Where there's smoke...

Other than sharing it with my husband I usually don't spread gossip. But sometimes it's just too juicy. Does anyone remember my encounter with the cheesy leader of a sales seminar I took at my real estate company?

She and her family recently moved from their estate property, a large house on five rural acres purchased at the the top of the market, to a much smaller but still ostentatious house in our neighborhood purchased at clearance price from the builder after their big house burned to the ground. Not only does her general character cause people to immediately be suspicious, a mutual friend confided she had lost another house in another state to another fire.

Last week she bought space in the local paper and for two days running published shrill denials of the rumors. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Fool

My future sister-in-law, a second grade teacher in a New Jersey public school, was told by her principal that the teachers were not allowed to turn on the inauguration for the children in the classrooms in case there happened to be an "act of violence."

Cleaning Up

I've been on a mad cleaning jag since we got back. Bags and bags of clothing, toys, and nicknacks have been donated and loads of other useless junk trashed. My goal is minimalism, with only one place for necessities (as opposed to looking for pens in either the junk drawer by the phone, the art cabinet in the garage, or among the office supplies in my bedroom closet) and necessities in their logical place.

There has been a big bonus to this reorganization, aside from the peace of mind simpler living brings, and that is the discovery of gift cards. Some of the people I try to reason with before December's holiday asset exchange actually either pay attention to our replies for gift suggestions or out of pure frustration at not knowing what to give shower us with gift cards. And since I despise hanging around in stores, unless there is an online option for purchasing items or a some specific object I need immediately, sometimes I put them away and forget to use them.

Yesterday we treated ourselves to a stop at Einstein Bros. Bagels (a rarity here on the west coast which meant a trip up to Sarasota after Sarabelle's almost-in-Sarasota dental appointment) and stocked up courtesy of an '07 Christmas present. Two old Books-A-Million cards warranted a stop there too.

A funny thing about BAM, and maybe it's less a fault of that corporation than the local store management, or possibly just indicative of the status quo, but there were forty sections of books classified either Christian Living or Bibles versus two sections for Philosophy. The Science and Social Issues shelves were noticeably scanty as well. After much searching I did manage to dig up two books from my wish list, Christopher Hitchen's Thomas Jefferson: Author of America and Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason (which serendipitously opens with Jefferson's quote, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."). Elle, starter of so many chapter books of late including Nancy Drew's The Bungalow Mystery and The Mystery at Lilac Inn; Poppy; Little House in the Big Woods; A Series of Unfortunate Events The Bad Beginning; and many more, found a book she could not put down and will most likely finish, Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Not great literature, not a classic, not even close, but I will take what I can get at this point. Sarabelle snagged the latest issue of Vanity Fair, I got my educator's discount card updated and we were off. But not before thoughtfully reorganizing some of the shelves, relocating The Nude Bible from the paltry Art section to its proper place among those other forty sections of Bibles.

On the way home we spied this monstrosity and along with the fistful of play money Sarabelle picked out as a prize for her good behavior at the dentist (at the behest of Elle) we documented life in America for our Aussie friends.

So Proud

You may have seen this Durex ad already, it was developed for Canadian and European television markets and intended as a viral campaign as well. So I'm just doing my part.

This is what my brother sits around all day doing. He is the head CGI animator for Superfad in the Manhattan office and this is his baby. I must say, the animation is fanastic. The content? Well, before you watch it, make sure there are no little ones peeking over your shoulder.

Outtakes here.

Back to School!

This week we pulled out the books and got back to business. Somewhat. There were a few hitches, like when I realized the Saxon Math I had on hand for Grice was not quite right and had to order a higher level after giving her a placement test; and our unsuccessful attempts at structuring time rather than content; but the books are on their way and we'll be structuring everything for awhile until we all develop a little more self-discipline.

I placed an order for children's books on evolution and Darwin in honor of Darwin's 200. Visit Charley's Playhouse for some great ideas. This year, instead of just our basic history, math, English, and Latin, I'm going to make science more of a focus.

And that includes my own education as well. If you thought my 2008 reading list was interesting, you should see my Amazon Wishlist for this year's selections:



I want to read these all right now, though I should probably try to finish some of the ones lingering on my bedside table first and quit being distracted by the kids' vampire stories. In order to make more room on my dangerously overloaded shelves I have begun listing books on Half.com. So far I have sold one book and bought eight more.

Grice and Elle attended their first 4H event last night, a cooking club hosted by their good friends' mother, and today we wrapped up our first week with the year's first meeting and park day for our local homeschool group. It has been nice reconnecting with old friends.

Sarabelle has passed her state mandated online drug and alcohol course as well as her online road rules exam and only has to pass the eye exam and physical driving test before she is issued a Florida Driver's License.

We've already got our first field trip planned, the Florida Renaissance Festival, set for next month.

Let's see how it goes next week.

2008 Reading

MY READING

The Power of Now
Buddhism for Mothers: A Calm Approach to Caring for Yourself and Your Children
Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment
Women Who Run With the Wolves
God's War: A New History of the Crusades
The Thorn Birds
Cat's Eye
Bluebeard's Egg
The Bostonians
Toontown Player's Guide
Basic Watercolor Answer Book
Watercolor Secrets for Painting Light
Step-by-step Watercolours
Simply Watercolor: Paint Techniques That Work Every Step of the Way
The Encyclopedia of Watercolour Techniques
Masterstrokes Watercolour: A Step-by-step Guide to Learning from the Masters
The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching
Becoming an Australian Citizen
The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Duma Key
Nature Girl
The Twilight of American Culture (again)
The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century (again)
Ella Enchanted
George's Secret Key to the Universe
Kurt Cobain: Journals
A Tale of Two Cities
Twilight
The Metamorphosis
The God Delusion
The Portable Atheist

2008 Read-Alouds

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
The Red Fairy Book
The Book of Virtues
The Green Fairy Book
Hoot
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
Otto of the Silver Hand
The Adventures of Robin Hood