Happy New Year, Yearly Goals and Literature Class

I have literally been trying to write a "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" blog post for three weeks.....maybe someday I'll finish getting the Christmas pictures loaded.

For right now though I thought I would just touch base and say "Hello"...."we're alive".....we survived another Christmas with our retail shipping store....

Jason's Grandma Mercy passed away the Sunday before Christmas which makes the third out of six Christmases since we opened our store that we've had a death the week of Christmas.  Unfortunately the kids and I all became too sick to be able to go to the funeral.  We were thankfully able to attend a daily mass being offered for her at the nursing home where she had been living for the past two years yesterday.  It was wonderful to be there with a priest that had been seeing her once a week and who also administered her last sacraments to her within a few days of her death.

I'm sure that most of you have seen the different blog posts where people "pick a word" for their year.  Last year I picked "organize," but didn't tell Jason or the kids.  This year as we were all trying to recover from the icky cold virus that mutated into different forms for each person I was brainstorming ideas/goals for this new year.  I decided to pick words that started with the letter "f" since that is also the first letter for "fifteen."  I actually talked to Jason and the kids about it on New Years Day.

Our words for this year are:

Family

Fit

Focus

Frugal

and 

Fun

Obviously this blog had been all about family and frugalness.  The fit has been a goal of mine since last May.  I am at the hard part of finally feeling better from all my pregnancies, illnesses and past surgeries, but I'm in the tough spot of injuring myself when I try to work out and then gaining more weight while I heal.  I also realized that I had gotten into the bad habit of thinking bad things of myself so part of fit is also "forgiveness," which also means being kind to myself.  I actually managed to lose 4.5 pounds and 4.5 inches in the last six weeks of 2014, so I'm hoping to just slowly keep plugging away at being "fit" this year, by exercising when I can "fit" it in and just watching the calories.  The "focus" came as a two part goal.  Part of "focus" is just continuing to organize the house and all the "stuff" of being a large home schooling family.  The other part of "focus" is for both Jason and I to make some goals we have personally and professionally....these are extra things which means we have to really tighten down on our already packed schedule.....just making sure that each minute counts as we slowly plug away at meeting those goals.  Helping each other by watching the kids and clearing the calendar of extra stuff so we can get the work done we both want/need to do.   Then sometimes-well actually ALL the time-I need the reminder to have "fun" because I am such a workaholic.

I will now being teaching middle school literature at our local home school co-op besides being the Kindergarten Montessori teacher in the mornings and teaching preschool Catechesis of the Good Shepherd in the afternoons, so I'm actually not sure how much blogging I'll be getting done before May.  We have quite the reading list this semester as we focus on literature from 1800-1850 (to match with our history timeline.)

We will be reading:

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (in order to get Mark Twain in this year and again next year)

Robinson Crusoe (we didn't get to this last semester when we were in the 1700's)

The Last of the Mohicans

Northanger Abbey (our two weeks of Jane Austen since it's one of her shortest works)

Edgar Allan Poe Week

Emily Dickinson Week (she's after 1850, but that way we can focus on more 20th century poetry next year)

Longfellow Week

One week of misc American poets/short stories (still to be determined)

Uncle Tom's Cabin

House of the Seven Gables (if time)

I'm exhausted and excited just thinking about it.  Feel free to leave a comment telling me what your goals or "words for the year" are....Also, let me know what some of your favorite classic books are!  Literature is one of the things I love most about home schooling.  I've got to read so many awesome books with the kids that I missed as a kid (and probably wouldn't have gotten to reading as an adult without the "pressure" to give my kids a classical education.)

I pray that you all had a blessed Advent and Christmas Season and that 2015 brings you much peace and happiness.

May you have the sweetness of achieving your goals this coming year!

Always,

Stephanie