Up, Down, All Around

Joke of the day:

The church had an aging pastor. He got this new glasses with
lined bifocals as the congregation would not afford no-line bifocal lenses for him.The Sunday morning he came wearing this new pair of bifocals for the sermon. The lower reading portion of the glasses improved his reading, but the top portion of the glasses didn't work so well. In fact he was experiencing dizziness every time he looked through them or switched from lower reading lenses to upper distance lenses. Worried about his job, he apologized to the congregation and said, "I hope you
will excuse my continually removing my glasses. You see when I look down I can see fine, but when I look at you, it makes me sick."

tee hee hee

Rant of the Day: I have springfeveritis -- cabin fever-- lack of sunlight infliction -- mild seasonal depression -- whatever you want to call it. Today sucked and I couldn't even get myself too excited over the "troll" visiting my favorite homeschool HAUNT. I was feeling icky all week but I think this darned cold snap really snapped me.

So...tomorrow I'm going to get my butt up, shower immediately, hit a friendly mart store and get a full spectrum light.

This garbage has been cyclical since I moved to Minnesota. Just another reason I don't care for Minnesota -- lack of sunshine.

OH -- if anyone ever tells you that Minnesota's motto is Minnesota Friendly -- don't believe them. Maybe in the twin cities where there are more people, but small-town Minnesota -- forget about it. Rude, rude, rude.

Happy Thought for the Day: My sister is alive and well, her family is safe, even the poodle.

My sister and family just built a big, beautiful home in Colorado. A couple of days ago, a wildfire burned over 700 acres coming up on their property. The fence separating her house from the neighbors burned. She was extremely fortunate that they were the only home that did not get smoke damage.

She was doing her taxes and there was a loud knock at the door. It was a deputy telling her to prepare to evacuate. She put the dog in the car and her taxes in the car, went to the bedroom to pack a change of clothes and then another knock at the door. It was the deputy telling her to get out NOW. She grabbed her suitcase which only contained a change of clothes for her, and out she went. There was zero visibility on the road and she was scared she was going to hit a firetruck. She was amazed at how fast the fire spread because she had just looked out the window and saw smoke far away. They were let back in later that evening. Only a few trees on her property were charred.

Thank you fire fighters, deputies, and anyone involved in saving the 12 houses in the fire's path.

Today, a few days later, they are still putting out hot spots on their property. Scary.

Moral of the story: Don't burn your trash. This fire was caused by someone who burned their garbage a few days earlier and didn't put dirt on it when they were done. High winds scattered the debris and there were burning embers still that started the fire.

This is a photo of the fire -- her house is behind the flames.

My Hot Date Tonight (Exciting times for a 40-year-old housewife)

I hate to cook. I never hated it before I got married. My dh is picky and doesn't like 3/4 of what I prepare. He's a hot and spicy, Mexican and meat and potatoes kind of guy and I'm a bland and mild Mexican and Italian kind of gal. That sounds funny. I actually am 1/8 Italian, but I digress.

Our family is having several issues with food at the moment.

1) DS is on a growth spurt. (I think this one will last through his teen years.)
2) Mom is on an unneeded growth spurt
3) Dad is on a growth spurt, but at 6'5 he only needs to lose 10 maybe 15 pounds.
4) Snacks in this household are un-nutritious and unhealthy (think Goldfish crackers, processed gunk, store-bought muffins, store-bought cookies, etc.)
5) DH and I are starting to have that NO YOU COOK DINNER battle.
6) There's never anything to eat.
7) They know our first names at the local Subway, Taco Bell, Taco Johns and Wendy's

We are in a rut with our dinners.

Here it is 7:00 at night and I won out...DH couldn't stand it any longer. He's cooking dinner. I won't be eating. He's making bacon and eggs. He fries the eggs in the bacon grease and the smell alone makes me sick. I'll have yet another meatloaf sandwich for dinner.

So...time to check my arsenal of cookbooks.

Make-a-Mix and More Make-a-Mix (or something like that), two books I bought off ebay a few year ago. I need to actually MAKE the mixes.
The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet: A Month of Meals Made Easy
My old white three-ring binder full of my favorite Weight Watchers recipes that the whole family will eat.

