Is my living in vain?

Posted on by JustAskMaia

In the midst of this dark cloud lingering over my head, I am forced to work through tears shed.

No matter what I am doing, in the blink of an eye, I will find myself crying. I snickered to myself appreciating the fact that I do not wear make up. What a waste it would be right now.

Funny, no matter what we go through as parents we still must be sure our children are living their best life. For me that is forcing a smile with uncertainties lingering like a lone cloud on a sunny day.

Isn’t it ironic how we do so many good deeds and it feels, sometimes, as though they measure up to nothing? I remember when I was a young girl, my mom told be to be sure that my good far outweighed my bad. I literally live by that staple. Yet, I now find myself perplexed as to why.

Why then, do I still endure such unbelievable pain? Why is it life seems a constant test? When the heck is the exam so I can pass already!

I don’t know everything there is to know about life, but I do know this, its yours to live. Choose happiness and pass it on.

I’ll tell you what. When my daughter passed away I no longer took each moment I had with my children for granted. Not that I ever did but every breath seems even more previous to me. That is part of my reason for homeschooling. I always say that God has given me a charge (or 10) and I take that charge very seriously. These are little people who will soon try to find their own place in the world. It is my job to assist them as much, and as early, as possible.

Does my heart hurt every morning? Absolutely.

Do I have butterflies since this incident. Always.

But it will not stop my unwavering love and care. I push through, as we all do.

Am I always going to get it right? Nope.

Is my living in vain. Of course not.

How to homeschool without going crazy đŸ˜˛

Posted on by JustAskMaia

Today started out a little to early for me. My oldest had to be to work at 7 and while some may think 7 a.m. is not early, first of all, YES IT IS! But more importantly, we are no small family so just dropping him off at work calls for me to not only rise earlier to get the RushBunch together but STAY up. In this house, once I get them up, there is no laying back down.

Getting them up means extra time needed to wash faces, brush teeth, wash, make beds, get dressed and grab a snack on the way out the door. Yes, just to drop #1 off. These tasks usually take me about an hour and that’s if I don’t do the girls’ hair.

I was literally dragging and absolutely moody. In case some of you have forgotten, I am six months pregnant. And while McRush usually helps with the ease of getting out the house, he had long been gone for work.

There are several ways I lift the weight of homeschooling without hassle. Today I am going to share with you one of them. But first, let me just state that every morning they have to write the creed and study their spelling words. That takes no effort from me at all. The purpose in the creed writing is to work on their handwriting, in the event that you were wondering. While they do this, I am making breakfast.

Packet Privilege.

This is something that is an absolute life saver to me. Usually, prior to the start of the year, I print out grade appropriate worksheets for each child. In my case its head start to 12th grade. I make packet that contains anywhere from 5-10 worksheets. I do at least 20 per person, so make sure you have paper for your printer. (In the event you do not have a print, I will get to that.) I put these packets away! Packet Privileges can be earned or used as a “substitute teacher” for the day. 🤗

For days like today when I just did not feel like adulting, it was a substitute. I hand out the packets and let them work at their pace. Here is the thing though, the packet must be more like review work because, as with a substitute teacher, you are not available to “teach” so should not introduce new works you may have to explain. It should also contain learning games like word search puzzles or sodoku. With that being said, that is why I say packets can be “earned”. It can count as a free day to the children. We work on a bonus system. Following the rules of both school and home and doing at least one thing ‘above and beyond’, you can earn a packet privilege for a day.

This is one of the many ways I keep my sanity on school days when I want to call out and binge watch Netflix or even work on my business.

For those of you who do not have a printer, for the younger, elementary school children, you can find workbooks at Dollar Tree for them. Tear out all of the pages, shuffle them and staple. Voila! Packets. For parents with older children, you may have to spend more than $1 but go to Wal-Mart or Target and get the more advanced workbooks (in the books section) and do the same thing. (You can also find these in book stores like Barnes and Noble but you WILL spend at least $20 per book and you know I like my budget 🙂)

I hope this was helpful and hit the follow button for more homeschooling tips.

iRush.

