Back in the Saddle Again

We're back to our normal routine, finally. Thomas was sick, then I was sick, now Bob is sick. We all had "that nasty virus" that everyone is getting and taking forever to recover from.

Last week we did a little school every day. Ha, little might mean reading one book. On Friday Thomas and I sat down and discussed this year's school. He shared his likes and his dislikes. He really wanted to go back to Sequential Spelling. He did not like MegaWords. Okay. Done. We started Monday morning first thing with Sequential Spelling. This time I got my spelling rules book out and after his lesson, we reviewed a few lessons. A cheap little book with a good list of rules. That will satisfy my need for teaching rules for now.

Thomas also begged -- and I do mean begged -- to learn Spanish. I have fought this tooth and nail. I had no desire to learn Spanish. German was my language love, both in high school and college. I discussed this with Bob and he quickly produced his college Spanish text, tapes, workbook and completed tests. Ugh. I looked it over and quickly determined it was too difficult for Thomas. We listened to the first lesson together and he did the freak-out on me. He freaks when he doesn't understand something the first time. I closed the book and said the magic words, "I really think this is too difficult for you and I don't think that you can't do it." MEAN mom. Mean, nasty words.

Well, those mean, nasty words motivated Thomas. Monday morning the first thing he asked to do was Spanish. He quit freaking out, started listening and studying. We did the first two pages in the book. We will really have to go slow because this program moves fast. Surprisingly, I am actually enjoying it. I have been sitting at my kitchen table at night with the books and tape recorder and studying on my own. Go figure. Thanks to Thomas, I now have a desire.

I ordered a couple label books from Rainbow. (My time is worth something, right? I could have made these on my own, but it's so much easier to just order something.) When they arrive, I'll take my tape and cover the house in Spanish words. Hopefully this will help increase our vocabulary.

On the math front, we came to the decimals chapter Rod and Staff. Thomas had very weak instruction in decimals last year. My fault totally, because we were switching curriculum and it got left high and dry. So instead of forging ahead with Rod and Staff, I pulled the Key to Decimals series from the shelf. He actually started this last week (I don't remember when, I was in a fog) and has been working 5-6 pages a day. What a nice break from the rigors of Rod and Staff.

On the World History front, we both decided that History Odyssey is just not for us. Neither of us like the flow, neither of us have a good understanding of the time frame. It seems as if we're just learning little chunks or snippets here and there and that it is not cohesive. What to do? I spent a bit of time searching history curriculum. I just don't like anything I see. So I ended up buying World History the Easy Way as a guide and will incorporate reading lists from the net, SOTW CD's, Kingfisher, etc.

Geography. Last year Thomas loved geography. This year he hated it. I had purchased Trail Guide to US Geography. Thomas thought it was all busywork. So I looked at other programs and decided to wing it. We're going to study region by region using The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geography as our guide. This is not my choice book to use as a guide, it will need lots of supplementation, but heck, it was sitting on my shelf. We started yesterday and had fun. That's what counts, having fun while learning, right? I also ordered the Name that Country game from Rainbow. It had good reviews at Amazon. I read a great idea at Amazon for making more cards as the game doesn't have that many countries, so I ordered some blank flashcards, too.

It seems every year about this time I evaluate school and place a big order. This year is no exception. Sometimes we just need to stir the pot a little.

Well, shoot

We decided to take Monday and Tuesday off from school as originally planned. Thomas still wasn't up to par so the break, we figured, would be nice.

Sunday Thomas went ice skating for an hour, came home and crashed. Today he was very crabby. It wasn't registering in my head he didn't feel well, I just thought he was in a mood. However, tonight was train club night. Thomas and his father scared the you-know-what out of me by coming home way early. Bob said that Thomas was running the trains but wasn't asking any questions, which is very atypical. Finally Thomas asked for a chair to sit down and rest in. That's when they decided to come home. Thomas went to bed. Immediately.

I've been reading about this virus. Lots of my e-friends' families have had it. I hear it lasts a few weeks. Sigh.

How on earth do you school when your kiddo(s) are sick like this? Even worse, how on earth do parents and kids deal with public school? I am very thankful we're not doing the public school thing right now, but I feel very sorry for all those kids.

