7 Quick Takes Friday–March 30, 2012

OK, so it’s Saturday, but let’s not get picky, OK?

1. My mother-in-law is visiting for the next ten days!  The kids have their Spring Break next week (from homeschooling – the public school is only off Friday and Monday) so they’ll have lots of Grandma time.

2. After balmy temperatures and the need for air conditioning last week, we’ve had cold and rain for the last couple of days.  Not only do the weather changes give me headaches, but it’s incredibly dreary out!  Thankfully, though, my current medication regimen is keeping my mood pretty stable these days even when it’s dreary out.  I’m also trying to stay pretty active on my non-headache days by doing things like walking to the shop instead of driving.

3. I got in a psychotic organizing mood early in the week and cleaned out some little shelves in the kitchen.  I’ve got my eye on a bookcase in the dining area as well as the area where we keep our cell phones and chargers.  When I’m headache-free for a few hours, those shelves are in serious danger of cleanliness!

4. Last week, I got the white clothes washed, dried, folded, and even put away before they became a cat bed!!  Yes, I’m very proud of myself!!

5. The first three months of the year for The Knitting Nest have been very successful!  Not every day is busy, but we’re getting a steady flow of customers and we’re able to purchase new yarns and other inventory regularly.  I have some weeks where I get to be at the shop almost every day and other weeks where I’m hardly there at all, but I love it when I’m there and PWM and I both enjoy owning our own business.

6. One of my new favorite authors is Joshilyn Jackson.  I first read Between, Georgia a year or two ago and really enjoyed it.  A couple of months ago, though, I read A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty and decided that I really wanted to read her other books.  A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty had a more complex plot and deeper characters than I remembered from Between, Georgia.  I listened to both The Girl Who Stopped Swimming and Backseat Saints on audio recorded by the author and was impressed by the writing, but also by the performance.  It turns out that the author has some theater background and is very good at vocalizing characters.  I was more than a bit concerned that I would have a hard time differentiating characters in the two books because they were read by the same person, but she did an excellent job of voicing the characters.  I haven’t yet read gods in Alabama, but I see that the local library has it.  I’ll be checking it out tomorrow.

7. Wild Man is playing bass guitar with the adult worship team at church tomorrow.  It really is amazing to see how much of an adult he is becoming!  He did an excellent job at practice (I’m told) and has been continuing to work on his music throughout the week.  Wow!

What’s going on in your corner of the world?  Check out 7 Quick Takes Friday to see what others have been up to!

 

Our Week In Review–March 24, 2012

Educating teenagers is different than teaching little kids.  There are very few skills that need to be taught, and since they’re mostly math-related, PWM gets that task!  My job is mostly motivation.  And, when I’m down with a migraine, PWM gets that one, too!  Poor guy!  Well, let me tell you what’s been going on around here.

Wild Man

History/Geography.  We’ve been watching a series on Ancient Rome.  I was appalled to find out a few days ago that Wild Man didn’t know off the top of his head where Minnesota was (he said he tried to block it out because the Minnesota Vikings football team is from there) so we’re reviewing US state geography.  It turns out that he can actually locate quite a few states on the map.  But, I’m going to make him learn them all.  Because I’m an evil mommy that way.

Math – He and PWM are still working on ALEKS fractions but also getting more math facts stuck in his head.

Reading – He’s reading Eagle of the Ninth and seems to enjoy it.

Writing – He wrote 2 paragraphs this week.  As a joke, he wrote one made all of sentences from Wikipedia.  As I read it, I was getting rather concerned, but as my face was looking more distressed, he started giggling.  I asked what was going on and he ‘fessed up.  He then wrote the “real” assignment on a different topic without the help of Wikipedia.  (And did a much better job!)  He is learning some basic comma rules right now.  I have to agree that they can be pretty confusing.

Spelling – He spent longer arguing with me about the lack of need to do his 10-step spelling word review for the one word he missed on Tuesday than it actually took to do the ten steps!!  Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!  The good news is that he can now spell “neighbor”.  In fact, it was a very good week for spelling.

Band – He’s having a blast.

Other music – Wild Man is playing bass guitar for regular church services next weekend as well as continuing to play for the middle school Wednesday night service.  Pretty awesome!

Science – We’ve been pretty casual about this over the last month or so.  This week, we watched some astronomy videos.

Rosie Girl

College Prep – Rosie Girl takes the ACT again next month so she’s been doing some prep with PWM.  In addition, we’ve got visits scheduled with the three other colleges that she wants to see (we visited her first choice last fall).  In the meantime, I have been trying to get her course descriptions put together.

History – She’s studying the 1990’s now, so we can talk about events that have impacted her life more directly and that PWM and I remember clearly.  Pretty interesting.

Math – Lots of ALEKS and ACT prep

Literature – 20th century literature mostly, although she is reading “The Tempest” right now and we just watched a DVD.  We’ve agreed that we prefer the DVD of “Much Ado About Nothing” with Emma Thompson and Kenneth Brannagh.  Maybe we’ll try “The Taming of the Shrew” later this week.

Writing – The research paper is finally over after much wailing and gnashing of teeth on everyone’s part!!!  And after all the stress, she made all 5’s – i.e. a perfect score!  So, not only does she not have to take it again (which she would have had to do as well as pay for it if she had made less than 4’s) but we also rewarded her with a microphone for music recording that she’d been wanting.

Art – In her public school art class, she’s making a miniature mini-golf course based on one of her favorite Zelda games.

Music – Piano Festival is coming up!  Yes, she’s practicing a lot!!  She still plays her guitar and ocarina, but not nearly as much for the next few weeks.

Science – With her new microphone, Rosie Girl will be doing a project showing how sound is made on different instruments.  I can’t wait to see what she comes up with!

Other – Rosie Girl learned to use her drop spindle a few weeks ago and has made several yards of 2-ply yarn and then knit it up into a little square.  Now she’s working on spinning another bunch of wool and making more pretty yarn.

The kids are probably going to see “The Hunger Games” tonight.  We read them last fall and really enjoyed them.  We just finished reading the Bartimeus trilogy this week and loved it.  I hope we can read C.S. Lewis’ space trilogy series soon. 

That’s what’s been going on around here.  Anything exciting at your place?  Check out what others are doing at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers!