The first day of homeschooling is almost over, and I’m a whupped pup.  PHEW! What a load of emotional and physical and every other -al strain it was today.  I can see the beauty of routine and of having the kids busy again, but it’s a non-stop day for me.  Well, actually, I scheduled a 90 minute “lunch” break just for me into the day.  It’s really only about 30 minutes max of “alone” time (Bible time, mostly) for me since part of that 90 is fixing lunch, supervising chores, taking a walk or bike ride with kids, etc.  One nice thing about starting school is that I get time to write letters again.  While Rachel does her school work, I sit and write letters. It keeps me from getting too frustrated with the dawdling.

This year, we will be studying American History. The hunter is taking AP US History online through PA Homeschoolers which will be a boatload of work. I’m using Sonlight 7 (The Story of US) for the other three. Rachel will get picture books and gleanings from the read aloud time to the older kids.  It will be so nice to get back to Sonlight. I’ve not used it for the past four or five years, I think.  I’ll be using Sonlight 1 for Rachel. It’s time to re-read Charlotte’s Web!

Right now, the house is a wreck, but the children are productively engaged, dinner is in the oven, and almost all of my chores are done.  And, the after-school routine is about to begin which includes the children tidying the house. After a 4:45 supper, three of them leave for cheerleading and football, and maybe, just maybe Rachel will get to watch a long, long video all evening–as a treat for HER, mind you!  (snicker)

EDIT–
Here’s my submission for GhostFroggy‘s contest.  I felt compelled to enter something, and this was a something from high school.

I just submitted the sample teacher’s manual lesson to the publisher. We shall see how well I did. One thing is for sure, I would have done 500% worse if it hadn’t been for the editorial eye and mathematical brain of The Good Doctor who reviewed it for me–three times!

Actually, TGD is playing pinochle with the kids, lest you think he’s the “old man.”  He would have liked to have napped, but some noisy, crabby children awoke him.  Unfortunately, I didn’t hear the melee, so I didn’t know I needed to keep them quiet.

Many weeks ago, MathMom was kind enough to tag me. Although she probably thinks I forgot or decided not to do it, I’ve really been thinking it over.  It was supposed to be funny things about my kids, but I’m beginning to think they aren’t funny. Actually, the real problem is that I have a short memory.  I know they say and do funny things; I just can’t recall any of them.  I read KID‘s and ElizabethDNB‘s humorous stories and sigh (and laugh as well!).  Actually, something really funny happened when we were out to The Branding Iron (restaurant in Curwensville) for breakfast. Of course, I can’t remember it. I only remember laughing.

I finished reading Frank McCourt’s Teacher Man last night. He’s such a gifted storyteller, and this installment of his life was particularly interesting to me as he recounted his professional career as a high school English teacher.  I loved hearing the stories of his students, his insecurities, his maturation.  It’s a McCourt, so there is language and quite a few pints are quaffed. If you’ve never read Angela’s Ashes, I’d recommend that book first.  If you’ve read AA and ‘Tis, this book won’t disappoint.  I found it ironic that the day after finishing that book, I visited with my favorite high school English teacher, Emma Jean Horton, with whom I’d hardly spoken in years. (Isn’t that a great name for an English teacher, by the way?)

Few people really want to hang out with seventh graders, especially for years and years.  And fewer still (dare I suggest no one?) want to teach them the parts of speech  Yet, that’s what Mrs. Horton did. We had to memorize a list of fifty (or so) adverbs and get a 100% on the test.  “Am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been,” those lovely state of being verbs, were hammered into my head. I learned to diagram sentences and to love it.  I remember the day I encountered this sentence: “Bags of jellybeans were eaten.”  My  amazement at realizing “jellybeans” was not the subject was worthy of a story.  Oh, the beauty of grammar!

How many of you know how to diagram a sentence?  And, more importantly, how many of you love diagramming?

EDIT–No, sorry to say. There is absolutely no sarcasm in my perverse grammatical love.  I am an English teacher and nerd, remember!

This is a poorly drawn example of diagramming. You’ll get the idea.

Now that everyone’s had a chance to comment silently on my bedroom decorating style, I thought I’d post a new entry.

