Good Morning! Worked out in the yard this morning while it is still relatively cool. Weeded, dead headed and pruned my rose bushes. This afternoon .... Grocery shopping, get lesson ready for Children's Church.

That's great. I could totally see Calvin's imagination shining right through. He sure was ornery, wasn't he?

Well..... I have a vegetable steamer, so I generally throw them in there. When I want to make them really good I then mix the steamed beans with sautéed mushrooms and diced bacon and salt and pepper (and if I want to make them really really good, then I throw a little of the bacon grease on it and toss). The other day I was out of bacon, so I steamed as usual, then just tossed with some sautéed onions and about 3-4 cloves of sautéed garlic. That was good, too.

Well, it's the end of the day here on the Left Coast. Had a nice "married-with-children-people's" date night with dh. See, when we were dating and then married, but childless, we've have dinner out, take walks, go to restaurants with live music, etc. etc. now, we have a nice dinner and then go to Target and Costco. I really needed to go, and since we live 45 minutes away, it does make sense, and it is so much nicer to do those things sans children, but still...... So, we're home. Did have a nice evening. Kids were awake when we got home, but that's ok.

Love the pasta salad idea. My variation.... Marinatd artichoke hearts, too. I always use Good Seasons Italian dressing and sprinkle Salad Supreme (found in the spice section) on it.

Praying for you, Jean and Amy! TGIF, indeed! I need a weekend. School is winding down, so while we technically have a week left, it's really just odds and ends to finish up. Finished up Spelling today. ** school - finished for today! ** fold and put away laundry ** budget stuff - done! Dh got paid today. ** ds2 has guitar lessons this afternoon ** date night with dh. Nothing glamorous - dinner and shopping. But we're going to Dai Bai Dang, which is one of my favorite places, so that makes up for Target and Costco.

You are not a terrible mom and I know exactly how you feel. My oldest son comes home from camp and he's a nightmare. An entire week of playing all day(well, most of the day), no chores, no siblings to share with, lights out several hours later than normal, soda every day, no Mom to limit your chip and junk food intake.... he's awful and I don't look forward to his homecoming, either. I mean, I love him and everything, but he doesn't make the transition to home and rules and relatively healthy eating very well. He balks at the rules as it it. He doesn't think he should have to do anything he doesn't want to do, ever.... At all. So, then you put him in a camp situation, where it's his dream come true, complete freedom and no responsibility....homecoming is not pretty.

I tried getting through Don Quixote several times, but just couldn't do it. I really can't do Jane Austin and Hemingway.... I just felt like he was so vague. I'd read a chapter and I had no idea what was going on. It was like I needed to read between the lines, or there were some assumptions of knowledge that I didn't have. I tried to read Farewell to Arms and then I stopped and read a synopsis and was like, "it was really about that?" I felt so stupid.

Good Morning, Gals! I am quite envious of you ladies with rain. I'd love to live in a place that is green in the summer. I've visited places where it's so nice and green. It's brown and dry here and will stay brown until.... November, I guess, when it rains again. It's supposed to get up to 100 degrees today and stay that way for a week. Anyhow.... today..... ** school ** call DS's music school and see what the heck is up.... He's supposed to have a recital this weekend and I haven't heard a thing about it.

Well, I'm not sure what she's using, but I've used ABeka phonics and math for years and their homeschool teachers guides are scripted and very detailed. Too scripted, for my liking, but whatever.

Wow! I am envious! We tried blueberries...didn't work for us. At all. Tried blackberries. Failure. We tried strawberries... Small success. But we are quite successful at growing grapes. We have Red Flames for eating and Thompsons for raisins and have successfully propagated a couple of muscat cuttings. It'll be a while till we get fruit on those.

Luckymama -glad you had fun picking. I love picking things - grapes, berries, whatever. Well, school is finished. Whew! It's getting harder and harder. I'm tempted to just be done, and we're petering out, really. This is our last week of spelling, DS2 finished his grammar book today and he finished LC1 a couple weeks ago. We're just doing recitations and vocab review so he doesn't forget. DD finished her math book a month ago, so she's on to the next grade level . It's just history we have to get finished. Right now, I'm making boysenberry freezer jam. My mom has boysenberries this year. We're going to get some cuttings from her this fall so we can have our own bushes. I love boysenberry jam and dh loves berry pie, but they are so expensive. $3 a basket. Which is understandable. They are pretty labor intensive and not easy to pick.

We do try to teach our kids about restitution, and sometimes it won't always match the offense. Our kids haven't broken anything, but one day they were throwing dirt clods over the neighbor's fence right into their spa. Well, she didn't want them to clean it out, but we did make the boys bring their garbage cans in from the curb and line them neatly by the garage for a month. I suppose if/when it comes to something that has financial damages, we'll have to take it on a case by case basis, but we do teach them to make things right.

