College Costs Comparison.

Okay, I started to share this the other day, then the stigma of sharing confidential financial information came over me and I decided not to share it, but then I thought, this is not really personal, so I'm being silly so here I go posting it again.  Our estimated costs versus what the first year of college cost.  Financially, not emotionally.  :-P

Here's what the college data website says about WCU where my son goes to college.

 

TUITION AND EXPENSES

Tuition and Fees	................................10350
Room and Board	..................................4140
Books and Supplies	................................ 2850
Other Expenses	.................................3987

Cost of Attendance	...............................21327

Terrifying, right?

We filed the FAFSA, applied for scholarships, searched for book bargains (Deal Oz) and borrowed books.

This is what the tuition and stuff actually cost according to my calculations.

Tuition 325 per hour x 9 hours per trimester x 3 trimesters =  8775
general fee .........................................................................200
dorm deposit ......................................................................150
dorm 500 per trimester x 3 trimesters ..................................1500
food plan, 14 meals a week + 850 x 3 trimesters ...................2550
books ...........about 100 per trimester (see above) ...................300.


Total .............................................................................13,475

Other expenses - He needed bedding, clothes, breakfasts, snacks, a microwave and fridge, transportation, etc.  A couple of times, the dorms closed and he couldn't come home so he stayed with a friend twice.  I sent the friend's mom a hand crocheted item from my daughter and a thank you note.  I'm not sure how much all of these cost.  Most of it came out of my son's pocket and he watched his expenses very, very carefully.   The laundry is free in the dorms and the cafeteria actually stocked gluten free cereal and bread for him and one other student.   He also flew home and back there 3 times and bought an inexpensive lemon car.

He got 3 scholarships, a pell grand and a stafford loan.  He was also approved for work study but did not get it because there were no open jobs on campus..

total aid .......................................................................13950

Now, if he gets the same loan every year, does not get work study and does not have a summer job, he will be in debt when he gets out.  Obviously, we are going to try very hard to avoid that.  He didn't want to use the loan this year but it seemed necessary.  He's already applied for the work study job for this fall and may work at his old factory some this summer, to try to avoid as much of the debt as possible.

So anyway, there it is.

Good day. Mostly.

The pretty little waterfall.

The mud I fell in. 

We had a picnic with our extended family, then went down to the old homeplace and took a walk to a little waterfall.  It would have been really great if I hadn't fell in the mud, but oh well, that's life, I suppose.  I have a feeling I may be a little bit sore tomorrow, but on the good side, one of my cousins gave my fall a 9 out of 10.  :-) 

A cooking day.

I just felt like cooking today.  I made mini impossibly easy cheeseburger pies (gluten free of course), which kind of made me feel like I was eating a real cheeseburger complete with bun.  I haven't found a good gluten free hamburger bun and I haven't really been all that successful with my gluten free bread baking, so these, and the impossibly easy taco pie, really make me happy.  I added onions, pickles, mustard and ketchup in minute amounts to the recipe and it kind of tasted like a McDonald's cheeseburger, at least to my memory.  Since 3 pound packs of hamburger were in the 5 dollars and some change range last night at Kroger and I got 3 packs, I thought why not use it all up today, so in addition to the hamburger pies, I made lasagna and cowboy stew.  You'd think we'd have leftoevers for a long, long time, but with 2 teens in the house, probably not.  :-)

Updated about 15 minutes later when the pies are mostly gone.  I ate 2.  We saved 2 for my husband and one of the teens ate 8.  The other one doesn't like cheese.  So there you have it. 

A little busy and a little frustrated.

Yesterday I got several things taken care of that I needed to get done.  I scheduled a visit for our homeschool 4H group to go to a local pottery studio and paid the deposit.  I went by the 4H office to try and get my son's electricity project clock that he's going to build for the county fair, but they couldn't find it.  I scrambled around and asked favors for people and got my son all 3 of the letters of reference that he needed (The 2 of them that I got to read made me cry!) and I went to volunteer at the hospital.  I should have went to the grocery on my way home, because we're basically out of all the fresh foods.  We have the canned and boxed goods from the salvage store but nothing to go with them.  Also, we are on our last 2 rolls of toilet paper.  I must find a way to get it done today.

