Well, I'm trying not to be a hard nose. We are having school today, but the rest of the neighborhood is not. Puts me in a pickle. So, I decided that we'll just do the "3 R's" and let the extra things (science and Latin) slide today. Good grief. It seems like those kids are always on some vacation or other. They had a three week Winter break, were back in school for a week and now have another vacation day. Do they ever study? I have to clean the house for the cleaners Get my allergy shots if they are open Pay my late (oops, thought I paid it, found out I hadn't) utility bill, if the city offices are open. They collected trash this morning, so I'm thinking maybe. DS10 has basketball practice tonight Readinmom, same here, too. My daffodils are pushing up, my Lentin Roses are blooming a month early, and some of the fruit trees are starting to bloom, about 6-8 weeks early. It's a bizarre winter. If you could call it winter. No rain still. Dry as a bone out here. First time in my memory they're considering winter time "fire season", for wildfires.

Home from church. The older Kids are at a birthday party this afternoon. Glad for some peace and quiet.

I do. Just because I have more clothes. I like to have a lot of clothes because it helps me feel secure. And I keep ones I don't wear as much because "you never know". I may start liking them again.

Good morning,Jean (and the rest of you gals!) I always look forward to your tackling posts. It's like a group huddle before starting the day. Well, we'll be going to church today. I teach children's church this week. Other than that, this will be a day of rest. Obviously, football games will be watched, I may continue to do a bit of planning on our garden. We're in a severe drought right now (we've had absolutely no rain since before Thanksgiving), so we have to prioritize. Hubby's not happy because his lawn is his baby, but a lawn does nothing and uses a tremendous amount of water, and I'm getting on him about that. I don't know what they're going to do to make us conserve but my gut feeling is they're going to raise our water rates exorbitantly to force us to conserve.

Well, got everything done. And all my healthy junk came in the mail today (almond meal, flax seed, coconut flour), so I'm making low carb breakfast cereal since I hate eggs. We'll see how that goes.

Ok, I've kind of morphed into Adkins and I weighed myself this morning. After 2 weeks, I've lost 3.5 lbs. and 2" off my belly. I am happy with these results, esp. Since my body these days seems to be wanting to hold on to the weight.

I slept in this morning. It was delicious. I weighed in this morning... I'm down 3.5 lbs. and 2". I am happy. On the docket for the day... ** make breakfast. I always " make breakfast " on Saturday. Pancakes and bacon today. Protein smoothie and bacon for me today. ** gotta find a birthday present for the neighbor. The kids have been saying all week he's having a party tomorrow. Well, I said, "I'm not getting him a present till I see an invite". I guess there are no invites, it's just word of mouth, so now I have to find a present for a turning 10 year old boy and we live in a small town. Ugh! Any suggestions? I do have access to a Walmart in the next town. ** some yard work ** VBS planning meeting at my house at lunch.

I would not like to see underwear. A towel is fine, but underwear.... Underwear is not supposed to be seen by the general population. It doesn't matter what it covers or doesn't cover. It's underwear.

Well, since low-carb is the only thing that works for me post-40, it's low-carb. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas I did 3 weeks of simply counting calories. I did well, too. Sticking to the program. I got the Lose-it ap. I gained half a pound after three weeks. Which sent me into a pit of despair and I just flat out enjoyed Christmas. Now, I'm just piecing things together from Adkins, etc. keeping track of my carbs. I'm at the end of my second week. I haven't weighed in, but last week I'd lost a pound and an inch off my belly.

Niners! Niners! Niners!

They don't scare me. I just don't like them. Although I do get the creeps if I imagine them crawling all over me with their creepy legs and fangs. So, I just try not to think about spiders.

Good morning! We're just getting ready to start school! ** school= spelling test, verse quiz, reading out missionary book, right now we're reading about Adoniram Judson, health, science, reading and writing. ** co-op this afternoon. I'm teaching PE. We're doing flag football. ** visit my mom after co-op. She's been sick and is still recovering and is bored out of her mind. ** ds10 has basketball practice ** work on budget. Today is payday! That's all for today. Hopefully in there I'll be able to get some laundry folded. It's starting to pile up. Melissa - hang in there.

