Small Success Thursday: Home and School and Blogging

Welcome to Small Success Thursday, hosted by CatholicMom.com! If you’re new to this series, the idea is to look back on our week and see where we’ve succeeded, no matter how insignificant it might seem to be at the time. After all, God doesn’t look for us to do Great Things, but to do small things with Great Love! If you blog, be sure to link up at this week’s post, then check out all the other posts people have up for this week!

This week, despite my inclination towards Sloth, we managed to get a respectable amount of school done. I’m looking at what’s necessary to move on academically (without cheating the girls on a good education) and what I can do without in order to get things done. Thanks to our family’s travel early on this year, we are nowhere near finished with school. All my years of traditional school have me freaking out in my head, and I really am striving to remember that the reason we homeschool is to be more flexible and do things that help our girls learn the best way they’re able to learn. That flexibility afforded us the ability to drop everything and drive to South Dakota for a funeral in February, take a trip to San Francisco in March, and slow down and relax while family came in May for our older daughter’s Confirmation. It’ll afford us the flexibility to bring things to the local pool this Summer as we work to finish our academics for the current grade levels they’re in, too. And I have to realize that sometimes, the assignments that are suggested are just that: suggestions. If my high schooler is competent in a particular kind of writing, a quick brush-up before moving on is all that’s necessary, rather than rehash it all and write a couple drafts of an essay and bore her to tears (while giving me extra grading work)! So huzzah for me working on loosening up and relaxing about this!

I’ve also been managing to keep clutter at bay after our big Get Ready for Company Cleaning Spree prior to Confirmation week! It’s not perfect, but I try to declutter just a tiny bit each day and throw things away. Less clutter means I am less stressed out. Again, I wouldn’t expect Better Homes and Gardens to come a-knockin’, but any improvement for our family of Pile-Its can be counted as a success! (Say that name out loud. It’s better as an audio joke than written.)

Finally, I have managed to blog consistently for a whole week! I’m hoping to write more often and to convince Nathan to write with me on occasion, as well. (After all, he’s the funny one!) I’m going to try a mixture of particular kinds of posts on certain days, re-posting older pieces that are timely (or just decent), and writing new things contemplating everything from life as a Catholic mother to matters of faith in general to apologetics.

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How about you? Tell us about what you’ve done this week and take a bow!