The ....*cough*....Weekly Report

Determined to drag myself out of the guilt of infrequent posting, I come with keyboard in hand to relate the exciting news of this week.

If there is any exciting news.

Nolan is currently finishing up problem 30 of his math lesson, so that is good (the lesson has 30 problems).

We spent about 20 minutes working out how to approach a geometry problem for finding the volume of a figure. He gets upset when he can't figure it out by a cursory glance. Then he gets upset when I try to talk him through it. Then he is so upset that he can't recognize that he can do it, if he only divides the weird figure up into a triangle and a rectangle.

Meanwhile, the whole mother/teacher dynamic gets completely muddled....but he's done with the lesson. We'll discover the mood of the morning's remainder after we check the lesson.

Life is so much fun! Homeschooling is so rewarding, ha ha! And of course, these little episodes have no affect on the rest of the kids, whatsoever, because homeschooling is the magic panacea to all problems!!

In other news, Loren is in Warsaw, Indiana, picking up Sharon's errant car. It has finally given up the ghost and Loren-the-optimist feels certain he can fix it up without too much trouble. And Sharon is perfectly happy to look for something more dependable.

Preferably in red :-)

As to spring, Ethan heard a grackle this morning. I heard something yesterday that sounded suspiciously robinish, and there have been flocks of starlings glimpsed along the highways and byways of this sparsely populated Hawkeye state.

The remaining patches of snow should soon fade away, leaving winter firmly behind and spring oozing right between the boys' barefoot toes.

As to last weekend, I had a great time up in Minnesota! I should download the pictures from my camera. Didn't get any of the house Ardith and Justin have moved to, but we went to the local conservatory on Sunday and my, wasn't it nice to see green plants and pretty blooms :-)

Jason was also there (from Cedar Rapids) so there was a good enough crew for moving things like mattresses, desks, and an ornery couch that only had to be manipulated umpteen times before it was coaxed through the porch door, around a corner and into the living room.

Ah, good times!

Well, break time is over. Must get at checking math lessons and kneading the bread.

This is Ma, your happy homemaker, signing off....

Tweet

Goodness....

....how time does fly.

Over a week since any kind of post. Pert' near inexcusable.

We had a good weekend with Kendra dropping by for a quick visit before driving out to Nebraska. It's her next-to-last rotation (if I have that right). I think the year has flown by even faster for her than 90% of the family.

As to us home-folk....with college visits out of the way, and testing done for the year, it down to the last slog of school work. Grinding out the final parts of each book and subject. Trying to stick with some semblance of a schedule and not giving in to the temptation to sleep in, browse the Internet, or read from two dozen books purchased over the past year.

It's one of life's rich irony's that once homeschooling moms have spent time each day supervising the development of young minds, they then lose incentive or energy to improve their own.

Just a few short years, however (eight, to be exact), the nest will be empty and I'll be free to pursue my dreams in the 1.75 years of good health I'll have left, ha ha.

Oh, here's something fun coming up....on Friday I'll be heading up to Ardith and Justin's place in the land of 10,000 lakes! Though that could describe the fields around this area of Iowa, I refer of course to Minnesota.

They are in the process of moving stuffs from storage and their old apartment, to their new abode in St. Paul.

And Jason will be driving up from Cedar Rapids as well, making it a real party :-)

I do hope they've left us some work to do...sounds like a lot of lifting and hauling's already been accomplished.

Palm Sunday coming up already? Hard to believe. Particularly since we're having more of the frozen white stuff....(if it's Monday, it's snowing).

On the other hand, only ten weeks left of school....Hoooooraayyyy!

The speedy passage of time does have its advantages.

Tweet

'Nuther Friday

Above is a picture taken from a bridge down the road.Things are going to warm up around here so it may be the last we see of the white stuff...who knows? The gravel roads certainly are getting sloppy with the warm-up. A person actually has to drive slowly or risk losing control.

Trevor and Nolan had their yearly assessment testing this week, complete with reward donuts at the end of each session. Now we wait for the results. I don't feel like biting my nails as much as usual. Quite.

As for the weight loss routine, I've hit a snag. No weight lost this week. In fact, I may have gained a quarter pound. But that's not a big deal...I just need to stop nibbling. Don't know why that's become so hard but it has. Probably because during my travel I actually got a taste for sugary food and now I have to un-get it, ha ha.

At least I can still enjoy wearing smaller clothes.

