Getting verification.

A few months ago I was talking to some friends about youngest son's learning issues and one of my friends recommended that he apply for services at our local vocational rehabilitation office.  So I called them and they set up an evaluation.  About a month ago youngest son met with a psychologist for several hours and just last week we got a report that we can take to the college and ask for accommodations for his now-verified disability.  The reports that we got from Voc. Rehab.  said essentially what I've been saying all along - that he has dysgraphia, but is gifted in all other areas.   I am not sure how this is going to affect his college life and work life, but it's a fact of life and we have to deal with it.  I think he's going to do great in life, once he decides to start.  Right now he's kind of in limbo and I need to keep after him to get started with something.  He still doesn't have his driver's license so that's the first step, then getting him registered for college classes and pushing him to start.  His brother and sister before him have also done this "gap year" and both are gainfully employed now, so I'm trying to relax about him and work on my own job search for now.  (That's not fun, but I'll talk more in detail about that in another post!)

Great week.

We had a great week with my son and his fiancee here.  We got to hear a lot more about wedding plans and life plans and we got to have the shower and a bunch of shopping and exploring day trips and a campfire with hot dogs and s'mores, plus a lot of hanging out here at the house and watching TV and playing board games.  Now they are back to their regular lives and we are back to ours.  We hope to go see them for graduation and then definitely we'll see them in June for the wedding.  :-)    

We also celebrated Christmas this week with them because we didn't get to do that at Christmas-time.  This is the gift the youngest 2 of our kids bought the oldest, a teacarina, which is a teacup and an ocarina.  It plays music.  It's very interesting.

At the shower we played a game where the people had to put on one of these fake wedding rings and then if they said the word Alabama or Wedding, someone could steal it.   After the shower, we had a hundred or so left over, so what did my daughter do with them, she made chain mail.  Once a homeschooler, always a homeschooler.  I wish I'd had these 10 years earlier for our medieval unit.  :-)

Shower pictures.

Exciting Times.

My son and his fiancee are visiting from Mississippi, the first time we've seen them since November.  We celebrated Christmas a little the first day they were here and the rest of the time has been a whirlwind of activity, trying to get things done for the shower I'm throwing for them (today!) and trying to see and do all the things they want to see and do in Kentucky.  They may be relocating to Kentucky to another small town so we drove over and looked at it.  We've been shopping and doing shower prep, visiting, watching movies and playing board games.

I think the shower is going to come together but I invited a lot of people so it's a lot of food and the room we have to have it in doesn't have that much space, so I'm kind of worried about it, of course.  I'm not a caterer and not a professional at throwing events like this.  I've done one large party before, for my son when he went to college.  At that one I served tacos.  At this one, we're doing a fruit tray, vegetable tray, cheese/cracker tray, cake, chips, mints.  It's a lot of work, but I think most of it is done now.  I hope there's not a large aspect of it that I've forgotten!   I have lists and lists and lists, which keep getting revised and re-written as things get done.  :-) These pictures show the prelimary setup.  There will be a banner placed on the gift table and flowers in vases set on all the other tables and a few other things, plus hopefully the food will be beautiful.

Field Trip!

I forgot to mention that last week we took a field trip.   There is a field trip group in Louisville that only does field trips.  They don't meet in other ways as a group, no mom's nights or co-ops, just field trips.  They do them very well.  They have a web site and if you see a field trip you want to go to, you just select that and pay with paypal.  Then you show up at the designated meeting spot and enjoy yourself.  They allow college age kids to participate so we are still going to the occasional one.  Last week we went to Indiana University Southeast and saw a production of Julius Caesar that was amazing.  They did the show with minimal props and only 6 actors playing all the parts.  It was really, really cool.

Today, we are taking advantage of one of the free classes our library does and we are going to make a tartan as a craft.  I'm interested to know how we will do that.  My daughter is very interested in tartans because of something to do with her book - top secret- so she's the one who wanted us to sign up.

The last class I took at the library was the career coaching class and it was great, so hopefully this one will be too.

Frustrating Job Search.

It's really difficult looking for work.  I had a series of interviews last week with a company and today they let me know that they weren't going to hire me.  If they had wanted to hire me, it would have been a difficult choice for me because it was a long commute and the pay was not nearly as high as I had believed it would be when I applied.  Of course, I didn't find out about the pay until the 3rd interview.  :-(    The rules of etiquette forbid me from asking about the salary until I am told what it is, usually with the job offer.  I appreciate at least that they talked to me about it in one of the interviews, with the pay being about 5 dollars an hour less than I was expecting.  Anyway, it's frustrating and I hate it.

I feel like this.
Marshall's Pep Talks

What are they doing now?

In the old original homeschool group there were several families and most of their kids have grown up now and moved on from homeschooling.  Would you like to know what they are doing?

Family 1:
Son graduated last year and is working full time in a T-shirt printing company and likes it very much.
Daughter still has 2 years of high school to go.

Family 2:
Daughter got an associate's degree and then joined the air force.
Son works at a grocery store and has plans to join the national guard.
Son 2 still has one year of high school to go.

Family 3:
Daughter works as a teaching assistant with special needs children, engaged to be married.

Family 4:
Daughter is in junior year of college.
Sons graduate this year from high school and are college bound.

Family 5:
All 3 kids in college and all 3 are working part time jobs as well.

Family 6:
Oldest son works in a machine shop and attends training to be a machinist.
Youngest son still in high school.

Family 7:  Us!
Oldest son just graduated college, engaged to be married this June.
Daughter works at a local preschool.
Youngest son going to college or technical school next fall.  Plans to rule the world soon to follow.

It's fun to see them all doing something, all getting out there and being in the world.  They aren't social misfits or weirdos.  Homeschoolers are doing great.  :-)

It seems like

It seems like I'm doing a lot, but when I go to write about it, it's nothing remarkable.  I work out at PT.  I job hunt.  I clean.  I read.  I got a really good group of books at the library yesterday and I read nearly halfway through one of them last night.  Today called my congressman about some bills going into the Ky house and senate regarding homeschooling.  It seems like this is a right we always have to fight to keep.  Now that I am finished with homeschooling, I'm fighting for the right for my future grandchildren.  

 Tomorrow I'll be having my first ever job interview on Skype, which the though of makes me very nervous.  I'll report how that goes.  The job is one that I simultaneously really want and worry that I can't physically do, so there's that.  It's an "on your feet" all day kind of job, I suspect, and that will be hard for me and my knees, but I want to do it and I need the money.

We have been doing our board game days on Saturday which has cut down on the attendance a little but it was the only days I could get the library, so we've tried it.  In April, we'll be going back to Fridays.  I guess we'll keep doing this group as long as the kids want to, though eventually, they should be able to do it on their own, without me.  A board game store has opened in our area and they do games every night so we may transition to there.  We'll see.  My youngest son still hasn't gotten his driver's license to do these things without me so I have to be involved.  I'm letting him take the lead on this as he did with reading and other things, but it is starting to annoy me.  I both want him to get his license and don't want to take him driving, so there's another one of my dilemmas.  :-)

Scoring from a recent board game tournament with abbreviated participants names.  :-)