Well, tomorrow we'll do math. After that, I think we should climb into my bed and read, do English orally, and wing it from there. Bed school. Sounds like the only solution to me. And if need be, nap school.

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Thank you, Mama B

Mama B, you saved the day. We were successful (well, DH was) in putting the old hard drive in the new computer and transferring files.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing that idea!

I'm so funny, aren't I? This was a picture taken at cross over. Five of my six boys. I don't have their parents' permission to post their photo on the blog, so I made them all happy faces. I did something else to the photo, can anyone figure it out?

Cross over was Thursday night. It was a wonderful experience. Yes, I cried. I was so proud of the boys, and they just seemed so grown up.

Thomas is on the mend. He really shouldn't have gone to the cross over. I broke my rule of not taking him out and about less than 24 hours after a fever has broken. He'd been on antibiotics for 48 hours, though, so I hoped he wasn't contagious. It was, after all, a once-in-a-lifetime event. Another boy in our den missed the event because he had exactly what Thomas had, only he had not started antibiotics until the day before. Sadly, he stayed home.

We did not do school all week. Thomas is much better this evening, and I think after the weekend, he'll be ready to do school. Our plans were to take Monday and Tuesday of next week off to coincide with the public school's vacation days, but I've decided to just forge ahead and do school anyway.

Our project for the weekend is to figure out how to transfer files to the new computer. Neither the CD or DVD drive is working on the old computer, and the USB port will only recognize the printer so we can't plug the external hard drive in. Ugh! I'm also having a bear of a time figuring out the new Outlook Express in XP. I am such a creature of habit and behind the times. I'm hoping my dear, sweet husband will wave his magic wand and make something work. He is an engineer, he loves a challenge, so hopefully he'll be up to the task.

Monday -- Not without school after all

While I was feeling like garbage Monday, we still managed to get some form of education in. In the afternoon Thomas and I made a milk-jug bird feeder. Bob hung it when he got home from work.

Monday night Bob and Thomas built the new computer. It's up, it's running, but Bob still has to install Office. It's still sitting on my kitchen table.

Bob was going to install that tonight, but Thomas had other plans. Thomas woke up very grumpy and not feeling well at all this morning. His throat hurt and it was bright red. He laid down in bed and read a book this morning. He ate a good lunch and requested we do school in the afternoon. We did math and geography. We also watched birds out our window.

Then Thomas did the unspeakable. He went into my bedroom, climbed into the bed and took a nap. Ding, ding, ding...I knew he was not well. He slept for quite awhile. I woke him for dinner. He had a temp of 103. He was moaning, hurting, and miserable. (He's just like his mom, he's a whiner when he's sick.)

I made the decision to take him to the after-hours clinic. My husband wasn't happy about that, but I didn't want to wait until tomorrow. Part of my reason is that he had a temperature, and I have learned that when you take your child to the doctor, you can't give them Motrin beforehand because then their true fever won't show. Sad but true.

So we went to the clinic and I, Dr. Mom, learned that I was wrong with my diagnosis. I was sure he had the flu. The doc said he had strep. The doc told us that because he did not have a runny nose, he was sure it was not the flu. If he is wrong, we'd know in 24 hours. If Thomas isn't feeling better in 24 hours, he told Bob and I to get in for a flu shot pronto.

I never knew you had to have a runny nose to have the flu. Learn something new every day. Or not. We'll know in 24 hours, I guess.

So Thomas took his antibiotics and Motrin and promptly fell asleep.

The doctor ordered him not to go to school until 24 hours had passed from the time his fever broke. I started laughing and said he had to go to school, as he lived in his school. We just won't make him do any work. Such a lame attempt at homeschool humor.

I had completely forgotten that tomorrow was Valentine's Day. I didn't have anything prepared. Bob reminded me as I was getting out of the car. While I filled the prescription, with Thomas and his dad waiting in the car, I bought him a bouquet of balloons. That will be a sure hit with him. The kind clerk got a garbage bag to stuff them in so I could sneak the goods into the car in front of him. Whew.

What a week. I just hope he's feeling better tomorrow and it really isn't the flu. Next week we had planned on taking two days off because the public school does. I think we'll have a full week of school instead.

