The house is so quiet

My girls are halfway through their week away at camp. This is the first time I have been without the two of them for more than a night.

It's a little weird. The house is really quiet, and the cats seem confused.

Is this what they call "Me time"? Finally, a chance to be by myself and do what I really want without kids interfering?

So far I have cleaned two bookshelves, ate a big bowl of chocolate ice cream, and rented Twilight.

I know my girls are having fun.
Hey, I'm having fun!

But the house is empty without them, and I can't wait to see them again. :)

Math problem of the day

1 massive tree root + 1 water line - 1 proper marking of the main gas line = 1 firetruck + 4 firefighters + X(water utility + gas utility + locating company trucks) + 1 very worried plumber

Yikes!

When we left for piano lessons, our plumber was chipping away at a massive ball of tree roots. When we returned, our street was shut down, and the hiss and smell from a severed high-pressure gas line filled the neighborhood.

Fortunately, the worst seems to be over. We still have to get through inspections and clean up the site, but I think everything is going to be okay. Our biggest fear at this point is that we might lose our beautiful tree. It isn't just a tree, in you know what I mean. :(

But after 48 hours with no water, it feels good to be clean again.

Recent Reads

Eldest daughter started The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks last night and stayed up past her normal bedtime - a good sign. :o)

Youngest daughter is reading Masterpiece by Elise Broach, who wrote The Shakespeare Stealer which Eldest Daughter loved.

We are Disney freaks, so it is no surprise that Eldest Daughter fell in love with the first two books of Ridley Pearson's Kingdom Keeper series. Imagine her excitement this morning at learning that book three is coming....next April! She also read his Science Fair last month.

Youngest Daughter has read The Wizard of Oz innumerable times, so last week I finally picked up another book in the series, The Marvelous Land of Oz. Another hit! We are looking forward to picking up more of the series from the library.

I finished The Hobbit again. I'm still not sure I really like the chapters towards the end. It seemed rather unsatisfying to have the menfolk kill Smaug while Bilbo and company cower in the dark for days. I guess Bilbo wouldn't make much of an assassin though. And the dwarves? They are useless, but that's pretty much the point, isn't it? I'm curious to see how they can bring this to the screen. We went to a stage production of it this spring; they had to cut out a lot of it. Remember the animated version from the 70's? lol Good stuff. :)

Emma-Jean Lazarus is our new favorite heroine. First she fell out of a tree, then she fell in love. Emma-Jean is a combo of Nancy Drew and Commander Data, who is thoroughly mystified by the cliques of her middle school. All three girls in the house enjoyed these.

Other fun summer reads:

Youngest Daughter devoured the first four books of the Percy Jackson series. Eagerly awaiting her turn at book 5 from the library...

Eldest Daughter enjoyed The Girl Who Could Fly. Any sequel in the works?

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, Schools, and Other Scary Things gave them a good laugh...

I enjoying Howard Whitehouse's Mad Misadventures of Emmaline and Rubberbones. Books with really long titles seem to be a hit around here. Book one is The Strictest School in the World: Being the Tale of a Clever Girl, a Rubber Boy and a Collection of Flying Machines, Mostly Broken. I just started the second book, The Faceless Fiend: Being the Tale of a Criminal Mastermind, His Masked Minions and a Princess with a Butter Knife, Involving Explosives and a Certain Amount of Pushing and Shoving. I also have book three out from the library, but I'm running out of bandwidth here.

We are reading aloud Anne of Green Gables, and I picking my way through The Friendly Dickens. We enjoyed watching David Copperfield on PBS this spring - thinking about reading is serially with the girls.

{ My thanks to Semicolon and MMV for their book reviews and recommendations. :o) }

From the beach to the desert...Oh, the places you'll go!

We spent a fun Fourth with our relatives in central Oregon. It was hot - really hot! - but it is always windy there, which makes it tolerable. The girls had a great time hanging out with their cousins, making up skits and filming little movies (already uploaded to Facebook, of course!). It was a nice, relaxing weekend. I finished up most of The Hobbit, and fell asleep in the lawn recliner several times. :o) I also skimmed through The High School Handbook, a guidebook for homeschooling high school, planning and record keeping, etc. Looks somewhat helpful.

