Wordless Wednesday: Veterans Day

On the weekend before Veterans Day, our American Heritage Girls troops place rose petals on the graves at our local Veterans Cemetery after the Boy Scouts have placed flags at each site. It's a lovely tradition, one that connects the girls to the world in a way that parades and speeches cannot. For more "Wordless" Wednesday posts, visit Wordless Wednesday, Momspective, and Five Minutes for Mom.

Immersed

No, this post is not a discussion of immersion vs. sprinkling, so sorry if you came here looking for answers on that topic. Sometimes words just pop in my head, and this week I feel utterly immersed in activities. I don't nearly have the drowning feeling, but I feel like my head is barely above water. (I guess the "immersed" analogy just fell apart…)

Nonetheless, I shouldn't be sitting here blogging. I should be doing dishes or putting away laundry or sending out an email about our AHG meeting this week or creating a test for Friday's World Lit class or doing sit-ups or baking cookies or, at the very least, taking a shower to get ready for our day. But sometimes, you just have to blog it out.

This is one of those weeks in which everything and more hits. This week, I am praying for a sunny day for the Veterans Day parade in which our area American Heritage Girls troops are marching tomorrow. For Jesse to get his college application essays DONE and in the mail. For the ability to send out all the right emails with all the right information as we have our last "working" AHG meeting on Thursday until January. (Our December meeting is a Christmas tea.) That I can figure out exactly what it is I'm doing in class on Friday—that I can capture all the ideas running in circles in my head and nail down a solid plan. For Jesse to get those essays done (did I say that already?) and plan the Boy Scouts' Court of Honor which he has to emcee on Friday evening.

And then, of course, I need to teach my sweet children. That is what I am looking forward to most today: heading over to our cozy apartment, wrapping up in fleece blankets next to the fireplace (OK, it's gas, but still...), and reading to my little ones (who aren't really very little).

But what is really, really nice? This is the last officially crazy week of the year. When I come to Saturday morning—just four days away—I can get out my sewing machine and start all kinds of fun projects. And finish one sweet baby's quilt.

What's happening in your world this week?

Weekly Wrap-Up

How I loved this calm, relatively activity-free week!

* Monday we had our regular day at our co-op. We finished discussing Snow Treasure in Literature Circle, added supporting sentences to body paragraphs in Basic Essay Writing, and worked more on rebuttals in Introduction to Debate. Monday evening we had our first official meeting for our chapter of Eta Sigma Alpha, the National Homeschool Honor Society. Yes, it's true: the National Honor Society doesn't accept homeschoolers, so some folks started an honor society for homeschoolers many years ago. Apparently the NHS doesn't think homeschoolers can prove equal academic standing, which is of course ridiculous. Hello, ACT and/or SAT scores? Whatever. Our support group began sponsoring a local chapter several months ago, and we only just managed to find a time to meet and discuss future plans. The first project our kids are going to undertake is to hold a practice session for ACT test-taking. While the kids administer the practice tests, some of us parents are going to hold an information college-prep session for parents.

* Tuesday-Friday: we are in the middle of a fabulous book about The Wright Brothers. This is one of those books that the kids beg me to keep reading. We've also been reading Samantha's World: Growing Up in America's New Century, which is really excellent. While I've been reading, Laurel has been designing clothes with her fashion design kit, and Duncan has been plugging away at Legos. Of course we did all our regular work as well: spelling, math, handwriting, grammar, etc. and the kids did whatever homework they had from co-op classes. We somehow didn't do either art or creative writing this week; that happens sometimes when a book is so good that we can't stop reading!

* Jesse has been working hard at getting his essays done for college applications. The goal is to finish everything this week to submit early next week, although the deadline for early decision is Dec. 1 for the colleges to which he's applying. We're trying to discourage that procrastinator's gene.