Manic Monday

Frankie is not feeling well today. I got up at 7, went back to bed at 7:30, woke up at 10:45. Thomas was reading a book in my bed, but I felt awful I let him down. I'm glad he let me sleep, though. My husband came home for lunch and I told him I just don't feel well enough to do school and he said to make this a Fun Monday and do school on our typical Fun Friday. Perfect solution!

Thomas is working on art, I'm sipping coffee and on the net wishing I had a drip IV of Motrin -- or something stronger.

Speaking of Thomas and art, he had an artistic weekend. He prepared his cake for his last Scouts Blue and Gold banquet. He worked on it Saturday night and Sunday morning. I am a little upset with myself because I didn't take a final picture. What you cannot see is the jello lake. Thomas scooped a portion of the cake out, and we made blue jello and poured it in. Stuck the entire cake in the fridge so it could gel, and he had his beautiful blue lake.

The banquet was yesterday afternoon and it was quite fun. Thomas got lots of blue ribbons for his cake. We're about done with scouts, we have our cross over and an ice skating event left. Counting the days...

I think I shall now go back to bed.

An Art Idea

Crop art, not to be confused with crop circles, caught my attention today.

I was looking around for bird pictures -- by the way, we saw many cardinals, blue jays, magpies and woodpeckers today -- and I came upon a bird blog. I noticed immediately the host was from the same state in which I live: not confusion, but rather Minnesota. So I looked through her blog and found a crop art photo. I clicked on the link and was awed.

Crop art is big in Minnesota. Apparently it has its own special category at the Minnesota State Fair and is a big deal. Some of the work is absolutely mind boggling how realistic it looks.

As a child, I remember seed roosters and owls in almost everyone's kitchen. Making things out of seeds was very popular back in the 60s and 70s. I hadn't thought of it for years until it sprang up in one of our scouting books. We actually did a seed and bean project with scouts, but the boys weren't too impressed with it. Thomas, however, really enjoyed it and he came home and made a cute little box that sits in my living room in a place of honor on my great-grandma's Hoosier cabinet.

I showed Thomas this website. All the pictures are copyrighted, so I won't share them here. Wow, we had a lot of fun looking at them. And to think, they were made from seed. Our favorites were Vincent Price and Where the Wild Things Are.

I think we're going to do some of this art. I think I am going to talk Thomas into making a Thomas the Tank Engine rice picture. (For me, not for him.) We can dye the rice and see how it works. If he enjoys the project, I might spring for some beans and seeds and go beyond.

I'm not a crafty person. I am a perfectionist and that doesn't work well when you make something for the first time and it turns out like you-know-what. This, however, looks like fun for me.

It's a good thing I just bought a huge bag of rice!

I'll share photos after we've made some progress.

A Room With a View

There is one bird in this photo (can you find it?) and the photo didn't do it justice. It was a woodpecker, had a bright-red head and beautiful black and white back and wing feathers. If the google images are correct, it was a red-bellied woodpecker. I found it amazing that the photo looked nothing like real life!

Our schoolroom has a great view of our back yard, specifically our big ash tree. Since we moved our desks to actually face the window, we have been able to look out and dream a little. Sometimes we even see birds.

Today, even with the arctic temperatures, we had quite a show. The woodpeckers were out, with a vengeance. I'm not a bird watcher so I don't know many birds. I think this was the first time I have ever seen a woodpecker. Thomas had never seen one. I shouldn't say "a" woodpecker. We saw so many today that we lost count. We'd watch for awhile, run to the computer and hit google images and try and figure out what we were seeing, then run back. We got the binoculars out and saw them up close and personal.

We saw lots of birds today, some I knew, most I didn't. It's time to buy a field guide. We laughed at how fat they looked, knowing their feathers were just puffed up to keep them warm.

We had so much fun, in fact, that tonight while I was running errands I stopped and bought a block of suet and a suet holder. My sweet husband went outside (without his coat, even!) and hung it in the tree. Thomas is asking to make a bird feeder. I think that would be a wonderful project for him...when it warms up a bit.

A Scouting Solution

Thomas decided to not move on to Boy Scouts. Bob and I are definitely okay with that decision. In fact, we were to the point that we would have said no had he wanted to join.

