I hesitate to post these...

for a couple reasons:

1) It actually doesn't look as heinous in the photo as it does in real life. Remember this next time you go browsing real estate publications, people: Photos LIE!

2) My daughter knows how to log on to my blog and may attempt to do so from Nana's house in order to learn compromising secrets about her mother that may be used against me at some unspecified future time, perhaps to secure a new car, or an apartment of her very own when she realizes the direction her life is moving in upon viewing these photos, and will then ring me several dozen times throughout the day crying and whining and threatening that she will not live in such a dump.

But here goes.

On closer inspection, we decided the classical influences were decidedly more Greek than Roman. This because we discovered a brochure with a photo of a Greek "artist" on the kitchen counter and there was a handwritten letter in Greek left on a small cot, the only furniture in the house. Oh why did I decide to learn Latin first? We suspect he is the guy responsible for remuddling the place. There's a touch of Alamo thrown in with the adobe looking side planter-wing things, and also some piratey fun. Look on the far right for the gangway styled bridge over the drainage ditch. Permission to come aboard, sir? Aye, aye, matey!



"What is this on the back corner? Is this the only hurricane damage?"
"Uh, no, there wasn't any hurricane damage, they meant to do that."
It's a room. With partially glassed walls. And no roof. And a door that locks.



The back yard is very narrow, the big yards being on the sides of the house. Watch your step! Here is the unconnected sewer pipe, left lying next to the open trenches which are barely visible through the tall, uncut grass, when the owner was busted for performing unpermitted plumbing work. They did manage to complete the back and side fencing, also constructed of PVC sewer pipe. And see those tall trees? Not the palm, the other ones. Let me tell you a little story about those...



[Picture wavers and strumming harp is heard as flashback begins]

First day of high school. I am wearing a long blue cotton skirt, and a blue plaid, long-sleeved flannel shirt with a matching blue vest over it. It is 90 degrees out. The Melaleuca trees (or tea trees if you're from Down Under) are in bloom, giving off a noxious boiled potato smell. My already insecure, introverted, barely teenaged self believes that this horribly offensive odor is emanating from my own newly pubescent body. It is years before I realize it is the trees that stink.

We made an offer. We'll see what happens. Basically the interior needs to be gutted, including the eight different types of floor tile throughout, the front porch and weird roofless back corner room bulldozed, the roof is shot, there are illegal additions, plumbing, and wiring, it probably needs a new AC system, and definitely new windows. Can you say "fenestration"? I knew you could! We've done it before, we can do it again. Plus, I can't wait to give those porch columns a karate kick and take the roof down. Don't worry, years of Road Runner cartoons and America's Funniest Videos have taught me to stand outside the structure when I do this.

Wasted days and wasted nights

My kids have been packed up and shipped off to my parents for a few days. They will then be transported to my mother-in-law for a few more. Yup, even homeschoolers get a spring break. Even homeschoolers with a pretty lax schedule get a break.

So what, you wonder, have I done with all my delicious spare time?

-- Rode over to aforementioned hellhole property with husband so he could view it in broad daylight

-- Changed my mind about future living arrangements after discussion last night with husband

-- Read archives on a bunch of blogs while flat out on the couch, laptop atop my belly

-- Ran over to the county building department to obtain a list of code violations on the property and check zoning and future land use

-- Took advantage of my location in town to buy a gigantic iced coffee before returning home

-- Sprawled back on the couch, read the rest of the archives

-- Fake-cleaned the house

And here I am, trying to post something before my husband comes home and thinks I've been on the damned computer all day.

----

Tomorrow night is Girls Night Out. I finally clicked with two of the mothers at swim class and we are heading out for a night on the town. I haven't done that in, hmmmmm, let's see, uh, never. I've always preferred my nights out with The Boys, as they're generally less bitchy and always pay more attention to me. Why, I used to mock women who made such plans and here I am, turning into one of 'em. What next? A Red Hat?

----

Things that have disgusted me in the past 24 hours:

Sesame Street's new season has Cookie Monster learning about healthy food in an effort to combat childhood obesity.

Seeing a snippet of CNN last night during dinner out with husband, with everyone camped out to see Jesse Jackson visit Terri Schiavo and hearing a report that she is "still urinating."

Hearing that the Pope is receiving nutrition through a nasal tube.

First of all, don't mess with Cookie Monster. I was pissed when McDonald's made the Hamburglar a happy, funny guy instead of the evil French fry thief he was, and when they revamped the formerly cute goalpost-leaping Miami Dolphin mascot giving him a mean eye (coincidentally the same time they threw Don Shula and company out), I was furious. And as for the other two, enough with the details already. How about a little respect for their privacy? They're sick, they're going to die. Back off, all of you.

----

Tonight I am beginning season two of The Sopranos. Okay, so now I'm hooked. The writing is fabulous. The characters are very believable. I am simultaneously attracted to and repelled by, sympathetic to and disgusted by Tony Soprano. And I'm going to get my husband hooked too.

