Jane! Stop this Crazy Thing!

It has been a very, very, did I mention VERY, hectic two weeks around here. My beautiful sister in law was married this past Wednesday, 09-09-09. It was a truly monumental event within our family, especially to our parents as they gave away their baby girl.

The family, the friends, the fun, the preparations that we all helped with kept us quite busy and feeling pretty exhausted by the end of this week. In fact, several of us are not fully rested or recovered just yet. And we would not have it any other way!

My training has not been much to speak of, a few runs here and there. I had decided to not fret about getting the running in and just enjoy the time with the family. I am so glad I took that pressure off of myself. The realization that my racing schedule will need to change quite a bit from what it was originally intended to be has set in and I am happy with the modifications.

I have always tried to put family before everything else, including my running. This has proven to be the best for me and for them. At times I get frustrated with the "interruptions" in the training, but in the end, I recognize that the frustration is actually a cue to me that I am not putting my family first and it helps me to reorder my priorities.

My fall race schedule will probably shake out something like this...

November Rocky Raccoon
December Sunmart
January Bandera?
February Rocky Raccoon
March undecided
April Rocky Hill aka Hell's Hills

I haven't set the distances yet and I need to pray and think upon this a bit further.

Bean is doing well in school. We miss her terribly, but thanks to technology we are able to keep in daily contact. Our family that lives close to her will see her in October and for Thanksgiving. She will be home for Christmas and we can't wait! I guess I need to fix up her new room!

Our school year started the week before the wedding and quickly went into vacation mode. I am looking forward to starting again on Monday. I really like the way that the curriculum is working so far. Our most difficult task will be to not take on too much outside of the school day which then cuts into precious schooling time. I have had to say "no" to so many things so far and will continue to do so. I feel strongly that we need to focus on our spiritual life and our domestic church.

Each child is using a different curriculum. This is new for me. I typically build my own or greatly modify a prepared curriculum and try to overlap students and subjects. This year, I've instead identified the top 2 areas each student needs to work on and will strive to strengthen these points the best way that we can.

Bean did report back to me that she was concerned about her writing skills. Admittedly, I was just as concerned as I had never put her through a formal writing course. She was brought up on lots of oral and written narration in true Charlotte Mason form. I did use a brief grammar course with her that was basic and to the point. The other day she shared with me that she was asked to proof read some of her fellow students papers. She was immediately reassured that her skills while not perfect, were more than adequate for the courses she is currently enrolled in.

I did note while I was at Franciscan that they have a "Writing Center". An actual office dedicated to helping students to become better writers. This tells me that ALL students can use help in the writing area no matter what schooling background they come from.

I am praying we have a few weeks of quiet normalcy around here before we begin the holiday season. Then of course we will have the great blessing of our first grandchild arriving shortly after the new year!

God is good... All the time!