08.16.06
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 12:37 am by Meg
So we are on our third and last trip of the summer. The kids and I, including tochter, are visiting my sister and her husband in Maryland. It should have been an easy drive out here. Just head east until I get to her farm.
And it would have been, until the 18 wheeler pushed me off the road!!
We had stopped in Morgantown, WV for dinner and were heading east on I-68. It’s extremely hilly, one minute 3 lanes climbing up and then 2 lanes heading down. Very beautiful. We were on the downhill side of a hill, in the left lane slowly (relatively) passing the semi. I was nearly up to the cab. The next thing I know he (I’m assuming) signals to pull into my lane so he can pass some sedan!
I laid into my horn (he should have been able to see me) but over he comes. The next thing I know, I have 2 wheels in the grass and 2 on the rumble strip. I never even felt him hit me!!
And so I’m going 60 some mph on the side of the road. Luckily, there was grass, no signs, no guardrail. I was able to get back into my lane. It was only when Girl asked me if I wanted her to fix the passenger side mirror (it rotates and the semi had pushed it against the side of the car) that I even had any idea that we had connected with the truck. And it really wasn’t until I pulled off and saw the paint rub on the rear fender that I truly accepted it.
As Girl put it, ‘the car’s not seriously damaged and no one is hurt’
Permalink
08.14.06
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 2:23 pm by Meg
One that’s good for you and even better for the kids. And it’s secular!!!! So, if you live anywhere near to Chicago, it’s worth checking out.
SAVE THE DATE! The 2007 InHome Conference will be held on February 23 and 24 at the Sheraton in Arlington Heights, and we are already hard at work. To volunteer to help with organizing the conference, please contact our board of directors at board@homeeducatorsconference.org. Brochures will be in the mail the first week of January.
They have a great website for info, but it still has last year’s info.
Permalink
08.13.06
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 5:56 pm by Meg
I just showed Boy the post comparing his room with his sister’s. He immediately wanted to correct the image of his room, so he went and snapped a few pictures.
Now, to put this in prospective….He did get home about 11 PM last night and only got up in time to pick Tochter (thanks Jo) up at the airport (hour plus there, hour plus back) which turned into a mess getting her baggage and we spent a lot of time waiting for it to never show up (an 1 hour direct flight from Chicago to Indy and they lost her bags) at which point we drove home and had lunch.
So, all in all, he has not had a lot of time free to do whatever, including clean.
The current view from the door (I actually noticed this when I went to bed last night.)
Now he also wanted to point out that I hadn’t shown their bookshelves properly. Here is his: 
and this is hers: 
He may have a point.
Permalink
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 9:35 am by Meg
Yep, I’m getting a third child.
Nope, not pregnant or adopting, or fostering.
Right now, (if this posts correctly) we are at the Indy airport picking up our ‘new’ daughter. She’s a 16 year old exchange student from Muenster, Germany, and she’ll be a part of our family for the next 5 months. I don’t have a good nickname picked out for her yet, so I’m taking ideas. ‘Visitor’ is the only thing I can think of and we are suppose to make the students feel like a part of the family, so I don’t like the distance that implies to me.
For anyone that has even loosely considered it, I’d highly recommend hosting. We had our first student about 18 months ago. We got her because I had mentioned to friends (who were already hosting) that it was something that we had discussed doing but had never followed up on. Then the local coordinator was short a home with a week’s notice, the friend suggested us and we agreed.
But it wasn’t that easy. When the coordinator came in for the home interview, she was very concerned about having homeschoolers host (she was a ps french teacher). I think the only reason she went ahead was that she was short and those friends of ours highly recommended us.
By the time that she (I’ll call her Coffee, she was from Columbia) went home the coordinator was asking if any of our homeschooling friends would be interesting in also hosting. She had decided that homeschoolers made good host families.
I am please to say that the high school was willing to work with us and let Coffee miss school whenever the homeschoolers were doing a field trip and suc
Anyway, we are looking forward to having a new family member. Now I just need a name……
Permalink
08.12.06
Posted in Meme at 10:34 pm by Meg
Barefoot Musings gave me the idea for this one and with Girl in bed and Hubby and Boy not home yet, I thought I’d do it.
You’d almost think I was in the military or something.
1. Cleveland Heights, OH for 2 weeks - I was born as my parents were trying to move. Bad, bad timing for my mom. She ended up extremely anemic and couldn’t nurse me, and then they found out that I was allergic to cow’s milk. So, I got goat’s milk instead. I still like the stuff.
2. White Fish Bay, WI for about a year (I think) - The stories were never clear on how long they stayed, but I know that it went into the winter.
3. Milwaukee, WI for 4 years in multiple houses (I don’t know how many for sure (at least 2)) - we went from this white urban home and built up to a house in the near suburbans with about 2.5 acres. Our houses changed based on how involved my sister got with horses. I distinctly remember that 2.5 acres meant that we could have 2.5 horses. The third one being a pony or foal.
4. Mequon, WI for 1 year - I loved this house. It was right on the Milwaukee River and went back years. We were the first owners that weren’t descendents of the original settlers and there was a family cemetery on the land. There was a tunnel connecting the house to the barn and the house was haunted. Sometime I’ll need to write some of the stories from that house.
5. Vestal, NY for 11 years - The house that I really grew up in. It was an old 1812 farmhouse (even had wooden peg nails in parts) on an 100 acre ‘farm.’ Hobby farm was what we called it. We had so many animals over the years.
