week 6: on education/learning

                        A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
                                                             ~ Henry Brooks Adams


We started homeschooling for the first time this year. Savannah Rose is in 5th grade. Ava Katherine is in 4th grade. It's been a learning experience for all of us. Some good days, some bad. I wouldn't trade any of it for anything. These last years with my girls are precious and priceless and I celebrate it all. I hold this year especially tight close to my heart. I feel like I got my children back. They have more time to be kids, to play and to learn about all the things they are interested in. This year has been a huge blessing.

week 5: on exercise

 "This is where it matters the most. This is where lives are made, in these moments when you can choose wheather or not to say "I can't" or "I can." It is a choice that will either make or break you for life."
           quote by: Jillian Michaels, Biggest Loser

This is a hard one for me. I have been on a quest to lose 40lbs. I always lose half then gain it all back. This time it's about not stopping until it's over. I am doing it the right way, with diet & exercise. It is the only thing that works. (photo #1 taken as I hopped out of the car at the club to go run on the treadmill. photo #2 taken as my hubby & I were on an actual run, his shoe on left, mine on the right).....now let's do this thing!

week 5: on being a mom

 

 

 

 

 

             "There's no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one."

                                                                   --Jill Churchill

this is so true. I am not the perfect mom, but I think I am a pretty good one. And at the very least, I sure do try my very hardest, to be the best one that I can be. I fall short on a daily basis, but they always forgive me for it. And I try again.

week 4: on books

                                            You know you've read a good

                                          book when you turn the last page

                            and feel a little as if you have lost a friend.  ~Paul Sweeney

I have loved to read for as long as I can remember. As a child, we would walk out of the library hardly being able to see over the top of the pile of books that we chose! I am so happy my mom instilled that love of reading in me. I am happy to say that my girls, ages 9 and 11 are the same way. This is their bookshelf (in my bedroom) behind me because we always plop in my bed at night to read together. Below is  a list of my favorites over the years: In no particular order....

• Still Alice
• Sarah's Key
• Those Who Save Us
• Kite Runner
• The Help
• A Reliable Wife
• The Book Thief
• Shelter Me
• The Usual Rules
• Catching Genius
• April & Oliver
• The Mountain Between Us
• Love Walked In
• An Accidental Light
• Girls in Trouble
• Love in the Present Tense
• Whistling in the Dark
• Belong to Me
• The Other Boelyn Girl
• A Thousand Splendid Suns
• The Memory Keepers Daughter
• The Poisonwood Bible
• The Ha-Ha
• Memoirs of a Geisha
• Midwives
• The Cure for Grief
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
• The Thirteenth Tale 
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