We have a scout master who is busy in school and forgets everything. He has been sexist in the past. He's just not leader material. Nice enough guy, though. We have an assistant SM that is a nice guy but is openly bigoted toward gay people. Uhm, that just doesn't fly with me. If it weren't for that one huge character flaw, he'd be semi-okay -- except for the fact that he, too, is somewhat sexist. We have another assistant SM who farts and belches out loud at meetings. I'm talking committee meetings, pack meetings -- every time I've ever been around her, she's passed gas in some fashion. The worst about her, though, was the time that we attended a district pinewood derby race a few years back. We were at our fairgrounds. Another mom and I went outside for a break. We were sitting in my car and saw this woman walk through all the parked cars. Then, right in front of us, she dropped her drawers and urinated all over the parking lot. The possibility of a boy seeing this was extremely high. The mom and I sat there with our chins on our chests. The woman was looking around as she was relieving herself, locked eyes with me, and was shocked. She pulled her pants up and went running.

The funny part about this story? (As if there could be a funny part!) There was a indoor public restroom about 50 feet from where we were.

Everyone is human, and everyone is flawed. I have more flaws that I dare admit to here. However, I'm not bigoted toward gays, I don't think I'm sexist, and I know not to fart, belch and pee in public. Those are not qualities I want leading my son.

So...today for some reason I remembered that there is a program called The Lone Scout. I called someone in the know in our district and she told me who to call for further info. I have put my call in and am awaiting response. I am hoping that Thomas will be able to do this. He should, because one of ways you can register is:

Boys being home schooled whose parents do not want them in a youth group.

Yup, we qualify for that. For the reasons stated above, and much, much more. I guess I should say not any youth group, but that specific youth group.

I have looked over the merit badges at Merit Badge Dot Com and I like what I see. So Lone Scouting will be a solution. We would still be able to participate in district events, service projects, and camps.

My husband is tired of my whining...

I whine when I'm on my computer. Why? Because it freezes, it doesn't support a lot of things I want to use, and it's old. We purchased my computer in 1998. Yeah, I'm on Windows 98. Really, I don't whine that much. Only when it freezes -- which is about once a day.

My husband, with the help of Thomas, built a new computer two? years ago. I don't get to use it because if Bob isn't on it, Thomas is. That's okay.

Well, we're getting just enough of a tax return for Bob to build me a new computer. Supposedly I won't whine anymore. He's been married to me for nearly 18 years, he should know by now that I will always whine.

Am I excited? Not really. I wanted a notebook. Desperately. I envision endless homeschool possibilities with a notebook. Bob refuses. Why, I don't know. (Probably because that's what I want. I have a theory that he just does everything contrary to my wants, needs, desires...but that's a post for a different blog, which I don't possess.)

Then it dawned on me. I can take my old faithful to the school room and have what we want: Word and Excel. I can buy a printer cartridge for our old, icky Lexmark printer, and we'll be set. I doubt Bob will hook it up to the internet upstairs, but that's okay.

So am I excited now? Yes, I guess I am. I hope he gets the parts ordered this weekend.

Nothing On My Mind Until Now

Nothing much has been on my mind lately. I just looked and I haven't really blogged a lot. I guess I've been in deep thought, trying to get my house even more organized, trying to get through school, life....ignoring the calls from family members asking me when I am going to put Thomas in real school. Ahem.

I guess one thing that has been on my mind a lot is math. My son is very good at math concepts. He's very good at fractions. Some things click, some don't. Bottom line is that he hates math. Math is our biggest stumbling block in our day. Now it is my opinion that math will be done every.single.day. Period. When your child takes two hours to get his math done, that really screws up your day.

Okay, part of our problem is that we don't start school with the early birds. We get up, do our chores, eat breakfast, do spelling and grammar, then Thomas does reading for an hour while I watch the view. By then it's 11 and we start math. At 12 DH comes home for lunch and from the second he walks in the door, Thomas is pumped up and bouncing.

Thomas and I had yet another long talk about school and how much we are missing out on, how many fun things we could do. Such as: This week we have played Perfection every day, we have worked on a couple exercises from Audiblox, and we have played the Memory game. All very fun things, but good for helping develop short-term memory and speed. If anyone reading has good ideas for games of these types that don't take too much time, please share.

At any rate, Thomas decided he'd start an 8:30 bedtime. It has been 10. Which means his night-owl mother will have to get her butt to bed earlier. It also means we'll be getting up at 6:30, what I call an ungodly hour, and we'll have to see the bear until he leaves. Oh wait, the bear is my husband. He likes his solitude in the morning. So this will be an adjustment. Thomas wanted to start school at 7, but I talked him into 7:30.

