Tuesday Musings!

Yes, I changed the blog name back to the original one. It just feels right!

I didn't get around to a Monday Musings post yesterday, so I'm playing catch up!

....What We've Been Up To....

Well, first off, The Girl was excited about derby boot camp, which started last night. We bought and fitted a new mouth guard, went to the roller skating rink, got her all geared up, and....

CRAP.

The league advisory board changed the minimum age for boot camp to TWELVE.

She's eleven until early March. She and her friend were both sorely disappointed, as the other girl is also 11, until July. The coach was very apologetic, as she only found out Saturday, and as both girls had done boot camp in the past, she didn't think about it.

It did brighten her evening a bit that we ordered new skates though! Really good ones for derby.

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We've been playing more Clue, and enjoyed the movie, though both kids said they wished the characters in the movie looked more like the ones on the box/cards. We also played "Super" Sorry -- you double up on pieces and cards (we had 2 Sorry games, but only one game board). It makes it a lot more challenging!M used to really dislike the game, but changed his mind after this.

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 The Girl bought herself, out of Christmas money, a big set of pens, so there is a lot of colorful artwork going on these days! The Boy wants to spend his cat toy earnings today on more drawing supplies. The Girl contributed her cat toy earnings toward the new skates.

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The puppies we've been petting for volunteer work will, in just a few more weeks, be sent back to their home in New York, to be trained as guide dogs for the blind. I know The Girl will really miss them! We're hoping there will be another litter to pet not long after that. Speaking of volunteer work, I need to get The Boy back to the bike shop! 

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I know, I'm a lazy homeschool mom. I got tired of piecing together Math Mammoth for The Girl, and she was tired of doing repetitive work (blocks on various parts of math). So we moved back to Saxon 6/5, and she's happy, and I am happy. With our lives being as (unfortunately) hectic as they are, having a math book that we just pick up and "do the next thing" is great! I will break out the Math Mammoth again if she hits any roadblocks.

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And I changed up the way The Boy is doing Jacobs Elementary Algebra. He's been spending four days on each lesson, doing set I exercises the first day, set II the second day, and so forth. However, I realized that sets II and III are basically the same. So now he's doing set I and half of set II on day one, and the rest of set II and set IV (the challenge problem) on day two. It seems to be working well!

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And finally, the kids attended their first (small) comic book convention on Saturday. They each found a bunch of good comics at the Friends of the Library table, for 50 cents each. And they were suitably scared/impressed by the amount of effort people put into costumes for events like this!

....What's Coming Up....

More yard work. We've got a ton of weeds to pull lately. The chickens love the dandelions and oxalis! I have only a couple of lavender bushes left to trim back, and clear, warmer, sunny weather to do it in.

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The Boy wrote a rough draft of a complaint letter to a model toy company about a recent gift. We plan to have him type it up and send it off this week. Maybe another lesson in Thinking in Threes as well, and The Girl will be working in Writing Skills a bit more.

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More Big History this week, as both kids (and I) were captivated by the first episode. We love the idea of history as a web of interconnecting events rather than a strictly linear progression. In the first episode, we learned a lot about the role of salt in history, even more than we had learned in the past, including place names that are salt-related, the history of the Erie Canal, and more. I think the next episode is about horses, which The Girl, at least, will enjoy!

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And more of Bilbo's journey with The Hobbit! I finally have The Number Devil on hand as well, so we will get that into our rotation.

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I start my second class, on campus, this week. It's a psychology class, on community mental health, and looks interesting, and a bit challenging. Besides that, we have fencing, park day, etc., on the agenda. Oh, and a "school show" on Thursday, with the Peking Acrobats!

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And I need to catch up (yes, already!!) on my housekeeping challenges! I'll get there though.

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Have a good week!