HS Comments on the Fly

Sometimes when you deny your children something, they end up wanting it all the more. Right? You know how it works. You say they cannot ever play video games and then the video games take on a larger-than-life mystique and are desired all the more because of it.

It is like that with TV dinners in our house. When my husband or I shop, we are not tempted, and we just do not buy them. For a few reasons … but a big one is that we think that they’re unnecessary. Why not just make healthier food like the food in the TV dinner ourselves? It’s healthier, cheaper, and more efficient — and less packaging. I’m not saying we don’t buy frozen pizzas or fish sticks once in a blue moon — just not the little dinners from Banquet and Lean Cuisine, etc.

So my daughter, the other day, did buy a few TV dinners with her own money. She got one out for lunch. She was anticipating a great meal as she looked at the package. Then she opened the package. Look at what she got to eat:

Do you notice a difference in the size of the egg roll on the package and the egg roll in real life? Before buying, she had neglected to read Banquet’s disclaimer: “Enlarged to Show Quality.”

And my daughter suddenly understood why we usually don’t buy TV dinners.

And, of course, this has homeschooling relevance. Independent Living or Home Economics — whatever you want to call it.

Question: If a homeschooling family is feeling a little under the weather on December 7, what should they do?

ANSWER: Dig out their copy of Pearl Harbor and watch it. I hear a lot of people didn’t like it (or maybe it was just the critics), but I thought it was pretty good as war movies go. And they get extra points for adding in the Doolittle Raid (covered in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo in Landmark Books).

Tip for new homeschoolers: Under the Blood-Red Sun is a good boys book about Pearl Harbor. It would be a good read aloud, too.

We are missing it. And I am not amused.

It is supposed to be out in the evening, but I just am not getting out there. To top it off, I have not even managed to mentioned to either of my progeny — you know, because they might be able to remind me.

I think I am missing this evening comet because when 5 p.m. rolls around (when school ends here), I just turn off and don’t think about anything but getting dinner made and relaxing my brain a bit. My daughter and I did managed to make it outside to see the Perseids meteor shower last August. The streaks seemed especially long this year which made the show rather spectacular. We were up on the hood of the vehicle under a comforter to stay warm and avoid rattlesnakes. In the summer we have to wait until late (like midnight) because sundown is so late.

As usual, Earth & Sky does not fail to inform about the current Comet Holmes. It explains how to see it. According to the comments, people were still seeing it last night. So I suppose there is still hope. I also found this article, too, that seems to tell us that we can still see it tonight. However, the morning news just let me know that clouds are forecast. Drats.

Comet Holmes supposedly doesn’t have a tail. No tail? That’s puzzling. There are supposed to be two tails, right? I believe I learned that over 15 years ago with what I remember as being our very first unit study on astronomy. The kids made comets out of foil and cotton balls (tails) and threw them around the living room. Ah, great memories.

Some pics.

I am thinking of decreasing my breaths per minute. That will lessen my carbon footprint, right? Anything to be green.

I am rather miffed that we did not get to finish The Lost Painting today. I want to finish it myself, but it’s a read aloud that my daughter and I are reading together. It takes real character to not go and finish that book on my own, I will have you know. But then, that would rob me of the pleasure that comes from reading it together. Okay, it would rob her of it, too, but it’s all about me right now.

I have been weeding out my links on the left. You know, removing links to unproductive blogs. If they haven’t posted since May, then there’s no need to keep them on the list. While doing that, I got distracted a bit — particularly by Mariposa, Wind Dancer, and Lifetime Learning.

I was also distracted by Crystal who wrote:

Basically, our society thinks it’s REALLY COOL to treat kids like crap ~ oh, and husbands too!

