Weekly Clearing House

One of the principles of GTD is to clear one’s head of stuff once a week. Here goes, a mish-mash of things that I learned about this week, my to-do-list, progress report on projects, and new projects to start…

1. Plan liturgical year activities through end of Jan. Michele just shared a make-your-own liturgical year wheel, which would be perfect. I was going to order another one from LTP for this year, but thought better of it and now I think we’ll make our own.
2. Found bake-able clay recipe, for Jesse Tree project. Need to get all 28 done by Thursday at latest so we can ship Friday at latest.

   2 cups plain flour
   1 cup salt
   1 to 1 1/2 cups cold water
   2 tablespoons cooking oil

   Mix all and mold/shape. Bake at 300 degrees for about an hour or until hard. Color (with what, craft paint?) then spray with some sort of fixative.

3. Order/request more books! Yikes! My book-devourers are much too fast for me!!!
4. Friday was game-day here. Sungka and Monopoly for Math, Chess also for logic…. even Yena’s getting good! I think we’ll have K’nex for Science tomorrow.
5. The FreeRice link is awesome. Never mind that they probably take a big chunk of whatever their sponsors give them, that is one neat game. I actually got first-hand proof of how knowing Latin and Greek can help! After approx. 1 year and a half of teaching the kids Latin, I was actually able to figure out so many words that I didn’t even know existed. I’m making this game part of our Greek and Latin curriculum, perhaps for Fridays. Oh, and it helps to know your swords, food terms, and body parts. So very useful for someone who wants to be a chef-knight-doctor.
6. Most of the seeds have sprouted!!! I’m just waiting now for some true leaves and out they’ll go into the cold frame.
7. New things to research: Jeffrey Smith stuff on GMO and allergies — yikes, scary stuff. Esp. that article re Kirk Acevedo and Monsanto. Finish reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
8. Awesome article: Contraception: Why Not? — touches on many, many points found in JPII’s Theology of the Body (most of which we have not read, but are on our list!)
9. Chore Chart needs to be re-printed and re-analyzed. Not working very well.
10. The kids are just loving cooking right now! They always have, but much more so the past few weeks. Especially Paco, who prepared his own breakfast yesterday (bacon and cheese omelette, argh!) Migi wants to cook more, on his own. And they’re the ones reminding me now that it’s their turn to cook. Yay!
11. Ais finally changed her mind re Discovery Camp, and went, and had the time of her life. I think it did her a lot of good, esp. after getting a bit depressed and missing her PA friends after Black Belt testing. There’s always that bit of a let down when we get back to OH. Sigh.
12. Mommy and Papa and Alvin will be back in the country tomorrow!!! Yayayayay!!!!
13. Dad’s been doing Squire and the Scroll with the boys. Going very well, and then we hit a snag with this Transformers thing. Long story. Short version: we’re getting the “Why do we have to be different” attitude these days…. Muaha. It had to come. Right timing too, around this age. But we’re standing firm, because it’s what we need to do. More prayers needed It’s a phase.
14. Actually found two salads Aisa loved in a — of all things — diet book. I pick some of these up once in a while, looking for unique salad recipes that aren’t just greens-and-dressing, but also doesn’t call for 20 ingredients. Maybe I’ll share later if I have time.
15. Had the family meeting re gifts last weekend. SOOO much fun! This is how we’ll do it every year from now on. I had everyone write down their gift ideas for each person, plus what they themselves wished to get. Tore the papers in half so I got all the wish lists. Each person came to “the meeting”, with the recipient sent to another room to occupy themselves. The rest of us shared our gift ideas for that person, picked which gifts we were going to buy/make for that person, based on their wish list, what we can afford, and what we thought the person needed/wanted. Everyone took turns, with dad and mom being last. I wish we had done this in years past.
16. Christmas cards going well… got 33 done so far.
17. Need to find the church envelopes and the November Magnifikids! St. Anthony, help!
18. College night was great! Aisa got to talk to someone in admissions at the college she’ll be attending, got some questions answered. We also visited several booths and got brochures. The J&W guy was funny and sorta selling hard. If she didn’t have to worry about dorm I’d love to send her there. She’s decided to test in July.
19. Will be driving home without B after Thanksgiving weekend, b/c he has to work at Cape. I’m actually looking forward to it, a bit.
20. Started the Consecration again, which I didn’t finish last time. Hopefully this time.
21. Funny, I actually have some food posts to blog. Haven’t done that in a while. Can’t say that I missed it a lot, but it would be good to record stuff for next year’s cooking.
22. Now all I need is to get rid of this PILE on my desk. This is not how GTD is supposed to work:). I guess you could say I’m still working my way through it.
23. Symphony seating came.
24. Parents’ meeting next week.
25. Yena’s next Little Flowers meeting in a couple of weeks.
26. What to bring to the Thanksgiving Celebration?
27. Get gift wrap materials and start wrapping!
28. Schedule nutrition testing for Ais and B.
29. Continue research on chelation therapy, mercury in the body, yeast overgrowth.
30. That Openness to Life essay.
31. That Blogging for a Purpose essay.

Okay, I think I’m all DONE!