Yawn

Snicker.  I am pretty tired, but Baylee is celebrating her birthday tonight with a slumber party.  In case you remember that her birthday is actually in July, let me just say that I prefer to think of this not as 2 months late, but as 2 years earlier than I'd prefer.  I still haven't fully recovered from the last little girl overnight birthday party.  Anyway, no rest for the wicked and all that.

Is it me or does Elton John look like he decided to become a vampire?

A couple nights ago I woke myself up talking in my sleep to Mike.  I dreamed he was asking me something about the dog, and I heard myself answer aloud, "I can't right now.  I'm too busy eating ham."  No wonder I'm so tired.

Gems

Yesterday and this morning I was...not really discouraged...but overwhelmed.  This year is hard.  Zach is doing high school through a distance learning program now, and that adds a pressure (in a good way, but still) to stay completely on top of things.  Baylee is using the BJUP online program, and it's just exactly like sitting in a classroom all day, which you'd think would make things easier on me, but somehow it doesn't.  It involves a great deal of organization.  And Drew?  Well everything's fine with Drew school-wise, but he acts like a 13 year old and sometimes that alone is overwhelming.  However!  In the midst of feeling overcome today I had a couple moments of joy-bringing clarity.

First, I had to gather stuff for Drew to bring to Leavenworth to do school with Kian and his mom.  In doing that I realized Drew is actually working hard and I should be very proud of him.  I packed notecards of information for two different subjects, science and history, so he can study for upcoming tests.  The stuff on those cards is difficult, but he's great at memorizing huge amounts of information quickly.  (I wonder if his musical ability falls into that skill catagory somehow.  Huh.)  Anyway, it was a pick-me-up to see that this boy who sometimes complains and whines and has an attitude is doing very well!

The second realization came when Baylee asked if we could go to the library during our lunch break, so we could check out Pinocchio.  Did you know Pinocchio is more than just a Disney movie or a short folktale?  It's actually a book with several chapters.  The reason she's interested is that she's been reading excerpts of it for her reading class in school, and it sounded good to her.  This is on top of the fact that she's been working on a puppet show with Drew and Rachel.  I LOVE that her school is igniting a desire in her to learn more and take things further.  That's what education should be all about!

And last, I was reading through something Zach wrote today and I noticed that in everything he said there was only one misspelled word.  That might not seem like a big deal, but trust me...it's huge.

It's so easy to get bogged down in the workload as a homeschooling mom.  I'm going to try to remember to look for these little gems more often.

Is It Friday Yet?

Sometimes homeschooling makes me feel like...have you ever seen the movie Matilda?  You know that really nice teacher who's kind and beloved by all the children?  Not her.  I'm thinking of her sister, Agatha Trunchbull.

I need chocolate.

Random Tuesday Stuff

Drew's leaving on Thursday afternoon to spend three days with Kian's family in Leavenworth.  They have a lot of work to do at their cabin, and they want another boy to help.  Kian's homeschooled, too, so on Friday Sandy plans to teach both boys.  I'll send Drew with his own school to do.  It should be interesting!  (re:  Poor Sandy!  LOL)

Plans for the puppet show, "Hans Clodhopper," are well underway.  Hours of work have already been put into drawing backdrops, figuring out a stage, and going over lines.  Next they'll have to start making the puppets.

It's a gorgeous day after several rainy, windy days in a row.

Yesterday, not far from here, there was an explosion in a home.  The wind blew over a tree, which severed a gas line, which caused a leak, which made a house blow up.  Literally, the roof blew off.  (That's what I heard, anyway.  The husband of a friend of mine is on the fire department and she wrote about it on Facebook.)  How horrible!  There were two people in the home at the time, a husband and wife in their 50s, and both were burned but are still living.  PSA:  If you smell gas, get out of the house and call 911.  Do not decide to turn on an appliance!  That's what happened in that home.