Above photo is two daughters plus one cousin. Circle of life? A heart? No, Eldest Daughter says "Triangle of Death." Hmmm. Wonder what those skits of theirs were about exactly...

Spontaneous Shopping

I woke up this morning, checked the email, and discovered there was a used curricula sale this morning! Throw on the shoes and sunglasses, grab the checkbook, let's go!

It turned out to be a rather small sale, but I found two things from my list, plus a couple other good deals:

a new, unused copy of Jacobs Algebra for half-price

a new, unused copy of The Highschool Handbook for $3

a similar book on transcripts and portfolios, same price

an older copy of Hewitt's Conceptual Physics for a dollar

Definitely worth getting up early on a sunny summer day for. :)

Proud to be Pasty

Yes, that's me + hat + umbrella + SPF 50. I love the Oregon coast, and today it was simply beautiful. While the girls dug a hole to China, hubby and I watched a dude with a huge kite get dragged across the sand. It took another couple folks to hold him down at times.It is such a blessing to live so close to the beach; in just 90 minutes we can be dipping our toes into the cool waters of the Pacific. We love zipping over to Seaside for our monthly dose of saltwater taffy, bumper cars, arcade games, and a new favorite: chocolate dipped twinkies. :)

Vision

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

Cat's got my tongue

Dear Diary,

Hello again after a long absence! Sorry I haven't written lately. It's been a busy year; nothing out of the ordinary. Rather the opposite actually - just been enjoying life here in the 'burbs, homeschooling, reading, etc. Youngest daughter started piano lessons last fall, and she's inspired me to take it up again. Oldest daughter is looking forward to starting (paid!) work at church this fall. Hubby is good; considering he works in the banking industry, things are pretty stable for us right now. All in all, it's been a good school year. Now we are taking time to decompress as I scan the catalogs and make plans for the fall.

Life is good. :o)

2009 Reading List

July

The Hobbit, again :o)

June

Welcome to the Lizard Motel

Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of the Tree

Dancing Shoes

The Strictest School in the World : Being the tale of a clever girl, a rubber boy and a collection of amazing flying machines, mostly broken

May

The Backyard Bird Feeder's Bible

Masters of Illusion

Homeschooling: The Teenage Years

Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations

The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way

April

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

A Little Princess

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

Traitor: The Case of Benedict Arnold

The Story of My Life - Helen Keller

March

The Cricket in Times Square

Poor Richard

Midnight Sun

Why Not, Lafayette?

February

Generation Debt

Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains

Fruitlands: Louisa May Alcott Made Perfect

The Physics of Star Trek

Johnny Tremain

January

Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan

Dragon Rider

The Sign of the Beaver

Busy couple of weeks

Last Wednesday we went into the city to see a musical production of Sleeping Beauty (not the ballet). It was really good, but I was mightly annoyed by the large contingency of middle school students who made up the bulk of the audience. The rudeness and coarseness knew no bounds, and no amount of glaring would still them. We have always enjoyed attending these school-manitee's, but before I purchase tickets next time, I will be inquiring about whom we will be sharing the audience with. Ugh.

Then that Friday we went with some friends to the premiere showing of Prince Caspian. We really liked it, despite the alterations from the book.

The following Wednesday was our support group's science fair. We had a record number of entries this year, and I was impressed by the amount of work put into them. Oh, they weren't as polished as I suppose they could be, but I think it really proved who did the work. No Mommy-finished projects here!

Finally, we finished this week up by taking in a performance by Do Jump! Fabulous, breath-taking, amazing! Yeah. :)

Chores on a Saturday morning:

1) Make your bed.
2) Brush your teeth.
3) Give the elephant a bath.

Youngest Daughter is the blonde in blue.

Eldest daughter is away at college

Well, she's staying at Corbin College for a weekend getaway with her middle school youth group. This is my "I don't want to grow up" girl. It will be interesting to see what she thinks of a college campus.

Meanwhile, the house is quiet with her!

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Update!

