Friday

This weekend won't be too busy, which is something to be thankful for.  The only extra thing on the agenda is a house band gig, and I'm holding out hope that Mike will take Baylee and I can stay home.  I might have to pull out my trusty standby:  "Hey, how about you go, and I'll stay home and clean the house and make a nice dinner?"

Awhile back I bought a sheet of stamps from the post office, and they gave me "Views of Our Planets."  The stamps are large, and each one has a beautiful picture of a planet with its name underneath.  That's been well and good all the way up until today, when I needed a stamp to mail my dad's birthday card, and the next one on the sheet was Uranus.  I mean!  There's no way I can send my dad a card with a big Uranus on it, am I right?  So he got Neptune, instead.  Now the question is:  What can I put a Uranus stamp on?  A bill?

PS:  When you're a homeschool mom you end up having to say "Uranus" several times over the years, and you come to realize that there's no good way to go about it.  You can say "Yer-anus," which, of course, ruins the lesson immediately, because the kids start to giggle and won't stop, or you can say "Urine-us," which isn't much better.  It's a problem.

This and That

Well, I've been listening to The Girl on the Train for a few days now, and I've gotten pretty far.  In fact, I got far enough to find out who-dun-it.  The problem is that even after I found that out there was still an hour and a half left of the story to listen to.  That can't be good news for the main characters.  It means they know who the killer is, they confront the person, and...something terrible happens.  Maybe they're killed, too?  I don't know, and I'm not sticking around to find out.  I'm done.  I didn't enjoy the book that much anyway.  There's not a single likeable person in it.

Drew had a paper due at midnight last night for English Comp.*  He told me that today during class the professor asked him if it would be okay if she used his paper as an example.  And she meant a good example, not a bad one! That's music to this homeschool mom's ears.  Someday I'll get over it, but right now I'm still very much in the "Woo hoo! I didn't ruin my kid!" stage.

WARNING:  DO NOT GET DEODORANT IN YOUR EYE.  A couple mornings ago I was cleaning off a stick of deodorant, because it had gotten kind of messy all around the top.  (It's not like a regular stick.  It's creamier and it gets all over the place.)  Right after that I put my contacts in, and apparently I still had some of that deodorant on my fingers, which then transferred to my left contact, because suddenly my eyeball was on fire.  Somehow I managed to claw the contact back out and rinse my eye, but I still went around for the rest of the day feeling like I had burning sand particles under my eyelid. 


*Back in the ol' days, when I went to college, there was no internet (Was there?), so assignments could only be due during class time.  Nowadays a professor can make an assignment, like a paper, due any time he/she wants, just by having the students turn it in online.  That just doesn't seem quite fair, does it?  lol

Wednesday

Well, Baylee and I have gotten through three weeks of school already, and we've had no absences!  (In other words, we've had no days when, for whatever reason, we decided to bag it.)  Unfortunately, we're still one day behind according to South Ridge's calendar, which is frustrating.  They had Labor Day as a school holiday, and so we used it as one and had a wonderful time at Danny and Reyna's, but somehow it didn't actually count as a day off when it came to the overall schedule.  That happens a couple times in every school year...once at Labor Day and again for the week of spring break...and it drives me crazy.  It's the only thing I don't like about our experience with South Ridge.  Luckily, it doesn't really matter.  I like to stay on their schedule as much as possible, because it's one of the things that makes Baylee eligible for their honor roll, but ultimately it's not worth driving ourselves into the ground over.

For a few years now Baylee hasn't had a dresser, because there wasn't space for one in her bedroom, and she was fine with that.  She wasn't very into clothes or fashion, anyway.  She made do by neatly stacking her clothes on the shelf in her closet or in that green basket.

 
Recently, though, she did start caring a bit more about clothing, and the stacks-and-basket approach wasn't cutting it quite as well.  lol  Long story short, someone in the neighborhood had a cute IKEA dresser they wanted to give away for free, and we took them up on it.  Mike cleaned it and made some minor fixes, and voila!  It's perfect for Baylee's needs.  (PS:  She got rid of her old sewing machine to make room for it.)