Drew's learning the most beautiful version of "Amazing Grace" in his guitar lessons. It comes from this book.

 Finally, the other day I wrote a post about lists, and that got a few people talking in the comments.  My friend Kristi brought up a Frog and Toad story about lists, which reminded me of a blog entry I wrote several years ago:

January 19, 2007

We love "Frog and Toad" around here.  Remember those cute little books by Arnold Lobel?  Days with Frog and Toad, Frog and Toad All Year, Frog and Toad are Friends, and so on. They're beginning-reader stories that've been around forever.  I remember them from when I was a kid.  Now that I'm all grown up and my kids are reading them, I can see the subtle humor in those stories.  My favorite Frog and Toad episode of all is when Toad makes a list of things he wants to accomplish one day, and then loses the list when it blows away in the wind.  Devastated, Toad plops right down on the ground and refuses to move.  He says he can't chase after it because "running after my list is not one of the things that I wrote on my list of things to do!"  And since he can't remember the rest of what he had written, he decides the only way to cope is to stay in one spot and do nothing for the rest of the day.

Aren't we all like that sometimes?  I've been so frustrated with myself lately when it comes to dieting.  I want to lose some weight, yet I feel like Toad:  Stuck in one spot.  I come up with a nice little list of ways to improve my health, then inevitably I cheat and all my best laid plans are blown away in the wind.  I say to myself, "Uh oh!  Cheating is not on my list of things to do!  That's it.  Today's shot."  At least Toad only did it once.  I seem to keep doing it over and over.

Sigh.

Random Monday Stuff

(I bet you're wondering  how long I can keep this theme up.  Answer:  A long time.)

Do you remember when I fell off my bike this summer?  The shirt I was wearing still has ground-in dirt stains on one of the shoulders, despite the fact that I've washed it many times.  The way I figure it, I fell so hard I must've changed the molecular structure of the shirt.  Either that or I need to invest in some Clorox 2.

Baylee is all keyed up about performing a puppet show.  She got the idea from her reading class, and she plans to do the thing from the ground up.  That is, she wants to build a stage, make the puppets, draw the scenery, get a friend to help her perform the parts, and invite people in the neighborhood to be the audience.  The play itself comes from something she saw done in school.  If she pulls it off it could be kinda cute. 

This afternoon, while I was waiting for Zach to finish his Spanish lesson, I fell asleep on the couch.  I never do that.  It was a short nap of maybe fifteen minutes, but I felt better afterward.

Zach moved up another level in karate.  He said he has to earn one more stripe for his purple belt, then he moves up to...I think he said green.

Drew is learning about allegory in his literature/creative writing course, and the other day the textbook talked specifically about fables.  He had to find and read one of Aesop's Fables, then retell it.  He decided to do "The Ants and the Grasshopper," which is fine, except somehow Drew ended up giving it an entirely different moral.  See for yourself:

One day there was a bunch of ants with lots of food they stored in the summer for the rest of the winter.  Then a starving grasshopper walked up to them and said, "Can I have some of your food?"  The ants said, "Didn't you store some for yourself?"   The grasshopper didn't store any food and the ants didn't want to give him any, so the grasshopper died.

Baylee's a Vegetarian Now

Baylee:  Mom, can I be a vegetarian?

Me:  Sure, when you move out or when you're old enough to cook for yourself.  Besides, I thought you just told me about a half hour ago that you want to have steak and mashed potatoes every Friday night for supper. 

Baylee:  Well, I don't mind eating cow.  I don't care that much about cows.

Me:  What animals wouldn't you eat then?

Baylee:  Oh...dogs, cats...

Me:  You can rest assured we'll never eat dog or cat, so...yeah.  You can go ahead and start being a vegetarian right now.

Random Sunday Stuff

Pics from our shindig the other night...

