My Little Professor

Little Professor Hand-held Calculator
Originally uploaded by draggin

Last night I watched in awe as my 8 year-old, third grader helped his 13 year-old, 8th grade sister do her Advanced Algebra. I confess, I know they are both bright little bulbs, they run neck in neck with above average test scores for their respective age/grade levels, but I was more than a little proud that the little one was able to help the big one with something he had never learned.

Personally, I've reached the end of my Math Usefulness with my daughter - in 8th grade, she's already past where I got with math, and I could only suggest she take a step back from the problem and see if some clarity would come from a distance. This is when her little brother stepped in. He'd been working on his spelling words when she stepped away from the table in tears. He said to her, not in a mean way, but truly with the intention to help her, "Let me take a crack at it".

My daughter and I exchanged doubtful glances. You can guess what happened next.

"Oh, I think I get it, you have to find out who drove how long.....all you really have to do is....[insert confusing math jargon here]." Uh, yeah. Darn it if he wasn't right. He may not have known exactly how to write out the problem in proper math terms, but he knew how to solve it.....and while he proceeded to work the numbers out ....IN HIS HEAD....his sister shouted, "I get it now", jumped off the couch and tackled the problem.

Stunned, but proud Mom. Not only because they are both so bright, sure, but because of the kindness and the support he demonstrated and she accepted. The evening that had turned so tense, ended up in laughter. Good job, little brother.

Focus.....checking in

So, one month into 2010, and I'm checking in on the progress of my One Word. Remember, my word this year is FOCUS. I'm finding it a little odd that friends and family who have read my posts are reminding me to focus when I start to spaz out on the various aspects of my life - that I didn't expect. So, let me tell you how things are going....

First of all, this is on my desk.......instead of a calendar, I have a daily mood!

Second, I finished a whole book last month (in less than a month, really), I read Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. A lot of fun and one I couldn't put down. In the last few years, my voracious reading has taken a back seat to the other pulls in my life. Maybe with a little focus, I'll go back to enjoying this hobby. Next up for February, Eat Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I bought it last year when every one else was reading it, read about 20 pages and moved on to something else....I lost focus....I'll get through it now.

Third, I've spent some time learning something knew and here's where FOCUS meets digital:

And finally, last year, I accepted a tremendous amount of help from others when my work demanded so much more of my time and life threw me a curve ball. Now, as things have slowed down, the focus is once again trained on my wonderful kids, the love of my life, and my endlessly supportive family. These are the people that are most important to me and bring me immeasurable joy. My focus is once again .... MOM.

I hope you all are finding your WORDs are helping bring direction and ... focus ... to your lives.

A Master At Home To-Do List

I found it here

Colour Lovers

I was lying in bed this morning, the whole day ahead of me, and wondering how I will cram everything I want to do into this one day. You see, the kids are with their dad, and I have nothing scheduled, which means I can do the things that I think of doing every other day when I wake up and have to go to work. On the days I go to work, I can think of a million things I can be doing at home, but on a Saturday when I can do those things, I'm stumped, overwhelmed by all my choices. My biggest fear is at the end of the day, I'll have done nothing I wanted or needed to do.

My mom always reminds me that when you leave all the things you can and have to do in your head, it seems much more overwhelming than it actually is on paper. So, that's why I've decided to come up with a Master At Home To-Do List --on line, so I never lose it!

1. Read - I have a notorious book habit and a ridiculous number of unread books in my house. I'll be putting a reading to -do list together for myself soon. I'm currently reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, and I can't put it down.
2. Clean A Bathroom - I have 3. Every morning, I use all of them in some way, either to shower, put on my make up or well, nevermind, and every morning, I want to clean this or that, but don't have the time at that moment to do it.
3. Organize Photos - either printed or on the computer. I spent an afternoon working on this recently and it made me very hopeful that I can finally get them in some kind of order.
4. Scrapbook - this is for me as well as for my family, but the process is totally for me. I love cutting, gluing, stickers, and paper. It's my passion, right now, and my wish to do it more often. I'm taking a Big Picture Scrapbooking class called "The Challenge of Me", and unlike other classes I've taken, I've been able to keep up with the assignments, so far, which is a huge accomplishment for me.
5. Do Something Artistic
6. Laundry
7. Clean a Closet - Do you have a closet that you shove stuff in? Yeah, me too and it drives me nuts!
8. Re-organize a Cabinet - any cabinet - kitchen, bathroom - in my house, I really have more than I need. It's time to pare down to the essentials.
9. Play a computer game - big time suck, I know, but also relaxing, which I have such a hard time doing these days. As long as I can accomplish other things on this list, then something mind numbing is ok.
10. Remove all stray stuff from a room in the house - this is a good one when the kids are home, then it's a game to see who can put away (in the correct place) the most stuff. My kids are easily amused sometimes, as long as I'm doing it with them.
11. Take Jack for a walk - poor dog, needs a fenced in yard. The kids like to walk him, but he is so strong, they really can't get far before his wanderlust has him walking them. Also, the dog LOVES the snow. When it snows, his inner puppy comes out and he FROLICKS.
12. Learn a New Technique for [whatever I'm in the mood to do]
13. Write
14. If kids are home, do something with them, but really be in the moment, and forget the rest of this list. Showing interest in what they are interested in goes a long way. This is usually a video game or cartoon with son and a chat or 80's/90's moment shared with teenage daughter, who is now finds the nostalgia of my youth interesting-the fashions, the music, the movies.

Hopefully it's noticable the watching TV is not on my list. I spend too much time sitting in the comfy corner of my couch, sucked into the TV when I come home from work - again, needing to numb my mind. So, when there are at least 14 other things to do on a free day, I'm resisting turning it on, even as background noise.

Even doing one or two of these in a day will be enough for me. I don't intend to fit them all in, in one day. And, of course, being just a master list, these are not my daily to dos - that's a much longer list.

Happy Day of Possibilities!