Another pretty day here in Kentucky. Definitely a good day for a walk. It's been cool and pleasant all week. Someone said that we are going to have a mild summer this year. That will be so nice. I don't enjoy when it gets so terribly hot. We've been working on getting our summer planned, putting VBS and a small vacation on the calendar, park days, field trips and pool time. I want to go camping at least one time this summer. I've wanted to go for years, but never have made it. Maybe this year is our year. My sister is coming here for another visit so it will be good to see her again. The kids can't wait until the city pool opens so we can go there, but if it doesn't warm up, they'll freeze! Right now I'm going to simultaneously work, look for good hotel deals in St. Louis and look for resources on Oceania. :-)

Another picture of our house from the road. Doesn't it look better now that we mowed and did all that weed-trimming? :-P

Here it is, finally.

The picture that I tried to post so many times yesterday.

What a gorgeous day today.

I took this photo while we were on our walk today. We're trying to get mom back in better shape so I can keep up this summer at the state fair, the zoo, etc. I have slacked off on my exercise, although I've been making the kids exercise more. Not fair and not good for me either, so I'm trying to reform myself so we've been trying to go walking most days.

The kids and I had a meeting today to see how to finish the school year. I wanted to see if they wanted to abandon our unit studies and start again next year or keep going. We've finished Europe and they decided to do one more continent. We decided on Oceania which is Australia, New Zealand and some of the South Pacific Islands. We'll do Asia and Africa next school year.

I'm thinking quite a bit about the science day I'm teaching in a couple of weeks. I'm thinking of doing some chemistry, maybe making models of atoms, doing alka-seltzer rockets and mentos and coke explosions and then I'd like to throw in some kind of science art. Does anyone have any suggestions for that?

Well, dang it, just imagine a pretty blue sky because I can't upload the photo, no matter what I do.

I voted.

But not happily. I don't like any of the candidates much.

Overheard at our house tonight.

"For my birthday, I'm going to get a Nintendo DS. I want either blue or white.

I think I'll get blue.


Or white.


(insert squeally kind of tween sound here)


I don't know!"

Starting out slowly.

I was so tired last night that I couldn't go to sleep and consequently slept in this morning to almost 9:00. It's after 11:00 a.m. right now and I haven't even started work. I'm having to do an update which I should have remembered to do yesterday and with our slow internet, it's probably going to take a while. While it's doing whatever it needs to do, I'm trying to plan the science day I agreed to do for the homeschool group on June 2. The main problem with it is deciding what to do. I want to out-do Mad Science. Remember when they came to our homeschool group meeting and I was completely underwhelmed. I want my science day to be more fun and more educational, actually, come to think of it, that shouldn't be all that hard. Even twice as fun and twice as educational isn't much to aim for. (Can you tell I was really, really not impressed by Mad Science?)

Getting it done.

I had a good day today, getting a bunch of things done. I love when I can just check things off and that's what I got to do today. I'm tired, but it's a good tired. I got a couple of hours of cleaning in this morning, some laundry, some decluttering with some things going to Goodwill. Then we did school, the quick version, then I got to sit down and watch Ugly Betty that we'd recorded last Thursday. (really good episode!) Then we were off to town to get an ID card for my oldest so that he can take the CLEP tests, to Lowes to get concrete to finish our sidewalk we started last summer, to Game Stop (not my idea), to Walmart. I got back home just in time to use the weed eater for an hour before Dancing with the Stars. I'm pulling for Christy to win at this point. I think it's time a girl won again.

*I wrote this last night and accidently saved it as a draft, instead of publishing it, so I published it this morning. Oh well.

Lots to do.

