January Moments

I've used the One Second Everyday app through the month of January, and now I have a little video showing one moment of almost every day of this month.  Plus I threw in four moments from December.  This is kinda fun!

PS:  If you're wondering how it comes out to be 38 seconds, it's because you can make a moment 1 second, or you can make it 1 1/2 seconds.  I chose 1 1/2 a few times, because otherwise those bits seemed too fleeting to make sense.

PPS:  Zach is in this a couple times (once he's getting on a motorcycle and once he's grinding coffee beans), but for the most part he's a very unwilling subject when it comes to the camera.  lol  Trust me, if he'd let me I'd have him in my pictures and videos much more often.

Sunday

I've said before that one of the downsides of homeschooling is that you don't often get feedback about how your kids are doing, and so you just have to use your judgement, push forward, and hope for the best.  Once in awhile, though, something will happen or somebody will say something that makes you think, "Oh, cool, this is actually working!"  Last night was one of those times.

The music director of the SoR, Lori, is leaving and going back into public education, so there was a going-away party for her.  Mike took Baylee and I ended up staying home, because I had some other stuff I needed to do.  Anyway, during the party Mike had a really nice conversation with Lori.  He told her how much we're going to miss her special touch with the students, and she told him how much she enjoyed both Drew and Baylee.  She said that the teachers at the SoR would have conversations about them, about how they're siblings who happen to be a couple of the most musically talented kids the school has had.  (I know that's a huge mom brag. Sorry.)  She said something like, "I don't know what you guys did, but it worked!"

When Mike came home and told me about it we kind of laughed and admitted to ourselves that we've done very little.  Actually, we did one thing:  We gave them time.  I mean that literally.  We, by homeschooling, gave them extra hours of the day to pursue their own interests.  And then we gave them opportunities and support.  That's it.  That's what it boils down to.  That's what homeschooling does, and that's one of the main things that makes it worthwhile.

Deviled Eggs

Last night Drew came up to me and said, "Mom, I'm going to make deviled eggs for you to take to the party tomorrow."  (He had overheard Mike and me talking about a going-away party that we had to bring food to.)

"Umm...okay.  Have you ever made them before?"

"No, but I know how."

"How about you just make some for our family?"

And so he did.  He was meticulous about it, too.  lol  The only thing he did wrong was he cut the eggs in half the short way instead of the long way.

 They were delicious!

Friday

I'm reading a book called Unbearable Lightness, by Portia DeRossi.  She's 1) an actress and 2) Ellen Degeneres' wife.  The book is basically her autobiography, but it's written from the standpoint of her struggle with anorexia, caused by the fact that she's in the entertainment industry (and has been since she was 12 years old.  She started as a child model.).  Anyway, I got the book from the library and didn't have very high expectations, but it's really interesting.  It helps a lot that Portia is intelligent and was able to write the book herself and do a great job of it.  I recommend it.

Man, this has been a week.  It was the first week of my diet, for one thing, which always makes things harder.  It's like I don't have any emotional cushion to fall back on when things get stressful.  And for another thing Baylee and I are doing double days in geometry.  I can't tell you what a drag that is, and we still have a week to go of it.  Ugh.  The brass ring is that after next week we'll be completely caught up in every subject, and actually ahead in some.  That means that her school year will end (if we can hang onto this and not get behind again) on June 2nd.

So you know how awhile back I told you that Baylee's friend, Max, often (re:  always) ducks out of auto shop class for an early lunch?  And remember I said that he and Baylee sometimes go get food somewhere?  Well, lately Baylee has been trying to save money in order to take driver's ed, so they've been eating here at our house instead.  Yesterday Baylee made them mac-n-cheese and brownies.

Jeans Limbo

So yesterday I said that my clothes are getting looser and more comfortable, and today I feel like my jeans are at the point of being slightly too loose.  lol  It might be because I've gotten used to the feeling of them being too tight, or it might be because they're actually a tiny bit too big.  It's probably the former, to be honest.  I tried on the next size down (because I have my own little stash of smaller sizes in my closet from back when I was thinner), and I don't fit into it yet.  I guess I'm stuck being uncomfortable in pants that are saggier than I'd like for awhile.  I'm in jeans limbo.

