And sometimes not deep...

I think I'm on a roll here. This one is just going to be a little daybook-y though. Everything can't be controversial, if everything was then nothing would be. Think about that for a sec.

My kids are at theatre currently auditioning for the latest show, Captain Louie. Jake wants to be Captain Louie really badly.

I've been on a Zumba kick lately. It's only taken me 42 1/2 years to find an exercise that I actually enjoy. I'm considering not going to the gym today though, the timing of the Zumba class isn't right for me. I could've gone to body flow this morning, but I opted to stay home and make sure my kids did school because I was leaving later to go out to lunch.

In lieu of the gym, I might do wii fit. Or I might just sit here on the computer until it's time to make dinner and pick up the kids from theatre.

We are having chicken piccata with egg noodles and broccoli for dinner. It's an emeals thing.

School is going well and for the most part no one is behind yet. I am determined to keep it that way all year! Jonathan's excessive volunteering at the theatre has been the main culprit in the past. This year I plan to keep an eye on everything so we don't end up nearing summer with more than 1/2 a math class still to be completed. Jake is doing the second half of the American History he did last year throwing in extra state and president stuff. We have a cookbook with recipes from every state. The other night we made "star of the north bars" in honor of Minnesota coming in to the union. They were YUMMY!! He's got all the regular stuff too, spelling, language, and science from Catholic Heritage, plus a faith thing online and Teaching Textbooks math. Madi is doing English 1 H at the local high school (9th grade center actually). She likes her teacher, but is disappointed by how little the other students answer questions. I get the feeling that she answers enough to help her teacher not feel bad that no one is answering and not so much so she doesn't look like one of those "weird homeschoolers". Then she comes home all dressed and ready to go all before 9am. She has Physical Science, Teaching Textbooks Algebra, Health Opportunities in Physical Education (like health and PE) on-line, Spanish 2 on-line, and Understanding the Scriptures with Jonathan. The jury is still out on if she'll take another class at the school second semester. Jonathan has the same health PE thing as Madi and the Scripture thing, plus English 3 H on-line, College Prep Genius (SAT prep), Chemistry (we just got the rest of it in the mail today so we will start tomorrow), and US History. I LOVE his history. he started with AP US History on-line. It was way too much about the test. Yes, I know AP is all about the test, but Jonathan and I both agree there is way too much good stuff in US History that was going to be glossed over in favor of teaching to the test, so we dropped it and bought this. We're just a few days into it, but we are both really happy with our decision! He will also do Pre-Calc, most likely with Teaching Textbooks, but possibly on-line. He's taking a little break from math right now (though there's lots of math in SAT prep anyway) since he did so much math this summer. Also there is nothing above Algebra 2 on the SAT and PSAT and in this case (when it involves possible scholarships) the test is key.

We've gone on two field trips already this year (7 days into school), two local museums had free homeschool days, so we jumped on that.

Madi had a very scary thing happen last week. She had some kind of allergic reaction that caused major hives and vomiting. She got over it in about an hour, but I'm still dealing with it. We don't know what caused it or why it happened. It very likely will never happen again, but since she has some autoimmune tendencies, I'm going to be on high alert for a while. It's always something. We are turning the corner into fall and the boys' birthdays and Madi finally had her 14 year old pictures taken today. Her BFF, Hannah, is her photographer and while they've had many opportunities to get some pics over the last 5 months, they finally did it today. It took me telling Madi I was going to use this (which I love) as her 14 year old pic.

So today they took these...





Isn't she the cutest thing?!

Could be a can of worms...

Well, my three readers humored me with my last post so now I just might become a controversial blogger! There's always so much controversy in my mind I might as well let a little of it leak out. Today's issue involves broken hearts. There's a prevailing school of thought around these parts about the theory of 'courtship' vs dating. I have some feelings for it and some feelings against it, but that's a discussion for another time. Today's discussion centers around the reason for courtship that involves trying to prevent your children from getting their heart broken. This sounds good doesn't it? Who doesn't want to prevent their kid from getting hurt? There is nothing more painful than watching your kid hurt. Just since I started typing this, Jake fell off his ripstick in the neighbors' garage and is crying his head off. His spirit is bruised as much as his knee. This is hard for me to take especially when I've got a blog post on the brain and I'm a little rusty when it comes to getting the words out. But frustration aside, I still don't want to see my baby hurting! Here's the thing though, back to courtship... broken hearts don't only come from "date material". You can choose to try to protect your kid from getting hurt, but it's probably not going to work. Broken hearts can come from all kinds of places, the friends you've grown up with who've made some bad choices, the mom you've looked up to who's left her family and has a new boyfriend. People are imperfect. Life with people is full of hurt. It's hard to try to make sense of some of this stuff as adults, it's harder still when you're trying to raise your kids in the midst of it. We've boasted for years about the closeness of our community. We're raising our kids in the metaphorical village. The more people you are close to the more chance you have for love, and growth, and knowledge, and fun... and hurt. The more people you are close to the more challenging it is to react and respond and reach out when they mess up. It is a challenge for me anyway. I'm just blundering along trying to figure it out, thankfully I have my kids to help me.

An illustration of some of my thoughts on my last post...

