Summer Stuff...

A run-down of what we've been up to, and a few pictures...

The kids won a month's free skating, so they've been skating once or twice a week.

We fixed all the bicycles, so there's been a lot of that too.

My bicycle

I've been working out 3-4 days a week, plus doing steep hill walks with my sister, and regular walks with The Girl and her dog.

We spent a lovely afternoon out at the coast...

The "creek" that runs out into the ocean

Dunes, beach grass, cypress, and waves

A giant dune that we scrambled up a dozen times, and rolled and jumped and slid and ran back down

Sandcastle in progress

You can see how pretty and sunny it was, and then we drove 45 minutes home into a thunder-and-hail storm. Just crazy!

We've been reading The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and really, really enjoying it. We watched part one of Peter Jackson's movie version, and we all agreed... while we do love the LoTR movies, we just don't feel the same love for The Hobbit films. There was just far too much extra stuff added. ONE movie, that followed the book, would have been so much better.

Documentary watching has been half hit, half miss. We're enjoying our history selections, but haven't started science ones yet. That's okay. We will get there, and we've basically come to accept that we are year-round homeschoolers anyway.

Math is going pretty well. The Boy likes his Great Courses algebra lectures quite a lot. The Girl is making great progress through the Prodigy math game, where I set up problems several times a week to match her textbook.

The kids have taken to biking to the teen club, which saves me time... and gas. They visit it once or twice a week, and spend almost all their time in the art room. The Boy might be doing a job training program there soon, and they both want to take barista training.

I'm taking a very intensive Spanish course at the moment.... online. One semester of Spanish covered in only six weeks. So far, I've kept up. The Boy is teaching himself computer coding (I think javascript at the moment), and The Girl is working on her butterfly identification skills.

I'm also on the hunt for a job, as my position at the junior college has been frozen due to decreased revenue. I was supposed to start back next week, but that is not to be so at this time. I don't know about fall yet, though I am still hopeful. I may fall back on my grocery experience for the summer. Thankfully M is working a gazillion hours, so we're scraping by.

We're hoping to get out to the coast, and the river, soon. We have FOUR boogie boards now, so that will be fun! I plan on teaching the kids to grill -- they've been taking turns once a week to cook a dinner start to finish, and grilling in this weather would be nice.

And there's housework, decluttering, a recent return to fencing (The Boy), and gardening. I have tomatoes, squash, lemon cucumbers, peppers, and loads of herbs going now!

Hope anyone who reads this is having a lovely summer so far! Here are a couple of random pictures to wrap things up, then I'm off to make breakfast.

The local lake during my early morning trail run last week

A two hat kind of day

2017 Already!

In 2016, I started a new career, and lost 40 pounds. In 2017, I am hoping to accomplish a few things related to home and family.

Around the House:
Put in a vegetable garden (a real one)
De-clutter like crazy (I just watched Minimalism, and was very inspired)
Fix the leaking family room roof, and the leaking bathtub faucet

For My Family:
Focus on real food, which the vegetable garden will help with, as will buying locally what we can't produce
Get the kids out and moving more—they're trying karate this week!
Set a homeschooling schedule

I'm purposefully keeping things pretty simple in my quest to simplify!

Do you have any goals for 2017?

Monday Musings Flyby....

I'm short on time at the moment, but thought I'd quickly post so that it doesn't seem we have fallen off the face of the earth!

What have we been up to? Well.....

This boy went and turned FIFTEEN on Saturday. FIFTEEN. We took him, along with his best buddy, to a classic car show, and out for burgers, so it was a good day! 

I am in constant disbelief that it's been that many years already. I mean, it seems like this was just yesterday...

Anyhow, here's this week's super quick agenda:

Math -- chapter four in Algebra for The Boy

Prodigy for The Girl (I adore this program!)

Some writing/spelling

More of A Wind in the Door

More Downton (we're on season 5 now!)

I have to finish grading essays

Working out

Housework

I hope you all have a great week!

 

Weekly Wrap-Up... Rain, Gardening, Books, & More!