As to why I am frustrated,  the main reason is that I have lost the little license sticker that goes on my mom's car.  The last I remember it was in our vehicle but my husband says one day it was there and the next day it wasn't and he assumed I had put it on her car that day.  But I didn't.  I have 4 days, until the end of April to find it or replace it.  Also, I'm frustrated at the dog situation around here.  Little Piper, who is very cute, is also very disruptive to our other dog's lives and consequently, my life.  I am frequently awakened or half terrified while I am working by barking, growling and fighting.  She's learned to escape her pen in the back yard so she got put on the dog run, chewed through that leash and is running amok.  She has chewed up one of my outdoor lights and I fear what she will chew up next.  Thirdly, I'm frustrated with myself for oversleeping today and getting started on work late, but I guess there's nothing I can do about that now ... just trying to get going on my typing and planning to go to the grocery store as soon as possible ...and now my account is out of work.  I think I may have to go through another change in my career (they happen every so often) and switch to speech recognition editing.  Of course, being old and set in my ways, I don't want to.  The last time we had a big computer system change at work I was the very, very, very last holdout to switch.:-P

Winding down and planning for next year.

Our homeschool year is almost over.  The kids are counting down the days.  I forget how many it is, but they won't.   The love their summertime.  Our big boy is going to be home this summer.  I'm kind of hoping that he won't have to work outside the home because last year when he was working all the time we didn't see him much and at this point right now, we haven't seen him since mid January, so I want all of us to get to spend as much time with him as we can this summer.  So in aid of that, I am going to sell as many things on Ebay as I can, to raise money.  It's probably kind of a crazy plan, but I don't care.  The heart wants what the heart wants.  My friend has been selling things on ebay, picking items up at thrift stores and has made several thousand dollars since January.  I'm trying to figure out the least my son can get by on and really, if he uses all his student loans, he doesn't need very much.  I'd rather ...

I was in the middle of writing this when I got a ping saying I had a message on Facebook and my son was messaging me to let me know that he just got awarded a 1000 dollar scholarship for next year and has a chance at another $900 dollar one if he can turn in 3 letters of reference by Monday.  So.  Cool.
 This next year is looking even better, now.  I just hope he is able to get through school without much student debt.  Maybe just a part time job this summer and not full time third shift like last year?   A mom can hope.

Mom's night.

We had mom's night out with the homeschool group and we had a great time.  We went to the salvage grocery store.  They had some really good makeup and hair care bargains yesterday.  I got a hair thingy for the prom that is really cute and holds your hair in a bun with glittery beads and stuff, that is about 6 dollars at Walmart and it was 50 cents at the salvage store.  I got some super, super, super hold hairspray for 75 cents.  I looked it up on Amazon and it was 6 dollars.  I got 2 maybelline mascaras for 33 cents each.  I tell you, if you have a salvage grocery near you, you need to look it up.  (Look on Google maps and use the "Search Nearby" feature.)

After that, we went to Tumbleweed and had a lovely dinner.  The conversation ranged from why the boys won't mingle with the girls for prom and to Teaching Textbooks (and how much we all love it) to what classes we might do together next year.  After a while, we got really, really silly, then back to serious, then silly.  In other words, it was great.  They brought me a gluten free birthday cake with candles that spelled out Happy Birthday, plates and napkins and a birthday centerpiece and sung to me right there in the restaurant.  I just love my homeschool group.  :-)   Good, good times.

Interesting Discussion.

Yesterday in my Sunday School class I mentioned that I homeschool and there was a young lady in there with 2 preschoolers who was interested in it.  She wanted to know basically how I balance working and homeschooling, since I am a work at home mom.  I told her that right now, it is really easy since my kids are pretty much completely independent at this point, however, when they were little (we started homeschooling in 1st, 3rd and 6th grades), what I did was a little different.  There were a few things that were different then.  One, I had not gone gluten free and chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia were kicking my hiney, all the time.  Every day.  Also, I was working fewer hours each day (at least part of that time, I can't remember exactly).  So, what I did was get up in the morning and we'd all do our combined lessons in Konos or Christian Cottage, unit studies.  Then the older kid would go and do his independent work (or not, sometimes) and the 2 younger ones and I would do their math which they were in together, then the next oldest kid would go do her work independently and I would work with the youngest.  Then I'd take my fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue/gluten intolerance nap, get up, have dinner and then work from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.   The kids would stay up late and go to bed at the same time I did, something we continue till this day.  We are all a bunch of night owls. 