Yes, I do quilt, but not as much or as well as I should. I’m a haphazard, imperfect quilter, and my quilts are full of wrinkles and non-matched points.  Still, it’s fun (when I do it). I am hoping to finish a quilt this winter which I began about six years ago.  I like the solid Amish colors, and this one is a sawtooth star with flying geese border.  I like to do everything by hand (even piecing), so I tend to be pokey about thing. Plus, I will let a project lie for years with no guilt. (Okay, a little guilt.) The quilts in the bedroom are purchases from J.C. Penney’s.

I just finished reading Lynne Truss’s Talk to the Hand.  I loved Eats, Shoots and Leaves, but this book wasn’t as good.  First of all, for those of you who are unaware of the meaning of the title of the book (as I was up until a month or so ago), it’s a dismissive rudeness.  Put your hand out toward a person as if you are saying “Stop.”  Then, turn your head slightly away from the person and say, “Talk to the hand, ’cause the face ain’t listenin’!”  Of course, a face doesn’t listen anyhow, and the grammar is bad. So, you could say, “Talk to the hand because the ears aren’t listening.”  The effect is almost the same. But, back to the book review.

Basically, Truss says, “People are rude. There are six reasons why. Let me go over them again and again and occasionally throw in some quotes from other people’s books.”  But, there were a few reasons for reading.  Truss, being English, discusses the English, which is quite entertaining and enlightening.  Did you know that they actually have a clean-up-litter campaign focused on capitalizing on the teenage immorality problem.  It’s called “While you are down there…”  I kid you not! Well, at least I believe Truss on this one.

She also notes a large number of celebrity examples of rudeness (all of them British, although we Americans certainly have enough examples of our own). However, there is one bright, shining candle of respect lighting the surreal world of the famous. Who is this paragon of politeness?  Babe.  Yes, Truss claims that the humble sheep-pig Babe is the only one we can look to in celebrity-dom as an example of how to behave. BAA  RAM  EWE!

Is this book worth reading? Eh, maybe. It’s short and somewhat amusing. 

How many of you are Xanga Premium? Is it worth it?

A-ha! I bet you thought I was continuing the theme of the last post (especially since it got 21 comments), but I’m not.  I am just praising God because THE PAINTING IS DONE!  Yes, all my summer painting projects are finished.  The entry way/stairway/upstairs hall is finished, including my death-defying ladder time.  Actually, that part was pretty funny.

We have a semi-open stairway, so some of the wall is two-stories high.  I borrowed an extension ladder and placed it on the steps to access the highest points of the wall. But, stand on a ladder on the steps?  Scary! What if the ladder slipped?  At this point, I called in The Hunter.  “Nate,” said I, “go put on a rain poncho and get a book. You’re going to hold the ladder for me.”  Obligingly, he sat with his back to the ladder holding it in place while he read Ender’s Game and I dropped paint on his blue, rain-ponchoed head.  (Not on purpose, of course!)

Here’s a poor picture of what I saw. (Yes, that is my foot. No, the walls are not gray; they are blue in poor lighting.)

So, I shall reward myself with an ice cream cone and an evening of reading (and probably finishing) Dune. It’s turning out to be a decent story. I think about it when I’m not reading it, and I dream things related to it, both marks of a good book.  Really, how could a book with a guy named Duncan Idaho not be good? 

Also, since I yapped so much about it, and to celebrate the other painting being done, here’s a picture of my painted bedroom. 

And another

PS–I can’t believe no one called me on the misspelling in my last post (now fixed). I had written “here it HERE” instead of “hear it HERE.” Oh, the shame, my embarrassment!

Aren’t hymns and praise songs wonderful?  I have almost every song I’ve ever sung stuck in my head, so I’m particularly glad that I’ve got praise songs to block out all the garbage I listened to in high school.  I’d much rather have “Joyful, joyful we adore Thee, God of glory, God of love…” going through my mind than, “Raspberry beret, the kind you find in a second-hand store. Raspberry beret, and if it was warm…”

I didn’t get to do what I wanted to do for Kat’s photo contest, but since she’s home from camp today, I thought I’d better post something.

Libby should not play tackle football.