Music News:

1. Baylee made it into house band for this school year!  That means she's automatically eligible to do something cool next summer called Summer Fest.  It's a big competition in Chicago.
2. Drew's Theory teacher talked to him after class on Monday and asked him if he'd like to move up a level without even taking the placement test.  Drew declined.

 Finally, here's a picture of Gibbs and Cooper enjoying the sun streaming in through the big window.

Speaking of Cooper, he's getting old now.  A few weeks ago he simply refused to eat dry cat food anymore.  He wouldn't do it, period.  Now we have to buy him cans of wet cat food, and not only that, but we have to carefully serve it to him in a little bowl, slightly mashed up.  Oh, and he wants it room temperature.  Sigh.  Part of me feels like he's punking us.

Busy Weekend

We went strong all weekend and now I'm tired.  All I want to do is lie on the couch and watch Blacklist.  Unfortunately, the house is trashed, which means I'll wake up to a mess on Monday if I don't clean it, which means I'll have to homeschool in that mess, and I hate doing that.  So after I'm done here I'm going to whip this place into shape.  On the bright side, I just downloaded a new audible book, The Girl on the Train, to listen to while I slave away.  It's supposed to be quite a thriller.

The part about cleaning reminds me:  When I was in college my friends always knew when I had a big paper to write or test to study for, because that was the only time I'd clean my dorm room.  I couldn't work in chaos, you see.  They also claimed that I became a bit...what's the word...terse...during those intense times of study, but I prefer to think of it as focused.

The show Baylee was in, Lollapalooza, went well, and Baylee did a great job.  Here's a part of one of her songs:

Hanging out with Patty and Danny before and after the show was fun, too.

 Oh, and we got coffee in Fremont, and the barista made an elephant in mine!

Saturday

Patty, Mike, and I went out to a ramen place for dinner last night.  Did you know they have ramen noodle restaurants?  The soup you get there is nothing like what you get for ten cents a package at the grocery store, though.  It's rich and full of lots of good stuff like noodles, bamboo shoots, an egg, pork/chicken, etc.

Baylee has the Lollapalooza show today!

Also, she did well on her house band audition a couple nights ago.  I was so nervous for her the whole time she was gone (and it was hours.  The kids all have to audition in front of each other.), and then she played a little trick on me and led me to believe she bombed it, the stinker, but finally the truth came out:  She thinks she nailed her two songs and she got her theory question right.  Her theory question was, "Can you play something for us that's in 7/8 time?  Do it."  We'll find out if she made it in on Monday.

By the way, here's a very short video of her practicing the song the school assigned to the drummers for the audition.  It was the hardest thing she's ever had to learn, and it caused many weeks of stress for her.  She worked on it, though, every single day, and slowly it came together.

And here's a video of the other song she did.  She had to do one minute of a song of her choice that would showcase her ability.

Drew decided to stay in Intro to Theory (and its matching Piano class), basically because the director of the SoR, Zeke, told him to.  See, I had to go into the SoR the other day to make a payment, and Zeke happened to be running the front desk.  He and I talked for awhile, and I mentioned to him this issue that Drew is having with Theory being really easy.  Zeke told me a story:  When he was Drew's age he went to a music college, because he played the bass guitar.  Before he started, though, he auditioned for placement and ended up at the highest level of some certain class...almost to master level, in fact.  He went to his first day, sat down with the other students, and the professor whipped out some sheet music and set it in front of him.  Then the professor raised his baton and started directing...and Zeke couldn't read music! (PS:  That's exactly Drew's problem.)  Zeke had to go all the way back down to the lowest level and start from the beginning.  He said, "Tell Drew that story, and tell him that all musicians need to be literate in the language of music, if for no other reason than to be able to play with other people.  We all need to know how to read it and write it."  Long story short, Drew's not complaining anymore.  He's settling in.

School for Two

Baylee is tired and unmotivated today, which has made homeschooling blah so far.  This morning I had to return her World History assignment with several check marks showing mistakes that needed to be corrected.  I also returned her English assignment on persuasive writing, because it had to be completely rewritten.  Finally, I  had to reteach her Physical Science lesson to her, because she didn't understand the teacher on the video.  Sigh.  (In her defense, that lesson was on significant figures, which is a really tricky concept.)  I think Baylee's main issue is that she's worn out, because she's been putting hours upon hours into practicing for a drum audition for next season's house band.  Try-outs are tomorrow, though, so, for better or worse, it'll be over after that.

