Tuesday, the last day of November!

I'm in my yearly denial phase that it could possibly be December first tomorrow.  We've made no progress on the Christmas lists.  I have done a few of the thing I had planned for this week.  I was planning on taking my oldest son in to be fitted for his orthotic tomorrow but he's got some kind of killer death flu and feels horrible, so that's more than likely going to have to be postponed.  Despite all 3 of  the kids getting this cold/flu syndrome this week, we're still doing school.  They aren't even really complaining about it.   We're doing pretty well on our days this year, on target to be a little more than halfway done by Christmas and yes, I realize that I should not have written that because something will happen to throw it off, but it always does anyway, so I'll just go ahead and say it.  Maybe some kind of miracle will occur and we will be halfway done by Christmas.  I went to Walmart (yes, again) today for cold medicine, Fruit Breezers, Cold-Eeze and bought every single thing on my list, did not forget the list at home, in the car or drop it in the parking lot or in store, so hey, miracles CAN happen. 

The younger kids are mostly past the yuckiest part of the cold/flu thingy and they are spending their spare time working on items to sell at a homeschool craft fair that we're going to on Saturday.  They've made 54 refrigerator magnets in the last couple of days.  My daughter is also making ribbon bookmarks.  They've also put the Christmas tree up and have spent quite a bit of time decking the halls.  At one point earlier today we had a Halloween windsock on the porch, a Thanksgiving wreath on the door and Christmas decor inside but the Christmas wreath is up on the door now.  I don't know if anyone's tall enough to get the Halloween windsock down except my husband so that is probably still up there.  

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I am working on an attitude of gratitude and contentment this week, trying to be happy with what I have.   I do have a lot, but sometimes I have a tendency to focus on the things I don't have and want.  I need to work on that.  It's a process. 

Lots to do.

I've got a lot to do today.  First work, then make all kinds of doctor's appointments and cook and homeschool and do whatever needs to be done to the house.  Then I need to go to the library and return some things and pick up the next Ranger's Apprentice.  We're listening to them all again.  It's funny because the first time I read them and it was with my Kentucky accent and now we're listening to the audio books and the man reading them has an Australian accent.  Plus, there are so many names that I pronounced one way and he pronounces another.  Sometimes we find these extremely funny, so it's fun to listen to them again with someone else reading. Anyway, back to what I need to do - At some point today I should work on my book, I should start Christmas shopping or at least get some idea where we're headed with that ....  The kids also want to put up the Christmas tree which will require an expedition into my closet and I'm not sure if I'll be able to come out of there alive so if you don't hear from me, that's why. 

Another day of thanks.

We celebrated Thanksgiving today with my mom, my brother and my aunt.  We had a nice time, although I was disappointed with some of my contributions to the menu (the stuffing and the turkey) my desserts came out fine and my brother's home-made mashed potatoes were out of this world.  :-P  Anyway, it was nice to take another day and be thankful.  After dinner we played some board games including one amazing game of Jenga which seemed to defy the laws of gravity.  I'll try and remember to share a picture of it when I have a better internet connection. 

Update:  Okay, here it is. 

One Christmas gift down, a lot to go.

After work today my daughter and I went shopping for a little while.  We missed all the doorbuster savings, but did not miss any of the crowds, it seems.   We were able to pick up something for my niece, so that's one gift done.  As for the rest of it, we haven't even made lists or given it any thought.  One of these days I will maybe get it together before Black Friday and go out early with a list, but then again, maybe not.  

An after Thanksgiving surprise.

It snowed a little bit last night.  My youngest son will be so happy to see it.  It makes it really seem like Christmas could possibly be right around the corner!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We're unexpectedly hosting but not cooking this year because my mother-in-law's water is out.  I'm looking forward to it.  I hope each one of you have a wonderful day.  Remember to take a minute and think about the blessings in your life.  :-)

Okay, we're not hosting, we're going

Have a good day everyone!

Whew.

