It's Starting To Look Like.....

Christmas at our house!
The kids got the tree out and put it up and took the extra lights they didn't use on the tree and decorated out side. They still have to add the decorations to the tree but "Gosh" it is only November 29th.....
Kelly and I are trying to wrap up some of the school work we started back during the week of Thanksgiving so we can start a fresh week on Monday, But of course we got side tracted after lunch - Our two Tom turkeys wondered down the street and ended up at my neighbors yard (Kelly and I were out there for a good hour looking for these fellows - I had really given up hope and thought they were going to be somebodies dinner). Then Kelly spotted them behind my neighbors fence - We have lived here for I guess around 5 years and I have never once meet or talked to these people before yesterday. To be honest I think they were going to keep the "boys" if I hadn't gone right up to their fence and kept calling for the turkeys. We got the turkeys home and put them in the goat, chicken & now turkey pen, No more running around for them!

Sharing a yahoo group with lots of idea.....

I wanted to share this yahoo group with you all.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturallearner/This gal has a lot of great ideas & links, She is a member of the homeschool group I belong to and lives out by me.
Hope you find some ideas you can use.

Passing of a treasured friend...

Kelly wasn't feeling well yesterday so we took the day off - That was fine with me, my mind seems to be in a million places right now anyway.
Our cat did pass away on Sunday morning, I was crying and carring on - The kids are like but mom she is in a better place now and not in any pain. I am just always shocked at how finale death is, one minute you are here and the next you are not. Very early Sunday morning maybe around 3:00am. I heard Mickey meowing at my son's bedroon door (She had been spending most of her time in there so the dogs would not pest her), I heard her but thought nothing of it - I think it was her saying good bye to me. When I went in to check on her about 8am. she had already passed. She passed away with a cross stich under her that I had made for my son when he was a baby with his name on it, How she got a hold of it I do not know..... maybe she was saying thank you to him for taking care of her in her finale days.
Okay I know you must be thinking - Gosh she is NUTS!!!!!

Me just being a sad sack again.....

Kelly & I have really been doing a whole lot of nothing here!
My husband has been home these past four days, plus my son's girlfriend went away for the hoidays so he has been home 24/7 too.
I have been finding this weekend just so depressing.... Our cat Mickey is failing fast, she is old for a cat almost as old as my son who is 18 - I keep hoping for a turn around.
Then all these commercials on tv and in the newspapers about buying presents for the holiday, "Your daughter deserves the best", "Your family will be happy for the holidays" ect. has really gotten me down. As I have said we are struggling week to week just to pay a bill and have enough to eat during the week. there just isn't any money to buy presents this year.... Epecially if the comapny my husband is working for shuts down for two weeks for the holidays. My kids are all excited about getting the tree up and decorating the house, my son even decorated Chance's pen with lights. I am trying not to be a sad sack and just enjoy the time but it is so hard when you know that they are going to be sooo disappointed this year. I even signed Kelly up for the Toy's for Tot's program just in hopes she get's a present or two. Hopefully a miracle comes through and things turn around I sure hope so.

Thanksgiving /Homeschool e-store

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
My mother-in-law came down with a virus and cancelled our dinner. It kinda threw us since we didn't budget any money to buy food for that day - We ran out to Walmart and got a ham and some fixins to go with it.... I used the money we had a side for the electric bill, this could cause a problem since we had a shut off day on the 20th. but I couldn't imagine not having a dinner for Thanksgiving.
On another note, I am having trouble already downloading the free items on the Homeschoolestore website it says the site is down....

What a difference a day makes.....

Gosh I was so optomistic after yesterday's lessons.
Today sure was a different story! She was oh so cranky.... I stayed calm and moved along with the lessons, I think too often I fold up the day when she is like this - not today. I see two sides to this is she really learning when she is in this mood, probably not but she has to learn that she has to truge through stuff even when she is not in the mood for it. The day peaked at math - She really has such a tough time with it. I think I need to move it to the morning learning time instead of after lunch. I am amazed at how if she doesn't use it (multiplication & division), she totally forgets how to work out the problems.
Oh well tomorrow is another day - My son is off from public school Wed., Thurs. & Friday too, so I am not sure how much school work we will get done Wed. & Friday but we will see.
My son has finally decided on a career path for when he graduates high school this spring - He wants to become a "Police Officer". I am bit worried for his safety going into that line of work but if it is something he wants to do I am behind him.

Good Day Today!!!!! : )

Finally a productive day!
It has been weeks of mish-mosh here going from one thing to another.
Well today was a different story, I worked on a schedule last night and woke Kelly up early (That child will sleep till after 11:00am if I let her). We started at 10:00am and kept pretty much to my schedule here or there changing things around as needed. I went back to a workbook style of learning for her spelling words (That is a really tough area for her), she seemed to do so much better with the words. I even made up a word search out of this weeks words which she will tackle on Thurs. - We will see on Friday when she takes the test if this is better then the Power Spelling which we were using. I read a few books on the presidents (We are working on one president a week), I tossed aside the books she seemed to be not able to follow and I think we found one we can work with. Math is still a sticking point - I found a book "All the Math You'll Ever Need" by Steve Slavin it is very basic but covers everything you could ever think of even personal finances & business math ect. we are giving this book a try. We did these subjects and a few more and she even read by herself.... there again I was fighting with her to read books she didn't like or were to hard for her, Now we are using the Magic Tree House books.
I wanted to mention that a fellow homeschool blogger (Bunny over at - Homeschooling in Florida )brought to mey attention about using Florida Vurtual School I told kelly about it and she really doesn't want to try that option yet, but I signed her up and I am reviewing the courses I think we might just try one to see how we like it .....
Today was a good day : ) I am actually looking forward to tomorrow....