Drew started college classes today!  He has three classes this quarter:  English Comp 101, Intro to Music Theory, and Piano.  Of those, he had English and Theory today.  He said he likes the English class, because it includes a lot of class discussion/debate over current topics.  He's a social guy and really gets into that kind of stuff.  On the other hand, the theory class was "the longest 50 minutes of [his] life."  He said it's too easy, so he's going to talk to the teacher tomorrow about testing out.  *shrug*  We'll see what happens, I guess.   One thing he did say, though, is that he LOVES being in the music building.  He said that there's something interesting going on wherever you turn, and that the students in there are cooler than anywhere else on campus.  lol

One other neat thing:  Drew said the school welcomed everyone by having all kinds of food trucks parked on campus with free food!

PS:  If you can't tell, I really like Shoreline CC.  I think it's a great place.  Oh, that reminds me:  Drew went to the dentist for a check-up the other day, and she asked him what his plans are for the fall.  He told her that he's attending Shoreline Community College and she said, "Oh!  I went there for two years and loved it!  Then I finished off my education at the University of Washington and hated it."

Monday

I was already in a bit of a rotten mood, then I went into Drew's room.  It was a disaster:  dirty dishes everywhere, music paraphernalia (cords, amps, guitars, picks, pedals, you name it) all over the place, dog hair covering his comforter (because he let the dog sleep on his bed last night), dirty laundry on the floor, and paperwork strewn across his desk.  Oh, yeah, and the current book he's reading, appropriately titled Lords of Chaos, was also tossed in the fray.  He was at the college getting his books for this quarter, so I cleaned the room for him, all the while absolutely fuming.  I was also in an "Everything must go" mood, so I got rid a bunch of stuff.  If he happens to need any of it, oh well.

When he got home we had this conversation:

Me:  Drew, I just cleaned your room, and it was disgusting!

Drew:   Yeah, sorry about that.  And thank you!

Me:  Why did you let it get like that?!  It would be so easy for you to clean up after yourself as you go!  It's not fair that I went there and found it like that!

Drew:  I know.  It's like when I'm at work at Starbucks, and I get everything totally spotless, then the police come in and ruin the condiments bar.  Sugar and creamer everywhere!  They're nice guys, but they make a huge mess.  So I get where you're coming from.

Me:  Well...okay, then.

Sunday

Remember how Baylee went to camp and was part of a group thing for costume night?  She and a few other kids were the Scooby Gang.  Well, I finally have a picture of all of them!

Yesterday I found myself saying these words to Mike:  "Yeah, but I thought I did know what I was doing!"   Sigh.  Long story short, I'm not great with screwdrivers.  Mike's a pretty nice guy, though, and was able to fix my fix-it job.

I have other things I could talk about, but, honestly, I recently discovered Blacklist on Netflix, and I'm hooked!  I'm gonna go watch some more.

Saturday

Last night Drew and I had a conversation about this event:

Me:  Remember that time Nick Jonas messed up his guitar solo on stage and you showed me the video of it?

Drew:  [laughs]  Yeah.

Me:  What do you think happened?  Was he drunk or something?

Drew:  No, he tweeted about it afterward and said, "LOL!  I had a brain fart."  It happens, I guess.

Me:  Huh.

Drew:  More like "brain explosive diarrhea," though.  [We laugh like two idiots.]

Me:  With projectile vomiting.  [We laugh a lot more.]

Drew:  Well, luckily it was at the Country Music Awards, so probably nobody there even noticed.

Pictures

I thought the dog looked distinguished, so I snapped his pic.

And this is the opposite of distinguished, considering half his underwear is hanging out, but I thought it was kinda cute.  He was so tired one day earlier this summer that he conked out on the living room floor.   He had been burning the candle at both ends between school and work.

This is some kind of foreign drum language, I think. 

Mike cleaned every window in the house, inside and out, last Saturday.