When Mike and I worked at a Christian group home as full-time adult foster care parents to ten mentally and/or physically disabled guys (say all that 10 times fast), I got into the habit of making a daily to-do list.  In fact, I started thinking of it as "my brain."  I kept it right on the counter, and all my usual duties, plus anything that came up, went on the list.  It was a lifesaver, because it taught me to be okay with interruptions.  I'm an "I'm going to do this job until I'm completely done with it, so don't bother me.  Why are you bothering me???  Go away!" type of person.  The only problem is that life happens and you just can't always be that way.  For me the list became an anchor.  I could walk away from a job, knowing I'd get back to it, because it was safely on the list.  (I'm so weird, I know.)

Anyway, all that to say I've started making lists again.  My life is now crazy enough that I can't hold it all in my mind anymore.  I need an outside "brain."  Mike keeps saying, "Honey, why don't you just use iCal?  It's great!"  No.  I like my messy paper on the kitchen counter method, thank you.

PS:  The greatest thing about lists is crossing things off.

Random Saturday Stuff

You know that thing people have been posting on Facebook lately?  That thing that says something like, "Hey, do me a favor.  Hover over my name and click on this and that, and make it so you can't see me in that little window to the upper right.  I don't think my every move needs to be on display."  Is it me or does that make you want to read what they're posting even more?  What are they hiding?  They must be up to something.

An interesting thing about Zach:  Every time he's listening in school he has something in his hands that he's messing with.  Like if I'm teaching him a concept in Algebra, he's taking a pen apart.  Mike's mom gave us some sort of Silly Putty type stuff, and Zach had his in his hands during a lot of the school day for about 3 days straight...until it dried out.  When I get annoyed he just begs to be allowed to "do" something while he listens.  He says it helps him focus.  The other day I was reading to him out of his geography textbook, and during that time he took apart, completely fixed, and reassembled a flashlight that we all thought was permanently broken (because we'd already tried to fix it).  He did it in about 5 minutes while listening to me drone on about Asia.

Gosh, I'm Tired

...but it was worth it.  We had a couple families over tonight just for fun and food.  The adults sat around the dining room table talking and laughing, and the kids did...who knows what.  They were noisy and there was some screaming, and a hamster was lost and found again.  I think a good time was had by all...except maybe the hamster.

Two Gross Things

 #1

We're doing a fruit fly reproduction experiment.  We started with a banana in a jar, and after about 5 days the banana attracted several fruit flies, so we put some nylon over the top to trap them in.  Nothing happened for a few more days.  Then one day we noticed eggs, which I actually thought was kinda cool.  This morning, though, I woke up, looked in the jar, and discovered that it's full of maggots.  Even just typing that gave me a shiver.  Seriously, it took me about a half hour to get over seeing it.  I could hardly finish my toast.  I put the whole experiment in the laundry/furnace room where we don't have to see it as often...or smell it, because it smells bad, too.  Oh, you know what's cool, though?  The very day the maggots appeared, all the original fruit flies disappeared.  I guess they died.

#2

Tonight at dinner Zach found a hair in his chicken.  I'll be honest; it was probably mine.  That started a family discussion about that sort of thing, and I remembered something I hadn't thought of in years.  In fact, I probably suppressed it.  A long time ago Mike was eating a dessert called Gordon Foods Pistachio Fluff.  In fact, he was eating it right out of the plastic container.  There he was, standing in the kitchen, spooning it in, enjoying it, when suddenly he got a strange look on his face.  He reached into his mouth and pulled out a huge, crescent-shaped toenail clipping.  I'm talking about the kind that would come off an adult male's big toe.  It was the most horrifying thing EVER.  I mean, under what circumstance does that even happen???  I guess somebody at the processing plant was having a terrible day.  Like, "I hate my job!  Eat my toenails, jerks!"  Or maybe somebody just had a lot of time on his hands feet and decided to give himself a pedicure.  Either way, to this day Mike doesn't really like pistachio-flavored stuff anymore.

