31/365

We enjoyed a little bit of snow today.

30/365

I learned how to Photoshop today!

29/365

Saw this at the grocery store today...12/29. Scott's hand is there to show that it's not just the little Valentine items out in December...it's the big ones too.

28/365

Finishing up my second annual Christmas vacation Hunger Games trilogy reading.

27/365

First attempt at making stir fry.

26/366

Finally got to unwrap the Jeopardy! calendar.

25/365

The boys, trying to find the pickle.

24/365

The animals do love each other.

23/365

Dade's fantastic new helicopter.

22/365

The pickle has been painted.

21/365

Root beer float with the boys.

20/365

Christmas brunch potluck.

19/365

International Christmas Day at work.

18/365

My Secret Santa must think I smell bad. That's a lot of perfume.

17/365

A little holiday spirit from Sheldon.

16/365

Enjoying a yummy beverage (Aunt Luann's recipe) and some Packer football. Not a bad Sunday.

15/365

First time using a coffee grinder.

14/365

Ended the night with a terrible Farkle loss against my dear husband.

13/365

Spreading some Christmas cheer.

12/365

Spent 12/12/12 at the movies with Dade.

11/365

Christmas cheer from Managed Care.

10/365

The Christmas Tree Pick-Up flyer assembly line. Putting the scouts to work.

9/365

Action shot of Piper catching her ball.

8/365

Care package from Wisconsin!

7/365

Yummy root beer float with Melissa. :)

6/365

The boys are making me a new pickle for the tree.

5/365

We decorated a few cookies.

4/365

Beautiful Rain!!!

3/365

A little extra YoCream for the kiddo today from his favorite employee, Jenn.

2/365

And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

1/365

A hard fought loss. :(

Project 365

I am probably a little insane, but I have decided to do Project 365 again. :)

Book 9 - Believe It, Be It

Synopsis: (Borrowed from Barnes and Noble)

When Ali Vincent became a contestant on the hit NBC show The Biggest Loser, her weight was at an all-time high, and she was at an all-time high, and she was at an all-time low. Like millions of Americans, Ali struggled for years with poor eating habits, stress, and low self-esteem. After years of feeling afraid, ashamed, and unworthy, she resolved to change her life, once and for all.

In Believe It, Be It Ali reveals the intimate details of her inner and outer transformation and provides a rare glimpse inside life at the famous Biggest Loser ranch. She also shares the weight-loss strategies, eating habits, and workout tips that have helped her lose-and keep off-more than 100 pounds. The road to a happier, healthier, fuller life starts with the belief that you deserve it. Believe it-and be it.

My thoughts: I found the book to be very inspirational. She spends a lot of time on learning to accept yourself for who you are, and that happiness can't exist until you are happy with yourself. The book was well written and an enjoyable read. 

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. 

Book 7 & 8 - Witch & Wizard/The Gift

Synopsis: (Borrowed from Barnes and Noble) I'm reviewing the first two books in the series together.

Witch and Wizard
The world is changing: the government has seized control of every aspect of society, and now, kids are disappearing. For 15-year-old Wisty and her older brother Whit, life turns upside down when they are torn from their parents one night and slammed into a secret prison for no reason they can comprehend. The New Order, as it is known, is clearly trying to suppress Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Being a Normal Teenager. But while trapped in this totalitarian nightmare, Wisty and Whit discover they have incredible powers they'd never dreamed of.

The Gift
When they were imprisoned by the new, brutal government, Whit and Whisty were barely able to escape with their lives. Discovering a hidden community of children like themselves--hunted by the state and with varying degrees of special talents--they have taken refuge underground. But the New Order is rapidly pushing in on them from all sides, and the pressure to stop the regime is mounting.

One day, as they rush to save another group of kids who are about to be captured by police, Whit and Whisty discover not only their own faces plastered to buildings on wanted posters, but also their parents'. When the hunting party sent out after the siblings always seems to be one step ahead of them, they begin to fear that it is controlled by a very, very powerful force. They are in much more danger than they feared...

My thoughts: I really wanted to like this series, which is why I read the second one after the first one being a disappointment. But, sadly, the second one didn't save the series for me. They were easy reads, but James Patterson didn't do anything to build up the characters. By the end of the first book, I didn't care if the main characters died or not. By the end of the second book I was rooting for the bad guys. It's a good concept for a story, but it was poorly executed.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars. :(

Book 6 - 11/22/63

Synopsis:(I borrowed this from Barnes and Noble)

In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King—who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer—takes readers on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.

It begins with Jake Epping, a thirty-five-year-old English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching GED classes. He asks his students to write about an event that changed their lives, and one essay blows him away—a gruesome, harrowing story about the night more than fifty years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a sledgehammer. Reading the essay is a watershed moment for Jake, his life—like Harry’s, like America’s in 1963—turning on a dime. Not much later his friend Al, who owns the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to the past, a particular day in 1958. And Al enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson, in a different world of Ike and JFK and Elvis, of big American cars and sock hops and cigarette smoke everywhere. From the dank little city of Derry, Maine (where there’s Dunning business to conduct), to the warmhearted small town of Jodie, Texas, where Jake falls dangerously in love, every turn is leading eventually, of course, to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and to Dallas, where the past becomes heart-stoppingly suspenseful, and where history might not be history anymore. Time-travel has never been so believable. Or so terrifying.

