Poor Ed

How come when my husband sets out to do a relatively simple household task it somehow takes FIVE TIMES as long as it should? Now I'm not blaming him really. It's a phenomenon that I simply do not understand. For instance, he went outside to mow the lawn about an hour and a half ago and has yet to actually begin to mow the lawn. I heard him weed whacking, which seemed to go smoothly enough. But for the last hour it's been silent outside. He just came in to tell me that he's going to run to Home Depot to get a new battery for the lawn tractor. Again, I'm not blaming him...as a matter of fact, it turns out that I'm the one to blame for the completely fried, totally dead, unresponsive battery. While Ed was in Mobile Alabama I thought about mowing the lawn. After coming to my senses and shoving all thoughts of lawn maintenance from my mind I apparently left the key turned in the ignition which sucked ALL of the life out of the battery. This particular battery has been finicky for some time and my negligence simply put it over the edge. Oops. Still, it always seems that something hinders Ed's ability to just do the job. I feel a little sorry for him. It's like the poor guy can't get a break. So now instead of taking an hour to do the lawn it'll be more like THREE hours by the time he's finished. He and his laid back personality just take things in stride while I want to go out and KICK that foolish tractor for giving my man a hard time!

We've come to a turning point, I believe, in Katie's homeschooling. We decided late (1 week before school started) that we were going to homeschool her for all subjects except math. I took the recommendation of some friends about a curriculum to use. So we ordered it and felt fine about our decision. However, as we began to use the curriculum and deal with the increasing frustration of the online academy it became clear that we needed to make some changes. To make a loooong story shorter I'll just say that we've revamped our curriculum choice and mixed things up a bit. I found this amazing science curriculum online and CAN NOT wait until it comes and we can begin using it! And yesterday at Barnes & Noble I was browsing through the Spark Notes which are kind of like Cliff Notes only more intelligent. I found one for S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders. Remember that book and movie!? It was awesome! So I bought the book for Katie and the Spark Notes for me and we're going to do a study of the themes, characters, motifs, etc. in the book and she'll do a literary analysis on some part of it as well. This is what we call
'supplementing the curriculum.' It's also one of the best parts of homeschooling. The ability to take something that interests us and turn it into education! We're also mixing up the Social Studies thing a bit too as well as adding Spanish 1 to her daily lessons. All in all we'll be using a different homeschool publisher for every subject she does. What a learning process this is but when the right combination of materials is found the excitement of homeschooling really takes hold! I'm feeling more confident in our decision to keep Katie home.

Allison continues to thrive in kindergarten. I love her sweet stories about different things she's learning as well as songs and rhymes. She has an amazing memory and after hearing a story or song ONE time is able to repeat it almost word for word. She's also so pleased with herself for following the rules and earning rewards (prize box, stickers, etc.) for doing it. I'm proud of her. Becky is enjoying school as well and her teacher has all good things to say about her. One area I've noticed a bit of struggling for her is MAP READING. I'm surprised by this because reading maps is all about logic. I guess lots of people struggle with this though. I'll be talking with her teacher about some extra worksheets or something to help her along with this. I personally have never had a hard time with map reading and so I think I'll be able to offer her some help here. Other than that she's plowing through her work without any difficulties.

Soccer games and a birthday party this weekend. And maybe a couple of household projects....maybe.