One of the people in the room pointed out that not everyone was qualified to teach their children at home, but that I can because I have a degree.  I respectfully pointed out that a degree is not required and really, how would I use it?  I pretty much don't remember any of the math I studied.  I majored in teaching preschool but didn't have any preschoolers when we started homeschooling.  I had been out of college for a while at that point and really I just did all new research, figured out how to teach my kids at home and did it.  I don't think that what I had studied all those years before  had much at all to do with it.   We taught what we could and hired help or bought computer programs or books for what we didn't know. 

Another prom practice.

The first prom practice was great, this one, not so much.  The first time, we had a dance instructor and this time she cancelled at the last minute, so it was kind of up to the moms to get the kids to dance and show the kids who weren't there last time, the steps.  I guess it went okay.  The boys kind of huddled in one corner and the girls in another, but oh well.  That's probably really good practice for what's actually going to happen at the actual party. 

I worked right up until time to go so this evening, I'm taking it easy.  Tomorrow is my birthday and I will be terribly old, so I don't know if I'm going to celebrate much, beyond eating the cake.  I'm always up for that part.

The Square Peg report.

Okay, we had our 4H meeting and everyone was super nice and gracious and not obsessing about rules or anything (although they did follow them) .  It was much better than last time and I didn't feel like a square peg..  We felt so much more comfortable.  She's excited now about making some new projects so that's good.  We went at the wrong time because I often get things like that mixed up, but we were early instead of late, so we went to Dollar Tree to while we were waiting.  We got a new water bowl for the puppy.  Hopefully, she won't be able to chew this one up since it's ceramic. 

Then we came home and my daughter tried on the prom dress that had come in the mail today.  Success!  It fits!  It comes to the knee!  It's the right color!  It was only 39.99!  It's a very simple dress, but she loves it and that is all that counts.  Here's the link.  Dress

The only thing that didn't go well today was that I had, I hate to admit this, but I guess it was a hot flash.  I went to the hospital where I volunteer, put on my smock over my regular clothes and started putting away the laundry since no babies were crying.  After a while, I did get to stop that to comfort a baby, but that meant putting on another layer of clothes, a gown and latex gloves.  I got so unbelievably hot that I was sweating profusely.  (In my defense, it is warm in there and I was wearing 3 layers, shirt, smock and gown!)  I finally just gave up and came on home.  They had another volunteer and a couple of nursing students and didn't really need me anyway.  (I had gone in earlier than usual because of the 4H class.)  I was very disappointed, but I guess I'll live.  I miss my babies though.  :-(.

Almost in an accident this morning, but otherwise.

This morning I had to go to the doctor for a routine thing.  My appointment was at 9:30 but I took traffic into consideration and left in plenty of time.  I wasn't hurrying.  I was right in the middle lane of I-65, going the speed limit in my huge white suburban when a van tried to come into the lane I was in.  If he didn't see such a large vehicle there, I suspect he didn't even look.  I jerked to the left and went into the other lane and almost hit the concrete barricade.  Thankfully, the car in that lane was far enough back, that though I suspect they had to brake, I don't think they were in any danger of hitting me.  It's a good thing, because I didn't have time to look.  I just reacted to the threat coming from the right.  As soon as I had righted myself in a lane and looked around, I saw blue and red lights.  A police officer had been right behind him when he did this and pulled him over.  I wonder if he was under the influence or something?  I don't know, but I feel pretty lucky to be alive tonight and even if I wasn't hurt, that would have been so awful if our last car standing had been wrecked! 

In looking at my suspiciously clear schedule I did find that I had forgotten to write a meeting down.  There's one tomorrow and it's the one I mentioned before, that I kind of dread, but I guess I'll live.  I really do think it will be good for my daughter to have more places to sell her crafts.  She's certainly very crafty.

