Happy Halloween!

This is Freckles wearing her witches outfit. She doesn't like it at all, hence the "help me!" eyes you see here.

I'm feeling better today (thank goodness). The kids didn't get around to carving the pumpkin yesterday so they are doing it right now while I finish up working. After that, we'll get dressed and be off trick or treating.

Keeping on.

We're hanging in there. I'm still not feeling great. I hope I feel better by Monday when I have to do orientation at work. I don't think it would make a good impression if I showed up loopy on painkillers. Tylenol will have to be all I get. Today I'm working and the kids are doing school. When they finish, I told them that they could carve the pumpkin. They've decided that they'll carve it and light it up for only a few minutes, take a picture and then make it into a pie. They've got their priorities right, my children.

So far, so good.

I seem to be feeling a bit better this morning. (Of course I haven't done much yet!) I managed to make it to the homeschool meeting last night then came home and took my pain pill, read to the kids and went to sleep. We finished reading "Peter and the Secret of Rundoon" last night, which is the last of the Peter and the Starcatchers trilogy. Great books. We enjoyed them very much, even the older son who said he didn't want to read anything about Peter Pan. Now they want to read the original. I've never read it. I wonder how it will stack up to these newer novels? A few years ago we read the original Swiss Family Robinson and although it was good, I was disappointed. The style of writing has changed in the few hundred years since that was written.

In homeschooling news, I seem to have perfected the method of getting the kids to homeschool themselves. Yesterday when I was in such pain, I walked through the kitchen and they were in there doing science experiments that they'd seen on Fetch, having finished their morning lists, which include all the basics of math, reading, writing, exercise and chores. We were supposed to have a session of working on their novels yesterday and we should have looked at the protozoa (s?) under the microscope to see if there are any yet but we'll do all of that today. I've learned not to sweat the small stuff. If we don't get to it now, we'll get to it later. Even if we don't get to that specifically, they'll learn something today. They are interested in so many things and they will read, look up, discuss, ask and experiment on their own because they love learning.

Homeschooling is so cool.

Not up to par.

I'm not sure why, but I'm not feeling good this week. I don't know if it is related to the procedure I had done Friday or not. I've got some weird pain that is kind of in my abdomen and kind of in my back and kind of in my hip. I'm not sure where it is originating from but it really hurts. I've got some pain killers that the doctor gave me the other day for my procedure, but if I take them, I can't work or drive, so I've not been taking them. There's really, truly nothing I want more than to just take 1 and lie down and be left alone for a few hours, but instead, I'm typing 18 minute long renal consults by a doctor who says "um" a lot and urging the kids to get their schoolwork done. We've got a homeschool group planning meeting tonight that I want to go to. I don't want to go to the doctor, but it might come to that if I don't feel better. Maybe tomorrow.

A blank day!

There's nothing on the calendar today! I still have a week before I start my new job and only a couple of things on the calendar all week -- okay, 3 --- no 4. Nevermind.

Still, there's today. We can get the house cleaned up and get some good quality school work in today. We've gotten bogged down in our study of Learning to Write the Novel Way because my youngest son has so many characters to write character sketches for and since he doesn't write fast and I do his writing for him. It's kind of a long, drawn-out process. We may flesh out the remaining characters today, with me typing and him dictating. That may work better and faster for us and then he'll be caught up with the other 2 and ready to proceed. My daughter is loving this novel writing study and wants to do it every day. My youngest is convinced that he's going to be able to publish this novel and get startup money for his invention company that he's going to start. Hey, he may do it. He's got some interesting ideas. They all do. I'm interested to read their books when they get them done, hopefully next spring.

Okay.

I'm okay. I don't feel 100% yet. I did some work yesterday and then we went to the Hallelujah-ween party at church last night. The kids did some trunk or treating and then we had a chili supper. I won one of the door prizes which were some very cute little decorative pumpkins. I can't believe it's this time of year already, almost the end of October. It's been a crazy fast month. Sooner than we think, it will be Christmas!

Still feeling fine.

Other than feeling like I spent some time doing some very amateur sword swallowing, I'm fine. I guess I'll be back to work and everything else as usual tomorrow. I've kind of enjoyed the afternoon today, after it was all over and after I took some pain pills and had a nap, I worked up the energy to clean up the kitchen, cook some chili and enchiladas and now I'm watching house MD on my laptop while updating my blog and working on my Cafepress store. (You see what I meant the other day about switching back and forth a lot?)

Today.

I had a little medical procedure today. It's fine and I had no complications, but we had to be there at 6:30 am, an hour's drive away, which means we had to get up at 4:30. Guess that what makes it time for? Definitely time for a nap.

