Sweet Sixteen

After a full day, I am happy to report I believe I have successfully accomplished a memorable sixteenth birthday celebration for my young lady. 

We managed a practical gift (driver's education), an unexpected gift (the fencing shirt and a very funny book from her brother), a birthday lunch at a favourite restaurant with Mr. A's parents, a homemade dinner with her guest of choice followed by dessert with my extended family. 

Most unexpectedly for her, Mr. A and I surprised her this morning with plans for a special coming-of-age adventure. It will happen later this summer and will include a plane trip out West and a week on her own to pursue her fencing. All possible with generous grandparent support - it's a good thing she comes with three sets of grands and a great-grand!

More details later as I am tired out. A successful birthday includes putting Christmas on the back burner for the day amidst the busiest of Christmas planning times. Christmas dinner with my extended family yesterday kicked off a week of dinners and celebrations and visiting which will continue to a New Year's Party then a girly sleepover. I'm sure I'll be glad to get back to our regular homeschooling schedule. But for now, I'm enjoying seeing the kids celebrate and watching Mr. A enjoy some well-deserved holidays.

♥Mrs. A. 

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Of Sheep & Swords

Rams & Yowes by Kate Davis

Look what's arrived! I'm very excited about this 'gift' my husband bought me.

You see, no sooner had I hit 'publish' after deciding to knit from stash this entire calendar year then I found Rams & Yowes. I thought the Universe was being incredibly unfair testing my resolve so soon. Seriously seconds after I made the deal with myself, bragged to Mr. A about how my knitting wasn't going to cost him a cent this year and blogged about it, Rams & Yowes was prominently displayed on Ravelry's Top 10 Patterns page. To add insult to injury, we've recently painted our main living area - where I usually spend most of my 18 waking hours - a lovely grey colour. It's called White Rabbit and there's a darker wall of Urban Grey. I've not let anyone hang anything on the walls or buy any household accessory unless it meets the strict decorating standards I've set. And guess what?! Rams & Yowes qualifies!!

Mr. A, being the upstanding kinda guy that he is, jumped in and spent his own money on the pattern. We printed it. We spent a Saturday morning in the basement filling printer colour cartridges with toner. We printed the pattern again. It was my bedtime reading for a couple of days. The fact that Rams & Yowes is a small lapblanket (3'x3'), contains stranded colourwork, a giant steek (in which you take a pair of scissors to your lovely knitting and cut the finished product straight up the middle) and a border in which you have to pick up close to 1000 stitches on one needle (most knitters have trouble counting to 8) I'm still going to do it.

Shortly after I was stalking the yarn the pattern called for at a lovely Scottish shop where they work very hard to preserve the traditional yarn making process. The pattern is written to be knit with Shetland yarn from sheep that run about on the very islands they were named after. It is undyed yarn gathered from sheep that are various shades of brown, grey, black and white. In fact, they come in 9 various shades. All of which appear in the blanket. For a short time, I considered picking out some KnitPicks.com yarn so that I could tweak the colour scheme to include a purplish tone that would match the warm tones of the hardwood floor and the leather couches.  Mr. A said that was a stupid idea. The pattern should obviously be knit with the yarn that it called for especially since the Shetland yarn was in the same ballpark price-range of the KnitPicks yarn (about a $16CDN difference). So I was enlisted to load up an online shopping cart at Jamieson & Smith or risk Mr. A doing it himself. And 11 days later, a lovely squishy package arrived for me. I'm calling it an early birthday present.

I'm a little scared to start knitting it as I'm woefully inexperienced with stranded colourwork. So my February stash-busting project is a pair of stranded colourwork mittens I started last November. That knitting should give me enough practice to be up to the job of the blanket. In the meantime, my Shetland yarn sits in its basket at the end of my bed. Well away from the Skittish White Dog who, apparently, would like to eat Shetland Sheep. Or at least snuffle them to death.

In other, more exciting news, The Girl Child has been up to something new since September. On Saturday, she had the opportunity to attend her first tournament. Three local girls who are all learning the same sword (sabre, in particular, which is one of 3 swords that are used in fencing) went to this tournament. The group of 19 competitors were women aged 12 to 34. Many were university students and just my Girl Child and another of the local girls we travelled up with were rookies. The 3rd girl of our group has been fencing for 4 years. She placed  5th in the Under17 group and 3rd in the Under15. Not that she mentioned it, I had to look up the results this morning!