Tuesday was busy, busy.  First, I had to work.  So I came to my mom's house to work at 9 ish.  I worked until 12:45 then went home, picked up my oldest son and took him to the doctor about his ankle.  It's an hour drive each way plus he needed another x-ray.  We got home a little before 5 p.m..  I sat down and took a short break, then got up and came back to mom's house to work.  I needed just about 70 more lines.  It took an awfully long time because I had awful reports.  (I have to take what I get in the job queue.)  Then I left straight from mom's house and went to mom's night out with the homeschool moms, then went into a Dollar Tree store that was right beside the restaurant, picked up my daughter at my mom's house and got home about 9:30 p.m.  I enjoyed the mom's night out part of it, but not really the rest.  Anyway, my son is going to need an orthotic shoe insert.  Maybe that will help.  I hope it's not too expensive, because I really don't think that's what he wants for Christmas.  :-P

Today, when I get home from work, hopefully I'll get to stay home.  Maybe.  I may need some ingredients for desserts I'm making for tomorrow. 

This looks interesting.

This book site that someone shared on the Homeschool Lounge.

Books Should Be Free

I also like  Daily Lit and Project Gutenberg

 

Weekend.

I did not get anything done this weekend.  I was going to, but I didn't.  I just didn't feel good at all, all weekend.  I was achy and needed naps, as if I'd been accidentally ingesting some gluten, but if I have, I have no idea what the source of it was.  I've been reading labels.  I've been careful.   At first I thought it was the stuffing I made, but I quit eating that and now, I just don't know.   It's frustrating.   So no progress on any household projects and no progress on the book.  On the other hand, I have been reading a book this weekend that I've been enjoying very much and we saw Harry Potter today which I also enjoyed very much, so the weekend was not a total loss or anything -just not what I had intended, but rest is important sometimes too. 

It's been a year since I went gluten free and it's also now been a year since my son broke his ankle.  It is still giving him quite a bit of pain.  He has had to ice it and elevate it a lot lately as it has been swelling.  Someone today told him to alternate hot water with cold water soaks and he's been doing that this afternoon.  He's not sure if it feels better or is just numb, but the swelling is down.  He has a doctor's appointment on Tuesday.

Thanksgiving is this week!  I can't believe it.  I had my first real bit of holiday-associated grief today when I heard a Christmas song that my Dad and I used to sing together.  That hit hard and I've had to spend the rest of today with swollen eyelids. and I'm sure the first holiday season without him is going to be kind of tough.   I hope they don't play that song at the Kroger when I'm shopping anytime this season.  They are already playing Christmas music in there.  I was inspired by it last week and came home and designed this shirt for my Cafepress store.

But on Friday it will BE after Thanksgiving and I will HAVE to give some thought to Christmas.  I'm not ready. 

Maybe today.

Maybe this evening I will work on my book or maybe I'll just go shopping.  I haven't decided yet.   There are some things I need to pick up and it is grocery day.  On the other hand, we're not desperate for anything and groceries could wait a day or two.   The kids are doing school and I'm done with work so I feel like I could just do anything.  It's kind of a nice feeling and kind of not.  Sometimes it's nice to actually have to do something if you know what I mean?  Sometimes you just have no choice and you need to do something in particular and you just do it.  Period.  There's no questioning yourself at those times.  When I have a lot of choices, sometimes I feel overwhelmed with them or sometimes I feel guilty for what I chose and what I didn't.  For example, I should have cleaned out the kitchen cabinets but I just read a book.  You know what I mean?  Does anyone else feel this way? 

T-h-u-r-s-d-a-y.

T - Thanksgiving practice.  I'm trying my hand at baking a gluten free cornbread stuffing/dressing recipe.

H- Having the day off from work is nice, but I have to ignore several desperate emails about work that needs to be done.  If I didn't ignore them, I'd go in and work every time I had a day off.

U - Unbelieveable that next week is actually Thanksgiving, isn't it?

R -.Really, I'm always in denial this time of year.  Can it be 5 weeks until Christmas?  

S -School as usual today.

D - Darn.  My stuffing did not turn out good.   It's flavorless.  I'm not going to throw it out.  I'm going to try and flavor it up a bit.

A  - Art has been one of my interests lately.  I have been wanting to work on art all the time, but really, I should be working on my book.  This month is flying by!

Y- Yucky - I feel a little sore and achy today.  I'm not sure what's going on with me, but I am not 100%.  Still, I guess I'm about 75-80% so it's okay.  Plus, it's my day off, so I can take a nap.  :-P

A couple of photos.

