Wednesday, May 28, 2008


I recently finished reading The Screwtape Letters for the first time. I loved this book! It's written by a demon who is training his nephew to pull people away from God ("the Enemy") and how they use the trappings of this life to try to separate us from Him. Each chapter contains at least one lesson, and this book really made me think about my relationship with God and how to be closer to Him in ways that I hadn't before. C. S. Lewis has opened my eyes in other books as well, and if you were touched by the messages in the Chronicles of Narnia, you would probably enjoy this book as well.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

I can't believe how much I fit into my day yesterday!
  • taught 21 second graders for a full day
  • shopped around for a lawn mower
  • mowed a quarter of my lawn before the new mower stopped working
  • payed my electric bill
  • went to the post office
  • returned a call for a job interview
  • endeavored to get mower fixed, but shop was closed
  • made meatballs from scratch for dinner
Then I relaxed and watched the second half of "The Empire Strikes Back" with Ethan and Esme, talked to Lisa for a bit, and went to bed!

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Soccer Star

On the way to her first soccer practice Esme was worried that she wouldn't be a good soccer player. I told her that confidence comes from within and that if she didn't believe she would be a good soccer player, then no one would. I told her when she stepped onto the field in her mind she should say, "I'm a soccer star!" Every water break she ran over and shouted gleefully, "Mommy, I'm a soccer star!" She is learning how to play the game and is actually pretty good at it!

Before we even heard when the games or practices would be she said she wanted to be number five. I told her not to get her heart set on it, that the coach would probably assign her a number and that would be that. But when the uniforms came, the players got to choose their numbers when they arrived to practice. Five was still available so she got her wish!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Last time I had a long term assigment at school I hardly kept up with anything. I did manage to keep all my homeschooling activities going, but I don't think I scrapped at all for those 3 months. This time, I had a plan to make sure I keep scrapping.

My best friend, Lisa, lives about 75 miles away. With the price of gas getting higher and higher, I don't get to see her as much as I would like. We crop together once a month, but neither of us were satisfied with the amount we accomplished. Lisa and I are both big telephone people, so decided to crop together over the phone once a week. Yes, there are some periods of dead air and once a week I'd have a crik in my neck, but it was working out okay.

Other scrappers started gently picking on us about it. We realized we were losing the best part of scrapping together which was help on each other's layouts. Finally someone told us about Skype, which enables you to use your computer like a telephone. We purchased webcams and this week we had our first virtual crop. It was fabulous!! I love being about to show my page when I'm stuck and she loved being able to eat Samoas in front of me. (cruel cruel girl)

We challenge each other once a week - we've done things like, do a completely monochromatic layout, or use a combination of glitter and dye (although when she said dye I thought she meant die, so I she used dye and I used a die cut), do a completely black and white page, etc. It's lots of fun!

Saturday, May 10, 2008

changing for a while


Esme's schedule is going to be changing for a few weeks. She's just about finished her weather unit. For the next few weeks Ethan and I will both be working during the day, so we won't be doing formal lesson plans. Esme will have independent work to do on her days with her Nonna and some guided work to do on Fridays with Grandma. Right now she is also involved in sessions of soccer, gym and swim, and lego league on top of her other activities, so we think all of this will keep her pretty busy.

Today I decided to try out a drawing lesson with Esme. We talked about how objects closer to us appear larger and objects further away appear smaller. We talked about how all objects can be broken down into simpler shapes and drew some dandelions, breaking them down into lines and circles. We had fun drawing out in our yard together!

Our Drawings from Today



























Esme insisted that the buds in my picture wouldn't grow without any sun, so she added the sun in her picture to make sure hers would.