It was a day of ups and downs for The Girl Child. In her own words, she placed 'dead last'. But I keep reminding her that she didn't go to win. It's all her coach had been telling her for weeks. I think she's proud of herself. At least she's saying that she's happy she went. As she's not wanted to be involved in group sports before, this is really huge for her. To be willing to put herself out there to be scored and evaluated is quite a big deal for her perfectionist, self-conscience tendencies. I'm looking forward to her continuing to develop as a fencer as I think it will really help to boost her confidence and self image much better than anything I could say.

Onward to a new week! Up this week is schoolwork and more schoolwork. There's fencing and art class for The Girl and soccer and hockey for The Boy. Both have a drama clinc all day Friday - they're preforming in a homeschoolers' production of A Midsummer's Night Dream in May - and then we'll wrap up the week with a birthday party for me on Saturday.

♥Mrs. A.

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The Girl Child Secures a Job For Herself

What does a mom do when her child gets herself a job? She sits in the car and takes pictures, of course!



A couple of weeks ago, The Girl Child announced she'd like a job. This was not news, as such a thing had been talked about - at length - in the past. We had looked into a couple of viable options but it didn't seem to be quite the right time.

It was two weeks ago today that she brought it up again. I suggested that she email the Nice Lady at the weekly newspaper to introduce herself and to restate her desire for a paper route. The first time she had contacted the paper, last fall, was through an online application tool at the website. At that time there hadn't been a route available in our area.



So The Girl got busy and sent a nice email stating that she was a homeschooled high school student with a flexible schedule and supportive parents who were willing to take her to where the available routes were.

Almost immediately she received a reply with an offer for a Fill-In Delivery Person position. A few more emails flew, details were discussed and we were visited by the Nice Lady who was very excited to have The Girl on board.

The Girl's first task involved delivering papers to two routes two days after the papers had been due. Each route took about two and a half hours by the time all was said and done. Her remarks on the way home were that 'it was more work than it sounded like' and 'when, exactly, would the pay cheque arrive?'







Said pay arrived much sooner than we thought it would. Hand delivered, no less! Just in time for a weekend shopping trip with her Grandma and Aunt.



I think The Girl Child was pretty proud of herself throughout the process - but that's the point, right? A little independence and initiative to foster some feelings of satisfaction and pride. And the prospect of more work in the future - although, I must say, I think the novelty has worn off. I'm proud of her, too, for taking this on!

Last week, there was no route. This week, there is one. Papers will arrive today and need to be delivered by Thursday evening. It's up to The Girl to plan around her schedule and the weather. She'll let me know when and where to drop her off to get her work done. I think she's looking forward to the pay cheque more than the long walk in a strange neighbourhood with a sled of papers.

~Mrs. A.

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A Mostly Optimistic Outlook

About a month ago I checked in. A week later, we were off to our official start of a new-to-us homeschooling school year. As we were headed to our annual local HSer picnic, I remembered that I should probably take some pictures.

Surprisingly, the kids didn't balk. I suppose my '...in a hundred years when I'm old and alone and you're off gallivanting the globe all I have are pictures...' speech has finally started to sink in.

As I was saying...We're into our third official week of all things schoolish and I am happy to announce that I am feeling cautiously optimistic. We're being very schoolish this year which makes both the kids feel as though they are accomplishing things throughout the day. Now, if only I could get organized enough to get to more subjects through the week.

The Girl Child has begun her grade 9 year and as per her request, I am tracking her work so she can earn her high school credits or equivalent-to-credit. Of course, I must also plan and prepare her work. We are filling in a few holes in Science before starting credit work after Christmas. We are also planning for credits in Math, English, Art, Phys Ed, Science and an ILC Credit called Strategies For Success. Half credits are planned in History, Geography, Drama and perhaps Civics.

