Construction

Rumble rumble beep beep beep

I'm so pleased that the construction crew responsible for repaving my street decided to start work at 6:30 a.m. today. I'm glad they are here, but I'd rather they wait another hour or so.

What could it harm? Considering some days they don't show up at all. Their word not to work on Saturdays turned into a lie.

They're notice that we would not be able to use our driveway for 2 - 3 days has stretched into two weeks now (not for everyone, we're just one of the select few).

For that matter, the written notice, delivered August 7th, that they would begin paving on August 8th was false too.

And regarding constructing a school year? Thank you all for the comments about keeping on schedule yesterday. This is most certainly something that does not come naturally to the Artist. And I do agree not allowing realistic time frames has been part of the problem. Twenty-minute daydreams in the middle of copying a word from the rough draft to the final draft of a paragraph, or in the middle of emptying the waste paper baskets are a problem too.

Recognizing that this is an unnatural yet valuable skill leads us to a balancing act at home. I think August may be a bit uncomfortable for the Artist as we remain rather stringent.

Once school begins, she will hopefully have made it a habit to think about keeping on task when her mind begins to wander. Then more of the subject balancing will shift to me, so we get to what we are supposed to cover this year. We don't want the stress of the schedule to be foremost in her mind when she is doing school work. Rather, the subject before he should have her concentration.

Allowing the Artist to choose the order in which she covers her subjects is a great idea and I'm sure it will be welcome to her. Thank you!

Part of classical education is discovering links. For reading class she will read Homer, Plato, etc. (re-written for middle-schoolers) and for art she will study ancient art and in history she will study ancient civilizations. I'm hoping she can bring these links to me as she discovers them and we can talk about them in minutes, rather than have her reverie about them when she is supposed to be doing something else.

When the time for creative writing class comes, she excels. I learned last year one tip to help my Artist find the track (not yet on the track, but approaching it!) was to allow some creative writing time every day. That will need to continue throughout her school years, perhaps throughout her life.

As I'm writing I wonder how much of these grand plans will fall apart before the end of September. As long as we take more steps forward than we take back we'll be coming out ahead.