Yes, I need to become a freezer cooker again. You know the type, they spend two days cooking, preparing, throwing it altogether and into the freezer so they can prepare dinner at a moment's notice -- well, enough time to bake in the oven.

The 30-day Gourmet book is an excellent book on how to become a freezer cooker. However, their recipes suck. Our library has Frozen Assets which I need to check out.

Tonight, the kitchen table and I have a date. We're doing some major menu planning. Tomorrow I'm hitting the store and Sunday I'll, gasp, cook all day.

My favorite freezer-friendly recipe that my whole family loves is Bean Burrito Casserole. Recipe below.
Hopefully sitting down and doing this will make my life easier. Hopefully we'll have some decent snacks at our fingertips. Hopefully DH and I won't have that NO YOU COOK DINNER argument.

I said it before, but I'll say it again: I hate to cook.

CREAMY BURRITO CASSEROLE
Makes two 9X13" pans
2 pounds ground beef
1 package taco seasoning (I use about 4 tsp)
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 large can of refried beans
1 can olives
4 cups shredded cheddar cheese
20-24 flour tortillas, burrito size
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 can condensed nacho cheese soup
8 ounces sour cream
milk
Brown hamburger. Add taco seasoning according to directions.Add cumin and chili powder. Add olives, breaking them up with your fingers (or chop them). Stir in refried beans. Mix soups and sour cream in bowl. Add enough milk to make it pourable but still very thick. Spread about 1/2 cup soup mixture into each of two sprayed 9x13 pans. Divide meat mixture evenly between tortillas. Roll enchilada style. Place seam side down in pans. If any meat mixture remains, spread it over the top of the burritos. Pour soup mixture over burritos dividing evenly between pans. Top with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees 20-30 minutes. If frozen, let thaw and bake about 40 minutes. If frozen bake about an hour and ahalf.

Don't You Wish You Lived in M~i~n~n~e~s~o~t~a?

Rest of Tonight
Colder. Partly cloudy. Lows around 5 below. Northwest winds 15 to 20 mph. Lowest wind chill readings 20 below to 30 below zero after midnight.

Friday
Colder. Partly cloudy. Highs 5 below to zero. Northwest winds 10 to 20 mph. Wind chill readings 25 below to 35 below zero.

Friday Night
Colder. Partly cloudy. Lows around 15 below. West winds 5 to 10 mph.

Not good for one suffering from springfeveritis.

I will break from my habit of 1) letting my DS take the dog out. DS usually goes out barefooted. 2) I go out barefooted, too, so I will wear shoes and coat and gloves for the few seconds I will be out in it.

YUCK

Introducing Tommy's Island Oasis (aka my son's website)

My son has been begging me to share the link to his website.

He started out great guns and then slowed down. We need to figure out more content for his site.

He would really appreciate some visits and comments in his guestbook.
He also started a blog, but only has two entries. I'll get him writing yet.

http://tommys-island-oasis.tripod.com/index.html

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

It's snowing. It's expected to continue well into the night. Public schools were closed today. Our homeschool field trip was cancelled. The Cub Scouts pack meeting tonight was cancelled.

Ah -- another day off this week, and this one "legal." lol My husband even took the afternoon off work to stay home and play.

I'm enjoying this time off SO much that I decided to take tomorrow off, too.

Funny thing is that when we take school off, we still do informal school. Yesterday we had to drive to Iowa (20 miles from where we live) to do some shopping. We listened to our SOTW CD. Then we discussed it.

For a child that was diagnosed with CAPD, was labeled an impaired visual-spatial learner but currently a conceptual learner, with caveats that he will not learn by auditory means, he sure is learning history and remembering it through those CDs. I think there was an error in diagnosis.

Let it snow. Bring it on. All is well in our world. After we dig out this afternoon, I think hot chocolate, a good book, a warm blanket and the big snuggle chair are in order for DS and I.

Lial's Basic College Math

Our Lial's Basic College Math book arrived yesterday. I'm still waiting on the teacher's manual to arrive.

