Fun day with the homeschool group.

We planned gym days every other week this summer and it has really worked out great.  I've enjoyed them very much and I think everyone else has too.  Today, while the kids were playing basketball, badminton and volleyball, the moms played Telestrations.  It was fun as always.  The funniest one was when my friend attempted to draw a groundhog seeing his shadow for groundhog day and I thought it was a bungee jumping pig, or when my other friend drew a humpback whale that looked like it had Mick Jagger lips.  LoL.  

Afterwards, we went to Burger King and had 50 cent ice creams and talked and talked.  Just when we were ready to leave, a kiddo came in that my kids hadn't seen all summer due to schedule conflicts, so I had to stay later and let them talk to her.  They had all missed each other very much.  It was a great day seeing friends.

Yes.  Homeschooled kids have friends.  :-P

Computer Issues.

I got up this morning to find that I had 2 computer issues.  One was a network/internet issue that, though we tried very hard, we could not solve until my husband, our in-house technical support person, got home from work.  With that one solved, I could contact my work and try to get help with the other problem.  Apparently, with the hard drive failing in my computer, as we already knew it was, it has lost track of a file called "backward beep tone" and it can't play a little beeping sound that it wants to play when I back up my wave player.  So the whole system won't work because of this little beepy thing.  Crazy.  The tech support guy from the company I work with tried all kinds of solutions to try and go around it and to try and diagnose and fix it, to no avail.  There were many hours today spent dealing with these frustrating issues. 

In other news, 2 of the kids caught colds from VBS and the other one probably won't last long, so today's planned first day of MWC (Mom's Work Camp) was postponed.  Next week, though.  It's happening.  :-P

I hope.

My Pinterest Score.

Last night was VBS commencement and afterwards, we had a small party.  A few of us were standing around talking about pinterest and one woman said that she had pinned a bunch of things but had never done any of them.  I, of course, tried to start thinking of things we had actually done from Pinterest.

Here's our hastily assembled score just from a quick glance at Pinterest.  (I'm working this morning after all!)

On my homeschool board, I've done or used about 4 out of 21 pins.

On my books board, I've read or used (book reviews) most of them.

On my built ins and rooms I like boards, I have done nothing.  These are just for dreaming apparently, of some day when I have money and/or time.

Art journal board approximately 17 of 56 pins.  I have used bits and pieces, but not copied whole pages.

Craft and Bake Sale Ideas - My daughter and I have used about 7 of these out of 207 pins.

Thoughts - I have had 100% of these thoughts.  :-P

Gluten Free Stuff - We've tried 19 out of 22 of these.

Recipes - 3 of 36 pins and really, that's plenty.  The recipes I pin are things like chocolate cobbler and something called Died and Gone to Chocolate Heaven so I'm better off not cooking them.  I need to make a low calorie recipes board.

Here's a link to my Pinterest boards and here's a link to a book about how to use Pinterest.  

I'm still here.

The kids have been busy with VBS this week and for some of them it requires a nap each afternoon.  They aren't morning people, folks.  I have been not feeling well as I posted before and so today, I didn't go to my volunteer shift and took a nap.  After the nap, I got in the pool and it was wonderfully warm and felt great.  I feel better now and my heart is not doing drum solos, so that helps. 

I have declared next week, Kids Work Boot Camp week.  It's mandatory.  They need to get some things done.  We need our gutters cleaned out and someone needs to clean up Piper's messes and that's not gonna be me.  They have been working this week 3 hours a day for VBS and they can do at least that much at home each day next week. 

I checked out a library book today Trim Health Mama.  I haven't gotten into reading it yet, but hopefully it will contain the magic formula so that I will lose weight once and for all.  A girl can hope.   While I was there, I did a bunch of the summer reading activiites.  One of them was checking out a quote book and writing the quote on the sidewalk outside the library with sidewalk chalk.  I chose a book called The Quotable Einstein because it was pretty much the only one I could find and wrote the shortest quote I could find in it on the sidewalk.  It was something about not trying to teach someone until you had learned something yourself. 

I didn't want to sit on the sidewalk and my knee did not want me to squat, so I backed into a corner and bent over, trying not to draw too much attention to myself.  A woman walked by with her child while I was writing and you should have seen her face.  You could tell she hadn't heard how different the adult summer reading program was this year and I think she thought that the vandals in this town sure are unusual, middle aged, female, chubby ...

Not feeling well.

Last week's adventure with taking too much medication accidentally, threw my heart into it's irregular rhythm/palpitations thingy that it sometimes does, so I have not felt good for the past few days.  Not. At. All.
I went to the doctor yesterday and she was not particularly concerned.  She ordered a heart monitoring study to be done.  On the one hand, I hope the palpitations go away immediately so I will feel like I'm not dying, but on the other hand, I would kind of like them to still be around to show up on the monitor this time. 

As usual, when I don't feel good, life goes on.  Unlike most people who work I don't get paid time off, so I continue working even when sick.  The kids are doing VBS so I'm trying to make sure I have a meal ready for them when they get home.  I remember how I would come home starving from VBS when I was a kid. 

