I found my old blog. I was searching around, even started a new blog, because I couldn't find this one. But I found it! WOOHOO! I am so glad I found it. Now I can go be happy again!

The boys are playing Atari games, I am getting ready to start working on my writing and dh is just chilling out in the livingroom. We are housesitting right now. Compared to living on a boat, this house seems downright HUGE!

But now that I found the blog, I can move on to something a little more... income-like heeheehee.

Boy I missed this place.

We have really enjoyed the time we have spent in Atlanta these two days. Yesterday we went to the Coca-Cola museum. It has the history of Coca-Cola and a tasting center too! We tried soda's from around the world which was really cool! Then we walked around Underground Atlanta for awhile. We're going back there today! That was really neat to see.

The only thing I don't like is how expensive everything is! Cup of coffee- $4! HOLY COW! What does this cup of coffee do? Sing, dance and fold laundry! Well, later today we are going to check out the MLK memorial and see what the cost of the Children's museum is. We'll probably end up checking out the parks and different sites and try to spend very little. I am scouting out a grocery store too! We've saved money by making a lot of our food and filling up our water bottles.

Well, off I go! I will update this blog this weekend when we get home. For now, I am sending emails to my main blog and you can follow there. I'll have time to add to this blog this weekend.

SEE YA THEN!

Carschool Momma

I have been thinking about this blog for awhile now. I wasn't sure what to do with it since I usually post everything on my blogger blog. But I finally figured it out.

Since my username is carschoolmomma, I am going to use this blog to post about our carschool/ roamschool experiences. Anything that doesn't happen AT HOME.

Now I am not going to put down just the stuff that no one can afford... Like, we went to the Space Center this last week. I am also going to put down the "mundane". Like: While at the gas station, I had Miles figure out how much we could buy in snack foods for $5. He had to remember to add in tax!

What do you all think? Would that be of interest to you all?

Also, is there a function where we can email our entry to our blog and have it post? I'll try to remember to get here, but sometimes I WILL forget!

You know, there was thing on here that when you posted to the your blog, it had this nifty little box that you typed in and it figured out all this tedious html stuff for you. Whatever happened to that? I liked it a LOT better than this html <> and / and trying to remember what comes after a=enteryouremail... or was that website?

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So we had mother's day early. I had breakfast in bed and the boys gave me presents. I got the book "Dick Cheney's Survival Bible. DUCK!" a Black Eyed Peas CD (Monkey Business) and a keychain with a book with blank pages on it. I loved it! And I am spending most of the day just relaxing and doing as little as I can get away with.

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While I am sitting here being lazy, I am typing in the lesson plans for next year for math. That should make it incredibly easy for me when I finally get around to putting the assignments in the grid LOL

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Well, I have a hungry kid here. So I am going to go make dinner and snack. Have a great Mother's Day!

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OH! And tomorrow is our 12th anniversary!

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Dotchi

Hello!

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Hello!

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ECHO!

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ECHO!

I have my homeschool tracker set up and ready to go! I have it divided into terms according to seasons. I have the first 2 months planned out. That'll get us through the end of May.

We finally found the happy medium to Mendel's medicine. He gets it every 2 days, then every 3 days. He seems to do a lot better on it that way.

Miles is re-doing his room and having fun with it. So far he has it set up to look like a "teen" room... so he says LOL. It has the Total Gym in it and I am doing daily inspections to make sure he's not abusing it.

I am reading Clan Of The Cave Bear. It's a great book, highly suggest it.

I better go for now. I'll try to get on here more.

Spot the fish was Mendel's pet

A fat goldfish with orange spots.

He was unique and cool to see

But pretty... well, he was not.

He looked like a floating basketball

A floating, pudgy, orange and white

  bloated, but friendly and loved to swim

Behind the sunken treasure sight.

Today we fed him (as we always do)

Left for a freinds house for the day

When we got back, he was at the top of the tank

Swimming in a most unusual way.

He was swimming upside down

Right near the pane of glass...

Then we realized he wasn't swimming!

Our poor fishy friend passed.

We're not sure what happened

But we can take a guess

It was something about the battery

That fell off the desk

It was on there when left,

But was not when we got back

And was sitting in the place

Where spot loved to relax...

So... We gave Spot a few words

And a saddened good-bye

And we sent him a swirling

To golden pipes in the sky.

Mendel is heart broken

He says that he'll miss her

And now he's adopted

Mom's catfish named Whiskers.

We have clams! We researched them online and found out that what we found were clams. They have a leg to help them burrow into the sand or mud and siphons for helping them breathe and eat. They eat plankton. We've found it very fascinating!

And we found they they can spit at you when you take them out of the water while they are still open. If you count the ridges on the outer shells, it will give you a good estimate of how old they are. Ours range in age from 6 years to 19 years old.

I left the nature study open for this week since we've been able to get out and about more. We went down to the creek today and found clams or mussels. Not sure which, or if they are the same. We'll study them though. At first we had planned on finding a way to prepare them for a meal but, Mendel put them in water and we've been watching them move about, sticking their meaty tongue like things out and watching in awe as they manage to "crawl" across the bowl. Mendel objects vehemently to us eating them, dubbed them pets and demanded that we put them back in creek. So, no clams or mussels for us tonight, tomorrow or anytime soon and he has sworn off eating clams of any kind.