Our plan is to do everything BUT math until we're done, and then we'll all sit a the kitchen table with math. I hope this works. He'll be tired and focus will be an issue, but he'll also have two adults to work with not just one.

I wish the math fairy would come to our home and sprinkle her math dust on us. Wouldn't that be the easy way out?

Hmmmmm...

I think I'll tuck myself back under my nice, comfy-cozy rock and do some more deep thinking now.

Question of the Day

About four in the afternoon, we were still doing school. We started talking about the current war, then about vets. Thomas sat back and reflected. I could tell he was really thinking hard about something. Then he made a quizzical expression, I was expecting a deep, profound question from him.

"Mom, did my grandpas fight in the Viet Nam War or the Civil War?"

Now, I'm a good mom who supports my son. He is highly sensitive and I deal with that very well on a daily basis. But not today. I burst out laughing. In fact, it might be because I was very tired, it was late in the day, or I was feeling extremely blue today, but I laughed so hard I had tears coming down my face.

Thomas has come a long way because he actually started laughing in with me. Whew, I didn't hurt his feelings.

I looked at him and told him to think about how old both grandpas are/were. I see the light bulb pop over his head. "Oh, DUH, mom, the Civil War was in the 1800s. They were in WWII."

Thank goodness he figured that out and joined me in further laughter.

Tonight while he was at the train club with his dad, I called my dad. I told him what Thomas had asked. My dad roared! He then said he feels as though he were in the civil war. Three of my father's grandfathers were in the Civil War. I think we may have to go off on a tangent tomorrow, get my genealogy out, and go through our war patriots.

We have one known that served in the Revolutionary War. We have oodles that served in the Civil War. The day my granddad signed up for WWI, it was over. How lucky was he! Both of Thomas's grandfathers were in WWII.

My great-great-great grandfather fought in the Mexican Wars. I know nothing about that period and I need to do some research, and quickly.

Sometimes when you're down and out (I was having an awful day today mood wise) one simple yet innocent question will make you laugh and snap you back into reality.

God, I love my kiddo! (Just not when he wakes up grumpy, as he's been doing the past two days.)

Thomas, Addie Mouse, and the Trains...

Addie posted this photo to her blog, but I wanted to share it here as well. This is a small corner of the train club's room. Thomas continues to love the railroad club.

A Weird Kind of Sorrow

I'm feeling a little down tonight. Not depressed, and not really down, either, I guess. Just feeling sad that a change is about to happen. Tomorrow afternoon will be our last real den meeting -- ever. We do have one final den meeting set, but we wanted to take the boys out to eat as a special treat -- so that is just pure fun and takes no prep time from me.

I've spent about three hours preparing for tomorrow's den meeting. The den leader joke is: only an hour a week and you're done. Yeah, the meetings last an hour and you spend many hours preparing for those meetings. In fact, our meetings last two hours.

It's been fun. I loved the boys. I didn't like all of them, to be honest. There was one I hoped would quit, but he didn't. That's okay. He's nice when he's by himself, he just goes wild with a crowd. I put on a good program for the boys. Thomas enjoyed scouts. He had even more fun at pack meetings. He gets along with kids younger than he is much better than his own-age peers. He also gets along with older kids better. Strange.

There will definitely be a void. This was my thing for since second grade, so not quite four years.
I joined a local organization to help fill the void for me. Thomas has joined the train club. Which, I might add, is working out better than Bob or I could have imagined. There are people of all ages in the club and they all treat Thomas with respect and share his great enthusiasm. They teach him like they would teach an adult -- that part I love. What a confidence booster it is for him. He comes home from every meeting glowing, bouncing, and sharing his experiences 200 words per minute. He's happy. I have my eyes wide open, though, to find something with more kids -- a chance where he can escape his mom and secretly tell poop jokes that I've forbid.

Well, goodbye to scouts. We have our restaurant meeting left, a blue and gold banquet to attend, and finally our cross over.

It went SO fast. Why does time go so fast the older you get?

I enjoyed watching all the tiger cubs at our last meeting. They were so little. My Webelos were so grown up. Blink and it's over. Sigh.