After looking it over, I decided it was a good choice. A very good choice. My husband thought it looked difficult but doable. My son panicked when he saw the book -- maybe because his first view was a page with 100 problems on it. I told him to look closer, as it was easy multiplication problems that he could handle. That gave him some relief, but he didn't like the amount of problems. The page layout is much more grown-up, too, which I think threw DS for a loop.

I think, gulp, that I am going to take the book apart. Thankfully it has perforated pages. (We don't have a Kinkos or Office Max close so it would be a pain to go to one to get the binding cut.) I will put each section into a binder. The pages are very shiny and slippery. There also isn't a lot of room to work, especially for a 10-year-old with large handwriting. I think that I will probably type up worksheets to go along with the book and put them in the binder. Either that or do it by hand as we are working along. I guess we need to dive in and I'll figure that out as we go.

Our Key to Fractions books arrived the same day and I must say I'm really glad I bought those. So we have two Key to sets....Fractions and Decimals. I think when we start a chapter that we have a Key to set for, I will have DS work the Key to books first, then do the corresponding chapter in the BCM book. I may buy some of the other Key to sets as well. The BCM books introduces concepts on very basic and easy terms that DS will be able to handle. It moves fast, though, and I think the Key to series will help with the confidence and practice factor.

I'm having trouble figuring out where to start. We've been working on fractions. DS is doing well, but I think he needs a lot more practice. I don't know whether to start in the middle of the book and continue with fractions or just start at the beginning of the book. Actually I'd like to just start at the beginning, but here's the thing. We are required to do standardized testing yearly in Minnesota. I want to make sure that DS has adequate coverage of grade-appropriate skills that will be on that test. I think we are far enough with fractions that he will be okay -- but we still need some decimal work and some geometry. And this screws up my methodical plan of starting at the beginning.

I am toying with the idea of doing the standardized test immediately -- with a crash course in perimeters and decimals and just getting it over with so we can go on our merry way. I do know my son will be upset if he's taking "the test" and there is something that we haven't covered. He's very sensitive and he wouldn't handle that well.

There is no way we'll be able to finish this book in a year. I'm thinking two years. If we were to omit the Key to books, I think we could do the program in a little over a year -- but we're in no rush and I want DS to have his math down pat and be comfortable with it.

So, in the end I'm very happy we purchased this and excited to implement the book.

Blogging and time constraint woes

Last night I sat down and wrote a really long entry. Then I clicked "Publish Post" and I got a message stating I could not connect to Blogger. Then my computer froze up.

Gone, all gone.

That's okay, I guess, as it was a late-night, fatigue-induced rambling entry.

We're taking the day off school today. I am just spent. My house looks like a tornado went through it. My mind feels as if a tornado went through it. I am NOT a multitasker. Never have been and probably never will be.

Oh, the joys of homeschooling...being able to do this. Next week public school (and our homeschool calendar) has Monday and Tuesday off. I'll probably have school on Tuesday to make up for today.

One of the most frustrating components of homeschooling is my internal clock. I am a night owl. I am not a morning person. My son is a night owl, too. The problem with this is if you get up at 9, it's at least 10 before you're showered, fed, small chores (feeding and taking animals out) are done and you're ready to start the day. So that makes our school day longer.

We have never been the type of homeschoolers that can have school done in three hours. I just can't believe when I read people's posts stating they're done with school by noon. It boggles my mind. My son is a slow worker, but there's just so much to do that I cannot fathom how "they" get it done in such a small amount of time.

Then we have the component of "the husband." Ah, yes, "the husband" has a fit that I am a night owl. He has a fit that DS is a night owl. The husband is a morning person. He wakes up early and happy. He falls asleep on the couch almost nightly by 8 -- unless, of course, he and DS are playing Runescape online.

The husband is upset that we don't start school at 8 every morning. So is my father. They say I'm enforcing bad habits. They say DS will never be able to get a job and be at work on time. I counter with the fact that I worked for 11 years and was never late. It's called setting an alarm clock. You do what you have to do.

We were making DS go to bed at 9 and that was working much better -- but we got off track somewhere and DS is going to bed at 10 again. He gets up between 8 and 9.

