So, school has been going for two weeks now for Josh, but I feel like we have been hanging onto summer a lot. We did the zoo the day after Josh started school, then Lacey came, then we had this long weekend, and I am thinking that summer might really end this week. We’ll see. We’re good at hanging onto the fun stuff! (And really bad at getting back into normal bedtimes…)
I know you all totally want to snuggle him!
Anyway, I just wanted to share something about me. Because I feel like it… Every year, as long as I can remember, as summer draws to a close I have felt the promise of a new beginning as a new school year approached. I remember laying on the back bed of the motor-home with my sister Christina as we drove across country for family vacation daydreaming about how awesome the coming school year was going be. We were finally going to really practice the piano, and we were totes going to be the best dressed, most desirable girls in our respective grades, and we were going to get all As and live happily ever after! And even though I have been graduated from BYU for nearly two years, and even though I love being a full time mom, there is always that longing that comes at the end of the summer for a new beginning and becoming something better.
This is Fay reading a book and explaining everything to Carter. She’s such a good big sister! Despite the look on his face, I think Carter might be secretly quite interested in Sofia. 🙂
I have been thinking for the past few weeks about how I could possibly recreate the feeling of new and important changes in my life without sacrificing the things that are the most important to me (ie: being a wife and a mother). So, I have come up with an idea for this autumn that has so far satisfied my longings without sacrificing my higher priorities! I am going to be giving myself classes at home! I made a giant list of things that I always wished that I had been able to study more in college and I have selected a few of them to have as “classes”! The plan is to dedicate at least 30 minutes each evening after the kids go to bed (assuming they actually DO go to bed) to work on one of my selected subjects each night. I plan on getting my learning materials from the library and from MIT Open Course Ware, and from any other connections I might have. For example, I have enlisted the help of Josh to be my private tutor for my “beginning programming” class. (Thursday night date night on the computer!!!!)
Today Josh made a nature scavenger hunt for Fay to go on! This is her with her collection of rocks, sticks, flowers, seeds, and so forth.
I am really looking forward to learning new things this “semester” and I hope to continue doing this sort of thing forever. Maybe not as structured as I’m planning right now, but I love the idea that I can just keep on learning the things I want to even if I don’t have a professor to spoon feed it to me anymore!
What a fun idea! I love the start of the new school year too.
Oh, and your kids are absolutely adorable and yes, I want to snuggle C!
Elisabeth, your plan sounds cool and so fun! I know I love the freedom of reading what interests me and studying what I want to learn more about, just because I want to. I totally want to look into MIT Open Course Ware—it seams like a really neat resource! Have you also seen the list of free courses offered through BYU Independent Study? Here’s a link:
http://is.byu.edu/site/courses/free.cfm
There’s not a ton of courses, but some of them look pretty good.
I want to hear how your studies go! My next German class starts in a week, and then my free time is going to evaporate again, but maybe when I get back to the states next year, we could do a free course together! (Unless that would be annoying… but it’s a long way away, so we can think about it 🙂
Anyway, good luck, and enjoy your new school year!
Yeah! I think it would be way cool to do one together! And we could have regular meetings! At your house or ours…
But in all seriousness, I think it would be way cool to be able to discuss what we’re learning together! And maybe we could somehow work out field trips or other kinds of hands on stuff that would help solidify principles… I don’t exactly know how it would all work; but I am definitely liking the idea!