Menu Plan Monday: October 4

Last week I totally messed up my menu plan.  How?  By just typing it up and posting it and not writing it on my paper-and-pencil menu plan.  It was as if I hadn't planned at all.  See all those blank spaces?

 

The lunch column is blank too.  I'll mention that later. 

Planning is useless if the plan isn't available or doesn't work.  It doesn't occur to me to look on the blog for my meal plan.  It's supposed to be on the refrigerator, attached with the Challenge Butter magnet.

Today I did it right.  Here's my version of right:

I clear up the kitchen table and create some space for myself. I gather my supplies:  sharpened pencils, a few cookbooks and my recipe notebooks, my grocery list, and my meal planning sheet.  It's just a document I created in about 12 seconds.  There are beautiful printables to be found but this works well for me.  I guess it's possible I'd do a nicer job with a pretty colored planning sheet, but I doubt it and I'd also feel guilty about the unnecessary expense of color printing.  

Then I sit there and muse on what we'd like to eat, what's going on this week that might affect dinner, and what we have in the freezer, fridge, and pantry.  I ask my family what they are in the mood for.  Meatloaf?  NO!  Fried rice with tofu?  One yes, one "please can't we have meat?   I need meat!"    Then I write it all up.  I erase a lot.

I decided that on my next printing I'm going to change that useless lunch column to a place for notes, like "soccer practice 6 - 7 pm" and "defrost meat for tomorrow."  I am never going to plan out lunches unless we are having company.  My kids are working on a "lunch list" of foods they  like.  So far I think it has mac and cheese and pizza on it.  Helpful!

So here is next week's plan:

Here is it in a more useful form, with a lot of links to recipes this week.  Because I actually took time to plan it out, I am using recipes! 

Monday:  Cilantro chicken, rice, sauteed red bell peppers.  This is a truly wonderful recipe from The Splendid Table.  You should sign up for their email newsletter, Weeknight Kitchen.  I love getting recipes in my mailbox, don't you?

Tuesday:  Beef stew.  Everyone is excited about that because it means the weather is cool.    I think I will try this recipe from Williams-Sonoma.

Wednesday:  Randy's Sunday Night Fried Rice, with tofu.  Ooops, I have to go back to my menu plan sheet and add "cook rice for tomorrow" in Tuesday's notes column. 

Thursday:  Cochinita Pibil, a gorgeous pork recipe from Simply Recipes, which is another site you should be reading.

Friday: Curried Ground Turkey with potatoes, also from Simply Recipes.   This is the only way I can use ground turkey with my family.  It is so unbelievably good.

Saturday: Chicken with green olives, a recipe from Pioneer Woman.  I keep seeing references to this recipe on other menu plans and thought I'd better check it out.  Wow.  It sounds really good.  I'd move it up to Monday but I have a huge bunch of cilantro I need to use or lose.  

Saturday: Beef barley soup.   Not much else to say about that.

What are you eating this week?

Linked to Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie. If you can't figure out dinner after checking out this site, you aren't trying very hard.

Homeschool Showcase

Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers hosts the Homeschool Showcase.  The showcase is a place to:

spotlight all the encouraging, inspiring and just plain fun ways that homeschooling families live and learn together. 

I have been checking it out for a while but couldn't come up with a post to submit until this week.  Hm, what does that say about my homeschool?

Check it out; there are lots of great posts to read.  Maybe you will be inspired and encouraged too. Plan ahead to contribute to the next showcase; submissions end on Sunday, October 17.

Homeschooling the frequently-sick child

"Homeschooling the chronically-ill child" flows better as a title.  But chronic illness implies a diagnosis, and a name for the disease.  I don't have either, and I don't want to think of my child as chronically ill.  But...

My family is recognizing an anniversary this month.  It was in October of 2009 that we took our boy to the doctor to check out an upset stomach that wouldn't go away.  Not just an "I don't feel so great" upset stomach, but nausea so severe he sometimes felt unable to do anything for days at a time.  Sickness so bad he skipped fun activities, including two highly-anticipated and desired Scout campouts.  That's pretty sick.

In November he was diagnosed with a sinus infection and allergies; those were assumed to be the cause of the nausea.  After many rounds of antibiotics  and other medicines (and no relief), he had sinus surgery in April.  It wasn't till June that he seemed finally to be getting a little better. August brought him long stretches of feeling great. We thought it was over!  Then, a few weeks ago, that bad feeling started again. 

Many children have serious chronic illnesses; more serious than my child's.  As far as anyone can tell, he hasn't any life-threatening condition.  He's just sick a lot, and we can't figure out why. But we have to live with it, and adjust to it, while we try to determine what's going on.

I wonder what it would be like if he went to school. Would we force him to go when he felt terrible?  Would he miss enough days that the school would give him a private tutor?  He'd have to make up missed work, and he might get held back at the end of the year.  I suspect that's what would have happened last school year, since he was sick so much.

But we don't have to do that.

We can work when he is well, and take things easy when he is not.  We can focus on reading and talking when he isn't up to anything else.  We do a lot of talking; talking is a great way to learn.  We can do things that engage him to the point he can forget being sick for a while.  We can work together on a math lesson so I can be sure he understands the concepts, even if he doesn't do all the problems. We can watch a science documentary, talk about it, and do some research. 

