What a nice day :-)

My dd, a close friend and I went for a walk into "town" today because it was so nice out. We stopped at an upper class resale shop and I got a cross stitch for $1 and dd got a Snow White snow globe with 2 dwarfs on it... all for $5. Then we stopped for lunch at a Meditteranean restaraunt and their food was awesome. It was the first time I'd ever had this type of food and I really liked it. So, we accomplished physical education, history and social studies all without any books. I had sooo much fun! Now I'm catching up on a few things while dd watches noggin then we'll do some "real" school work :-) I just wanted to share our nice little adventure.

I must be a little crazy...

...because every time I get new books in the mail that I have ordered, I get so excited. Recently I ordered about $13 worth of books from Elaine at Yahoo auctions. Well, they arrived today and I swear they are in perfect condition! I've never received such well taken care of books from anyone's auctions before. Of course the other books were usable but these didn't even look as though they'd been used!!! Anyhow I'm really looking to diving into them. I got "A Year Full of Stories" by Georgie Adams and started reading to my dd from it. She's insisted that we start on day 1 which is fine by me because the first story was wonderful so I'm sure they all will be just as wonderful. I also ordered "Great Dinosaur Atlas" by DK and "The Ocean's Atlas" by Anita Ganeri. These books are so in depth, I didn't even imagine how in depth they were. I love the fact that they can also be used as reference books once we read through them. I've grown so tired of having piddly books on my shelves that dd looks at a few times and then is done, so I'm glad that I spent my money wisely this time. We'll certainly get a lot of use out of these. In fact, my mom was saying that I'm spending too much money on homeschooling but the truth is, I've spent maybe $100 for this coming school year and think that we'll do fine for a long time to come thanks to my wise purchases and the library.

President's Day

Well, it's President's day... We spent the morning at the library where dd exercised, read a book and did a craft. Now that we're home I do have some things that I'd like to do for President's day once I get to them LOL I printed out 2 pictures of Lincoln for dd to color, which she's done, so I should get a move on. I have a short bio of him written by another homeschool child that I want to read to her. After that we have a puzzle to put together with some questions about Lincoln. That will serve as a nice little lesson about him for today LOL So what are you doing for President's day?

This may be the day I actually lose my mind

I've been brought up to believe that the way a child acts has a lot to say about the parents. I'm starting not to believe this anymore though. We've been having an "off" week around here. I'm not sure if it's because of the blizzard or what. My dd just isn't herself and it's making it a lot harder to be able to do anything that we normally do, not that this week is anywhere near normal. Anyway, I just had to vent and share that the old addage that says how a child acts really has a lot to say about their parents is junk.

Trying to stay sane in an insane world

I am starting to think that this world really is quite insane. There is just so much going on around me that people seem to think is normal but I step back and shake my head in bewilderment. I've decided that I'm not going to worry about anyone but me and my dd anymore though. It's just not worth my time and energy. I need to do schoolwork and work on my part time job on a daily basis. In reality, that keeps me busy enough. When I add in all of dd's activities and keeping up with things around the house while having time for myself it's just not worth it anymore. Days like yesterday just don't settle well with me. It's not healthy for me to feel that way. I know what is going on in my life, I know how to keep myself organized, I know what needs to be done and how and when it needs to be done. From now on, I've decided that this is the only thing that really matters AMEN

The day from Hell

I don't like being yelled at all day long and yet that's what I got from my parents all day today. I'm sorry you can skip reading this post but I really have got to vent. I've been told that my house isn't perfect, I don't do enough to help my dd with her autism, that I let her do too much herself, that she should be in public school and that I shouldn't be working. Well, I'm sorry that my house looks lived in and that we have projects going on for school. I'm sorry that I don't have a perfect child. I'm sorry that I don't coddle my dd. And I'm sorry that I can't live off of Social Security alone. I'm sorry that I don't feel she'd thrive in public school. I'm sorry that I want my dd to have a really good life and to have the very best that I can give her. What it comes down to is that I'm not perfect and they think that they are and so I should be. It's just ludicrous but I can't be exactly what they want me to be. I'm my own person and I'm doing a lot of great things for my dd so it's time they stand up and take notice while understanding that I am happy with who I am and that we aren't slobs but aren't perfect either. THE END

Happiness

... is a state of mind. And right now I'm feeling very happy and content with my family's life. I do wish that I had more time in the day to do things but that is not all that important. Everything is getting done, my dd is getting a good education and I'm working full time from home. I may have to work every day and sometimes do 2 or 3 things at once but I am happy. Sorry, sometimes I just need to remind myself that I really do have everything that I want in my life right now LOL Anyway, I'm off to work on my 2nd ebook. If you haven't done so already, check out my 1st one here. OK until tomorrow...

Welcome home Julie!!!

We have a new member of our household that we brought home from the pet store today, and no, I'm not talking about the 4 fish we went to get. There was a whole big tank of hermit crabs there too. All of them had really pretty painted shells. Well, I let my dd get a blue one and I got her the habitat stuff to go with it so now we have a new member of the household LOL She's carrying Julie around like she's her new best friend... Tooooo cute!!!

