Concerts

 What a busy week.  On Friday and Saturday we had the Christmas festival which was amazing.  Thursday B and lP had a concert.  Tonight M had a concert.  Christmas is busy with concerts but I love the music.

Blowing gum

 For FHE we had a combo activity/treat blowing bubble gum.

B struggled which was good because he is used to doing everything so easily.

Christmas break

 I am finished with finals.  I'm pretty sure I got all A's but the university online system was having a lot of issues so grades aren't in.  I took my finals last week before things crashed.  Yay!  Doing assignments early has been a super power for me this semester.  I do much better when I'm not under a deadline.  It feels good to get things done a week early.  When I get close to a due date, I stress instead of getting things done. 
I know that working under pressure is considered a virtue.  I have lived under pressure for so long with raising kids and all the crisis that happen day by day.  I'd rather be like the farm hand that can sleep when the winds blow, because they did all the work before the storm arrived.

One of my professors is a real educator.  She has a larger vision for the students we need to become.  I have learned the most about myself as a learner, and how to study effectively because of the assignments she gave us.  She had us write papers, outlines, video presentations and oral presentations.  I'm so grateful for her.

My strategy for getting ahead on the content is to look through each chapter and make an outline before the lecture.  I add the lecture topics to my outline and fill in other material from the book as I have time to.  While I am off for the next month, I plan to have all the outlines for 2 of my classes before the first day off classes. One of the classes even has a bulleted list in each chapter of "Main points".  Nice!  I use a paper planner to assign myself tasks to stay on top of these non-graded learning strategies. 

Christmas Festival

 This year P, M and I are playing brass in the Christmas Festival Orchestra.  I love this group.  It is wonderful to put this together in a month of rehearsals.  The choir is very good and the instrumentalists pull it off.  The combined 2 stakes put on this amazing festival with rooms decorated like Bethlehem.  It is really beautiful.  I'm so glad we got to do this together.

Thanksgiving 2024

the kids stayed healthy and we were able to visit family and friends in Florida. We spent a day in St Augustine visiting downtown, beach and having a meet-up at the park.

We had so much fun in Gainesville with family.  We played solitaire, hiked for shark teeth and saw the botanical garden.  We did a park meet up with AL and his kids.  Thanksgiving was delicious.  Grandma C had the kids help cooking and prepping.  It was a great visit.

Busy Week with lots of band

 This week lP had a football game to play trombone in the pep band on Thursday. M had a football game to play at Friday.  Saturday was the marching band competition that the high school puts on.  I volunteered at M's game Friday and at the competition doing concessions.  Today we had a rehearsal for the Christmas orchestra and I got to play baritone next to M.  M also received her patriarchal blessing today.  It was a very busy week.

L has a persistent cough.  I really don't like it.  I don't know what to do about it.

Epiphany on working under pressure

 I have been studying since May for my classes in speech pathology.  Now that I am in the classes I work ahead to avoid ever having to get in a procrastination loop of unproductively.  I have had to work in pressure situations for so long that I possibly thought that I work well under pressure.  The pressure situation is met with all the skill and reservoirs of sleep that I have.  So I have done well in pressure.  But if I can avoid pressure by doing the work early that is so much better.

"Working well under pressure" is often held up as a virtue and people don't prepare appropriately believing that they work better under pressure.  It is important to be able to function under pressure and not give up.  But it is crucial to do everything you can to avoid creating pressure when we could have prevented crisis.