Flip flop

Yes, we are a highly irregular lot. If you'’ve been visiting this blog for any length of time now, you are probably tired of reading that we'’ve finally come to a decision about where to live. Imagine what the people who have known us for the past 15 years must think.

After informing friends just yesterday, that we'd decided once and for all, to dump all our finances into improving the island property, keep renting here in Punta Gorda (because it'’s cheaper than building and we need a land base big enough to contain all our junk), and use some additional funds to establish a business for Dad on the island so he can be with us full-time, we found a house on the MLS that works for us.

PROS:
-- Four bedrooms
-- Right side of town (west of the main road, close to coast)
-- Deeded dock (saves monthly marina rent, fifteen minutes by boat from the island)
-- Not waterfront (no waterfront taxes)
-- Lowest priced property in rapidly appreciating area

CONS:
-- Ugly
-- Butt ugly
-- Incredibly, cheesy Roman-embellishments-on-orange-50s-ranch-house ugly
-- Dad may have a slight delay in joining us full-time and starting up his new venture

I have an appointment at 4:00 and will be arriving with a deposit check in hand.

Spring on LGI

The lemon (pictured below) and orange trees are in full bloom. There is already fruit set on the orange tree. The blooms, right outside our front door, smell heavenly.


Heading off to church for Easter services, fighting a pretty stiff breeze.


"Are you sure today's Easter, Mom?"


L (seated between G and S) was a little indignant over having to take photos. Told me I was interrupting her "indventure." Huck and Jim would've been proud.


This hardly has anything to do with spring, except that I photographed it yesterday during our ten minutes of spring-like weather. This is an old sabal palm log that had its rotten center hollowed out by S. The girls filled it with a variety of small conchs from our beach. Eventually it cracked, spilling the shells onto the deck. The variety of colors and patterns is beautiful.

Easter Monday

What a surprise to check my counter and find visitors here have doubled from the last count! Wow. I can only guess this means many of you are back from giving up blogging for Lent? Welcome, and don't be shy, comments are always the best part.

This Easter, I determined to not be a hypocrite and skip church. Ever since a priest refused to give me absolution during confession years back, I cut out the middle man, and have had no need for organized religion. Weddings and funerals, that's about it for my attendance. With the kids though, I liked to try and at least give them some sort of foundation, but finally decided I didn't want to be one of those people who show up only for Easter or Christmas and hog up the seats normally taken by the regular congregants. For some reason, my husband, a man who confuses Jonah and Pinocchio, in spite of the fact his father was a Methodist Sunday school teacher, planned for us all to go.

We stayed on the island this weekend. There are no stores or restaurants out there, just mostly single-family houses, but there is one darling little white clapboard chapel that hosts a supposedly non-denominational, but in reality completely Catholic, service. We had attended a few times when we first bought the place, but after awhile, the novelty wore off. After the kids had eaten a breakfast of chocolate bunnies and Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs, we all got dressed and walked down the beach about a mile or so to attend Mass. We even arrived a little early to try and get a seat since there are no regular congregants to squeeze out. It was curious, there were no golf carts, the usual mode of island transportation, and no people around. The church doors were closed tight and the rope that marks the entrance to the churchyard was strung across the path. No sign on the door. No sign on the community bulletin board. Oh, well. So we enjoyed a lovely stroll home, via the slower inland route of twisty sand tracks that pass for roads out there. I say we still get points for trying.

The night before Easter, Holy Saturday for those of you in the know, S, G, and I watched Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ on a DVD my husband bought me about a year ago. I thought it might be an appropriate time to crack it open and finally take a look at it. Actually, Good Friday would have been more appropriate, but we were too busy having a bonfire and eating fried alligator tail that night. Anyway, I have to say, I was a little underwhelmed by the whole production. Sets, costumes, and the use of ancient languages were all pretty good, but the acting didn't move me. There were too many close-up shots of Jim Caviezel, left eye swollen shut and the right giving some meaningful look to someone off camera. It could've been the same sequence used over and over again for the frequency it was shown. The flashbacks did not smoothly segue and felt a bit forced or contrived. Honestly, Braveheart, which we also watched at some point over the weekend, makes me tear up more than than The Passion did. I was so hoping for more. Maybe it was impossible to live up to the hype. Or the reality.

I hope you all enjoyed a happy Easter, or simply a happy Sunday.

Education is what you have left over after you have forgotten everything you have learned. -- Anonymous

Education has for its object the formation of character. -- Herbert Spencer

Let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent. -- Plato

Educated men are as much superior to uneducated men as the living are to the dead. -- Aristotle

Education is the best provision for old age. -- Aristotle

Life isn't all beer and skittles; but beer and skittles, or something better of the same sort, must form a good part of every Englishman's education. -- Thomas Hughes

Elementary, my dear

Take a deep breath. Remember all the advice from practical educational books I've read recently. Repeat: Less is more. I can do this.

