Company, camping, and puzzles

Yesterday afternoon we got a note from some of our friends from Georgia, a homeschooling family of five.  They are organizing a three day, homeschooling weekend at a cabin in Tennesee.  We signed up to go and are very excited about it.  There will be four homeschooling families there with the point of the whole weekend being nothing more than to hang out together in a very cool place.  It is a five or six hour drive to get there, but even that looks like pretty nice.  We have figured out that the confinement of the car on a long trip is not such a bad place to get caught up on homeschool and Betty Blonde comic strips.  We also read aloud a lot.  Lorena does not participate so much in the reading aloud–she would much rather listen to Kelly’s iPod.

This morning we got a note from Karen, a very dear friend from Texas who has just started homeschooling her youngest daughter.  She is coming east for some other reasons, but has set aside some time to come and visit us.  It is a long drive out of her way to get to where we live, so we very much appreciate that she is coming.  It will be fun to talk to a new homeschooler.  Lorena is a particularly big fan of Karen because she always made the effort to come by for a visit when we lived in a small apartment in Dallas, Texas.  To this day, every time she talks with Lorena, she asks about the twin cat sisters who were just kittens when Karen met them.

We finished the puzzle last night and we were in a festive mood so we took some pictures.  We particularly liked this one of the twin cat sisters.  The inset is of Kelly and Christian modeling their puzzle putting together outfits.  It was a little bit of a challenge for us to have a right attitude again last night, but  we did much better than the day before.  Ruthie made a timely comment that reminded me of a book we read when we first started homeschooling.  It was Raymond and Dorothy Moore’s homeschool classic, The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook and we highly recommend it for anyone who is thinking about homeschooling.  My big take-away from that book was that if you are overly stressed about something to do with your homeschool, you need to change it–whatever changes you make will still be better than government school.  It probably did more for me with regard to burnout than any other thing I read.  I think that stress advise is equally applicable to work, weight loss, and a plethora of other topics.

Tonight is the company Christmas party.  I expect it to be a quiet affair and a good chance to socialize a little with the people with whom I enjoy working so much.