It is pouring outside! And we might have a thunderstorm mid-day! Since we seem to be living in a "state" (pun intended) of perpetual drought these days, I don't mind the rain. And that means we have an afternoon at home, rather than the park, to play a little catch-up!

From one of my morning walks this week

...Homeschooling This Week...

The Boy is making progress with one and two step equations in algebra, while The Girl and I played Totally Tut yesterday. I think we may play it again today, and I want her to work on multiplication and division facts with Circles & Stars (up to four dice). Remedial work, yes, but once she's really got this stuff down, I know (from experience teaching her addition and subtraction) that she'll make a big leap, mathematically speaking. And I found something that looks awesome for a little later on... the Interactive Mathematics Program (samples here). In the meantime, I think she might try Prodigy (online free math-wizarding game).

The Girl is making great progress through her spelling book too.

We did some reading from Outbreak! Plagues That Changed History, learning about the Black Death, and how it shifted the balance of power in feudal society. I'd definitely recommend this book for a different view of world history—lots of interesting tidbits, and a good, conversational writing tone.

And of course we watched some Downton Abbey, which led to a discussion on mourning practices. 

The Boy has been reading lots of recent articles on Hawking Radiation, Planet X, and other space phenomena. He keeps me up to date on what he's learned! The Girl has cycled back to her sea creature fascination, and at the same time, very sadly pointed out to  me this week that she does not remember ever visiting a zoo. I plan to remedy that in a couple of weeks, when M's day off cycles back to a Saturday.

Today's agenda includes math, spelling, nailing down The Boy's essay topic, A Wind in the Door, and the first chapter of DNA. And possibly an early evening trip to the indoor trampoline park! The Boy and I are also planning on watching Contact tonight, while The Girl and M watch Drop Dead Fred. We'll do a family movie tomorrow!

...Everything Else This Week...

The Boy misplaced The Martian, so he's working on finishing Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, book 1. The Girl is deep in Harry Potter. I am reading The Longest Night, a novel centered around the 1961 nuclear disaster in Idaho Falls, and The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family, which is just fascinating!

The Boy had parkour last night, and has decided he needs to strength train more at home. The Girl had derby practice, and said it was really tough, as they were (finally) learning some new skills this week. I tried out kickboxing, did a HIIT workout, and worked on my running.

My plantings/transplantings from last Sunday seem to be doing well, and I am sure the rain will help! Tomorrow, we're picking up a few tomato plants, herbs, and pepper plants... at last. It turns out it is just as well that we did not get them sooner, as we had a freak late frost last week that killed a lot of people's veggie starts. We're not doing a big veggie garden right off the bat. Instead, we're starting slowly and adding things in over time. I'm hoping to get a lot more done in the front yard too!


...Goals for Next Week...

Math, of course. And spelling for The Girl, and some writing/grammar for her. Some light essay work for The Boy, and I think I'll have him try out Excavating English with the two-week free sample, as I bet he'd really enjoy it. I'm hoping during our Sunday lessons, that we can either finally watch another episode of Human Planet, or work in Mapping the World with Art (or both?!?). And we need to get going next week with The Private Eye! All this means a trip to the store for spiral bound sketchbooks.

My other goal: more of our Afternoon Basket read-alouds!

Hope you all had a good week, and that you have a great weekend!

linked up over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

This, That, and the Other Thing...

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

The weather has been all over the place. Monday had a high of nearly 90 degrees! And today it is pouring. We did take advantage of the gorgeous weather earlier in the week to walk and bicycle...

And of course there has been some homeschooling. We've been enjoying reading about Rasputin and his strange ways (The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia)...

I even caught M listening in from the other room, when he said "I didn't hear that last part. Can you read louder?"

The kids have changed math up a bit again. The Girl was bored with just Math Mammoth/Math Essentials ("Can't math be at all fun?"), so we added in Life of Fred Fractions. I think a general Life of Fred/Math Essentials combo is fantastic, with Math Mammoth for any weak spots. The Boy was having issues with the explanations in Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1, so we're trying out TabletClass Algebra 1 (I think we should have gone with TC in the first place). TT works for a lot of kids, just not mine so much. Yes, switching now means a longer amount of time spent on Algebra 1, but we're okay with that.

