Saturday {Sunday} Seven

2010 ~ Week 4

{1} Days Walked/Ran: 5
(Week 15. Roughly 4 miles a day, running 1+ of those.)

{2} Dr. Peppers Consumed: 2.
(Well, better than last week...)

{3} Fruit/Veggie Smoothies: 4
(Trying for daily!)

{4} Daily Reading (Bible, A Year With C.S. Lewis, Intellectual Devotional): Did much better this week!

{5} Days of Math with Levi: 4

{6} Intentional Reading: Finished Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis by Sayer, and a couple more little books in the 26 Fairmount Avenue series by Tomie DePaola. Picking up Shakespeare: Life as Stage by Bill Bryson and Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson.
(Book reviews this next week.)

{7} We didn't make it to the pool this week, but the boys have had lots of outside playtime today which they really needed.

Good for the body is the work of the body,

and good for the soul is the work of the soul,

and good for either is the work of the other.


~Henry David Thoreau

Magritte's Imagination

René Magritte (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists)

Magritte's Imagination
(Leif's favorite board book!)

Living. Lovely. ~ Complete a Puzzle

A good puzzle, it's a fair thing. Nobody is lying.

It's very clear, and the problem depends just on you.

~Erno Rubik

Did you

Complete a Puzzle

for National Puzzle Month?

No? Try one of these word puzzles at Merriam-Webster!
(Be sure to scroll down a little to see more word games.)
I couldn't stop once I got started!


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Next week's Living. Lovely. challenge:

Make a Phone Call

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make,
who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?

~Stephen Levine

Discere Docendo

(To Learn Through Teaching)

Latin ~ One of the foundations of a Classical Education. Sounds scary, doesn't it? And yet it is one of my favorite subjects. Yes, I realize we are learning very elementary Latin, but we are LEARNING LATIN. Even Leif has memorized full prayers in Latin.

Prima Latina is a program designed for early elementary students, and very simple to teach, even for an adult with no Latin background. In just one year, we are covering:

• Recognizing English and Latin Verbs
• Invisible Verbs
• Nouns, Proper Nouns, & Pronouns
• Prepositions
• Adjectives
• Adverbs
• To Be Verbs
• Present and Future Tenses
• First Conjugation
• First Declension
• 125 Latin Vocabulary Words
• Approx. 150 Latin Derivatives
• 25 Latin Sayings
• 4 Latin Prayers
• 4 Latin Hymns
• 12 Constellations
• Latin Numbers 1-10
  
  

Are you curious as to why students should learn Latin? Read here.

Or why teach Latin to elementary students? Read here.

I am enjoying learning the Latin phrases (mea culpa, quo vadis, stupor mundi), and I recently came across a very fun (and long) list of Latin quotes and phrases. I'll have to memorize some of these, such as:

Diligentia maximum etiam mediocris ingeni subsidium.

(Diligence is a very great help even to a mediocre intelligence. ~Seneca)

Or possibly some of the more light-hearted translations:

Luke sum ipse patrem te.

( Luke, I am your father.)

OR

Aspice, officio fungeris sine spe honoris amplioris.

( Face it, you're stuck in a dead end job.)

See, Latin is fun.

Saturday Seven

2010 ~ Week 3

{1} Days Walked/Ran: 5
(Week 14. Roughly 4 miles a day, running 1+ of those.)

{2} Dr. Peppers Consumed: 3. Oh, how I hate truth in reporting.
(On a positive note, I made it 16 days without caving. And I *didn't* have one 4 days this week.
We'll see if I can do better this next week.)

{3} Pounds Lost: 1?
(I think I need to come up with something new for #3. Something I have more control over.
Such as eating more servings of veggies each day. I'll have to think about that.)

{4} Daily Reading (Bible, A Year With C.S. Lewis, Intellectual Devotional): A slight slump in my Bible reading this week.
(Need to improve upon that next week.)

{5} Days of Math with Levi: 5
(We had a couple rough days, but Russ has been getting him up early (while I'm out walking) and starting in on his math and handwriting first thing. I *really* appreciate that!!)

{6} Intentional Reading: Continued to read Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis by Sayer, finished Going Solo by Roald Dahl (LOVED!),
and read three books (they are really short!!) in the 26 Fairmount Avenue series by Tomie DePaola.
(I think I'll do book reviews at the end of each month.)

{7} Made it to family swim night at the pool with the boys again!
(This week, my sister and her kids, a friend and her son, and my mom and dad all joined us! What a party!)

Last week I quoted C. S. Lewis.

It appears, however, he may have himself been quoting Antoine de Saint-Exupery, so we'll try this again...

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.

It is always the same step, but you have to take it.

(And while we are on a roll...)

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Field Trip # 12 ~ Music of Africa

Today, we were back at our local Children's Performing Arts Series.

Fools In Paradise ~ Music of Africa

Anyone at this concert who didn't feel like dancing should have their vital signs taken.

The boys LOVED it, and I'll have a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

I'm Watching. Are you?

Emma

Silly things do cease to be silly
if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.