And here are pictures of Mike's garden.  It's producing so much this year!

A Memory of One of My Most Idiotic Moments

One time, back when I was in high school, I was out with some friends in an unfamiliar town.  We all went into a neat, old-fashioned ice cream parlor, but my friends went in about twenty seconds ahead of me.  The place was packed with people, so by the time I got in there I couldn't see any of the kids I knew.  They were lost in the crowd.  I looked around for awhile, and suddenly I spotted them, but...and I thought this was weird...they were in a different section of the store that seemed to be accessible only by going outside and coming back in through another door.  I went back out and looked for that other door, but it didn't exist.  Confused, I went back in the ice cream parlor, looked around again, and, sure enough, there my friends still were over in that other section!  Feeling more than a little ridiculous, I went back outside, looking for whatever I must've missed, but nope, there really was no second entrance.  I went in again for the third time.  That's when one of my friends, Brian, called out to me.  "Sue!  What the heck are you doing?!  Get over here!"  It turns out they were all behind me, and I had been seeing them in a big, wall-length mirror.

Monday

Today is the most beautiful, sunny, slightly crisp fall day, but for some reason I'm having allergy problems.  I had to take a Benadryl, so I'm on borrowed time here before I start running out of gas and probably sounding like an idiot.

(I've always had allergies, so I have a lot of experience with how I act on Benadryl, and I've come to this conclusion:  If I only take one pill, which is half of an adult dose, I'm a nice companion.  That is, I'm sleepy enough to think you're funnier than you really are.  If I have to take two pills, though, I'm a zombie, and a mean one at that.  I took one today.)

One of the parents took a bunch of pictures of everyone at the show this past weekend.  Here are a couple of Baylee...

Couple fun facts about the show:

1.  They had a smoke machine on stage, and the drummers definitely got the worst of it.  Baylee said that it would blow a huge cloud of smoke right at the drummer, and the rest of band would disappear from view.  In fact, the drumset would sometimes disappear!  It made things a bit tricky.

2.  The director put the two fastest, most exciting songs at the very end of the show, and Baylee happened to be playing drums on both.  The first was "Overkill" and the second was called "Ace of Spades."  When she was done and came off the stage after playing them, I gave her a big hug, and she was disgusting!  lol  She was wringing wet with sweat, as if she'd just run a marathon.  Both songs make use of the double bass kick, which is actually a lot like running for a drummer, and between those two songs Baylee did that for about 8 minutes, almost straight.

How a double bass kick works:

(Except she was wearing shoes.)

Totally different subject, but have you ever been reading a book and had to stop because the writing was too terrible?  I had that happen today, only it was an audio book and I was listening to it.  I got to this part:

Emily took another breath and felt the tint of magic in the air, sparking against the magic field that kept the dragon aloft.  She glanced toward the massive wings and saw blue-green sparks glancing along the scaly surface, moving with an eerie silence that chilled her to the bone.  Then they were suddenly back in the mountains.  The sparks faded away into nothingness.  Emily breathed a long sigh of relief and tried to relax.  It didn't work.  The sight below the dragon chilled her to the bone.

~ Christopher Nuttall, Schooled in Magic

I had to turn the story off immediately, because what I had just heard was a deal breaker for me.  I mean, for crying out loud, how many times can the main character be "chilled to the bone" in the same paragraph???  I just can't with that. 

Motorhead vs. Girlschool Show

Baylee was in a show tonight (I'm posting this at 12:09am, so I'm actually talking about Saturday evening) called Motorhead vs. Girlschool, and it was really good!  I'm so impressed with those kids!  The ironic thing about this particular show is that when it was first announced, way back in the beginning of the summer, only about five kids signed up for it.  Because of that, the school assigned several house band kids to it to beef up the numbers.  Well, those house band kids ended up making it wonderful.

I've talked on here a couple times about one of Baylee's songs, "Overkill."  It's the one that several of the boys, especially the boy drummers, didn't think she would be able to pull off, so she worked her butt off and proved them wrong.  It was my favorite song of the night.  I was so proud of her that I felt a little choked up afterwards.

