The spirit is weak...

I keep waiting for the spirit to move me to write something, but no dice.

The Boy had his first piano recital this week, such as it was. The homeschool group that I belong to had a "Night of the Arts", and his "enrichment day" keyboarding class played. This class is part piano keyboarding, part music theory, part poetry slam, part body slam -- from what I can tell from out in the hall, anyway. He likes it, and that counts as a club to me. Anyway, for the "Night of the Arts", anyone who wanted to perform was signed up, as well as the "enrichment day" drama and dance classes. All of them were pretty pitiful, I gotta say. The standards for talent are so low these days, that if someone wanted to sneeze on the piano during the concert, everyone would have clapped afterward while s/he bowed. It was mercifully short, however, so all is well. That, and The Boy has a spiffy new outfit.

I just signed The Girl up for Brain Gym classes. Brain Gym falls under the category of "might help; can't hurt." Either way, she gets a new pink leotard, so she's happy. (Is there a theme developing here?)

I filled out my census form. I have not filled out my taxes. (Actually, my mom does mine, and well, I just haven't gotten around to it.) I have planted my garden, but have not had the air conditioner tuned.

The weather has FINALLY turned nice. Way to go, weather. Where were you a month ago, when you were due? You'd damned well better not turn hot already 'cause I don't have my a/c tuned yet. Yeah, it's weird. The air conditioner condenses just fine, but the condensation seems to go everywhere instead of into the outlet pipe. The entire wallboard encasement is covered in water damage and (god forbid) mold. Not a good thing. So, please, hot weather, take your time!

What else... The house is filthy. I put my Sidetracked Home Executive tasks into Outlook, but haven't gotten started on it yet. I'm thinking that I'll get serious in April. I mean, I'm going to start in earnest in April. My uncle came to town last weekend, but I wouldn't invite them over for dessert. Eek. My step-Aunt would go back to Georgia and tell all of them what pigs we are down here. Oy. And you just know my perfect, homeschooling, piano-lesson-giving Georgia Belle cousin would NEVER have a house with permanent black marks on the carpet. *sigh*

I think the Slob Sisters would call this CHAOS ("Can't have anyone over syndrome"). Even if it were clean, I'm not sure my house would be presentable. We have a certain decor here that I call "early college student". The lamps don't match. The furniture doesn't match. Heck, The Husband and I have only bought one piece of furniture in our almost-20 years of marriage, and that was the bed. We're still sitting on the original couch that I bought right out of college in 1985. The recliner was bought for us when we were expecting our 10-year-olds. Heck, the mattress is from the same epoch, now that I think of it. The only reason we don't have The Husband's original couch is that mice got to it in 1987.

I have so much work to do this summer. The house is six years old now, and some rooms have not been painted since the builders set off that cream-colored paint bomb when they finished the drywall work. So, it's about time I got to it. We need to replace the carpet. We need a murphy bed for the front room, just in case someday someone comes to visit. Ever. Like they haven't in the last six years. Weird. I just hope they give me more notice than my uncle...

Caution: senseless homeschool bragging ahead

My lovely daughter can round to the hundreds!

I know, biggus dealus. But it has taken me months to teach her that "43 is close to 41", "49 and 51 are both close to 50", and "58 is close to 60". She has had problems going from 58, 59, 60, so it took forever, but she finally got it. Today, I bumped it up to 490 and 510, and she ACTUALLY GENERALIZED! My sweet darling made the logical leap!

Naturally, we may hit a roadblock when we get to 496 and 519 both being close to 500, but I'm not going there right now. It's time to savor the sweet, sweet smell of success. (Hopefully, it's not the smell of The Girl getting into the air freshener. Again.)

The Boy had a test day in his Calvert School curriculum and did almost perfectly. I'm thrilled!

Now, if the tornado warning would just pass, this would be a good day to buy that Lotto ticket.

And while I'm babbling senselessly about homeschooling, I'm proud to say that I'm unofficially moving The Girl up to 3rd grade. She doesn't allow me to take school holidays, so she'll probably continue through the summer, which would really be fine with me. Mostly.

She finished Learning Language Arts Through Literature, 2nd Grade (Red), and their 3rd grade curriculum is totally unsuitable. I adored the artsy-craftsy, cutting-and-pasting style of 2nd grade, and 3rd grade went all Classical Education on me. Bummer. But I've consoled myself with Folktale and Fairytale Pockets, new 3rd grade grammar and spelling books from Zaner-Bloser, and some Progeny Press literature guides. I'm loving them so far! Better yet, I bought some of it used! Woo-hoo! It's enough to make a girl (me, not her) giddy!

She also finished up Math-U-See Beta (using all those addition facts, working with numbers) and moved on to Gamma (multiplication). So far, so good. She likes the "5 across and 3 up makes 15 squares" concept so far, and is moving right along. Ask me again when we get to skip counting by 7. ;) Tragically, no one else sells Math-U-See except Math-U-See. Buttheads. Paid full freight for that baby. Ouch. Maybe I'll skip pouring coffee on the instructor's manual and losing the instructor disk this time so I can resell it.

