Veronica Boulden

So many graduation gifts; so many thank-you notes! We try to take the time to send thank-you notes (or make phone calls of thanks) as soon as gifts arrive, even if we end up doing less schoolwork or chores because we are taking that time to do so.  For what profit it a homeschooler if he or she learns all the facts and grows up to get a great job, but isn't even courteous enough of an adult to send thank-you notes? 

What's it like having a kid about to leave for college? It's a time of transition.  Some days I am excited.   Some days I do a lot of crying realizing how much I'll miss her.  I have always homeschooled her, and I was always a parent first, but in the last several months to a year, my daughter has become a true friend and intellectual companion, so it will be a real loss for me when she goes away.   She's graduated, but she actually has just a few more Physics assignments to complete for me before June, so she's technically not entirely done with her academic work.  She's working (almost full time) to pay for college tuition and housing next year. She'll be going to school without taking any loans and accumulating any debt. So she's trying to manage her Physics, household chores like laundry, and hobbies like piano in the time left over at the end of her work days. I'm giving her some advice about that, but also giving her more space to fail than I h

We do a little reading, piano, math, and handwriting throughout the summer. For handwriting, my Challenge student is currently working through Prescripts Cursive Passages: Poetry . In it, she recently copied "Death, Be Not Proud" by John Donne in beautiful cursive script. After completing the assignment, she drew this separate picture. "I love this poem. I used daffodils, because they always remind me of the Resurrection," she said. 

Books, audio and printed, that I finished reading in April and May: Strange New World   The Garden of God   Teaching From Rest Another Sort of Learning   Mere Christianity   Oedipus Rex   The Complete Poems of Keats Skyward   Starsight   Books, audio and printed, I am reading or rereading: Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh Cytonic  by Sanderson Plutarch's Lives The Great Tradition  by Gamble The City of God  

My husband Dwayne was planning a camping trip with some male friends from church, but the friends had a family emergency, so our family decided to use the site for an impromptu camping trip instead.  The girls stayed in their own tent for the first time ever. Shown below is their attempt to put it together without our help. The eight person tent we bought when the oldest was a baby was too cramped the last time we all slept inside it, so it was time they graduated to their own tent.  Apparently, a tree fell over the road and was cut away. Its large root base remained behind holding on to garnet rocks and a huge pile of fresh dirt. The base started sprouting various weeds and mosses of all sorts. I thought it made an interesting picture.  The temperature was up into the nineties, so we enjoyed splashing in the very chilly brook.  This is one of my summer reading goals to improve as an educator over this break.  Funny, we checked the weather where we lived, but not forty-five minutes awa

"One look and my stone heart crumbled; It was a valley as green as jade. I swear it was the color of hope. You've turned a stone into a rose. Hosea!" -Lyrics from "Hosea" by Andrew Peterson There's one day in spring, maybe two, when the leaves are new, when they are still unfolding, when they are the exact color of jade. I tried to capture it in pictures.   

We enjoyed a lot of time with family during Norah's graduation. My mom and sister flew in and stayed with us for a week. Dwayne's sister and her husband Steve also came up. They stayed in a cabin a few minutes away. We shared meals and good conversation. My sister and mom were a lot of help with my house and the kids. I'm thankful family was willing to come to share the occasion. It certainly would not have been as meaningful or memorable without their presence. 

My Challenge 4 class graduated. That includes my Norah. “Lord of yourself I crown and miter you.” Teaching this group through their last two years of high school has been/ will always be one of the greatest privileges and joys of my life. One part of our Theology studies this year was reading and learning about Psalms. The pictures how the Psalm that Sam, Laura, and Norah composed together and surprised parents with as part of the ceremony. I still can’t believe we are already at this point in life. It feels like yesterday that I was teaching pre-school Norah her letters. But here we are. I testify that God is faithful, anything is possible for those who believe, His grace is sufficient, and His power is perfected in weakness.

With more margin for arts and crafts, the girls usually watercolor every other day of summer vacation. They often like to follow along with Let's Make Art's You Tube tutorials.  With the right supplies on hand, assorted paints, watercolor paper, brushes, etc., they can do any project.   

Adele's reading The Iliad, the graphic novel, in her free time right now. It's also summer, so there's a greater amount of leisure time for crafts, so she made Diomede's shield from a frozen pizza package, markers, and some Scotch tape. 

  I think I got the idea from a homeschool podcast.  On holidays, we put out a new puzzle on the dining room table.  It's fun, relaxing, promotes leisure.  It brings everyone together.  Now it's tradition in our home.   We'll buy a puzzle and wait.  Then as soon as our Classical Conversations semester or year is finished, we put out a puzzle the very next day.  This May when our CC year ended for the summer break, we put together the puzzle shown above.  And we'll often pair a puzzle with a new audio book, enjoying a few hours of listening and working everyday until it was finished. 

On Mother's Day, after church and Bible study, Dwayne took me brunch without  our kids. As we left them home to make their own lunch, our oldest made a remark such as, "So basically, on Mother's Day, you want to a break from mothering." She was speaking in jest, and we all had a laugh, because yes, that was the truth of it. At brunch, I had my first Bellini made from Prosecco and peach nectar. Wow! Actually, I probably had my first three  Bellinis, since the waitress continued to fill my glass as I sipped. It was a lovely drink, a lovely brunch. Later, I had a long nap and awoke to work on my jigsaw puzzle while listening to an audio book. Altogether, it was a lovely, delicious, restful Mother's Day 2022. 

I directed Challenge 4 this year, and one of the last events of this year was the Senior Thesis Presentation and Defense.  My three students, including my oldest daughter, wrote twenty page thesis papers on topics of their choosing including:  Christian Education and the Public Schools Masks Mandates Were a Mistake Modern Dating is Ineffective   Then they had to share their papers with a panel of judges two weeks ahead of time and then stand and present an abstract of their paper to an audience and answers challenges from a panel of judges for thirty minutes.  They all did a great job!  It was a rewarding culmination of several years of the rhetoric, logic, debate, composition, research, and public speaking they have done through the Classical Conversations Challenge programs. 

 Adele was given a Memory Master t-shirt as an award for completing Memory Masters this year. She wore it right away. 

  Our Classical Conversations group had their year-end Field Day and Awards Ceremony.  First, we had Chickfila for lunch.  Then each class got their certificates of completion.  Pictures above show my youngest with her Foundations and Essentials classes, and also receiving her Memory Masters certificate.   Later, I ran the group through field day activities including tug of war and three legged race and parachute games.  Finally, the ice cream truck came to finish the day!  It was a great time to celebrate another CC year well done.