And even if he is too sick to "do school" we encourage him to attend other activities he enjoys.  That seems backward, doesn't it?  I should say, "if you can't do school, you can't do the fun things," right?   But even kids have responsibilities beyond math homework and history tests. He is a patrol leader in Boy Scouts; he has to be at the meetings.  When his robotics club is getting ready for a competition, he has to show up to get the work done. So he might miss his writing class (he can make up the work later) and feel too sick to do much other work, but he'll "push through the sickness" to fulfill these obligations.  Yes, they are fun, and it's easier to push through when something is fun.  But they are also important. 

It's not the way I'd like to run my homeschool.  But it's the way I have right now.  When I want to feel sorry for myself and my kid, I think of families with devastating illnesses who are carrying on the best they can.  We may have a kid who is sick a lot, but we are so blessed in so many ways.  One of those is our ability  to homeschool in a way that works for us during this time of sickness.

How do you handle frequent sickness - chronic or otherwise - in your homeschool?

Saturday morning journal: Fall is finally in the air!

I am so happy:  I had to put on a sweatshirt to stay warm on this morning's dog walk.  Oh yeah.

No relaxing this Saturday for me.  In 15 minutes I'm off to fulfill my soccer mom volunteer duty at the snack bar. I expect my day will be pretty similar to last year's.  It's only 2 hours, and I'll get the see the end of my girlie's game.  I will also be my own first customer, as I have not even made coffee yet. 

I did take time to dip my toes into Inspired to Action's Maximize Your Mornings Challenge.  All I have done so far is use the prayer calendar to focus my prayers for my children.  I hope to get into it more before the month is over!  Check it out.

Then it's off to a local community festival where I will help in my church's booth. We just hope to talk to people about the gospel.  I am a little nervous as I've never done this sort of thing before.  But my job is mainly to hand out flyers and talk to people, so it shouldn't be too hard.  For as long as I can remember people - including strangers - have felt the urge to spill their guts to me. So I expect to be busy.

I hope to have some time to do a little yard work late this afternoon, in the cool, cool, fall weather!

What are you doing today?  Leave a comment; including a link to your own post about your Saturday.  

And I'm off!  Have a wonderful Saturday.

Boy books: Christian historical fiction

Sometimes the best thing we can say about a Christian novel is that it's "safe."  We can hand it off to our kids without worrying that there will be inappropriate content.  But we want more than that.  We want well-written books!  Douglas Bond writes the kind of books we want. He is a prolific writer, but these related series are particular favorites of my boy. These are roughly for the 9-12 age group, though he will be 13 when reads the last of the second series.

The Crown and Covenant series is set in Scotland and follows a family of covenanters as they fight for religious freedom.   Click the picture for more information about the book.

I read the first book aloud.  I thought he'd immediately start to read the next book, but he didn't.  I wondered if he didn't like it.  Then one day he picked up the first one, reread it, and quickly devoured the rest. 

We tried to get my daughter interested but there weren't enough girls with major roles to interest her. 

I have to admit I do like being able to hand a book over and not worry that my child will encounter something I'd rather he didn't.  It is hard to find books like that as kids get older.

The Faith and Freedom trilogy follows the same family, now in pre-Revolution America as well as Scotland.

He read these very quickly.  He always has loved a good story!

 

He liked this series slightly better than the first one, but could not tell me why.  It doesn't really matter!

This is the third book in the trilogy; we don't have it yet but will get it for him soon. 

Have you found good historical fiction (Christian or not) for your pre-teen or teen boys?  I'd love to hear about it.   What adult books have you found to be appropriate for your young men?

Linked to Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon.

Weekly Wrap-up: Distraction edition

This was the week of distractions:  An orthodontist appointment.  A sick child.  A car needing service.  A women's ministry meeting at church.  Documents and letters to be written and emailed or faxed. 

How am I supposed to fit in the homeschooling?

Some weeks don't seem as productive as others.  I don't like being pulled away from my kids during the day. I want to be available to them, to help them in their independent work when they need it, and to read science and history and literature to them. In my darkest moments, I know that if they were in school they'd have the full attention of their teachers at every moment; they'd never have to wait for  help with a difficult math problem or do something on their own because their teacher was too busy. 

Oh, it might not work out that way, you say?

The highlight of the week was a viewing of the IMAX movie Hubble.  We hadn't set out to see an IMAX movie this week, but we had to go to the Franklin Institute, a science museum down in Philly, to pick up a membership we'd gotten via a great internet promotion.  We went right after the orthodontist visit in which I learned that my girl needs braces now, and headgear soon.  We needed something fun after that.

The move was fabulous but the conversation afterward was even better.  All throughout the movie I was thinking about the incredible universe God created.  The images I saw and the information I learned just made it more obvious that there is a Creator.  Afterward, I was so happy to hear my kids relating the same thoughts, unsolicited by me. We spent a lot of time talking about space, God, and creation. We mused on the idea that the universe just came about randomly and wondered how anyone can believe that, given what we see every day.  (Your mileage may vary on that, and we won't hate you if that's the case.  We won't understand you, though.)   The talk went on and on.

When we got home I was able to put my hands on this book on our shelves, now apparently out of print:

This book is by the same authors:

The Hubble also has a mention in the Usborne Internet-Linked Science Encyclopedia (Usborne Internet-Linked Discovery Program) which leads to Hubblesite and more information.

So was it a productive week after all?  My children moved forward in their skills; maybe not as much as I'd have liked.  They also moved forward in their knowledge and understanding of the world, our place in it, and God's role in it.  Not so bad for a week with a distracted mom and a sick kid, eh?

See more weekly wrap-ups at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.   

Another sign that everyone is losing their minds

From CNN:

Spanish fathers entitled to breastfeeding leave

It's unfair, don't you know, to let the mothers have time off during the workday to nurse the babies and not let the fathers have it too.