The Boy Child is officially grade 7 aged. He has a full schoolwork plate with some interesting things planned. More on that as the year progresses. It seems I'll need to brush up on my astrophysics. His guitar playing is moving forward in leaps and bounds. I'm gobsmacked at his playing by ear. I've ordered a theory book for him to start as I simply can't bear from him to continue lessons with no theory training! <--My hangup. The relationship he's developed with his teacher is absolutely perfect for him. I thought we'd stay no longer than a year with this particular teacher, but I've since changed my tune.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the school year unfolds. I scrapped all the planning I did over the summer (not too much, really) and I'm redoing it all. So I don't feel that I've got a handle on all the material we'll cover this year. It's coming though. Math, the first chunk of Science, Strategies For Success and the Shakespeare studies/Drama are all mapped out. I've outsourced Canadian History and French but am doing some supporting work at home. I've changed my record keeping and planning binder so that The Girl Child can work through just about anything we're to cover independently. This means I need an order of study and page numbers and worksheets ready to go. This was something that was really important to her - the option of being able to work on her own - so we're going with it. I'm more organized this way, to in theory, it should be a win-win scenario.

Challenges are afoot though. The Girl Child wants more social opportunities, a job and less time with her brother. They're both smarter and quicker than their mother! The Boy Child builds energy faster than he can drain it - and in a house full of introverted un-kinesthetic learning/working people, that's difficult! Staying consistent with a morning schedule that gets us (the kids and I) up and going is my particular nemesis, but I'm making progress. Getting off the sugar definitely helped.

So all in all a positive outlook and some general excitement about the coming year. I'm looking forward to seeing how we make out.

♥Mrs. A.

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I'm Glad To See Twenty-Eleven

The holidays arrived - even though I was wishing someone would dump the last half of December off the calendar - and departed with much ado in our household.

Being predictably myself, though, I have managed to pull a few positive things out of a pretty miserable month.

The Most Surprising Thing literally showed up on my door step smack in the middle of our annual Christmas Eve celebration. It was my brother, fresh from a whirlwind 17-hr flight and 24-hrs of travel from Korea. And as fast and unexpectedly as he arrived, he's on with his tomorrow after flying all day today back to his temporary home abroad. His unexpected visit made for a very fun and memorable Christmas and New Years...and hectic. Definitely hectic.

The Most Enjoyable Scheduled Event happened mid-December at my knitting club meeting. I've been trying to pull off a local knitting club with some success. For our last meeting of the year, I planned a small Christmas celebration with decorations and snacks and music. There are such a nice bunch of people that attend and they were all able to make it for the party. A motley crew, but it's so nice to spend time with others who make the time and effort to be somewhere.

And finally, the Most Awesome Thing was the arrival of the household's first teenager :-) She is lovely...even first thing in the morning just before opening her birthday gift. I simply cannot call her The Girl Child anymore, especially since she is taller than I am. She will need to be Miss K from now on.

Other excitement included a New Year's Eve family challenge of skill, smarts and silliness in which yours truly emerged victorious...with a trophy. It was a team trophy, but a trophy that I can claim and my brothers can't. I'm not sure that something like that has ever occurred before. Pictures forthcoming....after the engraving of the trophy. Told you it was real.

So onward into 2011. Today was gloomy and grey outside. We had some gloomy on the inside as well. I think just post-holiday greyishness. It was a welcome quiet day after such a busy couple of weeks. Although I feel the pressure to make a resolution, I've decided against it. I have a list of things to focus on instead.

Happy New Year. I hope the spring-ish feelings of renewal and refreshment take hold here in the A house as well as with the one or two of you who happen to pop by here.

~Mrs. A.

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Mondays...

This Fall, Mondays are particularly busy. I think today was fairly typical in scheduling, but it was better than many of my typical Mondays of late. I think I might be getting my Monday-act together...

After everyone has been fed and watered and we shovel up the weekend clutter it's usually around 9a.m. Monday mornings give us only an hour or so for any bookwork we want to accomplish. It's not too difficult to get the kids to hit the books on Mondays. I have them start with their journals. The Girl Child writes copious amounts - her biographer is going to have lots to sift through! The Boy Child, not so much. He's more matter of fact. 'Required' journal writing for The Boy amounts to a sentence per 'grade' so he's up to 6 sentences per journal entry. And that's a very loose definition of 'sentence' I'm using.

At 11a.m. I start getting the afternoon set up. The kids are sent to grab themselves a snack and then they pack another for later. I prepare lunch for Mr. A and myself and set it aside. French books and skating things are gathered and packed into the car. Today I dressed for a run and dug out my iPod. We left the house at 11:45.