Controversy

Since my last post's title was about taking the plunge, this one could be about biting the bullet. A few minutes ago I had this realization about my lack of blogging. I mean besides the typical busy life and facebook is easier kind of realizations. The things that I most want to write about are fairly controversial. This is a challenge for a nonconfrontational type of person such as myself. Some of the things that I feel most passionate about are in no particular order... when I find myself in a church that doesn't have a tabernacle I can't help but feel tremendously sad about what the parishioners are missing; how our family often feels like we have more in common with more public schoolers than homeschoolers these days; how when I voted the other day and the volunteer said "oh I see you have no party affiliation" and my reply was "and I'm proud of it"... and how I feel strongly that Jesus would have no party affiliation either; how much I hate guns; how I feel very strongly that marriage is between a man and a woman, but I still find myself a little middle of the road on the whole chick-fil-a controversy...we all sin, plenty of men and women manage to make a mockery out of the sacrament of matrimony, and I could go on and on. Put another way I'm going to keep going to chick-fil-a and loving it, but my kids are going to keep doing theatre (where the definitions of these things are a little looser) and we love that too! How I feel it's important not to shelter kids from bad things because exposure and good conversations can be the best teacher. How's that for a little controversy on a Friday afternoon? That's only the tip of the iceberg!

It's my blog and I'll rant if I want to. You are more than welcome to diasgree with me, but I'd rather not see the disagreements in the comment box.

I took the plunge!

Madi is registered for one class at the local public High School. It is English 1 Honors first period. There are some really good perks to this, specifically that the class goes from 7:20- 8:50. This means Madi will be up and dressed with one class under her belt by 9:00. On Wednesdays she'll be done by 8:25. I'm actually getting pretty excited about this. She has been wanting to do this, and now I think I'm glad that she pushed for it. It will be an adventure. Another benefit is that with block scheduling she will be done with English for the year by Christmas. By then we'll have had plenty of time to evaluate and see if she's going to take another class in the spring. It feels very "college-y" to be doing this. The ability to utilize the public school system as it suits us is another huge benefit of homeschooling.

Annie and Warbucks

Killing time

Jake and I are having a fairly lazy day. He felt a little feverish this morning and at 5:30 is still in his jammies. I went to the gym, brought Jonathan to and from the theatre, but haven't done much more than that myself. I did help Jonathan try to navigate his AP US History virtual school course. I can't yet tell if this is going to be a lot of fun or impossibly hard. Madi and Hannah are at Meme and Grampa Carlie's from last night until tomorrow morning. While Madi was frolicking in the sand I was expecting a few phone calls that had me a little stressed. The first one was from the nurse at the pediatrician's office about Madi's latest blood work. Her thyroid numbers have been "off" for about 2 1/2 years and we've been trying to normalize it while avoiding medication for that long. We're succeeding!! The nurse called back and the numbers are better than ever! I guess we'll keep buying the super expensive tropical supplement that seems to be doing the trick. I think the coconut oil is helping too. Incidently, coconut oil is expensive for oil, but WWAAAYYY cheaper than the Limu juice. (Also coconut oil is a lot cheaper at Walmart than Publix.) The second call I was waiting for hasn't been returned. It was to the guidance counselor at the local high school. Since it's pushing 6pm, I'm guessing I won't be hearing from that woman today. Madi is very eager to take a class at the high school. I'm trying hard not to act like Marlin in Finding Nemo. Madi thrives with competition, so I know this will be good for her. I'm just not ready to be at the mercy of the school schedule. She'd not ready to relinquish all her freedom either, as seen by her only looking to take one class right now. We have to actually get in touch with the guidance counselor to get things rolling though. Well I got on here while I was trying to decide what to do about dinner. It's just me and Jake and he'd offered to buy dinner at least for himself, but since he doesn't know where his wallet is, the $2 he got for mowing the lawn yesterday isn't going to go very far. Jonathan is home now, and is eating some bbq pork, but there's not a lot of that. He will be leaving soon for more theatre business. Mike has been travelling far too much. Aside from missing him terribly, I've not been in a good meal planning routine. Theatre and a week-long evening vbs haven't helped that any. We are pretty low on groceries and even lower on motivation. I'm currently leaning toward frozen pizza.

More agony

Newsies--Jake

Agony!

Cinderella On the Steps of the Palace

Last quiet summer morning

Today is the last day of summer camp. Last night was opening night for Into the Woods Jr. It was great! Madi was a beautiful Cinderella (even though she felt like it was a boy wig), and Jake stole the show as Rapunzel's Prince. I have two batches of brownies in the oven for concessions, and a sleeping theatre baby on the floor next to me. I am uploading a few videos of last night, but won't post them until after my parents get to see it in person tomorrow night. Speaking of my parents, today is their 44th anniversary! Last time the kids did Into the Woods, Mike was recovering from pancreatitis, needless to say neither of us have great memories of that show. This one is much better!! Jonathan made a dvd slideshow of pictures from the 4 weeks of summer camp and is selling them at the shows. He's found a way to financially support is incessant volunteering. He is saving up for a laptop (a mac), and will then be able to make and sell cooler things. I think he should have enough money very soon, this will help in so many ways, not the least of which is some of his virtual school classes will be starting next week and I want to be able to get on my own computer once in a while. Sadly for Jonathan he spent his entire life savings when he was 12 (or was it 13?) on a laptop that no longer works. He is counting on this not happening with a mac. Brownies are done, baby's awake, I guess that means time's up!!

Senior tour