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Last week was a very full week. 

• Monday we needed to spend most of our morning doing housework catch up.  The weekend was busy and this just needed to be done.  I also spent some time in the office while the kids worked on independent work.  Int he afternoon we had people travelling around Australia drop in.  We had so much to talk about – it’s like that when you meet people who are like-hearted.  The kids had a ball together including swimming in the channel till sunset.

• Tuseday we get together with another family for piano, math and character lessons.  For Character, it was more like a devotion this time, we discussed what we do all day and the challenge of doing it for the glory of God.  Math is just with the young boys and we worked on making a measuring jar (calibrated etc).  After a bit of catch up time we dashed home, had lunch and then headed back into town.  I had a dentist, Josh had 4-wheel-biking (I’m sure there’s a better word for this) with the boys he gets together with weekly, and the other kids had Christmas Carols Choir practice. 

• Wednesday we had some good lessons happen in the morning and in the afternoon we had friends around.  They are planning on homeschooling next year so we had lots to talk about.  We mainly talked about how discipleship homeschooling looks so different than traditional schooling.  It has its own set of priorities; the challenge is are we able to let go of what we know (traditional schooling) and work with the priorities that touch our children’s hearts.

• Thursdays Jessica has Mainly Music and needs to be in town around 8.15 to help set up.  Joshua stayed home to study.  I dropped all the kids off at the hall to help with set up and dashed around town doing a few chores.  Picked up the kids and went and did the grocery shopping.  I prefer to do the shopping before Mainly Music (If we leave home at7.00 it can be done by 8.00 if everyone pitches in) but that didn’t happen this week so the whole things takes a lot longer.  We stayed home in the afternoon, we resisted the temptation (for the kids surely were tempted) to invite kids over to play.  We needed down time, we needed together time.  We had dinner with our Bible Study group and then watched Facing the Giants together.

• Friday I spent the morning in the office, the kids worked on tidying up the house and then a little independent work.  Then in the afternoon we headed off to a friends house for our Homeschool Network meeting, which is a once a term meeting for homeschool mums to get together, to learn from each other, and to encourage each other.  This year our Network meetings have been based around listening to the Tips and Tricks DVD from Institute of Excellence in Writing which many of us are using or working towards.

• Saturday – oh to stay at home!!  I spent the morning in the office working on my newsletter and then finances.  Early afternoon I head into the kitchen to prepare dinner (we were having guests) and Jess reminded me that they had dentist appointments.  Just as we were about to rush out the door I remembered I had made an appointment for Nomi too so she quickly cleaned her teeth and off we went.  The dentist took longer than usual, plus Nomi’s appointment, so that certainly jammed up getting ready for our guests.  But we had a lovely evening getting to know these people who have just come to town.

• Sunday I was up early cooking as I was on morning tea at Church.  I talked to my mum while I worked in the kitchen – cooking the cakes and cleaning up from last night.  Then Pete and I cooked breakfast which we ate together out on the veranda as a family.  We love this family tradition.  Church.  A friend joined us for lunch but I left him and Pete to spend the afternoon talking as I worked on my planning for the week and a few other projects I’ve got happening.  Sunday night we considered going to the movies but we really just needed to stay home so we pulled out a Story Keepers DVD instead.  The kids have seen these stories before but I wanted Nomi and Daniel to know that these stories are based on truth.  Christians did die, they did need to meet in secret and the tunnels etc they see are a real part of Rome.

Whew!  What a week.  Far too busy.  We need to be at home.  We need to have some more quiet productive time.  I will have to guard my afternoon a bit better this week.  I need to remember that all good activity isn’t the best activity.  And though I don’t regret anything that we did last week I need to make sure that every week isn’t like that!