The pause.

Posted on by JustAskMaia

So this week has been pretty hectic, If I calculate properly, it’s been hectic these past few weeks. In the midst, I had so many great things to blog about. I would pre-process it in my head how I was going to start off, the fluff in the middle, and the spectacular ending.  At this moment that I had to take a pause in the craziness of it all, I forgot. Every single detail, gone. Just like mommy brain. So many great ideas to implement and when you get the time, crickets, every dang time.

Although I am slightly saddened my this mush memory of mine, I love blogging so I decided to free flow like I usually do.

Let’s start with the bad decisions I made.

I threw out my last pair of contacts (from my eyes). As I dropped them in the toilet ( I found that this is best so #9 doesn’t try to eat them) I can literally see me doing it in slow motion as I realized a second too late that I did not have another pair to replace them. So now I am forced to wear these bottle cap glasses until I find time to get a new prescription. The plus side to this is I have noticed Oprah has been wearing her thickumms glasses so I am just going to go with it as if she inspired me to do so too. Embrace your blindness honey!

This next one is a pro and a con.

I overpaid my credit cards. The good in this is, well, I overpaid my credit cards. The not so good is, I could have used that money to go shopping. I know you may be thinking, just use your cards to go shopping but that’s counterproductive to the goal of eliminating debt.

A good thing that happened is I was asked to speak at the College of Charleston. It was kind of last minute so I was a little nervous and felt ill-prepared. The most nerve-wracking part was, I was talking to a bunch of teenagers. Now, I can talk business with adults all day long but teenagers always give you this look like ‘ I really don’t want to be here, listen to you, or care what you have to say’. I must admit, it’s a little intimidating but in the end, they were going with the flow and I felt less like I had to pull teeth or interact with myself.

I hosted a Stay at home mom event at my home. Those who know me are aware that I do not host at my home but I am stepping out of my comfort zone and I am glad I did. I had a wonderful time and was able to interact with families which is always awesome.

Family wins.

I bought six school desks for $5 a piece and they are pristine condition. My babies leveled up this week in their academics.  We scored more books for our home library. #1 got his drivers license (I don’t know how excited I am about this one). #8 is very close to being potty trained. And McRush is going back to school. And I have decided to slowly pick law back up, and I do mean slow. Like one class a semester, cash. Remember the eliminating debt mentioned above.

That’s just some of what has been going on in the Rush house.

What’s going on in your neck of the woods?

View More: http://foreverinamemoryphotography.pass.us/rushfamily2017

 

 

Reconfigure your life? hmmm

Posted on by JustAskMaia

#6 woke up this morning and strolled over to my side of the bed as they always do. “Good morning,” I said. She just glared at me. I found myself in a moment of, do I tell her to say good morning back or just let her be?

And there it is, the point we all come to in life. Reconfiguration for someone else’s gratification or remain true to ourselves. I am sure many of us, myself included, would be surprised at just how much we do it.

If I tell her to say it back, why? Is she having a good morning? What if she is not in the mood to speak or smile or be cordial. What if she doesn’t like me in the mornings. If all these things are so, why should she say good morning? To appease me?

By letting her choose whether or not to say good morning back, I am showing her that she has options. You don’t have to speak if you don’t want to. I can hear you guys saying, ‘But it’s rude.’ To that, I ask you to ponder this, and I do welcome feedback, Should you be polite even when you don’t want to for the sake of someone else’s happiness? Sure, she can say good morning because I made her but then, if she was not in the mood, albeit because she is not a morning person or she wasn’t quite having a good morning, the start of her day is unhappy because she was forced to do something she didn’t want to and worse, I am teaching her to adjust her desires to suit someone else’s.

Something so little can trigger your entire day. We are around people we don’t want to be around. We work for places we have no desire to be. We even date people that we long ago lost interest in and it could all have started with a forced good morning.

-Rush

View More: http://foreverinamemoryphotography.pass.us/rushfamily2017