Glad it's a Friday, though! As are the kids. Nothing like the anticipation of a couple non-school days to make life look appealing.

Only eleven weeks left in the school year :-D

On the literature front I've starting reading the Harry Potter series. J.K. Rowling is a good writer! Apologies to Carolyn and Ethan, however. Your mother isn't finished with the first book yet so you'll have to wait to watch Kendra's DVD.

Speaking of Kendra, she is fast approaching the end of her rotation schedule. Only two more, I believe. Then something about a test and graduation. After that, who knows?

Carolyn has heard back from both colleges where she participated in special scholarship competitions. She received a small award from each but not the big kahuna. So the next thing is to decide which one....could be a difficult choice.

On another front, my mother's estate has finally reach the end or rather, the point where the end of the settlement is in sight. I won't go into the reasons for it why took so long but I, for one, am grateful not to have the strange difficulties associated with that process hanging over our heads.

Tweet

In Which Ma Helps the Economy and Life on the Planet Despite Meeting Up With Jack Chick and NPR

The other day one of our sons (I can never quite keep track of how many we have....) mentioned that the majority of recent  blog posts revolve around diet updates.

I couldn't be sure, but there was the slightest hint of an inference that he might possibly be thinking--granted, I can only venture the merest of guesses, here--that weight reports are not incredibly fascinating to the whole of mankind.

Of course he is young and through no fault of his own, a male.

Does he not know that the lives of women revolve solely around the following themes: fashion, weight loss, looks, meals, the caloric content of foods, laundry, housekeeping, and keeping trim?

And this doesn't even touch on the topics of sharing verses, sharing recipes, and sharing encouragement.

All of which goes without saying, naturally.

However, in the barest chance that he has a point, here is a written snapshot of the past day:

On Monday we woke up to snow. Something we did not wake up to was the sound of a road grader clearing the snow from our gravel avenue (seriously, we live on an avenue ! C'est très chic, non?).

It was also the first day of scheduled testing for our two youngest home-schoolers . And by youngest, I mean there are "only" seven years left.

Ethan fired up the skid loader or we never could have exited the driveway.

Then he fired it up again when I picked them up two hours later.

And again when I left for Cedar Rapids.

It being Monday, Nolan had another tutoring session in CR and I had a chance to take Jason's old car, the Blue-Wonder-Camry, out for a six-hour test drive.

(similar to a 3-hour tour but with less opportunity for ingenious bamboo structures)

Well, I'd forgotten how fun it is to tool around in a zippy, small car!

Even filled up the tank with gas. And by the way...the "Flying J" travel plaza in Evansdale has amazing hazelnut coffee. And the McDonald's across the street is probably the only one in America that does not serve dollar drinks. I mention the latter not in criticism, but as a casual, offhand and lighthearted comment intended to alert other drivers as well as remind myself that (in keeping with our market economy) I shall exercise my privilege to never again darken their doors.

You're welcome!

After dropping Nolan off I expertly traversed the busy streets of Cedar Rapids to my comfort zone of non-food shopping, Wal-Mart. They have a homey feel despite their Big Box appearance. Made more homey by the Jack Chick tracts that turned up in the shoe department. I won't repeat exactly what the clerk who was helping me said, but if the person-with-a-burden-to-witness was aiming for disgust and aggravation, they succeeded in their mission to have a lasting effect concerning salvation.

I also purchased a $13.00 sweater on clearance for $3.00. Not sure if this strictly counts as economic help for our nation so much as help for me....proper balance in life can be so, so, tricky.

My grocery of choice is Fareway, which consistently has better prices and in an unrelated note, is a less embarrassing place to take my reusable cloth bags indelibly stamped Fareway.

I realize this opens up the possibility of me being a liberal, what with utilizing an environmental symbol as ghastly as cloth bags. But I take comfort in knowing that every so often I forget the bags and am forced to use plastic. Though I'm not sure this counts as non-liberal since they are recycled as wastebasket liners.

Ah well.

Monday ended with our quiet drive home. By 7:30 it is dark and there is little opportunity for Nolan to read. This is where I must make my biggest confession:  I listen to NPR radio.

Yes, it is true! We heard Smetana's "The Moldau" on the way down and coming back north listened to part of an educational program on Mendelssohn.

One would be hard pressed, of course, to choose which was more evil: listening to an educational program? Or listening to NPR?

We may never know for certain as we both arrived home without incident.

Perhaps I'll really live life on the edge next week and listen to "All Things Considered."

 

Tweet