I also got 3 new books to read. So now I'm reading 6 books: 2 on homeschooling, 1 on fish, 1 on hermit crabs, 1 non-fiction book about a dog and it's cute/funny and 1 Chicken Soup for the preschool parent's soul. I did finish taking notes on the source that I was drawing some information on so that I can start writing my next ebook. I still have to finish taking notes on another homeschool book that I'm drawing from for another ebook. All that's going to have to wait though until I write an ebook for a client.

Well, I've got stuff to do...

FINALLY!!! A productive day at home...

Well the temperatures around here are averaging 7 degrees outside today so I decided to forego a trip to the library and see what we could accomplish at home instead. Well, my dd surprised me at how good at finding things to do she can be once in a blue moon LOL She has done a really great job today. This morning she played Play Do while I did a little bit of work. From there we've watched a video about China, did a craft, played with money and now she's watching Dora while I catch up on a little bit more work. She's also done some dancing and improvised free play while I've done some work on my next ebook. Plus I cleaned up some of the house while she was working on StarFall.com (an awesome site that teaches children how to read, it comes HIGHLY recommended by me). I also have done some writing and some organizing of other work that needs done this week. It feels really good to have such a productive day today that I just had to brag LOL I really hope that this is an indication of what's to come because I for one could use some more time at home! Tomorrow we're going on a field trip which she's been really looking forward to so this is probably the only day we'll be home until Friday but then Friday is always so busy because I do about 4 loads of laundry so she usually doesn't have time to be bored LOL I'll talk to you after the field trip tomorrow, hopefully with some new insights LOL Until then, I'm off to finish organizing a couple of articles so that they'll be easier for me to write and then I have to clean up the living room: It looks like a tornado hit there but that's OK because it was all in good cause :-)

I thought this was interesting...

I found it on a forum. It's from "Webb Crew."

It’s True: Homeschool Kids Are Lacking
Yes, it's true. Home schooled kids do lack some of the social skills of other kids their age. Here are a few.

1. Home schooled kids are less likely to be able to relate to the drug
culture.

2. Home schooled kids are less likely to be able to relate to violent peers.

3. Home schooled kids are less likely to be able to converse well using profanity.

4. Home schooled kids are less likely to be able to let adults know that they are smarter than the adults.

5. Home schooled kids are to good at conversing with adults since they have been deprived of age segregated classrooms.

6. Home schooled kids are less likely to be swayed by the opinions of their peers and are therefore less likely to fit in

7. Home shooled kids are more likely to stay dependent on their parents.

8. Home schooled kids are more likely to stay involved in church.

9. Home schooled kids are more likely to put their self interests aside for others and therefore are less likely to get their "rights"

10. Home schooled kids are more likely to get a good education and therefore miss out on the thrill of working in a McDonald's for the rest of theirlives.

11. Home schooled kids are less likely to have older kids instruct them to say "words your teacher has never heard come from a child's mouth before"

12. Home schooled kids are less likely to be able to collect welfare, so they will actually have to work for a living.

13. Home schooled kids are less likely to have peer pressure push them into early sexual activity so they will miss out on getting Father's Day or Mother's Day presents before they graduate from high school.

14. Home schooled kids are more likely to grow up respecting their parents and therefore rely on them for advice instead of getting to figure everything out on their own.

15. Home schooled kids will never know the intimacy of gang involvement.

16. Home schooled kids are less likely to understand why adultery among national leaders is OK.

17. Home schooled kids are less likely to be overly dependent on others so they won't fit in as well in a one-world government.

18. Home schooled kids will never be involved in school sports so they won't understand why being a star quarterback is more important than being well educated and kind to other people.
19. Home schooled kids are more likely to home school their own kids and thus condemn future generations to these same horrible consequences.

Unschooling

OK I'll be the first to admit that this complete unschooling thing doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe it's because if I don't give my dd something to do she won't do anything. She'd rather watch TV or play computer games than play with toys or try learning something on her own. Now if I mention school, she'll dive right in with a passion that most parents envy. This isn't to say that I don't believe in child-led education though because I do. Whenever dd is interested in learning about something I'm right there providing information and fun ways to learn about her interest. However complete unschooling doesn't make any sense to me because I tend to see it like this article does. In other words, if children are allowed to do whatever they want, whenever they want, won't they think that is how they should be for the rest of their life? When does unschooling stop and real life begin? I just can't wrap my head around it although I'd like to.

I don't get it...

I have been reading how scared a lot of parents are to change their curriculum when it's truly clear that their child is miserable and not doing well with the approach that they are currently using. I'm sorry but in my opinion homeschooling is meant to be enjoyable so that you can establish the love of learning within your child. If your curriculum isn't doing this for your child then PLEASE for your child's sake and your own sanity, find something that does work well for him/her.