Oh, then I saw this one! (it might or might not play.)

I saw this hula this morning. Lovely kupuna (older women), dancing on the beach (which is hecka hard).

I don't even know what "advanced phonics" means. She's clearly reading well; what more phonics could she possibly need to know? LIttle 6yo persons don't need to do "writing." Nor spelling, really. Not yet. Let her read for another year. If she wants to do copywork, let her. That would be more beneficial than making her do "advanced phonics."

Today, workers are outside my house installing piers to lift the house on one side. It's a Texas thing. ::glares:: We had it done in 2018, on three sides; nothing was done to the south end of the house because it looked good. Turns out. So, after they finish, we'll have to have someone come in and repair cracks in walls and paint the rooms. Oh joy. Isn't home ownership great? /sarcasm

Oh, that's just terrible! I'm so sorry to learn this. Many prayers for the family.

Me neither!

There's always a unit study like KONOS, Vol. 1.

If you want to know more about Spalding, be sure to get one of the older editions, not the 5th or 6th. Those two leave out lots of the foundational information that Mrs. Spalding included in the first four (yes, the last two were edited/published after her death).

I can't speak for the rest of Texas as I have only lived in the Austin area, but good grief....even in urban areas, you can drive forever before finding a grocery store. Hundreds of apartments have been built along the road my subdivision is off (I can't figure out how to write that better, lol), but not a single new grocery store. The existing ones are generally built along the freeway, so not really near most of the homes but contributing to congestion at the freeway exits. We could do with at least one more grocery store, probably two more. I say this as someone who never lived further than two miles from at least one grocery store, usually several, before moving here. And there was a variety of stores; here in Central Texas, we get H.E.B. In the past few years a few Aldi stores have opened, none of them close enough to me to make it worth my while to go there regularly. Ditto WHole Foods and Trader Joe's. Going to them is a field trip I'm not always willing to take, lol.

I do not know. I don't know why they would be less good, though.

I use dishcloths for most things. They're easy to scrunch up and fit in crevices, the hold soap well, and I feel like they cover more surfaces; I think sponges, with their texture, don't cover all the surfaces as well as dishcloths. I do have a sponge or two that I use for wiping out the kitchen or bathroom sink, but I also use the dishcloth (in the kitchen; I see the illogic of not having a cloth of some kind in the bathroom, but apparently I am ok with that, lol) to clean the whole surface more completely. I put out a new dishcloth each moring so it's always fresh.

Lucky. I'm in the Austin area, and there are few places you could live that would have everything within walking distance. Especially grocery stores. For some reason, there is a noticeable scarcity of grocery stores, even in areas with massive growth. I am aghast. A friend lives in Manor; she has groceries delivered, and meds (from H.E.B.), but she has no vehicle, and an Uber to *anywhere* will cost her $50 or more. She cannot afford that.

Well, first I will say that although I like R&S's English series overall, it would not be what I'd recommend for someone who wanted only grammar. For only grammar, I'd say Analytical Grammar, or Easy Grammar (my personal favorite), or anything else that teaches...only grammar. Next, I don't believe the focus should be on writing paragraphs, but on, well, writing: putting words together in meaningful ways (which may or may not be "complete" sentences), learning to use a variety of sentence structures, using strong nouns and verbs instead of lots of adjectives and adverbs, understanding one's audience and writing to that audience, and so on. It isn't hard to teach things like writing a thesis if the learner's writing is already decent.

Laundry day. Woohoo. Tomorrow, a friend is moving in to stay with us for...an unknown length of time. She is my age...actually, she's older than I am, and because of a series of unfortunate events would be homeless if she were not staying with us. We all hope this works out.

Well, let's have a hula. This one is in the kahiko style (chanted in Hawaiian, only Hawaiian implements used, as opposed to more modern styles that might use piano or guitar or accordian. Really.) Also, some of the movements the dancers do is the reason that the lifespan of a professional hula dancer is three years.

It has been **five hours** since anyone commented. People are not taking this thread seriously.

She is doing well, has been up a couple of times. She's going home already. 😮

She's in recovery. That's all I know. TY for asking. ❤️

Those of you who are praying people, would you remember my dd Sarah today? She is having hip replacement surgery (11:30 a.m. Pacific time). TYVM.

We try to spend around the same amount of money, but TBH, they don't really care. Mr. Ellie's older brother was obsessed with keeping things "fair" when they were growing up, and Mr. Ellie's parents really played into that. Even as adults, MIL was careful about gifts; she bought the brother & his wife a clothes dryer, so she bought Mr. Ellie, who was single at the time, a bedroom suite. Same $$$. 🙂 So we really emphasized the fact that we buy/acquire things for family members based on need (and heart's desire), so one dc might get a pair of shoes and the other would get nothing. Although we probably had the same # of presents under the Christmas tree, we never commented on it, and neither did the dc. So I guess there was at least one thing we did well as parents, lol.

I never assigned reading.

Today's hula. Not the costumes y'all might have expected: Also, an object lesson in how to record a dance performance: do NOT pan to the musicians, because it is about the dancers. We can hear the musicians and appreciate them while we watch every move the dancers make. /rant

https://buc-ees.com/

Thursday is my Field Trip day, so today I put some stuff in a box for my dd (who is having hip surgery next week) and actually went to the post office and mailed it, then I drove up to Bucc-ee's, which is about an hour away, chatting with the dd while I drove; and on my way home got the car washed. #MomFieldTrips

We didn't go anywhere. My daughters threw a lovely party for us, including a display board with wedding photos and of our lives over the 25 years, and found a mannequin to display my wedding dress on. And Mr. Ellie bought me a diamond engagement ring which he picked out on his very own that was perfect in every way. ❤️ Our 50th anniversary is this coming November. We'll probably go to Disneyland, even though we've been there elebenty hundred times already 🙂 but we'll stay at the Disneyland Hotel, and maybe do the VIP tour of the park. And we've talked about Disneyland Paris. Or Hawai'i. We'll see what actually happens. 🙂