Wednesday

A few nights ago I was watching TV by myself when Zach wandered over and sat down.  We talked and watched more TV together, then a few minutes later Drew came in.  The three of us chatted and kind of half watched whatever show it was, and do you know what?  That was such a great time.  I don't remember why, but Zach ended up telling a story about something that happened in his early teens, and it made Drew and me laugh hard.  In fact, I was in the story, even though I have no memory of it.  It was about a time that 13-year-old Zach wanted to put a bagel in the toaster, and I told him that he'd need to slice it in half first or it wouldn't fit.  He sliced it in half alright...from top to bottom.  Zach's reenactment of my very exasperated response is what made me laugh to tears.

Things are going well with Wonderslim.  The pounds are just falling off, and this morning I noticed that my clothes are starting to feel looser and more comfortable.  Woo hoo!  That said, I've been giving a lot of thought to what I'm going to do after this month.  (With Wonderslim there's no contract or obligation.  You order by the month.)  I won't be where I want to be weight-wise yet, but I think I will be in a good place as far as self-discipline.  I'm strongly considering stopping the Wonderslim at that point and moving on to something else.  The new thing is 1) free and 2) a life-style change, not a diet.  I'll talk about it more when the time comes.

A couple days ago I took this video of Baylee practicing a song for the upcoming Led Zeppelin show.  She's getting pretty dang good!

That Van

On Facebook I follow the page of the group home that Mike and I used to work at a long time ago.  Today they posted a picture of several of the guys loaded up in one of their 15-passenger vans, ready to go on an outing.  Looking at it made me remember 2 things:

1.  I already shared here.

2.  One time I was driving one of those vans full of disabled guys down the highway, on our way to see a movie at the theater.  We were going a good 55 miles an hour (It was Grand Rapids, after all, not Seattle) when suddenly a tire from a car a couple hundred feet in front of us came off.  It literally just loosened from the car it was on and started to roll and bounce its way down the road.  That might not seem like a big deal, but, I'm telling you, tires are heavy, and this thing was barreling and bouncing into oncoming traffic.  There were cars all around, so none of us in its path could do much to get away from it, and besides there was so little time.  I could see it coming right at our van, not dead-on, but from an angle, and I remember thinking that we were going to be hit for sure.  Then in the next second the tire went past, barely missing the front corner of our vehicle.  The whole van was quiet for a couple beats, then the resident sitting in the passenger seat, a guy named Mike, barked out a laugh and clapped his hand down on my knee.  We both started laughing, because...well...we escaped a bad accident by inches, and it was crazy and such a relief that everyone was okay.

Monday

I'm glad all the conversation on Facebook about the Women's March is pretty much over.  Honestly that was hard to watch/read, because both sides were equally irritating to me.  There are so many people...even people I probably fundamentally agree with...that I want to say "Shhhhh!" to.  And it's not that I think they shouldn't speak out for what they believe in.  It's the way they do it.  They're smug and often just plain jerks.

I don't have much time, as today's crazy with driving teens around, so I'll end with this picture.  It's a part of Baylee's bedroom wall where she has posters of all the SoR shows she's been in so far.  She just added the Led Zeppelin one, as that show is coming up very soon.

More School Talk

Yesterday I said that I only teach Baylee one thing, geometry, and that for everything else she either has video teachers or she teaches herself.  I feel like maybe I need to explain that a little bit.  Here's the thing:  She's in high school.  By the time most homeschooled kids are in high school, they're independent learners.  That's the goal, anyway.  That's what we want.