What really made a strong impression on my homeschooling plans was reading Ben Franklin's autobiography last year. Ben taught himself for the most part, and the description of his education is a virtual blueprint for autodidacts and homeschool teachers. A few great books, a thirst for knowledge, and writing by imitation were all he needed. Again and again I've read how simplifying and streamlining your studies is key to a basic, solid education: Tracy Lee Simmons in Climbing Parnassus, Oliver Van DeMille in A Thomas Jefferson Education, Mortimer Adler in The Paideia Proposal. I get it. I agree with it. I advocate it. So why am I still not practicing what I preach?

I was trying to justify my decision to use Rod & Staff along with Classical Writing next year because integrating Harvey's Elementary Grammar would require more prep work on my part. Rationalizing a fear of leaving some critical gap in my children's understanding of grammar, I now believe my reluctance to stick to my initial plan of CW + Harvey's has more to do with laziness.

After our first year of homeschooling spending a small fortune on texts and enrichment materials trying to cover every single possible area of study, I started to realize I could condense many of these lessons. Art, music, philosophy, science, all these fit neatly into history; that's what The Well Trained Mind taught me. I already knew that, but for some reason I still felt the necessity to focus more attention on each subject and have separate sets of books for each discipline. Classic literature and art books are never a waste of money or bookshelves, but most of the rest probably were and could have easily been done without. The advantages of paring down were obvious, but I was still trying to cover at least thirteen different courses.

It's time to put my plan to the test. As comfortable as I am with Rod & Staff, I am not going to spend the extra money on a new set of books for each child. I will not rely on a book just because the answers are right in front of me or the tests are neatly packaged or because determining credits for transcripts is easier when you can reference the publisher's official graded title. I am not going to start adding unnecessary separate courses. I will not fall back into that trap again.

Classical Writing can incorporate writing, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, logic, rhetoric, and can be applied to science, history, and literature. That was the number one attraction. And even that is overdoing it according to Climbing Parnassus. Simmons explains that just studying classical languages makes learning English grammar redundant. Why worry about it?

No more whining. I can simplify and streamline, but I must not make it any less challenging.


Like all Holmes's reasoning the thing seemed simplicity itself when it was once explained. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. The Stock Broker's Clerk)

Click

Do these photos convey grace and speed, excitement and power? Or an embarrassing lack of skill for someone who believes she is a fairly competent photographer?



For Miz Booshay: The Sneak Pass!



(What? Doesn't look like the Sneak Pass, you say? That's because it's my hair and a sabal palm, photographed as I nearly went backwards over the balcony railing trying to get the shot.)

Back to still lifes and portraits for me.

Pick E

A - Camera is too slow
B - Mom is too slow
C - We have the best seats in town for the airshow
D - We have the best neighbors
E - All of the above

No emergency

Must have been some sort of bombing display because no emergency equipment ever arrived on the scene, though plenty of neighbors were out cruising around trying to figure out what the heck it was, and they are now doing nighttime aerial acrobatics.

Wow!

We watched the Blue Angels practice yesterday. We saw them practice today, twice! The airshow doesn't even officially begin until tomorrow!

When they do the maneuver where the one pilot pulls away from the formation, they are directly above our roof. The lowest maneuver they perform is the sneak pass, done by one of the solo planes, at 50 feet. Our roof peak tops out at about 30 feet. During the first practice we barely saw the solo coming straight at us over the tree tops. There was only time to snap our necks back before he was gone. It was absolutely deafening and so low that we were blasted with the smoke. Later, after our weekend neighbors arrived just in time for practice number two, we tried to warn them, as we were all standing out on our back decks, that it looked like they were going to do another super low pass. When it came ripping over their roof, they all grabbed their ears and fell to their knees, literally hitting the deck.

In between Blue Angel practices, we managed to get away from the house and off to the spelling bee. G, my reluctant speller, was worried sick. We had gone over the more difficult words, but easy or hard she refuses to apply the rules. When questioned, she will tell you the /l/ at the end of a word is usually spelled 'le', but ask her to spell 'gentle' and she will get it wrong. Remind her to spell in syllables and she will ignore you. Frustrating for both of us. After I signed them up I had been told that the kids would not be competing against others, but against their own score; one of those warm, fuzzy all-participants-are-winners kind of event. This was a very small consolation to G. Unfortunately, I had been told wrong. There was competition, but I'm proud to say, G held her own and received a third place ribbon.

S, my natural speller, received first place in her seventh grade division and another first place overall in the competition between first-place winners for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, making her eligible for the next step, the regional or state competition, whichever comes next. I wasn't really clear on that as I went into the bee thinking it was just a fun event among our local homeschool group.

Uh oh. My husband just called to say he was out by our four acres, which is closer to the airport than we are here and where we are planning to build, and saw an explosion. He thinks a plane may have gone down. We can see black smoke.

Blogger has an annoying little trick. When you swap your text to Preview mode, which I do because the type is larger for proofreading, all your apostrophes disappear. Time to think about reading glasses, maybe? If you notice any missing -- I think I caught them all -- blame Blogger. Any extras? Mea culpa.

