High School at Home; Emma's Story

We have been BUSY! Emma has done great progressing with school work, had her first gymnastics competition of the year, and it seems none of us can stop buying "just one more thing" for Christmas. Algebra: Emma finished Pace 7 out of 12 last week. She got an A + on her test! Ancient History/Literature: we have completed through lesson 40, other than those last 60 pages of "Homers Odyssy", which she has to finish before being officially on break. Writing: we are just over halfway through her text, chapter 12 of 23. Emma continues to do her own creative writing almost every night. Chemistry: we finished chapter 7. French: we are in chapter 5, but only doing review of the entire semester this week. Today is our last official day of school till early January.  Emma had her first gymnastics meet Sunday. She didn't do nearly as well as usual, but that is to be expected, since she missed 10 weeks due to her fractured spine and her coaches personal issues. ...

Due to doing NOTHING for Christmas last year, I've gotten way ahead of myself this year. The lights and tree have been up for two weeks. 90% of the gifts have been bought, and a good 75% of them are wrapped. I was so afraid something would happen to me again and I wouldn't be around to make a nice Christmas for everyone, so I began shopping in September. I'm so happy and blessed, and I want to show everyone how much I love them.

A year ago I was laying in a coma. A year ago I had died on November 29th, been coded and revived after over an hour, and would miss most of December due to being in the coma.  A year ago I became 7 weeks behind in school, was in the hospital 4 weeks, and OTHER than school, haven't caught up yet with household chores, yard work, and life. Due to my now chronic fears of something happening to me again, I push Emma to the Max to not only get school done, but to double up on work and get ahead. I had certain goals I wanted done by certain deadlines this school year, and so far we are right where I wanted to be in most subject areas, and ahead in several. I am even more thrilled, though, about Christmas! A year ago I had NO decorating, cleaning, shopping, or wrapping done until a brief dash through stores in a wheelchair on the 24th, my 1st day home from the hospital, still deathly ill, but home only because I threatened my doctors to let me go home to be with my kids, or I'd check...