We have a chore chart system in our family, except we use the term "responsibilities" rather than "chores" because "chores" sounds so, um, like drudgery, whereas "responsibilities" seems more positive and indicative of their true significance and meaning.

We don't have an allowance for our children except as rewards are tied to the responsibility chart. So each day, each child can earn upwards of 10 or 20 tokens through this system. The tokens can be traded in for special treats, and collecting enough of them can result in bigger "prizes", or batches of 50 tokens can be exchanged for 50 cents.

It was in this way that Little Son earned several dollars. Baby Girl earns money, too, but not as rapidly, although she is a better saver than her brother. Both children spent some of their hard earned money on fun noodles for the swimming pool. And Little Son bought himself a canoe that he had his eye on for two years since we saw it in a pool store.

Now a typical afternoon at the poolside is something like this. Violin Mom sits in her comfortable anti-gravity chair when she is not actually in the water interacting with the children.
Baby Girl likes to sit in her fun noodle.
Little Son like to paddle his canoe.
The children agree that it has been money well spent!

Baby Girl loves to play with her stuffed puppies. So one day, I happened to glance over at the quilt rack in my bedroom, and here is what I found:

This week, Little Son received an assignment to write a multi-paragraph composition on a factual topic. Of the choices he was given, he chose to write about Julius Caesar. So after I cut him loose to create a word web and write a first draft, he disappeared into another room of the house for some time.

Several minutes later, I wondered where he had gone when I didn't find him in his bedroom. He was, rather, in the bathtub writing away.


It appeared that there was much inspiration to be derived from the bathtub, for when all was said and done, here were the results:


Julius Caesar was born in 100 B.C. When he was a young man, he was sent to fight pirates, who were stealing gold from romen ships. While he was fighting, he was taken prisoner by them. The only way to get free was if Rome would send a large sum of money.

When the money arrived, Caesar was released, he came back with a fleet of ships and took the pirates prisoners and had them put to death on the cross. Because of his bravery, he was given an army and he was made general. Rome was ruling a lot of the world and two countries, Gaul and Spain. Caesar traveled to those countries and conquered them. Pompey, a friend of his, was jealous of him because of his power. He went to the romen senate and told them about his problem. The senate said they would make Caesar come back to Rome without his army. Caesar come to Rome, but with his army! He crossed a river, the Rubicon, and took Rome itself! Some people wanted to make him a king, but others thought that he already had to much power.

Those people plotted to kill him and so when he went to the romen senate for a meeting, they attacked him. One of his friends, Brutus, was among the killers, and when Caesar saw him strike at him, he cried: Et tu Brute! (and thou Brutus!), gave up and died. That was in 44 B.C.

Since then, one of his assignments was to present an oral presentation of the composition using note cards and looking at the audience instead of reading. We had fun capturing that on video and watching it. Little Son will make a good public speaker, perhaps!

I am very pleased with the richness of Calvert's Fourth Grade curriculum. It has far exceeded my expectations. I already had great expectations about history because of the book, A Child's History of the World by Virgil Hillyer, but I was in for a few more pleasant surprises.First of all, although I went to a decent public school in New Jersey as a child, I certainly did not get the exposure to the classics (or writings derived from the classics) that Little Son is getting. This year, he is not only getting all the math and science, critical thinking, phonics, and computer lessons he needs, but he is getting a wonderful integration of world history, geography, and literature that enriches and supports the world history he is learning. I had no idea what rich reading material Calvert offered; in fact, I couldn't tell from the catalog what wonderful readers that Mighty Men by Eleanor Farjeon, Famous Legends by Emeline G. Crommelin, and Tales from Far and Near and Tales of Long Ago edited by Arthur Guy Terry, are. They are fantastic! When I was in elementary school, there was no way that I knew anything about such figures as Romulus and Remus, Alexander the Great, King Arthur, Alfred the Great, William Tell, Dick Whittington, Joan of Arc, Napoleon, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Hannibal's elephant army, Beowulf, Attila the Hun, Marcus Aurelius, Charlemagne, the Cid, and the list goes on. Most of them I never encountered until high school, if even then! But now at the age of nine, Little Son is installing those memory hooks in his mind to help organize his future knowledge of world history, so that he can place people and events where they belong. We also have a history timeline that is getting jam packed with events. All I can say is that I am just thrilled with the results of our efforts this year. It just keeps getting better and better, this parenting and home education journey!