My thoughts: I am a big Stephen King fan, so I went in with high hopes, and was not let down. He does a great job making you think about how some small, (and some large) actions can change the course of history. I think that he could have edited out about 200 pages of redundancy and fluff, but other than that, I think it was a great read!

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars!

Wordless Wednesday

Learning about the Colonists

We are studying the original 13 colonies this week, and today was all about how they ate. So, being the hands-on kind of people that we are, Dade and I made bread and butter. After all the work, we are happy to live in modern times.

A cup of cream, some marbles and an awful lot of shaking!

After the shaking...the butter and the buttermilk.

A pinch of salt, for taste.

After draining and mixing, and ready to be refrigerated.

Our bread...it's not pretty, but it was made with love.

The results of our hard work.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Homeschooling - What was I thinking!

I’ll admit it. I bought my first “thinking about homeschooling” book back when Dade was about two. We had talked about it for years. But, most likely out of practicality, fear, and insecurity, we decided against it. I won’t rewrite the story, but as most of you know, that changed about 2.5 months ago.  Now we’re living the fear and insecurities previously mentioned.  I have wanted to document the beginning of our homeschooling adventures, but life has been busy, so I’m finally getting around to it now. There was bad…but then there was good.

The first month was crazy. I can’t even tell you how many times, “What in the world was I thinking?” passed though my mind. Followed by the panic of…what is a fourth grader supposed to learn in fourth grade? (Luckily, there’s a book for that!) Promptly followed by the questioning of my own intelligence and ability to be able to teach him anything.  But, we muddled though finding curriculum appropriate for his current level in each subject, and survived coming up with an agreeable homeschooling schedule. Luckily, Dade just rolled with the punches as we went through a lot of trial and error.

After about a month, we final had things moving along in a somewhat organized fashion, and I was starting to feel like this was something that we could do. Then that bubble popped. Dade had a day where a writing assignment wasn’t going well, which isn’t surprising, since he has a special hatred in his heart for writing. On that day, when he was so frustrated that I would even think to ask him to do this, he shouted out, “I want to go back to regular school.” On that day, my heart sank. I had about three days where I felt like things were finally settling into place, and that it was possible that we could actually do this, and that all disappeared. Crying seemed like the right choice.

No one to give up, we talked about things, and he insisted that regular school wouldn’t make him do that assignment. I promptly reminded him of the assignments that he had back in regular school, which were very similar to what he was doing, and the argument ended. I would like to say that was the last time that happened, but that would be a big, fat lie. Whenever he doesn’t like something that we assigned to him, he throws out the “I want to go back to regular school” complaint. We have since learned to let that roll off our backs and give him time to calm down, which he does. He then advises us that he was just kidding, and the world goes back to normal. Is it perfect? Well, duh, of course it’s not. But, it is working.

Selfishly, I will write this down as my favorite thing about homeschooling. When Dade was in regular school, he had to be up by 6:30 so he could catch the bus around 7:15. Being that he is my son, he is not a morning person, so the mornings were always filled with arguments. And, because the mornings didn’t start well, he would be a bear for the rest of the day. Well, those days are gone. He has gotten into the habit of waking up on his own, when his body is ready. It took a while, but that happens between 7:30 and 8:00 pretty regularly now, and he is such a different kid. He smiles in the morning. He still argues about breakfast, but that will never change. Then, he eagerly goes and starts his homework, without having to be told. He decides what order he wants to do his subjects in each day. He takes breaks when he wants to. He gets so excited about being given the respect to have some control over his schooling, that he works hard to get everything done that needs to be done each day, so he doesn’t lose that privilege. He’s just a lot more fun to be around now!

Academically, this was clearly the right choice, which eases my mind every day.

Math – This is his subject. We don’t even assign anything for this class because he is so self-directed. He uses the virtual school for this subject, and any workbooks/worksheets that he can get his hands on. Within the first two weeks, he finished up the 4^th grade curriculum from where he left off after leaving school. Over the last two months, he completed the 5^th grade curriculum, and has now moved on to the 6^th grade work. We monitor his grades, and unless they start falling, we’re just going to let him go as far ahead as he wants to.

Scott handles:

Science – They (I do not include myself in this, because science is completely Scott and Dade) just finished up a series on the solar system. Now they’re taking apart our old electronics. I have no idea what they’re learning, but I’m okay with that! My little contribution is taking him to OMSI to see the Body Works exhibit.

Art – They are learning to draw together. There is also an art appreciation course that Dade is taking thought his virtual school. Then there are arts & crafts that he does with me, just for fun.

