A look back at our week: Anniversary, lake day and demolition derby

Figured I’d use The Homeschool Mother’s Journal, which I haven’t participated in for a couple of weeks, to help round up some of what we’ve been doing!

In my life this week…

Chris and I traveled around Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania late in the week as our celebration of our seventh wedding anniversary! We saw Luray Caverns, Ohiopyle State Park here in PA, tons of falling-down things, lots of small towns… it was great. One thing I’ve realized about working at home and being with Ashar all day is that even though I love my “at-home life,” I miss my husband TONS while he’s at work, often for long hours, much more noticeably than I did when I also worked in an office! So time with him to just talk and laugh together is the best anniversary gift I could get.

Chris and Joan Otto in Maryland

In unschooling this week…

We’re “done” sixth grade, if we were following standard grade levels. I’m working hard (with Ashar’s help, actually!) to finish getting her portfolio together for our meeting with our evaluator tomorrow evening!

Ashar hasn’t stopped learning, but she is enjoying the idea of having “finished” something, which is kind of a neat way of having the best of both worlds!

I am inspired by…

You might have seen a promo for this pop up in my sidebar over the weekend, and if you’re my in-person friend, I’m sure you’ve heard me talking about this.

“This” is a documentary that I’ve had the great privilege to help bring about. Adam Baker of Man Vs. Debt (my boss, and an all-around awesome guy), as well as his friends Grant Peelle and Dustin Koester, John Cropper, Bryan Olinger (also all awesome guys), traveled across the country for about six weeks, interviewing all sorts of people about the issue of complacency and how living the “American Dream” is oftentimes at the expense of your REAL dreams.

I’m living proof of that – I worked for years to buy a house, go to college, have an “office career,” and do all these things that are expected of you, but I wasn’t living the life that I always dreamed of. We had way too much debt (still do, but we’re working on that!) and just generally weren’t in the place in life we wanted to be, although to all appearances, we looked like we were “doing fine.”

So when Baker offered me the chance to help behind the scenes of the documentary as part of my work with him, I was all in. My contributions are small – lots of details, lots of emails, lots of coordinating – but right now, Baker and “the guys” are doing a BIG thing. They’re trying to raise $100,000 to finish funding the production of the documentary and get it to market.

So this is where I’m asking for help. If you’re able to support us with even $5, you get a full digital copy of the documentary when it’s finished. You get some pretty cool stuff if you can support us more, too!

The biggest thing you can do, though, is SHARE. Share the trailer. Tell friends about what we’re doing. We really want to shine a light on the issue of complacency and we believe we can literally lead thousands of people to change their lives if we can pull this off, and that means we need to spread the word and get as many people as possible to watch the trailer (and hopefully soon the full film!)

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…

Once Chris and I got home from our trip, we kicked “family time” into high gear. We spent a day with my best friend’s family at a demolition derby, then visited with my father-in-law, my sister-in-law and her family and friends on the lake where they live. Ashar even got in the lake – which is a HUGE win! (Remember, this is the kid who barely would wade in the ocean!)

Floating in Lake Meade

My favorite thing this week was…

Watching Chris jump in the lake, in all his clothes, because Ashar wanted to and because getting in with him would make her more comfortable.

Also, this picture, which my best friend Nina (who happens to be a professional photographer, lucky me!) took of Ashar at the demo derby. Beautiful. 🙂

Sarah's portrait

What’s working/not working for us…

Chris and I talked a bit while we were away about how we feel like homeschooling has gone for Sarah. We’re definitely not looking to send her back to public school any time soon, but we both had some areas where we feel like things are going well and some that we think we can help improve on for the coming “school year,” as it were!

One big thing we’re considering is how to deal with math. I’m a huge fan of a living math approach in an unschooled style like we do everything else, but Ashar has some particular challenges in this area that are making it hard for her. Not sure yet what we’ll do, but you can be sure I’ll be blogging on that!

Things I’m working on…

I just was accepted to join The iHomeschool Network (YAY!) and put in a proposal for a fun blog series to work on in July (HINT: It’s related to something else in today’s post!), so I’m starting to plan that out!

I’m also still trying to get my scrapbooking area set up at home… wish me luck.

We’re reading…

We’re reading “The Return of the Indian” by Lynn Reid Banks aloud with Sarah… that’s the sequel to “The Indian in the Cupboard,” which Ashar liked so much! She’s also been reading a lot of non-fiction books about Native Americans, and after we’re finished this book, we hope to start on “The Sign of the Beaver” by Elizabeth George Speare.

I’m grateful for…

My husband. Always. Not just this week, when we celebrate our anniversary, but every day. He’s just such a good partner, a great friend, an amazing dad… I could not do it without him! (He will blush reading this and probably wish I hadn’t given him a shout-out, but I can’t resist. Hi, Topher!)

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6 thoughts on “A look back at our week: Anniversary, lake day and demolition derby

  1. I’m glad you guys got in some quality couple time. I miss my husband lots when he’s at work, too. Sometimes I feel like he’s missing out on so much while we’re at home and he’s not.
    Your documentary project sounds exciting for you! I hope it goes well.
    Good for Sarah, getting in the lake 🙂
    That pic of Sarah is wonderful!
    Congrats on the iHomeschool Network…I’ve been thinking of investigating that. I look forward to reading what’s coming up!

    • You should definitely look into it – you’re SUCH a great blogger to follow, I bet they’d love to have you! 🙂

      Thanks too for the kind words… and for understanding. It’s hard to believe how much happens each day, and when he comes home, a lot of the time I just kind of “spew words” at him, but that doesn’t help make it real – just real annoying LOL!

  2. Good for you that you got some time away! I have been looking in to math programs/solutions for my student that has some challenges in that area- one that I had not heard much about, yet seems promising is “Jump Math”. I am still in the deciding phase, but you might be interested. I also love this site that has lots of good recommendations- http://mathpickle.com/about-mathpickle/

    • Laurie, thanks for stopping by – and for that recommendation; I’ll DEFINITELY look into it! Trust me when I say this is the one area I dread… and the joke is on me, because my degree is in math. I firmly believe God has a sense of humor? 😉

  3. Looks like you are all keeping super busy. Your anniversary sounds like it was right on the cards ~ spending time together is just wonderful. And I feel like I’m really getting to know Sarah through your posts, she sounds like a remarkable girl who is developing in leaps and bounds ~ you are great parents!

    Thanks for sharing at Happy Family Times

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