6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Syracuse, NY for 4 years - College. 2 years in a dorm followed by 2 years living off campus in a couple of apartments with friends. The fifth place was a summer sub-lease when I stayed there to take summer classes so I could do the co-op program.
11. Tonawanda, NY for 1 year - My first ‘real’ place and my first ‘real’ job. It was an apartment in a hugh complex.
12. Hamburg, NY for 1 year - Same job, but moved into a garage apartment that would let me have a dog and was out in the country.
13. Monson, MA for 9 months - New job - easiest one I ever had - and an neat apartment in a refurbished old boys boarding school. The catch was, that the lease said that if I lost my job, I was out. The place I was working closed their engineering department and I had to move. Luckily I had a 4 month warning so I could finish some projects, and landed on my feet.
14. Providence, RI for 1 year - Hubby and I were finally living together. He finished school and I found a new job.
15. Ponoma, CA for 1 year - The year I was pregnant with Boy. Very modern place in a complex that was originally going to be condos. Hubby’s first job out of college.
16. Salinas, CA for 1 year - New job for Hubby. I was now a stay-at-home mom. We rented a house that was split into a duplex. A very weird set up.
17 and 18. Monterey, CA for 2 years- though they were spent on either side of another duplex. The back had a yard and I wanted that for Boy to be able to play. We were right in New Monterey and when the windows were open, we could hear the sea lions barking. We still miss that bike path and aquarium.
19. Newburgh, NY for 16 months - it’s very weird living in military housing with active military neighbors, when you aren’t military. Checking out of that place drove me batty! I don’t know how people that have to deal with their inspections regularly deal with it (probably pay for the cleaning services to come in) Where as a regular landlord might dock your deposit if it’s not acceptable, their response was ‘We’ll be back in an hour, clean it.’ And by clean it, I mean white glove test. Anyway, this was where Girl was born.
20. Cornwall, NY for about 6 months - another apartment in a complex. This one was a townhouse though.
21. Cupertino, CA for 6 weeks - landlord from ****. Luckily, we were able to break the lease on move out.
22 and 23. San Jose, CA for 4 years - two in a rental - a duplex next to a park- and two in our first house. A little 1050 sq. ft. place that we were lucky to get in that housing market.
24. Temporay housing for 6 weeks - while we found and purchased our home. It was cheap, it was furnished, it was month to month with a 30 day cancelation, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I hate cockroaches!
25. Home since 1999. except for….
26. Albuquerque, NM for 10 months - for Hubby’s work. We rented a very nice 3 bedroom place. Furnished and they allowed the animals.
Permalink
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 9:09 pm by Meg
It was a gorgous day today. Low humidity (after the rain of the last couple, I should hope so) and temps in the low 80s. Boy and Hubby are off in Indy for the day, so Girl and I took a walk in the woods. I haven’t been out in them since we got home in June.
‘The woods’ is an 100 acre nature preserve behind our house. Or actually, behind our neighbor’s two-doors-down-house. While most of it is fenced off on this side, there is an open gate that we can enter through. There is also an utility easement across the back of all of our properties so it is easy to walk out our door and into the park.
It amazes me to no end that when we bought the house that agent told us all about being a mile down the road from the ‘main’ city park (swimming pool, tennis courts, playground, picnic pavilions) and never mentioned the natural playground right behind us. The nature preserve is full of well-kept trails, old-growth forest, a large pond with turtles, Canada geese and stocked with fish, a swampy wetlands, and a prairie grass restoration project. The developed areas has a playground, picnic pavilion, Native American museum and a Wildlife museum (stocked with both stuffed and living animals and a full-time naturalist.)
We’ve gone walking in the woods on a regular basis ever since we discovered them and have seen so many of the animals that live there. Though the escaped convicts hiding in them was not well received in this household.
Anyway, it was a very peaceful afternoon.
Permalink
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 8:46 pm by Meg
Now I know that it’s not fair to totally compare these two spaces. Boy has been going full tilt all summer and in particular the last three days he has been getting home after 11 PM and leaving around 8 AM to go to GenCon.
Girl, OTH, is in the middle of doing a deep cleaning of her room (though that happens on a regular basis) and getting rid of some things. To give you an idea, this will be the second time she’s done that since we got home in mid-June. (I never asked her to.) I still have the boxes of stuff that she’s done with on the back porch from then.
So, I’m doing laundry and walking past their rooms and this is what I see in the door:
Hers: 
His: 
So, I go in and check out their bookcases
Hers: 
His: 
So, I look at their closet doors
Hers: 
His: 
Now, it just hits me what a contrast this is. We’ve never required prefectly clean rooms from them. The general rule of thumb is ‘that when you go to bed you need to have a clear path from the side of the bed to the door.’ Boy has always pushed it’s limit.
Permalink
08.11.06
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 11:58 am by Meg
This is not quite right. I’m relaxed, but no one would consider us unschoolers.
What Type of Homeschooler Are You?
Salvador Dali Melting clocks are not a problem in your reality. You are an unschooler. You will tolerate a textbook, but only as a last resort. Mud is your friend. You prefer hands-on everything. If your school had an anthem, it would be Dont Worry, Be Happy. Visit my blog: http://www.GuiltFreeHomeschooling.blogspot.com
Take this quiz!
Permalink
« Previous entries · Next entries »
