Author: Breezy Point Mom
•7:00 PM
February 27, 2011 7:00 p.m.
This is the chair that I never have any time to sit and read in.
This is me sitting and reading in it on this beautiful, paradise-like Sabbath afternoon!
And it isn’t even Mother’s Day. I am a blessed lady. (note: I am trying to stay ahead of Chips’ Calvert reading).
Author: Breezy Point Mom
•3:42 PM
February 27, 2011 3:41 p.m.
On Friday, I did something very untypical for me. A friend suggested going strawberry picking, and it was a kind of spur-of-the-moment thing. Well, I am not that much of a spur-of-the-moment kind of person, so I was surprised at myself for jumping at the opportunity.
I replied to my friend, and then I went into the school room and announced to my children that a surprise awaited them at midday if they could complete the majority of their lessons by around 11:30.
I never witnessed such incredible work efficiency as I did that morning! It was a true “LOL” kind of moment! Sweet Girl completed all her work, and Chips got everything done except Geography and a bit of Reading. Considering all he had done, that was good enough for me.
So after eating lunch, we piled into the car, and I drove to the strawberry farm without saying where we were going or who we would be meeting. It was a sort of “mystery car ride”. They were pretty excited when we pulled into the driveway of the strawberry farm, and especially so when they saw which friends were already there!
I am so glad my friend got me to drop lessons for a few hours. It truly was a beautiful afternoon to go strawberry picking. But unfortunately for me, I forgot to bring my camera there.
I hate when I do that!
But I do have photos of the evidence from later on that evening. These strawberries are tasty beauties!! Are they ever.
So good, mommy! And I picked ‘em myself.
Looks like there is more Cool Whip on his
plate than berries!
Author: Breezy Point Mom
•3:23 PM
February 27, 2011 3:23 p.m.
Well the weather around here has grown rapidly warm, so much so that I can’t even imagine the chills that seemed to constantly be part of my life up until a week or so ago. I feel like we have jumped from winter to late spring, all of a sudden.
Sweet Girl received her first test set back from Calvert School. It was her first taste of feedback from her new Calvert A.T.S. teacher for third grade. It was interesting, for when she sent her first test in to Calvert, she was so excited to “meet” her new teacher. I found this curious, to think that meeting the new teacher is still such a thrill even when it is through the mail, instead of in person. I remember well the anticipation of discovering a new teacher when I was in public school . Well, it turns out that her new Calvert 3rd grade teacher is a true veteran, having been an Advisory Teacher at Calvert for 32 years! How amazing is that!? I think what I was doing 32 years ago – let’s see, that was 1979, and I was in high school. This teacher has served three thousand Calvert students through the years; isn’t that amazing? I feel very fortunate that Sweet Girl has such a teacher, who has seen so many students’ work through the years and has such a good benchmark for evaluating Sweet Girl’s work.
So, her first set of tests was great. Sweet Girl got a 1 (Calvert’s equivalent to an A) in Reading, Composition, Spelling, Math, Mythology, and Geography. She got a 2 in Social Studies. And she got an “incomplete” in Science. Here is why that happened. The first 10 questions on the science test had these directions: “write the letter of each word next to its meaning”. Then there were several definitions given with blanks next to them, and another column with science terms such as “a. observe, b. conifer, c. inherited trait, d. metamorphosis” etc. Well, Sweet Girl, instead of writing “d” when she meant metamorphosis, wrote “m” instead (for she was thinking of the first letter in the word rather than the letter besides the word). This meant that all 10 questions were marked incorrectly. So the teacher wrote “Retest Required” for science, and did not put a grade to it. She wrote in her letter “I do not like to give a grade of four (4) on a first test, so I am giving you an incomplete…… send your retest with test 40”.
Anyway, I was thankful that this teacher’s extensive amount of experience gave her the wisdom to handle the situation this way, and it prevented Sweet Girl from experiencing the shock of seeing a 4 on the grade sheet. It also gave me a chance to explain to Sweet Girl about the way letters appear besides answers so that she doesn’t misinterpret this on a future test. It is unclear to me whether her teacher realized how the mistake had been made.
