Some good stuff.

We had our board game meetup with some of the kids from our new homeschool group the other day and it was great.  We had 11 kids show up, including my 2.  My girl was the only girl, but she does not mind just hanging out with the guys.  She wore her shirt that says "I never got my Hogwarts letter, so I'm leaving the shire to become a Jedi" and with this shirt, I think she won the undying love/admiration of one of the boys there.  Unfortunately, he was only around 10 years old.  Oh well.  The kids all had a great time and we are doing that again in a couple of weeks.

Also, in other good news, my daughter and I are going to start selling some of our creations at a local store that showcases local artists and crafters.  We will have to work in the store 2 days a month and my daughter is going to do it for us, which is awesome.  She's been very shy about getting a job, but this she believes she can do since she has experience at the 4H sales.  Even if we don't make any money at all, it will be worth it for her to get out there and gain some confidence in her abilities.

Thirdly, the tornadoes that hit down south last night did not hit my son or his girlfriend and other friends there.  I worried about that a bit overnight.   We only had rain here, (unless I slept through it) thank goodness.

Last night, my youngest son had cooking class at 4H and learned to dice vegetables properly and they made salsa.  When we came home and told my daughter about it, she said "You minced!"  :-)  Tomorrow, we have another 4H club in which the focus is to be future careers.

Having these kinds of activities  with my kids helps me as I try to deal with my mom's continued decline from Alzheimer's disease.  Being a caregiver, even if you are not doing primary care-giving and your loved one is in a facility, is draining to the soul and spirit.  It helps to have something to look forward to and some tiny victories along the way.  I am glad that I am caregiving and raising kids at the same time, because I can't imagine this life without the brightness my kids provide.

Whew, getting deep today.

Keeping busy.

I have enough stuff to do, right now, to keep me busy for the rest of my life, I'm pretty sure.  There's not a lot of it I want to do, but I have things I need to do and a ton of things I want to do.  I really don't see how anyone ever gets bored.  Yesterday, I worked, took my mom to an attorney's office to see if we could get some paperwork signed (we couldn't) and while doing that, got a call from my son saying that the back window of his car had been broken out by forces/people unknown and that while looking at that, he had noticed that his license plate sticker had expired.  So on the way home from taking mom, I went to the DMV, found out I needed a paper from the insurance office, got that and brought it home because at that point, the DMV was closed, then came home finished making dinner and finished working, then finally took a break ... time for reading, art and finally getting to talk to my kids.

Today, I have to work go back to the DMV, go look for places I can sell my art, go to the library, go to the grocery and take the youngest to a 4H class at 6:00 p.m. and there's probably a lot more I should do but so far, I am in slow motion, because there's no work and I'm blogging and looking at Facebook.  If the no work situation continues, I will see how much else I can get done around here.  It's kind of frustrating wanting to get started and not having any work.

I'm really looking forward to the 4H meeting tonight.  It's a photography class. The girl and I are more looking forward to it than the youngest son is, but we're too old to go on our own, so he has to go.  :-P  They've got a new leader and she seems excited about the class and that makes it fun for all, kids and parents.  I really hate that this is probably our last year.

A good weekend.

I know this is Monday afternoon, but since I work Tuesday - Saturday, this is really still my weekend. We had a nice Valentine's day and my husband cooked fish and onion rings for me.  That's probably a weird food choice for a Valentine dinner, I think most people with go with steak or something, but as someone who has been gluten free for 6 years now, fried fish and onion rings are a treat I rarely get. I haven't found even one fish restaurant that does a gluten free breaded fried fish.  I have found some very expensive fish sticks at the grocery store that work in a pinch, but this was better.  For the 2 kids who are here, I tried a lasagna soup recipe, which we hadn't had before.  It was pretty good, but next time I will leave out the pepper and add in some mushrooms.  I don't think that the peppers make it taste very Italian.

It snowed on our Valentine's day here, just a little bit.  I am still enjoying the winter and the snow.  In a few weeks, I may tire of it and start longing for spring, but not yet.

Science Leaders Who Were Homeschooled and February.

Modern Science Leaders Who Were Homeschooled

It's a pretty typical February around here for our last (sob) year of homeschooling.  We've got 4H classes and every time we try to get together with friends it snows.  This is a familiar pattern in February in Kentucky.  The other day we had a mom's shopping day and lunch out planned and it snowed really hard for a little while, just enough to cancel our trip and then it all melted off and went away.  Fun times.  Oh well.  I got a lot done at home that day, working on job hunting for myself and my daughter and registering for the ACT again for my son, who thinks he can improve his score if he takes it again.

I can't believe we are almost to the halfway mark of February!

Is the School System Damaging Kids?

http://www.rd.com/advice/parenting/american-school-system-damaging-kids/  Good article by Peter Gray on Reader's Digest.

So yesterday ...

I took my son to his robotics 4H class and while he was there, I went to the library and asked for a job application for my daughter.  they are not hiring right now, but they gave me an application and the librarian and I started talking about a college grant opportunity that is available here in our community.  I got excited about it, but was unable to communicate that excitement to my daughter, who does not want to go to college.  I will keep working on it.  :-)

Afterwards, I picked up my son and we actually had this conversation.

Me:  "Should we go to the grocery and get everything for the week or just run in and get the garbage bags?"

Son:  "Let's just get it all."

Me:   "Okay."

An hour later, at home, we realized we forgot the garbage bags.

On the way home we took this picture of the sunset.  It was much prettier in real life.  

The other diet.

I have been (when I remember) on the tiny bowl diet and at first I was doing really well, but lately, I have been forgetting and using regular big bowls and plates and I don't want to step on the scale and see, but I don't think I've been doing all that well.  Maybe I will make some signs for my kitchen to remind me.  The kids are wanting to have a friend over this week, so I may wait until after that so she won't see my silly tiny bowl signs.  :-)

The other "diet" I am going on is a money diet.  I am going to try to not spend extraneous money at Walmart, Target, Michael's and Hobby Lobby from my husband's birthday until my birthday, which is in 3 months.  We'll see how it goes.  So far, pretty good, except I guess Cosmo found out about how I was trying not to spend money and he got a double ear infection and had to go to the vet.  So that was 73.00.  :-(

Still, I think I can save our family some money.  I don't think it's the things I go in to buy that are the problem, markers, sketchbooks and yarn are pretty cheap, but when we go to Walmart, we almost always come out with some gluten free bread and cookies and some Anytizers for my youngest son and it goes on and on and we end up spending 40 dollars or some crazy amount.  So I am just staying out of there for now.

I have ruled out all but emergency trips and they will be conducted alone.  Emergencies at Walmart could include shower gel, underwear and sketchbooks.  I can get by without new markers but for my mental health, sketchbooks are a necessity.  :-)

In other news, we are thinking about having the kids take the ACT again,  thinking of getting my youngest son evaluated for his dysgraphia so that he can get accommodations in college, thinking about the FAFSA and the wisdom teeth removal.  Don't those all sound like so much fun?

On the fun side, we are tentatively planning a vacation to visit my oldest in Mississippi this summer and we are looking forward to all the 4H groups this spring and planning to start a board game hangout group for the kids since they love games so much.   Our youngest is graduating from home school this year!!!

I've almost finished the last of my Christmas books.  My brother gave me a Barnes and Nobel gift card for Christmas and I bought 5 books with it!    I love it!  I have had so much fun reading them.