Speaking of The Boy, he's developed a fascination with black holes. All week, he's been spouting off information about gravity, the collapse of stars, event horizons, etc. So I turned to my trusty library for some supplemental reading for him. Titles for him to browse through include:

A Briefer History of Time, Stephen Hawking 

Black Holes: A Very Short Introduction, Katherine Blundell

 and

Black Holes: A Traveler's Guide, Clifford Pickover

There are, of course, plenty of other titles on the subject, but I don't want to overwhelm him. And while I was searching through those, I found this title: 

 Death By Black Hole: and Other Cosmic Quandaries, Neil deGrasse Tyson

This last title looks fascinating for the whole family, though I may have to fight The Boy for it! Despite the title, it's really about a plethora of information on cosmology as a whole.

And thanks to a Kindle game, The Girl has followed in her brother's footsteps and is now fascinated with disease, so we'll be reading

Outbreak!: Plagues That Changed History

From there, maybe we could go into DNA, or ??? I had intended reading to the kids from this particular title (the Plagues one) anyhow, in regards to the Spanish Flu (and our Downton History).

I also found this gorgeous book at the library, just to thumb through for entertainment...


And we were given this amazingly awesome book by a friend...

...Besides Homeschooling and Exercise...

We're prepping for The Girl's THIRTEENTH birthday! Yes, soon I will have only teenagers. Geez, it goes fast!

I'm getting better with meal planning and prepping. I was very proud of myself for preparing components ahead of time for yesterday's crockpot turkey-three-bean chili!

The Girl and I will be heading off, in a couple of weeks, to the first baby shower she's ever attended. My cousin (10 years younger than me) is expecting her first child in April.

I entered a twelve week fitness challenge that starts the same day as the baby shower. I'm nervous, but excited!

Work is going well overall. I love working with students, and am looking forward to some possible changes in the fall (more on that later).

The Boy is really enjoying his auto internship. They spent the last two workdays sanding various parts, and taking things apart to sand them. Next week, I think they get to start putting things back together again!

And there is a new litter of puppies ready for some petting, so The Girl and I will have to head off and do that!

And there's derby practice, and fencing practice of course.

And I know I wrote a big post on scheduling, but I really, really love this schedule best (with longer time frames for math these days). Maybe, just maybe, I could create a mishmash of the two?

So that's what we're up to, and what we've been doing. I'll leave you with some wisdom I got yesterday from a simple tea bag...

Ahhhh....

Yet another week (week six?) has come and gone. Overall a good week—we're over our cold/flu thing, except for a lingering cough, but that's tolerable. And we're ready for the weekend!

...In Homeschooling...

The kids like our art of the month so far! Both have seen references to American Gothic in the past, and now they know more about it. And both said it's nice to see art on the fridge again.

The Boy worked through another few lessons in Teaching Textbooks. We had our first hiccup yesterday, when he learned about simplifying algebraic fractions. So I sat with him, worked through several examples, and I think he got it. I might have him watch a couple of videos on this topic on Khan Academy over the weekend.

He's been better this week about scheduling/regulating his homework load, which is good, because his first midterm ever is coming up next week in Machine Tool Technology! He won't say so, but I think he is a little nervous. Thankfully, he can use notes on the test, and he takes some pretty extensive notes!

The Girl is buzzing right through her multiplication and division review. What's really nice is that this year, because we've worked so hard on reading skills, she is finally reading the assignments herself! I'm adding in practice pages next week from Right Brained Multiplication & Division, just one each day, to really cement the multiplication/division tables. The more fluid she is with those, the better off she will be as we move up in math!

And reading aloud is going very well for her. She doesn't really want to do it, but she can see that she reads better than she thought she did. And she got 100% on her spelling test this week!