I never thought about having a celebratory party. We should have done that! We just had a good laugh at DH's experience at the bank. We actually sold some investments, so we paid a lump sum and the mortgage co. wanted the $ wired to them. I have no idea where I was, but DH had to take all 5 kids with him to the bank, my little one had fallen asleep in the car,so she's sleeping on his shoulder and the other four are restlessly milling around and he's trying to conduct this transaction. He wanted some sympathy for his plight, but I just thought it was funny. That's my experience everywhere I go.

Mostly done with school. Gotta make lunch. Am feeling completely unmotivated. Wish I had a private cook!

I really have no idea. But with my oldest son, he stabs it with the fork, then takes it off with his fingers and puts it in his mouth. His concession to our demands that he actually use silverware.

Congratulations! We paid ours off last summer. Feels good, doesn't it? :)

Good Morning! It's been a very rough week with DS10. He is difficult on his good days, but this week has been a doozy! Lots of Mama-tears shed in private. Today we are having a late start but... ** school ** dd7 has Kingdom Kids this afternoon (this once a week after school program at a local church) ** hopefully I can run to Walmart while she's at KK. I am out of milk, out of fruit, out of everything.

There's not a ton of US history. I think starting in book 2, or was it 3, whenever they did explorers, I just did a lot of supplementation. I supplemented for the War for Independence, I supplemented with a pretty big Westward Expansion unit and a pretty big Civil War Unit. And the. I also did a semester of state history.

We're looking at sending our kids to the local Christian School. I attended high school there. It's not for Academics. In fact, a friend of mine told me, "don't worry so much about grammar. Mr. H in freshman English will teach them how to diagram sentences." My jaw about hit the floor. R&S starts that in 3rd grade. It depresses me to think about the academic aspect of sending them to HS. All I've worked so hard for in elementary school will basically be repeated in hs except for math and science. And it's not that this Christian school has low standards. They're accredited. They're normal. But, there are other considerations - yes, social, sports opportunities,etc., pressure from my parents and everyone else around here. We have a decent size homeschool group, but relatively no high schoolers. They all go to the Christian School. So,, it's a tough decision. My heart wants to homeschool through high school, but the decision is not as easy as that.

I wouldn't start it with my second grader. We always start in 3rd grade and that seems a real good fit. Plus, if you start in third, then do Latina Christiana in 4th, and First Form in 5th.... I can't imagine my 4th grader doing First Form. It's quite a leap. The way we are doing it seems to me to be the perfect sequence and age. I think PL and LC gave an excellent foundation for First Form. And my fifth grader has a better English grammar foundation,, too. Those verb tenses are confusing.

Wow! Got it all done. Didn't have to wait long with Vital statistics and got an easy answer to our problem. Thanks to the internet, got my flag football practice planned out. Now, I need to salvage this chunk of meat I put in the crockpot. I'm not good with chunks of meat. I think it's going to be too dry. Need to find some sort of sauce.

Hugs and a virtual cup of peppermint tea and a scone to all. Sound like we all need it today! Well, as for tackling Tuesday.... ** school - in progress ** call for dd's birth certificate (adoptions and out of state birth certificates create much confusion). I'm prepared for a long wait on hold. ** ds's first basketball game. Of course it starts at 8:00, which is past the little girls' bedtime, but... we'll all go. I'll just make sure they get a good nap. ** prepare for co-op on Friday. I am leading PE. Me! Completely non-athletic me. So, we're going to start flag football this semester. Did volleyball last semester. Fortunately, there's lots of resources on the Web for that.

Congratulations on your 1000th post. 1) what is the Cajun Prairie 2) who would be your ideal dinner date? (Could be anyone, past or present)

Probably if it was made of the real thing, it would be yummy.

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi Those are two I read aloud to my class when I taught school and they loved those!