This 'n That

1. I didn't walk once last week. I took a couple naps, watched lots of movies with my husband after the kids were in bed, read for hours each day, and was a happy slug. But I can't afford to be a slug for long ~ I'm really shooting for 5 days of exercise this week. Really!

2. I'm in the middle of a big huge MOPS project. The two MOPS groups our church sponsors (morning and evening) decided to break away from MOPS and run our own, similar, program. This is primarily a cost saving measure, as being an official MOPS group cost us hundreds of dollars each year. It will be a good thing, but it means writing a new policies and procedures manual. Something I would really like to be done with before our trip to WA. And we're still working on fully staffing our evening program, so lots still to be done. And that's just my part. :-)

3. My husband is still looking for work. The good news is that there seem to be more jobs to apply for in recent weeks than there were in the winter. The bad news is that none of the applications has led to a job interview so far.

4. We are still waiting to hear from our lender about our mortgage forbearance application. They are busy processing other applications and haven't gotten to ours yet. It's been 6 weeks already. The bank's silence makes me nervous (my imagination makes up answers to our many questions that are not what I want to hear in real life), but that means more opportunities to lay it at Jesus' feet.

5. I have been meeting with my friend Angela once a week to watch dvd's of a writing seminar (from Excellence in Writing - IEW). We have been pausing the dvd to do the practicums (where we actually have to write ourselves!) and are both learning a lot. We are so excited to teach writing to our children this coming year! I have been using IEW for nearly two years, but not as consistently or completely as I'd like. So this is our year to focus on writing!

6. In other school news, I have just about completed 3 science notebooks for our 3 older boys to use this coming year. We will be reading through the Apologia Elementary Science series: Zoology 2, Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day. I downloaded some free notebooking pages from the author's website, as well as some free lapbooking minibooks from homeschool share. I decided not to comb bind these notebooks as we may want to add other things as we study throughout the year, but instead to put them in 3 ring binders. They look pretty cool and my boys are very excited to learn about ocean creatures this year! Next on my school prep agenda is printing out the pages for our daughter's science notebook. She will be reading through Apologia General Science, and has an accompanying notebook journal to record what she learns.

7. Our fun thing today was jumping on votemom's trampoline! The children had a great time jumping while I enjoyed some adult conversation. :-) Thanks votemom!