I've been tagged.

Here are the rules: 1. Link your tagger and list the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog-some random, some weird. 3. Tag 7 people at the end of the post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs. 4. Let them know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. I was tagged by Amy at Little Treasures. So let's see, 7 random facts:

1. I graduated from Eastern Kentucky University with a degree in Child and Family Studies, which was basically useless and then I got a transcription diploma from a correspondence school.
2. I find it very difficult to think of random facts, even though my brain is a very random kind of brain.
3. I love to play the Sims 2 and play it too much.
4. I have double jointed hips and can put my palms flat on the floor from a standing position without bending my knees.
5. I used to hate onions but now I crave them. I know, it's weird.
6. I have a store on Cafepress. (Sorry, just had to throw in a free ad!)
7. I use a lot of exclamation points when I type emails and blogs. (!)

If you want to be tagged, you're tagged. I know, it's cheating, but I really need to get to work today! (There I go again with the exclamation point!)

Lots of things.

Okay, this is one of the days when I have lots of things to say. There's no rhyme or reason to it. It's just one of the things that comes from being scatterbrained. I read the other day that people who switch from screen to screen on their computer all the time are not doing a good thing for their brain and it makes them more scattered.

That really explains a lot.


Anyway, without further ado, here are some of the things that have appeared in my scatterbrain overnight that I felt the need to blog about.

Xena:
The cat that would run in my house and pee has disappeared. In retrospect, I think maybe her crazy peeing was kind of a cry for help and maybe she had kidney or bladder problems, but I didn't think of this until it was too late and she was gone. Now I feel kind of bad, but I still don't really miss her, sad to say. It's hard to miss a cat who pees on you.

Another cat story:
My Mom and Dad have 4 cats at their house, also outside, a collection of strays from here and there that they just started feeding. They've always had cats because I like them and Dad likes to give them clever names. Over the years they've had a succession of Toms, Big Toms and Little Toms and Even Tiny Tom. They once had a cat called Old Blue Eye because he (or she, I can't remember) had one blue eye and one green eye. Currently they have a Tom, Sasha (named by a grandchild), Cat of Many Colors (who is a calico, named by Dad) and one cat who has several names. Mom and Dad told my kids to name her so they started calling her Sally. Meanwhile, Mom and Dad forgot they told the kids to name her and started calling her Abby (after a cat we had a long time ago, of similar color, named Abner). Then, the kids and started reading the Hank the Cowdog books and started calling the cat Sally May after the lady in those books. So the cat is called Sally, Sally May and Abby. My daughter said the other day "We ought to call her Cat of Many Names."

Book recommendations:
We're still reading the Peter Pan series by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. I can't recommend these enough. They're cute and funny and very adventure filled. Every night when I stop reading, I hear "No!" The kids don't want me to stop. "One more chapter!" "Please!!!" Last night I even heard a "no" from oldest son who is usually more subdued. They are very fun books.

Homeschooling:
I've been kind of unenthusiastic in my posts about homeschooling because I've had other things on my mind and not been very 'with it' with homeschooling. Fortunately, though, the curriculum we got this year is very good, we are settling in to homeschooling very well now after 5 years and my husband is very good about taking up the slack when I don't feel well (I had a really bad headache for 3 or 4 days last week). All that said, there is a lot of learning going on around here. We've been doing the Earth Science which is very good, learning about habitats, biomes, kingdoms, species, etc. and the microscopic explorations kit which is even better. We've been looking at all kinds of things under the microscopes, crystals, fabric, money and other things and we're going to start growing protozoas and looking at them. We've learned about similes, metaphors and oxymorons in our English Through Art curriculum. The younger 2 kids have been doing a measuring unit study from Math Mammoth and have been measuring everything in the house in inches, centimeters, liters, gallons, quarts, grams, ounces ... every way to measure. They've really enjoyed it. Meanwhile older son continues with Algebra 1, computers, and all that high school stuff. I'm planning on having him take some more CLEP tests this year, but I need to discuss when with him and his Dad and have him take some practice tests. So we are doing school even when I don't blog about it.

I think that's all for today. :-0

Sometimes I just don't have all that much to say.

Like this week. I don't know why. Sometimes I've got all kinds of things to write about and sometimes I don't.