Yes, I'm messing with you all but I'm not one to show pics of the kids on my blog.  These are just 2 of the 800 or so photos that we got that day and now I have the monumental task of deciding which 1 (one!!!) goes on my Christmas card this year.  I also will be choosing some to be enlarged into 8 x 10s.  I'm going to be looking for all the free offers of photos this year, I will tell you that.  These pictures are SO good.

Report from yesterday.

Yesterday was busy but fun.  Okay, let me rephrase that.  It started out not fun, because work was horrible yesterday, but it got better as the day went on.  4H went reasonably well.  The Thanksgiving Mad-Libs were fun.  The cranberry salad the kids made was tasty.  The only problem was that with the mosaics the stick glue that we owned had dried up and we had to use liquid glue and it was quite a bit more difficult to work with, with the paint chips, which are cardstock, basically.  The kids did them with very few complaints (actually, now that I think about it, all of the complaints were from MY sons.  Hmm.)  Anyway, some of the kids came up with some really good looking mosaics, some didn't finish on time and some did some really basic things like just their initials which weren't very artsy, but seemed to make them happy. 

The cranberry salad actually has kind of a funny story.  The recipe I found on Cooks.com said to use 1, 12 ounce pack of fresh cranberries, 2 teaspoons of honey, 1/2 cup walnuts, 2 oranges and 2 apples.  But in the 2 stores we looked in, we could not find fresh cranberries.  We ended up having to buy canned ones with high fructose corn syrup.  I figured that these cranberries would not need the honey so I didn't get any.  I had also read a recipe that called for pineapple and one that called for marshmallows, so I bought canned cranberries, 2 oranges, 2 honeycrisp apples, a bag of walnuts, a can of pineapple and a bag of marshmallows.   Then, mysteriously, when I got to the 4H office, the apples had disappeared and when I got home, they were in my fridge.  As I said, Very Mysterious.  Anyway, the recipe got modified, out of necessity, quite a bit but was quite tasty.  We made 2 batches and as a group, ate every single bite.  A couple of people even took copies of the recipe home.  :-)

We were also able to plan the next 2 months of 4H and 2 of the other moms are going to teach, so I'm off until February!  

Just another 24 hours in the homeschooling life.

Mary Grace over at Books and Bairns has issued a challenge to all homeschoolers to chronicle 24 hours of their lives.  I gave it an attempt yesterday although it's not officially supposed to start until 11/22/2010 because I just felt like going ahead and doing it yesterday.  I must warn you though that at some point yesterday afternoon, my life kind of ventured into the bizarre and kind of gross.  Read at your own peril.  :-P
You have been warned!