My very good friend has taken it upon herself to teach a group of homeschoolers - her two included - French this school year. She's gone to a huge amount of work to plan weekly lessons for 5 families of kids, ages 8 through 15. The kids spend an hour and a half doing games and activities, vocab and dialogue. The focus is on spending time speaking the language which is awesome for my two-kid crew. The Boy and The Girl are quite well versed in their vocab, writing and reading skills. The speaking-out-loud has been a bone of contention in our past school years.

Today was the first Monday I snuck away from the other moms at French. I went for a miserable little run. I haven't run since the summer, really, so I was speaking fairly sternly with myself about the degree of laziness and depression that was taking over. I went for half an hour, 'running' for 3 minutes then walking for 1. Once I was done, I was glad I had done it. It's amazing how long improved cardiovascular fitness can hang on. I never thought I'd get 6 intervals completed today. I zipped home to change my muddy, wet running pants. While there, I constructed lunch for Mr. A and delivered it to his basement office (he's programming today and tends to focus in on his work and forgets altogether about regular bodily routines like caloric intake) before heading back to pick up the kids.

After French, we trek over to the local rink and spend an hour skating. The local homeschoolers have sort of dominated the 'Parent & Tot' time slot for the past few years. It was a quiet takeover...beginning years ago when the children blended in with those every-other-day kindergartners. Today there were 15 homeschoolers plus a bunch of moms on the ice.

Once we're home things depend on The Boy Child's hockey schedule. If he plays early, at 4:30p.m., we usually relax and snack before heading out the door at 4:15p.m. There are beefits to living in the rink's backyard! Today he played late, at 5:30p.m., so we had time to focus on some geography for a half hour before snacking and re-packing the hockey bag. I cleaned the kitchen and The Girl made pizza crust which we left in the warm oven to rise while we were at the rink.

At home, after hockey, I focus on getting some sort of food on the table fairly immediately. The low blood sugar is pretty apparent by this time on Monday. It's nice when we sit down to eat. Everyone knows that their responsibilities have been taken care of for the day. Relax mode starts to kick in. I like hearing about the kids' day - even though I've been there for most of it. I find it terribly interesting how different our experiences are even though we share the same space and activities.

We had a nice family evening culminating in apple crisp before bedtime. I'm watching the results of the local election and will head off to bed shortly. Hopefully next Monday will go as smoothly as today. Methinks if I keep up with weekend laundry and regular meal planning like a good, responsible grown up, I shouldn't have any problems.

~Mrs. A.

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The Process of Math

Last Spring I started planning for the upcoming school year. One particular area I spent a while thinking about was The Girl Child's math.

When I sat down with her to discuss her thoughts about math, she thought perhaps she might like an easy-math school year. Fair enough.

The Girl has worked very hard the last few years wading through a bunch of Saxon Math. She's very good at it. Diligent. And when all is said and done, proud of herself.

I looked through a few options. At length. In the end, The Girl decided to work through a workbook style 8th grade level program. She knew it would be mostly review. The plan was to begin her 9th grade year, 2011-2012, with Algebra as most math programs provide. She felt she wasn't up for a heavy math year and to begin Algebra in her 8th grade year just felt like a heavy thought to her at that point.

So September rolled around and The Girl Child was happily anticipating wading only ankle deep into the new math workbook. Fairly immediately, she needed some help interpreting the instructions. She was feeling knee deep in icy waters since she was used to doing her own math these last 3 years.

We've muddled through to October and things haven't improved. I'm not impressed with the online support materials. The Girl is not impressed with the whole math situation. She's 1/3 the way through the workbooks and has done nothing more complicated than common multiples.

A meeting of minds - hers and mine -was called over hot chocolates. I told her my feelings: that she was putting a lot of work into being frustrated with basic math skills she had mastered long ago; that I felt she could work equally hard and further her skill set which would inspire confidence instead of the discouragement she was currently experiencing. She thought that made sense.

She's decided to look over some of the Saxon options available to her. She asked if I'd print her a placement test. I'd also like to get my hands on a copy of Life of Fred for her to peruse.