I really need to think this through and come up with some sort of solution. DS never balks when we finish school at 4, but it would be really nice for me to have afternoon time to keep the house up, do laundry, etc. This goes back to multitasking -- I can't multitask, and if I could, I would be able to fold clothes while DS was doing some lessons. But DS needs me in the room so he can stay on task. If I'm not, he's daydreaming. Trying to teach him to focus and concentrate is very difficult -- something that I hope continued practice plus maturity will help.

My dad and my husband keep telling me a strict schedule will help. It's just against my grain to be strict. I can make schedules like crazy -- in fact, it's almost like a hobby. But implementing those schedules, ah, that's the tricky part.

In the end, school gets done, my son learns, his confidence is up, and he's happy. Maybe I should quit worrying so much. Maybe I should ignore two men in my life when they start bellyaching about time. Maybe I should just focus on the positives -- my son is learning well and is happy.

Sunday Ramblings

Quote of the day: Perfectionism is idiotic. -- my son

Ah, music to a mother's ears, that quote. My son is a perfectionist and we are trying to re-train his ways. He gets so frustrated when he tries something and it isn't perfect. Finally, I think we're making headway. I think he's getting it. Thank you, Ms. Frizzle, for your "Get messy, make mistakes" comments in all the MSB books. That helps reinforce that our teachings.

We are recovering from our Cub Scouts Blue and Gold Banquet tonight. I'll blog more on that tomorrow. However, my house is a disaster!!! I was sick Saturday, our normal cleaning day, and no one bothered to lift a finger. Today was spent decorating a cake, preparing our dish to take with us, picking up 50 helium balloons, decorating the hall where the banquet was held and finally enjoying the banquet. After the banquet I ended up staying late and cleaning. I am exhausted.

I declared tomorrow a home ec (meaning we're cleaning up this dump) day. My son cried: But MOM, I want to do school. That's not fair.

Ah, music to a mother's ears again. He wants to do school! Well, we'll have to venture out of the school room, find a spot at the kitchen table for him while I spend hours on a dirty kitchen. I'll then have to dig up his plastic portable lap desk thingamabob and he can do school in the living room with the background tune being the hum of the vacuum.

He wants to do school. I wonder...does he really want to do school or does he not want to clean! I'll just pretend that he desperately wants to do school and feel happy about that. Yeah, that's it, he desperately wants to do school. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

It's a Small World After All

The way we form friendships is changing in this new millennium. I have many online friends. The internet has opened up the great big world and enabled us to meet people that we wouldn't ordinarily meet in our day-to-day lives. I think it's a good thing.

I've been very fortunate in that I have been able to meet some of my online friends. The first meeting I had was in Indiana. We had traveled to Indiana for my dad's family's reunion. While there, I met up with a woman I'll call Amy. We had sons the same age. We met at a local McDonald's. We had lunch, the boys played and we talked. For a couple hours. We were both scared to death that the other was an ax murderer and had a really good laugh about it. We decided that we were both safe and she drove me to my motel (my dad had dropped us off) and before we got out, asked if we wanted to go to the petting zoo. We ran into our room, asked dad what his plans were and then I informed him she's not an ax murderer and we're going to the petting zoo with her. Once outside the motel room, out of site of the parking lot, I snuck a cigarette. Yes, I'm a smoker. It had been a few hours, I was nervous at first, and I really needed a smoke.

When we got back into her car the first thing she said was, "You just had a cigarette." I apologized profusely because I know smokers stink. I told her I had the dirty habit but I didn't tell people because it is such a character flaw. She started laughing and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her purse. She was a smoker, too. Before we left the parking lot, we got out of the car, let the kids play in the grass and we had a smoke together. She was wanting a smoke too and was to polite to mention her dirty habit.

I always thought that was a funny story. Two characters, with nasty habits, being found out.

I've met other online friends, too. There's a bunch of ladies that I know that live in the vicinity of my dad and my son and we got to meet them and their kids this summer. We had a wonderful time. My son enjoyed it as much as I did. While we were on vacation in November, we met up with yet another mom and her kids in South Carolina. Another great time.

While I take privacy and security on the internet very seriously, I still enjoy meeting people and making friends. I think it is wonderful for my son to branch out and meet others beyond our local community. The whole experience makes the world seem smaller in a way. Or perhaps it opens up his world to make it larger.

