There are no secrets

Today was the day of a county wide election. It's a vote for a project in the nearest big city. A project that would raise our taxes county-wide for a project in the city. I don't see how it will benefit me or my city despite what the newspaper keeps saying. I've read up on the project and have decided to vote no.

The kids wanted to know on what we were voting. I told them it was a vote to have more taxes or not and I'm choosing the "not". Mini-Me agreed. She promptly, for some reason unknown to me, went to tell her brothers why we were going to vote. I heard her say "It's to decide whether or not to have more taxes. Mom is voting no."

I decided that since we're going out, that it would be perfect timing to run and get hair cuts for G, J & E. So we grab clipboards and worksheets (a brilliant idea, by the way that I got from my comments the other day and from Cristina's carschooling - you guys are brilliant!!) Why I've never done that before is beyond me. It was SOOOOO very beneficial they got some work done and I didn't feel as if we lost time. We still did, but not nearly as much. When we got to the haircut place, they started feeding their gumball type machines with quarters that they'd grabbed from their piggybanks. I was impressed by their foresight.

But I digress.

Back to the voting booth. We arrived at the church (our polling place). We didn't have to announce our arrival. They could see us coming. The little ladies volunteering today were all elderly and could have been great grandmas. They just beamed smiles at my kids.

One of them said, "We've got a lot of voters today!"
I smiled and said, with realization in my heart, "Yes, lots of future voters." (I'm not sure when 4 started equalling 'lots' but I went with it.)

We find my name in the register and another little lady asks G-man if he wants a sticker. He jumps on the sticker opportunity and loudly proclaims, "We're voting NO!"

I guess I need to discuss with him the purpose behind a secret ballot - because there are no secrets in the Laundry Pile.

Notes and updates on the Denims

It's been a crazy few weeks but I wanted to update you on all the excitement.

Mini-E, I think, is finally contagion free. I can't tell though, for certain. We kept her home from church on Sunday because it's hard to tell which are old pox and which are new. After talking to my friend today, though, I'm very glad that we did have the immunization - a serious case of chicken pox would have really put a damper on our lives.

The boys never broke out as bad as Mini-E. G only had about 5 spots and J-man had somewhere between the two kids. He had enough for me to confirm that he had them. I didn't expect G to get them because he had the booster shot - but he only had 5 spots, so i guess the booster worked. His only complaint was that the spots itched.

We got our van back. After driving the Nissan Armada for 2 weeks, seeing my van back in the driveway -- it looked very short and small. I feel short (er) driving the van --- I really miss the size and height of the SUV. I totally agree with Mrs. Darling who said : "I feel so safe in it. Another thing I like about the height is that on rainy days you sit above most of the road spray! Have you noticed that? It makes driving an all new experience."

She is so right. I think I want an SUV now. Before I was indifferent - I am no longer. Indifferent, that is....about SUV's. The Armada had this fantastic button on it. If you pressed it, the heads up display would tell you how much gas you had and how many miles you had to go before you refilled the tank. It was awesome.

My van is great, too. I don't have to worry about it getting scratched. I own it....and it's already scratched. The day we got the van back in the driveway, I wanted to make a quick run to the library.

It was dead.

Dead.

Dead.

We couldn't tell if the alternator was dying (or already dead) or if it was the battery. So we called a local repairman and he came out the next day to have a look-see. It was the battery and he suspected that it was the battery original to the van. The van is about 6 years old. And after seeing how it is placed in the van, I'm really glad we didn't undertake installing the battery ourselves. It reminded me of that Operation game....if I touched the side I was going to get buzzed and see lights...

J-man is doing very well with speech therapy. The only downside to speech therapy is that we're not doing well with following up with school work in the afternoon. Okay. I'm not doing very good with it.

After lunch, after getting the babies down for a nap and after mom goes home, I just want to sit. Today I gave Mini-Me a Math test, as opposed to a work book page. It took her over an hour to get part of it done, and she still wasn't done by 3:30. We needed a new toilet seat (not sure how it broke - but it split in two) and some apple juice. Luckily there's a wal-mart down the street from the hardware store. She'll have to finish that test in the morning. I know it would take her about 15 minutes if she'd just focus. J-man only slept for 45 minutes instead of his normal 2 hours. Which didn't help matters for Mini-me's concentration because he wanted to finish his movie.

Oh, I got the seat home and figured out that it doesn't fit - after struggling to get the old, broken seat off. So now I've got to see if Lowe's will take the seat back. The box is open, but the plastic is intact. (Insert sigh here). Another trip back to the store with 4 kids. Honestly, The Professor just doesn't know what he's missing out on.

When we do manage to get a full days worth of school done, it's been good. Both the big kids are doing great with what they get to do. It's an exciting year, really. I'm well pleased. I did make a change with our handwriting curriculum. During the Back to Homeschool Week hosted by Randi I had come across a curriculum called "A Reason for Handwriting" and I gave it a try and liked the look of it...so I purchased it. On a whim, I tried the first lesson - with actual words. I was too much in a hurry to figure out why there were two sections in the book and two different pages marked "lesson 1". She was so excited with it. She came to me and said "Mom!! Look at this letter and this word!" She did so good. I think it was because there wasn't too much in the lesson. I have forgotten, in my haste, to give her a daily dose of handwriting - but was much encouraged by this. I've decided to switch from ABeka Cursive to this. And next year, I'll put G in this curriculum,too.

