Learning log

 On Mondays my kids have to turn in learning logs for the My Tech High program. It's easy, only a three to five sentence requirement that highlights what they've been working on for the week. Usually I type it for them. Within a week, a "teacher" responds, like "great job, Foy! It sounds like you're taking awesome care of your seedlings. I love your confidence about math. Doing one whole Greg Tang math packet every Monday is super. Keep up the good work!"
I think it would be the perfect job to read kids' weekly reports and answer them. I've even looked on the website for employment opportunities. I have no idea how they hire. I sure can't find it anywhere.

Anyway, in some of the parent groups on Facebook, moms complain about keeping on task to turn in learning logs, which kind of surprises me. You know I love making lists of what I've actually done in a week, so I don't mind one bit. The cumulative report that we've actually been getting stuff done this year is very encouraging. Plus, it's like taking notes for a book, should I ever want to rehash Stay or Bail, the second volume (I don't).

I feel like I should've been keeping a learning log this year for just me. This week, I read Alex Trebek's autobiography (2020) and listened to Hatchet with my kids. Now I'm listening to a Francis Shaeffer book. I go back and forth with Audible subscriptions. I don't want to pay $150/year, but our local library loaning app (Hoopla) isn't great. We had Overdrive in Bayfield, and it had a ton more books to check out.
I watched the entire series of some weird Marvel thing on Disney plus after everyone went to bed at night. What a wormhole. I think I was tired from cleaning and cleaning and cleaning the house.

I digress. I wanted to do a 3-5 sentence on what I'm learning this week.
Let's see. I went and got some straw bales to put over my grass seed in the back yard. I had a little garage sale where I only made $17 because I ended up giving everything away. This is my garage sale style: decide to have a garage sale one Saturday morning at 7am. Beg Joe to help me drag out stuff to the sidewalk (beg because Joe hates garage sales. Hates. He denies it, but he does.)
Make lemonade. Get out chairs for kids. 
Decide I don't want a ton of traffic.
Make a Facebook marketplace post.
10am--make little tags to put on stuff. Put out a sign.
Wonder why we're getting so little traffic (I don't respond to facebook posts and my signs are terrible). 
Chat with people who come by. Try out my Spanish. If anyone hesitates over the price I say, "it's free, just take it. I'm trying to clean out the house."
Meet grandparents who are raising a handful of their grandchildren. Give them the desk for free. Dig out my art supplies and give them to the grandma. 

Get sunburnt.
Set the rest of the stuff on the curb with a free sign. 
The kids ask me how much money we've made. Seventeen dollars, kids.
I'm a really bad salesperson. I realize I might be sad later when we move and I don't have my art supplies, but I'm always pretty convicted I ought to be giving away that which I love, not just the stuff I don't want/need anymore. It's a first fruits challenge, if you know what I mean.

The My Tech High program really encourages entrepreneurship, and I'm pretty much the opposite, because I don't sell. Even sending my kids around the neighborhood to mow lawns or shovel snow kind of terrifies me. You mean they will give money in exchange for a (probably) terrible job of mowing/shoveling? I understand the idea, but I'm wary of the value they are getting for the price they're paying.

Well this learning log is falling apart.
Let's see. I've been practicing my mandolin at night. I can play some hymns and pick out a few tunes. Working on my tremolo--you have to hold the pick very lightly.

We've been putting some seeds and baby plants in the planters. I really hope we get to see some flowers come up before we have to move. Our house went under contract on Monday after we returned from the western slope. Part of the deal is we close at the end of May but we can live in the house till the end of June. We had our inspection on Friday, so we're waiting for all that to look clear before we figure out where to go next. I'm ready to buy a sweet little ranch house on forty acres in southern Missouri for less than $400k. Joe could run a sawmill and I could be the lunch lady at the kids' country school. We could get together with our neighbors on Thursday nights and play bluegrass. Once in awhile we could see grandma and grandpa and cousins. Doesn't it sound quaint?!
We are on two different pages, because Joe wants to move further west, closer to the Utah border. He doesn't want to be near family, wants to be able to play in the mountains on the weekends. I love the mountains and I love the climate, but I am ready to give it up to raise my kids in a community. I  don't want him to have to keep a big, fancy job just so we can afford to live in Colorado, because I want my kids to have a daddy that can come to all their musicals and football games. I truly think Joe would love living in a small town and being a public school daddy, but when he thinks of Missouri I think he's reminded how little his parents cared about his own extracurriculars. He thinks there is nothing to do in Missouri (there is always something to do when you have four kids). So it makes me sadder than I'd like to admit to consider moving west, even though I would do it for Joe. 
I mean, it makes me really, really sad.
I'm praying I can get over myself, but I'm also praying Joe softens up a bit.

Well, now, how's that for a learning log?