I've got lots to do today. I love when I have a 'blank' day on my calendar. Of course it always fills up with a ton of things to do, but after a couple of days of sitting here at my computer typing, I'm ready for a change of pace. I'm toying with the idea of changing my day off from Monday to another day because there's always a ton of work in the queue on Mondays and not so much on Wednesdays and Thursdays or even working longer some days and going to a 4 day work week. I'm not sure how that would impact everything else. One of the women in my homeschool group works on Tuesday and Thursday and is off Monday, Wednesday and Friday so I don't want to work the opposite schedule from her because that would affect field trip scheduling. We'd never be able to go as a group. I guess it requires a little bit more thought and maybe I should email my boss? Technically, since I'm an independent contractor with their company, they can't dictate my schedule, but that doesn't keep them from trying!

SATURDAY, the week in review.

S - Sadness. I spent some time this week feeling sad for an old friend of mine who is fighting a battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and is not winning. She has been given about 2 weeks. She has 2 little boys.

A - Anticipating the end of the school year, thinking about what to do this summer and what to do next year.

T - Transcription. All weekend, that's what I'll be doing.

U - Underwater. My son has wanted to be underwater all week, because he got a new snorkle.

R - Reading. I'm reading a children's book called Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry. Weird, but interesting.

D - Dial up. This is the kind of internet we have. I hate it and it makes my work so much longer and such a pain.

A - Anticipating Monday when I am off work! (Yes I used anticipating for both "A"s. I couldn't think of anything else.)

Y - Yay! The TV/video game schedule is working pretty well. It is easier for me to keep up with, they are doing other things like playing outside, board games and art. I honestly think they kind of like it.

Friday.

Today we went to see Prince Caspian with the homeschool group. Our theater does field trips for local schools, opening earlier than usual and having a special price. They'll let our group tag along on these as well, so we get admission, popcorn and a drink for 6.00 each. Not too bad. We heard people talking on the radio last night about whether this movie would be scary for young kids and no one seemed to know, so I looked it up this morning before we went. I have a couple of kids who don't like anything scary at all in a movie. The review I read said there were a lot of nonbloody battle scenes and that was all. Unfortunately, there was a time when the white witch was trying to lure Prince Caspian over to the 'dark side' for lack of a better term, which did scare my youngest. He and I had to spend about 5 minutes standing in the hall of the theater. So my advice is to skip it if you have very sensitive young kids. Other than that, we enjoyed it. I need to read the book though because I feel like I'm missing some background material, like I didn't get the whole story.

Would you?

We go to Baskin Robbins on their annual 31 cents scoop night and occasionally we go on dollar scoop night on Tuesdays, but I am way too cheap to pay their regular price. Tonight, we drove by there on the way to the skating rink. Youngest son asked me this question. "If you found a lottery ticket and it wasn't used and you won a bunch of money, would you take us to Baskin Robbins tonight?"

Yes.

A few things.

Today we're doing school and work as usual. My mind is going forward to see how we are going to end this school year, what kind of summer routine we'll have, if any, what we may start with next year, etc. I'm still holding off buying anything until the May 30 local homeschool book sale. I've made a wish list which I currently can't find in this mess on my desk. I'll need to find that before we go to the sale!

I'm considering joining an educational co-op in a neighboring town next fall. I think it would be cool for the kids to meet some more homeschoolers and take art, cooking, science and karate classes, but I'll have to teach or help in some way and I'm not sure what I could do or how well my youngest will do in a group setting. He gets a little self conscious sometimes about his slow reading. I might either put him in a class with his sister or be the teacher's assistant in all his classes. I'll have to give that some thought.

Finally, a couple of conversations we've had around here, with the youngest, of course. That boy is just interesting. He's one of those creative, right-brained learners who is slow in some types of left brain dominant activities like reading and quick in everything else. Anyway this morning he was telling me that he's invented a super hero named Stan who uses toys in unusual ways, as in the 'soccer ball of death' and once used dominos to build stairs to climb out of a volcano.
Last night, he was wondering what if someone ate an egg that they thought was a chicken egg but it was really a phoenix egg and from then on, their stomach would catch on fire and explode and then a new stomach would rise from their old stomach's ashes ... I told you the boy was interesting.

I've also been trying to get work done and update my Cafepress store for Father's Day.

I can't believe how quickly this week has zipped by!