This was a strange week. It felt a bit like trying to slog through something. I’m not sure what. Fatigue? Fog of war? I’m not sure. But here we are on Friday.

First off, I wanted to share the full view of this artwork by William Adolphe Bouguereau. I’ve found a number of channels on Telegram that share beautiful traditional artwork, scenery, etc. This is one of the pieces of art I saved so I could use it in a post. The details are simply stunning.

We need to go out of our way these days to surround ourselves with that which is beautiful, true, good, and hopeful. Not as an excuse to try to pretend the real world around us isn’t happening, but to remind ourselves that there is far more to this world than the profane and ugly that is being systematically put upon us in order to demoralize us.

Attracting New Birds To Our Birdfeeders

This year we decided to switch things up a bit with our birdfeeding and try to attract some new birds. We purchased a feeder specifically for Baltimore Orioles. We always see them stop by in the spring, but they never stick around because we don’t put out what they like. We now have an orange feeder that holds half an orange and multiple little spots for grape jelly. They found it within literally 10 minutes of David getting it set up. Now they are around off and on all day.

We also put out a different mix in one of the feeders that seems to be attracting the Indigo Buntings. That is another bird we usually see briefly in the spring and then not again. They have been around almost every day this week so I’m hoping they will keep coming.

We were going to put away the box we have corn in (I wrote about making it in Highlights From My September Weekend), but we decided to keep filling it up and see if the deer will bring their fawns by. I’m praying they will. Caroline would be thrilled (and so would I).

Loving Linux

Speaking of that September post, I am still on Linux and still love it. No more of those horrific Windows updates. No more spyware. No more feeling completely out of control regarding what my computer is doing. I am so happy I switched to Linux. I highly recommend it. (If you haven’t read about the new Windows 11 update and what it does, make sure you research it before you allow it to update your system.)

In fact, I put together an area in the Forum called Switching To and Using Linux. I put quite a bit in there and try to remember to add more info as I think it might be helpful. (UPDATE: Now all moved to this post: Switching To Linux Mint From Windows – Mega Resource List)

Unit Studies In High School

Yesterday I had a conversation about homeschooling with a fellow homeschool mom. I was telling her that I really need to take a big step back and do some strategic and long-range planning for the next three years of homeschooling. Now that Caroline and I have worked through most of this year, I’m more convinced than ever that everything we do (writing, reading books, etc.) needs to count for more than one subject. As my friend mentioned about one of her children, it is a stamina issue. It’s not a laziness issue. With some 2e children, stamina and the ability to do sustained work over many hours is a big issue. In fact, it’s not an option to do super focused work for many hours each day.

In short, I’m going to have to explore more of a unit study approach for a lot of the next three years. I’m not sure what that is going to look like and there aren’t many people who have done this for high school and written about it in detail. I did a quick search and found Marcy at Ben and Me went through something similar during Ben’s first year of high school.

So that’s what I’m thinking about regarding homeschool. Caroline loves history. She will sit for hours doing crafts while watching one history documentary after another on her iPad. So however we do this, it will revolve around history. In fact, I had already decided that I was going to frame our four years of high school around history by going through all of history over four years rather than one year of world history, one year of US history, etc.

Now that I’ve seen what works for us and what doesn’t, I can put together a better and more concrete plan. The biggest issue is finding the uninterrupted time to really focus and think. I’m confident I can do this. It is very much what I specialized in during my undergraduate degree in elementary education. This is completely in my wheelhouse. The issue is time, time, time. It’s not possible to pull together a three year plan for all subjects mostly from scratch in a few afternoons. So this will be a big undertaking for me. It will be worth it in the end. If you did something like this for high school with any of your children, please leave a comment with any suggestions you have!

What are you doing in your home right now? I hope you’ll leave a comment and share. I’m sorry I did not respond to each comment last week. I read and enjoyed all of them and was thrilled so many people responded. ♥

Artist: William Adolphe Bouguereau