Even so, I'm not actually sitting around doing nothing as her homeschool mom.  How it works in our house is that every morning she gets started on her own on the subjects she can do herself.  That's English, world history, Bible, physical science, and Latin.  (Although with science and Latin she has teachers on video.)  It takes her about 4 hours to get through all that...sometimes a little more.  My job is to correct her work as she finishes it, and then sit with her and go over mistakes.  I make her fix everything she does wrong, as long as it's not a quiz or a test.  If she doesn't get it, I teach it to her myself.  She never moves forward in any subject without having a good understanding.  Then after lunch we sit together at  the dining room table and I teach geometry.  I teach it pretty much exactly like a classroom teacher, in that there's a part where I talk and she listens, and there's a part where she works problems and does proofs.  The reason I don't use a video for math (and I could.  The school we're enrolled in has them.) is because it's the one thing I've found that doesn't work well that way.  When it comes to math a student needs to be able to have a back-and-forth conversation.

And that's that.

PS:  Well, she does have one more subject, which is music.  She has a teacher for that, of course, but she handles everything herself.

Friday

Today Zach and I were talking about liver, and I told him that I used to really like it as a kid (my dad made great liver and onions), but now that I'm an adult I'm not so sure.

"Why?" Zach asked.

"Because now I know what it is." 

"You mean you might like something, but then once you find out what it is you won't eat it anymore? That's not right."

"Oh, yeah?  Well, what if I was eating cat meat, but I didn't know it, and I was like, 'Mmm.  This tastes like chicken,' and then I found out it was cat.  Should I keep eating it?"

That was the end of the discussion.

Speaking of eating, today was my first day of Wonderslim!  I like it!  To be honest the shakes aren't as good as Slimfast...I think it's all the protein in them that makes them slightly weird to me...but they're fine.  And, bonus, you can turn them into smoothies by adding fruit and ice and blending, or you can make them into pudding by adding less water.  The Wonderslim lunch I had today, cheese steak macaroni, was delicious!  I'd eat it even if I wasn't dieting.  Finally, the snack I tried, honey mustard crunchers, was good, too.  The best part was that everything was filling. 

As of today Baylee is totally caught up in every subject but geometry.  I'm proud of her, as that was quite a bit of work.  Unfortunately, geometry is going to be the really bad one.  It's going to take two school weeks of two lessons a day, which translates to an hour and a half of geometry a day.  Ugh.  (This particular one affects me, too, because it's the one thing that I teach her.  Everything else she either teaches herself or has video teachers for.)  The bright side is that Baylee is weirdly good at proofs and can do them quickly.  I guess she has a logical mind or something.

PS:  The only thing I learned when I was in high school geometry was how to spell my teacher's name.  It was Mr. Oehrli, and it was pronounced "early."

PPS:  Now that I'm teaching it I understand it...at least one day in advance. 

Out, Not Up

One of my philosophies of homeschooling, which I've been sort of forced to develop because of Baylee, is "out, not up."  She's always been a quick learner.  Remember back when she was six years old and in 1st grade, and she did school with Washington Virtual Academy?  They tested her for placement into their program, and she tested well into 3rd grade.  Because of that and so many other instances over the years when she's been quicker than average, I've had to give some thought to what I want her education to look like.  Did I want to move her along at an accelerated pace and possibly have her graduate early?  Or did I want to keep her at grade level?  Here's what I came up with:  Instead of having her go up, I'd have her go out.  That is, I'd have her do her usual work, but then if she (or I, for that matter) showed a special interest in something, I'd have her learn more and dig deeper.

This week has been a great example of how that works for us.

1. She initiated that conversation about sex in the grocery store, so this week I'm having her read Facing the Facts:  The Truth about Sex and You.
2. For Martin Luther King Jr. Day I had her watch a wonderful documentary called A Class Divided.  I recommend it.
3. Today in Physical Science her video teacher talked about helium vs. hydrogen, and he specifically brought up the Hindenburg.   I had Baylee watch a couple YouTube videos on it.  (This one and this one.)  I watched them, too, and the second one made me cry.
4. This hasn't happened yet, but coming up in about a week she's going to be assigned The Hiding Place to read as part of her English class.  I'm also going to have her watch the movie The Devil's Arithmetic, which is about the Holocaust. 

Come to think of it I did this kind of stuff with Drew, too, to some extent, and a bit with Zach.  (Zach was very happy to just do "school" and not have extras thrown in.)  Anyway, I think it's a good philosophy.  It's worked well for us.

