Ed Irwin is cool.

Why is Ed Irwin cool? Because he is generous and helpful to people he barely knows. Like me.

I never took Latin in high school (I was all romantic and thought French would serve me better for some reason. Stupid.). However, I have been able to keep up with Timo's Latin lessons pretty well the last three years - seriously, a book written for 3rd through 6th graders can't be THAT hard to suss out before the lesson starts. It's all been dandy - until we hit the great linking verb vs. helping verb debacle.

Oh help. I understand that a linking verb is an equals sign, and therefore needs a form of the verb to be, which we conjugate as sum es est sumus estis sunt in the present tense. Okey dokey. But when you have a helping verb and you have to figure out which ending to put on the verb? My brain turns to Jell-O (the proof of which is that I just spelled turns as "terns").

So I asked Hazel if I could call Ed for advice - sure! I called Ed and he very kindly suggested I check out what the public library has available and see if anything there would work. I haven't had a chance to do that this week, but intended to tomorrow.

BUT - I won't have to now, because at church this morning, Hazel handed me a book and said, "Ed said he thinks this will help you out." And after just flipping through "English Grammar for Students of Latin" by Norma W. Goldman, I believe he is right.

And THAT is why Ed Irwin is cool.

Adding to the Christmas list....

I've seen these books suggested in my homeschooling Bible before but always used something else or what I had on hand, but finally checked out Janice VanCleve's Astronomy for Every Kid when I couldn't come up with good science experiment ideas on my own. WOW. Fabulous book. The variety of experiments means they work for all three kids, and the concepts they cover are simply explained (my weakness is over-explaining and going too far into other topics). We are having the best time trying these out for ourselves. I'll be adding the Earth Science, Chemistry and Physics books to our Christmas list.

I'm also adding Learning Through History magazine to my wish list. We subscribed to LTH a few years ago and I was amazed at how much information and fun they were able to pack into a single issue, but the expense was a bit much at the time, so I didn't renew. The majority of the articles were a bit old for Timo at the time, too, but I knew I could hold on to them and they'd be appropriate again. We have just hit Medieval Japan again, and voila! Perfect for Timo with neat things thrown in for Meg and Lillie as well. I just wish I could get all the back issues as well!

Mental respite

This weekend was supposed to be a creative, fun getaway for me, but alas, the event was canceled. So, I've got this afternoon and all day tomorrow open all of a sudden, and I'm trying to figure out how best to use the time. (I promise myself I won't waste it all on the computer - I WON'T!)

I'm always torn when I have time like this. Is it fair to go off and be totally selfish, wandering into stores I won't take the kids in, perusing the shelves at the library, enjoying a coffee on my own in silence and leave Chris to hold down the fort? He doesn't get days like that. He goes to the Episcopal Men's Conference once a year for a weekend, but he's still sharing a hotel room with someone and surrounded by people all day.

Plus, I'd much rather spend time with him. The caveat is that I want to spend time with him without the kids interrupting. I want to go wander in stores with him, share a coffee with him and peruse the shelves with him (though he'd rather go to Borders than the library; he's a buyer, not a borrower). That doesn't happen often because sitters are expensive and the grandparents don't remember to offer to sit often.

So my guilt keeps me at home, doing things I ought to do but don't really want to do. Like make Halloween costumes. Or vacuuming.

For the moment, I should be happy. Chris is helping Timo make his Halloween costume downstairs and the girls are outside playing with Jan and Frank's littlest grandkids. They're all happy. I ought to join in as well.

Lookie here........

Playing catch up. :)

Okay, so I have been indulging myself in completely useless, tawdry, thoroughly enjoyable reading, but it's not trash (by which I mean Dan Brown or Danielle Steele). It's literary-ish. Kinda.

Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife and Darcy and Elizabeth: Nights and Days at Pemberley by Linda Berdoll are unadulterated fun. If you're a Jane Austen fan, you'll enjoy following Lizzy and Darcy into married bliss, but only if you're willing to read about them cavorting around Pemberley christening every room. Make sure you're husband's home and available while you're reading this. Whew.

When I'm not fanning myself from reading about Lizzy and Darcy's boots knocking, I've been reading a few Elizabeth George mysteries. Not having television has prevented me from watching PBS' Mystery! or else I'd already be aware of Inspector Lynley, I suppose. The two I've read so far kept me guessing, weren't too tidy, and didn't frustrate or let me down with their endings. CMCPL doesn't have the first book in the series, so I began with #2, Payment in Blood. Ignore the cheesy titles; the stories are better than they suggest.