How did you spend your Memorial Day weekend? We spent ours mostly at home in remote ends of the house. I spent much of the time finishing up Baby Girl's bedroom, and Self-Reliant Man spent most of the time in the garage, at the opposite far end of the house from Baby Girl's bedroom. Both children helped us well with our respective projects. (as an aside, Little Son is gaining some valuable first hand experience in engine rebuilding, as you will see.)

I will show you the results from both locations, and then you can vote for which venue is most attractive.

The voting choices are:

Choice A: Baby Girl's bedroom

Choice B: the garage.

Feel free to click on any photo to view a larger version so as to assist you with your vote.

Area #1, Baby Girl's Bedroom

These pictures have been taken from the four corners of the room. All of the new, lovely RTA furniture has been finished, and some of the old pieces are still in the room. This is definitely the cheeriest room of the house, now, but I know, I am not supposed to influence your vote.

these photos..
are pretty self-explanatory..
and do not require..
captions.


And now, Area #51, The Garage

This is an exclusive sneak peak into the inner sanctum, the holy of holies, the place where angels fear to tread. And now, for the first time in the blogosphere, I show you...




... the inside of our garage!!!




Now don't forget, Self-Reliant Man has been working hard here since November rebuilding the engine of our vintage 1948 Ford 8N tractor. Despite the impression that you will gain from a cursory glance of these photos, this project is nearing its completion! (but hold the hallelujah chorus just yet). And now, without much ado, the photos please.


The first overwhelming impression as you enter the room. The bright red object at left is the engine, just about completely reassembled from scratch minus a few steps.

Alas, but it doth pain my heart to behold a tractor shorn. (isn't that Shakespeare or something?)

The engine has been freshly spray painted its original fire engine red.
Isn't she lovely?
The "small" wheels kind of dwarf our Sears mower, do they not?
And now a final parting view. Be still my trembling heart. The sight kind of makes you want to run as far and as fast as your legs will carry you, does it not? But I know, I am not supposed to influence your vote.

Vote well. Vote wisely. Vote often. Vote now!

..... disturb the momentum you have built up in your lesson day so far.....




so you administer that spelling test from the throne......



calling out the words across the hallway.......



You definitely know you're a homeschool Mom!

This is what I am expecting to see out my window at any moment:


We've been having quite a week here. Our local weather station has reported nearly 13 inches of rain since Monday, more than we had with Tropical Storm Fay last summer.

Every day looks like this:

Every evening looks like this:

It is expected to continue for a day or two more.

Did anybody catch this story this week? Apparently, there was a visit to the WH for this winning basketball team to meet with the Prez. Which is normal, except apparently it is not normal for the mainstream press to be excluded and for a White House controlled and prepared media release be the only coverage allowed for this event.

I just have a real problem with information control, no matter who it is coming from, but especially so in this case.

I think it is very creepy. I mean, scary, and it appears many of the commenters have picked up on its significance even if ABC itself doesn't appear to.

This week marked the conclusion of three activities for the children.

First was the final meeting for the year of the phys. ed. program we participate in, called Christian Homeschoolers Athletic Association "Saints". There was an entire year of introducing the children to various sports and forms of recreation, as well as the Presid*ntial Physic*l Fitn*ss Challenge. Nope, neither child got the Presid*ntial Phys. Fit. Award, but they both met the criteria for the National Phys. Fit. Award, so they were happy about that. Part of the requirements were for Baby Girl to run a timed quarter mile, and for Little Son to run a timed half mile. We parents were invited to stay and watch the challenge. Boy, did this bring back memories of my school P.E. days (but we won't go there!)

This week also concluded another year of AWANA. Baby Girl is shown here with her ribbon and certificate. She completed the first Sparks book.


Here, Little Son is shown with his ribbon and certificate for completing Book One for Truth and Training (T&T).


But I think he was most excited about the gift cards he received for Plan*t Smo*thie and Brust*r's ice cream. They were awarded for his participation in the Bible Quiz this year, and for near-perfect attendance (29 weeks out of 30). You can see him returning to his seat with a broad grin, for he is holding a great treasure in his hand!

Saturday was the end of year graduation recital for our local Suzuki school. Here, Baby Girl is showing her Bach Award and her Book One Trophy. She looks so grown up to me in this photo!

When the recital was over, the children posed for pictures, some of which I cannot show here (I will not post other folks' children's photos on my blog if I can help it). But here is my favorite picture, of both children and their beloved teacher, Miss. S. She is living proof that the "strictest" teachers can also be the most cherished.

As for the recital itself, it was a wonderful experience and memory for us parents. Baby Girl had one solo, and Little Son had three performances, including a duet with Miss S. and a piece with the boys' chamber piano trio. The total performance time for our kids was over 15 minutes, so I have elected not to upload it to Yout*be or any place like that for now, due to the long duration, my slower connection speed, and out of respect for Little Son's co-performers.

