Not Another Homeschool Blog

Today was one of those kids of days that I completely despise.  Spring in the south in completely exasperating to me, and it looks like it is going to start early... that means TORNADOES.  So the day was spent watching the news, keeping track of tornado watches and running errands when it looked safest. (Of course errands were kept to a bare minimum.) I just watched a news segment that shows what they do in the schools during this kind of weather.  When it is determined that a tornado is within a certain distances (up to a half hour away), kids are lined up in hallways and positioned facing walls, on their knees with their butts in the air. Now, the buildings are seldom strong enough to stand up against a tornado (which I don't understand at all... we should have schools made from monolithic domes in this part of the country), so I don't know see how being in the butt-up position is going to help kids any more than hopping around on one foot.  I actually like th...

I am very proud of my daughter.  She's apparently the type that you either love or hate.  I prefer that type of person to the type that would rather be invisible than to risk being disliked. Reading over her adjudication sheets from this weekend, it is clear that in each case, one of the two judges LOVED what she did and the other DID NOT!.  I find it very interesting as I am seeing a pattern.  The exact same thing happened in her competitions from the fall. So, in reading the comments, I was directed to look at who the comments came from and understand it from that point of view.  I can tell you in once case, the person wrote that she should not preface a piece, but jump into to it.  Well, she did jump into it... what they thought was an aside was actually part of the monologue, and so the judge did not know what she was judging. A grain of salt. Also, let's keep in mind that she was suffering from laryngitis,  and so one of the judges that ju...

Whopper of a migraine today... I am afraid that I could still have lingering effects of the flu (2 weeks later), but who has time for that? I hope I feel Ok through the errands I have to run tomorrow.  Tuesday is a long-long day for me. My dogs are officially geriatric.  One may have heart issues.  A very expensive ultrasound will tell me more. Still trying to sort out what I will do after I am done homeschooling.  I have come to realize that my idea of helping other homeschoolers can be no more than a labor of love.  The people who actually need my help can't pay for it.  So, I will need to either need to find my own funding to do it full time, or do it very part time in addition to a job. Daughter is finally herself, I think, after being sick.  Still got my fingers and toes crossed that she stays healthy for the rest of the school year, most especially, the rest of the month. I think I'm being too retrospective about our homeschooling journ...

It is nearly 5 pm on Sunday and I'm still in bed. I did get up for a couple hours to buy groceries and cook brunch. My daughter and I got home at 1:30 am hopped up on sugar after stopping for a group get-together at a 24 hr restaurant on the way home from her competition. A lot was learned this weekend. We gained a lot of insight that should help make the final college choice easier and she got to try out her audition pieces in front of a large audience and get feedback from theater professionals. We were actually there to compete but after much tears and a bit of an emotional breakdown, daughter had to come to grips with the fact that she was not going to cut mustard because of her lingering side effects from the flu. Once we got past that, she was able to accept that her best this weekend was not going to be good enough to go home with a plaque but it would be good enough to get valuable feedback she could use in the coming weeks. If you are the praying type please rem...

My daughter has been on vocal rest all week, and will be through the weekend to make sure she is able to sing in her full range when she gets on stage.  It seems she got the secondary infection (after the flu) that we fought so hard to prevent.  There has been some improvement though... it's looking good.  Cross your fingers for her. Meanwhile, treatments to help her get her voice back have been....  messy and interesting. She has to 1. Gargle 2. Breath steam 3. Use a netti pot (yes, we have to pour saline water into her nose and watch it come out the other side!) 4.  Use Ricola cough drops or put a drop of tea tree oil in the back of the throat.

I meant to write about this a few weeks ago when my son returned for second semester. I had spent the latter half of the holiday break going over his classes and ordering books. I went to the bookstore, got the list of books and their corresponding code and searching the web for these books. At first accounting, the books cost over $500 and that did not include art supplies. His biology book set alone cost $200 and English was $120 and psychology was over $100. I was pretty annoyed because finances were spare at the moment and I didn't know how I was doing to fund this semesters' books. I tackled the most expensive first finding the individual books of the set online for very little. I was able to purchase the lab book and online study guide access code for about $49, and we asked around and got a friend to lone him the textbook. Next, we realized that he already owned the books for one of his art classes as they were the same books from the previous semester. (We wer...

Forbes.com says homeschooling is a good way to "tell the state to stick it". I guess..... It goes hand in hand with my observation that most homeschoolers in my neck of the woods are anti Obama hence all of a sudden, anti government, and all of the noise that goes along with it.  The article goes on to describe homeschoolers as " The God-fearing, flag-waiving, gun-toting homeschool crowd (that)  embodies the American spirit of mutual self-reliance." and " Christians aghast over an academic establishment overrun by progressives." This is not necessarily my experience, but I do understand that there are homeschoolers around me that feel that way.  It kind of makes it hard when I don't necessarily agree with the rhetoric.  So let's take the fact that I don't fit into my immediate homeschool community for this reason, and others.  Then consider the notion that homeschooling (in the way that we approached) it is a microcosm of public school...