Day” school/lesson planner!) What a very cool concept. Meet vendors, pick up goodies in your “gift bags,” read helpful articles. At your leisure. (Like we have much of that? Still, very cool!)
8. Donna Young – all manner of free printables and organizers! If you’ve never been over there you have to check it out.
9. Currclick – I have an addiction to Currclick freebies. They also have a very large selection of low cost items. Workbooks, worksheets, lapbooks, notebooking pages, you name it.
10. Project Gutenberg – Who doesn’t love free books?? Many public domain books for download in a variety of formats including Kindle format. For example, they’ve recently added Peter Pan to their site.

Of course there are many other great sites I could have easily added to my list. What would you have added??

Don’t forget to visit Angie and hop over to the iHomeschool Network for more Top Ten {Tuesday} posts!!

I let too many things compete for my attention: husband, kids, housework, homeschool, internet, tv, books, telephone, self-imposed deadlines… I spend too much time mult-tasking my attention-giving and not enough time giving my full attention to anything.

Many years ago, I felt convicted about being on the phone with friends – and staying on the phone – when my husband got home from work. Not that talking on the phone with my friends is BAD.. it ISN’T.. but I was missing an opportunity to show my husband that I was available to pay attention to him and be present with him. I developed a habit of hanging up when I heard him pull in – not to be deceitful but to be attentive and available. (Or, at the very least, acknowledging him and telling him I would be off the phone in a few minutes.) I don’t know if he ever realized it or ever thought “Wow, she’s getting off the phone for me,” but I do know that I wasn’t putting him in a position to feel neglected and ignored.

This is such a small piece of the puzzle, though, a drop in the bucket. When I first wrote my “list” at the beginning of the year I was thinking about both motherhood and wifery. I am so guilty of getting caught up in To Do lists, blogging schedules, chatting with online friends, even reading a book or reading my bible can pull my attention away from my children when they need me, have something to show me, or just need a minute of my time. I’ve been making more of an effort to put things down, stop what I’m doing and give my full attention to my family instead of making them share my attention with a tv show or a phone call or whatever.

But now I want to focus especially on marriage. My husband is not a needy attention kind of person. But that does not mean that I don’t need to make an effort to be attentive to his needs. Sometimes the ways that I can show him that I’m paying attention are indirect ways like making sure the sock drawer is full and the iced tea pitcher in the fridge doesn’t run empty. Other times, though, my husband DOES turn to me for attention, to share a funny story or share something on his heart — and then I especially need to put things down and listen up. My husband shouldn’t feel like he has to compete for my attention, right? In fact, next to God, he should have the biggest part of my attention.

Everyone is different, with different love languages and needs, but all of our husbands needs our attention in some way or another. I bet if you took a few minutes, you could come up with a list of some small ways that your husband feels like you’re paying attention to his needs and desires, and some small changes that you can make to meet them better. And if you thought for a few more minutes, you can probably list some big things, too.

If you’re not sure, ask him! No, really. It doesn’t have to be all weird. Just ask, “if you could pick three things that I could do to make you feel more loved, what would they be?” Yes, there’s a good chance that ONE of those three answers would be the same for all of our men. (There’s a reason for that! Paying attention to THOSE needs is a really good way to make our men feel loved and attended to.) And how do you think I learned that my husband wants his sock drawer and tea pitcher full? I asked for three things several years ago and was surprised at the simple answers I got in return. =)

So the question I pose to you today is this: are you paying attention to your husband? Does he FEEL like it? What are some small changes you can make to give him your full attention more often, and be more attentive to his needs overall?

I know that I need to put the laptop down more often, that I need to sit quietly more often (and listen if he talks and be quiet with him if not,) and that I still need to do a better job with the laundry and the tea. My prayer is that God will show me how to be more attentive and recognize opportunities to focus on my family instead of all the external stuff. I want to be a wife and mom that soaks it all in instead of letting it all pass by.

If you want to write a post for Marriage Monday, the guidelines are simple: Write a positive and encouraging post about marriage and link it here using your direct URL. Today’s word is “Attentive.” Next week’s word is “Bold.” God bless~

P.S. I’m also “guest posting” today over at my husband’s blog. =)