Right now, I’m reading A Writer’s Coach: An Editor’s Guide to Words That Work
For even more entertainment, I’m reading about dead bodies in Concealed in Death
What’s for dinner tonight? Don’t know? What about tomorrow? It can be really frustrating when your family actually wants food night after night, but it’s even more so when you have to plan day-to-day. Or worse — shop day-to-day. Experts say the best way to save money (and your sanity, I might add) is to shop with a list.
That list doesn’t do you much good, though, if the only thing on it is milk, bread, and chocolate chip cookies. (Don’t worry. I’m not going to suggest you skip the chocolate chip cookies. I wouldn’t mind if you threw one this way, though.) With eMeals, you not only get a weekly meal plan, you get a fabulous app that generates a shopping list for you! You can even add your own items to the list! (Don’t forget those cookies!) Continue reading
B: Why do I keep getting sick? Does the virus come along and say, “Hey, he looks good. I’ll eat him,” and jump on my head?
Me: Um…something like that.
J: What do you call a cow with no legs?
B: Steak.
J: No. Well, yeah. But no.
B: It’s okay when other people smile, but when you do it, it’s creepy.
Blake, after checking the battery level on his tablet: All the percent is almost gone.
B, all in one breath:I like helping people. Like you and Daddy and Jack. Like putting up my clothes and holding doors and stuff. Like for you and Daddy and Jack. And myself. I just put the stuff down and open the door.
Finally pausing: Why don’t other people just do that?
So there you go. If you’d just put the stuff down, you could open the door.
J: Blake please leave me alone for a while! Mama, please tell Blake to leave me alone for a while!
B, crying: You don’t love me anymore!
Me: he still loves you. He just needs some time alone sometimes. You can hang out with me.
B: but I want to be with Jack.
Me: But he doesn’t want to be with you right now.
B, still crying: But Jack makes the best toast in the world.
Me: Um, okay. But he still wants to be alone right now.
As homeschoolers, we all do those things that may be a little off-center. You know what I’m talking about. Those things that are normal to us, but may make others look at us and say, “You may be a homeschooler…” So link up and tell us what you did or said this week that made you or someone else say, “You may be a homeschooler…”
Jack and I have been watching Star Trek, starting with the original series. We were watching an episode in which Kirk and Bones are talking about the History Officer, and mention that one day, she’ll get married and leave the service. Jack and I ended up having a discussion about how in the sixties, the paradigm was just beginning to shift from women working until they married, then staying home. Even in what was supposed to be more than three hundred years later, you can see that the series is a product of the era in which it was made.
You might be a homeschooler if you use Star Trek to start women’s right discussions.
Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community –- librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types –- in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.
Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982 according to the American Library Association. — http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/
As it turns out, the number one challenged book (well, series, really) in 2013 was Captain Underpants, which my boys happen to love. I’m such a bad mommy.
In the event that you are as horrible as I am, and like to read things that others want to tell you you shouldn’t, I’m giving away a signed paperback copy of Love Comes Later by Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar. This is a banned book with a twist. As a foreigner living in Qatar, Mohana made a special effort to make this book as unobjectionable as possible. There is no sex, no foul language, nothing that would cause the book to be banned. Except, apparently, the fact that it’s written about Qatar by a foreigner. Continue reading
As homeschoolers, we all do those things that may be a little off-center. You know what I’m talking about. Those things that are normal to us, but may make others look at us and say, “You may be a homeschooler…” So link up and tell us what you did or said this week that made you or someone else say, “You may be a homeschooler…”
So, Thursday night, we read a book about bees Blake had gotten from the library. When we were done reading, I had more answers than questions: if every bee in the hive is the child of the queen, how do new hives get started? How many larvae get the royal jelly and grow up to be queens? How do the new queens get to their new hives, and how is there a group to take with them if they don’t have any children of their own yet?
So, of course, we had to look it up. I pulled out my phone, and we found a good answer online. I didn’t keep searching, but as that answer made sense to me, we didn’t feel the need to do so. Besides, amidst the original search results was a YouTube video, and Blake wanted to to check that out.
So we did, and watched a guy load a shipment of bees into his new hive. Then we watched another video in which another beekeeper showed us his relatively new hive (only two weeks old, I think), and how quickly the bees were building honeycomb. That led us to watching his earlier videos in which he actually built the hive.
By this time, it was after 10:30, and neither of us could keep our eyes open. But now I want a beehive.
Me: Now I want to beehive.
B: It will take a long time First we have to get a white suit, then we have to get a queen.
You might be a homeschooler if you use YouTube as late-night curriculum.
How about you?
The theme of this week is –
Who are your favorite supporting characters?
Join our group HERE to find out next week’s theme!
My favorite supporting characters are the whole gang from J.D. Robb’s In Death series. All of them: the cops, the friends, the whatever-you-want-to-call-Summerset. I not only love the way Robb writes the characters themselves, but the way the friendships and relationships have evolved over the years.