I'm tempted to say this week has been a total waste.

But I won't.

A nasty cold that several of us have shared and the delightful but disruptive aberrant weather have combine to scuttle my best laid plans for the school week.

Well, okay, scuttle is too strong a word here (how strong IS a scuttle, anyway?) but at the very least our week was "decimated."

From a pure planning and executing standpoint, we didn't do very well. We tried, we really did, and we got a few things done. But how could I scream too loudly as the kids tried to fill the freezer with the icicles "so Dad can see them when he gets home!"? How could I deny these poor southerners a few of the delights that I experienced growing up in less temperate climes? The truth is, I couldn't say much since I didn't even have enough voice to answer the phone. So I've tried to walk the fine line between staying "on track" and allowing the kids to enjoy the rare weather.

Of course, we do still have tomorrow. But Fridays here are generally devoted to wrapping up the week's work: testing, final copies of writing assignments, etc. And we haven't done enough to "wrap up"!

So...because I believe in a God who makes no mistakes, and because I know I gave it my best (at least for a week when I wasn't AT my best) I will move on and get ready for next week, trusting God's hand to cover over the rough places and fill in the gaps left by the colds and the weather and the Papa's trip.

At least there's this: in 22 years of homeschooling, I've learned that these weeks, and even sometimes a month here and there, are much less important in the scheme of things than they seem to be at the time. In hindsight the grand sweep of life tends to obscure the road bumps, and many times the memories made in times like these turn out to be more valuable than the equivalent number of algebra lessons would be.

(Now....where is that Scientific American article on the formation of icicles? We could at least read that together, huh?)