Back Then

Today I was reading a few blogs that I regularly visit, and I came across a cool idea.  Jill Shalvis, an author of romance novels, couldn't think of anything to talk about, so she decided to go back exactly five years and repost whatever she had written then.  First of all I wondered if I was even blogging five years ago.  I was.  Then I wondered if I blogged on September 21st.  I did.  So without further ado, I give you...drumroll...my post from back then!  I kinda like it.

 I Love My Job

Not my homeschool job...although I love that, too.  No, I'm talking about my job as an in-home caregiver.  I love it.  I feel like I've found my perfect niche in life.  I mean, don't get me wrong, sometimes it's really hard.  Sometimes clients are rude and demanding, or even worse, sometimes I grow to truly care about them and they get sick.  Or they get well.  Or they die.  In other words, plans change, I'm not needed anymore, and it's hard to say good-bye.  But there's something so beautiful about working with the elderly that no matter what happens I find myself content to go back day after day.

Yesterday I visited one of my favorite clients in her little room in a big retirement home.  I go there for a couple hours several times a week to keep her company.  I talk with her, help her organize her things, paint her nails, take her for walks, listen to her frustrations, make her smile.   She always tells me she looks forward to my visits, and I always tell her I look forward to coming.  Last night, though, we had a little change of pace.  I wasn't her only guest.  Another elderly woman, a friend from the home, had also stopped by to chat.

There the three of us sat, one on the easy chair, one on the straight-backed chair, and one on the bed.  The conversation turned to the olden days:

"Remember what it was like to be busy?"

"Yes."

"We used to work all day, then the kids would come home from school and we'd have to drive them all over, then we'd come back home and make supper, and then we'd go out to evening meetings at church and such."

"Yes. We were busy back then."

"Sometimes we wouldn't get to bed until eleven o'clock!"

"I know.  Nowadays I can only stay up until nine."

"You can make it until nine?"

"Well...that's an outside limit."

"If I make plans to go eat dinner, I call that a full day now."

"Yes."

Then my client's guest turned to me.  "You should remember this.  Someday this will happen to you.  It'll happen to your parents, too, and they're going to need you to understand."

"Okay," I said.  "What should I understand?"

"Patience," my client said.  "You'll need to understand patience."  And she and her guest nodded knowingly.

Projects

Baylee made brownies with chocolate frosting completely by herself from beginning to end!  She's helped me cook and bake lots of times before, but she's never actually made something alone.  She did great and the brownies were delicious.  This picture was taken post-shower, by the way.

Zach made his final map for World Geography today.  After this last chapter on the Middle East, he gets to go on to World History, which will be a much easier course.

Baylee had to write a compare/contrast essay this week, and then today she had to make a poster to present it.    Hers is called Pioneer Girls This Year and Last Year.

She also got to decorate a box to keep her finished writing assignments in.

Drew's working on a "fruitfly reproduction" experiment.  We've got fruitflies trapped in a jar with a rotting banana, and we're waiting for the baby maggots to appear.  It's totally disgusting and it smells bad.

 

Last, we started learning Spanish around here!  Zach is doing it for a high school credit, but Baylee and I are joining him just for fun.  We're using Rosetta Stone Spanish I ~ Latin America.   One thing that happened already on lesson 1 is the stupid thing would barely pass me when it came to pronouncing the word "hombre."  Both kids got through it with no problem, but my Michigan accent was really messing me up!  LOL  I had to focus hard on saying that "o" sound like "oh" and not "ah."  

And...yup!  I think that about covers all our latest projects.

Scenes from Today

Drew said this taco shell is differently-abled.  (Actually, this was a couple nights ago.  All the other pictures are from today.)

Baylee is studying cars in history right now, and today was about the invention of the assembly line.  Her teacher showed how much easier it is to make something with several people, each working on one thing, rather than one person doing everything.  Then Baylee got to make a car out of candy without an assembly line.

 Cute!

Friends.  (Not really.)

Zach makes his own smoothies now.

Today I...

