Catching Up

Thanks for all the comments regarding my last entry. I talked to my dad who stopped me before I even got into the excuses and reassured me that it was not necessary for me to come, that he completely understood, that gas prices were horrible and to get over the guilt trip. Then he said, "It's okay because your sister will be here." lol Okay, so it wasn't completely guilt-free, but I do feel much better about my decision. And bless her little pea-picking heart, my sister is now and has always been dad's favorite so he's happy that she will be there. And that really does make me happy, too. After I got to thinking about it, I have spent nine out of his last 13 birthdays with him, plus I have visited for up to a month each summer for the past eight years. So guilt-trip over.

My birthday is the day after his, so for once I'll be able to spend mine the way I want to.

With summer vacation upon us, we have turned into lazy bums! Our daily chore cards flew out the window, we have been staying up late, getting up late and aside from the house being a pit, we've been having a ball. Thomas and I have been playing games every single day, have been going to the park a lot, have been going for long walks. Thomas has been going on long bike rides with his dad, too. Try as they might, I won't join them on the bike rides. Yes, I have a nice bike. Yes, I have a gel seat. Yes, I have lots of extra padding on my body. But still -- riding a bike hurts! Even though I have all that extra padding, I am still boney and I just won't bear that.

Yesterday we decided to come back into the real world and started working on chores again. We're putzing around the house slowly and getting it back into shape. It is amazing how quickly a house will go to ruins when you don't do very much. We mowed the back of our property where my husband just refuses to mow. The grass was knee-deep. I don't get my husband and I never will, but it looks better now. I told Thomas that he is not done mowing until everything is mowed. My husband always tells him to stop and the shed line. I told Thomas that he is with me 24/7 and with his dad only six hours a day -- who would he rather have mad at him? lol That was a no brainer.

I placed my big school orders earlier this week. Living in the boonies, in a place with no bookstores, I had to use Amazon. What is it with Amazon now? Earlier in the year I placed a $190 order (I think it was that much) and a month later they emailed and said it wouldn't be shipping for a few more weeks. I cancelled the order. This time I ordered $250 worth of books and they are coming in bits and pieces, and one of those pieces isn't supposed to ship until the end of June. That's just not good customer service, IMHO. I also placed a big order with Rainbow Resources. When I was done giving her the order, I asked why I hadn't received a new catalog. I told her that is my homeschooling bible. I read that catalog more than I read any other homeschooling resources, including my Rebecca Rupp books. I was just sure that it came every year in the spring. She told me it is set to ship out mid-June and that it was new, improved and I was going to like it even better. Is that possible? Did they add more secular products? That would get me to like it even better.

While I am a Christian, there are few Christian products I like to use. Christians have differences ranging from night to day, and I'm a liberal Christian, not the mainstream, and I don't like bible passages on every page. My son had requested Switched on Schoolhouse Science again this year, and that one I can handle because it is easy to just skim over the religious parts. Usually a sentence or two, sometimes a paragraph, it's easy to jump down and get to the meat. I would have ordered the secular version of SOS but it was twice the price.

We will start summer school next week. We are going to work on art, spelling, history, math, science and a review of grammar. I suppose we'll do more than that, but that not much. It will be a relaxed pace, much different than our school year, and I'm going to try to get my son to take the initiative on when and how the work gets done. We'll see how that flies. I don't think we'll get far with that. lol

Well, my son just announced, "Hairball on aisle 5." My kitty got sick so I need to go clean it up. Never a dull moment.