.All I Need.

I have been tightening everything up to start first grade (first??!!) with Cadi on Monday. I have been planning, scheduling, organizing, compiling, and researching.


My lesson plan book for this year. If this is what my plan book for the beginning of the school year with one child for first grade looks like, I cannot imagine what my future plan books will look like.





Everything for Classical Conversations is organized and ready. We are first time CC - ers, and this may be old hat for some families, but I learned that the Veritas timeline cards fit perfectly in a 8.5 x 5 binder with the same size page protectors. I was thinking of laminating them all, but I like this better.





I really like writing lesson plans. It must be the teacher in me. It is so satisfying to see things boxed and organized out. I kind of miss writing those detailed lesson plans complete with goals, objectives, anticipatory set, step-by-step procedures, etc. I wrote a few of those my first year teaching, but have been block planning ever since.



My home runs so much smoother on a schedule. I know some run better on a routine, and some even looser, but we all love a schedule here. It flexes a bit as needed (and I am growing in this), but gives us the security we need. I am so ready to trade away our summer routine for our school schedule.

This week has been....awful. (To put it gently.) I have been sick with fever, chills, head stuff, congestion, sore throat, you name it. I think this extremely busy, long, hard summer caught up with me. Jamesy had his huge appointments on Monday, Tuesday was Jim's birthday, and today we were able to squeeze in the blood work Jamesy needed to check his pituitary gland and hormone levels. It was another morning of getting the whole family out of the house before the sun rose. I have lost track now of how many times we have done that this summer. The children are getting good at it. The blood draw was just plain awful, and I am too spent to even explain the nightmare that it was. But 2.5 hours later it was done, and I am thankful. Praying now for good results.

I feel ready for school to start {mostly}, but I have reached a pit of exhaustion this week. I am discouraged, weak, sad, lonely, and as you can tell whiny and moody. God is teaching me much, but I need to start listening.

Repeating over and over to myself that I cannot do any of this, and God never asked me to, I just need to let Him do it in me.

Each time he said, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness." So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

Praying for that grace.

Oh, ya, our dryer broke three weeks ago. I typically do three loads of laundry a day. I cannot even see the floor in our bathroom right now. It takes three days for me to air dry one load of laundry in my house. You can imagine how lovely this is with Jamesy's nightly vomit. Sounds silly, but please pray that God provides. I am at my breaking point.

Oh yes, God's grace is all I need.

How quickly I forget.