So anyway, I thought this was going to be a light week and it's turning out to be pretty busy.  Sometimes I think the part of being busy that is the hardest, is trying to decide which time slot to put things in, as in "will I have enough time between this meeting and that doctor's appointment to go to the grocery?"  etc.  Once you've decided how you are going to accomplish it all, it's not that bad. 

Not too much.

We are kind of taking it easy this week.  I know it's only Tuesday, but so far, so good.  I kind of think I may have forgotten to write down a 4H meeting or two and that might be why my schedule is not quite so crazy.  We'll see I guess.  I try to keep up with them via their Facebook page, but they are not the best at updating that every day.  I kind of don't care.  I was all excited for my daughter to join the 4H Means Business class and she did like it, but I am just not too sure I fit in there.  Everyone was very concerned about parliamentary procedure and meeting protocols and where the president and the vice president and the historian should sit, to be proper.  That took the first several minutes of meeting.  I've been attending 4H meetings with the kids for 5 or 6 years now and I had no idea that the officers had special seats and that the meetings were to be run formally.  We always just say the pledges and dive into our projects.  I kind of felt like a rebel or a square peg in a round hole.  If my daughter likes it though  and I known when the meetings are, I will take her.  I kind of dread when someone asks what homeschool curriculum we use and I'll have to say eclectic, which is what we do and mostly I feel good about it ... but you know.  ...

Plan B.

Well I think that plan A for today would have been to have a vehicle and get to go places, but since we were stuck at home, we made the best of it.  I worked on revising my book on eating gluten free and my daughter worked on her Algebra 2.  My son got to do his usual day off things.  I also got some bulbs and flower seeds planted, did a few dishes and a bit of laundry.  We watched a little bit of Big Bang Theory and took a nice long walk.   We also ordered a prom dress.  That felt like an accomplishment.  Hopefully, it will fit.  I know it's kind of a risk, but it is returnable and it was only 39.00, so if it does fit, it will be great.  

We heard from our oldest.  He's doing okay.  He will be finishing his freshman year in a few weeks and going on a trip to Peru.   Then, finally, he will get to come home.  This has been really hard on me, I don't know about everyone else, but having him move out was one thing, but then when he couldn't come home on the last 2 breaks, it's been really hard on his mama.  I pray we get the car situation straightened out before he has to go back in August. 

Saturday, the 13th.

School work was a tad bit better last night I guess.  My son was still doing some grammar and spelling late in the evening, but it wasn't as late as last week.  My daughter would have been doing math half the evening, but we had some kind of computer complication that resulted in her Dad giving her until Monday to get math done, so she can work on it this weekend.  She was happy about it last night, but likely won't be as happy today and tomorrow.  :-P

We checked last night and we only have 21 days of school left.  That will have us getting finished with school on May 13, which is a Monday and kind of a weird day to finish.  That Tuesday, we have park day and we still have several 4H classes after that.  It will feel funny finishing so early I think, but we haven't taken a lot of days off this year.  We did no fall break and no spring break, just the long winter break when the oldest was home.  In the summer, I may have to give the kids a chore list.  I know that they enjoy having nothing to do, but adults don't get that kind of a break and they are barreling towards adulthood, so maybe this is the time to start getting used to no summers off.  We definitely have a lot of cleaning and decluttering we could do this summer to keep busy but I want them to have fun with their brother as well.  That's the thing, a balance fun and work, that we are always striving for.

In this picture, you get a glimpse of the kid-designed work lists, the orange and yellow post-it notes on the wall that track their school work for the week.  You may not be able to tell much, but the orange notes are my daughter's and the yellow notes are my sons and through the week, they migrate from the wall to the white paper you see there, to show that they are done.  In this picture, it looks like my daughter has about 3 things left to do and my son 4. 

Whew.

The girl and I set out today in search of prom dresses.  We were unsuccessful.  The only 2 that she liked at all were too short for the prom regulations/guidelines.  At the end of many hours, she was contemplating sewing her own.  I really don't think she's that experienced of a seamstress, but I won't stand in her way if she wants to try.  So while we were in the big town, we went to a yarn store and then to  Hobby Lobby and had an interesting encounter with a daddy goose.  Yes, a goose.  Apparently, the momma goose was sitting on their nest, right there in the Hobby Lobby parking lot and he was trying to defend her against all the cars that would try to get into the parking lot, but strutting and honking.  I bet he's exhausted now. 