Post script:
It is also now eating posts and sending back error messages. Try, try, again…

beware the eyes of march julius cesar

That was one of the searches that Googled up my blog. Here are a few more (all typos are intentional):

“racist legos plantation”

hibiscus stain removal

tips on gravy stain removal from chenille

Rosa Parks landlord has offered to let her stay in her apartment rent free

wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was biracial

marlon brando’s Laundromat

Girls Jail

ufo in sebring florida yesterday

redneck fashion

charlton heston security clearance

george washinton’s socks

clorox body piercings

colonial parkway killer

littering at school in florida

redneck stores in brooksvillle florida

brainwashing vs ocd

fear of alligators fear of alligators

florida live rabies bait osceola

pictures of how to make scooters start by hotwiring

Abraham Lincoln assassination connected with Julius Caesar

migraine sweating and shivering

Incredible fluff

Today is a fluff day. My parents, uncle, and aunt are popping into town this afternoon on a return trip from Tampa. They rode over to check out a vacation house my cousin bought up there. The plan is to meet them for lunch, that is, as long as they remember that is the plan and don'’t decide to stop and have lunch before they get here because they all got too hungry on the way over, leaving us not only suffering for lack of food, but irritated. That'’s how old people are sometimes, hungry, impatient, selfish, crabby. I speak from experience.

L surprised me this morning by requesting a note on her napkin. Once upon a time, when the older two were in school, I tucked happy little notes into their lunch boxes. I started out doing this with L too, but one day she insisted on no more notes. Made me a little sad to receive a rejection notice from my own flesh and blood, but it seemed she preferred her napkins to remain clean blank squares of highly processed wood pulp, expressly for the purpose of face wiping. But she is reading now and eagerly accepting any and all new material, thus the renewed interest in lunchtime communications. In my haste and excitement to meet the morning deadline, I tried to think up something wildly novel, not some standard, "Have a nice day!" blurb, and foolishly foreshadowed the upcoming visit:

I have a big surprise for you after school!
Love, Mom

See, she is unaware that Nanny and Papa will be dropping by. I intentionally left out this bit of information for the reason that they may not actually come by our house at all, preferring to get right back on the road after our lunch date in order to reach Fort Lauderdale before dark, and not wanting to negotiate all the stairs of our monstrously elevated stilt house. That'’s how old people are sometimes, structured, arthritic, fearful, crabby. Again, with the experience. L, knowing that she might miss seeing her beloved grandparents, would be crushed. So I screwed up with the napkin teaser. Luckily, in a brilliant save this morning, while returning the tuna that I accidentally bought packed in oil rather than water, I spotted The Incredibles on sale at the grocery store'’s service counter. So, if they don'’t show, I will soothe her soul and fulfill my promise with a video.

Meanwhile, after straightening up the living room and the guest bathroom, the bare minimum required for house guests, on the slim chance that they may possibly hang out for a while, we did our history, reading aloud from The Red Badge of Courage and went over their list of words for a homeschool spelling bee scheduled for Friday. Now playing, The Incredibles.

Knowing this was a day for not getting much accomplished, I even picked myself up a copy of Coastal Living while checking out. Sadly, I couldn'’t tell if this was one I had read before. The covers all blur together into one big front porchy kind of perfection. Irregardless, I'’m now watching The Incredibles, and will probably see it at least once more during the course of the day.

On the way home from the grocery store, I was thrilled to see the Blue Angels flying into our little local municipal airport for the airshow this weekend, I am a sucker for jet power. Right over our house making their landing approach, how cool is that?

It has just occurred to me that I better get off the computer and do a little more cleaning than the living room and guest bath. If they do show up for a brief stop at our house, the closed bedroom doors will be no effective barricade to my aunt, who has always kept a miraculously clean house and insists that her daughter would still be married, her husband never wandering, if only she had just had a home cooked dinner on the table for him every night. The bare minimum is never enough for Aunt M.

Oh, my God, they'’re here! They’'re not supposed to be here…!

----

Lunch was pleasant. I highly recommend Presseller'’s Deli if you'’re ever in Punta Gorda. The smoked turkey, Brie, and Granny Smith Apple slices on a baguette is particularly yummy. Everybody did come back to the house for a bit and L was thrilled to have Nanny pick her up from school. I successfully headed off humiliation by physically blocking the hallway and telling my mother, when she asked Aunt M if she had seen the rest of the house yet, that unfortunately the bedrooms were not included on the tour today. I heard Aunt M’'s neck craning behind me as I quickly reclosed my bedroom door, carelessly left open after one of the kids had run in there for something. A close call.

And now, back to The Incredibles.

Caught these two brain-related stories on the way to preschool drop-off on Morning Edition:

The iPod of the Brain

Thinking is Doing With Cyborg Techonology

Fascinating stuff. Kept us in the driveway, engine running until we heard the end of it.

After picking L up from preschool today we went over to the local movieplex and saw Because of Winn-Dixie. It was a fair interpretation of the book. My biggest peeve was that it was filmed in Louisiana. The entire time I was watching the movie I was trying to identify the location. It's supposed to be Florida, there's even sugar cane growing in the background, but there was not one town I could think of that had that combination of farmland, flora, and architecture, and God knows, I have been through nearly every little town in Florida at one time or another looking at real estate. So maybe I was a tad distracted and it was really a blockbuster, but I don't think so.