(The whole thing is good, but it gets really exciting at about 3:30, because that's when those false endings start.)

Here's another really good one.  You can't see her, because she's lost in the fog, but that's Baylee on the drums.

Finally, here's one with an exciting introduction.  Again, it's B on the drums.

A Cute Story

I never mentioned this back when it happened, which was last school year when Baylee was in 9th grade, but she had a "boyfriend."  I put that in quotes, because it mostly amounted to them Skyping a lot, and then once a week she'd go over to his house or he'd come over here, and they'd watch TV and eat dinner with the families.  It was kinda cute, actually, for the month and a half that it lasted.  Then he got interested in a different girl, and Baylee was history.  She cried for about a solid week, was sad for about a month, and came out the other side with some new life lessons, one of them being "I'm too young to date...and the boys my age are really too young to date."

I tell you that, because now, a year later, she has four different boys at the SoR who have crushes on her and have asked her out, and she's nicely told them all "no."   Yesterday, though, she was texting with one of them, and she off-handedly mentioned to him that she was tired and hungry.  The next thing we knew a pizza was being delivered to our house!  He ordered it for her...and paid for it!  LOL  Sigh.

#JesusTakeTheWheel

School

I know it's only day 3, but I'm really proud of how well Baylee's doing in school so far.  She realized right off the bat, I think, that she has to step it up now that she's in 10th grade.  Everything is harder and takes more focus.  I'm especially happy with how calmly and seriously she's taking geometry.  Most subjects she can do alone, but geometry is the one thing that we're treating exactly like a classroom situation.  That is, I teach; she listens and works problems.

Here she is doing something called "constructions" in geometry.  She has to have a separate notebook for it, where she does specific drawing exercises using a ruler and compass.

Another thing she has to do is keep a notebook of all the definitions, postulates, theorems, etc. and then memorize them.  We decided that she'll make that her homework every single night.

So far she's been finishing school by or just a little after lunch, and then she spends a couple hours or more in the afternoon practicing the drums.  I like her dedication!

Wednesday

The second day of school went well, even though it had an orthodontist appointment in the middle of it.  Bonus:  We found out Baylee only has to have braces on her teeth for one more month!  Her time with them went by so fast.  Maybe that's because when the boys had them everything was still new to us, but now with Baylee it's like, "Yeah, I get it.  Your teeth hurt.  Take a Tylenol."

I mentioned that Baylee had a gig on Sunday, but I didn't show you the couple video clips I have.  Here they are...

Baylee is the understudy on this song, which means she only gets to play it when the regular kid can't be there.  Every time she's gotten the chance, though, she's killed it.

And here's a bit of a Beatles' song that the kids do a good job on.

First Day of School!

We started school today...come hell or high water.  lol  For real, though.  We had such a busy weekend with the house band stuff and Lily being here and then spending all day on the peninsula yesterday, and Baylee was exhausted last night and begged to not have to start this morning, and then to top it all off I got sick.  I was feeling uncomfortably chilly all day yesterday and my nose kept running (Don't worry, I didn't walk around like that.), but I just figured it was the weather.  Then last night the yuckiness manifested into sneezing, aching, fever, and fatigue.  Blah.  Nevertheless!  We pressed on.

She wasn't too thrilled with having her picture taken, but I blackmailed her, so...

Doing her new Journey Through the Old Testament course

Doing Latin 1

She also did English 2, Physical Science, Geometry, and World History.

Labor Day

Lately...like over the last few years...the kids have been teasing Mike and me about how unintentionally awkward we can be with their friends.  They also tell us not to feel bad, as all their friends' parents are awkward, too.  With that in mind, here's an actual, word for word thing that happened yesterday:

Zach's friend JT, who's in the Navy, has the weekend off, so he came to visit.  Literally, he stepped one foot in our door and Mike, who's very into his garden right now, said, "Hi, JT!  You want a carrot?!"

JT was like, "Uhh...yeah, okay..."

-------------------------------------------

We all (and Lily) went over to the peninsula to celebrate Labor Day with Danny and Reyna today.  We had lots of good food and played four games of croquet, and Lily and I kicked butt!!!  Seriously, we were unbeatable.  I don't know if I suddenly became a savant at it or if it was just an unrepeatable bout of good luck, but it sure was fun while it lasted.