I'll also endeavor to learn why there are two sections in the book and two lessons marked Lesson 1.

Those are the notes that I can think of that might even interest ya. The challenges of daily-ness are still there: discipline, powerstruggles, struggles with self. But they often don't make good blog fodder, I think, because they are just so ... everyday.

Those are all the notes from the Laundry Pile for today.

Awards...

While I've been busy with school, children with spots and children without, vans and rental trucks, housekeeping and budgets, it's been nice to know that my blogger buds haven't forgotten me. While I've been putting blogging on the back burner, I try to keep in touch and blog when I can - I've been surprised to log in and find that I've been blessed!

Actually blessed beyond bloggin' measure, to be sure.

Since I can't get them to fit into my sidebar the way I'd like them to -- I've opted to show them here.

The "You make me smile award" came to me from Cristina & Melanie.

MonkeyGiggles and Renae (who is not a dork) both blessed me with the "Nice Matters Award" at two different times. I'm flattered. I've been called weird, sweet, funny, odd, unique (my favorite) - but never, actually, "Nice". and Cristina again -- she thinks I think ... blessed me with a Femme Philosophers Award. (An award she made herself.) Follow the link there in her name and you'll read all about it. She's been one of my blogging buddies from the VERY beginning. You know when I said "Let there be Blog". *L* (by the way, it's open to men bloggers, too - go check it out!!)

Thank you, Thank you, Thank You!!

I can't thank you enough!!

Maybe I can and I haven't tried hard enough.

I'm honored.

Beyond that, I thank you for keeping in touch, even when I'm in-blog-omunicado.

*I slay me.*

Sign me --

A very humble Denim.

Super Power?

Your Superpower Should Be Mind Reading

You are brilliant, insightful, and intuitive. You understand people better than they would like to be understood. Highly sensitive, you are good at putting together seemingly irrelevant details. You figure out what's going on before anyone knows that anything is going on! Why you would be a good superhero: You don't care what people think, and you'd do whatever needed to be done Your biggest problem as a superhero: Feeling even more isolated than you do now

What Should Your Superpower Be?

Needless to say, I giggled.

You mean I can do that??

With two babies in the house, both of whom can be demanding, I've struggled with putting a schedule together. I want one, because Mini-Me seems to thrive with a schedule. A schedule would also help me in planning and mental preparation.

It was just difficult because I expected a schedule to be very decisive about when to do what. You know the kind I mean:
8:00 - breakfast
8:30 - Bible
8:45 - Math
9:30 - Phonics
Everything had a time slot. I couldn't do those because both my little ones would often need attention. I actually considered it a shortcoming in me. I mean, I should be able to control diapers and feedings, right?? Oh, and outbursts....and skinned knees...and munchies...

I've been reading the book "Things we wished we'd Known" compiled by Diana Waring. It's been an interesting book. I've not really gotten far as I"m trying to read one persons account at a time. It's compiled like a devotion might be. Each family writes an essay that might fit into one big category. I like that I can sit down and read each essay in a sitting. It's almost a devotional in that aspect. Something that could be read over with Hot chocolate or tea in the morning - or a sandwich during lunch...or those times that I lock myself in the bathroom.

My "aha" moment came with the article written by Madelaine Smith, entitled "Hanging Haman: Exploring the Bible One Day a Week". I loved what she wrote about Studying the Bible one day a week, I really did.

Here's what she wrote that opened my eyes:

"At home, we could do one subject a day, and that's what we did for the
first eight years. Math was our exception since the girls, 8 & 9 years old,
felt their brains might explode if they did several math lessons a day. Since
they were usually only required to do every third math problem anyway, math did
not take much time, so we still had about tow hours to do our one big subject
and finish by lunchtime, a goal we maintained until high school."

I read that and thought: You mean I can do that?? I realize that's a silly statement to make. Homeschooling is all about overcoming and adapting. Modifying to fit the needs of the student and teacher. While I knew all that, I felt like I was falling down the on the job if I didn't give my kids a rounded school day.

After reading that segment, I realized that the best times of school work, where we got the most accomplished, happened during the end of the school year crunches. The reason we got so much accomplished would be because I'd push through one subject a day. (Push through sounds like a military maneuver, but it wasn't ever a knuckle down kind of happening. When doing more than one lesson in, say, phonics, I can only do the repetitious stuff once. In math, I can practice reading a clock, once out of three lessons as opposed to once every lesson. Then we adjusted the work levels, too, on the paperwork. While one was doing work, I'd teach the other.

(Handwriting is still a painful topic around here.)

So I felt a new freedom after reading this and realized that I could do a schedule like this:
Monday: Speech Therapy & math
Tuesday: Phonics, Bible & History
or something like that ---
I always want to start my day with Bible reading....so I'm hoping this will help us get into a routine of Bible reading and History.

Mini-Me is already adjusting to this type of schedule, last week, while I was still writing all this down, I wanted to pick up on a math lesson and she said "But it's Tuesday (or whatever day it was) and we're supposed to do phonics."

Technicalities.

The only downside I see to this is that when the day is tough, I still don't get done all I want to get accomplished. We're working on it though and I know it will come in time...because I've also had the revelation that I am, really, quite organized - but not organized the way I think it should look. That's another topic for another post.

Overcoming and adapting - Homeschooling at it's best.



A Comfy note: I started this post yesterday and just now finished it. I don't know why I can't change the date on my post, ah well, It will help my feeling of being in a time warp.