Good Intentions

I have been reading Chalotte Mason's works over the last couple of months.  One of the things I have learned while reading her works is that, just as "the road to hell is paved with good intentions," my life is full on good intentions but very little execution. 
I am WONDERFUL at making plans, writing lists, and coming up with new ideas for my life.  EXECUTING those intentions though is a completely different matter.  However, if I never put my intentions into practice I don't get anywhere.  I am still sitting idly by, writing lists and making plans rather than LIVING them. 
Charlotte Mason stresses habit building a lot.  She talks about how to build good habits in ourselves and in our children.  One point that hits dead center to my life, is that if we are not actively cultivating GOOD habits we are, by default, cultivating bad ones. 
Oh, I have so many bad habits!!!!  So many things that need to be improved in myself so that my children can improve their own bad habits.  It is so very true that the faults you find in others are most likely faults you have yourself.  The bad habits that my children exhibit truly are a mirror of my own bad habits. 
There is hope though!!!  If I can just work on one habit at a time over the course of a few weeks to months I can build at least 6 good habits in a year!  I can build these in myself and my children, starting with habits that we all struggle with.  I must improve myself as well if I hope to improve my children. 
So, here's to building better habits and becoming better people!

Pluggin' Along

Life over here has just been pluggin' along.
1.   Our tweaked cleaning system is working fairly well, but there are still some kinks to work out of it. 
2.  School has been normal.
3.  I have been reading and am being inspired by Charlotte Mason's series  (6 volumes) on homeschooling which I purchased the Kindle Edition of for $0.99. 
4.  Now my thoughts are turning to next year's curriculum.  I am happy with most of our curriculum choices but I am having thoughts about changing our Science curriculum.  I love many things about Elemental Science, but I feel that there isn't enough time to go into depth in areas my kids are interested.   I feel like that information presented is very shallow.  I know it should get deeper once we hit the next rotation of sciences in 2 years but I don't know if I want to continue with it until then.  So I am contemplating 3 options:  A) Stick with elemental science and do Chemistry next year which looks like a lot of fun.  B) Just spend our Sciene time researching areas of interest to the kids (topics mentioned so far are jungles, lightbulbs, and horses).  C) Try a different curriculum like the ones suggested at Milestones Academy. 
5.  I can't wait to try out many of the ideas I have gotten from Charlotte Mason's series.  I have ideas for Penmanship, Nature Studies, Math, Reading, Narration, and other things. 

Life is moving right along.  I am very blessed to be able to stay home with my children and homeschool them even though it has meant a lot of sacrifices and big chunks of humble pie.  I am grateful for the life the Lord has given me.