We started reading A Young People's History of the United States, and both kids really liked the voice of the writer (Howard Zinn). So we will definitely be continuing that, and I'm going to loosely match up episodes of America: The Story of Us. The Men Who Built America looks intriguing too, for a little later in our American historical journey. Right now the plan is to do American history until winter break, then switch to an overview of world history after that. I think we might use this book, and this series (and this one) for that. Asian history, at the request of the kids, using (most likely) this book, and this one, followed by this one, and then perhaps this one. As for documentaries, I am not sure yet!

Now that history is falling into place, I want to add science in over the few weeks, with a study of microbiology for both kids, physics/quantum physics or astronomy for The Boy, and more animals for The Girl.

...In Our General Day to Day Life...

I'm getting better at balancing two jobs, college, homeschooling, etc. Meal planning helps, as does keeping on top of basic chores. M is now in charge of Thursday dinners, since I am with The Girl at derby practice from 7-9 pm, and he's at home. And I'm getting the kids to help more, both around the house, and in doing more on their own.

We're getting ready to launch the first of who knows how many Home Improvement Saturdays. This week, I am totally overhauling the living room (small room, good to start with!), I've been using the Look Inside feature at Amazon to view this book, and the intro is my inspiration for the living room overhaul. The author, Marie Kondo, says "Start by discarding. Then organize your space thoroughly, completely, in one go." We'll see if it works! Right now the living room is sort of a depository... books, body boards, scooters, skateboards, kites, a stack or two of laundry... you get the picture. 

And we're moving the load of free bricks we got into the backyard, where M has been working hard at leveling the ground for a new patio! Next week, I will tackle the dining room, and we will work together on the slightly leaky family room roof...before the predicted winter rains get here!

The Boy should be back to fencing tonight, The Girl did fine with derby practice yesterday, and we're definitely getting some physical activity back in there—we walked around a local lake on Wednesday, then The Boy and I rode bikes to the junior college library, and back, yesterday, so I could work and he could study. It feels good to feel better.

I'll leave you with a sunset picture from our Wednesday walk...have a good weekend!

linked up over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

The Fourth...

We spent most of our Fourth at the beach, specifically Heart's Desire on Tomales Bay. It was lovely - just hot enough to swim a lot, but not so hot it was overwhelming. We knew it was going to be a good day when we got there, around 11 am, to see a long line of cars ahead of us, waiting to pay the parking fee. We whipped out our parks pass, and the ranger very kindly directed us around the traffic, toward the parking lot... I've never seen so many dirty looks from other drivers before! We also hiked around a little bit--we followed the shoreline up the coast for maybe half a mile or so to another beach, then took the trail over the top of the cliffs back. We visited Indian Beach as well, and talked about how the Miwok Indians would have lived hundreds of years ago.

In the evening, we headed to a friend's house for dinner and then downtown to watch the fireworks show. Unfortunately, this was the least exciting show we've seen in years, too short, and not nearly as extravagant as in past years. We're wondering if perhaps we should check out the San Francisco fireworks display next year? If it isn't foggy, we could even watch it from the Golden Gate Bridge. We have a year to figure it out though, so we'll see!

Besides all that, it has been a good week. We took this week officially off from schooling, just reading a little in a few of our current books. Next week, we'll add back in a little Khan Academy and Reading Horizons. We'll also be launching "Operation Overhaul" on the house!

The Girl and I also started a free boot camp fitness class this week! It meets three times a week, for four weeks. As we both struggle with weight at the moment (and I really don't want her growing up bearing that burden), I thought this would be a good launching point for getting her more aware of her activity level and nutrition. She's been very excited about it, even though I'll be the first to say it can get really hard! Add that to swimming twice this week, light hiking, and her roller derby, and she's had a very active week!

Hope everyone had a good week, and a happy and safe Fourth!

Monday Musings...

 

Outside My Window...

Hot here lately, in the upper 90's to low 100's. And very sunny! I've taken to soaking the garden twice a day, once early in the morning, and again in the early evening. I love the smell of a freshly watered garden, especially when I get the lavender, rosemary and lemon balm damp.

