The house is so quiet

My girls are halfway through their week away at camp. This is the first time I have been without the two of them for more than a night.

It's a little weird. The house is really quiet, and the cats seem confused.

Is this what they call "Me time"? Finally, a chance to be by myself and do what I really want without kids interfering?

So far I have cleaned two bookshelves, ate a big bowl of chocolate ice cream, and rented Twilight.

I know my girls are having fun.
Hey, I'm having fun!

But the house is empty without them, and I can't wait to see them again. :)

Math problem of the day

1 massive tree root + 1 water line - 1 proper marking of the main gas line = 1 firetruck + 4 firefighters + X(water utility + gas utility + locating company trucks) + 1 very worried plumber

Yikes!

When we left for piano lessons, our plumber was chipping away at a massive ball of tree roots. When we returned, our street was shut down, and the hiss and smell from a severed high-pressure gas line filled the neighborhood.

Fortunately, the worst seems to be over. We still have to get through inspections and clean up the site, but I think everything is going to be okay. Our biggest fear at this point is that we might lose our beautiful tree. It isn't just a tree, in you know what I mean. :(

But after 48 hours with no water, it feels good to be clean again.

Recent Reads

Eldest daughter started The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks last night and stayed up past her normal bedtime - a good sign. :o)

Youngest daughter is reading Masterpiece by Elise Broach, who wrote The Shakespeare Stealer which Eldest Daughter loved.

We are Disney freaks, so it is no surprise that Eldest Daughter fell in love with the first two books of Ridley Pearson's Kingdom Keeper series. Imagine her excitement this morning at learning that book three is coming....next April! She also read his Science Fair last month.

Youngest Daughter has read The Wizard of Oz innumerable times, so last week I finally picked up another book in the series, The Marvelous Land of Oz. Another hit! We are looking forward to picking up more of the series from the library.

I finished The Hobbit again. I'm still not sure I really like the chapters towards the end. It seemed rather unsatisfying to have the menfolk kill Smaug while Bilbo and company cower in the dark for days. I guess Bilbo wouldn't make much of an assassin though. And the dwarves? They are useless, but that's pretty much the point, isn't it? I'm curious to see how they can bring this to the screen. We went to a stage production of it this spring; they had to cut out a lot of it. Remember the animated version from the 70's? lol Good stuff. :)

Emma-Jean Lazarus is our new favorite heroine. First she fell out of a tree, then she fell in love. Emma-Jean is a combo of Nancy Drew and Commander Data, who is thoroughly mystified by the cliques of her middle school. All three girls in the house enjoyed these.

Other fun summer reads:

Youngest Daughter devoured the first four books of the Percy Jackson series. Eagerly awaiting her turn at book 5 from the library...

Eldest Daughter enjoyed The Girl Who Could Fly. Any sequel in the works?

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, Schools, and Other Scary Things gave them a good laugh...

I enjoying Howard Whitehouse's Mad Misadventures of Emmaline and Rubberbones. Books with really long titles seem to be a hit around here. Book one is The Strictest School in the World: Being the Tale of a Clever Girl, a Rubber Boy and a Collection of Flying Machines, Mostly Broken. I just started the second book, The Faceless Fiend: Being the Tale of a Criminal Mastermind, His Masked Minions and a Princess with a Butter Knife, Involving Explosives and a Certain Amount of Pushing and Shoving. I also have book three out from the library, but I'm running out of bandwidth here.

We are reading aloud Anne of Green Gables, and I picking my way through The Friendly Dickens. We enjoyed watching David Copperfield on PBS this spring - thinking about reading is serially with the girls.

{ My thanks to Semicolon and MMV for their book reviews and recommendations. :o) }

From the beach to the desert...Oh, the places you'll go!

We spent a fun Fourth with our relatives in central Oregon. It was hot - really hot! - but it is always windy there, which makes it tolerable. The girls had a great time hanging out with their cousins, making up skits and filming little movies (already uploaded to Facebook, of course!). It was a nice, relaxing weekend. I finished up most of The Hobbit, and fell asleep in the lawn recliner several times. :o) I also skimmed through The High School Handbook, a guidebook for homeschooling high school, planning and record keeping, etc. Looks somewhat helpful.

Above photo is two daughters plus one cousin. Circle of life? A heart? No, Eldest Daughter says "Triangle of Death." Hmmm. Wonder what those skits of theirs were about exactly...

Spontaneous Shopping

I woke up this morning, checked the email, and discovered there was a used curricula sale this morning! Throw on the shoes and sunglasses, grab the checkbook, let's go!

