jlsgrant

Homeschool Mothers Journal

Posted in Homeschool: Blogs & Memes on August 26, 2011

In my life this week….

Sunday: Went to take a look at the house my in-laws are buying. We are so excited for them.

Spent sometime today getting organized for school…Finished reading The Northern Lights series by Lisa T. Bergren.

Monday: Our first “Not Quite Back to School” day….since the official start date in our school district was today, we thought we’d play along….we did some school related things: We shopped for a few school supplies, but really didn’t need much. While we were out, we saw a Bald Eagle, so we talked about it = nature study. On our way home, we decided since #1 Boy will be starting 7th Grade and #1 Girl will be starting 11th Grade, we should stop by 7-11 for a slurpee in commemoration!

Once home we organized our work space and set up our working notebooks and talked about the year ahead.

Tuesday: My friend is redecorating….so now I’ve got the itch to do a few things around here! Thanks, “Friend”…you know who you are! DH and I spent some time moving furniture around in the living room. It’s always nice to have a little change. He even said he’ll help me make curtains if I can’t find any I like! 🙂

Ordered fabric to reupholster dining room chairs on Ebay! That’s a little brave of me right?? (Or crazy, some may say!)

Wednesday: Worked on blog post about curriculum choices for the year…It was quite elaborate with pictures and stuff…Google Chrome crashed and my hour of work disappeared before my eyes. I took it as a sign from God! I was, possibly, going overboard….No way I’m going to re-do all that! 😦 Don’t you hate it when that happens? If you’d like to know what we’re using for curriculum, feel free to ask!

Did a little shopping with a friend, made a little comfort food for dinner:

Meatloaf, Parsley Parmesan Potato’s, Corn and a nice tossed salad 🙂

Thursday: Got the World map and the U.S. map back on the wall today. The kids actually hung out there for a good half hour, checking things out! 🙂 Last year, I added locations for some of our ancestors just for reference. It brings a personal dimension to U.S. History when you can see where our family was during the important times in history.

We spent some time reviewing where we left off in American History, just after the American Revolution. This year we will be studying the 19th Century, both here and abroad.

Started back to Rock Band lessons this week…#1 Girl plays lead guitar, and #1 Boy usually plays drums, but this week they handed him a bass guitar to try! He did pretty well, but had sore fingers! Hmmm…who knows where that will go?

Surprised to receive fabric I ordered two days ago! It’s perfect…can’t wait to get started on my project! 🙂

Friday: A bloggy kind of day. I’ve been really lacking motivation on this, my previous post was for ABSee Photo Meme. It was Z is for Zebra; he’s cute, but I’ve grown tired of looking at him. So I pulled out this draft post for my first Homeschool Mother’s Journal, thought I’d give it a try….finally.

This morning will be our first pick up for a produce co-op we just joined. I’m excited to see what the shoppers picked for us this week! Gee, I hope they didn’t pick lima beans or brussel sprouts.

#1 Girl is back to Flute Lessons today….I’m getting excited to hear her get back to work. I came across a beautiful piece of music for Flute and Piano on Monday and just had to order it for her to work on. It is Suite Antique, by John Rutter…I know some of it will be a challenge, but the beginning is quite beautiful. I was excited to find it was written by Rutter, as he is one of my absolute favorite composers.

Here, take a listen:

Saturday: Perhaps a little boating??

Places we’re going, people we’re seeing…I need to start planning some places to go this fall. We’d like to take a family trip to north Georgia or Tennessee to spend some time in the mountains. #1 Girl and I were planning to go to New York City for a weekend this summer, but didn’t get there. So, I think maybe September or October for that. In November, we’ll be heading north to Michigan for my nieces wedding and my Mom’s birthday. So really need to get busy figuring it all out!

What I’m reading…

Right now I’m reading The Frontiersman’s Daughter, by Laura Frantz…it’s pretty good so far.

Things I’m working on…organization, right? But I do have my eye on a couple of jewelry projects, who knows maybe I’ll get started this weekend.