Some homeschool mothers are pretty much against this kind of testing in their homeschools. Whereas I can understand their point of view (I think) I am glad to have tests with our Calvert courses. Yes, they can be long, and we do spread it out over several days (in Chips’ case) due to its length, but it does give our children an opportunity to get used to testing and make these kinds of mistakes now, when the stakes are low, before these unforeseeable types of errors are made when they are older and the stakes are high.
Author: Breezy Point Mom
•11:33 AM
February 13, 2011 11:33 a.m.
I’ve got the flu and the flu’s got me.
Author: Breezy Point Mom
•4:32 PM
February 10, 2011 4:32 p.m.
Alas, today is a sick day at our house. No lessons, just library books, videos, and naps. Both children have the flu and are spiking fevers. When one is up, the other is down, and vice versa. As of this writing, Sweet Girl has hit 104 and Chips is at around 100. Then in a couple of hours, it could be the other way around. I hate to see them this way; they are so infrequently sick like this. And they are supposed to play violin for a talent show tomorrow night that they have been anticipating for a long time. I do hope they recover quickly.
We spent the weekend traveling to “Pepsicola” to visit Self-Reliant Man’s parents. They seemed to be doing as well as can be expected. Without going into too much detail about them, his mother is in an assisted-living facility. His father isn’t. Anyway, here are some photos of the children with them this weekend.
visiting with “Mimi”
engaging her in a few rounds of Go Fish
visiting with PawPaw
getting to play with the Wii at his house
Anyway, the visits worked out pretty well this weekend, and the children enjoyed the company of their only living set of grandparents (who are both in their mid-sixties).
Also, we typically stay at a campground when we visit Pepsicola, but this time it was cold and rainy, so we chose, instead, to stay at a Scarlet Roof Inn, mostly because of its low price and its perfect location to suit the needs of this trip. It was our first stay ever at a Scarlet Roof Inn, and it was a fairly new one; built, perhaps 4 years ago. Anyway, it isn’t a bad place to stay if you are budget-minded and not too fussy. On the plus side, it had very comfortable beds, clean bathrooms, and a neat machine that dispensed a variety of tasty hot beverages at the push of a button. So, it wasn’t bad if we overlooked the dog pee on the elevator floor each morning, the used toddler diaper that we found under the bed in our room the first day, and the fact that the desk clerk called to complain that we were disturbing the downstairs neighbors due to “children jumping” in our room. Actually, they weren’t jumping, they were just walking with the energy typical of children, but since the floor was constructed of wood joist, such walking resulted in thump-thump-thumping like that of a multi-story house or old hotel.
Other than that, the Scarlet Roof Inn was fine. They emailed me after we returned asking for feedback, and I simply wrote to them about our experience, the good and the bad. Well, it turned out that they refunded us for one of the three nights we were there. Imagine that!
So staying there didn’t cost us any more than the campground would have. And we had a warm, dry place to be. The Lord is always providing for us.
Now I am going to take my kids’ temperatures again and hope for improvement. All prayers gratefully accepted and appreciated!
Author: Breezy Point Mom
•11:01 PM
February 2, 2011 11:01 p.m.
Perimenopause strikes again. This time I have had a headache since Sunday morning. Tension headache, floaty feeling. Very annoying, and we are about to travel, too. Please pray that it gets better quickly. Last time I had this headache was about six months ago and it lasted for nine days. This is only day five.
Other than that, things are great; Chips just completed his first test set in Calvert’s Sixth grade course, Sweet Girl’s first test set is on its way back to us in the mail, and I got a new dishwasher!
Also, we are about to travel to visit the grandparents.
Just this darn tension headache, or else everything would be perfectamundo. Like I always say, and I mean it moreso every time -- hormones, you can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em!
Maybe if I post pictures of the dishwasher going in I’ll feel better.
There. Isn’t that pretty? And Chips helped his dad install it. Have a blessed weekend!