Other than that, not too much going on this week.  I did go to a mom's night out last night which was nice.  I got to see one of my favorite moms who I don't get to see very often, but missed a couple of the other ones.  :-)  It's hard to find time for everyone to get together. 

Anyway, that's my report for today.  If you are a praying person, pray I get this monitor thing done soon or that the palpitations just go away very soon on their own.   I'm pretty miserable.

Public Speaking 101.

My oldest son was asked to speak last night at church about his trip to Peru.  His camera had stopped working on the first day, so he borrowed some pictures from his friends, set up a projector on his laptop and stood up and talked about his trip for 30 minutes.  He did a good job too, speaking clearly and you could tell he'd learned a lot about the country while he was there.  Afterwards he answered questions from the crowds, like if it doesn't rain there, how do they get water (it runs down off the mountains) and what are those crops we can see in the fields (beans and corn).  What was the most interesting cultural food item?  (fried guinea pig).  Even I learned a lot. 

That's one kid I won't have to worry about being paralyzed by fear when he has to do public speaking in college, it looks like.  :-)

Well, this is embarrassing.

Okay, my plan was that I would blog about my getting ready for our school year and challenge my blog readers to do the same, after I had done it, I would challenge you to do it.  And what have I done?  Pretty much nothing.  I accidentally took too much (double) of one of my medications on Friday and since then I've felt pretty awful.  I think I may be turning it around now, but whew.   The only thing I have done is incidentally, while cleaning the kitchen, I took the old writing papers out of the hanging file on the side of the fridge and, I'd like to say stored them neatly in a file cabinet, but I threw them out.  I don't feel it's necessary to keep every little thing.  I still haven't cleaned out the big old wardrobe that contains most of our homeschooling supplies and I need to badly, but I'm probably going to make my kids do it and at the same time, challenge you to do it. This is what we have that I did clean out -  Nylon File Folder Thingy.

Another challenge.

This one is kind of cheating because I didn't write it, but go to Laura Grace Weldon's blog and read her article about homeschooling.  It's really wonderful. 

Here's the link. 
Homeschooling Worries Erased

We all know I can't count.

Thanks to the 2, #10 challenges in the summer challenge list, so I'm not numbering these.  We've got 39 days until school starts here in our house, so really there's no rush for us, but we were in Walmart yesterday afternoon and it seems like getting ready for school is in full swing there.  The teacher's lists are up in the school supplies aisles and they are packed.  I did the public school thing for 6 years and I tell you what, I am SO glad not to have to do it anymore.  For one thing, it's expensive and for another thing, it's crowded and you have to follow directions, which we all know I'm not good at.  (like not ending a sentence with a preposition, apparently, LoL.)   Last night we went by the school supplies aisle and picked up the one thing we always buy this time of year, the 17 cent (they used to be 10 cents) single subject notebooks.  I got several.  The kids use these as needed for math scrapbooks and for writing the occasional novel, so they come in handy. 

So anyway, my challenge to you homeschooling moms is to brave that aisle and find the good inexpensive things you can use and really, really enjoy that you don't have to follow the school purchasing rules.  The freedom is so wonderful.

Last night I followed a pinterest link to homeschooling quotes and enjoyed them.  Here's one I like.

Here's another one, a quote from my favorite Dr. Suess book, Yertle the Turtle.

Okay, two things done.

I sent my letter of intent and I decided on a date to start.  It's kind of a no-brainer, but my oldest son starts classes on August 26, so we will too.  He'll probably drive down over the weekend before that.  It's a simple thing, but looking at the calendar and making some plans is very helpful.  Essential.  As a person who works Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday and volunteers on Thursday and goes to church on Sunday, visits my mom on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, does 4H (7 clubs this year!), gym days, grocery shopping, piano, mom's nights, laundry, housework and various other things, I can tell you, if I don't write it down and make a commitment to it, it ain't happening.    My oldest son wants to go to Mammoth Cave this summer.  We've lived here near it, his entire life and he's never been.  The other 2 kids and I went last summer, but he was working full time third shift then and couldn't go with us, so now I'm staring at the calendar trying to figure out how to fit that in.

So if you are with me, and you've got your date to start, now it's time to think about and jot down some of the subjects you want to cover this year.  So far, I've written down brain gym, foreign language, geometry/ algebra 2 and Straighterline   because I might want my daughter to go ahead and start getting some dual credit this year.  I'm just in the preliminary stages, which is 'starting to think about it."  but hey, it's something.

Now What?

Okay, now that we have concentrated fully on enjoying the summer for a few weeks, we should start to think about starting back to school.  Around here, the public and private schools start in about 4 weeks and July is the time to send in our letter of intent to homeschool.  Some states require this and some don't but that is always the signal to me that it's time to start giving the school year at least some thought. 

You might want to think about it while floating in the pool, lying in the back yard hammock or while vacationing in some exotic locale (I wish), but it is time to start thinking about it.

What day are you going to start this year?  Plan it.  Mark it on your calendar.

Wrapping Up The Summer Challenges.

I know summer is not over and I am thankful.  We've really had a good one so far.  It's been great having our big boy home. 