Music – Scott is helping Dade with his piano, which is what we are considering music class. Dade refuses to stop playing his obnoxious recorder, so he is continuing to self-teach himself that joyful little instrument.

Bonus class – At the beginning of the year, Scott started taking a programming class; Code Academy. Dade saw him working on that, and asked if he could learn. So, now the two of them are working on programming together, and they speak in a language I don’t understand. Dade is currently working on writing a program that will assign percentages to the different colors of Smarties in a bag of Smarties. When we were grocery shopping, he told me that he wished the world were more in binary. There are days that I just want to punch Scott for doing that to my child.

Coffee appreciation – which I will not discuss. J

My classes:

Reading, writing, spelling, and language arts are all done with workbooks…and time. These were not subjects that he was interested in when in school, but he seems to be enjoying them immensely now. He has gone way ahead in his spelling book, and I don’t know why. He has also been begging me for the last two weeks to give him more proofreading assignments.

Social Studies – He is just finishing up a government unit through the virtual school. We postponed this, so we could do this in conjunction with a Friday School class, but at the end of the month, we’re starting a unit study on the American Revolution!!!

Geography – He loves geography, so I just found the perfect curriculum to use, that we will be starting in a week. First, there is “Road Trip USA,” which will take us through each of the states. I’m going to try and find some way to work our trip across the country into the planning for this curriculum. And, second, there is “Expedition Earth,” which will take us through over 30 countries.

Photography – We’re going to start working on some basics of photography.

Physical fitness – Tennis lessons and swimming lessons.

Finally – aside from Dade’s classes, Scott’s classes, and my classes, his will be starting Friday School in the beginning of March. We joined a local homeschooling co-op, and twice a year they do something called Friday School. The kids sign up for 3 classes that run for about 2.5 months on Friday mornings. He is signed up for Frontier Boys, (the boys will learn what it was like to live in the pioneer days – this is the class that we’re going to use in conjunction with our American Revolution unit) music class, and World Studies, because he wants to do even more geography – and because the chess class was already full.

So, this pretty much sums up the first 2.5 months of homeschooling. I was worried about people reacting poorly to our choice, but we haven’t encountered that problem. My mom was asking me questions about homeschooling a couple days ago, just trying to understand how it all works, and was happy when I offered to bring some stuff along when we come visit, so she can see what we do. So, I’m happy to say that people are more interested than judgmental, and I really appreciate that support!

Overall, homeschooling is working right now, but I still have days that I question what I was thinking!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Five Minute Friday - Thinking like a Man

Go

Someone said to me that I should “think like a man.” Of course, my first instinct was to tell them to shove it and accept that thinking like a woman was the best way to think. But, I wanted to give it some thought, to see if maybe I was missing something.

So, I had to determine what thinking like a man meant. To me, thinking like a man seems like thinking without feeling. I can see some benefits to thinking like that. You can make decisions without caring about how others might feel. You wouldn’t have to stay up all night worrying about what the people in your life might be feeling. Thinking like a man would certainly alleviate some anxiety and sleeplessness. Two very good points for thinking like a man.

But, despite how much I would enjoy a little less anxiety and sleeplessness, it isn’t in my nature to think without feeling. I don’t know if it’s a “woman” thing, or a “Mandy” thing, but I put emotion into everything I do, and I don’t see that as a negative. I think that making decisions without considering others isn’t the right way for me to think.

The fact of the matter is that I am a woman; I think like a woman, I feel like a woman, and I care like a woman. I think there is a good reason that men and women think differently...we balance each other.

Stop

And, I have learned that it is really difficult to cover a subject in just five minutes.

Book 5 - The Everything Homeschooling Book

Synopsis: This is a resource book that covers as much about homeschooling as possible. It covers how to start, whether you're starting right away, or taking your child out of public school to start homeschooling. It discusses the different options for homeschooling like curriculum-based homeschooling vs. unschooling. Schedules, organizing, and obstacles are also a major focus. It ends with covering getting your homeschooler into college.

My thoughts: I know this is a silly book to use for a 52-book reading plan, but I ended up reading it cover to cover. Being someone that is just starting out in the world of homeschooling, it gave me things to consider, and some extra confidence that this can be done. I have a feeling that I will be referring to this book many times over the next few years.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Book 4 - The Maze Runner

Synopsis: Thomas, a teenager, shows up in an unfamiliar place inhabited by 50 other young boys. He has no memories. The boys explain to him that they were all left there, one a month, and that they are surrounded by a giant maze filled with creatures that try to kill them. They spend their time trying to solve the maze and find a way home, even though none of them remember where home is.

The day after Thomas arrives, a girl shows up. She is there to start the ending of the maze. The book follows their time trying to work together to find a way out.

My thoughts:This had a very similar feel to the Hunger Games. It moved along quickly, and was very well thought out. My only problem with the book, was that the author decided that the boys should use fake swearwords, and should use them often. It was very annoying reading with the boys calling each other "shuckface," several times each page.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Wordless Wednesday