Crystal can be found over at Daikini Crossroads, and she had a link to this song on YouTube. It made me shudder and feel like I was about 8 again. Hopefully, all moms don’t all sound like that all the time. I have tried not to, but a few things have to be said and taught, imo. Or maybe it’s just quicker to tell a child something than it is for them to figure it out on their own or hear it on the playground. Like … raw veggies are usually better for you than cooked. But with kids, sometimes you’re wrong either way you slice it because I know there are things I wish I’d been instructed on before I left home — like that using a fork upside down with your left hand is okay. Someone dropped the ball on that one. I just hope that most folks think that there’s more to motherhood than that song indicates. What will digital archeologists 200 years from now think of motherhood in the early 2000s when they view it? Yes, I know there are no digital archaelogists … yet.

Okay, what else to blather about?

Oh, I know. This is a good one. I’m finally getting around to selling my oldest’s homeschooling books — now that I know which ones we won’t be needing for my daughter. I thought for sure I could get about $200 on eBay for all the books, but all I found is one set of books which will net me around $45 if I’m lucky after eBay and Paypal fees. So, yeah. A minor disappointment. Not a big deal, but still a deal.

I ordered The Man Who Made Time Travel last night. And then as I was brushing my teeth in preparation for slumbering, I remembered that I could have Mooched it, or at least tried to Mooch it because I’m not sure that BookMooch.com has any copies available. What was I thinking? How could I forget about BookMooch? Quick change of topic, sort of: Doesn’t it seem like BookMooch is just more like StandInLineWaitingForABookYouCan’tWantAllThatMuchOrYou’dJustPayForIt?

To avoid any chance at misunderstandings, I am now removing the world sleep from my vocabulary because the second listed meaning for the verb sleep at m-w.com is to engage in s*-x-ual i-n-t-e-r-*-ourse. (must foil the search engines) Why can’t we just freeze our language and never let it change? kwim? I know! Oh, I bet it’s because it’s a tool. We are not the servant of our language. You know, just like curriculum is a tool and we don’t let the curriculum dictate how we teach our children.

See how I brought that right back around to homeschooling?

Oh, but I forgot to say something about The Man Who Made Time Travel. That’s John Harrison. The smartest and most resourceful and determined man in history. Did you see that movie Longitude? Of course, you did. Everyone has. It’s so good. Inspiring. Michael Gambon’s (you know, Dumbledore) acting is superb. He is the perfect Harrison. But he was also good in Wives and Daughters — shockingly so. It brought tears to my eyes. But back to the book — The Man Who Made Time Travel is supposed to be for little kids, but I’ve never seen it. I finally just gave in and ordered it. (I’ve been trying to see a copy before buying — one of my cardinal homeschooling rules — for way too long.)

John Harrison was the fellow who made a clock that could travel by sea. That’s important because people used to get lost at sea and then starve to death or die of scurvy, which, of course, led to ghost ships. Queen Anne of England offered a huge reward to anyone who could figure out a way of figuring longitude at sea because she was tired of losing her expensive ships and quite possibly tired of losing her subjects, too. Many tried to figure longitude by figuring out the movements of the stars and moon. Harrison did it with a clock by using springs and layering metals (see H1, see H4). I think they need a statue of him at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Seriously. I’m surprised there isn’t one. Wait. He was a commoner, wasn’t he?

Hey, you know that homeschooling mom, Amy, who makes soap in the middle of the night with a goofy hat on and has four boys in Florida? I love her Pearberry Soap! You need some. It smells great! You remember the description of Pearberry on her site? It’s the soap that her neighbor spends hours whiffing. Now I understand. I’m not a big fan of the Lilac. But the Pearberry and Rosemary Mint are both brilliant.

The good news? The Office is on tonight. Let’s hope it’s got more funny parts than *shudder* parts.

So, anyway, I guess I’ve got plenty to do around here. Like correct yesterday’s algebra work. And, yes, I do wield a claymore-sized red pen. It’s math. And it’s high school.

	Not noxious!

