First Day of School

So...

It begins again tomorrow--Josh back to class.  These last couple of weeks have been so nice having him home all day.  It makes me sad to lose him for those precious hours each day; alas, that is why we're here.  Now that Josh has decided what he wants to be when he grows up, though, the atmosphere has changed a little.  It's not quite as stressful because he doesn't feel like he's going to fail at being a teacher or pastor or whatever because he doesn't do well on some theology quiz.  He's now decided that he wants to write fiction.  I'm actually really excited.  I know he can do great things with that.  It's not that I questioned his ability for teaching or preaching, but I could just never see him clearly in those roles.  I could see him teaching some things but probably not at a seminary, which is what he thought of for awhile.  I can TOTALLY see him holed away in some corner typing on the laptop for hours working on a novel or pacing the floor with a baby in his arms while creating a character in his head.

The only problem now, however, is that I want the seminary chapter to be over.  I was never in a hurry before to be done here because we never had any idea what was next, but now that we know, I want to be there now.  Lord, please help me wait.

Waiting has never been something I'm good at, unless it's something I don't want to do.  I'm sure that's the way for anybody.  Speaking of that, the two main things on my to-do list are still undone because they are overwhelming tasks for me, so what have I done?  I've completed all the other things before these two, of course.  Now, I'm down to the wire and am still putting them off by writing this post.  Sheesh.

My major one of the two is making some "lesson plans" for school for the boys.  It's not that it's hard; it's just time consuming.  I just want to snap my fingers and it be done.  I hated school so much (in high school) that I'm desperate to make it fun for the boys.  I don't want them to have the same experience I did.  I don't know what the problem was exactly in high school.  I had friends; I had sports; I even graduated sixth in my class with a 3.96 for goodness' sake; I just hated most of the actual classes.  I guess, aside from the few classes I really enjoyed (thanks Ms. Ferguson, Mrs. Meade and Mr. Meade), I could just never get on the same wavelength as most of the teachers.  It probably had something to do with the fact that I didn't want to think any harder than I had to.  Who knows?

Anyway, I'm working on making some plans for the boys because I just don't want to wing it and not give them my best.  I don't want them to grow up wishing they didn't have a loser life by me teaching them and not getting to go to "a real" school.  There are various reasons why we're homeschooling that I won't go into, but I want school for us to be SO cool that they'll never feel like they missed a thing.  Well, if it's going to be spectacular, I better get to the planning.  

Here are a few books we're using.  Seems a bit much for preschool and first grade doesn't it? :)