Walmart's can be dangerous to your health!

I have to pass on to you all something that happened to me today.
Being that it is Sat., the shelves in the store were already on the empty side, there were only a few of the paper plates that I buy and they were located all the way on the bottom shelf in the back. I knelt down and was grabbing for the plates when a shopping cart came barreling into my head! I was stunned, I stood up and really wanted to cry but controlled myself. The lady who hit me had a pointsetta plant in the baby seat of the shopping cart which must have blocked her view. The lady kept saying I didn't see you I am so sorry.... I was like you almost knocked me out. Being the eightball that I am I threw the paper plates into my cart and went to find my husband. My husband was over by the dog food, I told him the story. By now my head is splitting, she hit me right at the top of the head above my right eye area. I cashed out and left the store - thank goodness I bought Advil because I need it! I have a major headache and feel shaky. I tell you all this so that the next time you are shopping and need to get something from the bottom shelf please have a look out for you to ward off any shoppers who may have large items in their carts and not be able to see you!!!!!

Feeling Down In The Dumps Today

I sure am feeling like a sad sack today..... My husband finally found a job, he has been there for two weeks now, His pay is almost half of what he is used to making and only works 5 days (He used to always work Sat. too). But the way the job market is around here I keep reminding him we are blessed he found this job. Yesterday the fellow mentioned to him that they usually shut down the job for TWO WEEKS around the Christmas holiday time.... When you are living week to week this is really bad news - Especially around Christmas! I asked the gal up at Walmart if they are hiring and she said they are always hiring, I was thinking of some how getting a job. I really feel like a wet rag now with taking care of my dog business, all the dogs, homeschooling Kelly, the housework & making dinners but I can't imagine what type of Christmas it will be like here the way we are going. I have tossed it back and forth with myself thinking maybe I could work the evening hours say 4pm to 11pm. but with gas skyrocking here (the last I looked I think it was $3.19 a gallon) and our Walmart is pretty far away from us I would be using at least $10.00 an evening in gas just to get there and back if not more and with making only minimum wage of say $6.50 that is almost two hours a night just to pay for the gas - Yikes! I always tell the kids when the going get's tough the tough get going or when you are delt lemons you make lemonaid but really right now I feel so down and out.... I just can't see how we are going to dig ourselves out of this - the amount my husband makes is just basically food & gas money for the week, we are chipping away at the bills but we are getting behind where they are doubling. Oh well I guess I have to stop whinning and get a better attitude about all of this. If you don't mind could you include us in your prayers I would be very greatful : )

Where has the week gone....

I can't belive we are already heading for another weekend - the days go by so fast.
It's funny how I carry on about what Kelly is or isn't learning, and stress to no end that we aren't covering everything she needs to know, Then my son comes home from public school where he is a senior in 12th grade and tells me about the work they have been doing in one of his classes..... watching movies, Beauty and the Beast, The Adams Family ect. this has gone on for most of this marking period. His teacher in that class through out the whole marking period has not been well, he actually was so bad the one day the kids helped him to his car where the priciple drove the man home. During his days off they have a sub who is 23 years old and knows nothing about the topic they are supposta be learning about. She has actually said to the class as long as they do not cause any trouble and stay quiet they will get a good grade! Yikes!
Anyway, My mission this weekend is to get some kind of vision of the path we are going to take and try and get papers printed out and books together so I am not always scrabbling around trying to get it all together.... I really think alot of our problem is her past public school learning was from textbook/workbook style and so was mine - It has been very hard I think for both of us to let go of that and move towards this narration/notebooking type learning, but I know we can do it : )

Wow! It sure is hard to hit the books again.....

Well we attempted to get back down to business today. Kelly got up early and we got the silly stuff out of the way (Her computer time/riding Chance around the block). Then we started school work - Gosh it was hard! We were moving like snails today. We seem to be just foating along, going in a ton of different directions - Which I hate! I can not belive on the 17th of November we will be home schooling for one year and I am no better at getting it organized then when we first started : (
I ran into this gals blog and her schedule and her day sounds so wonderfully rounded and organized: http://weblog.xanga.com/TeacherBritt/619886200/our-curriculum.html I can only hope that one day soon I can get us purring along like this family.....

What a great day to be alive!

It is absolutely beautiful here in Florida today!!!!!
These are the kind of days my granmother when she was alive would say "What a great day to be alive". It is just so refreshing outside, on the cool side with the sun shining : ) I know it has my whole family outside together which hasn't happened in a very long time, My husband, son & daughter are cutting some shrubs down and making horse trails on our two acres for Kelly to ride Chance through.
I of course am spending too much time inside on such a great day - I was up almost every hour last night with my new puppies and am really cranky today (Maybe that's why everyone is outside heheheh).

Are we ever going to get back to school work??????

Each day this week it seems like something has come up and school work has gone out the window.....
I had such high hopes this week to "Review" the things we had learned to make sure Kelly has a handle on those things before we move on. WELL, I think we have covered maybe one lesson and since then one thing after another has come up.
I am a dog breeder and two fo my girls delivered their puppies which is always a whirl wind of activity (One night we were up till after 2:00am). Kelly is such a big help during the deliveries, I really couldn't do it with out her. Then we have been running to the vet's office yesterday and AGAIN today to have the puppies tails cropped & dew claws removed so there goes school work for today : (
I know she is actually learning alot about breeding ect. and with her LOVE of animals this kinda stuff may come in handy for her down the road.
But I keep asking, "When are we getting back to school work"!
I hope thngs settle down for next week and we can dig back in and start in again. I think I am going to toss the "Review" idea out the window and get going on new stuff - We have spent just to much time slow poking along here!