The Best Day Ever!

My daughter has a habit of saying, "This is the best day ever!"  Sometimes she also says, "This is the worst day ever!"  I like that she continues to call a day the best because that means improvement/progress.  The worst days are usually when she just doesn't obey from the start.  I don't like those days either.  Coming off the holiday weekend, we did have a bit of a rocky start this morning, but things quickly turned around and in the end I told my kids that this was the best day ever at LSA.
What made this happen?  I've previously written about finding our pattern and it has been hard to do.  Now with 6 weeks remaining, I think I'm finding a good groove.  I've discovered this in Sunday School and Children's church teaching as well: When the teacher is well-prepared, the class runs more smoothly.  Today at LSA, the teacher was well prepared.  I've been looking over the many different teacher planning pages and most require lots of paper and ink for printing and others require a purchase of a book that only half has what I want.  Then from within me I hear, "Use what you've got."  OK, what do I have.  I looked at my phone apps computer programs and realized that I had been using Outlook's calendar for my planning when I was working as a director of nursing.  I have outlook on my computer and haven't used it since my primary email account is now web-based.  I opened it up and planned this week out by half-hour segments on my Outlook Calendar.  I know they offer similar calendars through gmail and yahoo and other sites.  I just have never used one to its full potential.
I might not stick to this in detail, but it gives me a more organized look at my day.  I really do better if things are more concretely organized and I found today that when I am organized concretely, my kids feed off of that and we all have a better experience.  Each home school parent must find a system that works for him or her or the end of each day will seem to have a feel of defeat.  Outlook calendars may not work for everyone, but since I've been to workshops on how to make Outlook work for me, I feel very comfortable with it.  I'm glad to use it in this setting too.
Now that I've given a lot of credit to my new system of organizing, I really need to rewind a bit too.  I went thrift store shopping to prepare for our family Seder meal. One local store is owned by a great Christian family and in it I found a devotional book.  One Year Book of Devotions For Kids book 3.  I've been reading  each day from this book since last Friday and this morning we started our school day with this and prayer.  I have not been consistent with time to start or praying before we begin and really feel that doing this will turn the direction of our school days.
The portion of the teacher being prepared for each school day is not made irrelevant by the devotional to start the day, but it actually is validated by this.  If I am spiritually prepared for my school day with my kids, it makes a huge difference as well.  We haven't arrived at "Home School Family of the Year" by any means, but we're getting better at what we do and that is a good thing!