Seven Quick Takes

 

~1~

Do you give up on books? I'm in the middle of one that I'm really trying to get through though it's terribly boring. I keep telling myself that it's okay to put it aside and start something else, but every night I try to read a bit more out of guilt. Do you stop reading? where is your limit? Superman gives a fiction book 30 pages.

 

 

~2~

 

Ezra's birthday is coming up soon and I've started an impossible list of projects I'd like to make before then. A tent, new pajamas, a fabric book, there are just too many good choices and fabrics and I can't choose! I suppose I'll start with the thing I'm most excited to give him and then work down from there- we'll see how much gets done in the next month.

 

 

~3~

 

My mom's knee surgery went well on Wednesday. She can't bear weight on it until Sunday, but after that the recovery time is supposed to be swift. I haven't killed any of her plants yet, so all is well on my end.

 

 

~4~

 

I have been back at the garage sales this weekend and I found a few Little House readers that I don't have along with the Shiloh trilogy by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. After seeing the books I've collected in the last few weeks Superman announced that we need to buy a house with a library. I agree!

 

 

~5~

 

Breakfast of choice around here has been a fruit smoothie- yogurt, bananas, strawberries, blueberries- whatever is on hand goes in the blender! I may have also had a bit of left over cherry cobbler from last night, but adults are allowed that kind of breakfast right? There's fruit . . . and stuff . . . yeah, my 3-year-old didn't buy it either.

 

 

~6~

 

I am reading a TON in the archives over at the 4Real forums. I'm trying to think ahead a little bit about how we want education to look as the kids get older and into "real" school and the archives on those boards are great. The more I read the more it confirms in my mind that I am not a boxed curriculum kind of gal, and maybe not even curriculum kind of gal. I would have to amend so many things and change everything to fit us, and at that point it probably wouldn't even look like curriculum anymore. Now to present the idea of "no formal math book for awhile" to Superman and see how that goes.

 

 

~7~

 

Speaking of math, Ender is finally showing a little bit of interest in numbers! I was starting to think the day would never come- he's so fascinated with letters and words right now that he completely ignores anything else. It's all because of Uno. We had friends over last weekend to play cards and I realized that we needed a few new decks since ours are getting pretty worn. While looking for our cards I saw a deck of uno cards and thought we'd give it a try. Wanna guess what we play 50 times  a day?

 

We started out with just the number cards for a few days until he got used to those rules, and then we added in the color change cards, the reverse cards, etc. He doesn't really understand the purpose of the draw 2 and draw 4 cards yet, so we've left those off for now.

 

 

Go visit Jen for more Quick Takes!

Growing

This has been my "when I have a spare 5 minutes" project. I can pick it up and put it down at a moment's notice during the day and it doesn't take a ton of concentration on my end. I always seem to need a project like that, you know? It helps my spirit to keep a creative thing going during days of laundry, teaching, mothering, and cleaning even if I don't have a big block of time to devote to crafting. I started it on the car ride to our little weekend get-away a few weeks ago and the project has been growing row by row- sometimes only 1 row in a day, but that's still progress, right?

 

 I'm sure this would have been a faster knit if I'd had real time to devote to it. As far as level, I'm definitely still a beginner- I have to look up terms as I go along sometimes, and I'm not terribly fast yet, but the pattern has worked up pretty easily and there hasn't been too much trauma or worry on my end.

 

In all it's odd shaped unblocked curliness:

 

Garage Sale Finds

I spent the early mornings of the weekend at garage sales hunting books. Books are a serious obsession for me- I ask for books for every birthday and Christmas every year that I can remember. The most memorable birthday for me was when my parents had exactly one present for me: a BOX of books- at least a hundred it seemed to me! I remember specifically Mr. Popper's Penguins, a few Boxcar Children books, and the beginnings of the Mandie series by Lois Gladys Leppard (there weren't many yet- I remember waiting for them as they all came out.)



A friend called me Wednesday night to tell me about a sale she'd seen advertised that was being given by a retiring first grade teacher. Oh, the treasure I picked up there! Most every book was in excellent condition or better; several looked as though they'd only been handled once or twice.



A few new alphabet books (an additional copy of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom for us since ours has some pretty significant wear and tear) and some Magic School Bus books:

Several Classic Titles:





Math, Mazes and I Spy:





Science and Dr. Seuss:







And last, a stack of "Kindergarten journals" (large lined pages, many with just one line at the bottom and a big open space at the top of the page for the student to draw a picture), some cool wooden cars, a scale, another dominoes set (because Ender always seems to need more dominoes) and Jingle Bugs. I love those bug books!





The paperbacks were .50 a piece and the hardcovers were $1 each so I think I did pretty well. The boys have already been into the box looking through all the new books and the scale has seen A LOT of use since we picked it up last Thursday, weighing everything from crackers to dominoes to train tracks.