However, if any of my readers would like to receive a copy of the DVD, send me an email. I do have a few copies to mail out. My email address is billberna @ bellsouth . net . The children played very, very well. We were happy, and their teachers were happy, too.

Is violin "over" for the summer? No, that never happens. We will continue to take private lessons with Miss S. throughout most of the summer. We have gotten somewhat addicted to one another, and neither party is able to go for more than a couple of weeks without meeting for lessons!

Can any of you violin moms out there relate?

I am pretty excited about the upcoming recital tomorrow afternoon. This "end of year" recital is always a great big pick-me-up for all of us. Our children will be big participants this year, too. This marks the conclusion of 3 years of violin study for Baby Girl and 6 years of violin study for Little Son! Here is the lineup.

Baby Girl: will be graduating from Suzuki Book 1. She will get a trophy for this and she will also receive the "Bach Award" that our local Suzuki school gives to students who have mastered three Bach minuets in book 1.

Tomorrow she will be performing Handel's Chorus from "Judas Maccabaeus".

Little Son: will be graduating from Suzuki Book 4 and will receive a trophy.

He will be performing three times tomorrow, as follows..

1. His solo will be Papini's Theme and Variations, a piece he played in two competitions this year, taking a first place ($50) award in one of them. It is a lovely piece, and I love to hear him play it.

2. He will perform with the piano chamber trio of three boys, ages 9 (violin), 10 (cello), and 11 (piano). They will perform Allegro from Klengel's Kindertrio in G, op. 35, no. 2. They took first place statewide for this performance in early May.

3. This is the performance I am most excited about. Little Son will perform a duet with his teacher, Miss S. Together they will play Bach's Concerto for Two Violins, 1st. mvt. They have played great together in practice, and it will be such fun to hear and see them tomorrow.


I am so looking forward to this! Let us hope that our nine year old video camera is cooperative, and if it isn't , let us hope that I don't sweat it, and simply enjoy the performance.

This evening, right after supper.

LITTLE SON: Mommy, look at that sunset. It's so beautiful!

VIOLIN MOM: Yes, that is quite a sun. Let me get my camera and get a quick picture.

LITTLE SON: How can anybody see that and not believe in God?
Humankind truly has no excuse.

With this post, I am unveiling our latest home improvement. Baby Girl finally graduated to big girl furniture! We completed the bed and headboard, nightstand, and desk. There is still a dresser to be assembled, when we get around to it. Her room is looking great now!I taught Baby Girl how to make her bed as part of her morning responsibilities. She is quite proud of her efforts here.
Here she is retiring for the night. This was before we added the standard size pillow.
Then we add the last ingredient... Bear Blanket. Life is good now!

We are really enjoying learning world history using A Child's History of the World, a Calvert School exclusive. Today, we were learning about ancient Rome, and there was a sweet story about Cornelia Graccha, the daughter of Scipio who had conquered Hannibal's elephant army in the Punic War. The story goes that Cornelia was the proud and happy mother of two sons. She was also, undoubtedly, one of the wealthy elite of Rome. One day, a very rich Roman woman was visiting Cornelia and showing off all her rings and necklaces and other valuable ornaments, of which she had a great many and was very proud.

When she had shown off all she had, she asked to see Cornelia's jewels. Cornelia called to her two sons, who were playing outside, and when they came in to their mother she put her arms around them and said: These are my jewels."

You see, Cornelia knew where true wealth lay. And when her sons grew up, living as they did in wealth all their lives, they remembered the values passed on to them by their mother. They saw the huge difference between the rich and the poor in Rome and did all they could to help improve the lot of the poor of Rome. They met with some success in improving the lives of the poor, but their activities resulted in their being murdered by those who didn't agree with them.

Let me share with you some of the recent activities of my jewels, Little Son and Baby Girl.The cake is expertly decorated by Little Son, and it reads "Mommy, we love you". Part of the message is in white icing. Baby Girl added the all important "Birthday Girl" ribbon.Baby Girl, as you know, likes to wrap up items from around the house and present them as "gifts" for birthdays and for Christmas. She presented me with four birthday letters and a wrapped up snow globe. They were the best letters ever! Unedited:


Can't quite make out the color of them, but I also received beautiful roses from Little Son on my birthday. He bought them with his own money.

These are my jewels!

Thank you to all of you who offered comments and support about my rant over the weekend about technology and how it steals our time. We made it through the weekend, and so did our pool plumbing and chlorinator, although we will still need to get better fittings for permanent use.

