18

 

On August 17th Elizabeth turned 18. I am not officially the mother of four adult children. I didn't put any thought into Elizabeth turning 18 because I didn't think it would bother me, but as we went through the day the realization dawned on me that I no longer have any kids - all of my people are grown up. I have been a mother to children for the last 24 years, and now all of the sudden I find myself the mother to no children. The thought makes me a bit sad. 

Elizabeth hemmed and hawed over what to do for her birthday for months. Literally. But at the end of the day, she chose to have a pretty low-key birthday mainly because the majority of her siblings were unavailable to make any plans because of work and soccer. My mom and dad came down to celebrate Elizabeth's day with her, once again showing my children that they will always be there with them to support them as they hit their life's milestones. 

After waking up and opening gifts, Elizabeth chose to head to the lake to hang out on the water for a few hours. After doing that, we were able to meet up with Josh, Endre (our "adopted" son and teammate of Josh's from Norway), and Andy for dinner at one of Elizabeth's favorite restaurants called Pinkey's. We all had a nice time, and it was good to be together to celebrate Elizabeth. After departing from Josh and Endre, who had to get back to school, the rest of us went back to the house where we had ice cream cake for dessert and watched a movie.

And that was Elizabeth's 18th birthday. 

A Welcome Respite

 The windows are open for the first time in months. The temperatures yesterday and today are well below the average for this time of year, and I gladly welcome the respite from the oppressive heat and humidity summertime brings. Like laundry hung on a line, one of my greatest homemaking joys is opening the windows for the first time after a long season of intense heat or frigid temperatures. There is something so satisfying in feeling the air make its way through the house supplying it with a deep gulp freshness that swallows the staleness stagnating everywhere. 

To see my curtains billowing and to hear all of the everyday (and night) noises that exist outside the confines of my home is a welcome change that always lifts my spirits. 

How I love open windows in my home!

The heat is returning though. In a few days the temperatures are expected to be in the low 90's again. With that will come closed windows again and central air turned on, but for now I will relish in the feeling of fresh air filtering its way through the confines of this house. Thankfully, summer is almost over here. The days of multiple open window days (even weeks!) is almost upon me. For now, I will cherish these two days that gave me an unexpected glimpse of what is just around the bend. 

Back To School/Fall

 Thank the gods that summer is almost(ish) over. Y'all know how I feel about summer in the South. It is usually uncomfortably hot through September with a day or two of refreshing temperatures towards the end of the month. I feel like fall doesn't truly get here until October, BUT the fact that I can say that I made it to this point means that I have made through half of May, all of June and July, and the beginning of August. so I can safely say that I am almost through it.  

With August comes Elizabeth's birthday and a rush of that back-to-school chaos that I love. Soccer season begins too, for both Josh and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is playing on a club team this year. She finally decided that she wanted to get more serious about playing soccer during her final year of eligibility (go figure), so we'll be traveling a bit for her and a bit more for Josh who is also entering his final soccer playing season. 

Josh moves back to school in less than a week while Sarah moves back to school in a little under two weeks. I am excited for both of them to be moving forward and being one step closer to their goals of receiving degrees. Andy is finishing up his first class at the aviation school he is attending, and appears to be doing really well, so although he began classes in July, it is still so new that it seems like he is beginning his own 'back to school' experience as well. 

Pretty soon the house will be quiet(er) again. With Andy gone Monday - Thursday evenings and then working some of the time outside of those days, it will just be me, Bobby, and Elizabeth here most of the time. It will be a new normal to get used to, but one in which we can adjust to. 

The Last First Day

On August 1st of this year, Elizabeth and I began her senior year of high school. This also means that it is my last year of homeschooling. I have been a homeschooling mama for 14 years. That is a lot of my life, and I am having a harder time than I anticipated reconciling the fact that I am in the homestretch. 

I am so glad that I homeschooled our kiddos for the majority of their school years. There are definitely things that I wish that I would have done differently, and if given the chance to go back and have a 'do over' would definitely change things up, but I cannot, and so I will do what we all do and march forward with the beat of time. 

Elizabeth is not on the traditional path of what looks like "normal" schooling. She learns differently and struggles with things that others do not. I am finally at a place in my homeschooling journey where I am comfortable with our learning journey looking a bit different than others. As long as she is moving forward on her own path then I am okay with that. 

We debated on starting this school year after Labor Day, but I decided against it because we often have visitors in the fall, and we do not generally do schoolwork when we have visitors. I wanted to have a jump on our stuff so that when we do take a visitor break we are in a good spot to do so. I also want to be able to end our school year at a reasonable date to give Elizabeth the summer to relax before she either joins the workforce fulltime or goes to college. (She is thinking she would like to take a European gap year in between graduating and continuing on with her education.)

On our last first day Elizabeth cleared out her binders from last year, made new binder covers for her subjects for this year, reviewed what she will be working on this year, and lightly began some of her subjects.  We always start off our first couple of days just getting introduced to the upcoming year and getting set up for success. 

We will begin the meat and potatoes of our school year today.

Decorating her binder covers.

This year's schoolbooks. 

My last Erin Condren school planner.