She had a great time! She loved staying in the dorm and eating in the cafeteria. One complaint was the long walks between activities around campus. Other than that, she is looking forward to attending there some day. Uh, well, that's a long way off, dearie!

And she is finished

Tonight was our AWANA Awards Program, and Eldest Daughter 'graduated' from TNT. She received her Timothy Award, and was the only clubber to have completed all the books from all three clubs (Cubbies, Sparks, TNT).

Memorization does not come easily to this girl. She (and I) put in many long hours going over and over the verses. I am so proud that she had the will to stick with it, and do the hard work. Afterwards, she told me she felt like she could take on the world after crossing this big hurdle.

Our church does not continue with Trek, but we might consider sending her to a friends church to continue. I'm going to leave the decision up to her, as she is already going to be quite busy this fall.

It will be strange starting a new year in September without her. Youngest Daughter will start her third year of TNT, and I will be directing Cubbies for the seventh year. Youngest Daughter has that photographic memory, so her workload is much easier. Perhaps Eldest Daughter will be an LIT and assist next year.

Waaaah! The years truly go by too quickly!

Did you get yours?

We just returned from Baskin Robbin's 31-cent scoop night. How many scoops did your family get? We chose to plead the fifth.

Back to the country

We recovered from yesterday's 5k and met my folks in Salem to go to Ag Fest, a celebration of agriculture in Oregon. The girls hadn't been to this event in several years, and were not too old to coo over the baby chicks and marvel at the sheep shearing demonstration. Maybe we are just simple folks, but my pre-teens still enjoy hanging out with their parents and grandparents. So there! :)

5k for kids

Wake-up call: We need to work some physical activity into our day! Today our kids participated in a 5k relay, and it was tough! This was just "for fun"; no clock or prizes. But it is obvious we have been a little lax in this area. No surprise really, as neither dh or I make exercise a priority, and the girls are not the least bit competitive. Hmh, need to make some changes here.

Monkeying around

Today our support group had an interesting visit at a regional primate research center. We sat through a presentation about the how's and why's of animal research, genetics, stem cell research, and the like, then visited the monkey housing facilities. I had no idea there lives thousands of monkeys within a mile of my home!

After the tour, most of us gathered for lunch. As the parents grouped together to discuss the mornings events, the kids socialized. And it was....well, it was just nice. Nice to be able to spend a school day going someplace with friends and learning something new and not having to worry about counting hours or filling out worksheets.

Often the greatest joys I get from homeschooling are the little moments. Sleeping in, snuggling under the covers to read aloud, the freedom to lunch with friends during the middle of the day. Small stuff, but golden.

Ballet: Alice in Wonderland

We saw this production a few years ago, but who can resist $6 tickets?! The girls and I headed into the city today for the Metro Dancers production of Alice in Wonderland. Traffic and parking was a bear as usual, but when the lights dim and the curtain rises, frustrations are forgotten as we are swept away.

Book vs Movie: Nim's Island

Over our vacation, our copy of Nim's Island was passed around the van. We all fell in love with the resourceful and brave heroine, and looked forward to seeing the movie adaptation.


Today we girls discovered that the film makers did not fail to delight. Yes, there are some differences from the film, but they didn't 'waterhorse' it. Abigail Breslin makes a wonderful Nim, and Jodie Foster as Alex Rover was on the mark. And Gerard Butler? ***love sigh***

Been doing a little shopping lately

Just a few things to get us geared up for the coming school year:
The Well-Educated Mind (Bauer)
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens (Covey)
what Smart Students Know
Deconstructing Penguins
A Poetry Handbook (Oliver)
Stories from Shakespeare
Invitation to the Classics
The Periodic Table (Dingle)
The 100 Most Important Events in Christian History
Castle Diary: The Journal Of Tobias Burgess
A Writer's Notebook

And a few good reads:
The Mayor of Central Park (Avi)
Ella Enchanted
The Great Little Madison (Fritz)
Poppy and Rye (Avi)
Redwall (Jacques)
All Creatures Great and Small
Hadassah (The Girl Who Became Queen Esther)
Ah, Music!
......and some Mad Libs :D