Christina P. has lent me Jon Krakauer's newest, Where Men Win Glory. I'm not a Pat Tillman football fan, but Krakauer does a good job of taking you along for a pleasant read regardless of where he's going. We'll see how well I keep up with this one.

As for pens and paper - I have been scrapbooking a bit (yaaay!) and have FINALLY figured out how to print photos on our new printer. The ink is pretty expensive but I (DUH) tried printing in black and white last night for the first time and whadduyaknow? They look pretty good! Maybe this will get my creative juices flowing again. :)

Science for Dummies, but without the embarrassing cover and title

I suppose it's the homeschooling that is continually alerting me to the gaps in my own knowledge base, but the older I get, the more I realize how little I remember or know about science. When the kids ask questions, I ALWAYS have to say, "Let's go look that up."

So when I was browsing and found "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson, I had to pick it up. The book came out in 2003 and was on best seller lists, but I don't remember hearing about it. (In my defense, that was the year Meg was entering terrible toddlerhood and Lillie was born AND we started Timo on kindergarten, so I was just a little distracted.) I'm making it my crusade to tell everyone about this book now. Bryson has taken almost every branch of science and presents the major discoveries and theories in an understandable, fascinating way. Newton's Laws of Motion? Yup, makes sense. What DNA is? I got it. Theory of Relativity? Well, yeah, I see that now!

If only my high school science textbooks and teachers had been this interesting, I might have become a meteorologist after all. :)

Oooh, twice in less than a month!

HA! I know, lame. Anyway....

I'm totally hating this weather. Call me a spoil sport, but September should still be hot and super sunny and have me fantasizing about putting in an in-ground pool in the backyard. It should NOT be cool and damp and kind of gray. We've had the windows open all week and no AC (which I won't complain about - my refund check from CDE is going to ROCK!) but come on - it's SEPTEMBER. The whole of August got away from me without me wanting to go to the beach once. NOT ONCE. I have to suffer through August to get the reward of the beach in September................Oh, I get it. We don't get to go to the beach this September, so I don't have to suffer. Well, okay. I'll quit complaining. (Don't hold your breath.)

I also have a terrible craving to clean the entire house, top to bottom. Like moving furniture and mopping under beds and washing walls kind of cleaning. However, I have three dirty children and a dirty dog and a husband who doesn't get enthusiastic about such cravings, and oh yeah, I'm supposed to educate said kids every day, which seriously cuts into my cleaning time. So instead of actually doing what is bugging me, I just have to let it bug me.

In good news, I have scrapbooked in the past month. Chris and I talked about how the kids want the computer whenever we'll let them have it, and the computer desk is where my scrapbooking supplies were, so we were constantly competing. We decided to rearrange shelves (I LOVE to rearrange) and moved my scrap stuff to the shelves behind my homeschool table, and moved curriculum that's not currently in use to the big shelves above the computer. It looks pretty, but I admit I've only done about 4 pages. Here's the only 8 1/2 X 11 I've done:


It was fun to dig through all my stuff and just throw a bunch of things on there. I'm having to seriously reconsider how I scrapbook, because I have begun to realize that if I stick to the formula and style I have been using, the kids will have to move into one bedroom so I'll have storage for all my scrapbooks. I don't think that will go over well, so I guess I'll have to be the one who compromises. Still thinking about this.

Okay, off to study Venus and Mercury!

Babbling again

It can't hurt to try keeping up with this thing again. And at the very least it is more productive and reasonable than playing Bejeweled for 30 minutes (cough cough).

We started homeschooling again this week after a record two month break, which I desperately needed. Things have gone very well so far. We've rearranged the schedule so that we start with history and science, the kids' two favorite subjects, in the morning, then go on to the other stuff from there. That means all 3 of them are enthusiastic about getting going; last year I had to cajole and threaten to get them to their desks in the morning. Now they're starting before I am - they've finally figured out that if they get their handwriting, spelling and other independent work done before we sit down to do history/science, they have less to do after lunch. Smart little critters.

I'm not as fond of getting out of bed early, however. I need to drag myself up and work in some exercise somewhere, but that isn't happening yet. Maybe if I can get to the point where I sleep through the night, I can. I'm reallllllllllly done with waking up at 3 am each morning. I've taken to just getting up at that point and reading for about an hour, then dozing back off, but the disruption is still annoying. Exercise would probably help, wouldn't it? Damn.

Another exciting thing to look forward to soon: Girl Scouts! My Brownie troop will start in September, but we're planning an ice cream social before then to handle registration and kickoff stuff. Lillie will have her own Daisy troop this year, and their ice cream social is Aug. 16. She is giddy thinking about having her own troop. I wish I felt like I could lead hers as well, but I think just volunteering will be fine for now.

Time to read to the littlest.