On a totally other note, here's the cat sitting on my lap while I watched TV last night.  He's getting cuddly in his old age.  Look at his ear.  He's a lover and a fighter.  lol

 

Oh, yeah, and my Wonderslim package didn't arrive yesterday, which was SO DISAPPOINTING.  It's in Seattle and on the truck for delivery right now, though, so it'll be here sometime today.  I'm anxiously waiting!

Wednesday

The rain is pattering drumming somewhere between pattering and drumming on the roof, which you can hear clearly in our bedroom.  What a perfect place to be able to hear rain on the roof, don't you think?

One for the "Oh, Drew" files...

• On the one hand he spent the entire weekend deep in a forest, at the foot of a mountain, next to a lake, in the snow, somewhere in Idaho, on an Indian reservation.  He was invited to go along with a friend and her family to witness a ceremony there.  He said there was a lot of chanting and drumming, and then afterward there was a huge feast.  He said he's never had salmon that delicious and that the whole thing was really interesting.
• On the other hand this morning he was complaining, because his English class is meeting in a different place on campus and listening to a guest speaker.  He said that's going to "throw him out of his groove." 

Almost Time!

My Wonderslim package is arriving tomorrow!  Finally!  It will have taken it almost a week to get all the way over here to the West Coast, and I excitedly (and dorkishly) tracked it the whole way.  This afternoon I went out and did the grocery shopping for the few extra things I'll need, but don't already have here at home:  skim milk, whole wheat bread, some fruit, some veggies, and protein.  (We have those last three, but I wanted to stock up a bit.)  When the package gets here I'm starting right then.  I'm just ready.

By the way, I mentioned awhile back that Mike started doing something called Isagenix.  I thought I'd update and say that he's amazing with it and is now only 2 pounds away from his recent low weight (from this past summer and early fall when he was biking his head off).  He plans to reach that and then keep going another 10 pounds or so.  All I know is already his snoring has improved drastically!

Pet Peeve

Warning:  I'm probably about to sound like a huge jerk.

For the past year or so I've really gotten into reading and watching people's personal weight-loss stories.  I find the books on Overdrive or Amazon (Some of the ones I read are professionally published, and some are self-published and cost about $2.  The self-published ones can be a mixed bag, as you can imagine.), and I find the shows on TV.  One thing I've noticed that they almost all have in common is they start with some sort of sob story about what went wrong in the person's childhood to make them fat.  Seriously, EVERY person on My 600-Pound Life says that his or her parents got divorced, and after that he/she started packing on the pounds.  Or they say that they were molested.  Or they say their mom used food to help them cope with every problem.  And you know what?  I feel for them.  Some of the things they describe are awful.  However, let's get real.  Whatever happened in childhood did not make them into 600 (and sometimes 700) pound people.  That came from years and years of bad choices.

Honestly, I myself can pinpoint when I started to gain weight, and it was a little something called the birth control pill.  I started taking it when I got married, and I quickly gained 20 pounds or so.  The continued weight gain and failure to get it under control, though, is on me.

Anyway, the point is I hate that part of every book and show.  It's boring and depressing and victim-y.  It's then, and I'm interested in now.  I love when they get to the part of their story where they start implementing whatever program they're on and the weight starts to come off.  That part is inspirational!  In fact, my favorite weight-loss book...I've read it three times...is one that's set up like a diary.  It begins five days before she starts her diet and continues mostly day-by-day until she's in maintenance.  She literally never talks about anything that happened before that time frame.  If I ever wrote a diet memoir, I think I'd do the same.   

Friday

Today I woke up at 5:45 for no good reason and couldn't get back to sleep, so I got out of bed and started my day.  I'd say I got less than 6 hours of sleep altogether last night.

Bright side:  I got a nice picture of the sunrise.

Not bright side:  I'm ready to call it a day, and it's 4:30.