After church, Self-Reliant Man suggested we go out to lunch to celebrate Mother's Day, especially as there had been no time for any type of Mother's Day shopping or preparation of any sort (except for the cute crafts the children made for me in Sunday School). So we went out for Bar-B-Q, and headed home afterward. And yes, I did get a precious hour of sitting and reading, which is all I wanted for Mother's Day.

I received an Anti-Gravity chair for my birthday, which was Friday. This is a type of chair that is popular among RVers, with good reason. It is so comfortable! So I had an afternoon of cleaning the pool up a little, and then sitting in the breezeway (until it got too hot) on my new chair with my new copy of Creation and the Cosmos by Dr. Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe. It only lasted about an hour, and I dozed part of the time, but it was a real luxury and it was great! The children played in the yard, running around in the heat and humidity. And Self-Reliant Man..... well, he actually managed to slowly and methodically tap four pistons into the engine block of the tractor.

So there was ultimate redemption this weekend, for which I am grateful!

To answer my bloggy friend ,Paula, in California, yes, you are correct. When we moved to the country, almost five years ago, we did have visions of simplicity dancing in our heads. The problem is though, that all this time later, we are still trying to get the property to the point where it should have been when we moved in. There were some unreported issues with the house, and the previous homeowner sold us his farm tractor for $2000 while failing to report that he had real problems running it sometimes. In fact, after we moved in, one of our neighbors (the squirrel killing one) told us that they had to "pull start" the tractor before selling it to us (i.e. pull it with a truck while starting it due to severe lack of compression in the engine). This was a sign of a very worn out engine. So we struggled with it for five summers, with lack of power and difficulty starting. My husband figured out how to electrically simulate the "pull start" using two batteries and some wire jumpers, and starting the tractor could take 10 minutes, or it could take hours ~~~ you never knew which it would be. So it was this past Fall that my husband finally reasoned that it was time to completely rebuild the engine, a monumental, but necessary task. That was about 7 months ago, and it has been hard work. Though much is done, we are not out of the woods yet, because there are some critical steps to come.

Another thing. Three weeks after we moved into this house a hurricane hit us, and we had damage to our house and barn. That was an undertaking, too, getting that all fixed up (by ourselves) and the result of the stress of the move and the hurricane aftermath (there were three hurricanes here that summer) was that yours truly, Violin Mom herself, developed a case of shingles.

So our move to the country has been a mixed blessing. There are many times when I am thrilled to be here. And yet, it has been full of challenges for all of us at times.

Our sweet chocolate lab, Beau, is getting older. As such, he is getting a mind of his own, not caring quite so much about what folks think of him, like some older human adults do sometimes.

So he has taken to pooping wherever he pleases, and he pleases to poop mostly inside the house. Where we live, he can run freely throughout our fenced property, but he has changed his ways, and instead of roaming and doing his business in our yard, he sits on the porch until we let him inside, and then he decides to poop in our family room. So I decided I need to help him reset his poop-clock, so to speak, and walk him by leash around the property every morning to encourage some action before coming back into the house.

This was one such morning, and I was wandering around the property with Beau on his leash, when all of a sudden I heard my neighbor's voice: "A leash?!?!?".

My explanation: "I'm trying to get Beau back on a schedule, so that he poops outside and doesn't wait until later to poop in the house". Then I looked up at her, and noticed she was standing in her yard holding a gun. Not sure what kind... a rifle? shotgun? pellet gun? Who knows.

So she volunteers, without my asking, in the way of explanation: "I'm trying to get this squirrel. He keeps getting in my garden!"

"Oh. I see...."

Only in the country can a dog leash be considered a curiosity by one's neighbor, especially one standing in her yard holding a gun.

WARNING: You might want to skip this post. It is full of my raw feelings and rants over trivial everyday annoyances. But if I can't write it on my own blog, where can I write it?

It was a frustrating day today. No, nothing really serious. Just frustrating.

We came into this weekend thankful to have a Saturday that could be dedicated, finally, to working on the tractor. After all, we have had conflicts on many weekends, ruling out many precious Saturdays. Next Saturday there is the graduation recital, so we really had to make today count. Yes, today was to be the day.

And then the pool pump finally crashed and burned. We thought it was coming, and sure enough, it happened. It happened yesterday (on my birthday). The temperatures have been in the 90s, and well, this is one of those problems you've got to address right away, you know what I mean?

Yes, it is an aboveground pool, and we thought we had found a good deal on a brand name replacement pump, but when we tried to install it this morning, lo and behold, none of the existing pipe fittings mated up with the pump.