* We finished reading and discussing Things Fall Apart in World Lit/Geography today. While most of the students liked the book more as they went along, it was far from a favorite. Jesse really liked it, and a couple others did as well. I still think it was an excellent choice, and I hope it will be memorable for them.

* Tomorrow we'll be going to the veterans' cemetery in the morning to decorate the graves with flower petals, and tomorrow night is our annual American Heritage Girls/Cub Scouts hayride and campfire!

Coming up next week: a crazy, packed week with co-op, pack meeting, Veterans' Day parade, AHG and Cub Scouts, and World Lit/geography class. Thank goodness for a few calm weeks like this past one every now and then!

To wrap up your week, visit Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. You might be surprised at all you've done!

Wordless Wednesday: Mom and Dad

How I love them! For more "Wordless" Wednesday posts, visit Wordless Wednesday, Momspective, and Five Minutes for Mom.

Tuesday Miscellany

* October is fundraising month around here, and we are soooo glad that it's over! I really don't have a lot to do besides help Laurel sell. We have a fantastic fundraising coordinator for our American Heritage Girls troop. She does all the planning, collecting, and distributing of our annual citrus sale. But Randy, as Cubmaster of Duncan's troop, isn't so blessed. No one has stepped up to coordinate the annual popcorn sales for the past few years, so he does it all: planning, communicating, collecting, encouraging, and adding up all the money and the leftover popcorn. It's a really, really big job. But now it's done for the most part, and tonight we are reveling in a fundraising-free home.

* Our dog got into the Halloween candy. We now have 7 distinct stains on the living room carpet where she had diarrhea. Big stains. And she smells gross. Anyone have a great idea for getting poop stains out of carpet?

* Every Tuesday evening my parents come over for supper. It is impossible to express how much I cherish this tradition. Tonight after supper we played a game of Mahjong, which we are all struggling to learn, and than a game of our favorite card game. (It's called 500, in case you are wondering. You've probably never played.) But best of all, my father told stories after we played. The word "stories" doesn't seem quite right; really, my father tells memories. He is a master storyteller, with a gentle cadence and a penchant for poetry. Tonight he told about a certain "refugee" family from the "Missouri boot-heel" who moved to his small southern Illinois town and worked on his family's apple orchards. The story progressed through years and years, winding through college and the war and back to southern Illinois. I love stories like that. We also visited Omaha Beach, where my father's battalion landed just two months after D-Day. I am so blessed to have this man as my father. It's not just that he is the perfect Dad and a hero and a historian and a brilliant scientist, but he has a poet's heart.

* I love this week. I have virtually no extra activities.

* Which makes me wonder, yet again: why do we do so many things?

Three Beautiful Things: Clean, Food, Husband

1. My house is so clean. We had a really big annual party here this weekend, and I did major cleaning. Loved the party, love the clean house that remains. For a little while, anyway.

2. I went grocery shopping today and got food for the whole week. I have been so bad lately about doing a bit of shopping every couple of days and then running out of food. This week, the fridge is full and the menu is complete. I even found candy corn on clearance.

3. My husband is seriously the best dad ever. He drove our son all the way to Asheville, North Carolina (having to take a detour that doubled his time because of a rock slide) this evening so that Jesse could go see the amazing Leonard Cohen in concert. The concert was mostly a gift from my brother and Jesse pitched in the rest of the outrageously expensive ticket. While Randy would have loved to have heard Leonard Cohen, there was no way he could justify spending that money. For awhile he found a cafe to hang out in, but now that it's closed, he's sitting outside the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium reading a book while Jesse soaks in amazing music. Seriously, who does that? Our kids are so blessed.

Me, too.

What beautiful things have been happening in your world lately?

October Reading

It is truly impossible for me to go to sleep at night without reading. I had a fantastic reading month in October. Are you looking for a few good books? Check out my reading blog, SmallWorld Reads, to see the books I read and reviewed in October. While you're there, check out the links to other reviews on my sidebar and my favorite books of last year.

What are you reading now, and what's on your reading list?