Missed the trailer for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory while I spent a small fortune on popcorn and drinks. The kids were a bit weirded out by it and insisted I take a look online when we got home. Being a fan of Roald Dahl, Tim Burton, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and especially, Johnny Depp, I am highly interested in seeing this one, good or not.

The older two girls and I went to the Charlotte Symphony last night. S looked so grown up and sophisticated; so poised. At one point during the first Tsaichovsky piece I had to gently curb her enthusiasm as she was humming along and practically dancing in her seat. G, on the other hand, was dying to get out of there. After intermission she was squirming and writhing in her seat with gas pains, threatening to explode. I whispered to her to make a quick exit for the restrooms in between the last three movements, when I expected applause, but alas, there was none and she was forced to wait it out until we got to the car. The people in the theater have no idea how lucky they were.

During the performance of Tsaichovsky's "Romeo and Juliet," the second piece, the audience was at first startled, and then highly perturbed to hear a baby googling. Well, the Charlotte Symphony encourages children to attend performances, admitting one child free with each paid adult and only charging half an adult ticket price for children, but that was pushing it. From where we sat we could see the older folks stiffen each time the baby made a noise and at some point, I missed the actual confrontation, the lady and the baby were escorted out. As intermission drew to a close, a woman came on stage to apologize for the disturbing event. She went on to explain that the mother had been very receptive to their request to leave and passed on the story that the baby had been born deaf and had just received implants in her ears and was reacting to the first music she had ever heard in her life. A big collective, "Awwwwwwwww!" arose from the crowd and I bet quite a few people felt a little guilty for being so crabby.

While all this was going on, Big G took L out for a special night of her own at an upscale local restaurant. She wore her favorite fancy red dress and picked out an extra loud shirt for her Dad to wear. What a sport!

The Glass Is...

Okay, continuing this from Sarah's blog:

Husband G: Only half full -- honey, can you bring Daddy another Budweiser?

Me: It's half empty, but more importantly, who's been drinking out of it and what are those little floaty things in there?

S: Half full! Right, Mom? I mean, it could be half empty too, if that's what you're thinking... No, I'll stick with half full, sorry!

G: It's right in the middle and nobody's refilling it. It's that middle glass syndrome. HEY! SOMEBODY GIVE ME SOME MORE WATER!

L: It's only half full, but I will fill it up all by myself. Mom, I need a paper towel...

The smell of victory

[The family sits around the living room watching “"Survivor"” except for L., the youngest, who is engrossed in a computer game. “If You’'re Happy and You Know It,” becomes increasingly louder, blasting from the computer until it nearly overpowers the television.]

DAD (slightly irritated): L, how about you turn that down?

L (nonchalantly, eyes never leaving the screen): How about you turn that UP?

(Stunned silence and then snorts as the rest of the family stifles laughter.)

---

The girls made me a deal this afternoon. All unfinished schoolwork could be put off until tomorrow if they would each eat one slice of the Limburger cheese their father had brought home (I don'’t know why he did such a thing. Why would anyone do such a thing?) Everyone knows Limburger cheese stinks, but do you know how badly it stinks? It is appallingly bad. It is so bad you can’'t believe it really is that bad, so you go back for another whiff and then instantly regret it. Like the pain of childbirth. There was a five minute time limit from when I cut the cheese, and believe me, now I know where that little euphemism comes from, to when it had to be completely consumed. They were both able to get it into their mouths, even chewing a little, but then I mentioned the similarity between the smell of the cheese and soiled underpants. They'’re presently finishing up their Latin.

---

Sarah made a good point the other day reminding us not to teach to cover the material, or grade level, or schedule, but to teach to the child, for the child. (Sarah often makes good points, it wasn't just some fluke the other day. On those days when she is not enlightening me, she is making me laugh.)

I have the “"We're falling behind"” doubts on occasion too. Being on the uptight side though, I simply couldn't let go completely of the idea of schedules or grade levels, so I did the next best thing. To curb this disturbing perfectionism, this gnawing unease that we are not where we should be, I created a timewarp of sorts, altering the prefabricated schedules to fit my family instead of banishing them entirely. I devised a plan to skip levels, initially for math, but now being planned for next year's grammar as well. Instead of trying to cram one entire book into a regimented, arbitrarily designated school term, or even over the course of an entire year, I opted to get the book one level ahead of where they might normally be and take two years to complete it, going over the material at our turtle-like pace and in greater depth. In two years time they will have certainly mastered the material thanks to the spiral approach and, voila, we will still be right on (someone's arbitrarily dictated) track! This worked for math because we use Saxon. Saxon uses the spiral approach which constantly reviews material previously learned and teaches new material in very small increments. By skipping a book, you are not missing any new material. The constant repetition and review is what my kids need to make things stick.