Another aspect about friendships and the internet is "regulars" on message boards. While I don't post often on any message board any more, I do read some daily. I feel I know the people who post -- their online persona, at least. I get sad when I read sad stories, I get happy when I read about triumphs.

I do start to care about people: Message board posters, bloggers, members of groups. The one problem I am facing at the moment is how do you tell someone you barely know that you are hurting for them, you feel so bad because they are really having struggles. I learned some very sad news last night about someone I met online, someone I admire and like very much. I've never met this person, and chances are that I never will. That doesn't mean my heart doesn't ache for what she is enduring right now. Sending off an email seems so impersonal and can never convey what a face-to-face conversation would. How will this person ever know that she has really been on my mind *a lot* lately, that I wish there were something I could do or say to make her trials easier. How could she possibly know I am very sincere. I guess the only way is for me to blog about it. She'll read it when she is able. Hopefully she'll know. I can't make her pain go away, but sometimes it just helps to know that someone out there sincerely cares.

Another art mistake

We've been using Artistic Pursuits, which I think is a good program but my son doesn't like it. I thought I'd buy the Evan Moor book How to Teach Art to Children because it was listed as being for 1st-6th graders.

Well, that was a big mistake. We've done several lessons out of the book and made some cute designs and bookmarks, but my son thinks it is for kindergarteners. And it kind of is -- youngish.

So...if you want a good art book for K-2, buy this. I wouldn't buy it for older children that want to be more grown up.

Live and learn. Someday I'm going to move to a big town that has a bookstore. Then I'll be able to hold a book in my hands, flip through it, show it to DS and get his opinion. Of course I could have done this at the Evan Moor website...live and learn.

Someone wants a recipe from ME???

Snort, I'm not good in the kitchen. If you knew me in person, you'd chuckle about asking me for a recipe. ;-) (But my CFS is really good.)

I'm in the north so I call it Chicken-Fried. I know others call it country-fried.

Chicken Fried Steak

buy 4 cubed steaks at the grocery store
buy a box of cracker meal
3 eggs
milk
salt and pepper

I use an old electric skillet that I bought when I was 21 at a garage sale for $1. I pour a bunch of olive oil in, set it to 380. (I couldn't do this on a stove to save my life.)

Meanwhile, I get out three eggs, crack them (and pull the shells out of the bowl because I am kitchen challenged) and pour in milk. Mix well. I don't measure the milk -- I just pour some in. Thick and eggy is how I like it.

I rinse my cube steaks off in water (I'm weird) then I dip them in the egg batter, then I dip them in the cracker meal, flip and push hard to really get the cracker meal stuck on. Throw them in the frying pan, and when it feels right (this is the only thing I have a feel for) flip them.

Meanwhile, open a packet of "just add water" country gravy and get that going on the stove. Also start heating your choice of canned or frozen of veggies.

Top it off with some instant mashed potatoes and you've got a yummy, high-fat, un-nutritious meal!

There, that's my recipe. Seriously, this is the only meal I fry.

I do cook -- I'm trying to be funny here -- but I don't like to. I think in a previous life I was very rich and had servants and I haven't adjusted in this life. lol (Or else I'm just lazy. I don't mind doing dishes, though.)

Two Fun Days of Math

Yesterday and today we had fun with math.

Yesterday instead of getting out our Singapore book, or working on fractions from our Painless Fractions book, we grabbed our library books.

We sat in our big chair in the living room and read some books.

First was Millions to Measure by David M. Schwartz. This was a fun book that explained how measurement was and came to be today. Second, we read On Beyond a Million, an Amazing Math Journey. This was a fun book that taught my son the meaning of googol and googolplex. Finally, we started G is for Googol, a Math Alphabet Book. Together, we didn't make it past B because mom got carried away doing binary numbers. I was also tired of reading, so DS took over and made it J on his own. He loved this book and we will finish soon.

It was a fun break from computational math.

Today we read a few chapters from This Book is About Time by Marilyn Burns. This was fun, but I skipped a lot as I was reading. We didn't make it too far, but DS now has an understanding of the time zones. He knew what they were before, but the history behind them was fun to learn (think railroads!) and he has a much better grasp. We then went to our big world map and played what time is it where when it's X time here.