In case you didn't do the challenges or want to do them again, here they are as a list.  It seemed, as we were going along that there were 13, but there are really 14, because there were 2 #10s and 14, is a good, not unlucky number and I can't think of any more, so I'm going to wrap it up. 

Don't you wish you had an orderly mind like I do?  LOL.

Anyway, here they are.
1. Have a family game night.
2. Do a good deed or random act of kindness.
3. Visit a farmer's market, free festival or event in your town.
4. Go swimming.
5. Play family trivia.
6. Get together with friends.
7. Catch fireflies.
8. Be thankful.
9. Declutter.
10. Take a walk and appreciate nature.
10. Eat fresh seasonal produce, preferably something you can pick yourself.
11. Stop on your usual route and look at something from a new perspective or try something you've always wanted to do.
12. Invite someone to dinner in your home.
13. Eat a fruit you've never eaten before.  There are all kinds of cool things out there right now and you can combine this one with the farmer's market or picking your own produce. 

In other words, unplug yourself from electronic devices and enjoy your summer.

Summer Challenge 13.

Yesterday we tried a fruit we had never tried before, a sprite melon.  It was okay, kind of like a honeydew.  I'm personally not a big fan of any kind of melon but watermelon, but this was more palatable to me than the others, although I don't think it was at optimum ripeness..  I wonder why I've never heard of it or seen it before?  We've also tried golden raspberries this week, which are awesome. 

So, try a new fruit.  Have you already eaten ugli fruit, star fruit, pomegranates, yellow raspberries and sprite melons? 

Summer Challenge #12.

Our challenge is usually based on what my family did the day before and yesterday we did something really fun, we had another family over for dinner.  This is something that it's easy to procrastinate about, so go ahead and think about who you want to invite and invite them right now.  After you are committed, then you can make plans about what to serve, etc.  Make it something simple and have a good time with it. 

Actually we had tacos and hamburgers on paper plates, but this made a pretty blog picture.  :-) 

Yesterday's adventure.

Pretty much everyone enjoyed the kayaking.  :-)  Boy oh boy was it hot for the observers though.  Whew. 

Today's challenge, #11.

We are going to go kayaking, kind of, with the homeschool group today.  We're not going on a long trek or anything, but most of the kids have never gotten to get in a kayak including 2 of mine and we have a kayak and one other family has 2, so we are just going to hang out at the boat dock and take turns letting the kids get a feel for it.  So today's challenge for your family, try something new or look at something from a fresh perspective.  This will be a fresh perspective for us, of a lake that we drive by pretty much every day.  This time, we'll be on the other side of the lake (a mile or so away from our usual drive by) and even on the lake, which is not something any of us have gotten to do before. 

One time last year, we stopped and got out and looked from the dam, which we usually just drive right on over and we discovered that there is a really cool water draining system in the dam, which we'd never seen and also a path along the lake that we did not know was there.  So get out of the car (safely) and look at something close up or from a different angle today.  :-)  Maybe even just walk down a street you drive down frequently.  You see so much more when you walk.

Two reallly cute crochet projects from the past week.

This is a working clock, folks.  How cool is that?

She has spent the last couple of days working on this bunny.  Too cute.

Summer Challenge 10.

Okay yesterday was a much better day.  The sun came out and stayed out pretty much all day.  It was wonderful to have a day without rain!  Based on our activities yesterday, is your challenge for today.  Eat some seasonal fresh produce.  Yesterday, we had watermelon, fresh picked blackberries (yes we found some!) and summer squash.  Two of the dogs joined in and helped us pick (and eat) the blackberries. 

Talk about challenges ... #10?

It's hard trying to have a good summer when it rains EVERY. SINGLE. DAY..  We've had rain and storms daily for some time now.  Everything is saturated.  We haven't been in the pool at all.   So today's challenge, stop and smell the roses, look on the bright side or something.  I personally am going to venture outside to get the mail and try to find some flowers to appreciate on the way.  I'll see which kids and dogs will walk with me.

Despite the rain.

Updated to say all of the girl pets went with us, which means Max stayed in while the 2 younger kids and I walked with Lucy, Piper, Zoey, Zelda and Freckles.  Quite a parade.  We found 2 blackberries which looks to be our entire crop this year.  :-(   Also, we found a very pretty gladiolus getting ready to bloom. 

Summer Challenge 9.

This is something we've been working on a little, decluttering.  My oldest son is selling some things on Ebay and we donated some stuff to the church yard sale.  So your challenge, sell, give away or donate some things you need to get rid of.  :-)  Make some space in your home.  :-)

The 8th Challenge for the 4th of July.

Celebrate freedom.  Enjoy your family.  Be thankful for what you have.

Summer Challenge 7

Catch fireflies and then let them go.  :-)

Summer Challenge 6.

Get together with some friends.  It's a great week for that since it's a holiday.  Invite someone over.   Agree to meet somewhere.  Our homeschool group does a lot of getting together at restaurants, ordering some dollar menu items and staying for a couple of hours.  Today, we've reserved a local gym for a couple of hours of active time.