7 Quick Takes Friday

1. I've made it through the most stressful part of my week---Wahoowa! Today will still be a busy day with KT coming home, picking up Hitch and Madden who have a half-day, going to co-op, coming home to clean and shop before the In-laws arrive. But they've been around enough to know how things are, so I'm not stressing too much about that. We're just going to have to skip Cub Scouts tonight. That is more than I can handle.

2. My sweet friend, ML, is still in ICU on the ventilator, but her lung function is improving and we hope she can go home soon. Please keep praying for this wonderful, gentle soul.

3. I'm trying to calm down my frantic fingers. I'm working on a pair of socks now. Not even halfway through the first sock, I have to say that socks are not my favorite thing to knit. The needles are too small. DPNs annoy me for some reason. Maybe I wouldn't mind a big, chunky pair of socks, but I think it will be summer before I can wear these wool socks. The whole point of knitting is to have something to do during those times I'm sitting still (ha!) waiting in carpool lines, watching soccer games, etc. And I really don't do those things. But there are so many beautiful, exciting knits out there in the blogosphere, it's all I can do not to order more yarn and patterns. I feel like an addict.

4. I've given up coffee and caffeine. Why? I'm not sure. Probably to be kind to my liver. In any case, I spent the week tapering off. All I had yesterday was a couple of sips, and I'm done. This will help get the coke out of my life, too. The kids were soooo disappointed when I got gas yesterday and NO 44 oz. Diet Coke to share!!!

5. I was starting to get excited about the Superbowl, and crocheting drink cozies in team colors (!), until I read about the commercials that are shown during football games. I'm so ready to get rid of the TV! Even if there is an acceptable show on, the commercials are way too trashy and we spend our time flipping around to avoid them.

6. Now that my super-busy week is over, I'm looking forward to spending some time down in the room formerly known as The Schoolroom. I have an apron for Pipster cut out and ready to sew and the goods for KT's Emmeline apron waiting. Maybe I can get that one done while she's here. But she'll be back Tuesday for....

7. Madden's Confirmation. That, of course, is the reason Ma and Pa B are coming to visit. And, God bless 'em, they're brave souls to come to this house for 5 days! I'm looking forward to my fine young man becoming a soldier of Christ.

Homeschool Tracker

This is one of the tools that has changed the way I school at home. Okay, maybe it didn't change the way I teach, but it has made an enormous difference in the way we stay on track!

One of the reasons I homeschool my kids is because of my independent nature, which means that I want to do things my own way. I also want to work with the needs and learning styles of my children. Perhaps as a result of all those things, with a little input from the Master of the World, I've never been completely happy with one curriculum. I've always used parts of different curricula.

We have used Kolbe Academy and Mother of Divine Grace the most. We have dabbled in Seton science, religion, and art, as well as Catholic Heritage Curricula. And we have used other resources that I discovered and loved. The past 2 years, we've been borrowing quite a bit from Elizabeth Foss's Serendipity.

As a result of all this dabbling, changing around their curriculum plans, and homeschooling for 14 years (wow, that's a big number!), I needed something to help me.

I started out, in the early years, spending hours on Sunday nights planning for the week ahead and writing down assignments, which is just way too much work for anyone I know! Yes, the different programs have their own planning guides and tools, but when you substitute as much as I have, you need something else---either in lieu of or in addition to theirs!

When I first got the Tracker, it was free, and wonderful. But then the Gentiles added features every year and it was soooo worth it to buy the Plus edition for the changes.

Some things are so easy to enter into the system, like math, that it's a no-brainer. Math planning for one student can be done for the whole year in less than 5 minutes! Some lessons are more time consuming if you put in a lot of detail (as I did with MODG history). Eventually, I learned a shorthand form that says something like "See MODG syllabus for detailed instructions".


The beauty part of this is that Tracker has several formats for weekly schedules that you can use. We use a calendar and print one out for each child on Monday a.m. This way we can all see what needs to be done and Mom can see if it gets done because they cross them off. I know it's simple, but this little bit has made a huge difference in their work performance.