This is next to my last long Sunday working at this job and I've got to work all day. I'm enjoying the cool weather we're having this weekend. I love fall. We've been doing some fall-y things, which mostly seem to involve food. We made caramel apples. We had a family soup and sandwich party at my cousin's house. This is a great time of the year for chili. We've been trudging along with school, getting some things done, but it's not been one of our "up" times for school, I don't know why. One thing is that the weather has been so nice that the kids want to go outside a lot and I like to let them. I think playing outdoors is really good for kids, exercise, fresh air and all that, so I have been letting them as much as I can.

We did morning school most days this week and on Wednesday, we did several sessions of afternoon school activities but no morning activities, so we did basics four days and enrichment activities one day. It balances out. The kids have worked on their home maintenance skills and car maintenance skills this week, we've been doing our read-aloud which is Peter and the Secret of Rundoon. (If you haven't read the series Peter and the Starcatchers, Peter and the Shadow Thieves and Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, you should!). I've heard that reading aloud is very good for kids, and we do about 45 minutes every night so that's got to count for something, right? We are instilling a love of reading in our kids, that is for sure.

I should have known that if I titled this post something about not having anything to say, that it would end up being a long post ...

Cat Nap

Here's our kitten, Zelda, sleeping on a box in our backyard. We had originally put the box out there for her to sleep IN, but she prefers ON.

Learning to live without my word expander.

I use a word expander for my job called Shorthand. I used to use SmartType and loved it, but it couldn't work with the software I have to use for my job, so I got Shorthand and now I'm quite happy with it. Unfortunately, though, at my new job, they don't really use a word expander; well, they said they had one but it wasn't any good. In preparation for working there, I've been trying to type this morning without mine. I've found that after just one report, my arms and wrists hurt. I guess I need to do it all the time now, to train my arms and get them used to it? That is one part of the new job I am NOT looking forward to.

For an example of how shorthand works, here's what I type:

ld:
sod 139, k 5, chl 108, bi 20, bun 92, cre 7.2, glu 128, calc 7.9, albu 2.6. Wbcc 7, hg 9, ht 27.1, pc 173.

and here's what the report looks like after Shorthand expands it all.

LABORATORY DATA:
Sodium 139, potassium 5, chloride 108, bicarbonate 20, BUN 92, creatinine 7.2, glucose 128, calcium 7.9, albumin 2.6. White blood cell count 7, hemoglobin 9, hematocrit 27.1, platelet count 173.

Sigh.

I'm gonna miss it.

Trying to get things done.

We've got the social worker coming today at noon and somehow, we need to do school and work too. It wouldn't be a big deal if I were one of those highly organized people whose house is always clean and neat, but I am not, so when the social worker comes we have to clean and straighten up. She has to tour the entire house every time she comes so every bit of it needs to be clean. We can't just shove things in the bedrooms and close the door, not that we'd ever do that. ;-) While I've been cleaning, I've been day dreaming about winning the HGTV sweepstakes and hiring someone to clean my house every day ... (hey, a girl can dream!). I was also wondering, as I went through the house, what I ever cleaned up before we got dogs. It seems like I just clean up dog hair all the time now. It's a full time job in itself. I guess I should stop blogging now and get back to work. I also need to give notice on my current job since I'm starting my new job in a couple of weeks.

Finally.

The lady from the hospital finally called and I'll be starting working there on November 3. I think it will be good for me to get out of the house 3 days a week and having 4 days off per week will be great too.

Now I'm off to watch Dancing with the Stars.

Crabby.

I'm kind of crabby today. The kids are supposed to be doing school but the 2 younger ones are in my office whining and procrastinating. Some days that bothers me more than other days. Today, a lot. I still haven't heard finally from the job offer, which is frustrating me to no end.

On the school front, hopefully I'll get in a better mood and we'll have a good afternoon school session today. It could happen I guess. Maybe if I had some chocolate ...

This and That.

We're doing a little of this and that this weekend. My sister is visiting from out of state and is at my Mom and Dad's so we're spending a little bit of time visiting over there. There's a big art and craft fair in town and I'd like to check that out a little bit. I'm also working a little bit. I haven't given notice on my old job because the other day when the lady called to offer me the new job, I told her that I needed to call her back and let her know. Since she called almost a week later than she said she'd call, I'd given up and forgot all the questions that I was planning to ask. After I got off the phone, I remembered the questions and decided to take it no matter what, then I tried to call her back. It was only about 10 minutes later. Anyway, she didn't answer the phone and I got her voicemail. I've left several voice mail messages since then (1 per day) and she still hasn't called me back, so I'm starting to get a little worried. Hopefully, she'll call Monday and I can quit my old job and go on with my plans to aquire a work wardrobe, something I haven't had for a while.

Yes, I'll still be homeschooling.