I've picked up some of the Konos history materials, but can't quite get it together. How does one buy just part of the Konos empire?

I've picked up a few hippy-dippy science books, but I've had no luck interesting her in making sundials, and looking at her bones, etc. Oh well. We're gardening, so I'm getting some natural world into her.

So, if you've made it this far in the post, umm, what on Earth can you be thinking!?! Go take a nap!

Yeah... That's it...

The Boy was on the computer yesterday, playing God-Knows-What, and this is what I heard:


"Zebra balloons are immune to bombs and ice balls?

Hmm..

Looks like we're going to need more road spikes."


Say what? It was so casual, as if he were looking in the refrigerator. "Hmm. Looks like we're going to need more milk." But not exactly.

"Hmm. Looks like we're going to need more road spikes."

There, I fixed it!

Apparently, you can't use the "hit counter" doodad on your blogspot blog. It has a wicked, bad virus. The only hope is to go to someone else's blogspot, sign in, go to blogspot.com/home, and then remove it from your blog. (Someone else said the same thing happens with the ESPN doodad.) The only way to remove it is to edit it and click "remove" really, really quickly. Bad blogspot! No treat for you!

And for having the courage to open my blog again, here you go: There, I Fixed It. I promise it's not an evil place -- it's a blog with picture after picture of stupid, stupid people fixing things in stupid, stupid ways. Good for a snicker or two. Or three.

Extreme meaures have been taken...

Yes, extreme measures have been taken to protect my cosmetic. Note, I say "cosmetic", singular. I own one, count it one, tube of lipstick. I always buy the same kind. It's L'Oreal Endless in "Undeniably Mauve". Yes, I am Such A Painted Woman. Some time in the 80's, I actually wore more makeup, but I also wore a suit, so you can probably guess that I'm not really girly.



My lovely daughter? All girl, all the time. She has demanded to wear pink since she was able to express an opinion. Not pink? Not wearing it. And not just any pink, no. It has to be a "cool" shade of pink -- frosty pinks, fuscia, rose. Don't think she's wearing watermelon or any shade that borders on orange. This girl is a "winter", not a "spring". (Those of you who survived the 80's will understand that.)



Usually, I humor her, but the lipstick? NOT SHARING, DAMMIT. She begs to differ. I always keep it in the car. (Why impress people who know me?) And she sneaks in and covers herself in it. Twice in the last two days, she has gotten into it. We used to keep the car locked, but now, I think she has figured out how to unlock it. My solution? The same as my solution to her eating all the lead for the mechanical pencils:





Yes, what you see before you is lipstick in a childproof container. Even my camera refused to take a good picture of it, so you know it's tacky. But at $12 a pop, my lipstick is safe again.

Ewww.

I just finished reading a new book: Write these Words on Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling.

I know that wouldn't ordinarily make people say "eww" but I'm what they call around here a heathen homeschooler. Mind you, I'm not a heathen, just a heathen homeschooler. It's all relative, apparently.

I don't know which was more appalling -- their political leanings or the first case study in the book. This woman has nine children, all of whom are being homeschooled at once. They work quietly on their own, emerging from their rooms to ask questions and have her check their work. She runs a quiet, organized, controlled homeschool environment. In short, she makes me want to puke. Sorry if that offends anyone, but I couldn't read more than three pages of the chapter. It was just too disheartening.

My basic day starts at 7:30 when The Girl starts yelling at me to fix her some breakfast. She's been up since 2:30 or so, watching PBS and dozing in the recliner. I get up, kick the boy out of bed, and then shuffle off to the shower. By 8:30, we've all watched Lazytown (in Spanish) and Curious George (in English), and we've all dressed and eaten. I bark at them to turn the fricking TV off, and send them outside to swing. School usually starts in earnest by 9:00.

The Boy's assignments are all written on the white board, marked "with mom", "on the computer", or "by yourself". He's supposed to work on the "by myself" items while I start on Lora's journal and Math-U-See. By the time I've exhausted The Girl's patience, I pounce on The Boy and inflict some reading and either Science or Social Studies on him. (You'd be amazed how long it sometimes takes to communicate: the French came here looking for the cross-continental waterway, and ended up trading furs instead. Their trading posts became cities.) When we've finished, I go back to The Girl's math and then we work through her grammar.

Lunch is at World World o'clock (11:30). The Girl will do arithmetic after lunch by herself, and we'll do literature/language arts after that. Somewhere in between, I get the rest of The Boy's stuff done. Provided I can keep him awake. *sigh*

This doesn't include all the incidental screaming ("turn off the TV", "get in here", "stay in the chair", "STOP SCREAMING!!") or the whining ("but I'm tired", "but I'm bored", "but it's too hard") or the delay ("but I'm soooo tired", "but I'm getting a snack", "but I'm getting an animal", "but I'm getting a drink", "but I'm getting gum").

Where does this woman in the book fit in all these extra activities? I'm not even sure whether I really want to know how she does it. I think first she decided to have neurotypical children... And then gave them lobotomies.