That wasn't enough for our math today, so I grabbed my book of handouts that I made and taught DS Roman Numerals. These have not been covered in Singapore, but something he needed to know. I made a chart for him, and he got the letters down fast. I had printed many worksheets off the net and he did three in about ten minutes. He had a lot of fun. Tomorrow we'll review concepts and read some more of the Time book.

I got all my ideas from Rebecca Rupp's book Home Learning Year by Year. These were all mentioned in the 4th grade section. Well, G is for Googol is mentioned in the 5th grade section. I think these books could be read at a much younger age, too, yet weren't too babyish for a 10-year-old -- which was my biggest worry.

We're stalling right now in math. We have decided to ditch Singapore Math altogether and do something totally crazy. Tonight I ordered Lial's Basic College Math. We are going to start working in that book and using the Key to books as supplements easing him into concepts.

I was really surprised when I read the Table of Contents of BCM. I think it will be very doable for my bright boy. My husband, the engineer, asked me why I hadn't done this a long time ago. He mentioned that he was going to suggest it, but that I spent so much time researching curriculum that he thought I had already decided against a basic math book. I had never even thought of such a book until some friends were discussing it. In fact, I didn't know such an elementary college math book existed. Shows what I know!

Hoping it all works out!

My son was tagged, wants to answer online =)

Tagged
I was tagged by Addie the Adventure Mouse.


Jobs I've had:
school
mowing the lawn
boring house cleaning
cleaning the cars

Movies I can watch over and over again

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Places I've vacationed
Indiana
Colorado
South Dakota
South Carolina -- my favorite

My favorite dishes

Biscuits and Gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Goldfish pretzels
Bagels

Sites that I visit daily

My website, but it's not ready to share yet
www.runescape.com
www.puzzlepirates.com (it's a download)
www.popcap.com
www.neopets.com


Places I would rather be right now
South Carolina
California
Miami
New York City


Bloggers I am tagging
No one -- I don't read blogs except sometimes my mom's.

Rest in Peace, Froggy

My son won "Froggy" at our county fair in August of 2004. Froggy appeared healthy, no warning signs that he was ill. My son just found him dead. Sigh.

Rest in Peace, Froggy. There's one sad little boy who loved his fish very much feeling very blue.

Tagged

Tagged by Doc, so here goes:

Four jobs I've had:
babysitter
library assistant
Wendy's
Court Reporter

Four movies I can watch over and over again:
Braveheart
The Patriot
Coal Miner's Daughter
Forrest Gump

Four places I've lived:
Laramie, Wyoming
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Rapid City, South Dakota
Denver

Four TV Shows I love:
Survivor
ER
Reruns of West Wing on Bravo
Wife Swap

Four Places I've vacationed:
Europe
NYC
Orlando
Charleston & Columbia, South Carolina

Four of my favorite dishes:
Filet Mignon
Bean Burritos
Pizza Hut Pan pizza
My chicken (country) fried steak (I cook only one thing really, really well and this is it.)

Four sites that I visit daily:
Google
Yahoo News
Blogspot
WTM boards

Four places I would rather be right now:
Denver
South Carolina
Disney World -- my son has never been!
in a nice but unpretentious house nestled in the woods on an acreage that I own far, far away from neighbors and their darned barking poodles.

Three bloggers I am tagging:
mull-berry
addie-the adventure mouse
samuel men can play, too!

Review of Key to Decimals

I purchased Key to Decimals last week off Ebay. They arrived today in the mail and I couldn't wait to finally see what this Key to series was all about.

Well, my first impression was...that's why it's so cheap, no bright, shiny cover, just a paper cover. No biggie. Opening up the pages my first impression was......EWWWW. They use some old-fashioned (I'm thinking 1980s IBM Selectric typewriter font) and it was UGLY. There's also hand written problems. What I did like was occasionally there were pages with graph paper background. We use graph paper a lot in math to help DS with number size and lining things up properly.

Aesthetics are important to me and apparently they're important to DS, too. I called him over to take a peek. His first comment was, "Mom, that's ugly. Yuck." However, he sat down and did three pages on the spot and got over the ugly font.