Actually it worked out, because I had a lot to do this morning and needed some extra time.  I cleaned the whole house and had Baylee do almost all of school before noon. (And school was more than usual, because Baylee decided to double up on every subject today, so she can have Monday off like the public school kids.) Then my friend Beth and her son Paul came over. (Remember Paul?  I used to teach him a couple mornings a week.)  They stopped by to visit and also to have me teach Paul how to find the least common denominator.  lol

I took this picture while they were here.  While Beth and I visited, Baylee took a nap on her bed and Paul played with the X-box under her bed.

Totally different subject, but I wanted to tell you guys about my diet plans.  I know I said that I planned to reach milestone 2 by January 6, but my methods have kind of changed, and so I've been in limbo for a bit.  (Actually, I'm still losing a little weight, though.  Today when Beth came over she exclaimed over how thin my legs and hips look, which is awesome!)  I wanted so badly for Slimfast to work, because I love the structure of it.  I love eating quick and easy meal replacements, and I love the "six small meals a day" schedule.  The problem was that I was always hungry.  So what I'm going to try is a program which is like Slimfast...actually, it's exactly like Medifast, if you know what that is...but it has you eating a lot more protein than Slimfast.  In fact, it has you eating more food in general, for the same amount of calories.  It's a high protein, low carb diet.  Here's the website if you're interested.  I chose the Women's Core plan.  My first shipment is supposed to arrive next week, so that's when I'll start.  I'm excited!

Beam

I told you about Beam, right?  It's Baylee's main friend group, and it stands for Baylee, Ezra, Abby, and Max.  Well, awhile back Baylee realized that between the four of them they play every instrument needed for a band, so she suggested they form one.  They did, and it's called...Beam.  lol

Last night they were all here for a rehearsal, and they were pretty darn good!  Here's a little part of a song they wrote themselves.  It's a bit rough, because they're still working on it, but you'll get the idea.  Baylee's on drums, Ezra's on guitar, Abby is singing, and Max is on bass.

Sex Ed

I mentioned that last week Baylee decided to use the grocery store to have an embarrassing conversation with me, but I didn't tell you what it was about.  I'm still not going to completely describe it (because I'm still embarrassed!), but I will share a little part of it with you.

Her:  Mom, one time, not that long ago, I was in a conversation with some people, and somebody said "semen."  Me, being an idiot, asked, "What's that?"  Everyone made a huge deal about how I didn't know!  They've all taken years of sex education in school, and I haven't!

Me:  [blink]

Ahem.  It appears I may have dropped the ball a little bit.  Listen, she's not completely ignorant.  When she was 8 or 9 I gave her a book called Before I was Born, which is about "the talk."  Plus, when she was around 10 I ordered The Care and Keeping of You from the library and had her read it.  That one's about girl stuff.  Come to find out, though, those weren't quite enough.

I should've known.  Before I was Born is actually part of a 4-book set called God's Design for Sex.  We own all four books, and I had her read the first two, but I forgot all about the second two.  Oops.  (Although, in my defense, it's an easy thing to forget, because each book is meant to be read at various ages and levels of understanding. The first book is read to a child of about five, and it's about how boys and girls are different and about how private parts are private.  The second book is read to or by a child of eight or nine, and it gently explains sex.  The third is read by pre-teens, and it talks about puberty and answers common questions.  Finally the fourth is read at 14-15 or so, and it gets into more biological detail, and why it's important to save sex for marriage.  Anyway, as you can see, lots of time goes by between books.  Years, in fact.)  To get to the point, we're ahead in Bible class right now, so we're going to set the Old Testament aside next week, and instead I'm going to have her read book 4 in the series, Facing the Facts:  The Truth about Sex and You.  And I looked.  The word "semen" is in there. 

