I've been a Bad Posting Mommy! It's been crazy around here, and I have had a lot on my heart and mind, as well as a lot going on. This is a snippet sort of post, just a little of this and that with no cohesion at all.
1) Olesya is a darling. Just a total sweetie. I opened my suitcase in Loveland to find a homemade card with a roll of Lifesavers attached to it. She made croissants tonight for the first time, and will soon be working on breads from this book which I sent her as a little surprise before I left for the homeschool show in Loveland:
She was SO SO SO happy about this! Her reaction was as if I had bought her a huge Hobart mixer or something. I am hoping that soon I will have pics to post of lovely loaves she has made from this.
2) Volunteering at Sharing Ministries is great. We love our time at the Food Bank each week, and last week we went to help with a monthly food order they receive. Our family unloaded 6 or 7 pallets full of food, and moved it into place in a trailer. We discovered later that what took all y7 of us an hour and a half to do would have been done all alone by the supervisor, Miss Cathy, and would have taken her several hours. We all looked at each other and decided right then and there that we wouldn't let that happen again, and we are now going to make sure we go every month to help with that order. One thing the kids are really learning there is a terrific "first job" sort of skill, and that is how to work efficiently, and how to keep busy. As their Dad has taught them at the restaurant, but they are now applying elsewhere, "If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean." They are doing all sorts of tasks there, operating pallet jacks, loading and unloading, rotating stock, packing food boxes, and interacting with all kinds of people. This may be one of the best things we have done as a family.
3) I am knee deep in our school program's Charter School application process. Met tonight with a group working on special education policies and procedures. I am really enjoying the group-think going on, working with incredibly intelligent folks, and participating in something at such a deep level like this. I love Big Picture thinking, analyzing things from various sides, looking for the gaps. I hadn't realized this might be right up my alley.
4) I am proctoring our state testing for our school, called TCAPS. Matthew is taking his entire test with accommodations which allow him to use his adaptive software for writing. The Special Ed. Coordinator for the entire program is his proctor, and we see each other at lunch break where she regales me with anecdotes about Matt. She told me, "He doesn't look like a funny kid, he comes across as very serious when you first meet him, but he is hilarious!" She said she told him he could be creative when answering the math questions which required a sentence sort of response. Later, she read it, and said that in response to one of them he typed, "Elementary, my Dear Watson...the answer is..." She is falling a little in love with him, and he grinned as he showed me an entire bag of cookies she brought him today.
5) I haven't had time to practice the harp in 5 days. I could be practicing now, but the house is too quiet. I am itching to get back to it and move on from Twinkle Twinkle. It certainly won't happen this way.
6) I was asked tonight at a meeting what my Master's Degree was in. What a hoot that was when I explained I had only a high school diploma.
7) Kenny is shooting up, I can't believe that he has grown about an inch and a half in just about a month!! I have watched him at TCAP testing from afar, and I am so glad to see him acting in a more mature manner. He now fits in nicely with the 12 year olds. Yea, I know he is 14. So what? He is growing up, something that seriously at times we worried about.
8) Angela to me, "Mom, I want a job where I can travel a lot. I love home, but I LOVE going places! Maybe I'll be a nurse after all, so I can go work with people like John Wright and help kids in orphanages." What a lovely, lovely thought that is...and she could do it, too!
9) Made the GREATEST score on a microscope at the homeschool show. HUGE HUGE blessing, as we need 2-3 of them and not more than half an hour earlier Matt and I had been talking about it. On a table with used books was this microscope, being sold by a retired scientist :-) The scope and all the accessories...$130. Retail value new? $400ish. Told Dominick it would be slim pickin's this week for groceries because I couldn't pass up this great deal. When I walked in the door with it, he opened up the box and was as happy as I was over the bargain! I love that my husband is so supportive and encouraging. I was thinking the other day that I am very, very blessed to be a stay at home mom AND to have a husband that trusts my judgment 100% in everything I do. He never questions the direction I want to take with educating the kids, he never questions the money spent outside our funding (or any other money spent on anything else), and not once has he ever made it feel like I am asking him for money when I need cash. Being a wage earner myself since I was 12, the hardest part of being full time mom could very well be not bringing home the bacon myself...or least the bacon bits :-) Dominick is just so terrific about the equal partnership part of marriage, and I am grateful daily for that.
10) We are reading an incredibly thought provoking book for Lent at church, "The New Jim Crow", which is about the high rate of incarceration of African Americans in the US. Fairly academic, it is nevertheless profoundly interesting and eye opening, to say the least.
11) I need to write more interesting posts, but brain space is absorbed by other things at the moment. Maybe in a few weeks, if we get to take our field trip. We are awaiting word about approval, and are hopeful to hit the trail on the 15th of April. I can't even think about it right now because there is so much else on my TV Tray.
