blossoms

Some of you may be enjoying fall already. Although we have had a break in temps (it's only 88 right now!), my flowers are still loving a long summer.

proud of me

I've left the aforementioned mommy forum for good. Really for good since I can't remember my password! Long rant short, there's an Ezzo mom there and it's just too painful. I've been there for 5 years and always passed along AP info. But for the past year an Ezzo mom has been very vocal. It really breaks my heart. It started with recommending flicking baby's cheek if she bites while nursing and it just got more horrific from there.

Anyway, I have left this forum before, because of this, but gone back because of the real friendships I'd formed with most of them. But this time it's for good. It was hard, and yet not hard KWIM? A few of them are on myspace anyway.

My peg appears to be a rhombus...

Test - photos

Just testing. Darlene said I couldn't post this on myspace. She didn't say anything about my blog. :)

Impatiently waiting for the arrival of Little Jason Jr or Stella Marie,
Aunt Penny

Unschooly movie

We just watch Accepted. The writers obvioulsy have a fixation with the word "shit", but if you can get past that, it's a great story. Basicly a guy doesn't get into college & takes the college money from his dad & makes up a college. It slowly but surely evolves into a very real "uncollege", w/ some very unschooly themes.

A day in our life

Somone on Louisiana unschoolers began a "our day" thread, and I wanted to repost my reply here.

DH Greg leaves for work @ 6:30am. I try to be up by 8:30 to have some time before DS Gregory (9) gets up, but that doesn't always happen. I start my day w/coffee, devotionals, and email, including checking for new soap orders. Gregory is up by 9:30 and heads straight for my lap :) . He sits there until he can't wait any longer to pee . Then he's off running around with the dog. By the time he's done devouring some peanut butter sandwiches or oatmeal, it's his turn @ the computer. He's very into Webkins right now. He takes care of his panda there, often while taking care of his tomagachi as well. Then he's off to his room to read his huge pokemon book while playing the latest pokemon game he's rented from Gamefly (he pays out of his allowance), and often watching a pokemon episode as well. Somewhere in there will usually be a SpongeBob episode or 2.

DH comes home for lunch, and DS has recently begun cooking (we usually have burgers) w/me. We do a spot clean of the house, get the floor swept, our hair combed, etc. The house always looks lived in, but I try to be sure that the mess DH comes home to is not the same mess he left behind LOL! DH loves the show How It's Made, and it happens to be on at lunch time, so we'll have that on while he's home. DH, DS, and the dog usually have a bit of play time before DH goes back to work.

Three or 4 days a week, our afternoons are spent out - post office, shopping, field trips, park day. If I have a soap order, he likes to help me pull the
inventory and package it, then we are off to the post office. Trips to WalMart always entail bringing allowance money, price-checking the latest games, figuring how much more he needs to save, how long it'll take to save that much, etc. We talk about choosing best prices, nutritional value, marketing ploys, goodness we are always talking! Recent field trips include a visit to a small post office, a hands-on pottery demonstration, checking out a homeschol kung fu group (he's not interested), and learning to crochet over the summer(a class taught by a homechool mom for any interested kids & moms. I'm now teaching myself to knit as well.)

DH is home about 6 and we try to do dinner before 7pm. Gregory has recently been bit by the cooking bug. Last night he made spagetti & meat sauce. After dinner ny 2 guys will usually do something together - a bike ride, play a video game, wash the truck, work on whatever household project is going on,
etc. I get about an hour or so alone most evenings. My guilty pleasure during that time is watching a CSI/Law & Order show. It's my time to veg. Then we usually watch a movie together (love Netflix!). Our collection and taste in movies vary greatly. Some family favorites are Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Abbott & Costello, Jerry Lewis, John Wayne, John Candy, Bill Murray, etc. I married into a movie family. My in-laws, DH & DS can see a movie once and they remember such detail! DS loves to take a DVD and watch everything on it - outtakes, how it's done, etc. He learns so much from watching movies.

