D.E.A.R. Time! (updated)

It’s time to Drop Everything and Run (D.E.A.R.) again! That’s right. This is “Runaway Moms Weekend!” I can’t wait.

When I typed D.E.A.R. in the title though, it wasn’t running away that came immediately to mind, it was my kids’ reading time at school. In the schools, they have D.E.A.R. time every day. It stands for Drop Everything and Read. Don’t feel like reading right now? Too bad. Do it anyway.

This time last year, I posted about brushing up on my bean dip strategies before leaving. The group remains the same this year, with the addition of a few more Super Schoolies. I’ve decided this year that I’m going to KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT and give short (preferably one word) answers to their questions. For example, if they say with a singsongy voice, “Soooooo, how’s homeschooling going?” I will reply, “Great. By the way, have you seen the bean dip?” Really, I get in more trouble when I try to discuss this stuff than if I just act rude. I will inevitably offend someone indirectly with any praise I have for homeschooling, so I might as well be curt.

Besides, I’m not a saint, it isn’t that hard to do, and I LIKE being around my kids. No, they won’t turn out weird. No I’m not worried that we’ll miss something (OK, that’s a lie, but so what?). Yes, they will go to college if they want to.

I’ll update how it went next week.

Update 10/24/07

I know my only reader is all my fabulous readers are waiting anxiously for an update, so here it is.

It was uneventful.

Yep, you’ve been waiting three days for that.

Nope, I wasn’t able to give one word answers.  In fact, if anything, I was pretty free with my opinions, and probably offended several people.  I rarely win points for tact.  Oh well.

The good news — the weather was FABULOUS.  There were clear blue skies and the temperature was mid-70s and breezy.  It couldn’t have been more perfect.

Maybe next year I’ll keep my mouth shut (if they invite me back!).

October 18, 2007 | Filed Under Rants, Moods and Attitude | 8 Comments 

The Evolution of My Blog

I was tagged by my buddy Dawn, oh, several eons ago, to write a post about the evolution of my blog using 5 of my prior posts. This particular meme says I should also tag others, so tag, you’re it.

I originally started this blog as a way to formulate ideas and think about my decision to homeschool my kids. I really feel that my blog has not evolved nearly as much as I have personally.

My first post: Last Day of Public School was a rant about the silly 2 1/2 hour day of school my kids had to attend to meet the 180 days requirement of school attendance. I was annoyed. I was irked by the “awards” ceremony whereby some kids get recognized for their efforts and the bulk of them do not. I knew that was the end of our school days, but I still had not made a final commitment to homeschooling. Afterall, homeschoolers are weird.

I blogged about our family, our trips, my thoughts about homeschooling, and then I got a little more bold with this post about Theodore’s developing spelling skills. I actually used the “F word” in my blog! **evil grin**

In February I wrote this post about the joy of freedom we have in homeschooling. It was this post that a particular TROLL focussed on when making derogatory comments about me on other blogs. That, in turn, caused me to write this post reminding myself that some battles are not worth fighting. The troll actually commented on this one. I was nice.

The good news about trolls is that I discovered a bunch of great homeschool bloggers because of it. I even received an award from a new found friend. Did you know that the Patron Saint of Quality Footwear is St. Hubbins? No? Then you are obviously not a Spinal Tap fan.

After reading so many interesting and informative posts about homeschooling on other blogs, I took a stab at providing a post with substance. This one got a lot of google hits, but I’m way too lazy to read and think. Mostly I just read.

Truly, I define myself as a bore blogger, so I’m always amazed that people visit here. However, I really do appreciate your reading my site and perhaps someday I’ll start blogging more than twice a month! If I had $600 JC Penney gift cards in my junk drawer, perhaps I’d have a contest or something. Nah.

October 17, 2007 | Filed Under Fun Stuff | 3 Comments 

Strawberry Weirdness

These are two different strawberries I found in my garden this week.

This one would be good for Valentine’s Day:

Strawberry Heart

And this one started sprouting its seeds while they were still on it. I’ve never seen this before:

Strawberry Sprouts

Our garden is a lot of fun. Especially when weird stuff happens.

(Update 10/26/07 Aaaaaack!! I just re-read this for the first time since I wrote it, and I noticed that I spelled the possessive of it with an apostrophe. Oops. I’m so anal about mistakes like that, I just had to correct it.)

October 8, 2007 | Filed Under Fun Stuff | 7 Comments 

Teeth vs. Cement — Cement Wins

Stuntboy Alvin finally met his match — the cement.  On Wednesday, he was doing his usual insane stunts on the skateboard park with his scooter, and he fell and hit his permanent teeth on the cement.  He broke both of his top front teeth.

Even though HE was the one who was hurt, I was the one with the seemingly permanent knot in my stomach.  I wanted to throw up.  Permanent damage to permanent teeth.

It was 12:40 when it happened, and I immediately called our dentist.  They were on lunch break, and their recording said they’d be back at 1:00.  I just drove straight to his office and arrived as they reopened at 1:00.  They were very kind and saw him right away, x-rayed his teeth and asked us if we’d brought the broken pieces with us.  Huh?  That would have been helpful??  Crap.  He said if we had the pieces, he could reattach them, which was a better long-term alternative to veneers.  So off to the skateboard park we went at 1:30 looking for the pieces.  We found them, but they were just shattered bits, not any large pieces.  Back to the dentist we went.

We arrived back at his office at 2:30, and at 2:50 we were in our car, driving home with pretty new front teeth!!  Modern dentistry is amazing!  New front teeth in 20 minutes.  You can hardly tell, except for a very faint color difference just along the line of the break on one of the teeth. Veneers aren’t perfect, but they are sure better than growing up with two funky front teeth.

I still have a knot in my stomach over it.  The dentist said he was fairly certain that there was no damage to the roots.  We are lucky that it wasn’t worse, but we’re still watching for color changes in the teeth just in case.

Here’s a picture of Stuntboy from January.  He’s a lot more daring now, 9 months later.

Stuntboy

He says he’s never going to ride a scooter again.  I’m torn between feeling relieved that I won’t have to worry about his teeth anymore and telling him to get back out there and ride!

October 6, 2007 | Filed Under Parenting | 11 Comments