Exactly. It's basically a big bowl bisected with bayous and waterways. It's so sad and no one had a clue it would be this bad. Harvey is turning out to be one unpredictable guy.

We are not in Houston proper, but about 30 miles southwest of the suburbs. Things are very wet (over thirteen inches of rain at this point and counting), but we still have power and drinkable water for now. Tornadoes are a real concern as we've already had two tornado warnings overnight. We are spared the horrific flooding that's happening in Houston right now though. I believe our turn will happen later this week when the river here in town is projected to flood more than it has ever flooded since records were kept of these things. Lots of people will lose their homes and possessions in the flood, but hopefully not any lives. The city has been very good about keeping us all informed and helping to evacuate those in known danger to a makeshift shelter here in town.

We've gotten over thirteen inches of rain at this point and the rain isn't supposed to stop until Wednesday at the earliest. A couple of tornado warnings last night, but they didn't touch down in our town, but the town north of us. Our ditches are full, but nothing is creeping toward the house yet. Our biggest threat at this point is the river flooding. Normally our house is 6 blocks from the river, but with the projected river rise, it should flood to within a block or two of our house. Of course, it floods more than the projection things could get bad for us. Prayers and good thoughts are appreciated for those of us here in the Houston area. There are a lot of people who are losing everything.

Our town is exactly halfway between Victoria and Houston. Right now we're supposed to get 30 or more inches of rain. I can't even imagine that much rain falling at one time. This morning the weather announcer out of Houston told everyone to prep for not leaving their house from Saturday through Wednesday next week because of the severe flooding that is going to occur. The rain isn't supposed to move out until sometime Thursday.

We're prepping today for severe flooding and possible power outages, but if Harvey tracks the slightest bit north it could be a direct hit for the coast 45 minutes south of us which would mean we would get the wind as well.

http://www.theplantedtrees.com/ I blog about homeschooling including my planning series, read aloud lists, and an emphasis on Charlotte Mason.

Apparently she has a podcast about marriage and some of my Facebook friends who listen to it pretty regularly said that they weren't so shocked by the news. According to them, after their son was born premature, Chris became a devout conservative Christian believing that God had saved their son. Apparently Anna would make jabs at his newfound conversion on her podcast. She also talked about his astounding success while her career was not as meteoric. My friends who listened to her podcast believe that it was more her wanting to get out of the marriage than Chris. He had become someone different than who she originally married and was a bit jealous of him. I don't know how much any of their assumptions are correct, but it sounds plausible. Of course, I've also heard that he cheated on her with Jennifer Lawrence so no one really knows but the two of them.

My oldest dd is named Grace and my middle dd is named Sophia. Despite their supposed popularity, I think we've met one other Grace ever. Most little girls I see now are actually XYZ-Grace, but not a true "Grace" by itself. The year my Sophia was born it was the #5 most popular name that year. We know one other Sophie but that's it. And have met a handful of Sophia's over the years. I honestly think the popularity thing is 1) location dependent and 2) considering how many babies are born every year in the US and how many different names are chosen, being number 5 on the list might actually only result in a couple thousand kids actually being named that. My vote is for Sophia since you really seemed to like it. I love it as well and it's the perfect name for our Sophia. Fits her to a T.

I read this article earlier. It really made me rethink how I'm dealing with screens, especially phones/tablets during "free time", moving forward. Honestly, it's something I've seen with my teen and her friends, but I do make it a point to take her for lots of face to face meet ups as well. However, they are all on their phone when they get together in person too, but now they are chatting with those who aren't there and taking pictures to post to social media. It's a different teen culture for sure.

LOL! Definitely a blog post about it. I thought about making a free printable for it, but it's turning out to be very specific to our house so not something that I could replicate to fit everyone's home. The kids are SO excited!

We do something a little different every year. It always involves going out for breakfast and a fun field trip. I've done a scavenger hunt around the house to find school supplies and I gave them homeschool coupons last year to use for fun things during our school year. This year I think I'm going to make our living room an escape room and have some new school supplies and a trip to the beach as the prize that's locked up at the end.

