Journaling Back to Joy

My friend, TooManyHats, had this on her blog and it looks like a great way to meet new friends!

Hi new friends! My name is Amy and this is blog “Journaling Back to Joy”.  I am mom to 5 children – 4 adopted with special needs and 1 residing in heaven now.  I blog about knitting, homeschooling, adoption, grieving, my faith and tons more!  I can’t wait to meet you – please let me know you stopped by!

Overall we are OK – but like many families we are going to be experiencing a cut in our monthly budget very soon.  So we are saying goodbye to somethings we’ve been enjoying but are not essential.

Data plan on my phone.  When I registered my new phone, our provider told me I was required to have a data plan.  I didn’t want it … but then I started to use it!  What fun!  But that is gone now.  Oh well.  (and funny that it was “required”, but then they let us discontinue it)

Our big gold van – we hardly ever drive it anymore.  We could save on insurance, licensing fees and parking tickets (long story – sigh).
Our pop-up camper – we are of two minds.  One says it’s a great asset for our family.  But the other recognizes that we’d rather use the time-shares and we won’t have anything to haul it with.  We are a bit sad.  We did a lot of work on it.

CSA box.  I haven’t fully decided yet…and I’m prepaid for July.  But I’m not sure I can continue to justify the expense when I look at our budget.    I hope I can keep it, but it might have to go.

I”m pretty good at letting things go – especially when you realize there is just no choice.  C’est la vie!

I’m done! Probably not the first done, but the first posted!

June quilt block

So, what am I going to do with myself on my summer break?!

• Work.  I still work for The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.  I’m blessed to work from home for them.  I’ve been working for them for a little more than 5 years now.
• Knit.  I’m finishing a shrug for Sissy.  Then I have a lace stole for my mom I’m working on.  Finishing a winter sweater for me and then trying to decide on a lighter weight cardigan pattern to start next.
• Cook. I’m trying to feed my family less processed foods.  I’m also challenged each week by the veggies in my CSA box.  It’s been lots of fun!
• Quilt.  I’m still competing with Ashley & Trina with our Block of the Month.  I even made a page about it on my blog to help me track my progress.  I’m currently losing the bet!
• Scrapbook.  Ok…really only guilt is making me add this one.  I NEED to scrapbook.
• Geocache.  I hope we can make some time each week to Geocache.  Need to nag my Hubby I guess!

I think I’m really going to enjoy my summer!

So far here is what we will be using at Cornerstone Academy for 2009/10

J1 – 14 – 9th grade will be doing Independent Study via Visions in Education’s 9-12 Academy

J2 – almost 13 – 7th grade and our special learner:

• Math – Teaching Textbook 6
• Language Arts – Pathway Readers & reading comprehension workbooks, All About Spelling, Getty-Dubay handwriting, Writing Skills for Special Children and lots and lots and lots of practice
• Social Studies – Story of the World – V2 – The Middle Ages
• Science – Exploring Creation with Zoology (no idea which one yet – any recommendations?)
• PE – Kickboxing, weekly park day and play

J3 – 8.5 – 3rd grade:

• Math – Saxon 3
• Language Arts – Pathway Readers & reading comprehension workbooks, All About Spelling, Getty-Dubay handwriting, Writing Skills for Special Children
• Social Studies – Story of the World – V2 – The Middle Ages
• Science – Exploring Creation with Zoology (no idea which one yet – any recommendations?)
• PE -  weekly park day and play

Also all three boys are involved in scouting and J3 will be able to do kickboxing when he turns 9 in December (he can NOT wait!)  And J3 can do Awanas again while the older boys will be involved in our youth group.  Too much socialization for this homebody!