"In my mind . . .'

Last night during a big serious family discussion about changing some of our patterns, I said to Brianna, 11, "I think maybe the good mother you see in your mind doesn't discipline at all."
"Well of course not, Mom. In my mind, I never do anything that needs to be disciplined! In my mind, I never do anything wrong!"

Last week, Brianna said, "I can't wait to tell Mark that I'm learning Latin. I'm going to walk up to him and say, . . . Oh, I forgot--I don't actually know how to say anything yet."

Settling into the fall semester. I am teaching at El Centro as usual, but ended up with ESL reading and Listening/speaking and A NON-ESL class! I picked up a developmental reading class, which I am actually thoroughly enjoying. I got very lucky and have a small group of highly-motivated students with several older students. (Rather than the frequent dev. rdng. scenario of a room full of recent high-school-graduates who still act like they are in high school.)
Brianna is taking a full load at our homeschool co-op for her 6th grade year: Bible-based writing, life science, math, texas history, clay, latin, and creative writing. We may end up dropping something--we'll see how our pattern-changing goes the next 2 weeks. So she's in class from 8:30 to 3:30 on Tuesdays, then goes home with her best friend. They swim and find interesting creatures outside and do their homework for texas history and life science. They are also learning calligraphy. Their house actually has a schoolroom--quite different from our current living situation, so Brianna also gets quite a bit of other homework done there. She spends Tuesday night and wednesday night there. Then we meet up at co-op at 9;30 on Thursday. During at least one of Brianna's classes, I work with her friend one-on-one on some issues with dyslexia and dyscalculia. We head home by about 1:00 on Thursdays. Now I just need to figure out a plan to get Brie out of our house on Mondays and Fridays so that those can be at least half as productive as the middle of the week. She is so remarkable, and this is our year to correct some things we wish we had done better. Hopefully we will find our way into more and more things that work for us as we all learn the art of self-discipline and persistence and allow each experience to shape us more into His likeness.