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I plan the entire year out by subject so that we can move as slowly or as quickly as we wish through our material and it doesn't mess up my planning. You could do it by hand, but I create my own tables in Word to do it so I only have to print and bind with my proclick and we're ready to go.

I red shirted my son even though he has a spring birthday. He absolutely 100% was not ready to do Kindergarten work when he was 5. He was finally ready at the age of 6, late into his age 6, to begin formal learning. This year at the age of 7 I'm calling him first grade whereas all the other kids with his birthday would be in second grade in public/private and most homeschools. I did this for one main reason. He isn't reading yet. He still isn't reading fluently yet, but he's progressing nicely now. When your child is labelled as first grade, at least around here, they assume your child can read. I knew that this would cause no end of embarrassment for my sensitive boy when he would be expected to read aloud in Sunday School class or at co-op, so I called him Kindergarten last year so he would not be placed in the first grade classes. I fully expect to have him "skip" a grade at some point in the future when his reading really takes off and he reaches grade level. He's right where he needs to be on math, so it's really just the reading I'm waiting on to catch up. Red-shirting is not an always behind your peers proposition. At least in homeschooling it's not.

DD13 is doing an in-depth study of fairy tales and mythology this upcoming year which I've spent most of the summer putting together. I can't wait for her to get started using it. DD10 is clipping along nicely in math and I'm always curious every year to see how many math books she gets through. So far her average is three. DS7 is finally beginning to read albeit slowly. I'm excited to see what kind of progress he makes this school year.

Being hugged, except for my kids. I don't understand this thing among women where when we meet up or see each other we must embrace. Please. Don't. Touch. Me. I can be great friends with you without the need for physical affection. In fact, I'll probably be better friends with you if you don't hug me.

The most compelling evidence I've heard in the entire OEC and YEC debate actually came from my middle child about two years ago. We were talking about the Flood and dinosaur bones because at that time I was solidly YEC. She looked at me and said, "Where are the fossils of all the other animals killed in the flood? Like horses, chickens, lions, or even humans?" I had nothing. I'd honestly never thought about it. The YEC community focuses so much on the dinosaurs that I'd never thought to ask about everything else that would have been killed that day (the flood). At this point I'm not YEC anymore because I never could find a good answer to my daughter's question from any YEC source. I'm not sure I'm OEC either. I'm in the camp of, no idea but I believe in God and that he created it all somehow and in some way.

I'm doing a mythology course for upcoming 8th grader as well! I've got the first semester totally planned and an in-depth outline for the second semester. Some of her projects/assignments: create a version of Clue based on Greek mythology, a paper taking a modern comic book hero and how it was influenced by Greek mythology (she's watching the Stan Lee videos about this), a paper comparing/contrasting the tale of Cupid/Psyche with Beauty and the Beast (she's also doing a fairy tale class this coming year so this is a crossover assignment), design a Barbie doll (clothing, symbols, etc.) to be one of the female figures from Greek mythology, write a fictional story that follows the Hero's Journey outline (this is after studying the Odyssey), and a mythology scavenger hunt with her camera phone where I give her a list of various gods/goddesses from around the world and she has to snap a picture of something that would represent that god.

I'm starting 1B with my son at the end of August. I really love the book choices and love the idea behind it. I'm so glad there is a CM curriculum coming out that focuses on other cultures, minorities, and women. Give me a few months and I'll give a more in-depth review.

