Happy Sunday!
After yesterday’s brilliantly sunny day and oddly warm temperatures, we seem to have hit a gloomy patch. I like cloudy Sundays though. It makes me feel less guilty about staying home and watching football.
We made it through the first full week of school. It looks like the schedule is not great but not horrible. Holly’s homework load has been relatively light so far; she has been able to do a lot of the assigned work in class. Dance keeps her busy for at least two hours each night, but she has done a fantastic job of balancing everything. This past week, she spent most of her free time making campaign posters, at least two or three a night. I imagine what is going to happen is that her free time will shift from poster-making to actual homework soon enough. She is enjoying eighth grade though, and that is a win in my book.
Last weekend, Jim went down to Houston to check in on his family. None of them had any water damage, but the town where they live did seem some massive damage. Jim’s former high school had water up to the second floor; the damage is so bad they closed the school for the remainder of the school year and had to make arrangements for all 2,000 students with other districts. He said that you could see evidence of the flooding all over the city, from high water marks to garbage, but the city and its inhabitants are making strides in moving on and doing what needs doing. It is going to be a long time before the flood-damaged areas completely recover though.
Connor is surviving life as a freshman. We don’t hear from him much; he never was one for texting, and marching band takes up a large portion of his time. Plus, the downfall of AP testing is that you start your college career bypassing the easier basic courses and immediately start with higher level courses. He is learning this lesson the hard way and finding that his calculus and chemistry courses are a bit more difficult than he expected. Thankfully, the school has a robust study group program and promotes it, so he has a few study groups with those courses that are giving him a spot of trouble. Jim and I were worried how he would handle the difficulties of balancing everything, so it makes us feel so much better that he is using the help offered.
On Friday, he traveled with the marching band to Akron, Ohio to support the football team. They aren’t slated to get back to Ames until later tonight, so I doubt we will be able to talk to him today. We are both interested in finding out how it went and how proactive he was with all of the bus time. Next weekend is his first free weekend since he moved to campus, so we are also curious how he will handle the extra free time. I suspect he will sleep. A lot.
Other than that, things are quiet here. Dance, school, work, rinse and repeat. Jim and Holly winterized the landscaping yesterday. It seems early, but we have gotten caught every single year in the past with early snow or freezing temperatures before we had a chance to prepare. Jim wanted to make sure we were prepared this year, making it one less thing to do this fall. We’ve started the demo of the basement carpet but still need to make some decisions on its replacement. This is just one of the winter projects Jim has in mind for the next few months. With a house that is ten years old, it is time to make some changes to a few things, and that carpet was beyond nasty.
I hope everyone is enjoying a relaxing and fun Sunday. Holly has her parade around lunchtime, followed by dance rehearsals after that. I know she is going to be exhausted by the time she gets back home. I foresee naps later today, and I am perfectly fine with that. Have a wonderful day and even better week to come, and I’ll see you all back here next week!
Here are past posts from the few last weeks in case you missed them the first time:
- It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? – 4 September 2017
- Hang on to your hats with The Child
- Impressive Brave Deeds
- Heartbreak and awe for They Both Die at the End
- Fabulous Friday – 8 September 2017
- Icky, yucky, fascinating Wicked Bugs
- It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? – 11 September 2017
- Lots of applause for Little Fires Everywhere
- Get thee to a copy of Warcross immediately!
- Catch it now Before She Ignites
- Fabulous Friday – 15 September 2017
It was a little gloomy here on Saturday but quickly burned off. Today, on my way to work it was 60 degrees and I caved and turned on my car’s heater. It was just too cold for me to be comfortable. Mostly because I was drinking iced coffee. I haven’t given that up quite yet for warm beverages.
Sounds like your son is transitioning well. I’m sure the workload will be dealt with after some much needed rest. I do hope he uses the free weekend for rest. You think?
I hope Holly has a good turnout for the election. When I was going out for cheer, it didn’t matter how good you were, it was a popularity contest so I hit all the people that never voted or even cared to vote while the uber popular split the vote between the other 5 girls. I literally went under the bleachers and asked all the smokers, the theater kids, the band kids and anyone else who HATED the popular crowd and they all stomped out at lunch to vote for me. I made friends with and hung out with all of them all year long. It was the best thing I ever did and I am still friends with them today. My squad didn’t like me for months.
Sounds like everything is going smoothly – the calm before the crazy, right? Heh. I never thought about AP classes that way. My oldest is big into AP and plans to start college with most of the basics done to save on time. Hopefully he can balance himself well enough with learning to live on his own. I gotta keep this in mind over the next two years to help him figure it out, heh.
I faced similar issues when I was a college freshman. I had 24 credits to my name entering school (Connor had 32). It does make a difference, especially depending on your major. It did allow me to graduate in three years with my final semester being almost nothing but fun courses, but my first semester/year at school was by far my worst year. AP courses are wonderful, but looking back on it and watching Connor struggle, I do think they may create a false sense of accomplishment and subject mastery that is just not there. Plus, where I was hurt and where Connor is hurting is retaining what he learned and studied prior to the exam. You can’t forget what you learned in AP Calc when you have to take Calc II in college!
Glad to hear Connor is adjusting well and using those study groups. I went to Akron U!! How cool that he was here!
Sunnie was struggling last week – getting used to school and so many days of dance is gonna take her some time. Holly seems like she’s so well-adjusted and does great being busy!
It’s in the 80’s here, and I should be outside enjoying it, but nope. I’m watching football and playing on the computer. And I don’t feel guilty about it! Hope you’re relaxing and enjoying the day!
I guess ISU’s new marching band director previously worked at Akron U, so it was a fortuitous away game for traveling (the band travels to one away game every year). We have not talked to him yet after this week, so I am still curious to find out how it was.
School and dance are perpetual struggles. Holly is adjusting well, but even she is exhausted by Friday night. She has slept until almost noon the last two Saturdays – and this is a girl who does NOT sleep in. I do worry for when her homework load increases. I don’t know how she is going to manage everything, but as long as she keeps her grades at acceptable levels it is her problem to solve.
I didn’t go outside yesterday either. I find myself just wanting to sit and relax on weekends when I can these days too. The days are coming all too quickly when this will not be an option.