August Already?

WOW! I can't get over how fast Summer has flown by. It's already August. My birthday is fast approaching on the 7th. Sheesh! I'll be the big 3..8...I'm planning the cake I'll be starting over the weekend. In my head it looks awesome so we will see what it will actually look like when completed..

Right now, I'm just finishing up copies and such for school which will start here on August 20th. I decided to design my own lesson planner for my 8th grade son. He's pretty independant with his school work minus a couple subjects this year so I needed to have a lesson planner that would work for me. One that will allow me enough space to write down his assignments with all the directions needed so he can work alone. This is much much better than the spiral bound notebook I've been doing for the past three years. This is going to save me so much time each week. Lovin' it! I plan to take it down to Office Max tomorrow and get it spiral bound and a cover put on it. Once it's all assembled, I'll take a picture of it and post it.

Things are going really well here. My DD17 has officially decided to live here for her Senior Year which makes this mama totally excited and blessed. It's going to be a great year watching her turn into an adult this October. 18 already. I just feel like her life has flashed before my eyes and now I will soon have an adult child. I just don't feel old enough! She is officially enrolled in Montana State University-College of Technology for the Fall. She will be taking one class equally 3 credits as part of the dual enrollment program. She'll get college credit and high school credit for this class while homeschooling. She decided that one class this semester will be enough since she has a couple more credits to fulfill her high school requirements for graduation. She hopes to go full time come Spring Semester which will be 12 credits.

She's also out picking up applications for her first ever job. I'm so proud of her. How she's taking charge of her life. It brings happy Mama tears in my eyes watching her grow into a wonderful woman. She had her first job interview today for Office Max. She hopes to know by early next week if she got the job. She's still filling out applications just in case this one doesn't work out. On top of that, she's been out driving and hoping to get her driver's license before Christmas. She's vastly improving her driving skills everytime she goes out.

I have all my curriculum purchased and it's here. I got it organized..finally... and just now finishing up the copies portion of my school organization. I've decided this year to make ALL my copies for the entire year now! I have a system I'm using that has file folders, and color coded folders that are broken up into four quarters. Each quarter of the school year is represented by a color. I will have all the copies put into each week's folder so all I have to do is pull the folder out on Friday the previous week to see if I need any supplies for lab work in science or history crafts for my DS10. This is going to streamline MY work and free me up for time to grade papers and such instead of lesson planning. I look foward to seeing how well this works. This past year I felt like I wasn't prepared everytime my son came to me for a test that I hadn't scanned or printed out yet. Now that is all done and ready for him.

On another subject..... With my 30+ pound weightloss over these past several months I also lost weight in my hands. I haven't been able to wear my wedding ring for sometime because it would just slide off my finger. I finally figured I probably won't lose anymore weight in my hands..fingers crossed... so I took it down to get resized. It looks like it went from a 7 1/4 down to a 6. I hope to get it back from the jeweler by the 8th. It will be nice to be able to wear it again.

Not sure if I've posted this but I've decided NOT to run the half marathon this September. I was getting really burnt out on the aggressive running schedule and I was losing the love for running so I felt that had to go. Which for me is just fine. I got the idea and a huge nudge to run a half this year from my running buddy. I thought it would be great but it was just moving me to quickly and I didn't want to run anymore. So now, I'm running for the fun. Like today... Hubby and I went for a run with the boys on their bikes. We started out on the paved trail and then found an awesome dirt trail just off the paved one and took some great hills and the scenery was breathtaking. At the best part.. it was just by our house but you couldn't tell at all that the city was just over the hill. It was awesome! I finished my run off with a 2 mile bike ride home using the bike DS13 was riding (which was mine anyway). My DD17 had her job interview and the run took longer than planned so I hopped on the bike and hubby and the boys walked the rest of the way home. Man, talk about a workout. All I needed was a little swim in there somewhere and I'd have done a triathalon.. hee hee!!

Well..16 more days until the start of school. I hope to post about school curriculum, photos of the kids, schoolroom photos and the day in the life of our school while I join in on the meme of Not Back to School Blog Hop which starts this Monday. Look for my post in a few days on the curriculum we will be using for all three kiddos! Until then...