Bed time for DH is 10pm. He rarely makes that, but that's his story and he's sticking to it (more like 11 or 11:30). Gregory & I are the night owls, usually up until 1am or later. If I'm ready for sleep & Gregory isn't, he'll just watch TV or play until he is (that is rare). Then we get up next morning & have a completely different, although similar, day.

And I know that we do many things everyday that I am not remembering right
now. :)

Punkin the Tiger Kitty (LSU Tailgating)

SCHOOL SUCKS

For the last 3 days I have been helping a friend that's in a true bind. Three of her children have been sleeping at my house. So come 6:30 in the forsaken AM, I have to get up. Then I have to wake them up. Then I have to feed them, tell them and help them get dressed, teeth brushed, hair combed, shoes on, potty?, where's your booksack?, come on let's go! OH, and don't forget to take your "medicine" . Rush, rush, rush, rush, phooey! And then right smack in the middle of my day, I get to go back to retrieve them. Then it's rush them home, rush myself home, make dinner and get my family fed, relax for about half an hour, then go pick them up again to sleep at our house so I can get them to school the next day. All of the time they spend at home (all of 4 hours)is spent fighting over getting homework done.

For quite some time, these kids have made no secret of how they envy Gregory's not having to go to school. Lately, they've said they want me to homeschool them (Yeah, Right!). Yesterday afternoon my friend asked me some questions about the cost of homeschooling. So we talked about the basics - our state laws, using PS curic., using full curics., using bits and pieces, and a very basic description of unschooling. Truth is, I spend less than $50 per month on things that could be considered related to homeschooling (field trips, mag. subscriptions). She said her kids are always saying they want to be homeschooled. In fact they say they want me to homeschool them "because Gregory is so smart!" Wow. That suprised me. Not that they think he's smart, he is smart, but I was not expecting that to be their main reason. I'd love to see her homeschool. Now, she's one of the most mainstream people I know. We parent very differently. I'm sure she'd be a school-at-homer, but it would still be so great to see them out of school. I know she'd love to get them off medication. Over time she has stopped spanking (still punishing tho), stopped letting her babies cry (she's had 4 since I've known her), and even allows some co-sleeping now and then, so there is hope. Baby steps...

Church...

I wish I'd have had my camera at church last weekend. We have about 30 minutes of great jump-up-and-down worship before bible study. It's a very active crowd, and it's often the most excercise I get all week :) . Anyhoo, I spotted a scene right up front that I wish I'd have been able to photograph. Right in the front row I see two hands in the air in worship. One man had his left hand in the air. His long sleeved light blue oxford was freshly pressed. Immidiately to his left stood a man with his right hand in the air. His roughly tanned arm was covered in tatoos. To see those two arms, the oxford and the tatoos, raised in worship beside each other summed up what I loved about my church so well. All are welcome. It is a no snob zone.

We have peanut butter!!

Our lives changed on February 14, 2007:
"The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning consumers not to eat certain jars of Peter Pan peanut butter or Great Value peanut butter due to risk of contamination with Salmonella Tennessee (a bacterium that causes foodborne illness). The affected jars of Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter have a product code located on the lid of the jar that begins with the number "2111." "

I don't know about you, but my child is made of peanut butter. It's the one thing that I could always turn to when he was picky and hungry. And suddenly it was gone. No other peanut butter would do. He settled for peanut butter crackers, but that's pre-packaged with who knows what, and I knew the nutritional value could not be compared. In May I read that the company was hoping to begin production in July. I told Gregory that, and he said that I'd better not get him peanut butter for his birthday (late in July). Truth is, he'd have been thrilled to have it for his birthday. I later read that they were aiming for late August. Imagine if you can my amazement when I saw Peter Pan peanut butter on the shelves of WallyWorld Saturday. Can I tell you that I had tears in my eyes thinking about coming home and making my child a peanut butter sandwich? I felt like Walter Fielding in Money Pit discovering they have stairs - "We have peanut butter!"

Now I'll have to start buying more bread again!

I am a Violet What Flower Are You?