One Week

I have one week left before starting Brianna and Olivia back with homeschool and have Tanya start homeschooling! I still have soooo much to do. I still haven't even finished unpacking/organizing out school stuff since the move. I'm pretty well done with Olivia, and I've got all Brianna's review and Tanya's placement stuff together, but I need to get the general planning in gear. Plus, I'd really like my kitchen table back... I hope to have an up to date curriculum list later this week.

New Years Resolutions - Blog Style

1. I resolve to begin blogging again. I took a break to get my business running but seem to have forgotten to come back. With my business, homeschooling the girls and adding my niece into our homeschool, I should have lots to talk about that I'd really like to record!

2. I resolve to read the blogs I follow again. I have a list of about 100 blogs that I used to get zillions of ideas and 2nd hand support from that I really enjoyed reading and like blogging I seem to have forgotten to go back to. I can't promise I'll remember to comment on a lot of them, but at least I'll be reading them again!

Apologies and Mini School

Sorry about suddenly disappearing. My Mozilla died and I had to figure out how to get everything working again. But I'm back!!!!

2 weeks ago I launched (locally) my children's accessories business. I have been crazy busy with orders so we have been on a ultra basic school schedule. The first week I damn near killed myself trying to get everything done (work and school). Thankfully I have some great homeschooling friends who had me let myself slack off.

We homeschool year round at a slightly above normal speed. So in a "school year" we've done about a year and a half of school. So we have plenty of "time" to slow down so I can get my customers orders done. I have Brianna doing basics almost everyday, just so she doesn't lose what we've already covered.

Wilderness Wednesday

This week we have Garden Friends! We've had some nice sunny weather recently and our garden has been a-buzz with assorted friends.

This here is a late addition to the garden that we assume sprouted from the compost that we add each year. It looks like a melon of sort, but since we've never *planted* melons, we're not sure what kind.

Be sure to check out our guidelines and grab a button! Join in with any plant/animal based blog post :)

Wilderness Wednesday

I'm sneaking this post in 8hrs late!

This week we spent a lot of harvesting time in the garden. Plucked about 80 tomatoes, load of peppers, cucumbers galore and another HUGE zucchini. In this are of the world we don't have a large span of time for gardening, typically end of May until mid October.

We did however get a huge stash of compost this year and everything in the gardens have been supersized!

Yes those are thigh high impatients. Impatients (at least in our area, and I grow them every year) typically grow to be 4 to maybe 6 inches high. Brianna is a tall 9 year old too. And all of them are this big!

Be sure to check out our guidelines and grab a button! Join in with any plant/animal based blog post :)

Weekly Wrap-Up

Monday - No school for Brianna and my niece Tanya's first 5K. The group they ran with is the Cornwall Multisport Club and we're tempted to join for the 2012 year as the family rate is amazing and all the races that we would have to pay for are free if you're a member. Brianna's time was 52 minutes 1 second and Tanya's was 53 minutes 5 seconds.

Tuesday - This morning we had our Not Back to School picnic with our local HS group. Brianna loved seeing the group kids again as we didn't have any meet ups during the summer. We met a a local conservation area and went for a hike on the trails there. Brianna found loads of different mushrooms/fungus along the way. We had never gone hiking there before and it's about half the distance of the place we normally hike, so I can see going there often!

Wednesday - In science we did an evaporation experiment. This showed me just how much further than Gr. 3 Brianna is in science. We had to half fill a bottle with water, mark the water line, put the cap on and place it in the sun to watch the evaporation process. Brianna knew from the get go that the water level wouldn't change because the lid was on thus keeping the water in the bottle. However, she loves the little experiments so much that we're still going with the Gr. 3 level. We start the Gr. 4 level of the series next month and I'm wondering if even that will be far enough ahead for her.

Thursday - Brianna finished up her flag/bird/flower pages for her Canada book, now it's just a matter of putting it together. She also started the multiplication supplement book I got for her. OMG, waaaay too simple. She'll be through it in less than 2 weeks at this pace *sigh*

Friday - Brianna finished her Gr. 4 French book today. I have yet to mark her final review (bad teacher!), but by just flipping through it, it looks pretty good. I do have to mark it soon though so i know if she needs some more Gr. 4 review or if I should go buy the Gr. 5 book.

Over the weekend my mom started teaching Brianna how to do plastic canvas. Brianna's making a treasure box for her trinkets.

We're linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers!

10 Years

I slept through the actual event though dreamed of it. I woke up to horror in the real world. It played out like a movie, but CNN doesn't play movies. I went to my sister's house where my poor newly 4 yr old nephew thought it was his fault because it was his birthday (it took several years to have a happy birthday again). We watched in disbelief of what was unfolding in front of us.

Even here in Canada, all government buildings were evacuated just in case the next plane came here. My then-fiance worked as a janitor in one of those buildings and his boss would not let them leave. Threatened to fire them if they did. I was livid. Thankfully he made it home safely unlike so many others.

This morning I watched the "live" footage of that day with Brianna. It was like seeing a movie I've seen before with someone who's never seen it. Through her questions and comments, all I could say was "keep watching". I watched in as much awe and silence as I did 10 years ago.

In my thoughts are the people who lost their lives that day and the many since who have lost their lives fighting in the subsequent war.