I was sweating a little about English next year. I am gung-ho on using Classical Writing with its progymnasmata format, but trying to work Harvey'’s English Grammar lessons into the writing lesson was daunting. I am very happy with Rod & Staff. The oral review questions, lesson explanations, oral and written work, and more review work perfectly for my daughters. They need to constantly review some of the older concepts to keep them fresh. Rod & Staff also works perfectly for me. Everything is laid out in the Teacher's Manual. Going through Harvey'’s would require me to incorporate the lesson into the writing while determining which important concepts to review on my own and I’'m just not confident enough to do that.

So, following Sarah'’s advice not to get too caught up in the material’s' recommended levels, but to use what works for the child, I am going to add that I will also suggest using whatever works best for the teacher as well. After all, this is a big learning experience for me too. Sounds so obvious, doesn'’t it? But I really had a quandary when I decided on Classical Writing. It wasn'’t the authors'’ fault, they recommend Harvey's because they feel it is the most complete English grammar around but also recommend adapting the program to whatever suits your particular need. It was just my perfectionism in wanting to do the program exactly right, even though there are plainly so many options. It looks like next year we'’ll continue to use Rod & Staff for grammar, jumping ahead a level, taking our time, and skipping their writing lessons in favor of Classical Writing. I won'’t get all stressed either about the fact that our grammar lesson may not mesh perfectly with our writing program. It works for me.

Florida environmental disaster news

South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD, pronounced, "Swift Mud") has announced the appointment to their governing board of Malcolm S. Wade, Jr., Senior Vice President of sugar operations for U.S. Sugar, the entity most responsible for the pollution of the Everglades. Is this a possible conflict of interest, or just blatant raping and pillaging?


---

Call it a hunch, but I'm guessing none of the members of Collier County's tourism board are natives.

Excerpted from the Naples Daily News:

It seemed like a good idea to Collier County tourism promoters, but everybody didn't agree.

The idea was to give beach vendors complimentary plastic bags that beachgoers could use to collect shells.

Besides providing a service to shellers, printing on the bags could promote Collier County as the Paradise Coast, remind beachgoers not to litter and that live shelling is prohibited on county beaches.

Weeks after starting up the program, the county is pulling the bags from local beach spots in the wake of warnings that the bags could be an environmental hazard.

[It] raised concerns that the bags are not biodegradable and, if left floating in the water, might look like jellyfish to sea turtles that might try to eat the bags or might get entangled in them.

Besides that, the warning against live shelling is printed only in English and doesn't define live shelling, critics said.

Wert said Tuesday that the county will replace the bags with biodegradable ones — and this time will consult with county environment experts before ordering them.

New bags should do a better job of educating beachgoers about what is allowed and what isn't, said Nancy Payton, field representative for the Florida Wildlife Federation.

Many beachgoers aren't familiar with the term "live shelling" — collecting a shell that has something living in it — and don't know that Collier County prohibits collecting live shells, live sand dollars and live sea stars from its beaches.

Payton said that, without more education, beachgoers might fill the bags with anything they can pick out of the surf, and that could be plenty, given that the bag measures 12 inches wide and 15 inches deep.

I would recommend they all go to shell in a handbasket.

---

Iguana infestation has become a hot topic lately. Eradication efforts of the non-native invasive critters on Boca Grande have ranged from collecting and mercifully drowning them, to hunting them with teeny, tiny guns. What to do with all those dead lizards...?

Reading

The last few days I have been on a Mortimer J. Adler kick -- consider me properly addled -- first finishing The Paideia Program: An Educational Syllabus, and now digging into that old classic, How to Read a Book. Someone who saw me toting How to Read a Book actually asked me what it was about. What is this world coming to? Continuing in that vein, I will eventually get around to How to Speak, How to Listen, another book taking up some prime real estate on my bedside table. At least fifty percent of that last book will be wasted on me, for in the interests of public safety I plan to severely limit my speaking engagements.

The Paideia Program was most helpful in explaining how to conduct seminars, or Socratic dialogues, with your students. This was something I have been searching for specifics on and am happy to say that now I get it. His three columned categories of learning: acquisition of organized knowledge by didactic instruction; development of intellectual skills by coaching; and enlarged understanding of ideas and values by Socratic questioning; parallel the stages of the trivium. Material to be covered and goals are referenced by subject. The one aspect I think the book fell short on was regarding the study of history. The focus was primarily on American history. Great for starters, but the idea of studying history chronologically and more comprehensively makes more sense. Later on European history is added, but only in the context of further explaining American history. Social Studies as a specific study of various cultures is encouraged, with the explanation that studying only Western civilizations is most provincial. They may have that backward - focusing on American history seems most provincial to me. Of course learning about other cultures is important, but not so as to need be a separate subject; life is a social study. I have a sneaking suspicion Western Civ carries a little more weight with Mr. “Great Books” Adler. He includes a disclaimer in the intro that this publication was a joint effort and not all contributors agreed on every detail. I hear you, Mort.

In keeping with the recommendation from A Thomas Jefferson Education that mentors read the same material as their students, I finally got around to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Another movie-inspiring children'’s book making the rounds in our house is, Because of Winn-Dixie, which left me teary-eyed, a sign of a possible hormone imbalance, and eager to see it on the big screen.

