Friday, March 30, 2012

My Bad Attitude

Lately I have not posted anything on my blog.  Part of the reason is that I did not want to poison my blog with my bad attitude.  With our family being close to our DEROS (Date Eligible for Return from OverSeas - the date we are suppose to leave Korea) and having no orders, I have been frustrated.  I have been barely surviving as our family is so ready to be back in the United States. 

My bad attitude has flowed over into every aspect of my life and the lives of those around me.  It has not been a pretty sight.  Hopefully things will change now.

Today we received some good news and some not so great news.  We finally received our paperwork for us to move back to the United States. That's the good news.  The not so great news is that we will be here past our DEROS date.  Instead of leaving Korea in April, my husband will be here longer.  Until we submit his RFO and fill out leave forms, we are not sure how much longer, though it could be up to 2 months.

So I hope to get back to blogging with a good attitude.  There is much to look forward to as we prepare to move back to the states.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Putting the Fun Back in Homeschooling

For the past few months, I have been in survival mode.  That's where I do what needs to get done not because I am passionate about what I am doing, but because ....it's what needs to be done.  I am in box checking mode.  Have you ever been there?  Being a first born, some what perfectionist, I tend to lean that way rather than the other.

Yes, I'd rather being lying in bed all day eating bon bons and watching NCIS, but that's not gonna happen. 

I have this pull that keeps me doing at least the minimum things for my husband and family.  I have been in survival mode not just with homemaking and my husband and children but with homeschooling.  I am at the point where I so want to NOT be in Korea, that I have only been doing what needs to be done...and I am so over it.



I'm not saying that I now have this wonderful sense of motivation, because I don't.  But what I can tell you is that my kids are bored with the mundane work that I have been giving them and they are looking for more out of their day.  The problem with that is I had hoped the paperwork we filed to return to the states early would have been approved already and we would be at my parents' house by now.  But we are not there yet, so all of my prep work for a move, which included packing up the games, paints, craft supplies and other homeschool fun things, was premature.



I am realizing that if we are here for another 10 days or another 50 days, I need to go back to adding in the fun elements of our homeschooling day that we had been doing last year.
What fun in checking boxes, just to say you did it?

So without unpacking everything that I have already packed up, how can I make our homeschooling day fun again?

Here are a few ideas that I have come up with so far:

Go back to following a schedule ( I know this sounds simple, but it made the day go smoother with everyone knowing what was going to happen, instead of just waiting until I was tired of the whining to have them do something)

Add art and craft time back into the weekly schedule.

Make time to get out of the house and do something fun.  (With the weather varying from day to day, this is not always easy.  We could at least head to the library regularly like we used to.)

Learn Spanish (my husband's first language) and hand's on fun about Puerto Rico (where my husband's parents are from)

Find topics the girls are interested in and add them to our learning each day.

Since we are limited by living in another country where we don't speak the language and there are no other local homeschool families, I am hoping the ideas I came up with will add at least some fun to our daily homeschooling routine.

What do you do to make your homeschool day fun with your children? 

Monday, March 5, 2012

Pick Me Up

The day is done and I am sitting at my computer.  I really could use a pick me up right now.  I'm feeling down and I'm not sure if it's the weather here in Korea, the fact that our paperwork to leave early is not pushing through like we were told it would or that I am just so ready for change.  We are at less than 60 days until we are suppose to PCS and we still don't have orders. 

Sorry for venting..but I know that there are times when we all go through things and our emotions seem to get the best of us.  I think I will go to YouTube and find an encouraging video to post here along with my ranting.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Creative Carrier

The other week was my daughter's seventh birthday. We had hoped to be back in the states before her birthday so I hadn't really made plans for a party.  Our plan was to have a party with her cousins, aunt and uncle and grandparents.  Since we are still in Korea, I had to throw something together last minute.

I check the movies that were playing on the local posts and found the post closest to our home was showing "Big Miracle",  so we decided to go out to dinner and then to the movies for her birthday. I wanted to make a dessert for Victoria's birthday, so I decided upon cupcakes baked into ice cream cones. The idea was great, until I realized that I did not have a way to transport them.

I little ingenuity and some help from big sister and we were ready to go.



We took a cereal box and taped the top and bottom up real tight. Then I had my daughter cut Xs into the one side of the box. We pushed down the Xs and squeezed the ice cream cones into the box. It worked perfectly.

It may not look the greatest but it met our needs.