That's it! Nothing interesting, just trying to make sure I don't break the habit too long of blogging because Loser Mom that I am, this is my sole record of our family. If I stop this, I don't even have scrapbooks to rely on! More later this week.
1) Olesya is a darling. Just a total sweetie. I opened my suitcase in Loveland to find a homemade card with a roll of Lifesavers attached to it. She made croissants tonight for the first time, and will soon be working on breads from this book which I sent her as a little surprise before I left for the homeschool show in Loveland:
2) Volunteering at Sharing Ministries is great. We love our time at the Food Bank each week, and last week we went to help with a monthly food order they receive. Our family unloaded 6 or 7 pallets full of food, and moved it into place in a trailer. We discovered later that what took all y7 of us an hour and a half to do would have been done all alone by the supervisor, Miss Cathy, and would have taken her several hours. We all looked at each other and decided right then and there that we wouldn't let that happen again, and we are now going to make sure we go every month to help with that order. One thing the kids are really learning there is a terrific "first job" sort of skill, and that is how to work efficiently, and how to keep busy. As their Dad has taught them at the restaurant, but they are now applying elsewhere, "If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean." They are doing all sorts of tasks there, operating pallet jacks, loading and unloading, rotating stock, packing food boxes, and interacting with all kinds of people. This may be one of the best things we have done as a family.
3) I am knee deep in our school program's Charter School application process. Met tonight with a group working on special education policies and procedures. I am really enjoying the group-think going on, working with incredibly intelligent folks, and participating in something at such a deep level like this. I love Big Picture thinking, analyzing things from various sides, looking for the gaps. I hadn't realized this might be right up my alley.
4) I am proctoring our state testing for our school, called TCAPS. Matthew is taking his entire test with accommodations which allow him to use his adaptive software for writing. The Special Ed. Coordinator for the entire program is his proctor, and we see each other at lunch break where she regales me with anecdotes about Matt. She told me, "He doesn't look like a funny kid, he comes across as very serious when you first meet him, but he is hilarious!" She said she told him he could be creative when answering the math questions which required a sentence sort of response. Later, she read it, and said that in response to one of them he typed, "Elementary, my Dear Watson...the answer is..." She is falling a little in love with him, and he grinned as he showed me an entire bag of cookies she brought him today.
5) I haven't had time to practice the harp in 5 days. I could be practicing now, but the house is too quiet. I am itching to get back to it and move on from Twinkle Twinkle. It certainly won't happen this way.
6) I was asked tonight at a meeting what my Master's Degree was in. What a hoot that was when I explained I had only a high school diploma.
7) Kenny is shooting up, I can't believe that he has grown about an inch and a half in just about a month!! I have watched him at TCAP testing from afar, and I am so glad to see him acting in a more mature manner. He now fits in nicely with the 12 year olds. Yea, I know he is 14. So what? He is growing up, something that seriously at times we worried about.
8) Angela to me, "Mom, I want a job where I can travel a lot. I love home, but I LOVE going places! Maybe I'll be a nurse after all, so I can go work with people like John Wright and help kids in orphanages." What a lovely, lovely thought that is...and she could do it, too!
9) Made the GREATEST score on a microscope at the homeschool show. HUGE HUGE blessing, as we need 2-3 of them and not more than half an hour earlier Matt and I had been talking about it. On a table with used books was this microscope, being sold by a retired scientist :-) The scope and all the accessories...$130. Retail value new? $400ish. Told Dominick it would be slim pickin's this week for groceries because I couldn't pass up this great deal. When I walked in the door with it, he opened up the box and was as happy as I was over the bargain! I love that my husband is so supportive and encouraging. I was thinking the other day that I am very, very blessed to be a stay at home mom AND to have a husband that trusts my judgment 100% in everything I do. He never questions the direction I want to take with educating the kids, he never questions the money spent outside our funding (or any other money spent on anything else), and not once has he ever made it feel like I am asking him for money when I need cash. Being a wage earner myself since I was 12, the hardest part of being full time mom could very well be not bringing home the bacon myself...or least the bacon bits :-) Dominick is just so terrific about the equal partnership part of marriage, and I am grateful daily for that.
10) We are reading an incredibly thought provoking book for Lent at church, "The New Jim Crow", which is about the high rate of incarceration of African Americans in the US. Fairly academic, it is nevertheless profoundly interesting and eye opening, to say the least.
11) I need to write more interesting posts, but brain space is absorbed by other things at the moment. Maybe in a few weeks, if we get to take our field trip. We are awaiting word about approval, and are hopeful to hit the trail on the 15th of April. I can't even think about it right now because there is so much else on my TV Tray.
That's it! Nothing interesting, just trying to make sure I don't break the habit too long of blogging because Loser Mom that I am, this is my sole record of our family. If I stop this, I don't even have scrapbooks to rely on! More later this week.
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