School

Drew started his second quarter of college today.  I offered to give him a ride, and, holy cow, that turned out to be a fat mission.  First, right before we had to leave the dog escaped.  Usually Baylee can get him pretty quickly and easily, but, of course, since we were in a hurry it wasn't like that this time.  Gibbs ran around just out of reach and basically acted like an idiot.  I finally caught him and brought him back inside, and we left.  All was well until we got to the intersection right by the school.  It's busy on the best of weekday mornings, but today it was INSANE.  Literally, there was police directing traffic; that's how crazy it was.  (There was police directing traffic on the first day of last quarter, too.  Drew said it's because the first week of new classes is always crazy, then within a few days tons of people drop out, and traffic isn't as bad.)  It took ages to get up to the front area, and Drew ended up being about 5 minutes late...at least.  I'm not sure how fast he walked once he left me.  I hate being late.  It makes me feel totally stressed out.  Drew, on the other hand, doesn't mind it.  Sigh.

Anyway, hopefully his classes go well.  He's got a busier load this quarter, with 4 classes instead of 3.  He's got an English class, a theory class, a piano class, and a songwriting class.

Friday

I'm so glad it's Friday!  This was a great homeschool week, but it just seemed to drag on.  I was proud of Baylee today, though.  She had hard Latin and World History tests, and she did well on both.

Other than that I just have a couple quick pictures.  This one was taken a couple evenings ago.  Drew and Mike made some sort of sound effect guitar thing, and it involved a lot of drilling, some laughter, and a deeply cut finger.

And this is of Baylee and Max, and was taken by Max's mom.

Thursday

I've been having so much fun with that One Second Everyday app!  It takes so little time, but it's already turning into something neat.  It let me go back as far as I had videos in my camera, which wasn't very far, since I'm the kind of person who deletes things.  I was only able to go back to November.  Anyway, because I was able to go back a little way I already have 8 seconds in all, representing a single moment in time on 8 different days.  It's cool!

This afternoon Baylee and I did a little bit of grocery shopping at Fred Meyer, and she decided to use the cereal aisle to have one of those, "Mom, can I ask you something?  It might be kind of embarrassing..." questions.  By the way, she meant it might be embarrassing for me, not for her.  Siiiiiiigh.  Honestly, if I hadn't actually been there when she was born, I'd wonder if she was adopted.  Where in the world does she get this openness from???  It's not from me, I'll tell you that right now.  Not only did I never ask my mom embarrassing questions, at least once I was a teenager and old enough to know better, but I died a thousand deaths when my mom decided I should probably know something and tried to have a talk with me about it.  (That happened twice, and both times were in a moving car.  I was her captive audience.)

You know what's hard to wrap your mind around when it comes to learning another language?  Humor.  Yesterday I was watching that French soap opera on French in Action, and the two main characters were talking about their families.  The guy, Robert, says that his dad works in a bank, and the girl, Mireille, asks what he does there.  She says, "Is he a cashier?  Or a night watchman?"

Robert replies, "No, he's the vice president."

Then Mireille looks a little sheepish and says, "Ah...Il n'y a pas de sot métier, comme dit ma tante Georgette."

She made a little joke, but I had to think hard before I understood that.  Her words translate as, "Ah...There's no foolish job, as my Aunt Georgette says."  It's weird how I would totally understand that she was being funny if I had heard it in English, but it was confusing in French.  It gives me a new appreciation for all the people I've come across in life who are speaking English as a second language, and who sometimes don't get humor right away.

Tuesday

I'm not sure if this makes me a good person or a bad one:  When I have to go to the bathroom, but I wait, because the cat's getting a drink.

Well, Baylee and I started school back up again yesterday.  It's going well.  In fact, not only are we putting in a regular day, but she's working extra to catch up.  (Because we were sick for a week, she's behind in four of her subjects.)  This week is about catching up on World History.  Next week will be English, the week after that will be Physical Science, then finally she'll catch up in Geometry.  I have it all planned out, and the whole process should be completed in the first week of February.  Then we'll hang on by our fingertips and try to maintain that.

I discovered (through someone else's blog) the coolest app!  It's called One Second Everyday, and that's exactly what it is.  You video one second of something...anything...every day.  At the end of the year this app puts it all together into a little movie for you.  It's easy and fun!  Here's a link to the creator talking about it.

Instagram Year

And here's our 2016 in 30 seconds of Instagram.

2016 in Pictures

January

February

March

April

 May

June

July

August

September

October

 

November

December