God is so awesome!

I have been much in prayer today because tomorrow one of my children starts a class at one of our home school co-ops. This is a NECESSARY class that I can NOT teach myself. (I am science intolerant). The problem is one of unforgiveness and overt hostility towards another classmate over something that happened last year.

We have discussed this many times, and I just keep feeling like I’m not getting through.

Tonight we went to church. I hang out with the youth group on Wednesday nights, and tonight, the youth message was on forgiveness and the hypocrisy of a Christian holding a grudge.

I do not know if it sunk in, but I do know that the message could not have been any clearer!

more animals

Fun with history

I always enjoy looking over my kid’s history answers. Here is a recent example from Space Cadet:

Q. Who reformed the calendar in ancient Rome?
A. Julius Caesar reformed the calendar in ancient Rome. (Sadly, he didn’t think to cut out the Ides of March.)

Q.What is an example of ethnocentrism?
A. One example of ethnocentrism is thinking that Hispanics are time wasters because they focus more on when everyone’s come than when the event was technically advertised to start at. Myself, I like the Hispanic method. It lets me sleep in.

But my all time favorite is from a report she wrote years ago about Leonardo da Vinci:

“The Mona List currently resides behind a pane of bullet proof glass in the Louvre. Why anyone would want to shoot the Mona Lisa is beyond me.”

They're in!

Space Cadet and Fatso have been accepted to do Distance Learning classes at Patrick Henry College! They start next week! I was a little worried because we sent the applications in a little late, and then I didn’t hear from them. . . but we’re in!

Pinch me, I'm dreaming

Saturday night we had a Teen Quizzing party at our house. It was supposed to end at 8, but everyone was having a great time so we went until 10, and then one of the quizzers ended up spending the night.



We had our first practice quiz on Sunday afternoon. Our “core quizzers” are Fatso (also known as “Izzle” for quizzle, I mean, quiz purposes), Hoodie Girl (which is what my youngest child wants to be called), Bizzle and Jizzle.

There are also two other young ladies coming, who have both said they would come to practices but don’t want to compete. One if them is Czarina, who thinks her English is not good enough for quizzing. Well, I had an idea to just pick out 8 quiz questions a week for her to study, and ignore the rest. Then I thought, what if I did that for the other girl as well? At practice, they BOTH answered questions. . . out of two quizzes, Czarina got 3 jump questions and 3 bonus questions. Everyone was quite amazed! The other girl is encouraged by her success, and Hoodie Girl is encouraging them both to go to the first quiz. Hoodie Girl thinks we should have a girl team and a boy team. Our first quiz is coming up in a few weeks and it would be way cool if we had 6 quizzers!

We started school on Tuesday. We are not at a full load yet because our co-op hasn’t started yet.

This is what last year looked like:
Space Cadet would start her schoolwork around noon and finish (hopefully) by dinner time. She would also spend a lot of time in her own little world, take 1 ½ hours for basic hygiene needs, and complain that she never had time to do what SHE wanted to do.

Fatso would get up and get started on his schoolwork, finish in a timely manner, and have all sorts of time to spend on his interest.

Czarina would be frustrated because she would see what Hoodie Girl was doing, and feel like she (Czarina) wasn’t learning anything. We had been told in Russia to make her first school year in America all about English, and that’s what we did. Czarina attended the same co-op classes as Hoodie Girl, (science, history, writing, literature and art) but did not have to do all the work. At home we worked on reading, writing, understanding and speaking English. Czarina was mostly pretty co-operative, but sometimes would get in a little snit and not want to do anything.

For most of the school year, Hoodie Girl would go off in her room or the basement to “work on schoolwork”, and I would usually find her reading a non-school related book, or drawing. It would be time for me to make dinner and she STILL wouldn’t be done with her school work. Along with this came speeches about how horribly unfair life is, and about how boring school is. Hoodie Girl lost many, many privileges and spent much time grounded. She also had a very difficult time with the concept of following directions. And her writing? Hoodie Girl was a “stream of consciousness” writer. Her first co-op writing assignment, she wrote 13 pages and got 69% because, although her report was interesting and fairly well-written, she did not follow the instructions.

Fortunately by the end of last school year she got her act together and ended up with straight A’s for the last semester. However, it still took her forever to do her school work.

This year (or this week, at least)
The first two days, Space Cadet was done with her school work (and her shower) by NOON. Today she was working on her last assignment at 1:00. She has had lots of time to work on private projects.

Fatso – no change. He gets up, does his chores, does his schoolwork, and gets on with his life.

Czarina will not be able to complain that she isn’t learning anything. She is the one child I have that I have to work one on one with a lot, due to language issues, but she has been very co-operative this week.

And Hoodie Girl has absolutely amazed me. . . she starts her school work right after breakfast, FOLLOWS THE DIRECTIONS, does not complain, and is done by noon!

(Of course, once the co-op classes start no one will be done by noon, but this is a good start.)

I am looking forward to a great year!

Help me name my youngest child!

On this blog I have chosen to go the way of many wiser than I, and give my kids “code names”.

I’m kind of stuck on my youngest child’s name.

Space Cadet (there’s a fine line between rocket scientist and space cadet) and Fatso (who is a teen-age boy with hollow legs and an amazing metabolism) chose their own names. Czarina got her name because we adopted her in Russia (Czarina means “Russian princess”).