~Jane Austen, Emma

Conviction: Speak With It!

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

Life is Good

When brothers agree, no fortress is so strong as their common life.

~Antisthenes

Living. Lovely. ~ Clean Off Your Desk

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be,
since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

~Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ, c.1420

(That might not seem to apply to this week's challenge, but I needed to remind myself...Sigh.)

Did you

Clean Off Your Desk

this past week?

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I feel like I've been living in crisis mode lately, and that just has to stop.
I'm working on a whole office/schoolroom/library organizing/purging/cleaning project.
Unfortunately, it is one of those projects that makes things so much worse before it gets better.

I hate that.
But at least my desk is cleared off. Whew!



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Next week's Living. Lovely. challenge:

Complete a Puzzle

January is National Puzzle Month.

Feel free to use your imagination on this one!

i heart faces ~ We Are Family

It is Family week at i heart faces.

I did Jen's family photos last summer,
and while this one isn't wildly original, it remains one of my favorite family photos.

Saturday Seven

2010 ~ Week 2

{1} Days Walked/Ran: 5
(Week 13. Roughly 4 miles a day, running 1.5 of those.)

{2} Dr. Peppers Consumed: 0 (Drinking 1 liter of green tea and 1+liter of water daily.)
(14 days now, and that's a record.)

{3} Pounds Lost: 0. What a surprise.

{4} Daily Reading (Bible, A Year With C.S. Lewis, Intellectual Devotional): On Schedule
(Finished Genesis and Mark this week.)

{5} Days of Math with Levi: 5
(He did day 5 independently. And with correct answers. Wahooooo!)

{6} Intentional Reading: Continued to read Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis by Sayer, started and finished A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters, and began Going Solo by Roald Dahl.

{7} Made it to family swim night at the pool with the boys again!

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.

~C. S. Lewis

Girls' Night Out

Yeah, I needed that.

But let's not talk about scores, okay?

Living. Lovely. ~ Read a Poem

To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June.

~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Did you

Read a Poem

this week?

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I retrieved (and dusted off) an old, red leather-bound edition of Tennyson's poetry from my bookshelf this week. Rain. An old, sentimental patchwork quilt. A cup of tea. Perfect.

For the boys, we read aloud from Poetry for Young People: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

(A wonderful series of books, by the way, with biographical information about each poet
and a thoughtful selection of their poetry, delightfully illustrated.)

The Arrow and the Song

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke:
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

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Next week's Living. Lovely. challenge:

Clean Off Your Desk

January 14th is National Clean-Off-Your-Desk Day (who knew?).
I could really use that kick in the pants. Want to join me?
Is your desk already clean?
You'll have to use your imagination and come up with an alternative in the spirit of things. Grin.

Be ready to share before and after photos next Thursday!

Oh, To Be a Kid

Argh! I can't get my slide show to show up. Well, click on the link below, I guess, if you want to see it....

"Leif Spin"

Create a free slideshow with Picnik!

Friendly Faces

Footsteps in the Sea

Field Trip #11 ~ Oregon Coast Aquarium

i heart faces ~ 1st birthday!

I can't believe it has been a year since the beginning of the i heart faces photo challenges!

They are having an awesome birthday celebration this week, so head on over to view all the other great entries and excitement!

I'm entering one of my favorites from the photo shoot I did in December of my singer/musician friend, Lori.

Field Trip #10 and The Saturday Seven

For our first field trip of the new year, the older two boys and I attended the first
of the local Children's Performing Arts series.
We watched the Tears of Joy Puppet Theater perform Rumpelstiltskin.

Very entertaining. The boys loved it!! (And they were very well behaved, thankyouverymuch.)

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As I briefly mentioned earlier, this year I will be using Saturdays here on the blog as my accountability tool.
Diligence is the key word, and I've got a lot of things to be diligent about!
Maybe if I know I'll be seeing my progress in print at the end of the week, I'll be just a little more motivated.

2010 ~ Week 1

{1} Days Walked/Ran: 5

(This was week 12. Right now we are going a little over 4 miles, running at least 1 of those,

adding in some arm exercises and stretching at the end. About an hour.)

{2} Dr. Peppers Consumed: 0 (Drinking 1 liter of green tea and 1+liter of water daily.)

(The longest I've ever gone without a Dr. Pepper (like, in 20 years) is 10 days, just to give you an idea what this means...)

{3} Pounds Lost: Big Fat 0

(After 3 months of walking/running and a week off Dr. Pepper I can tell you that isn't very encouraging....)

{4} Daily Reading (Bible, A Year With C.S. Lewis, Intellectual Devotional): On Schedule

(I've *never* stuck with a yearly Bible reading plan before, so I have some serious diligence issues here.)

{5} Days of Math with Levi: 5

(This is where I'm completely honest and say that Levi and I REALLY struggle with math. Can't we just read all day?)

{6} Intentional Reading: Finished Don Quixote (retold by Martin Jenkins),

read Catching Fire cover to cover, began Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis (by Sayer).

{7} Made it to family swim night at the pool with the boys!

(These boys really need some consistent swimming time/instruction.)