7:50 am  I am sleeping in a chair in the living room with Freckles snuggled up with me, when I am awakened by my husband kissing me and telling me that he is going to a doctor's appointment, and that I should be sure and wake the kids before I go to work. 
8:15  I finally get out of world's most comfy chair and proceed to the kitchen, where I make coffee and load the dishwasher.  I have some time so I also load the crockpot with cowboy stew, put in a load of laundry, drink coffee and surf the internet for quite a while.
9:50   I wake up the kids.  Teens need their sleep and will sleep all day if not awakened.  I tell them to start school and I go to my mom's house to work.
10:30  I finally start work as mom and I have had a lot to talk about this morning and I had to reboot my computer. 
10:30 - 12:50  I type a lot of c-section reports, a lot of admission notes and a lot of echocardiograms.  While I am working, my husband comes home and supervises the kids homeschooling.  He gets the younger 2 kids started in the new Life of Fred books we ordered from Rainbow Resource last week.
12:50  I need only 20 more lines but I have to download and type whatever is next in the queue.  No choice. It could be very long and make me work another hour and a half.  I say a quick prayer that it will be short.  It is and I type it.  It's 29 lines.  Good.  I'm hungry for lunch.
1:05   I arrive home and eat some of the cowboy stew.  It doesn't taste as good to me as it usually does and I wonder if the new Listerine mouthwash I've been using for flouride and whitening has perhaps burned off my taste buds.  It sure does burn like it could do that.
1:15  I notice that Freckles is dragging her behind.  Uh oh.  My husband and I have a brief discussion over whose responsibility it is do squeeze the dog's hiney and evacuate her anal glands.  We quickly decide that it is the vet's job.  My husband said the vet said she would do this for 12 dollars.
2:00  Freckles and I are at the vet.  Despite only starting to have symptoms 45 minutes ago, she has an infection and needs antibiotics.  It is more than 12 dollars.
2:30  Back home, I check on the kid's progress.  Monday is math day.  One son is done with all of his chapters of Life of Fred pre-algebra and the other 2 are not done with their math.  (My husband assigns and supervises all of the math).  Even though it is math day, they also have other things, guitar and writing, among other things.   The kids and I do a quick house clean up and I start to plan for 4H tomorrow.
3:30  Once I figure out what we are going to do for 4H, I realize that I am going to need supplies for 4H and my daughter and I decide to go get them.   Before we go, we put the dog in a pair of shorts for reasons of hygeine because we do not own any doggie diapers. She actually looks kind of cute in a pair of my son's old shorts with basketballs on them but she is not happy.   
4:00.   My daughter and I are at Walmart getting paint sample cards to make a mosaic for 4H.  Then we go to Lowes and get some more.  Then we go to Kroger to try and find fresh cranberries for the snack part of 4H, but we can't find any so we are very disappointed and buy canned cranberries.  (We had already checked Walmart).  
6:15  We girls arrive home.  The boys are finished with their schoolwork.   My daughter still had school to finish.  For dinner we have cowboy stew.  I made cornbread to go with it.  I love cornbread.  The kids don't but that is their loss.  More for me.   The cornbread tastes wonderful but the cowboy stew still tastes not as good as usual.  I figure my taste buds must be alright after all and maybe I left something out.  The kids like it, although it is very spicy.  After dinner I load the dishwasher again and move the laundry to the dryer.
7:00  p.m.  Screen time begins at our house.  The boys plug into their computers.  My daughter watches TV in the living room while working on a sample mosaic for 4H.  I am watching the DVD we got from Netflix, The Mentalist season 1, disk 2 while cutting up paint sample cards.   I am really tired.  My daughter finishes her mosaic.  It's really good.  I worry that the other children may be intimidated.  I consider doing one myself so that they can see that anyone can do it but I am just too tired.  I don't feel good.  I've got some sort of bronchitis-y sounding cough and feel blah.  I watch more of The Mentalist and cut out some more things for 4H, look on the internet for some Mad Libs and some recipes that call for canned cranberries instead of fresh and piddle around with some other small projects and finally it is bedtime.
11:00 Bedtime.  I feel guilty that it is not earlier. We listen to Ranger's Apprentice, Seige of Macindaw for half an hour, then lights out.
5:00 a.m.  I wake up, put the dogs out, let them back in and fall asleep in the living room chair.  And that's where this story began.


Commentary:
This is done from memory and therefore leaves a bunch of things out.  
Freckles is better today. 
Yes, we keep horribly late hours.  We are incorrigible.
Our mattress hurts my back and I often have to move to the living room to sleep for at least part of the night, otherwise, I'll have a pretty severe backache.  
The kids do school from a checklist with supervision from both parents, but there is not much, if any time that we all spend sitting around the kitchen table doing school at the current time.  We may change that in January but for now, what we're doing is working reasonably well.
Would I say this is a typical day?  Probably not, but it is a true sample of one of our days.  Each one is different.

I look forward to reading about your days.

Now, the waiting.

We had a great time walking around the park taking pictures by every pretty tree and rock, by the lake, on benches, walking towards the camera, walking away from the camera, everything we could think of.  My friend took at least 100 pictures.  I saw some of them on her digital camera screen and they looked really good.  Now I have to wait until she gives me a CD with all the pictures and then I get to print the ones I want.  I can't wait to see them.  You know when you get your kids pictures taken at one of the commercial studios, you have to wait approximately 2 weeks?  Well, I have to wait all the way until tomorrow!  Whew.  Think I'll make it?

School pictures.

Since we're homeschoolers, we don't automatically get a package of school pictures sent to us a couple of times a year.  We have to arrange for them ourselves.  I've tried a number of different places through the years but those commercial photo studios always leave me with a bad taste in my mouth.  I feel guilty for not buying every pose and yet I also always feel that I've spent way too much money.  So today I'm having a friend who does photography as a weekend business take some photos of the kids.  I'm excited about it, but not nearly as excited about it as my friend. She keeps emailing me with suggestions and ideas.  It's really cute. 