It turned out to be a rather small sale, but I found two things from my list, plus a couple other good deals:

a new, unused copy of Jacobs Algebra for half-price

a new, unused copy of The Highschool Handbook for $3

a similar book on transcripts and portfolios, same price

an older copy of Hewitt's Conceptual Physics for a dollar

Definitely worth getting up early on a sunny summer day for. :)

Proud to be Pasty

Yes, that's me + hat + umbrella + SPF 50. I love the Oregon coast, and today it was simply beautiful. While the girls dug a hole to China, hubby and I watched a dude with a huge kite get dragged across the sand. It took another couple folks to hold him down at times.It is such a blessing to live so close to the beach; in just 90 minutes we can be dipping our toes into the cool waters of the Pacific. We love zipping over to Seaside for our monthly dose of saltwater taffy, bumper cars, arcade games, and a new favorite: chocolate dipped twinkies. :)

Vision

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

Cat's got my tongue

Dear Diary,

Hello again after a long absence! Sorry I haven't written lately. It's been a busy year; nothing out of the ordinary. Rather the opposite actually - just been enjoying life here in the 'burbs, homeschooling, reading, etc. Youngest daughter started piano lessons last fall, and she's inspired me to take it up again. Oldest daughter is looking forward to starting (paid!) work at church this fall. Hubby is good; considering he works in the banking industry, things are pretty stable for us right now. All in all, it's been a good school year. Now we are taking time to decompress as I scan the catalogs and make plans for the fall.

Life is good. :o)

2009 Reading List

July

The Hobbit, again :o)

June

Welcome to the Lizard Motel

Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of the Tree

Dancing Shoes

The Strictest School in the World : Being the tale of a clever girl, a rubber boy and a collection of amazing flying machines, mostly broken

May

The Backyard Bird Feeder's Bible

Masters of Illusion

Homeschooling: The Teenage Years

Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations

The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way

April

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

A Little Princess

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

Traitor: The Case of Benedict Arnold

The Story of My Life - Helen Keller

March

The Cricket in Times Square

Poor Richard

Midnight Sun

Why Not, Lafayette?

February

Generation Debt

Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains

Fruitlands: Louisa May Alcott Made Perfect

The Physics of Star Trek

Johnny Tremain

January

Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan

Dragon Rider

The Sign of the Beaver

The Big Snow

Oregon does not typically see much snow, but this year has been interesting. Take 5 inches of snowfall, now add a coat of ice, pile up another heap of snow, then top with a final inch of ice. It makes walking interesting, let alone driving. Christmas Eve services were canceled, and it took my parents seven hours to make a 60 miles drive to our house for Christmas. DH had vacation between the holidays, so we just hunkered down and enjoyed some quiet time. A few days later it thawed enough for Eldest Daughter to have eight friends over for an all-nighter that really carried on...all night. :)

A visit to Oz

We had a great afternoon at Oz, courtesy of Northwest Children's Theater.

Our new baby

This little guy needs a new home for a few months - we are foster parents!

[Insert pic of truly adorable cat]

Of course, Sam isn't too sure about this.

[Insert pic of grumpy orange cat]

First Christmas Recital

Youngest Daughter performed Mary, Did You Know? at her first Christmas recital today. We are so very proud of her! She has worked very hard on her lessons over the past 12 weeks.

Recent Concerts

Eldest Daughter and I took in Tchaikovsky in September and Brahms in November. Youngest one and I enjoyed Peter and the Wolf in October.

Sleight of Hand

The girls competed today at the first Oregon Sport Stacking Championship. A relatively new sport to our area, sport stacking combines hand-eye coordination, speed, and concentration into a fun, fast paced competition. Seeing that this was our state's first major competition, the record books started the day relatively blank. The girls are now thrilled to their names on this list.

Rock 'n Roll

We went with some friends for a visit to the local Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals.

Swan Lake

Today, the girls and I and 100 of our friends took in a school performance of Swan Lake. ($2 tickets!)

A new adventure

Youngest Daughter starts piano lessons today. A late beginner? She's nearly 11 years old, but she's a quick learner. Where will this adventure take her?

Phantom

Nose-bleed section - who cares?!

Busy couple of weeks

Last Wednesday we went into the city to see a musical production of Sleeping Beauty (not the ballet). It was really good, but I was mightly annoyed by the large contingency of middle school students who made up the bulk of the audience. The rudeness and coarseness knew no bounds, and no amount of glaring would still them. We have always enjoyed attending these school-manitee's, but before I purchase tickets next time, I will be inquiring about whom we will be sharing the audience with. Ugh.

Then that Friday we went with some friends to the premiere showing of Prince Caspian. We really liked it, despite the alterations from the book.

The following Wednesday was our support group's science fair. We had a record number of entries this year, and I was impressed by the amount of work put into them.

Finally, we finished this week up by taking in a performance by Do Jump! Fabulous, breath-taking, amazing! Yeah. :)