I told her that as part of our somewhat structured homeschooling style, she needed to work on some sort of math on a regular basis. But I wanted her to be clear that I was happy for her to choose her resources. I trust her to take some responsibility at this point in her learning.

I hope we'll have something decided on soon. But I suppose that this has been a good exercise for us. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all plays out in the end.

~Mrs. A.

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~May~

May's calendar page is sitting on my computer desk waiting to be blogged. It's sitting there quite innocently, right where I put it. But it's kind of glowering, too. Glaring it's blogging want.

May wasn't anything spectacular. I'm sure it was sort of indicative if the way things usually are around here. I sifted and coasted and drifted through the days, sometimes wishing I could keep my head in the game more consistently. I suppose I would feel better if I were able to concentrate on the wonderfulness of my kids and the happiness of the dogs and the simple luxury I live in every day. I'll have to remember that.

I started May with a clean house and a new haircut. I had a really nice Mother's Day.

Treats!

I helped my mom out by going to work for her for a day. That was interesting. One working momma meant two sets of packed lunches, a baby-sitter, a puppy-sitter, packed up school work, a morning rush, a late dinner and an early bedtime. Totally not something I would do every day on purpose. I suppose it was a jarring experience just because we've not lived that way in a long, long time.

The skittish white dog got an eye infection. And Mr. A, bless his poor, oblivious heart, learned the ins and outs of dealing with the vet. I think he debriefed for a week.

Niece!

My new knitting group seems to have taken off quite nicely. As I had hoped, a good crowd of diversity has shown up and they all seem to be happy with a relaxed, social atmosphere. I find myself looking forward to spending a couple of hours planning and preparing for the meetings. So, every other week at the local library, we knit. The other attendees have taken it upon themselves to carve out some space at the local pub to knit on the off weeks. Hilarious. And awesome.

New Kittens!

On the home school front, we're picking our way through the final bits of work for the year. Much of the language arts we did was finished in May. We're a little behind my schedule in our history studies and the kids made a plan to finish their math by June 4. Running club finished early so the coach could take some of the kids and groom them to join the local private school's track team. We had a social picnic-park play after a museum program to kick off the good weather. I'll have to remember to have another at the end of this month. We took in the local multicultural fair as well. Always a good time. It always surprises me how much the kids enjoy themselves there even though it's loud and crowded and they are scared to try the different food. They eat cotton candy and apple crisp while the rest of us are sampling Indian, Jamaican, Turkish, Irish and Chinese food.

"Science" With Mr. A!

The Blue Eyed Bandit grew so much over May! She's impressing everyone at obedience even though we didn't practice a whole lot. She's very smart. She's such a happy, peaceful puppy. And ever since I moved her crate to my bedroom, she's slept through the night. That only took me three months to figure out.

Bad Dog!

I was reminded throughout May that I have 'Me' opportunities popping up all over the place. It's a little exciting after focusing solely on the kids for so many years. I'm part of a book club that I love. The knitting group, getting out a couple of times a week for a walk/run, puppy classes. We even had a couple over twice in May. I don't want to call them Couple Friends...Mr. A is shy, you know...but I think there's potential!

June is shaping up: We still have to get the boats out so we can get out on the River with the kids. And the car is having major surgery to the tune of the cost of a week long family vacation to somewhere a plane ride away. The next round of puppy classes will start. The Boy will be playing soccer and I will be convening his age group. Exciting times, I say!

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Today Was A Dentist Day

Today was Dentist Day. On a Dentist Day, I usually get dressed in my Mother Guilt and gear up for a busy day and a lighter wallet.

Today was no different. We had an early lunch and drove the hour to the pediatric dentist in the next big town to the west. The nice thing about going to the city is that there is plenty of opportunity for big, shiny carrots to dangle in front of my mostly miserable offspring.

The poor things are miserable because in the dental DNA department (the source of my Mother Guilt), they got the short end of the stick. For every cleaning they've ever had, there is usually a more serious problem to fix, patch or pull. This particular visit involved trying to rebuild a molar for The Boy and three extractions for The Girl.