In memory of Missey, I started a notebook. It wasn't my idea, it actually came from the Ambleside support list I am on. I added two routines this week and printed out years 1-11 booklists from amblesideonline.org. When I die, if my children are still homeschool age, I would hope that they could continue homeschooling.

So I am printing out the schedules as well. I am also printing out how to homeschool, why I homeschool, some CM articles and adding the pagan flare to it as well. Yes, I am a pagan but, I love the rich literature of the CM style. I am adding books I would want them to read from all religions, books on our religion, and what I want them to know before they move out on their own. While religion itself is not important to me, I want my children to be tolerant of others beliefs and to find a path that brings them joy. I'll also have other books that I want them to read that are not on the lists. I'll post them here later.

I think I'll also have a section for parenting and have that come first, since parenting is a major part of homeschooling and comes first. I'll even have an introduction to me and I'll add letters to the boys and other people and update those every 6 months to a year. Something that, hopefully, they will have in memory of me. I am also putting all my poetry into one book with a story to accompany each one. That way, no one can sit and wonder why in the world I wrote that poem or why they are mostly morbib LMAO.

I better go for now. I am spring cleaning today.

I got next weeks schedules all ready to go... mostly. I have to fill in the blanks on the schedule sheet. It just helps me to remember what we are doing. I decided to stick to the Ambleside online new schedule. It will be less of a struggle to get everything done that way.

Tomorrow we'll have dinner at Jetamio's house for Spiral Scouts. Then we'll have the story of creation, a small craft and a movie. I think that will be fun. I'm not sure what kind of craft yet but we'll find something.

I found a CM schedule last night and tried it out today. I like it so far. Today went well. We got a lot done and the boys didn't realize they were on a "schedule". I stayed flexible and scratched out what we did as it got done. I feel like we accomplished more than we usually do and the boys seemed to like the shorter math time and Mendel seemed to retain his math better.

Miles breezed through his math so it's time to "test" and move on. I think he'll do fine now that we got that concept out of the way. So far, I haven't found much in math that he wasn't understanding and I think I'll have him close to his "level" in a month or two. I started Math-U-See and decided to start Miles from the beginning to make sure I didn't miss anything (Just in case you didn't know) and I found a few things he could DO but didn't understand the WHY behind it. I'm not big on rote memorization without understanding behind what you are memorizing. So he is doing great. He started flying through his grammar book and did about 3 weeks of planned pages (1 a day) in one day. He's not "ahead" since there is no one to compare him to LOL, that just means I need to look around for hands on, living grammar material. I know "Woe is I" is a great book, but I am looking for more.

Mendel, my child that is going through "school stinks" phases, even perked up today when I when started reading the poetry selection. He thought it was cool that the math was quick and to the point. When he finished, he played with the blocks and I found him counting out the tens to build his castle with. Wow, it really does help!

We went to Piggly Wiggly today and bought a bit of food and supplies. Cheese, Velveeta (is that even a food?), toilet paper, bacon, sausage, eggs and a snack. The detergent isle sent me into sneezing fits and made my eyes water horribly. I remember why I buy "free and clear" soaps!

I must go start dinner now... We're having chicken, stewed tomatoes (okay, *I* am having those), broccoli and cheese and homemade bread. Mmmmmmm, I missed all this home cooking when I was working. I really am enjoying this again.

Y'know... I love homeschooling my kids. We got up this morning, worked on math and grammar and then Mendel worked on his phonics. We read a bit of The Chronicles Of Narnia- The Magician's Nephew, cleaned up the house a touch and now the boys are playing. We listened to SJ (pronounced Sooj) and then Johann Strauss. We're about to listen to Black Eyed Peas and eat lunch. It's just a nice laid back day. And we've actually accomplished a lot AND I had a 30 minute nap while the boys played quietly.  I'm just really enjoying this moment.

This was on the way back from Tullahoma from a wonderful co-op and day of commisary shopping. Isn't that bench the coolest!

We took our nature walk to the creek today. We had a blast! It looks so beautiful down there. Only a few complaints. There are tire marks in the meadow going onto the Seaton land. Someone took down the line going across the property line. There are several trees that have been burned also. And my favorite briar patch is GONE. And it's on MY LAND! Why can't people respect my land? I am going to price markers of some sort and put bounderies and signs up stating "No motorized vehicles allowed". If that keeps up afterwards, then post NO TRESPASSING signs... after that, I'll file a complaint to the sherriff's office. Driving down the hill is fine, but not on the walking path and in the meadow. It just ruins it!

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The boys got a chance to float Sea Crawler down the rapids. That was a hoot! Miles lost the line at one point and I went into the creek after it *BRRRR* it was cold! But felt SOOOO good. Mendel's shirt got washed away down stream. We found it though... and then Mendel went in after Miles shirt. We spent a good hour down there watching the fish jump and listening to sounds of nature. It was so refreshing.

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We took a water break before we headed back up to the house. It is getting hot here but I think I handled it fine. I am searching for my mist sprayer for summer time. The boys are already asking when we will go camping. I'll have to plan a few days for that.

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They have buddies coming to spend the night this Friday night so I will be extra cleaning the house! I am thinking of planning a camp out for them and their friends sometime this spring and summer. That will be loads of fun! A camp out, a cook out and lots of swimming! I am actually excited for summer this year. Maybe the allergy won't be as bad this year and I can enjoy the land. I can't wait!