Friday, finally.

I'm finally doing my Friday blog post.   I've thought of several things throughout the day but now that I have sat down, at last, to write it, I can't think of them.  School got done.  Work got done.  Basically though, I can't think of anything to blog about.

Hmm.

Let me see what I can remember.

I do recall at one point today the kids asking to do more biology.  That has not happened before so that was interesting.  

We added 5 more dollars to our 'sacrifice for World Vision' can for a total, now of 7.16 cents.  I kind of think it would be cool to do one of those micro-loans, get the money back at some point, then loan it to someone else.   That might be a fun family project for years to come. Maybe we can add to it as we go along.

I did not work on my book today.   I'm pretty much procrastinating about that now.  Maybe tomorrow?    Or not.

I'm downloading several free things from Currclick  They have one thing free each week but they have a bunch of things that are always free so I'm taking a look at those.

Another odd thing, we have a houseguest tonight for a sleepover and Freckles is pretty much behaving herself.  Maybe she's mellowing out?

That is the sum total of all the thoughts I have right now.  I'm tired and there's just not that much going on in my head.  I think I'll make it an early night if I can.

Ah, Thursday.

My day off from work.  I love Thursdays exactly the way I used to love Monday when it was my day off.   Today I am going to putter around the house.  I also need to run at least one errand in town, one that I had to put off while I didn't have a driver's license, but that's it.  There are no kid activities tonight.  We may do some board games and have some family time.  I've moved the kid's cooking /home economics class to Thursdays so we'll be doing that today.  I need to figure out what they should cook.  The only thing I ever remember cooking in my 8th grade home economics class in school was brown sugar and cinnamon toast.  Kind of strange choices, I mean, I like them, but they don't really involve much cooking skill, measuring or anything and they're not very healthy.  I read something yesterday that said that some organization (can't remember which) was encouraging families to cook and eat at least one meal a week at home.  Well we are certainly doing better than that!  During my hiatus from cooking or cleaning or basically doing anything, when I was a zombie for several weeks after my Dad passed away in January, we still ate pretty much all of our meals at home ... the kids and my husband just prepared themselves something to eat.  I think they ate more sandwiches during that several week period than anybody should, but they were reasonably healthy sandwiches, prepared at home.


Speaking kind of, of eating out and things like that ... I read an article in an old Family Fun magazine (while at the dentist)  about a family that decided to make small sacrifices and send money to Haiti after the earthquake there.  They'd pass up eating out or getting ice cream and put that money in the Haiti fund.   We're going to do this for the month of November and give some money to World Vision.  I got the catalog from them yesterday in the mail.  We can buy a family in a third world country 2 chickens for 25 dollars and they can have eggs to eat and sell.   I made my first tiny little sacrifice last night.  I was in a store getting dish detergent and I saw those Christmas peppermint sticks I love so much, but I didn't buy them and when I came home, I put a dollar in the fund.  I'm going to put some kind of chart up on the wall to help us keep up with it.  It's not much, but it's just a little extra thing we can do to help others and I think that the month of November, when we are supposed to be thankful for what we have, is a very good month to give to others.  

Free!

I'm free to roam now.  The Commonwealth of Kentucky has generously given me back my driving privileges.   Thankfully, I did not have to pass a driving test.  To celebrate the two younger kids and I went to the library and Walmart, then stopped by Baskin Robbins for dollar scoop night.  Do we know how to celebrate or what?  I actually kind of enjoyed not chauffering them around for a couple of days but I also enjoyed getting back out there.  I guess it was like a vacation, nice to have a break, then nice to get back to normal.

My new addiction.

It's cornbread.  That cornbread I made today was so good.  I ate a bunch of it.  I ate it instead of the veggie soup for dinner. I ate it as an after dinner snack.  Every minute that I wasn't eating cornbread, I was thinking about eating cornbread.  Okay, maybe I am exaggerating a little but, wow, that stuff is good. I haven't had any cornbread at all for over a year since going gluten free.  I bought the gluten free corn meal at Whole Foods a few weeks back and today used the recipe on the back of the bag to make the  cornbread.  I used masa flour and gluten free Bisquick instead of wheat flour and put in creamed corn and onions.  Yummy. 

I know what I'm going to have for breakfast.  