I bought the entire decimal set. After I looked through all four books page by page, I understood why this series was so popular. It's to the point, good, solid, very repetitive stuff.

I'm sold. Ugly font and all. I will be buying the geometry set and possibly the measurement.

There's no rush when teaching a child. Mastery is a good thing, and we'll continue using our math program and then following up with work in these books.

Sick Day

This morning I got up, took care of the pets, poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the computer. I didn't feel well. I did my normal morning surfing and as I was about to finish up, it hit.

Mom was sick. Really sick.

DS was eating his breakfast and I informed him that today he needed to read a book and he may listen to SOTW on CD while doing art. Mom's going back to bed.

I slept the entire morning. Hard. I woke up twice, once to see my son at my bedroom window blowing on the glass and drawing pictures on the condensation. The next time I awoke it was to DS saying here, mom, this will make you feel better. He had made me a cute little heart card. It did make me feel better.

DH came home for lunch and I returned to the land of the living. DS had read his book and listened to a few chapters of SOTW. He had made a few pictures out of construction paper. That's it.

I find it amazing that even with a sick day, DS did not turn on the computer, he did not turn on the TV -- no Gameboy, even. He didn't work "hard" but he did do what I asked. He's a good kid and makes me very proud.

I don't have sick days too often. But they do happen. We survived. I'll even be able to put down something in my record book as being accomplished.

Going to bed early tonight and hopefully everything will stay where it is supposed to tomorrow.

Monday Morning Ramblings

I have a whole bunch of disjointed rambling thoughts this morning.

It's cold here. -1. It's an assault to the system going out in it. That cold is brutal and will definitely wake up and incoherent mom taking care of her dog on a Monday morning.

This weekend my son was glued to the computer. He was working on his website. We sent the link to my cousin and my sister. My cousin signed his guestbook and was impressed, waiting to hear from my sister. My son wants me to spread the word -- but I told him he needs some more polish and content.

I see this website as a huge learning experience. So far he's just been using the templates provided, but he's been playing around and amazing me with his ability to do so well. I set the site up and then told him to figure it out. He has. Mull-berry, thank you for the book suggestion. Our library doesn't have it so I put it on my wish list at Amazon. More on buying books later.

Aside from all the fun aspects of building a website, the reason I'm excited for his new-found love is it is the perfect opportunity for him to start writing. Up to this point we have not done a formal writing program. My son has done some Evan Moor books such as the Super Sentence and Paragraph books, he's done a few assignments from Writing Strands, but he wasn't really ready to conquer writing.

I believe that my son has dysgraphia. His handwriting is not typical of a 4th grader. His letters are big and uncontrolled. His cursive is a little better, but not much. It is physically painful for him to write. That's basically the reason we bought the Alphasmart. His typing lessons have been going well, although he hates some of the finger configurations because it hurts his fingers -- but he's had a few timed writings typing 15 WPM with one or no mistakes which thrilled him. And me.

It just seems as everything has come together and the cosmos says it's time for him to write. So today we are going to organize and map out his website on paper. I'm going to make a list of topics for him to write about. (Another benefit of the website, organization!) He started a blog at my request. One two-sentence entry so far.

This is just one of those times, as a homeschooling parent, when you get excited because everything is coming together. For once, I have a highly motivated child for a project he is loving more than anything else he's done in school to date. It can't get any better than this.

The only down side to all of this is that I really would like to buy some books as guides -- for him as well as me. I know I can find it all on the internet, but I'm such a book girl -- I like to have a book in hand that I can read, that DS can read. Our library doesn't have anything that I'm looking for and my husband has an aversion to me buying any more books.

This is the man who can read two paperbacks in one evening. This is the man who, when we were first married, would take me to the bookstore on Saturday mornings and spend $30-50 a weekend on books. (20 years ago that was a lot.) This is the man with four tall bookshelves so full of books the shelves are bowing. The books are double stacked, then more stacked in between the tops of the books and the empty space between the next shelf up. This is the man that gave up his book buying for family. This is the man that goes to the library weekly and gets 12-15 books at a time. Maybe he's jealous that he can't fulfill his book-buying addiction any longer, but he has a problem with me buying books for DS.