When we got home, the kids immediately started finishing their chores and school work.  They are pretty well trained at this point. :-P

April 10.

Spring, spring, spring!

We had a mostly good day at the park yesterday.  One of the families had some car trouble and the mom was trying to deal with that while the other moms watched her kids and waited for her to get back.  Unfortunately, what's wrong with her car is going to be expensive.  This poor family has had one financial blow after another, after another and it's hard to watch and it's hard to know what to do or how to help. 

After the park, we went to 4H and learned a ton of stuff from the representatives of our local electric cooperative.  They did a great job explaining how things work and telling the kids stories of trying to get to the poles by whatever means available - truck, car, 4 wheeler, horse and boat!  How they have gone to help other states during disasters and how they had to get help from other states during our ice storm a few years back.  

After 4H we went back to have dinner with some of the other homeschool families and had a great time, again, as usual.  We've been so blessed to find this group.

Pink trees and pink eyes.

Our ornamental peach tree is proclaiming spring!!

We have plans today.  Lots of plans.  We have 4H electricity club at 4 o'clock, park day at 2 o'clock and a doctor's appointment for the pinkeye I woke up with yesterday at 1 o'clock.  I went ahead and let my job know that I probably won't get in a full day's work today.   Oh I hate pinkeye.  One time when the kids were little, they kept passing it back and forth between them. Finally I put a chart in the bathroom and told them that we were going to wash our hands 100 times a day and get prizes for it.  We never made it to 100 in a single day, but the pinkeye went away and the kids got prizes which were much cheaper than all the doctor's office copays and eye drops we were paying for.  (Of course I didn't take into account the water bill!) Hopefully, this time, I will be able to keep it contained.  It's easier now than it was with little ones. 

This and that, Sunday and Monday.

We had a pretty good day yesterday.  We caught a ride to church with my cousin.  Then when we got home, I made lasagna for lunch.  (I've gotten really good at the gluten free lasagna).  Then I started working on a jam cake for my mom's birthday party.  Tomorrow is mom's 76th birthday.  It was my first ever jam cake and I made it from scratch because usually we start with a spice cake mix, but I can't do that because I wanted to eat some of it and I am gluten free.   It turned out to be pretty good, but a little too moist in my opinion. (which didn't stop me from having it for breakfast today!) I'll try next time with less butter.  Jam cake is my mom's favorite cake, so it's worth trying again.  For mom's birthday supper I made potato soup and despite my complete inability to follow a recipe, it turned out pretty well.  I'll try that again.  I did write my changes on the recipe, so hopefully, I'll be able to get very close to that the next time.  :-)   We had a very nice small family gathering to celebrate mom's birthday. 

Later on, we made the girl try on 5 prom dresses that were loaned to us by a friend.  Two of them are just gorgeous on her, but of course, the girl does not like them.  She is extremely picky about her clothes.  I remember a few years ago, taking her to JC Penney and she was going through the clothes, dismissing them without even trying them, on, going through the racks saying "sleeves", "pink", "flowers", etc. as a reason to reject them.  We once walked all the way through Limited Too without her liking even one single article of clothing enough to try one of them on.  We've done the same with many. many other stores.  I am not looking forward to prom shopping at all.  A part of me, just wants to say pick one of these 5 dresses or else, but what if this turns out to be her only prom ever and all she remembers is 'mom made me wear this green dress and I hated it."  What is a mom to do?

Some pictures from our house.

The kitchen phone.

My attempt at Book Spine poetry it says The Lord God Made Them All, Dragon's Fat Cat, Bears on Wheels, Oh My a Fly, But Not the Hippopotamus, Thank You God.

The kid's chore white board, which they have embellished with this tyrannosaurus trying to pick up a pineapple.  I am not sure why.

I thought Friday

was going really well this time.  I did work.  The kids did school and had a lot of outside time because it was really pretty and sunny and warm.  Then, we went to my mom's house to visit for a little while and then we came home to watch our Netflix selection which was season 2, disk 1 of The Mary Tyler Moore show.  I assumed (incorrectly it seems) that if everyone was sitting and watching the show with me, then everyone was finished with their schoolwork.  I was under this delusion until approximately 11:30 p.m. when someone handed me his spelling textbook and asked me to read him his spelling words.  It was only one subject and this only took a few minutes, but still!  I expect the work to be finished before the screen time starts. 