My upcoming 8th grader. I'm making her a year long fairy tale literature study so if it seems fairy tale heavy that's why. Also she's doing a mythology year in lieu of history so lots of myths as well. These are just the books to be read during literature/assigned reading time not the books she'll be reading for official subject times. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek The Captain's Dog Chains Johnny Tremain Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons My Brother Sam is Dead My Book House (2 volumes) For original fairy tale to modern rewrites comparison: Cinder Fairest Beastly For comparing the classic fairy tale genre to modern, new fairy tale stories: Stardust Tale of Despereaux (I did this as a read aloud years ago but I want her to reread it with new eyes) The Book of Lost Things or Uprooted (haven't decided between these two yet) Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm Perrault's Fairy Tales Choice of the following: Tales from Africa, Tales from Japan, Tales from China, Tales from India, Korean Folk Tales, Russian Tales and Legends Beowulf: A Hero's Tale Retold Aladdin and Other Favorite Arabian Nights Stories My upcoming fifth grader. Again this is just the list for literature/assigned reading time. My Book House (2 volumes) Tales from the Odyssey D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths Our Little Athenian Cousin of Long Ago Our Little Spartan Cousin of Long Ago Christian Liberty Nature Reader 5 Our Earth Of Courage Undaunted Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Where the Mountain Meets the Moon A Long Walk to Water Caddie Woodlawn An Ordinary Princess Sarah, Plain and Tall Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Matilda The Children of the Green Knowe

Fry it with a cornmeal coating. Or Paula Deen's Squash Casserole

Definitely Logic of English Foundations. My active boy loves to do the lessons because almost all of them have movement included, usually in the form of games. The sit down part of doing a worksheet is usually interspersed with activities. Plus the worksheets are only one side usually and very short.

I'm doing a year of mythology instead of history for my upcoming 8th grader next year. She chose the topic so I'm going with it. It's shaping up to be a really interesting study that's about history, but from a different slant.

We're traveling 12 hours and pushing back our homeschool start date to see it. Normally we visit my parents in July, but we're making the trip in August this year just for the eclipse. They don't live in the path of totality but live close enough that they will see about 95% totality. It will be just me and the kids going.

I taught Narrative II and Chreia at a co-op this last year, so I'll share my thoughts. 1) You absolutley need to be using these books on the higher end of the grade level that it's suggested for. I believe you could even use it past that grade level. For example, my oldest, who was in 7th grade last year, was in my Narrative II/Chreia class at co-op. While she could have done Narrative II earlier, I felt that Chreia was perfect for her age. I can't imagine handing Chreia over to my 4th grader and expecting her to write a 6 paragraph essay. Not to mention that Chreia expects kids to have some base knowledge of figures from literature and history to do the compare/contrast part of the essay that younger kids might not have. 2) As for outlining in Narrative II, I never required them to fill in the outline on their own. We always did that part in class and talked about it. What I did as the teacher was really hammer home what an outline is for when it comes to writing. You need to have an idea of where your story/narrative is heading BEFORE you sit down to write, so even if you don't do a super detailed outline like the ones in the Narrative II examples, you do need to outline your story in some fashion. The final assignment in the Narrative II book is to write your own story. I had all of the kids turn in an outline of what was going to happen in their story and we talked a lot about the parts of a fictional story using the book, The Most Wonderful Writing Lessons Ever (It's for 2-4 grade, but the information is really good and easily adaptable) So, yes, I brought in extra teaching, because I tend to do that for pretty much any curriculum I'm using. To me the ability to outline the stories in the book was not the important part. It was the ability to outline your story before you start writing so you know where you are going and what actions/events are going to get you there. Not that those things are set in stone, but at least you have an idea instead of just sitting down to write with no forethought whatsoever. 3) My thoughts on Chreia are that it's too much of one thing. That being said, I feel that Chreia is what helped my students the most on actually learning to write non-fiction. I hammered paragraph construction (topic sentence with supporting points) and smooth transitions between paragraphs. By the end of that book, their writing had improved 100% compared to the first Chreia they wrote. I think we were all burned out on writing 6 paragraph essays following a set format though. My suggestion would be to purchase Chreia with the intention that once your child has solid paragraph construction down and the ability to find and use supporting points from a source to expand on their topic sentence, then feel free to stop and move on to the next book because there is nothing new taught or assigned in Chreia except writing chreias. All of the above being said, I fully plan to continue on with Writing and Rhetoric in the future. Hope these thoughts help.