The youngest can’t think of a name she is willing to be called. I thought of using her family nick name, “Skippy”, which was given to her by my husband’s sister’s husband’s father when she was about 5. I also have considered “Drama Queen”. We also have considered Strawberry (I have no idea why), Superchick, and Supergirl (again, I have no idea why).

Maybe I should give her an artist’s name (but not Van Gogh, because I like her ears) because she is drawing all the time. Or. . . Karaoke Queen, because she loves to sing (as long as no one but Czarina watches/hears).

Anyway, I would like to hear YOUR suggestions! Please leave a comment with your ideas! (And be kind. . . )

And speaking of artists. . .

You can’t go outside until you pee in the popcorn. . .

We have two cats. Peace, 8 years old, belongs to Space Cadet. Before we got Peace, I prayed for a cat we would not be allergic to.

I should have prayed for a NICE cat we would not be allergic to.

Not that Peace isn’t a good cat. . . she’s very good. She doesn’t scratch the furniture or pee where she’s not supposed to or keep Space Cadet up at night or chew things up, or go into the cat food bag between meals. . . she wouldn’t even DREAM of jumping on the kitchen table. . . she’s just good.

She’s also very rigid, antisocial (except to Space Cadet) rarely affectionate, is very rude to “THAT KITTEN”, and a TERROR at the vets.

When it was time for Fatso to get a cat, I prayed for a nice cat we would not be allergic to.

I should have prayed for a nice OBEDIENT cat we weren’t allergic to.

Sherifina, 17 months old, is sweet. Sherafina just reeks of sweetness. She is cute and funny and affectionate and playful. She ADORES Fatso, and follows him around like she’s a puppy dog. She waits outside of the bathroom for him. She purrs up a storm. She likes to have her belly rubbed. She is friendly to visitors.

She also escapes from Fatso’s room (she has figured out how to open the door), jumps on the kitchen table, meows loudly at night for Fatso to wake up and play with her, scratches the couch and the furniture, and last week chewed through Czarina’s headphone cord AND the USB cord for Czarina’s MP3 player.

She also tries to get into the cat food bag between meals. Peace is totally disgusted by this. “We don’t get our own food!!! That’s what we have SERVANTS for!”

Back to Peace. . . we’ve had to make several vet trips with her this year. The vet’s assistants tremble when we walk in with Peace. There are notes all over Peace’s chart. “Be careful. . . she bites!” On a recent vet trip a new employee said, “I’ve heard about Peace!” They gossip about my cat behind her back!

To get blood work from Peace, she has to be sedated. So several months ago, when we could tell she wasn’t feeling well, we took her in and they did blood tests and a urinalysis. (Prior to the test results coming in, the vet suggested we put her on Prozac. . . I am NOT making this up.)

Turns out Peace has a urinary tract problem. They sold me some expensive food and the vet said to feed it to her for a month and then bring in a urine sample.

Um, excuse me. . . am I supposed to get this cat to pee in a CUP?

No, the vet explained, we can clean out her litter box and line it with shredded wax paper or unpopped popcorn. I had wax paper, so that’s what I filled it with. Then we had to keep Peace inside until she peed.

About 40 hours later, I was wondering if maybe it was not healthy for a cat with urinary tract problems to hold it in so long. . . until Fatso sat in a chair and said, “gross!”

Of all the kids that could have sat in the cat pee. . . it had to be the one with OCD. . .

Fortunately I had been wanting to get rid of that chair anyway, but I wasn’t about to sacrifice any more furniture, so I took her to the vets, they sedated her, and got the coveted specimen themselves.

Unfortunately, she’d gotten WORSE. I was told to mix a certain supplement into her food, and try again in a month.

Times up. After paying the last vet bill I decided to try the popcorn. So this morning Space Cadet cleaned out the litter box and refilled it with unpopped popcorn. Peace keeps trying to tell her, “This is just WRONG!” She wants to go outside, but we keep telling her, “You can’t go outside until you pee in the popcorn!”

And I’m praying for my furniture.

Stay tuned. . .

How not to save money on school supplies

This is the time of year when many stores offer incredible details on school supplies to get people into their stores.

One Sunday night a few weeks ago I sat down with the ad inserts and made a chart of who had what for sale. Office Depot had notebook filler paper for 15 cents and plastic 2-pocket folders for 1 cent.

Since there is an Office Depot right around the corner from Fatso’s orthodontist, and he had an appointment Monday, we stopped by after the appointment.

I was patting myself on the back as I carried out my 59 cent bag of school supplies. I didn’t even use up much gas (always a consideration these days) since it was so close to the orthodontist’s office.

Forty-five minutes later I pulled into my driveway and. . . discovered my purse was missing.

I called Office Depot and yes, someone had found and returned my purse. So it was back to Office Depot.

At the cost of about $12 for gas.

I was so relieved to get my purse and see that my credit cards, cellphone, etc. were still in the purse.

Later though, I went to get some cash and. . . it was all gone. Whoever found my purse relieved it of it’s cash before they turned it in.

I think there was around $40 in there.

So. . . my 59 cent bag of school supplies actually cost me more than $50. . . .