Good Morning, Gals! Well, I got up and walked this morning. Happy for that. Got breakfast and devotions done. And the kids are still sleeping. To do: ** school (9 days left) ** various and sundry household chores ** make some jam. I still need to make more strawberry jam and I have boysenberries, too. I love boysenberry jam. It's all freezer jam, so not hard to make. Can't go anywhere today because dh has my car, while his is in the shop. Hope today is better than yesterday. Ds1 was a nightmare. He just can't figure out why he should have to do things that he doesn't want to do. Like schoolwork. And chores. Lucky.... Have fun picking! Melissa... Hope you feel better! My verse for today...."My grace is sufficient for you...." II Corinthians 12 something.

I used to teach jr. High and that general age can take normally well mannerd, responsible children and turn them into monsters. Distraught parents at a parent/teacher conference: but Susie always got her work done in elementary school. She got straight A's. It must be your fault she's failing science. Me: no, she's not turning her work in. Parents: you must have lost her work. Me: why don't you check her backpack? Susie comes in... Parents check her backpack... Pull out a wad of not-turned-in homework from various classes. I saw it all the time. Some kids sail through that age, some really have a hard time.

We start with Latin when each kid is in third grade and hit that really heavy. This past year, for fun, we did CAP's Greek Alphabet Codecrackers. My kids enjoyed it, and I thought about adding Greek for Children this next year, but... It's a harder language because you have to learn a whole new alphabet and phonetic system, on top of the grammar, vocabulary, etc. And as a parent/ teacher, you have to learn it, too pretty much. I just wasn't up for that. I'll have my DS start GSWS as a 6th grader next year and, unfortunately, let the Greek go. But, that's just me. For me, Latin is easier because, although there were a few differences phonetically, you don't have to learn a new alphabet.

Well, i accomplished it all. Except for cleaning up the kitchen. Which i will do as soon as i get the little girls in bed. Two paeties down, and a bunch of very very tired children.

I voted other because I don't like eggs, but I will eat an omelette if it has so much stuff in it I can't taste the eggs, and I do like eggs Benedict and other things, but I hate eggs plain!

Morning Ladies, Only have time for a quick cup of coffee.... Today is going to be busy and I feel like I got ran over by a Mack truck! My allergies must have morphed into a sinus infection! ** clean up house ** frost birthday cake ** take 4 boys to local miniature golf/fun place for 2 hours of "unlimited fun" ** bring them back for lunch (corn dogs, rootbeer floats, cake) ** party is over at 2:30 ** grandparents arriving at 5:00 or so for second birthday party ** collapse in a heap Have a great day friends!

You know, I just finished watching one of those "man on the street" video clips, (from O'Reilly, if anyone wants to know, not that it matters) asking college kids at the beach questions about the US Military in honor of Memorial Day. Pretty basic questions - "Who did we fight in the Revolutionary War?" "Who attacked Pearl Harbor", etc. and it got me thinking about this thread. I mean, we pride ourselves in giving our kids a good education and I know the mistakes in this thread are funny and that our kids do know a lot and they are a lot younger (for the most part) than the college kids the guy interviewed..... but still.... the answers those college kids were giving ("Who attacked us in Pearl Harbor?" "Korea? Russia? Am I close?").... were like the responses from our own kids. And sometimes I think, good grief, how many times do we have to go over this for it to sink in? How did I learn it? (and I am not putting any kids down here, it was just kind of ironic, I thought.)

And then there's my other son. Today we were reading a story about Louis Pasteur and the question at the end of the story asked, "what country was Pasteur from." He can't remember off-hand, so we find a sentences that says ".... the Frenchman..." And I say, " so, what country was he from? " and he says, "Spain?" Someone help me! Please!

Well, I am feeling better and have been accomplishing a few things... ** a couple loads of laundry done (while watching my new addiction -Suits. I've decided after I'm done raising my kids I'm going to become a high powered lawyer at a prominent New York law firm and make a gazillion dollars a year) ** baked DS's birthday cake ** read a couple books to my little girls Now, I need to figure out what to make for dinner.

Oh yeah. I don't know how many times we've studied Columbus, but one day I had DS up at the world map showing us basically the route Columbus went and the child ended up landing Columbus in the Lapland. Really?

Mine was about 300 people. I hated it. I mean, it was gorgeous, everything went perfectly, it was a lovely wedding. It really was and I am thankful for it. But I just hate being the center of attention, and all that stuff that goes with being a bride. I was so afraid I would trip or say or do something stupid that I really didn't enjoy myself a whole lot. But, everyone who attended said it was lovely and they had a good time, so.... It's all good, I guess.

Well, I am in a serious brain fog here. I think it's allergy induced. I just need to get the kids done with school and figure out what needs to be done in the house and do it. DS's birthday party is Saturday and I just can't get organized. I feel mentally paralyzed and all I want to do is be in the computer because then I don't have to think. Not a good place to be.