So we spent most of the day running from store to store trying to find the correct fittings. Two pool stores and two home improvement stores. Are the threads standard or proprietary? Ask ten store clerks and get ten different answers. Then, when some fittings didn't work out, we had to hit yet another home improvement store. We finally thought we found a workable solution, and sure enough, by evening, we had the new pump running, ..... sort of. Looks like the outlet side, the high pressure side, may not be secure enough. We're going to have to babysit this baby for the rest of the weekend, to make sure it doesn't blow a pipe. And it looks like the salt chlorinator isn't working right now, but it might be because I accidentally left the hose running too long and maybe now the salt concentration is too low? But we did add two sacks of salt today. Could the salt levels still be too low, or is the salt cell not working with the new pump? Don't want to have to buy, and install, another salt cell now!

We are not sure tonight that we really solved the pool problem. Tomorrow we are going to have to find better fittings, buy a few more sacks of salt, and see if things resolve themselves. We may need some bleach, too, in case they don't.

And we never did get to work on the tractor yet. The grass is getting taller.

All this to say that my frustration is with the fact that somehow we have yoked ourselves together with too many gadgets. Life was so easy in the suburbs, where everybody paid a professional to look after their yards and pools. Now we are in the country, and when something breaks down, we fix it ourselves.

Yup.

And I really didn't think we owned that much "stuff". At least we never intended to. But our weekends are somehow at the mercy of the refrigerator, the microwave, the pool and all its destined to fail components, the TRACTOR, the well, the water filter, the computer (worst of all!), the gate opener, the cars, the tires, and who knows what next? As I told a friend the other day, somehow I don't believe the Lord intended us to spend so much time chasing down these things. Self-Reliant Man is going to get fed up with being self-reliant one of these days. And I can't say I blame him. He must go to the office through the week to RELAX.

So I am afraid that in life, we are forever and always on that learning curve. Always something new to learn, like it or not. Frustrated with ourselves for somehow getting married to all this technology, for better or for worse, in good times and bad, for richer for poorer. Wondering how bad it is going to be by the time we are both elderly. How will we cope with companies that sucker their customers into proprietary dependence on them in failure, with user "unfriendly" websites and toll-free numbers where it takes five minutes to speak to a human being (only if you call Monday through Friday between 10 and 4:30), and with store clerks that are not able or interested in helping us with our problem unless we are interesting in buying a big ticket item?

One thing I can say is that it was a good thing I had a decent quiet time this morning, or else I might have blown some plumbing of my own.

That's what I call this annual pilgrimage to a certain city within our state for musical competitions. Truly, Little Son did not go home empty-handed, thanks to his involvement with a piano chamber trio. As there were 1400 participants this weekend, I would guess on average that 1 in 10 took home a trophy. Anyway, I have to say that the experience continues to be an intense, exhausting, grueling, emotional, and often discouraging one (for most kids and their families). At present, we do not know all the results but we do know that Little Son's chamber trio emerged as the winner in their category. Little Son did not place at all in his solo competition, although he played his piece flawlessly and all the other participants were about 4 or more years older than he was (one "boy" sported a mustache). As for the concerto competition, we do not yet know the results, but we would be extremely surprised if our son placed, because there were many incredible violinists in that competition, 23 participants overall. Nevertheless, he did play his piece with excellence. He really can pull it together when he needs to.
Here are the children after the award ceremony holding up the trophy.

And Violin Mom discovered that she simply just cannot sleep in a hotel bed anymore. I had a miserable long night, and that didn't help matters. I am much better off sleeping in the camper van!

When these competitions are over, then parental wisdom needs to kick into high gear, as we discuss with Little Son the value of these types of experiences, how much having a specific interim goal enables him to improve his skills, and what the Lord is teaching him through these experiences. One thing he did keep in mind was that before he began to perform each piece, he reminded himself that the purpose of the performance was to glorify God. He reminded me afterward that this was on his mind.

He certainly learned what is important this weekend.

Thursday (April 30th) was the first swimming day of the season for our pool. The children donned their new swimsuits and posed for this photo.

It was funny, because when it was time to shoot, they spontaneously giggled and said "We're married!" and posed as shown. It is a blessed thing that they associate sweet affection with their view of marriage.

As for the swimsuits, I have high praises for T*rget, of all places. They had these swimsuits this season. I was particularly happy to discover Baby Girl's suit, in the girl's department. It covers her up so nicely and fits great. Little Son liked the plaid a lot. "No gimmicks, just plaid" was his comment.

This photo definitely ranks up in the top five of all the pictures I have of my children!