• Heard my son speak about the mission trip to Puerto Rico.
• Heard lots of the other kids in the youth group speak on it, too.
• Felt so thankful again that God has given us such a great youth ministry at our church.  I'm so grateful for Pastor Kevin and the teaching/opportunities he's given Zach.
• Went to a Sunday School class that I think I liked.  I mean, I'm hopeful about the content and the teachers (it's a man and wife team) are very kind.  It's just...you know how when people are nervous to be up in front, that sort of makes you nervous?  Or is that just me?  I get such strong sympathy butterflies when I know that someone is scared on stage that I can't relax at all.  I've said it before, but I'll say it again:  A huge part of being in front of people in any capacity is acting.  You have to be able to "go to your happy place" while you're up there.  You have to be able to push everything aside...the bad morning, the fear, the less than enthusiastic audience, the whatever...and just smile and become.
• Had Patty over after church.
• Made her a green smoothie that she really liked.
• Cleaned the house.
• Took a nap.
• Finished Inkheart.

 PS:  Does what I said about acting sound terrible?  Does it sound unGodly?  I don't mean it to.  I don't mean that people have to be fake.  I just mean that if you can't push your "self" out of the picture and just...I don't know...get clarity and confidence...you're taking away from your own message in a way, because it's hard for the audience/congregation to focus.  They're too worried about your worry.  That ability to step away from yourself is an acting skill.

Tubular

Baylee's hamster, Arachne, has a new cage.  It's cool and everything, but she does something really weird.  She sleeps in the tube.  First of all, she's sort of fat, so when she started just hanging out in the middle of the tube we thought she was wedged in there, totally stuck.  Finally we figured out she's sleeping.  It must be comfy.  Sometimes she dozes completely in the tube and sometimes she's half in, half out.  Whatever makes her happy, I guess. Today it occurred to me, though, that when the time comes for her to die, I bet anything she crawls up into that tube to do it.  I'm certainly not going to be the one to try to get her corpse out of there, so we're going to have to deal with it Viking style:  We'll bury her with her ship  hamster habitat.

Getting Things Under Control

I don't know if other people are like this, but I'm the kind of person that has a "control" threshold.  That is, I can have my housework under control and my homeschooling under control and my "working in the evenings" under control and my "being a good wife and mom" under control and maybe even my "ministry at church" under control, but then I hit my threshold and there's nothing left.

Right now the thing that's falling by the wayside is my health.  I'm not getting enough sleep, my diet is terrible, and exercise is nonexistent.  I've got a perpetual sore throat, which I think is allergy-related, but who knows.  As of last night I hit the wall and went to bed at 8:30.  This morning, after twelve solid hours of sleep, I'm ready to start putting me first just a little bit.  I'm going back on the diet and I'm vowing to stick to an 11:00pm bedtime.  As for exercise?  Well...nobody's perfect.

Heart

Baylee was invited to another campout this weekend.  When I reminded her of the last time, when she had to come home at four in the morning because she was scared, she said, "Oh, it's gonna be okay this time.  I learned a verse."

"You learned a verse?"

"Yeah.  'When I am afraid I will trust in You.'  So I'll just remember that and I'll be fine."

"Where did you learn that?"

"My Bible class for school.  Mrs. Overly taught it to me."

Did I mention I like this curriculum?

The Boy

Pioneer Girls started last night and it was great!  I've been struggling with my attitude over being involved in it again this year, because I'm truly busy and I'm already out of the house 3 nights a week for work, but I'm glad I didn't quit now.  It's really cool to see how the implemented ideas from the planning meeting/retreat several of us women went to last spring have completely revitalized this program.