From now on, our Tuesdays will be ours. I won't be interrupting school to put the final touches on our projects, or run to the dollar store for something we need. Tuesdays will be like any other day now.

Sigh.

Thomas is not going on to Boy Scouts. He didn't like it. I didn't, either. New leaders just took over and it's a little chaotic at best. The difference between Cubs and BS is very noticable. I'm okay with his choice.

Sigh, sigh, sigh.

While I'm Bragging...

Here's another brag.

We switched to Rod and Staff Math this year. I put Thomas in their 5th grade program. We skipped a few chapters in the beginning because it was review and he knew the material. We forged on. The first section on fractions we came to was completely different than we had learned last year, so I had him do the chapter. I scheduled our year so that we would complete the book by the end of the year.

Today, however, we sped things up a bit. We started a new chapter of fractions. I looked closely at the material, knew Thomas could do it, so I decided to have some fun. I turned to the first lesson of the chapter, put the hardest two problems on the white board, and had him work them. Done in 30 seconds. I went to the next lesson and did the same. I did it for the entire chapter. Wow, that kid knows his fractions. We moved on to the next section on fractions. We did the same thing. Done in no time flat.

So two chapters down in one day. Woo-hoo. Good going, Thomas.

I credit his "love" of fractions on the book we used last year. Barron's Painless Fractions. We worked through about 3/4 of the book last year. We had started fractions in Singapore and it wasn't clicking with Thomas so I did a quick Amazon search and order. I would either print worksheets from the net on the day's lesson or make my own for him to practice. The proof is in the pudding as it taught him well!

In reality, Thomas hates math. He despises math. I don't know why, but he loses his ability to focus while doing math. It's frustrating for him. He scores very high on math concepts, and even well above grade level on calculation, but he hates it. Math in this house takes an hour to hour and a half every day. And I'm the mean mom who makes him "strive for excellence" and keep at it.

One of the reasons I like Rod and Staff so much is that there is a lot of review and practice. Tons. You learn new stuff on one page of the lesson, do the practice problems, and the second page of the lesson is review and practice of old skills.

Thomas has told me many times that while he hates math, even he likes Rod and Staff because it helps him get it down cold. And that's the point.

So I guess this day will go down as a super-fantastic day for us on all accounts!

Wow

Do we expect enough of our children?

I ask this because I had an exchange with someone tonight that left me a little stunned. I was told by the CM in scouts that for tonight's pack meeting, my six Webelos had received $150 worth of awards. About a quarter of that were badges and three quarters were belt loops and pins. My son received the most, but was followed closely by others.

Over the past year and a half, three of my six boys (including Thomas) earned every single Webelos badge available. Thomas earned every academic belt loop and almost half of the sports belt loops. I am very proud of my boys. They all worked very hard.

Anyway, the CM shared with me that the district told him that my den has received more awards than any other den in our district -- ever.

While I am very proud of that, I am stunned. We worked the program. We had great boys with great parents who helped them with the badges we did not do in the den. They worked on belt loops outside of the den as well. I am stunned, though, because it really wasn't that hard. I cannot fathom why dens across the district, state and US don't earn more awards.

If we teach our children to strive for excellence, they will. If we settle for good enough, that's what we'll get.

I am so proud of my boys.

I Miss Family Pass

I really miss Family Pass, formerly Mentura. We watched so many wonderful educational DVDs from them it really enhanced our school. I was devistated when it closed. Our public library, while good for a small town, has a dismal collection of DVDs and videos. I decided today that I need to do something about this void.

I did a little searching. It seems there is a company out there that was made exclusively for homeschoolers. It's expensive, IMHO, and didn't have the flexibility that Family Pass had or that Netflix has. You have to return your videos in 15 days. You pay individually for each, and it's expensive. On their site it says:

The more you rent—the more you save! The annual membership fee is only $25 per year. As a member, you can rent up to 3 educational multimedia products at one time. The first rental item cost is $7 and the second and third items are only $4 each, making the average rental price only $5 each. The selected items are mailed to your mailbox and you can enjoy them for up to 15 days. Then mail the items back to (them) using the provided FREE shipping label. Visit us online, rent 3 new items and the convenient process starts again.

