Late Nights

Tonight, about 1:00, Anna started singing "Danny Boy" then stopped and said, "I can't remember what comes next."

I was just about to get off the computer, but I asked if she would like for me to find and print the lyrics out for her. She would, so I did.....but then there was a bit of conjecture about the tune, so I looked it up on You Tube and we listened to it...along with a Muppets version ; )

Then she pulled the piano-ish electric keyboard out, and started picking out the notes, so I asked if she'd like some music for it.....she did, so I went in search of music, then I marked the notes with their corresponding letters and she played around with it a bit, and now Emma's playing with it.

It reminded me of Sandra Dodd's page Late Night Learning ....and I'm glad that, although I need to get up early for a doctor's appointment tomorrow, I was still awake to help her find what she needed in the middle of the night. : )

(And now I'm *really* getting off the computer and going to bed!)

Lists and Scheduling (Article)

(From Growing Without Schooling magazine, #93)

Click on the picture to read the article. It opens up much larger.

9-23-09

I've spent most of the last three days being drug around the dinkiest little towns, getting VERY frustrated because of the horrid directions I've been given, looking for some sort of decent housing.

A quote from The Beverly Hillbillies keeps coming up, "Too poor to paint, too proud to whitewash." (Jed, talking about Cousin Pearl) Apparently we're just like her! lol Everything we can afford we wouldn't touch with the proverbial ten-foot-pole. ; ) And the ones we like...well...

Anyway, it's been interesting...seeing places I never knew existed. ; ) And today, while on top of a mountain 18 miles (!) from the nearest podunk town, we came around a bend and there was a momma black bear with two of the cutest roly-poly cubs EVER! It was SO awesome! They went down the road a bit, then went over the hill, and were gone before I could get my camera out and turned on. I wish I could have gotten a picture!

Tomorrow I've been promised I can stay home all day. Do you believe it? I don't either. ; )

(The good news is we've found two pieces of land....looks like we might be going the *new house* route now....new is good.) ; )

Recent Animal Encounters

The last of our *original* Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches died this past week. We had four originals, then about thirty offspring...now we're down to two. She was upside down one day, and I turned her back over and told Daddy, "Watch. She'll be dead in a couple days, because when they flip over and can't get back up they're dying." She did die in a couple days, but what I want to talk about was what happened before she died.

I was cleaning the cage, and I thought she was already dead, but when I picked her up she moved her antennae just a little, so I put her back in. The next morning one of the younger ones had come to sit with her, and it sat with her most of the day, until she died, then it went back into the tube.

How sweet was that! It burns me up to think of people using Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches for "Fear Factorish" sorts of things! These are living creatures with feelings for heaven's sake!

The second animal happening was yesterday. We were going down the road, and passed a squirrel. At first we thought it was roadkill, but as we went past it's tail moved. We didn't want it to suffer, so we went back to, as Daddy put it, put it out of it's misery. When we got back, though, it moved a bit more, so I got out to check on it. I took a magazine with me for protection ("I am a crazy, rabid squirrel, and I WANT MY COOKIES!") and when I got to it there was no blood or anything, so I scooted him up on the grass in the middle of the road and waited while some cars and an ambulance went past (must have looked really odd...lol). When the road was clear again I picked him up with his scruff and slid the magazine under him and carried him to the other side of the road where trees were, and after a second he hopped off the magazine and disappeared into the brush.

I was SO glad we went back to help him! He apparently hadn't been hit, was only scared and didn't know which way to go. It made my day happier, having saved a squirrel. ; )

Thank God, We're Back Home! LOL!

Well, the "school" experiment didn't last long. ; ) I lasted three full weeks, and couldn't take any more....I guess I should say *almost* three weeks, because I walked out in the middle of the third Friday. ; )

I simply couldn't bear being part of something so WRONG! I felt like too much of a hypocrite.....when have I *ever* used knowledge of a "predicate adjective" in real life? Well....about....um....*never*? In real life no one worries about whether or not you know where the predicate adjective is....no one cares! In real life, I dare to say, there are NO predicate adjectives......there are simply *words*. There are so many words, used so many ways....and the way people are taught in schools to "identify" them is...odd....to say the least. ; )

Rant over....we're HOME and that's all that matters! : )

We're still in the throes of house-buying, so pretty much all the stuff we usually do is taking a back seat to that. We did do a trip to a park and planetarium last week, to relax a bit.It was a very relaxing trip, and we all enjoyed it. : )

Other than that we've just been doing "around home" things....the squirrels have been on Facebook a lot, I've been working on getting fall produce stored for winter, and daddy....well, daddy's been working on getting the house-buying moving. ; )

(I noticed I didn't mention how the squirrels felt about leaving school. I think what Emma said last night while we were out walking the dog sums it up pretty well....we were walking hand-in-hand and she said, "I'm glad we're not in school anymore. It was fun to be in class laughing at the boys, but I'd rather be here." My squirrels are so sweet! : )