Can't Get Me Down!

It has been an interesting week. During one of my workouts last week, I pulled or injured a muscle in my abdomen. After that I would get intense pain when I moved or stretched certain ways. Not fun! Because of this, I knew I was going to have to modify my fitness bootcamp workout with the girls on Saturday. I was already feeling at a disadvantage because of that.

So then our instructor, Brandice, had us go do some suicide runs on a strip of pavement nearby. I was on my way back from the very first cone when my knees buckled and I wiped out on the pavement. How embarrassing! Brandice wouldn't let me do any more of the suicide runs after that. I joked that I guess I took the name of the drill a little too seriously. I did manage to get through the bootcamp in one piece, although my knee and palms are a bit scraped up.

I've been very careful this week to let the muscles in my abdomen rest and heal. I believe my injury is healing nicely since I can now do the stretches that before were causing so much pain. What a relief!

This past weekend was Memorial Day Weekend. I want to say a big THANK YOU to all the soldiers and veterans who sacrificed so that I can have my precious freedoms!

We celebrated the holiday by taking MyHero's mother to the beach! We all had a great time and then enjoyed a wonderful meal back at our house.

By the way! Did you know that you can get a Memorial Day spelling list at spellingcity.com? You can even go into the play games section and play hangman. What a neat way to learn the meaning of Memorial Day while learning spelling words at the same time!

Milestone

I've hit a milestone this past week in my weight loss journey. I've lost 10 pounds since I've gotten serious about loosing weight! I know my ticker shows less, but it doesn't really reflect my progress from where I started. I really should fix that.

On Saturday I went to a fitness bootcamp that is run by my friend Brandice. She is a certified fitness instructor and has a business called, Fitness Infusion. It was tough getting up that early, but well worth it! We met at a local park and there were about 6-7 other women there. We got a great workout that left me sore for a few days afterward. It was nice for me to get to work out with friends since I normally workout here at home.

We have moved into our summer routine. What this means for us is that we are taking a more relaxed approach to school. I still want my kids to be practicing their math facts every day. I feel this is important so that they don't loose ground. I'm also thinking about having them do some summer reading. Maybe some homeschool fiction will grab their fancy!

In the meantime, I'm trying to use this time to get a lesson plan set up and ready to go for this next school year!

Building Muscles and Vocabulary!

I didn't blog about my weight loss last week. That's because I felt like a train wreck all last week. I was having my monthly ickies, to put it delicately. Every month it is an ordeal. I have Endometriosis which causes lots of pain. Migraines also go hand in hand with my monthly ordeal. Yeah, doesn't make for a fun week!

I also didn't get any workouts in last week for the same reason. Based on my lack of exercise and extra calorie intake, (thanks to cravings), I fully expected to have gained back some of what I've lost. I was THRILLED when I stepped on the scale Monday morning to find that I'd only gained 1 pound back! I'm learning first hand how much having some muscles can help burn those calories! Yep, I'm going to be working to build more muscles!

As I posted last week, I've been purchasing new curriculum for our coming school year, specifically ManBoy's 9th grade year. For science he is going to be learning biology.  He will be using Apologia Exploring Creation with Biology. However, I plan to supplement his science studies using Spelling City. The really cool thing about this is that I can create my own spelling lists so that we can incorporate his spelling and science. I can even use that spelling word list to create our very own vocabulary quiz. How cool is that??

Plus, I can set up all these lists ahead of time and then assign them for each week of his curriculum. Then, I can go onto the site and check the records to see that he did the assignment and print out the same records to keep in his portfolio.

Time 4... New Curriculum!

This past Saturday, I helped out at our local homeschool support group's used book sale. While I was there, I shopped for new curriculum for ManBoy. I made a couple of great finds which I'm hoping will fit with his learning style. I suspect that he is a visual spatial learner. I got him a couple of "Drive By History" DVDs as well as a couple of History Channel DVDs. He will of course need more than just these for history, but this is a start.

For Science, I found "Apologia Exploring Creation with Biology". The set included the text book, a tests and solutions book, an extra module one test booklet and a multimedia CD. I also found the experiment kit that goes with the set. I'm excited to have science covered for him.

For math, a friend of mine gave me a spectacular idea. She is a professor at our local community college. Her suggestion was that I go to their book store and ask for the remedial math section. She said that these books cover what ManBoy is struggling to learn and as an added bonus is also what is included on the actual entrance exam!

I even found curriculum to teach my kids French. I tried teaching them Spanish but just couldn't get into it. I took several semesters of French in college so I have a bit of knowledge under my belt. I suspect that I've forgotten the majority of what I learned though. I'm eager to brush up on my French.

Fashionista says that she wants to learn Korean instead. Yeah! Sorry, dear, but mom is not teaching that! She helps teach a 3 year old class at church and one of the ladies who works with her is Korean. She's been learning some cool stuff from her.

I still need to figure out what to do for Language Arts with ManBoy. What I would really like to use is Time4Writing. Just need to talk it over with MyHero and see if he will allow me to spend the money on this. I figure we are going to have to spend some money either way. I feel that this would be the best use of our money for this subject.

Anyone else getting ready to teach a new high school student? What curriculum are you using?

Encouragement in my Weight Loss

After such a discouraging weight loss week last week, I got some real encouragement from my weekly appointment with my scale. I'm down 2 pounds from last week! Yay! It was so good to see those numbers, but I'm still trying to keep in mind that the scale isn't the only indicator of how I'm doing.

I'm developing the habit of listening to my body's cues on when I need to eat. It can be SO hard to remember that I need to eat in order to loose weight! That just seems to go so contrary to everything I THINK I know about weight loss! The reality is that I know VERY little about it. Thank the LORD for friends who DO know about weight loss and fitness and are willing to teach me!

We celebrated ManBoy's 14th birthday Monday of this week. Actually we celebrated on Sunday. We had a mix of family and friends here. It was nice. My Sister-in-law's fiancé took lots of pictures. He even got some shots of my birds!

When they are being especially chatty, I call them my "Wordy Birdies"! he he Just a silly thing I came up with after learning about hig pig games.

We are STILL praying about what curriculum to use this next year for ManBoy. He has out grown Time4Learning and will need something to take him through high school. He says that he would rather have a book to read from rather than doing school on the computer. Not so sure about that. It is just occurring to me that I should see if I can figure out what his learning style is and try to find something that will complement that.