Oh, and the girls did a Heathers the Musical impression...

Actual Heathers:

Our weirdos:

All the Things

I feel like I've just been slapping things up here over the past couple days and calling it good, and...well...I'm about to do it again today.  lol

First, Drew's home safely!  He had a great time and said the concert was amazing.  He really liked Portland, too.  Oh, yeah, and while he was there he actually bought himself three used books for the long bus ride home, and he read quite a bit of one of them.  Who is this kid???  I've never known him to read for pleasure.

Zach's first pair of motorcycle gloves wasn't waterproof, so he wanted something that was.  (That trip over the mountains to Leavenworth in a rainstorm was horrible for that reason alone.)  Yesterday was the day he made that happen.  He bought a cool pair made out of kangaroo skin of all things.

And Baylee has her friend Lily spending the weekend.  Lily's been going through a bit of a rough patch and needed 1) a friend and 2) a little get-away.  I'm glad Baylee is able to provide both.  The girls have been having so much fun that I've barely seen them.  I've heard lots of laughing, though...and singing!  They've been messing around with an old High School Musical karaoke game we have.  Lily knows all the words to all the songs, because her middle school did High School Musical, and she played the lead, Gabriella. (We went and saw her.)  Baylee knows all the words because she's a dork.  lol

By the way, these girls have been friends for a really long time.  Here's a picture of them from seven years ago.

Now today there's a house band gig, which Lily and Rachel are going along to, and then from there Lily is going with Baylee to her 3-hour Motorhead rehearsal at the SoR.  I think she'll fit right in with all the other kids and I hope they'll make her feel welcome.

Little Plug

I'm about half finished with Assimil French!  I'm on lesson 59 out of 113.  In fact, I'm up to what the course calls the "second wave" now, which means that I'm working on two lessons at once.  I do the next new one in order, plus I review one from the past.  So, for instance, next time I pick the book up I have to do both lesson 59 and lesson 10.  It makes everything take longer, but it's nice to go through those old lessons and realize that I can understand them with no studying at all.

I should say, just for honesty's sake, that I'm not doing the little writing exercises that are included in each lesson.  I'm just using the course as reading/listening practice, and for the fun cultural tidbits that are talked about.  That's partly why I'm able to go through everything so quickly.  (The other reason is because it's 95% review for me.)

Really, if you're looking for a fairly inexpensive, all-inclusive language program, you should check out Assimil.  They have courses in lots of languages, not just French.  Of everything I've done, it's definitely the most interesting.  All of the reading/listening exercises are recorded by native speakers who are also probably professional actors, and all of the recordings are of conversations.  In other words, you're always hearing the language spoken between people, like you would if you went to the country.  Plus, they're almost all amusing.

Friday

I don't have a lot to talk about today, since we've been taking it easy around here.  Plus it's been chilly and rainy, and that makes it feel even more quiet.  I do have a couple pictures.

Recently Baylee made a new friend named Abby, who's a singer in the house band.  They have a ton in common as far as the things they're interested in, and they're both confident and out-going.  They have fun together.  This picture was taken at Abby's house yesterday.  She's the one in the front. 

And this was taken today in Portland.  That's Drew and one of his friends from Seattle University, Orion.  I guess they're trying to look intellectual, since they're next to that Shakespeare quote.  lol  Dorks.

Lazy Day

This is turning out to be a lovely day.  For the first time in I don't know how long, nothing has to be done and we don't have to go anywhere.  Mike's here at home, since he's on vacation right now, and Baylee and I are here, and that's it.  We're just bumming around, talking now and then, but mostly quietly puttering, doing our own things.  It's nice.

Where are Zach and Drew?  Well, Zach's not on vacation, so he's at work.  And Drew is on a 3-day trip to Portland with a couple friends from Seattle University.  Drew and his friends figured this whole thing out together:  Greyhound tickets, a place to stay while they're there, concert tickets (the purpose of the trip is to see a concert), money, food, etc. I'm both proud of him and worried about my baby at the same time.  lol