A New Year's Resolution

With the turn of the calendar last week, I sat down and reflected on my life the last year.  I saw the amazing things I have accomplished in my life, but I also many areas for improvement. 

One of those areas for improvement was this blog.  It has been severely neglected since we started school in September.  I want this to be a place where I can keep track of all the things we are doing in school, and that hasn't happened. And I could give several reasons why I haven't been blogging about our homeschooling experience: I'm busy, I'm tired, I have better things to do.

But if I'm completely honest with myself, it's because I don't use my time effectively.  (And that's a whole different goal that I am working on this year.) But if I can manage to make a more effective use of my time, I can and will find time to write about our homeschooling experiences.  And so, I have set a goal to write at least three times a week.  It really shouldn't be that hard if I commit myself. 

I want to be able to look back and see what we've accomplished in our little school.  And while I save the papers and projects we do, it's not the same as writing about the experience.  The feelings that come along with those papers and projects we do, don't stay with those papers and projects.  But if I write down those feelings and experiences, we suddenly have a record of how homeschooling "felt." 

So my three-times-a-week writing plan looks something like this (although it is subject to change!)

• One post about our plans for the week.  What are the goals for the week?  What are we going to be learning about?  What are the challenges and concerns for the week?  What are we excited about for the week?  Are there any special projects or trips planned for the week?
• One post about how our week actually went.  Did we accomplish our goals?  What did the kids really enjoy? What didn't they like to do as much?  What was my favorite and least favorite parts of the week?  What unexpected things came up that changed our plans? How do we feel at the end of the week?
• One "grab-bag" post.  It might be a highlight of a special project we did or maybe a trip we took.  It might be a post airing out the exhaustion of all of this plate-spinning.  It might be a post thanking God for the wonderful opportunity He has provided us in homeschooling.  You never know!

This week, I am going to deviate from the above plan and write a post about each of the kids.  I want to write an update about each of them, and get everyone back up to speed about where we are.  

And that's it. Three posts a week.  Not hard, just requires me to give it my commitment!  Here we go!