The Saturday 7

1. Despite my claims in the 2014 Year in Review about Prozac changing my life, this week was rough depression-wise.  I'm blaming it mostly on PMS, but also the disruption of my routines. I love Christmas and New Year's, but they totally threw me off my game. I'm looking forward to getting back to normalcy next week. 

2. Lucy has a new obsession with watching Youtube videos. It started with her searching for Frozen videos. Then she found the "Disney Collectors" series, where adults show off new Disney products and act out stupid scenarios with Barbies and Peppa Pig and Frozen characters, etc. She's also latched on to Play-Doh demonstrations. They're almost all sales pitches to get you to buy a certain play-doh set, but she loves them. This, in turn, has led to her creating her own videos and pretending she has an audience every time she plays with her toys. She dictates everything she's doing and demands that I pretend to be "one of the kids in the audience." One day, I got the bright idea to set up my camera for her and let her record herself. The video function on my camera maxes out after 20 minutes, and she made 3 videos in a row. So she literally videotaped herself playing with play-doh for an hour. Haha. And then she spent another half an hour watching the videos of herself with a huge grin on her face.

3. I finished a couple more books this week: Before Amen (Max Lucado) and Unbroken (Laura Hillebrand). I linked to my reviews of both of them, which I'm sure you've already read if you care. But now I'm ready for something a little more fun and light-hearted. Haha. I got a few books that I asked for for Christmas, but they're all theological/parenting/learning books. I just need some fun, easy fiction. I'm tempted to go back to my good ole Christian fiction. I just bought a Lori Wick book (The Hawk and the Jewel) from the library for 25c. It doesn't get much cheesier than Lori Wick.

4. Actually, I need to find a book I can read on my Kindle. I've loved using it for facebook and Pinterest and such, but I want to try it for actual reading. My friend Kami hooked me up with a website (bookbub.com) that sends me an email every day of free or deeply discounted e-books. I'm cheap and will only get the free ones, so I've only gotten one so far - one that I've already read, but loved. (Secrets by Kristen Heitzmann - it's still free!)

5. When I went through my journal to write up my year in review, I jotted down every TV show that I mentioned. I didn't have room for it in my 2014 recap, but you're in luck! I'm going to share them all with you today. These are the shows that I followed faithfully, whether on Netflix or live TV:

Bones (I just finished season 9 today and am trying to figure out how I can get season 10!)

Royal Pains (Watched all that Netflix has. Waiting for the next season!)

Parks and Rec (Finished)

Raising Hope (Finished)

One Tree Hill (I tried, but I couldn't get into this show. Abandoned it partway through season 1.)

Community (Finished)

Hart of Dixie (Abandoned partway through season 3. Might pick it up again now that I'm done with Bones.)

Project Runway

Downton Abbey (The newest season premiers tomorrow! Can't wait!)

Master Chef

Gilmore Girls 

Parenthood (I'm behind a few episodes . . .)

Wheel of Fortune 

Jeopardy

Big Bang Theory (I bought season 7 "for Justin" for Christmas because we've seen everything up to that. Loving it.)

I just saw on Netflix that season 5 of White Collar is available! So that's going to be next up for us. 

6. Last night, I snuck away to the new Biggby in Sparta for some precious alone time. December was a big fat fail homeschool-wise, so I needed to get away and focus on planning for the rest of the year. I think I can safely say after 4ish months of homeschooling that I'm not particularly enjoying it. I probably should have gotten a curriculum because I just feel lost and unsure. Lucy can identify all her letters and their sounds. She's getting short vowel sounds down and putting CVC words together. She can count to 49, can count to 100 by tens, and can do basic addition and subtraction. Now I'm stumped. So that's what I was working on last night. Basically, I've decided to spend a month doing blends like sh, th, ch, ck, etc, then move on to long vowels (which seems daunting). For math, we're going to start making addition and subtraction a little more difficult and work on telling time and learning about money. Hopefully by the end of May she'll be able to read a little bit and have some basic math skills. Then I can send her off to real school in the fall to learn the rest! Haha. Kindergarten roundup is in March - two months away. Holy cow. 

7. So Lena's birthday is in 20 days and I've hardly given it any thought. Haha. I'm not sure if that's second child syndrome, or "birthday so close to Christmas" syndrome. The good news is I over-bought for Christmas and then hid one of her presents so well I forgot about it, so I'm all done shopping for her birthday! Haha. But I should probably put together some kind of party or something. Oh, and there's also this little detail of Justin turning 30(!) the day after her birthday. I should probably acknowledge that significant milestone in some way, too. Wowza, we're getting old!