Home Spun comic strip #417

Home Spun comic strip #416

Home Spun comic strip #415

Homeschooling parents. We're a talkative lot. Put us together in one place and we can chatter on. I think this is because we spend so much time with kids we crave adult talk. Especially when those adults have an idea what we are going through and love homeschooling as much as we do. When you tell a homeschooler you are tired and burnt out, they never suggest putting the kids back in school.

Home Spun comic strip #414

I know I am very lucky that Chase looks up to his big sister. She has convinced him to read way more books and series than I have. Now that she works in the library, I think his reading has improved by leaps and bounds.

Frankly, I think we're all reading more now.

Another Night Visitor

We had a visit from our other skunk two nights ago. We call this one Flame.

This one is slightly larger than Flare. And if anyone is worried about me for walking among skunks, I will point out that these two skunks are very well behaved. As long as I'm quiet and move slowly, they are content to allow me to take pictures. In fact, while I was taking this picture of Flame, Dusty managed to get out the door and chased the skunk. Dusty has been skunked before and should know better, but I suppose you can't blame a cat for being a cat. Not only did she follow Flame all the way around our house, but then she continued to menace the poor thing from the bushes. I eventually got hold of the cat and--after making sure she hadn't taken on any new odors--threw her inside. The fact that Flame did not skunk the cat leads me to two thoughts. Either Flame is incapable of skunking or Flame didn't feel threatened enough by my dim-witted pussycat to stink her. I'm guessing the latter.

Home Spun comic strip #413

Sometimes it helps to have an older child who is very excited about learning games to balance the ambivalent child. Nothing makes an activity interesting as knowing your older sibling wants to play it.

Monday Didn't Get me Down!

Ever have a good day when everything seemed to just work? Those are the days you need to stand on the roof and yell, "What a great day this is! It's wonderful to be alive!" We all spend a lot of time complaining about those impossible, difficult, Alexander style days, so it's important to balance it with some praise for our wonderful days.

I was worried. It was Monday, after all. I planned to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew my driver's license. I was braced to have one of those days. And then Sierra wanted to come along. Welllll....OK. But I told her to bring a book. My past experience has been that I give myself plenty of time because you never know how much time you'll spend at the DMV.

Ten minutes! That's it! I was in and out in ten minutes! I was amazed. Sierra didn't even have enough time to read more than a few pages. There was no line. It's an interesting experience to walk quickly through the people corral (Maze? I'm not sure what to call it). In less than a minute I had my customer number and my picture was taken. I was even having a good hair day thanks to an early morning shower and a glob of hair gel. Thank you Frizz-Ease. Everyone I talked to smiled, and I was called up to the counter within five minutes of sitting down. Life is good.

And it gets better. On the way to Chase's class, I spotted a rainbow! Not just any rainbow. At first, this rainbow looked like a bright spot in the sky. I thought I was looking at the sun, but this spot was to the left of the sun. Chase realized it was a rainbow. He also noticed that there was another spot on the right of the sun. These bright rainbow patches stayed in the sky almost until sunset. Here is a picture:

Update: Thanks to Kate for identifying this celestial phenomenon. It's called a sundog! I found information on sundogs or parhelia on this Wikipedia page. There is lots of info on them. I'm glad I know what to call it now!

Then this evening we had a visit from our favorite skunk, Flare. Yes, we named it. It's easy to recognize because it doesn't have much white on it. The tail only has white on the very tip, hence the name Flare. Flare is a pretty docile skunk. As long as I'm quiet and don't make any sudden moves I've been able to stand reasonably close to the animal. I stood in the doorway while Flare rooted around at the edge of the light from our front door. These were some of the best pictures I've gotten. Zoom and flash were on. Flare is used to lights flashing on its nightly visits to our yard. And the pictures came out well for being shots in the dark.

And there you have it. I know it may not be everyone's idea of a perfect day (I'm a crazy naturalist after all), but it really was wonderful. I feel very happy about it. I am very thankful for Monday. I wish all of you a very good day and encourage you to tell me about what made it so great!

Home Spun comic strip #412

Another Frog from Dana Perri

There is a new book coming out by local author Dana Perri in her Think Then Jump series! The Careless Frog will be out in January. A limited amount will be available for the holiday season, but you need to pre-order by November 9. If you missed the review of The Grumpy Frog, you can find it here. She has wonderful t-shirts as well on her site. Holidays are coming! Check it out.

An Overabundance of Responsibility

I just printed out my quarterlies and letter to the school district. Lots of changes this year. Most notable is the lack of a quarterly report for Marina. Not that I'm unhappy to be back to writing two quarterlies instead of three. It's just very different. My first reality check that she is growing beyond me. This is more significant to me than the checks from her first job. I'm no longer responsible for reporting her. I know it probably sounds silly, but this is the first responsibility that has dropped away from me since I started down this crazy path of marriage and parenthood. And I've felt a bit overwhelmed with responsibilities for a while now.

A funny thing happened when I was preparing the letter to my school district. I realized that all of the letters I sent last year listed Marina in ninth grade and Chase in sixth grade. They were in tenth and seventh grades. No one noticed. How odd. Maybe they thought I purposely held my children back a year. Maybe they thought the crazy homeschooler doesn't even know what grade her kids are in. I know, some of you are thinking, "They probably never even read the letter or quarterlies." But I always hope. I'm a writer. I like to be read.

This is shaping up to be another of those years. Hopefully not a four funeral school year(like we had last year), but definitely packed already. Chase is going to be making Confirmation, so I have to make sure he gets in his service hours and writes a paper on his saint, which he hasn't picked yet. He also wants his second degree black belt, which means he has to create a poomse (series of movements), write an essay about where he wants to go from here, and earn patches for completing pretests. He should have been doing the pretests all along, but he insists they didn't tell him. I tried to explain that sometimes you have to track down this information on your own. I think it has to do with "responsibility." There's that word again!

Not to be outdone, Sierra will be making first Reconciliation and first Communion this year. That means I get to go to every meeting the religious education program has to offer. Can you feel my excitement? And then the big days come on May 1 and May 15 (Marina's birthday). That's right! Birthday month! Because of this, I opted to not let Sierra do the dance recital, which will be on May 20 (Chase's birthday). I'm assuming by the end of May I will singing "They're Coming to Take Me Away, HaHa!"

I would love to be irresponsible for one day, but there is too much I'm supposed to do. I've been reading quick and funny books to cope with the overwhelming urge to hide from my life. I found a wonderful series by Julie Kenner about "The Secret Life of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom." The first book is Carpe Demon, although I liked the second book, California Demon, much better. I wrote a review of it that can be viewed here. It helps to laugh. And maybe I'll have less responsibilities next year.