To answer some questions in my comments section, this job is only 20 hours a week and we will definitely be continuing with homeschooling. We'll homeschool in the morning and I'll work in the afternoons. One of my concerns is that I'm the only one who drives the kids to 4H, skating, game night etc. and I will try to work around that as much as possible. So our lives are going to change with me working outside the home again. The younger 2 kids are worried a little bit but I think they'll be fine. They don't have any memory of me working outside the home, so it will take some getting used to.

In homeschooling news, more of our constant adjustments, I took out some chores and added in more exercise for the kids. Getting enough exercise and eating right is a constant struggle around here, so we're always working on that.

Well ...

I was wrong about the job. They have had some kind of computer glitch and just called and offered it to me today. I was surprised and couldn't think of any of the questions I had in mind last week so I asked if I could let them know in the morning. There's really no reason not to take it. It will be more money and I will have benefits including paid time off. I will have to commute, but I think that after 10 years, I'm ready for work and home to be separate again and anyway, it's only about 8 miles. The thing about working at home is, you're always at work and you always feel, at least I do, that I should be working. I'm kind of excited about it and a little nervous. I haven't worked among the public in 10 years and it's always hard being a newbie, but I'll get used to it, I'm sure. I will need a work wardrobe because I don't think my current homeschool mom clothes will do. :-)

"Okay"

I've kind of had no wind in my sails for the last little while but I'm still here. I'm still working at the same company, the hospital that I interviewed for did not contact me. They may have had trouble getting through to me by phone. I've tried to keep the phone line open but since we have dial-up internet, it's almost impossible. I kind of expect to get a letter from them saying we tried to contact you but couldn't so we hired someone else. Either way, I'm okay with it. My current job is okay.

School is going okay too, not great, but okay. We've had trouble generating much excitement but we've been getting the basics done. I've realized in my few years of homeschooling that's just how it goes sometimes. We'll get back in our groove soon. We always do.

I had titled this post something else, but when I started typing it and realized how many times I had used the word "okay" I decided to make the title that.

Grocery Shopping.

This is one area of my life where I just cannot get it together. I would like to be one of those people who go in with a complete list and coupons, having already planned out our meals so that I don't buy anything we're not going to use and don't waste any money, buying only healthy foods, etc. However, I usually just go in, with no plan and grab some things, spend a ton of money and come home feeling awful, only to be confronted with my family's disappointment because I forgot something. Sometimes its something I had no idea we were even out of, sometimes I knew but just forgot. Sometimes I just can't find it in our newly remodeled store. Anyway, it's depressing, especially with the prices going up every week. Today, though, I did realize something. I wore my most awful jeans that look bad on me and make me feel fatter than any of my other jeans do and I ended up buying less junk food, so I'm probably going to wear those horrible pants every week from now on. I figure they saved me about 10 dollars.

Wild Times At The Library.

We went back to the library yesterday. This time, it was for a reptile program. A reptile expert brought a bunch of them, along with some insects to show the kids and tell about each animal. He had lizards, spiders, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, snakes, an alligator, an alligator snapping turtle, an African box turtle and many other animals. Near the end he asked for a volunteer. My daughter's hand went up. Then he said "I need somebody who can follow directions really well". She put her hand about 1/4 of the way down when he said that. (She gives direction very well, I'm not sure about following!) Anyway, she was chosen. I think maybe he'd been watching the crowd throughout the show for someone who wasn't afraid or something, I don't know. She went up to the front and he told her to be still like a tree, to not turn around and to remember to breathe and then he put a 4 foot long python on her shoulders! She seemed fine with it, just stood there talking and laughing. I was impressed. The librarian took a picture but I don't know if she'll remember to send me a copy or not. I had not taken my camera, of course. After the rest of the show, all the kids could line up to hold the python and my younger son did it too. My older son loves snakes and would have done it, but he was off in search of books at that time and missed it.

Normalcy.

We're trying to get back into normalcy this week. We went to the library for craft day yesterday and it was okay. My daughter so impressed the librarian with her ability to make friendship bracelets that she asked her to make one for her (the librarian) and her twin sister. Youngest son wasn't interested in learning complicated weaving/knot tying techniques so he just kind of twisted the strings together and then talked to the other kids. Still, it was fun. Today they are having a presentation about reptiles so that should be interesting. The library is doing this all week because the local schools are on fall break. The librarian asked the kids if they were enjoying fall break and my daughter gave me the evil eye. Then as soon as she got a chance, she came over and asked me when we were going on fall break. I said "remember the first week of September when we were off and went to Rough River? That was it." So needless to say, we are not on break this week. We are doing school.