Still grounded.

I'm stuck home today but I'm making the most of it.  I've made vegetable soup and the best gluten free cornbread ever.  I've been doing a little cleaning on the house and working on my book.  The kids have been doing school.  The younger 2 don't have math today because they have finished the first Life of Fred book and we've got another one ordered, but it hasn't arrived yet.  I didn't feel like finding any math to assign so I assigned a few extra chores instead. They were thrilled.  :-P

Cooking.

I added a cooking class to our homeschool this year, which basically means that the kids cook on Fridays.  Sometimes they cook a meal and sometimes just a dessert.  Since I discovered the A Year of Slow Cooking blog, I've been loading the crockpots full several times a week and this Friday there wasn't much of a need for the kids to cook another meal, so they made chocolate chip cookies and since we didn't have any chocolate chips, they cut up left-over-from-Halloween fun size Snickers.  I applaud this kind of innovation.  Wow did they smell and look good!  Too gluten-y for me though, unfortunately.  Then on Saturday, we had kind of an impromptu cooking class again.  We cooked, peeled and pied our sweet potato crop.  We are very proud that we grew our own potatoes this year and made 3 pies, 2 with crust and 1 without.

My youngest does not feel that he needs cooking class. He can already make cold cereal, pancakes, waffles and toad-in-a-hole (egg mixed with ham, fried in a skillet, inside a piece of bread that you've torn a hole in).  Regarding cooking on Friday, he said "I can already cook myself breakfast and for lunch and dinner, I'll just have banquets."  To which I replied "Banquets?"  picturing fancy feasts with a lot of people.
"Yes" he said, pulling the box out of the freezer.

Banquets.

Grounded!

I have been grounded.  Didn't that term originally apply to pilots who were not allowed to fly for some reason?  Well, in its infinite wisdom, the Commonwealth of Kentucky has grounded me, in other words, they suspended my driver's license because of a "glitch" in their computer system.  I got a speeding ticket in August for going 45 in a 35 mile zone where most drivers go about 60, but I digress.  In September I completed an on-line version of traffic school.  At the end of the course my status on the on-line sign in page was changed to "complete" so, silly me, I thought I was done.  Then I got a letter yesterday saying that I had never enrolled in traffic school at all and that my license was suspended effective October 31.  So basically, I've been driving without a license for a week.  Anyway, I looked up my status on the on-line school and it said "complete" and showed that I had paid for it.  My credit card was not denied.  I was stumped, so I called the toll free number and the man on the other end said that I must not have passed the test at the end.  Then he said that I had gotten 90% and that I only needed 80% and it must be a "glitch". Then he said he was going to transfer my call to the instructor and I would have to answer a few more questions.  While on hold, I'm hoping I remember the traffic laws in case its more test questions he's going to ask, but no, he asked my birth date and my address then told me that he'd electronically send something to the driver's licensing board (the school is based in another state) and then it would be up to the licensing board to see when I would get my license back.  So what it all boils down to is the school web site had some kind of problem and the state didn't send me any kind of warning, just suspended me.  I hope  it is straightened out soon. 

Does anyone else remember me kind of whining the other day about how I feel sometimes like I live in my van? 

Irony?

Everest.

We got Everest season 2 from the Discovery Channel through Netflix and I'm watching them climb today.  It's kind of fascinating.  I mean, I want to say "why?" but I have to admire their courage and determination.  One of the climber is 71 years old and one has pretty severe asthma.   Last season, one of the climbers was a double amputee.  I'm going to finish disk 1 of this and then have to wait several days for the next installment to come from Netflix, to see if they make it.  I am determined not to Google it and see how it all turned out. 

Looming!

Does it seem to anyone else that Christmas is looming?  How did it get so close?   It seems like it wasn't even in my thoughts at all and now I see Christmas things everywhere I go.  At least they weren't yet playing Christmas music in the grocery store when I was shopping tonight!  I personally would like to see Thanksgiving get a little more attention.  I love Thanksgiving, such a simple and sweet holiday.

Since this is a homeschooling blog basically, I will share that I think the changes to the schedule have worked this week.  They were only slight tweaks and I do feel that they helped us get it all in and now I don't have to feel guilty.  That's always a good thing. 