Before even approaching the dentist's office today, we hit the toy store. This carrot was to distract The Boy Child so that he did not become too anxious before his appointment. He returned a duplicated Christmas gift and received a store credit which turned his logical, number crunching brain to money matters. Nothing was bought, but the discussion from the toy store to the dentist's chair encompassed all matters related to saving allowance, finding online product reviews and creating calendar checkpoints leading up to the potential purchase day.

He was not a happy camper when he assumed the position in the examination chair. It's the needles that set him off. Well, it's the idea of the needles, really. Once the nitrous oxide is flowing and the topical numbing agent has been applied, the needles are a piece of cake. He always stops the dentist to tell her that it was not nearly as bad as he thought it was going to be. Clear sailing for the rest of the appointment. The Boy and his brittle, weak enamel are patched up for another few months. The Boy returned to the waiting room where he immediately began organizing the office's meager Lego supply.

I had the job of taking The Girl to the examination room. By the hand. She felt it her duty to pretend a dramatic display of dental angst. Even though she's very near to being taller than me, she still needs to let everyone know that her miserable 12-year old life is all my fault. The Girl handles her stress and anxiety more quietly than her brother. Sarcasm and dramatics are popular tools of hers. But very soon the nitrous oxide was flowing again and the needles were tolerated with only a wee bit of toe curling. A bit of elbow grease on the part of the dentist and The Girl was three teeth lighter. For some unexplained reason, these primary teeth were hanging in there for the long haul.

The Girl was quite concerned, but not about the gaping spaces in her smile. She wanted her proverbial carrot. Still dozey from the gas, she wanted to make sure we were able to get to the book store before we left for home. She was so concerned, in fact, that the dentist had to set the timer so that she would keep her groggy butt parked until she was cleared for take-off.

I won't even get into how drugged I felt after the appointments when my funds were frozen and extracted. Please send your sympathies to zehnplus@gmail.com...

Soon I found myself in the book store with two drooly, slurring kids, one of who was very clearly not herself. Normally quite animated in the book store, The Girl was wandering around like the walking wounded. She couldn't find one appealing thing for me to buy for her. A clear sign that she should rest. One Universe book later, picked out by The Boy, we were on our way.

The kids were such troopers today. I'm proud of the way they handled themselves. As stressed out and anxious as they were, they were steady and brave when the going got tough. They were good company, considerate travellers and mature conversationalists. All the sibling 'issues' I see in a regular day disappeared and resurfaced as kind words and empathy for each other. (I suppose misery really does love company?!) At the end of the day, I am reminded of how great my kids are.

I am also reminded that they are not stupid. I'm off to do something about the three teeth under my 12-year old's pillow. Did I mention how much today is costing me??!

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Growing Things

Every growing season, I try to grow something. But I have to admit: I'm just not very good at growing things.

Mr. B. humours me, but I know he's really thinking, "Why is she doing this again?" He's very supportive. If I say I want seeds or dirt or a plant he's right there helping me pick it out at the store.

If I truly want something to not-wither, I try not to touch it too much or look directly at the whatever-it-is and I hope for the best. It's kind of hard to enjoy the process though...being worried about killing it and all.

So, with my dismal and inadequate skills in mind, I offer to you the following samples:

The Pretty Pink Flowers I Forget The Name Of. Originally I had sprinkled a bunch of these seeds in my wee front garden. The extras went into this pot. Then, the 'groundskeeper' came around and yanked out all the seedlings and planted ugly begonias. At least this year, my seedlings were the ones to meet their end and it wasn't the kids' sunflowers. That was not a happy day.

My Alive Bleeding Heart Bush. You see here, very clearly, little bleeding hearts that will bloom fully in the next day or so. Not only is this bush blooming, but these are not the first blooms! This is the second batch of blooms. I bought this bush for $4 at the local Habitat For Humanity fundraiser. I was only going to buy the $2 bush, but Mr. B. suggested I might have better luck with a bigger, more established plant. So far, so good!

