Quick Takes Volume 45

~1~

Bryan's safely back from his business trip to Nashville.  Praise God!  I hate flying and so I worry about him getting to and from his destination safely every time he flies.  I was delighted yesterday afternoon when he sent me a text letting me know that he managed to hop on an earlier flight.  The flight he got on had been delayed so he caught it just in the nick of time.  I can't help but wonder if the fiasco with the airline hoax had something to do with the delay of that flight he took home being that it was headed to Philly.  If it was, at least something good came out of it.  The girls were thrilled that Bryan made it home before bedtime.

~2~

Since Bryan was away earlier this week, he missed the girls' first day of school.  I'm so happy that everything went smoothly for them the first two days since we usually have some sort of glitch or issue with the first few days.  I made a morning routine page for the girls that lists all of the steps they need to complete each morning (in order).  I'm hoping this will teach them to be organized and manage their time wisely.  Oh, and can I just say that I'm loving this whole uniform thing?  It would have been well worth the tuition for the past six years for this awesome feature alone!  No arguing about what to wear or why they're not allowed to wear the clown outfit d'jour to school today or ever for that matter.  Three days in and uniforms have already made the morning routine easier.

~3~

On Monday night it hit me that I was about to get slammed with a jam packed calendar for the next two and a half months.  So I spent most of this week making sure the schedules were all in sync between my iCalendar, my planning book(I LOVE this thing!) and the family wall calendar. Would you believe I didn't have Madeline or Katie's birthday's marked on the calendars or my planner.  Oops!  

~4~

I had a few days of minor freaking out/worrying over the fact that the day and time of Madeline's appointment to get the required immunizations for 6th grade was in direct conflict with the first school Mass of the year.  Fortunately calling the doctors office almost everyday checking for an open appointment time during the month of September but after 9/12 resulted in an appointment that won't cause a problem.  So as of yesterday morning, I've been able to relax about that.

~5~

I love having a school bus for both kids.  In fact, I love that Madeline and Ellie are going to the same school.  Since my girls are the only ones getting on the bus at this stop and our street is part of the route the driver takes to the school the girls are now getting picked up and dropped off right in front of our house.  How great is that?  Also, our very friendly bus driver adjusted the pick up time to be about 15 minutes earlier than what is on the pass so the kids will make it to school a few minutes early.  This means that I actually have a fighting chance at making it to the 8am daily Mass.  I just need to work on getting up early enough to get myself and Katie ready to pull out of the driveway as soon as the bus pulls away.  I don't know that I'll be able to make it to Mass every day, but I plan to get there at least a once or twice a week provided Katie doesn't act like a wild animal.

~6~

I've had to cover the girls' workbooks with clear contact paper for school these past two nights, so that has given me a glimpse at the curriculum.  I'm so thrilled with what I have seen so far.  Ellie actually has a grammar workbook!  And Madeline has an awesome grammar book that looks like what I used back in 6th, 7th and 8th grades.  She even has a great vocabulary book.  I can't tell you how happy I am to see curriculum coming home that so closely mirrors what I wanted for them if we had decided to pursue homeschooling.  In fact, Madeline's math book reminds me a lot of the Saxon Math bookwe use at home, and the grammar book is pretty close to what we have in the CHC Language of God series we use.

~7~

I've managed to kill two hairdryers in roughly two weeks time.  The first onehad to be tossed when I saw sparks coming out of the cord (Awesome, right?).  The second one was my old one that was demoted to being the dog hair dryer.  Ten seconds into drying my hair this morning it died.  So as much as I was hoping to wait on buying a new dryer I had no choice but to run to Target with crazy damp hair and buy a new one this morning.