I don't think that's a fair statement. I think he has a problem with me spending a lot of money on homeschooling. I don't think I spend a lot by any means, but he has issues. I sneak books into the house. Not good, because I'm a very honest person and it bothers me. I use the library as much as possible, but sometimes they don't have what we want, even through ILL. Sometimes I just want to own the book, to have the new smell, enjoy the feeling of the the clean, crisp pages...

I feel an Amazon spending spree coming on.

Enough of my rambling thoughts. I have a son to get up, a school to run, a day to start, a website to plan.

Olympics Links

I found a website tonight with a great links page for the Olympics. Just thought I'd share since the Olympics are fast-approaching.

http://surfaquarium.com/NEWSLETTER/winter_olympics.htm

Thoughts on Saturday Night

This morning I got up and started picking up the house in preparation for house cleaning day. I count the two tasks as separate -- I have to pick up before I clean. Gently, I reminded the boys that it was family cleaning day today. DH raised his eyebrows and I reminded him that homeschooling is a full-time job. DH requested we start in the afternoon, which was fine.

As I was picking up the homeschool room, I found the placemats that were mint condition that I bought at a garage sale. I think I paid a quarter for the lot. We have the solar system, the presidents, the branches of the government, a map of the world, a map of the United States, and a few others that aren't as interesting.

I slapped myself on the forehead and thought...why in the heck are these stacked in the homeschool room? I grabbed the two map placemats, washed them off, and put them on my kitchen table. At lunch, DS sat down and didn't say a word about his world map placemat -- but his plate was pushed to the side and he sat there and studied and studied and studied. Pretty soon he came up for air and said, "I love geography."

We have a very nice world map hanging in our basement. We have a junky US map hanging as well. They were too large to fit in our homeschool room. I often find my son just staring at the world map. What is it about maps? I stare at them too.

This is one of the times I wish I had a laminator. I would like to get a really good placemat-sized world map -- or maps of countries or continents, have them laminated, and use them as placemats.

After lunch, my son disappeared. The doorbell rang, one of his friends wanted to play even though it was miserably cold. DS didn't reappear until five. They went to his friend's house and played hot wheels. And yes, I'm one of those mothers that calls every so often to check up on him. But his friend's mom does that, too.

So it was just DH and I left to clean. I think last Saturday I mentioned the book If You Give Mouse a Cookie because it reminds me so much of my husband. He pulled the mouse thing again today. His first job was to clean the cat box. I've been complaining about kitty litter being tracked all over the room. We used to have a big box that surrounded the litter box but it got stinky and DH got rid of it. It did a really good job of controlling the litter, though. Plus, our dog likes kitty cookies -- that box kept him from indulging. So back to the mouse -- instead of cleaning, DH steals one of my huge Rubbermaid containers, grabs a cat and puts him in to see if he will fit. He does. So then he brings one of his saws in the house and proceeds to cut a cat hole in my big, expensive, Rubbermaid container. Then he sands the sides down. Then he puts the litter box inside. Then he puts both cats in to acclimate them. Then he has to bring me down to show off his invention. Then he starts puttering with other things, vacuums the stairs, but he forgets and leaves the saw and plastic shavings on the floor. (They're still there.) Then he had to go to the grocery store -- we were out of milk and it was my request that he go. It's just his timing.

So anyway...I cleaned the majority of the house today. The living room didn't get done nor did DS's room. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

After supper tonight, DH asked DS if he'd like to learn how to program. DS gets all excited and says yes. Instead the boys get sidetracked by Runescape. So when I finally hit the computer, DS is bouncing around, DH is playing Runescape -- so I asked DS if he wants to learn how to build a website. YES. He gets all excited.

So off we go. We built a webpage. Actually, I signed him up and he took over. He's a natural. He's just so quick to figure things out. He's still up past 11, editing his webpage. I'll post a link in a few days after he's polished it up a bit.

I wish I were more computer literate -- I'll have to study hard to try to stay ahead of him. I see this as a great project, though. Maybe I'll start one too. I made a website a long time ago for the cleaning group I own and neglect. I forgot my password and I'd like to start fresh, emphasizing forms, schedules, etc. I love making forms. I'm such a geek.

Wow, what a long Saturday-night ramble!