{Insert clever title}

As I have stated before, it is difficult to come up with a blog title when you aren't entirely sure what brilliant, fascinating things you're going to blog about.  And, add to that, if you've been blogging for 6 or so years, and you don't want to repeat titles exactly, it makes it even more difficult.  Still, I  perservere.  keep trying.  I am off work today and that is just a wonderful thing.  We do have a couple of things we need to do in town later, but right now, I'm free; free to take down the garbage, free to clean the house, free to cook.  That's life though.   Freckles is very, very happy because she loves garbage day so much.  She gets to ride in the van, go down to the road and smell things.  And today, I forgot one bag and had to go back down so she got to go twice.  Such joy for a little dog.  She could hardly contain it.  Actually, she didn't contain it.  She ran around in circles with happiness.

School seems to be working okay this week.  I changed it up on the grammar a little to make it easier for them to do it without me, knowing I was going to have to be in and out.  The youngest has been having some trouble passing his Life of Fred end of chapter tests called Bridges and so he's been doing a lot of work on that.  I also put him on some copywork that's  called Boy Scribe that i got from CurrClick.  He has to write one page a day.  Today I checked his work from yesterday and found that all his 6s were reversed.  I'm not sure what to do about it.  We've tried everything it seems.  I secretly think that his occupational therapist had him graduate from therapy because really she had no idea how to address this either.

My haul of books from the library last night was large and contained the sequel to My Side of the Mountain and also a recipe book written by the same author which included things like acorn pancakes and hickory nut pie.  We may have to try one of those.  We sure do have a lot of acorns.   At the library, I also got several cookbooks and I intend to start working on my book again soon.  I haven't worked on it since Sunday.  Please remember to nag  encourage me to work on it in comments throughout this month.  :-D

Long day.

I worked today and then took Mom to the pain clinic to get a steroid shot in her back.  We arrived at 12:50 and got to leave a little before 5.   The procedure itself takes about half a minute.  It drives me crazy to see a place so disorganized and so uncaring that their patients are in pain and waiting for hours to be seen but they are the only one around here and so we go.  The shots do help her.  Now I am at the library all by myself, looking for good read-alouds and blogging.  I can't wait to be able to pick the kids up and go home!

The report.

I had a great time on the field trip and I think most everyone else did too.  We read My Side of the Mountain which is about a young boy surviving in the wilderness alone and then we went to the forest and a couple of park rangers led us in learning how to build a fire with flint and steel, build a shelter out of deadfall and find wild edibles.   We picked up acorns, hickory nuts and black walnuts, chestnuts, persimmons, apples and crab apples.   I didn't know you could build a fire using a cotton ball as tinder so I learned something today.  It was 65 degrees and sunny, the perfect day to be out in the forest!

F I E L D T R I P ! ! !

Today we get to take a field trip.  I'm excited about it.  I'll post the details later.  Yesterday went pretty well.  The small changes to the lists were noted and I think they'll work.  We also dug up our sweet potato crop.  We had about 20 potatoes from one half of one I planted that had grown eyes in the pantry.  They were small, but it was a lot of fun to dig them up.  Our garden did remarkably well for our garden.  We only planted 1 pumpkin, 1 potato, 3 peppers and 3 tomato plants (I think) and we harvested quite a few veggies.  A lot of years we have had plants and vines but few were pollenated.  I think the fact that we had purple coneflowers this year and they attract TONS of butterflies, also helped our veggie crop this year.  There was also the fact that we moved the entire garden closer to the deck so that it got more attention from us and was further away from the morning glories.  That helped too.  Next year, of course, I will have to plant more.  Spring always brings hope of a new bountiful crop.

Nice weekend.

We had a very nice weekend with parties and celebrating.  It was very fun.   Now it's back to reality a little bit because I've got to work and the kids have got to do school today, but we'll live.  I finally, just now, made some changes to the schedules.  Since I seem to be running to appointments and things all the time, I've made more of their subjects self taught.  They are pretty good at following the routines now even when I'm not here.   I do have to nag them about school a little bit most days, but they are strict on themselves to the minute on screen time, not even turning the TV on 30 seconds early.  It tickles me.  I can just picture them as adults, two of them talking on the phone and suddenly one of them says "Hey, look at that, it's screen time, I've gotta go, talk to you later!"

Anyway, we'll see if these changes help things get done.