It was a tall and pretty thistle plant that I was admiring when someone drove up, jumped out of their car without putting it in park (it kept rolling a bit), and told me that I needed to cut it down because it was a Canadian thistle and a noxious weed. She was very vigilant. And motivated. I was taken aback. I told her, sweetly, of course, that it was the national flower of Scotland and that I wanted to see it bloom first. I assured her that I’d make sure that the flowers didn’t turn to seed. She seemed somewhat mollified. However, I wasn’t.

I took to the internet in a fact-checking frenzy. My daughter and I eventually identified the plant as a Scottish thistle which is not a noxious weed in this state; it is in some others, though. The Canadian thistle is a noxious weed in this state, but our lovely flower was most definitely not a Canadian thistle. There are a number of obvious differences between a Canadian thistle and a Scottish thistle.

I’ll admit it, though. It is rather weed-like. But it’s not noxious, so we can cultivate it if we care to. It did turn out quite nicely. In England, you can buy a Scottish thistle bush and plant it in your garden. Obviously in a land overrun with gardeners, there would be fewer noxious weeds.

Anyway, you can see that big bulb on it, can’t you. We didn’t think that you could press the flower like it showed William Wallace doing in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. So, we cut one and put it between some leftover bricks. You can see the results. That big ol’ bulb flattened right out. But look at the bloom! It lost all of its delightful color! So, I think that I found an error in the Braveheart movie. William Wallace’s pressed thistle supposedly retained its color, but I think it was due to movie magic instead of botanical science. Just a guess.

	pressed, colorless thistle

I looked on YouTube for Braveheart clips that included the thistle, but could only find a clip of young Murron picking the flower and giving it to young William at the funeral of his father. Her picking the flower is amusing since picking a Scottish thistle is not as easy as she makes it look. It’s extremely prickly, which my daughter and I found out when we tried and succeeded in bringing in a bouquet. And it did take both of us to cut and handle the stalks. And yes, it did hurt. I imagine, judging by its prickles, that it’s not meant to be picked.

Flower of Scotland is about the thistle. Can you believe there’s a song about it? I found it out when searching around YouTube for the above-mentioned clips. It’s my understanding that the “Proud Edward” mentioned in the song is Edward II who fought against Scottish King Robert the Bruce in 1314. He was the son of Longshanks if I’m understanding it correctly. Here’s a link in case you want to hear the song. I guess that it’s sung by Scots before rugby games. There are tons to YouTube clips of that.

Okay, so I found BookMooch. I love books. So I joined.

I added one book to my “Inventory” and then added another. Then I went to look at my inventory list, thinking I’d see two books listed.

But no, only the first book was there. So I clicked around trying to figure out what the problem was and found out that someone had already requested the second book that I entered into the system. Within seconds — just that quick! Wow!

That was a shock. And then I had to figure out what to do, which ended up being easy … just “Accept” the “Mooch.” Maybe I have the terminology wrong, but it’s close.

So, now, I can mooch a book from someone else because that moocher who requested my book automatically gave me one of their points. Cool, huh? A free book will arrive for me in the mail once I get a wishlist put together.

PROBLEM: I am wanting to get rid of books (remember?), not get more books. Oops. I guess BookMooch.com isn’t really what I want, is it? It’s basically send a book, receive a book.

It would have been great 10 years ago when we needed more books to replenish our home library for homeschooling. But now, we don’t need books in quite the same way at all. We’ve got almost enough books to finish high school and don’t need any more general books for school. The only one I can think of that we still need to buy is a workbook and isn’t likely to show up on BookMooch.

So. I don’t think I’ll be entering a whole slew of books into my BookMooch inventory since I have to package and ship books if they’re requested. 1) I don’t enjoy packaging up books and 2) I have to pay money to ship them. It’s easier and cheaper to just give them to a thrift store when I want to get rid of them.

Oh, and to top it off! Our post office won’t even let us send books as Media Mail because books aren’t educational materials. I’m not kidding; that’s what I was told. If it’s a textbook, we can use Media Mail; but we can’t send just any ol’ book Media Mail — not even literature (I asked) because “… that would include all books then.” What will the post office come up with next?

