Seven Quick Takes on New Podcast Episodes, Too Many Repairmen, Summer Books Selections, and MORE!

:: 1 ::

Episode 7 of the Scholé Sisters podcast came out today! In it, I interview Amber, who hangs out in the comments here sometimes. She’s great. You should go listen. 🙂

 

:: 2 ::

Writing this take is basically therapeutic blogging. I seriously cannot believe the number of things that have gone wrong at our house lately. I guess there is a reason why we have that saying, “When it rains, it pours.” As a Californian, I didn’t pretend to fully understand the statement, but it has meaning to me now.

On Monday, a repairman came to redo the baseboards that were damaged by the flood. I made the mistake of joking that repairmen would need to come every day this week because of how things have been going. So, naturally, on Tuesday, my refrigerator broke again. The nice part is that the previous repair was under warranty, so all we had to pay for was another new part. It is nice to have a working refrigerator, I must say.

On Tuesday night, the screw of our garage door opener cracked. This meant the car was trapped inside the garage until someone came to fix it. My husband could not budge it even an inch. We are very blessed that my parents will do things like pick up kids at tennis in an emergency. Needless to say, O-Age-Seven spent his time watching the opener being repaired on Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, we had multiple issues with our Internet connection, which means — that’s right! — the broadband company came on Thursday.

I am grateful for repairmen. I really am. But I would prefer to not have a reason to see another one for a very long time.

 

:: 3 ::

This week’s links collection:

{It’s huge!}

• No one could see the color blue until modern times from Business Insider
  • This one is so intriguing!
• Target to Allow Transgender People to Use Bathroom of Their Choice from Fox New Insider
  • In which public safety is sacrificed to politics, and also big corporations try their hand at forming culture.
• Wisconsin’s Shame: ‘I Thought It Was a Home Invasion’ from National Review
  • Wow. This sounds like something out of a dystopian novel.
• Why I Write Scary Stories for Children from The Atlantic
  • N.D. Wilson is one of our faves.
• ‘What Has God Ever Done For Me?’ Asks Man Breathing Air from Babylon Bee
  • This was hysterically funny.

:: 4 ::

This month in 2013:

You’ve heard of taking time off from math, but have you heard of taking time off from writing?

 

:: 5 ::

I usually try to pick fiction for my swimming lessons book stack in early summer. With that said, my good friend, Christa, went and got me all interested in her collection of books on vocation, and so I decided to ask her for a suggestion for me, and God at Work is the winner. So it looks like this will be the book that keeps me company in the shade while the children swim their laps.

What are you planning to read this summer?

 

:: 6 ::

I got away for a couple hours on Wednesday night. This ended up being exactly what I needed to knock out the entire rough draft of my talk on atmosphere, discipline, and life that I’m giving in Dallas next month. While I always refine a number of times before I’m done, I was encouraged by how easy it was to write — it’s like it’s a talk that wants to be give. 🙂

 

:: 7 ::

Answering Your Questions:

• Question:   would like to use MEP with my 1st grader next year and then with the kiddos that follow. He has not used a formal math program at all this year with our inconsistent K work. Would you start him with the Reception or Year 1? I feel like the Reception is a dash below him in parts from what I previewed, but I also do not want to miss a solid foundation.
  • Answer: Goodness, I really think you could go either way. With my youngest, he seemed pretty natural at math, but I went ahead and did the reception year, and I’m glad I did. I found a few weaknesses I didn’t know what there, and it really did build a good foundation. So … maybe go through the Reception Year, but skip some of it? I’m wondering if that would be best. If you find things that are easy for him he could just skip those parts in the future — there is no reason you can’t do more than one lesson per day if you are doing that. Then, you’d probably fly through Reception, but still get the foundation wherever he needs it.