Currently :: A Present Participle List

Shaking :: the cobwebs off my blog. I'm seriously rusty at writing but I miss it. Here's to a brief catch up list.

Hearing :: the cat investigate things underneath our Christmas tree. She is up to no good!

Seeing :: my calendar in front of me as I need to figure out what's going on next week. 'Tis the week before Christmas yet it's still a full one. I'm looking forward to the two weeks that come after when my calendar is blank!

Watching :: movies! As you have probably seen, several companies came out with monthly movie passes - buy a pass and you can see X number of movies a week in the theater. This summer, T and I each got a movie pass through our AMC theater and it has been so fun. We don't go to the movies every week (there's not enough good stuff out there for that, for sure!), but we have enjoyed going more often and getting nicer and reserved seats like Imax, Dolby surround sound, and dine-in seating - seriously spoiled with that one! This past Thursday, we went to see the new Peter Jackson movie, Mortal Engines, on opening night in IMAX with the reclining seats. It's been a great investment in date nights for us!

Reading :: it's been a good year of reading - five and half hours a week of gymnastics will do that for you! I made my list last week of the top 10-ish books I've read this year and would love to figure out when to blog it. It's on the to-do list! Currently, I'm reading Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard. It's the second book in the Red Queen series (YA dystopian novels are my thing right now apparently) and I'm enjoying it. I read the first book a couple years ago, but didn't love it enough to finish the series. Not sure what's different this time, but I've made it to book two!

Educating :: three out of the four kids at home this year. This fall, for the first time, we have put one of our kids into public school and has taken some getting used to! It has been a great change for our oldest for many reasons and she is settling into 9th grade and has survived her first semester and enjoyed it. I miss having all my kids at home with me, but it's been a good step (for her and me!) We're taking the other kids a year (or a semester) at a time and seeing what they need - isn't that what we as parents do about everything. No kid is the same, and that becomes even more apparent as they get older and you really start to see how they learn differently. There's such a stigma in the homeschool community when you do something like this with one of your kids and I haven't loved that.

Planning :: to work on my power sheets this weekend. The last several years have been "ugh" for lack of a better word. Power sheets aren't the answer to my problem, but I'm looking forward to using them as a tool to help me process some things that have been going on and move in a different direction in the future. (It's vague, I know).

Creating :: not much. This is first year that I've haven't diligently worked on a Project Life album and I miss it! I have worn out two little selphy photo printers and decided that this year I would use the Project Life app to make our family scrapbook pages. It's a great app, but it's not for me! It's too hard for me to sit and create scrapbook photos on my phone without my eyes crossing. :) I love writing out the journaling cards and printing my photos, so I'm hoping to get back to in 2019.

Here's to a quick catch up and moving on. Happy December!