UPDATE: The post office worker took the package, opened it, and ripped up the interior packaging which consisted of a plastic grocery sack taped completely shut as a moisture barrier and the newsprint (or butcher paper, I don’t know what it’s called exactly) that the book was wrapped in. The family member who was mailing the book for me tried to get it all back together properly, but the wrapping materials were torn. The postal worker looked at the exterior of the book only and said that it couldn’t go “Media Mail.” It had to go “First Class.” No, there were no personal notes of any kind inside the book (which she didn’t look inside of anyway), nor were there any papers in the package at all — even though an invoice is permitted.

I hope the package arrives at its destination okay.

Yes, that’s the question of the day around here. Actually, I guess I should use the term “keyboarding” since it’s not considered typing any longer.

We’re in the throes of homeschool planning for this year. Yeah, we’re a little later than usual, but we’ll be okay. So we’re looking at typing keyboarding. (I am so stuck in the 80s. It’s keyboarding. Saying it aloud 10 times aloud to try to lodge it firmly in my middle-aged brain.) I’m trying to figure out what constitutes a good goal for speed.

70 wpm (words per minute) was an A back when I was taking typing class. But what about 2007? Have speed expectations risen? I know that Pam types 90 wpm and that Jim checks in with a respectable 65 wpm. So I guess somewhere in between 65 and 90 wpm would be fine. Maybe? At least for a student who’s definitely not going to make a career out of typing keyboarding.

Of course, I realize that I could go see what high schools require these days by searching online, but maybe you already know and would just leave a quick comment.

(Sorry about this, but I’m about to run out the door and will forget to read the article if I don’t leave a note for myself.)

Don’t forget to read Max Anderson’s blog about the Time magazine article about boys.

	I couldn’t hold the camera steady!

We actually traveled about 60 miles to view 20 minutes of fireworks. I guess that’s what happens when you live in the sticks as we do.

To be fair, we did carpool with another family. We also played a lively game of charades, yes, by streetlight, while we waited for the fireworks to start.

So, hmmm. What else? It looks like I’ve got space to fill up because of the photo. So the rest of this entry is just filler. Feel free to click on out of here now.

The library’s Summer Reading Program is in full swing. Let’s hope my daughter wins a prize since this is her last year. She’s currently reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I’ve never read it. I know I’m missing out, but I’m enjoying A Good Year which is quite different from the movie.

Surprisingly enough, it snowed for about 6 hours earlier this week. And it stuck on the ground, too. My husband thought we had about 2 inches. It was big and fluffy and is now gone. May 22. Snow. Wow. I got a sunburn over the weekend, and it seemed very strange to be nursing a sunburn with snow on the ground.

I received a Mother’s Day gift of North & South the other day. It’s a film adaptation of Gaskell’s book, which I’ve not read. I have read most of Cranford, by the same author, but too many people died, leaving me sad, so I quit reading it. But North & South is a pleasant bit of fiction–for the most part. The gentleman, Richard Armitage, who plays Guy of Gisbourne in the most recent Robin Hood series is the male lead in North & South. It’s rather amusing to compare his performances. I have a difficult time seeing him as evil in Robin Hood — no matter his menacing deeds — because he seems like mostly a “good guy” in North & South.

Gaskell also wrote Wives & Daughters. I’ve got the book here on the bookcase next to my desk waiting to be read. I can’t remember if my daughter’s read it yet. The movie version is fine. Best line: “I’m not saying she was very silly. But one of us was silly, and it wasn’t me.” All the actors are enjoyable to watch; it’s a good cast. We saw the actor who plays Roger Hamley in a West End production, but we couldn’t see him very well without the opera glasses because we were up in the balcony.

Anyway, I’m blathering on. And not an awfully lot about homeschooling … well, I guess it is “Literature,” isn’t it?