Journey to Excellence

There is no Wednesday Hodgepodge prompts this week as the host is taking a week off. Since I am used to doing some thinking on Wednesday mornings, I thought I would reprise an old favorite .. Simple Woman's Daybook. I haven't participated in this link-up for years, so I thought I would join today just for fun. For today ... Wednesday, April 29, 2015 Outside my window ... the birds are loudly chirping. I need to get out and refill their feeders today. It is also sun-shiny and beautiful. I am thinking ... that this is going to be one of those days where I keep stepping outside for a few minutes here and there enjoying the day. I have lots of little things I can do, like sweep, fill the feeders, water bushes, etc. I am thankful ... for the life I have and the husband who provides it for me. Very thankful. I am wearing ... (no surprise here) my jammies, robe, and slippers. In a few minutes I'll get up and put on my workout clothes. No getting dressed up today...

Right now is the perfect time to .... share photos from Kyndal's bridal shower this past weekend. We had such a nice time celebrating our girl as she gets ever closer to become a bride. Kyndal and Collin are getting married in a family ceremony on May 22nd to make it legal. But then we are going to Cozumel, Mexico, for the official wedding on the beach on May 26th. It is going to be a beautiful time of celebration! At the shower we had a Recipe Station where we asked all of her guests to bring their favorite recipe. She received several kitchen items and a personalized recipe box. We had quite a spread of food with various rollups, fruits, cheeses, veggies, and lemon buddies. The cake was made by her future cousin-in-law. We played a few fun games. Each lady received a ring when they arrived and were instructed to take the ring of anyone who said "Kyndal", "Collin" or "Wedding" throughout the shower. That got ...

Oh, working out. It's that thing that we get inspired to do and do it for about 4 days and then give up. We wait a little while longer and get re-inspired and start the cycle all over again. It's hard to choose when to work out. It's hard to work out when it's cold and when it's hot. Do I workout indoors or outdoors, join a gym, run, what? Many of us, and I mean me, have great intentions but have an extremely difficult time with the follow-through. Am I speaking to anyone here? The turn of the new year brought me new motivation to lose some weight and get into shape. January 1st does that to many people. Plus I knew Kyndal's wedding was going to be this summer so that gave me half a year to accomplish my goal. What was my goal? To lose 11 pounds and be in shape. I started tracking my calories and doing Tae Bo on a dvd several mornings a week. Up until mid-March I had lost about 4 pounds. I thought I was getting into pretty good shape .... until I...

We did math ... We did grammar ... We read ... We watched Brain Games ... We read some more ... We watched CNN Student News ... We talked about issues of the past and the present ... We ran, we rode bikes, we played softball, we played outside, we did some "parkour" at the park ... We watched Little House on the Prairie ... We watched our public school elementary's music production of "Go West" ... And we read some more ... Only one more week of school for us before our May break. We. Are. Ready.

1. Public schools are not preparing our kids for college, or anything else for that matter. Poor Taylar has just struggled through a research paper this past week (even getting it completely done to realize that it was zapped from her USB stick causing her to have to redo most of it). She has felt so unprepared in completing the specific requirements of an MLA styled paper. This is completely the teacher's fault. It's not that she taught it and the kids didn't pay attention. She didn't teach it and just said, "Do it." It sickens me. And, as an online college professor who has seen how poorly students write, it makes me realize how important good writing skills are and how in a year or two my kids will start to undergo rigorous training in good writing that will last all through high school. It is a necessity. 2. One of the most entertaining things in the world to me is when someone posts one of those philosophical quotes intended to be a slam against so...

It's time to start talking curriculum for the 2015/2016 school year. This is always such an exciting time of year as you anticipate all you will learn in the next term. We are not making a lot of changes in our curriculum choices because we have found a rhythm that really works for us. We know that we are a literature-based homeschool and have found essential courses that we enjoy and challenge us. Eli and Brynne will be in their 5th/6th grade year next year. We officially promote in January. Our curriculum choices are: Bible New Testament Overview, Grapevine Studies - Stick Figuring Through the Bible. We will continue with this much-loved curriculum. It will likely take us the majority of the year to finish it. It's a great way to start our morning. English McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader and McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader. Reading the Little House on the Prairie series really inspired me to have the kids do recitations from these classics. If ...

Have you ever had to wear a uniform? If yes, tell us more. Did you love it or hate it? Can you say double-knit polyester? When you are a 16 year old fashion guru wannabe of the 80's you do not want to have a job where you have to wear double-knit polyester pants ! My first real job was at a restaurant that my grandmother managed at a hotel. Those pants. They were gray, high-wasted, with no pockets on the butt, and flared bottoms. And they had been previously worn by someone else. Ewwww!!!! A short time into that job the zipper broke in those pants. (Thank God!) My grandmother sent me to JC Penney to buy another pair. Darn, they didn't have any in my size (or so I said), so I bought a regular pair of gray cotton pants. I got away with wearing those the rest of my employ there. (fyi .. these pants are so disgusting that I couldn't even find an image to post!) April 22nd is Earth Day. What is one thing you do personally to be a good steward of planet Earth? I do t...

This week Leslie at Time Out for Mom posed this topic: Tell me about a recent fear you have faced . I only have two real fears and those are snakes and sharks. Thankfully I have not come face-to-face with either of them lately. I am learning more and more to trust God with His plan, no matter what it is, whether I like it or not, so I haven't been having any fears about life in general. That, too, is good. So I guess I will write about my newest accomplishment, which has not necessarily been a fear but more like an obstacle I did not think I was capable of crossing. I have accomplished my goal of becoming a runner. I have mentioned this several times on this blog over the past couple of months, and I post about it a lot on Instagram (@nikki_taulman), so you might be tired of hearing about it. But it is truly something I am so proud to have accomplished! Being a runner is something I have always wanted to do! I don't know why. In fact, when I see runners I alwa...