Thursday night.

It's 9:35 p.m. here at our house.  My husband has gone to bed.  I've just come back from volunteering at the children's hospital.  My daughter is doing Algebra 2 on Teaching Textbooks and my youngest son who is finished with school, is playing a video game.  They are both simultaneously listening to Jim Dale read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on the computer.  My daughter pauses it when she needs an algebra hint, which is verbal on the computer as well. 

I was looking for reading material this morning, searching for good books that we haven't previously read and I found this article. which expresses very well how our family feels about the Harry Potter books. Here's a quote:

"The quest for power without goodness is truly a journey toward pathetic and grotesque brokenness as is portrayed in the King’s Cross chapter in The Deathly Hallows when Harry is face to face with a visual depiction of Voldemort’s soul. Like the White Witch in Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, evil according to the Potter books cannot even comprehend the great strength of love and is ultimately destroyed by it".

My daughter just informed me that we need to go to the library.  We do.  We're addicted to books.

A word of caution, if you have this many books (37) checked out of the library at one time, don't let them get overdue.  Trust me.

I can't think of anything.

There have been a couple of events around here this week that I have considered blogworthy, but when I sit down to type I can't think of them.   Sometimes it is very frustrating being me.  I'm getting my work done, but not much else.  :-(

The girl is attacking her schoolwork today in earnest, after spending a couple of days only doing the minimum and spending the rest of her time reading an amusing book and trying to train the puppy.  The boy got up Monday and blitzed a bunch of his school work so that he could then take several days doing the minimum and spend the majority of his time outside and then blitz the rest of it on Friday night late (probably).  They get it done though although they deal with motivational issues because we have given control over to them.  I wonder, since they've been handed this kind of responsibility pretty young, if, when they get to my age, they;ll be better at pacing themselves than I have been.  It took me quite a while doing my current job, to learn not to procrastinate about it and then work like crazy right at the end of the pay period. 

The weather is so beautiful here.  I really don't want to be inside working so I envy them their flexibility.  

The April fool's day report.

If you all have read this blog for a while, you'll know we enjoy April fool's day.  I get up earlier than the kids, so it's not difficult to get some jokes done before they get up.  I put Jello in the Kool-aid pitcher, tiny balloons in a few shoes, switched all the cereal bags in the open cereal boxes (we have 3 open right now) and put an autocorrect on the computer they use for school work that types the word "April" every time they try to type the word "the".  Some of these have not been discovered yet.  One shoe balloon was found, but no one commented on the other ones, and I don't want to ask.  I did ask my son last night if he'd found the Kool-aid one and he said "what?" and I said "nevermind.", but they did math and other things for school yesterday and didn't do any of the things they need Microsoft Word for, so that autocorrect one will get to surprise them on another day.

My son did the biggest unintentional April fool's joke of all on both his parents yesterday at about 4:00 a.m.  My husband woke up to go to work and before leaving, looked at my son's bunk.  It was empty.  So he checked the couch and the other bedrooms, all other possible sleeping places.  Then (lucky for him) he remembered to look in the top bunk and saw my son sleeping up there.  Apparently, there had been a couple of spiders near the lower bunk.  I don't blame him for moving.  Then, after my husband had left for work, I got up to go to the bathroom, noticed the empty bunk, looked in exactly the same places, but did not consider the upper bunk, because I figured he had it full of legos or something, so I actually went outside and yelled for him, before coming back in and hearing him breathing in the upper bunk.  Normally, I wouldn't have done any of this, but our son had left a light on in his lower bunk, kind of highlighting that he wasn't in it.  My normal routine is to stumble to the bathroom without really looking at anything. 

After work, we had a 4H needlework club meeting and a 4H performing arts club meeting.  At the needlework meeting they were doing community service, making fleece blankets to donate for babies at a local hospital and next month they are going to learn both knitting and crocheting and my daughter is going to teach both!  She's come a long way with her shyness and 4H has a lot to do with that.   It's pretty cool.

We've had a ton of fun with these balloons!