Don't Sweat the Small Stuff! Values Development.

For the Values and Character Development part of the home school stuff my mom and I are doing a bunch of different things.  One of them is a book and workbook for Don't Sweat the Small Stuff book series.  You read a chapter that has a story with a lesson and then turn to the workbook page that goes with it and it has questions for you to answer or things to discuss and consider.  I liked the first one a lot.  It talks about how in our daily lives we get all stirred up by the frustrations that pop up in life from traffic to people annoying us or things taking longer.  It was saying there are two rules.  The first is #1 Don't sweat the small stuff and #2 is  It's all small stuff.   Our goal on this trip, besides learning to stow stuff really well, was to find grace, perspective and knowledge. 

Living in an RV is hard and small and requires a lot of patience.  We find grace in moments where we don't yell at each other when we trip over things or don't have enough room or something breaks.  I am working on my grouchiness as my first step as I can get snarly about things and snap at people.  So, this week I am catching myself and working on my tone of voice and I have already caught myself three times today alone!  It's working!  Mom says we are "works in progress" and continually changing, growing, learning and improving.  It's never too late to change and to start right now. 

What bad habits do you have you'd like to change or other people wish you'd change?  (Next week's for me will be biting my nails!)


We are also reading stories on growing up, what it means to be an American and studying different cultures and religions so we can work on tolerance and sensitivity.  Goodwill has provided us a bunch of good books on these topics as we try to stop every state or so to see what's available in different places.  The best goodwill so far was in Richland Center, WI.  (Lexington, Missouri area was the worst.)

Happy Trails!
Jack