What’s working and what’s not…I purchased, but I’m really not sure about Tapestry of Grace for History and Literature. It has been overwhelming getting it organized. It truly looks amazing, but I’m not at all convinced I should have gone this route. Not sure if it is a good fit for us…..hmmm. We’ll give it a little time, before we jump ship! If you’ve been there, please by all means feel free to leave a comment.

Homeschool questions and thoughts…

Thought #1: I can’t believe this will be our sixth year homeschooling. It has been the most amazing experience. I couldn’t be prouder of how the kids have developed through the years. They are independent, diligent, and creative. (Keep up the good work, you babies! :))

Thought #2: Looking forward to doing Apologia’s, Exploring Creation with Marine Biology, with #1 Girl….good excuse to go to the boat, don’t you think?

A photo to share…

Here’s my first take from the Produce Co-Op! Not too bad for $10….and no lima beans or brussel sprouts!

So what’s going on with you?? This post is linked with others at:

Homeschool Mother's Journal

Geocaching 2!

Posted in Nature on June 23, 2011

Ok…so I keep trying, right? If you read my last geocaching post, you will already know that I did not meet with success the first time; but only because of my ~~fear~~ apprehension about snakes, which can inflict great bodily harm. So I’m not yet ready to give up on this hobby.

Last week, we were over by the coast and I thought I’d check to see if there were any caches nearby. Come to find out there were several listed! The first was in a tiny one acre pictuesque park. OK, how hard can that be right?? So I headed over to start my search. My cell signal was very week and kept dropping, but I patiently tried to locate the cache. No luck! Later in the day I returned to the diminuative park with #1 Boy. I was sure with the two of us searching, we would find the treasure. We could not find anything! We were within “8 feet”…but didn’t see a thing! 😦 So…never mind! I decided to try yet another location in the morning.

Before the kids were awake, before the mercury hit 95 degrees, and before I gave up hope, I headed toward the next location. This time, the cache was hidden at a larger park up the road a couple miles. I was happy to find that there were three caches hidden in this location, greatly improving my odds….or so you would think!

I took off toward the closest location. As I edged closer and closer to my target, I took a look at the “hint”…..OK, “It’s behind the tree with two eyes”. Tree located. My app told me I was within 19 feet, then 8 feet…I’m not seeing anything. Heading toward the arrow displayed on my compass, suddenly I’m 31 feet from the cache. I turn back, and soon I’m back to 9 feet from the cache. Now I’m really sure I see something under the brush…

Nope! Just an empty beer can! 😦 I continued to look, to no avail…

Because of my persistence, I decided to try and locate one of the other caches here at the park, and I took off in yet another direction. Along the way I found some of God’s Cache….

The first were these beautiful Frangipani (aka Plumeria) plants, covered with silky, butter-yellow and soft pink blossoms. According to Wikipedia, this plant was named after French Botanical Explorer, Charles Plumier (1646 – 1704), who travelled to the New World on an expedition to document the plants of the region. The common name of Frangipani comes from a sixteenth century Italian nobel family who invented a perfume with its scent! I also read the Fragapani flowers are pollenated by the Sphinx Moth. (Looks like a evening visit is in store for me.)

Hanging from a nearby tree, was a vining cactus that was also in bloom. I had never seen this variety before and as I scoured the internet to try and find its identification, I finally located this flower on a website that specializes in cactii. There is no common name listed, but the scientific name is Hylocereus guatemalensis, it is native to Central America. As far as I could tell, this variety may be related to the variety that produces Dragon Fruit, a sour and juicy fruit consumed in Mexico, Central and South America. Here is another blossom from the same location:

Oh, but we were Geocaching right? I am about “.27” miles from my cache, which is not a bad hike at all…provided that you can walk the straight line using the compass. Of course, I must take the trails and they wind around like a squirrel trying to cross the road in traffic!

I am distracted by the noises in the undergrowth, but am trying to be a “big girl” about it. It always sounds like a big snake to me. It is usually a lizard; just like this juvenile Brown Cuban Anole that was checking me out:

After winding around for approximately a mile on my .27 mile journey, my cellphone died and I never did make it closer than 432 feet from my cache!