Things I'm Thinking About...

Getting through deep cleaning; fantasizing about a day at the beach; getting through the free four week bootcamp fitness I signed up for; and writing programs, or the lack thereof. I'm re-reading The Writer's Jungle, and really thinking that it is the way we should go, since we never seem to get far with any program that is all outlined for us!

In My Garden...

One of my artichoke plants is making artichokes! I am super excited about this--they are one of my all-time favorite vegetables! Our tomatoes are ripening quickly now, nothing like cherry tomatoes fresh off the plant, still warm from the sun. My basil is going crazy, so I think a batch of pesto is in order. I read about a fennel pesto somewhere too, and might try that, as my bronze fennel plant is around 6 feet tall now!

Around the House...

This wee's cleaning focus is one of the bedrooms, The Girl's, to be specific. Top to bottom cleaning, a little bit each day. That also means clothing, book, and toy donations to be made!

In Our Homeschool...

A light week on the agenda. The Girl will work a little in Reading Horizons, and The Boy will do some exercises on Khan Academy. We'll read a little more about ancient China, learning about Confucius, and we'll start Cheaper by the Dozen or Gone Away Lake.

Creating...

Ummmm

Reading & Watching...

We like watching Once Upon a Time and Eureka. I just started watching Call the Midwife... very interesting show! The Girl and I are enjoying reading The Garden Princess, and we're all still having fun reading through The Thirteen Clocks. I liked The Kashmir Shawl a lot, and really recommend it! Movie wise, we've recently watched Crocodile Dundee, Dinotopia, and School of Rock.

Plans for the Week Ahead...

A trip to the beach for swimming and relaxation, three bootcamp fitness workouts, fencing for The Boy (The Girl had derby yesterday), taking in a fireworks show, and we need to get to the library!

Have a good week! (And thank you again Kim, for the Monday Musings inspiration!)

Ack! How did we get so busy?

Well, technically, we're not that busy... yet. But it seems that this spring will be a full one!

The Boy has been doing fencing for a couple of months now at a small, local studio. Yesterday, The Girl decided she should try the class too--it's a fun one, geared toward homeschoolers. And she loved it! So now I have two kids in fencing. And The Boy wants to sign  up for the in-house tournament in February, which I think is great--it shows that he is loving this activity enough to put more effort in.

Next week, roller derby starts back up one evening a week. And then, the following month, track and field starts up, two late afternoons/early evenings a week, one of which is the same day as roller derby! The Girl loves her derby (and it's good for her), and The Boy is really looking forward to all the various activities offered in track and field.

Needless to say, with only an hour between track and derby practice, I think the crockpot will be getting a lot of action this season! Time to start collecting great recipes, so if you have one, I'd really appreciate you sharing it!

And of course, one of the track practice days is the same day I have an on-campus class. I think I can work that out though--there are a couple of homeschooling families we know that also do track and field, and one of them lives maybe 5 blocks away, so I can get The Boy to practice, and maybe one of them can drop him off afterward.... maybe. I hope.

Then we'll have birthdays. And this year, my "baby" will move into double digits. Geez, it goes fast! It's funny. As a child, I always heard adults commenting that time goes by so quickly, and back then, being a kid, I didn't get it. Time moved so slowly... Halloween took so long to get here, and then the wait for Christmas, the wait for summer vacation (though not necessarily the vacation itself)... all the waiting took forever. Didn't it seem like forever when you were a kid? And now I can see how it is true, that the time does pass too quickly. And I already promised the kids we'd do "real" birthday parties this year. Hmmmmpphh. I guess cupcakes at park day just won't cut it this year!

And we have a large veggie garden to put in. And some house repairs to make. I could keep saying and this, and that, but I think you get the picture by now.

Technically, I could say, let's limit your outside activities a little more. But then, I look at the big picture, and realize that two evenings and one afternoon a week, and all the joy and healthiness that comes with activity, is worth a little juggling!