I wish our house was painted like this:

Today Drew and I had a showdown of wills.  Since he's the second child and this ain't my first rodeo, I was never worried that I might lose.  It's just that it took me a minute to grasp what was going on.  See, he decided during his math lesson this morning to claim to have no memory of the entire times table.  I sat there for a minute, talking nicely to him, trying to make him realize he remembers it perfectly, but he stuck to his story.  My blood began boiling, but then it hit me:  This kid is totally playing me.  I got up, told him he'd better get ready to do a lot counting, and walked away.  After some tears and grumbles and insistences that he knew nothing at all, he finally figured out I was dead serious.  He got to work and was finished in 15 minutes.  Miraculously, all the multiplication facts came back to him.

Two Random Observations

There's an entire 10-page thread on a homeschooling moms' forum I frequent (but don't often post to) about circumcision.  The prevailing attitude is that it should be done, if for no other reason than uncircumcision is a shocking surprise to pull on a new bride that first honeymoon night. 

Drew just finished Part 1 of Pilgrim's Progress.    Part 1 is the story of Christian, a boy pilgrim.  Part 2, which Drew is starting tomorrow, is about Christiana, a girl pilgrim.  John Bunyan wrote both parts, because he wanted to make it clear that females can be pilgrims, too.  Just in skimming I've noticed that Christian, the boy, gets himself into all kinds of scrapes, even being whipped one time by "a shining one" for disobeying the King.  In other words, he was disciplined by God...or something.  I haven't been able to work out exactly who the shining ones are.  Christiana, on the other hand, doesn't seem to get into much mischief at all.  Huh.  Interesting.

Even More School

I know I've been talking a lot about school lately, but it'll pass.  Soon it'll be old hat again, and my mind will wander to other things.  For now, though, I give you...drumroll...even more school!

Today Drew was sitting on the couch, reading Pilgrim's Progess, when he suddenly looked up and said, "Why is there so much crap in the road?!"  Maybe you can only really understand that if you know Pilgrim's Progess.  What he said made me laugh, but then it got me thinking how much it really is an analogy of the Christian life.  Why, indeed?  (It's called sin.)

Baylee had a rough start to the day.  Her first subject, math, involved much weeping and gnashing of teeth, so I had her go take a little break in her bedroom.  When I checked on her awhile later she was sound asleep in bed.  Oops.  Looks like someone didn't get enough rest this weekend.  I let her sleep, and when she woke up on her own about 45 minutes later she was much happier.  She really enjoyed her next subject, which was learning about rock hounds in science.  She got to do some rock hounding of her own, too.

Besides getting half his school done this morning, Zach and I had a good talk about something he agreed to do at church this Sunday: He's going to be one of the kids who talks in front of the congregation about what the mission trip to Puerto Rico meant to him.  I'm pretty proud of him for being willing to do that.  I know it's scary.

The Further Adventures of Steve

 Chapter 2:  The Squeaky Wheel

 Hmm.  Maybe we should oil that thing.

 

PS:  The clicking sound you hear in the beginning of the video isn't the wheel.  It's Gibbs' toenails clicking on the floor as he follows me around.

PPS:  Chapter 1 was "KGB Ties"

Ack.

Today Drew did a science experiment on the 3rd criterion for life:  All living things must be able to sense and respond to change.  The experiment shows this using worms.  I've mentioned here before, but maybe you've forgotten, that I have a phobia of worms.  In fact, out of curiosity just now I googled "World's Largest Earthworm" and I found this...

source

Excuse me while I go develop a split personality to handle that trauma.  Moving on, we did this experiment today, and I enlisted Mike's help with the digging of the worms.

What a great Dad!  He's kind to animals, too.

Once we had some dirt and some worms spilled a lot of the dirt on the living room floor we were ready to begin.

First we had to put them under a bright light and watch as they sensed the change and responded to it by burrowing into the dirt.  One of them did this; two didn't.  I think they were in shock.

Awhile later we poured a lot of water into the dirt, and again they sensed the change and came up for air.  Sort of.  Two of them were already there.

The End

Baylee's Oral Report

Baylee had to do an oral report on the mineral of her choice for science last week.  I decided we'd video it, just to give it more of an authentic "I'm doing this in front of people" feel.  The rest was all her.