I downloaded the Homeschool Tracker program and spent one whole day last week entering in all our resources used this past year and the major items for next year. It sure makes for an impressive list. I had my own lists compiled in various documents, Word and Excel, but this keeps it all in one place and makes creating and maintaining transcripts simple. History reading for next year was not included yet because I am still undecided. On order from Great Books Academy is the study guide for the Greek year (Freshman,) first semester. After I review that I will have a better idea of whether I start with their reading list and bring it down a little, or use more of Greenleaf’'s book recommendations and ratchet it up a notch.

Ow.

Today's agenda? Survive 'til tomorrow, when I have a chiropractor's appointment. (Oh, God, I'm becoming my mother...) She will hopefully violently crack my neck and shoulders back into non-agony position. If that doesn't help then I suspect it is this miserable cold, which if it is at all possible, has nestled in my neck and shoulder muscles. Or maybe it's just meningitis or encephalitis. In desperation, I have begun slurping the remainder of my daughter's yummy pink Keflex prescription, given to her for the ear infection she suffered as a result of this hideous illness and lots of over-the-counter pain medication.

G took the older two to work with him today and the little one is at school, so I am trying to enjoy the peace and quiet and possibly make up the eight hours of sleep I missed out on last night. For company I have The Sopranos first season. My neighbor loaned this to me months ago and there hasn't been any opportunity until now to watch it. So far, I'm not hooked.

Forgiveness

Just had another one of those phone conversations with my mother. One punctuated with a steady of string of, "Fine, yeah, no, nope, fine, yup," and the occasional multisyllabic, "Uh huh," and, "How many times are you going to ask me that question?"

But before you go thinking I'm too hard on my family, which I may very well be, let me say first that from now on, I promise to try and let bygones be bygones, water under the bridge and all that good stuff. I will make a sincere effort not to harp on them so much. Because really, they're not all bad, and true, they won't always be around. Besides, who else just has so much material to offer?

Like my father, he of the Butt/Face bath towel, who this Christmas called the giant, so-big-it's-on-TV-Sundays Presbyterian church across from their house not once, but three times, to complain that their church bells were too loud, and that frankly, the unrecognizable, supposed Christmas tunes they were playing sucked. Yeah, Merry Christmas to you too, buddy.

And my mother, who will hire anybody, allowing them into their fortress of a house with open arms the minute she picks up a Boston accent. Even though the Boston Strangler probably sounded like that.

Oh, and then there's my mom's sister, who has the same affinity for lowlife con-artist handymen, as long as they sound like they've just stepped off the boat from the old sod. "Top o' the mornin' to ya, Mrs. O'B! Where are ya keepin' yer silverware these days?" In fact she once humiliated us in a Logan Airport coffee shop by barging in on a table of guys sitting around strumming guitars and playing with a tape recorder after detecting a wee bit of a brogue. "Ah you boys famous? Oh! Yaw from Iyahland! Ah family is from Galway!" Looking back it was pretty cool that it turned out to be U2 and we got an autograph out of the deal, but when they invited us to the club they were playing, my aunt informed them that these underaged girls were far too innocent to be visiting nightclubs. Not cool. Though she is very nearly my mother's psychological twin and has traveled the world visiting sites where the Virgin Mother is alleged to have appeared, I actually get along pretty well with her. She was kind enough to send me holy water specially blessed by her healer priest friend during my hospital stay with antibiotic resistant alpha strep after the birth of my youngest, even after I asked if I could put it in my peri bottle. She once confessed to me, after preventing my going up the woods with a neighbor boy, that she knew what I was planning to do, and that she didn't think smoking pot was such a bad thing, really. She said she would even like to try it, but was afraid that she, "...might just get some bad weed." And it's always fun to hear her scream things with that Boston accent like, "I need a cockscrew!" (Translation: corkscrew) Or wonder when she yells, "FUH cryin' outloud," who is Ryan?

So, if I were to let all the irritations build up and never speak to any of them again, see what I'd be missing?

(Cough, cough)

This is the cold that never ends. It is some extra-virulent strain and I am not completely sure, but I think perhaps some kind of biological terrorist attack has been unleashed upon us. Don't want to alarm you or anything, but this is no regular cold. For one thing I have not lost my voice, much to everyone's dismay, which is standard procedure for me and can typically be brought on by a mere sneeze. Instead, I can hardly put two words together without blasting out a braying hack that scares the heck out of anyone within earshot. Today I had to run out of the waiting room of the orthodontist when a coughing fit seized me and I couldn't catch my breath. I was waiting for someone to call 911 or try the Heimlich maneuver, convinced I must be dying. Bird flu? Pneumonia? Consumption?

And with that in mind, while we were up in Boston last spring on our Colonial American History Road Trip, my cousin Beth Anne obtained burial records from the historical society for the Westerly Burial Grounds, a neighborhood cemetery with graves going back to the early 17th century. The list noted the cause of death, if known, of the various occupants. G, navigating with the list, stopped at one grave and announced, "this poor guy died of constipation." She had misread "consumption." We all agreed that would be a terrible way to go.