I won't link to the company. I found this company on a google search and was taken to a page comparing it to Netflix. When I went to the main page, I found this: "Participant in The Old Schoolhouse New Subscriber Free Gift Promotion." I still boycott The Old Schoolhouse. So that's not an option. In fact, when I saw that, I didn't even bother to search their collection.

So off to Netflix. I searched many things we're studying now and found a fair amount of titles that we might enjoy. They have over 100 Imax titles. Lots of History Channel. This seems as if it will be our best bet.

Another option would be to check the TV schedule on a daily basis and start recording programs. This is what my husband wants me to do. I don't want the hassle of doing that, I don't want videos taking up space in my house, and I am not ready to buy a DVD player that can also record at the moment. Who wants to fast forward through commercials. Plus, it would take quite some time to build up a colleciton to use while we study. With Netflix, I can get it as soon as it is available.

The last option I considered was United Streaming. At $149 a year, not bad. The pros are the vidoes are available whenever I would want them with no wait. The con is that we'd have to watch it on the computer. From what I've read, it's impossible to burn a decent DVD as the quality goes down. Our computers are in the basement. It's cold, ugly and uncomfortable down here. I'd rather snuggle up on the couch while watching our videos. Our school system does subscribe to this, so I may call them and see if we can get a free subscription, but it's not exactly what I want.

So I guess Netflix wins. Not exactly what I want, it will take me awhile to find movies that fit with our studies, but it will have to do.

Anyone else have any other ideas??

Brrr!

Addie ventured out into the snow today.


We're finally getting a taste of winter. It's been cold all week, with windchills below zero. Today it started snowing. Thomas and I ran to the grocery store for my weekly shopping. Coming out of the snow, we delighted in "the little things that are great about winter."

First, the snow was hitting our eyelashes and melting. We both had watery eyes -- and it felt great. In March, it's not a great feeling, but when there hasn't been hardly any snow, it's a great feeling.

Secondly, we delighted in something weird. When you go outside in very cold weather, the hair in your nose freezes and it feels really cool. We both laughed at our frozen noses. That was one of my favorite things to do as a kid, freeze my nose hair. I'd go in and out of the house, just to experience it. Freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw.

Yeah, I'm weird.

We had a weird and busy week. We didn't go out of the house much, but for some reason we were extremely busy. Lots of schooling got done, lots of fretting about the state of the house as well. This morning we finally packed up all the Christmas goodies and gave the living room a good deep cleaning. That hung over my head all week, enough to make me grumpy, but not enough to pack it all up. I feel so much better.

Monday is a school holiday. I had completely forgotten that until a friend reminded me on Friday. I'm such a stinker that I'm not going to tell Thomas and we're going to school anyway. At least math, but probably the whole works. We're still making up for lost time from this past November.

Scouts has me extremely busy as we wind up for the big finale. We have two den meetings left, two pack meetings and our Blue and Gold banquet. I am counting the days. It's been fun, I'm going to miss the boys (most of them) but I am so looking forward to having my Tuesdays free again and not rushing through school. I'm looking forward to putting all the money I spent on scouts on our school! It was easy for me to spend around $25 a meeting on supplies. I think that's about what it averaged out to. I'm looking forward to no more Monday night meetings. I'm looking forward to no more Thursday night meetings. I'm looking forward to retirement. =)

My yahoo groups have been extremely busy lately as well. Tis the season for anyone and everyone to join a diet group and a cleaning group. So almost all my online time has been devoted to those groups.

That's my week in a nutshell. This coming week I have hopes of re-organizing our school room, YET again. I am just never happy with that room. There's not a lot you can do with a 9x9 school room with 1970's blue carpeting. I dream of a big room, more table space, less sprawling out on our kitchen table -- no wait, that's my husband's dream, having a kitchen table that is free and clear of books.

We have a visitor!

Addie, the Adventure Mouse, has come all the way from Oklahoma to visit us in Minnesota. Check out her adventures at her blog. We'll try to come up with something of interest while she visits.

Maybe not so bad...

The above photo is from Arby's website. Yes, they have biscuits and gravy. Now I just have to hope that the rumors are true, that there is indeed an Arby's coming to town, and that they will serve breakfast.

It's all rather silly, because I could actually make biscuits and gravy at home. But it's just not the same as having a reason to get out of the house.