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Misc.

Man, it felt so good to not get up at 6:30 this morning.  I love Saturdays. 

1.  Baylee's modeling a green smoothie.  Doesn't it look disgusting?  But she drinks that much and more, and so does Zach.  (Drew doesn't like them.)  It's such a great way to get in about 3 servings  of fruits and vegetables.  They both drink one almost everyday.

 
2.  We're going to a picnic this evening with all the families in Adolos, our peer group at church.

3.  Yesterday Mike and I were talking about how many hours something took him, and I insisted it was five even after he told me he started at nine o'clock and was home at one.  When I finally figured out that it was 4 hours he laughed and said, "You're the idiot part of 'idiot savant' when it comes to simple math."  Then I laughed (even though he was mean!), because he's right.  My mind just does not work that way.

4.  Speaking of, you wouldn't believe how long it took me to fully grasp how military time works.

5.  Here's a science experiment.  If that plant is still living in 30 days, despite its closed environment,  the experiment will have been a success.  (We have the spout sealed off.)

6.  Mike pointed out today that Drew's hamster, Steve, is a lot like the killer rabbit in Monty Python's Holy Grail.

source

Steve

Remember Steve, Drew's new Russian hamster?  As it turns out, Steve is REALLY mean.  You can put your hand in the cage, with the idea that he can come over in his own time and get used to you and maybe climb in your palm and be petted, but what really happens is you put your hand in there and he runs...not ambles...not strolls...not meanders...runs over from wherever he is and bites you.  Hard.  I think Steve used to be in the KGB.

Tonight Drew decided he was going to "train" Steve, so he made himself some armor out of toilet paper and masking tape.

Good luck, buddy.  All I see is unprotected thumb meat.

Growth

Well, two weeks of school have gone by now.  I'm really happy about everything I've chosen and how it's all working together.  There's only one issue:  We could use another computer.  Right now all three kids have online classes and they're all juggling one computer.  The good news is some friends of ours let us have an old one of theirs.  The bad news is it's VERY old.  1992 old.  (I wasn't even married yet!)  We still need to get it all hooked up and stuff, so we'll see at that point if it does what we need it to do.  I hope so. Otherwise it'll be a very large, gray desk decoration.

Zach just started his new Bible class for the year:  Successful Living ~ A Study in the Book of Proverbs.  When I talked to the academic adviser at his new school I mentioned that we were planning to have Zach do Old Testament Survey, since he just finished New Testament Survey.  She said something like, "Have you thought about having him do our Proverbs course?  It's really popular with the students here at the school."  That convinced me to change my mind.  We got it in the mail a few days ago and Zach got to work, only to discover that the class includes several projects that involve interviewing Christian adults.  The very first one came up yesterday.  It was:

Interview a successful person you highly respect.  Ask them to select one of these four attitudes and explain why it has been important to them.

• A proper attitude toward God
• A proper attitude toward authority
• A proper attitude toward money
• A proper attitude toward wisdom

Zach didn't want to do it at all, but Mike and I encouraged him.  (Not that he had a choice, but encouragement is still good.)  He emailed the owner of the company that Mike manages, a wonderful, Christian guy, and made his request.  Steve agreed, and this morning Zach went to work with Mike and did the interview with Steve.  Steve gave a really great answer about why "a proper attitude toward God" has been important to him.  Zach took notes, and then when he got home he wrote up a good summary.  I asked Mike if he knew how Zach did during the interview, and Mike said he could kinda hear what was being said, and that Zach sounded very friendly and polished.  Yay!

I really give a lot of credit for Zach's ability to handle himself in a situation like that to the practice he got both before and during the mission trip this summer.  I can't tell you how much I appreciate our youth pastor, Kevin, for helping those kids get out of their comfort zone.  It's been wonderful to watch Zach realize he has some gifts he didn't know he had.