A little diversion

via Quiet Life:

1. Grab the nearest book
2. Open the book to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog, along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it. Just grab what is closest!

----

But they were in a state of frenzy, perhaps because of forgotten vanities, and it made an exhibition of sublime recklessness. There was no obvious questioning, nor figurings, nor diagrams. There were, apparently, no considered loopholes.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

In my spare time

My husband doesn't think I have enough to do. He is always proposing various money-making schemes, phrased in the first person plural, but meant for my first person singular.

Maybe he thinks I don't get out enough, or that I'm bored. Maybe he thinks I have loads of spare time on my hands, or need a new hobby. Maybe this is his way of making sure I have some adult conversation once in a while. (My friend Sam suggested as much when she once heard me refer to a pretty little bird perched on my fence as Mr. Blue Jay. God help me.)

Sometimes it seems like I will only be a valued contributing member of society when I begin contributing financially.

G's opportunity du jour involves finding a market for a warehouse full of granite sphere water fountains abandoned by a deadbeat tenant. Do I know retail? I do not. Do I see the possibility to make a lot of money hustling stone? Absolutely. Is it hard to pass up the chance to make a ton of money? You betcha. But right now I've got other things to occupy my time.

Like raising and educating our daughters.

I have a very slow metabolism, like a turtle. I may even live to be 150 years old, though I hope not. Like a turtle I plod along at a slow, steady pace, focusing on one major project at a time. Although what major projects turtles actually focus on, I don't know. I am not a good multi-tasker either, unless you count the other day when I took advantage of my wireless internet and blogged in the bathroom. I won't tell you which post because I don't want you to feel icky about it.

Prioritizing leaves me plenty of time for all these other projects at some point in my empty nest future.

One day I will finish my needlepointing, spend more time on infrared photography, and handcoloring photos. I will finally get around to all those activities that are just impractical and imprudent with young, dependent children, like skydiving, caving, hitching a ride on a freight train, flying across a gorge on a zip line, and tubing class 5 rapids. Why, I may even start selling real estate.

Just not right now.

March

American Red Cross Month -- National Women’s History Month

1 Peace Corps founded, 1961
Salem witch hysteria begins, 1692
Silly Putty debut, 1950
2 Read Across America Day honors Dr. Seuss’s birthday
3 “The Star Spangled Banner” adopted as national anthem, 1931
4 Pennsylvania deeded to William Penn by King Charles II, 1681
5 Boston Massacre, 1770
6 Fall of the Alamo, 1836
7 Monopoly invented, 1933
8 First U.S. income tax levied and collected, 1913
9 Barbie debuts, 1959
10 First telephone message transmission, 1876
Harriet Tubman dies, 1913
First U.S. paper money issued, 1862
11 Johnny Appleseed Day
12 Girl Scouts of the USA founded by Juliette Low, 1912
13 Passion Week
Uranus discovered, 1781
14 Clean Monday, Orthodox Lent begins
15 Ides of March, Julius Caesar assassinated, 44 B.C.
16 First liquid-fueled rocket flight by Robert Hutchings Goddard, 1926
17 St. Patrick’s Day
19 Operation Iraqi Freedom begins, 2003
Save the Florida Panther Day
Swallows return to San Juan Capistrano, annual event since 1776
20 Holy Week begins
Palm Sunday
Vernal equinox, spring begins
21 First round-the-world balloon flight, 1999
Pocahontas dies, 1617
22 Laser patented, 1960
23 Liberty Day, commemorates Patrick Henry’s speech, 1775
24 Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday
25 Purim
27 Easter Sunday
28 Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident, 1979
P.T. Barnum and James A. Bailey merge forming the “Greatest Show on Earth”, 1881
29 Niagara Falls runs dry, 1848
30 First anesthetic used in surgery by Dr. Crawford W. Long, 1842
Eraser topped pencil patented, 1858
31 Eiffel Tower anniversary, 1889


Birthdays

2 Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel, 1904
3 Alexander Graham Bell, 1847
4 Casimir Pulaski, 1747
5 Gerhardus Mercator, 1512
6 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1806
Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475
8 Kenneth Grahame, 1859
9 Amerigo Vespucci, 1451
14 Albert Einstein, 1879
Casey Jones, 1864
15 Andrew Jackson, 1767
16 James Madison, 1751
18 Grover Cleveland, 1837
19 William Bradford, 1589
Wyatt Earp, 1848
21 Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685
Benito Juarez, 1806
24 Harry Houdini, 1874
26 Robert Frost, 1874
29 John Tyler, 1790
30 Anna Sewell, 1820
Vincent Van Gogh, 1853
31 Cesar Chavez, 1927
Franz Joseph Haydn, 1732

The Ides of March have come. -- Julius Caesar

Beware the ides of March. -- William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)

Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty. -- William Shakespeare (The Winter’s Tale)

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.
-- Robert Frost (“Two Tramps in Mud Time")