New Blog

Well, we are home owners. Yay!

And to mark this new stage in our lives I have started a new blog - Here It Is

It is still in it's beta so please let me know if you experience any problems or notice any issues.

You may have noticed I haven't been posting as often since we started getting ready for the move but I am going to try to get back to posting once a day a.s.a.p. So bookmark the new site!

friends and the fair

Listen to ipod


dinner with bestfriend


all the girls playing


saying good-bye


last piano lesson


dinner with her other bff "E"


at the L.A. County Fair on Sunday


In the Little Red School House


Making a rag doll


Z and her Raggedy Ann


The 15 story ferris wheel


Top O' the World

Come one, come all

Well we have now been able to visit most of our friends. There are a few that we will have to wait to see when we come back. The week before last we had five playdates with friends and this week we had four plus a visit to our old homeschool park group where Z got to play with about fifteen very good girlfriends she had made over the last two years there. That day worked out really well.

I am so happy and grateful that both Z and I got to spend so much time with our good friends here. It makes me sad to leave a place with so many cool, supportive, like-minded and kind friends.

I am really excited and gratified by how many friends are already planning trips to come visit us this year. So far three of our very good friends are making plans to come visit us while they are visiting other family in the midwest. We have one family coming in October, one in May and one without definite plans but a lot of enthusiam. *smile*

I had to explain to Z that Indiana is not a place most people can justify going to on vacation unless they are bundling it in with a trip to see family or a cross country drive or something.

I am so happy to be able to say we have a guest room now (plus Z's trundle bed and a futon in the basement.) And, of course, all my good internet buddies should totally let me know if they are in the area so we can meet up in real life.

Today is a big day - I have finally finished packing and the movers are coming within the hour.

Homeschool schedule

Z and I can't wait to start homeschooling!

Today I rewrote my schedule and I feel like everything looks really good though I still need to do a bit more research.

We are going to do classes four days a week.

Math - 30 mins a day - using Livingmath.net books and games working on concepts from Everything You Need to Know About Math Homework 4th - 6th Grade

Language Arts - 30 mins a day - using Classical Aesop curriculm but using Beatrix Potter instead of Aesop and working on concepts from Everything You Need to Know About English Homework 4th - 6th grade

Social Studies - 30 mins a day
Day One - Reading from Renaissance era biographies
Day Two - Finish Reading if necessary, make a Bio Page for history notebook and add words to Renaissance Glossary
Day Three - Geography work book or Geographunny book
Day Four - Reading a story from a different culture integrated with geography

Science - 30 mins a day
Day One - Nature study with journaling
Day Two - Continue with local flora and fauna study
Day Three - Science Experiment and Log
Day Four - Other

Reading - 30 mins a day - Reading classical stories, biographies and poetry

Japanese - 20 mins a day - I am still not sure what we are going to do for Japanese... :(

Then sometime in the afternoon Z will do an "enrichment" class - art, crafts, cooking, and "other"

Then one day will be our field trip day. There are so many new things in S.B. that we want to see. In the winter that day might be for projects or movies or something indoors and warm.

I am not sure about her classes yet. She will still take piano and hopefully voice, but I am unsure if she will continue with gymnastics or start dance. I am not sure if we will take anymore classes as I don't want to get over committed.

a house is a place to hold your stuff

I spent five hours packing Z's room today, and I am not even done yet (!!!).

I had to work on it by myself because I wanted to throw a lot of stuff away and Z would never let me. She is very attached to her junk, I mean... her priceless items.

Honestly, she feels a very strong attachment to everything she has ever made, every piece of paper she has ever written on, any toy anyone once gave her that she played with one time before forgetting about it, and most items of clothing she has ever worn including handme down boy's pajamas that are at least four inches too short for her.

But it is not fair to only make fun of Z.

Pere and I have a ridiculous amount of kitchen items for a tiny 8x8 kitchen. I was packing them tonight and I couldn't help but think "What the hell are we doing with all this stuff??"

We have all the normal stuff like

The Kitchen Aid


Food Processor


Blender


The Crock Pot


Rice Cooker


The Electric Mixer


We got the fancy stuff

The Good Silver


The Crystal



The Cake Set


The helpful stuff

Lots of twine



The Hand Blender


Mortar and Pestle



The Japanese cooking stuff

Sushi Maker



Special bowl to cool sushi rice


Steamer



and all uber necessary

Hello Kitty Waffle Machine



Fondue Set


Cake Decorator


Canape Bread Molds



Pasta Maker


Creme Brulee kit


Apple corer, peeler, slicer


and, of course, S'more Maker


And that's not all of it... thank God I am getting a bigger kitchen.

byes

I was thinking I would write about how Z received a "talking to" tonight regarding how she is not the parent and she is not to tell us what to do or speak to us in a sassy manner.

But instead I remembered the nice time we had at a friend's house today. Z's little friend made her the sweetest going away picture book that she illustrated herself. Z and I both got to talk with our friends and then we all played the fun new game Whoonu together. It was hard to say good-bye so instead we all went and had ice cream at one of the places our families had first gotten together at.

Finally when it was time to say good-bye there were tears on Z's part. This is all very hard for her. She had to say good-bye to many friends the last few days.

As far as our moving goes we have one week till the moves come and 13 days until we fly away.

Look, and aqueduct

Nine hundred and ninety-nine books on the wall, nine hundred and ninty nine books.,, take one down, stick it in a box, nine hundred and ninety-eight books on the wall.

Guess what I have been doing today?


Also there has been some stress and I pulled a muscle or pinched a nerve or somehow otherwise royally frakked up my neck on Monday. Since they I have been doing ice and heat and massage and stretching and now beer. I am really hoping this whole beer things works... I don't have time to be injured.

Pere has officially started working from home. It is really wonderful to have him home again. The arrangement is not ideal at the moment since we are packing so he is set up with his computer right in the thick of things at the dining room table. Z and I are trying not to be too distracting. But in our new house he will have pretty much have the whole basement to himself.

This morning Z was eating her peanut buttered toast and she holds it up for me to look at, "Mommy, look an aqueduct."
And yes, her toast resembled the Roman water conveyer. I had to laugh. It felt like something I should share with Carolyn at Hoagiesgifted for her YKYTPOAGCW...page.

Z is also obsessed with time these days. She really needs to wear her watch instead of asking me the time every 3 and a half minutes... But I am not sure that would really be much better because when she is within sight of a clock she gives me constant updates on how much time we have until the next event in our lives, "Only four minutes to lunch", "Seventeen minutes until time to leave for gymnastics", "Only eight minutes until daddy is done."

To end on another Z quote, today I heard her say "He looks a fool", which is a very old-fashioned way of saying "He looks foolish," which in itself is an old-fashioned way of saying something much more crude. ;)