My Tomatoes. These could be big tomatoes or these could be cherry tomatoes. My sister passed on some of her gardening extras and I got the pots mixed up. I kept one tomato plant and passed the rest to my mother. (I also kept an onion bunch and two hot pepper plants which are also, amazingly, still alive. They are not in a photo-worthy stage of their growth right now. I'll wait 'till they flower or something before taking photos.) So, big tomatoes or small tomatoes, you'll agree that this plant is doing ok! Never having grown tomatoes before, I have taken the hands-off approach. I don' t even water this thing. Perhaps this is why my corner of the world is so wet this summer. Perhaps Mother Nature has finally taken pity on me and is helping out.
The Girl Child. Out of everything I've ever planted, I was most worried about this one. Yet she seems to be flourishing with minimal effort on my part. This season, fashion is budding. I'm not sure I'm in love with the flowers (new shoes in this particular photo) but as long as the rest of the plant continues to be as healthy and wonderful as it has been in previous seasons, I'll just keep my opinions to myself and continue enjoying each season as it comes.

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A Chatty Blog

Thank you to those who have emailed comments. I appreciate every one as they are so personal. Since I am just a wee blip on the blogosphere and not inundated with huge numbers of emails, I like being able to reply to those who drop a line.

I've noticed funky, frustrating things happening with my blog layout. It could be the template. I can't read all the HTML and figure it out myself, so I'll wait for my tech support to take a look sometime. THAT will cost me favours. But that's ok. My tech guy is my own Mr. B and he's not too bad to do favours for. In the meantime, I just select 'smaller' from the 'Text Size' menu in 'View' on my browser window menu. Then everything pops back where it should be. I'm trying not to worry about it. But it is bugging me.

My brother is having a baby. Well, of course his lovely new wife is actually going to be doing the work of the happy event. I can still call her 'new wife' as their first anniversary is not until next week. This is wonderful news! I will be an aunt for the first time on my side and my kids will get their first maternal cousin. The kids tell me they've been waiting a while. The Boy is all ramped up to teach his new cousin to play hockey. I don't think he understands the timeline involved quite yet. I'm not going to the be the one to burst his bubble.

New baby news is rocking my world. I knew when it came, I'd have trouble with it. For years, I'd been doing really well when acquaintances announced their happy news or brought their new bundle around. I even managed to get over myself when my sister-in-law on Mr. B's side had her baby. However. Now that a sibling has begun the journey to parenthood, all my baby itch, my baby envy, my bigger family wishes, my pregnancy jealousy has taken a seat at the head of the table. Being a hormonal week for me has not helped a bit. So. Please excuse me while I wimp and whine and leak pity tears for the babies I never had. I'm trying to stay busy and not listen to music or be alone and I'm going to maintain a full schedule chalk full of people because that will keep me grounded in reality. I'm trying to keep all the angry, sad and disappointed feelings to myself. It's easiest to take out stressful feelings on those closest to you. My little family is perfect, really. We are so blessed with health and happiness and I feel rich every day in so many ways. So even with all my internal storming right now, I am remembering to be kind and considerate and loving first. I just have to keep a Kleenex in my pocket.

Moving on.

A particular acquaintance of mine, a former employee from days gone by, speaks about homeschooling under her breath. She's a teacher. Every time she sees my kids she asks them when they're going back to school. Never mind that they've never been to public school. It's a little undermining. On Monday this particular acquaintance stopped by while walking in the neighbourhood and this is what she found in our yard:

What poor, unfortunate, unsocialized homeschooled children I have. My kids are loving these outside play times with neighbourhood kids. I could go on about how much they get out of these friendships, what they're learning, the skills they're honing, how they're socialized rather than just socializing. I won't. The kids talk to me about the value of these times and I'm not worried about the Undermining Teacher.

My parents are back from a two week trip to South Korea and Japan. They came home bearing gifts and souvenirs for all. We are eating up the stories of Asian culture and are anxiously awaiting the pictures they took.

As our last week of homeschooling wraps up, I'm weeding through the Shelf and putting away things we won't be needing next year. I've got a bag of stuff to sell off and other things, like our math box, will be dismantled. This little math box held our fact cards, coin cup, money manipulatives and word problems. I think we used it every day for the last 3 years. Onward and upward, as Ms. Frizzle would say.

On the To Do list for today is a Homeschooler Phys.Ed class and The Girl's soccer game. My scrapbooking project will receive some attention. I have a tentative deadline of this Saturday for it to be finished. I should be able to get to a good amount of housework if the last two days are anything to go by. I'm off to get to our schoolwork this morning so we can enjoy our afternoon without bookwork hanging over our heads.

Have a great day,

♥Mrs. A

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