Living Unabridged

Well, July pretty much flew by and August is promising to be just as busy. (You can see a recap of our July here: Life via Blog: July) Today my kids are going to be part of a neighborhood "water war" (squirt guns and water balloons) and then we're meeting up with their out of town grandparents so two girls can spend a week (next week we'll switch and the three who didn't go this week will get their turn. The baby doesn't get a turn this year.)

So without further ado, on to the linkage:

Learning

• This is pretty much where I am in our homeschool journey (which is why I call it "Relaxed Classical"): Finding the Freedom to Unschool (at least a little bit) from Mary at Better Than Eden.
• Being Outnumbered By Babies and Toddlers: The Hardest Part of Sarah's Homeschool Year from Simple Homeschool. I'm loving this series.
• Homeschooling an Angry Child: The Hardest Part of Jamie's Homeschool Year from Simple Homeschool. I told you I'm loving this series. Both of these posts echo my life. (Though if I'm dealing with both, I wonder which is actually the "hardest"?)
• My 8 year old was asking me about this the other day and then I read this answer this week and I need to share it with her: How Do Fireflies Glow? from National Geographic.

Living

• When Progress is Slow but Not Steady by Anne Bogel at Modern Mrs. Darcy. When it comes to family projects I need some time to contemplate, but when I'm ready for it to happen I'm ready NOW (which frustrates my husband sometimes, especially if he didn't know I was thinking a room needed to be painted / new furniture needed to be purchased / etc.).
• Why We Fail at Family Devotions by Tim Challies. It's funny: if you had asked me if we have "Family Devotions", I probably would say no. But at supper we do our "Questions" (Baptist catechism) and we pray together every night. Sometimes we read through a devotional book or similar resource. So I agree: most people are making this concept too hard.
• Some how I saved several posts about parenting teens this week. Starting with: Raising Real Kids, Not Fakers by Nicholas McDonald.
• A Call for Teenagers to Be Free by John Piper. (I want to be sure our teen reads this one.)
• Thoughts and Tips on Teen Employment from Sarah at Clover Lane. I'm really grateful our library has a volunteer program for teens as young as 12 (it starts with two hours a week through the summer). Our young teen has volunteered for over a year now and this will definitely help her when she's finally old enough to apply for a "real" job.
• What Should We Do When They Stray? by Nicholas Batzig. Of course we all pray that this won't happen to our kids, but what if it does -what then?

Loving

• The Right Time to Marry Is...by Rachel Lu for The Federalist. According to this I was too young. But I can tell you: I wouldn't change that for anything. (To quote an old movie: "...when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." It's not my fault that happened when I was younger than 25.) Still, this is an interesting study.
• I started reading this book before I saw this great review: The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings reviewed by Corey Poff for TGC.
• Wise words from Chesterton: Journalism as a Picture of Exceptions. Concerned that "the news is all bad"? That's what it's designed to be.

Here at Living Unabridged I introduced our students for this year (plus their class pet), shared another quote from Climbing Parnassus, and did a quick review of July.

What caught your eye this week?