I know it's shocking, but there used to be times when a child wouldn't do, say, science, for 3 weeks and Mom wouldn't know about it. Yes, I know it should be obvious, especially since that's a subject I normally do with them, but when there are 4 children being schooled and at least 2 toddlers or babies, it's easy to forget what you've covered with whom! So then we'd have to calculate how far behind we had gotten and how much work we would have to do daily to finish by the end of the year. All my summer planning would be for nothing! Sadly, this same scenario was repeated with every child in at least one subject per year. Now, if we get off track because of life happening, it's very easy to hit the "reschedule" button and we're back on track.


One of the features that I asked for (and got!) when I gave my input to the Gentiles was the ability to archive a subject and use it for the next child who needed it. Now, when I spend hours painstakingly entering one of the more challenging plans, I know that I only need to do it once. When the next child reaches that grade, the planning will already be done. Unless I shoot myself in the foot and change texts again! lol. But seriously, that feature alone has made the whole thing worth the $40 dollars I paid for it.

There are many wonderful features to this program. It is very customizable. It's a great resource if you're required to show lots of records to your county. It keeps attendance, grades, field trip reports. It does a very nice report card and transcript. You can decide how to weight grades for tests and quizzes. There are so many features, you just have to look.

We've been using Tracker for at least 8 years now and it has been such an enormous help that I thought I'd share it with all of you. And I'm not even getting compensated for all the referrals because I'm not taking the time to fill out their referral form! Seriously, the best thing that ever happened to my home school!

Update:
Just as I finished this and checked my mail, I found out that M. is being put on a ventilator. Please pray!

This is all I'm thinking about today as I go about my daily duties. I read this on Saturday and could only think of my friend M.L. with stage 4 brain cancer. Today after visiting her in ICU, it weighs on my heart even more than before. Why else should such a beautiful, loving woman have to suffer so much? Indeed, why did Jesus?

Thou lovest all things that Thou hast created. Thou art the lover of souls. How then is it, O Lord, that I am in a world so miserable as this is ? Can this be the world which Thou hast created, so full of pain and suffering ? Who among the sons of Adam lives without suffering from his birth to his death ? How many bad sicknesses and diseases are there ! how many frightful accidents ! how many great anxieties ! how are men brought down and broken by grief, distress, the tumult of passions, and continual fear! What dreadful plagues are there ever on the earth : war, famine, and pestilence ! Why is this, O my God ? Why is this, O my soul ? Dwell upon it, and ask Thyself, Why is this ? Has God changed His nature ? yet how evil has the earth become!

2. O my God, I know full well why all these evils are. Thou hast not changed Thy nature, but man has ruined his own. We have sinned, O Lord, and therefore is this change. All these evils which I sec and in which I partake are the fruit of sin. They would not have been, had we not sinned. They are but the first instalment of the punishment of sin. They are an imperfect and dim image of what sin is. Sin is infinitely worse than famine, than war, than pestilence. Take the most hideous of diseases, under which the body wastes away and corrupts, the blood is infected ; the head, the heart, the lungs, every organ disordered, the nerves unstrung and shattered ; pain in every limb, thirst, restlessness, delirium— all is nothing compared with that dreadful sickness of the soul which we call sin. They all are the effects of it, they all are shadows of it, but nothing more. That cause itself is something different in kind, is of a malignity far other and greater than all these things. O my God, teach me this ! Give me to understand the enormity of that evil under which I labour and know it not. Teach me what sin is.

3. All these dreadful pains of body and soul are the fruits of sin, but they are nothing to its punishment in the world to come. The keenest and fiercest of bodily pains is nothing to the fire of hell; the most dire horror or anxiety is nothing to the never-dying worm of conscience ; the greatest bereavement, loss of substance, desertion of friends, and forlorn desolation is nothing compared to the loss of God's countenance. Eternal punishment is the only true measure of the guilt of sin. My God, teach me this. Open my eyes and heart, I earnestly pray Thee, and make me understand how awful a body of death I bear about me. And, not only teach me about it, but in Thy mercy and by Thy grace remove it.

(Excerpt taken from Meditations and Devotions of the Late Cardinal Newman)

Please say a prayer for my sweet friend, that she'll be able to return home very soon to her family and that God will grant her a miracle.