Delicious Grammar

A few days ago Baylee's English teacher taught the concept of imperative sentences by doing a cooking demonstration.  She made "S'more Cones."  Ever since then Baylee has been asking to make this kid-friendly recipe herself.  Here she is trying it tonight, and teaching you how to do it!

Back to Work

Today we were back to work after a 3-day weekend, and it showed.  The kids all had pretty grouchy attitudes this morning.  Despite that, we did a couple fun projects and generally had a good day.

Drew is reading a children's version of Pilgrim's Progress.  It just revises the really outdated language, but otherwise is pretty much the same.  After he read a few chapters today he wrote a paragraph contrasting passion and patience.

Baylee started her day with a great project on biomes.  She got to go outside on the deck and cover a map of North America with different materials, which were meant to represent different regions.  She chose pine needles to represent areas of coniferous forest, for instance.  Take a look and try to ignore the spelling.

Her reading teacher, Mrs. Walker, challenged her to a reading contest.  She gets to fill in a footprint for every 100 pages read on her own from a book of her choice, and when she gets to the footprints on the fingerprints she gets little prizes.  At the end of the chart she gets a bigger prize.  She's racing Mrs. Walker, who's reading aloud to her own children in the evenings.

Here's Zach doing English.  He had to work in his room for awhile today, which isn't his preference, because he just would not stop talking and joking and messing around.

Later he came out of exile.

This afternoon Baylee began trying to beat Mrs. Walker by reading a book from the "double points" list.  Her teacher gave a list of books that are a bit harder, and therefore worth two footprints every hundred pages.  This one is called The Moffats.  We got it at the library during our lunch break.

By the way, do you see that little mark on her cheek?  She was sitting by a campfire at the neighbor's house a couple nights ago, roasting marshmallows, when she decided to balance the stick with the hot marshmallow upright against her knee.   It fell forward and the marshmallow hit her in the face and burned her.

Drew got to start a science experiment.  So far he's only put a leaf in a jar of rubbing alcohol.  Now he has to let it sit for a day before he does anything else.  It was...anticlimactic.
 

Rambling

Tomorrow starts week 2 of school, so I've got to go to bed soon.  I spent all of last week in a zombie-like state brought on by getting up at 6:30AM and going to bed after midnight.  Before I hit the hay, though, I'll try to write a quick post.

Hmm.

Oh, okay, here's something:  Baylee changed her hamster's name to Arachne, because she's into Greek myths right now.  Speaking of, it's odd that it's not spelled "hampster," isn't it?  Like "dumpster" or "pumpkin."

I had to buy several strange things at the store last time I was there, including a single potato, rubbing alcohol, iodine, and a plant in a small pot.  The cashier asked me why I had such a weird assortment of groceries and I told him that we homeschool and the stuff is for some science experiments we'll be doing this week.  He gave me a raised eyebrow and said, "Why don't you just have your kids make ice cream?"

"We did that one already," I responded.

"Do it again."

Okay, then.

In other news, my sister is having a baby!  She just called a couple days ago to tell me the news.  This means that I must get back to Michigan to see her and the new little one sometime after May.  It's been way too long and this is the perfect, wonderful excuse.

Labor Day Weekend

We spent this weekend up in the mountains in Leavenworth  (You know, the Bavarian "Sound of Music" town?) with our friends Todd and Kellie and their kids.  We had a great time!  The guys went kayaking on Saturday (no pics of that, but they had a lot of fun according to Mike) and Kellie and I took the kids to the river to fish and play for several hours.  Then today we went to the church where Todd is the pastor, and that was really nice, too.  Umm...let's see...Oh, we lost the foosball trophy to them, but on the bright side Kellie and I kicked Todd and Mike's butts in Rook both Friday AND Saturday night.  We dominated! It was almost like the cards were stacked in our favor, except they weren't.  (Or were they?)

(They weren't.)

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Sticklers

We're sticklers for proper sitting posture here at our homeschool.