Popping in…

I’m at the library for my weekly 60 minutes on the computer to check email, most of which seems to consist of deleting obscene spam at www.mail2web.com.
My last week has included:
a six-hour long annual meeting with the organic inspector; I thought he was moving in. I promise I’ll never again complain about the two-hour [...]

Down for the count until further notice

My laptop died last Thursday night, so there won’t be much blogging going on until it’s fixed. I’m writing this from the computer at the library, and hope to get my laptop to an authorized Apple type — the closest one is about two and a half hours away — within the next few [...]

Not a good week

On Monday morning, Tom’s youngest brother — 37 years old and the father of three kids under the age of 11 — had a stroke.
Fortunately, neither he nor his wife had left for work yet, and she was able to get him into their van to drive to the small hospital nearby. Assessing his amnesia [...]

Best news I’ve had all day…

The Amazing Race: Family Edition begins on Tuesday, September 27th. Hurray!
We are all of us, kids included (who will be granted a special once-a-week bedtime extension), very excited. We will of course be rooting for the families with younger kids. And I’ll be wondering how these four-member teams will make a go of things, [...]

Here is New York

It is a miracle that New York works at all. The whole thing is implausible. Every time the residents brush their teeth, millions of gallons of water must be drawn from the Catskills and the hills of Westchester. When a young man in Manhattan writes a letter to his girl in Brooklyn, the love [...]

Lions and tigers and mother bears, oh my

One of our neighbors, from the acreages just south of our farm, sped up our driveway after supper tonight. Especially because of the kids, he wanted to warn us about a mother black bear and cub he had just seen ambling around their property headed in our direction.
Right away, new rules, wide eyes, somber nodding [...]

Plum crazy

My late Viennese grandmother’s recipe for plum torte, and one of my favorite ways to eat Italian prune plums:
Viennese Plum Torte
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter (aka 4 oz. aka 8 tbsp. aka 1 stick)
1 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
2 eggs
12 prune plums, halved and pitted
Topping: sugar, cinnamon (approx. 1 tsp), half a [...]

Celebrating International Literacy Day

How to Read (for Children and Adults) and How to Enjoy Reading
The ABC’s and All Their Tricks by Margaret M. Bishop
McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers by William Holmes McGuffey
Why Johnny Can’t Read: And What You Can Do About It by Rudolf Flesch; recommended by Flesch, and still available secondhand, is the old textbook Reading with Phonics by [...]

Celebrating International Literacy Day, Part 2

Give me books, fruit, French wine and fine weather and a little music of out of doors, played by somebody I do not know.
John Keats
Oh for a book and a shady nook…
John Wilson
Books do furnish a room.
Anthony Powell
Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes [...]

Scratch that

Remember that homeschooling hurricane relief Yahoo group I mentioned the other day (no link again because it’s really not a worthwhile place; UPDATE: old post removed)? Today, after reading several days of garbage — bickering; a volunteer soliciting donations to make up for her own, um, donations; a definitely faith-based approach to relief despite the [...]

A lovely and light start

It was a wonderful back to school day. The kids and I celebrated with a festive egg-in-a-hole breakfast, followed by about thirty minutes of ooohhing and ahhing over the nifty new school and office supplies (thick beginner’s pencils for the boys, #1 pencils — like dark rich chocolate — for Mom and assorted chosen children, [...]

Who said Latin is a dead language?

I’m planning to kick start our Latin studies during our first week back by substituting some cherce phrases from the Handy Latin Phrases website (on the sidebar, at right), instead of our usual Minimus. Some of the favorites, the kids’ and mine, so far:
Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.I can’t [...]

A Confederacy of Dunces

Much as I dislike George Bush, there seems to be more than enough responsibility to go around for the disgraceful post-Katrina efforts, and we’d better learn our lessons quickly before the next U.S. disaster, natural or man-made. Rudy Giuliani can’t be there to bail us out every time.

Generations of Louisiana governors and NO mayors who [...]

Homeschooling during a disaster

A friend just sent me this link to Ambleside Online’s Helping Hand Emergency Learning Plan, which isn’t secular but could easily be secularized for any family:
This is a free, complete, user-friendly curriculum plan for homeschooling families who need support, encouragement and alternatives to the curriculum they’ve lost in a disaster, and also for churches and [...]

A couple of ideas

from an admitted layman.
To Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada: You might want to send help now. “Standing by”, offering official sympathies (mentioned as an aside during an already-scheduled telephone exchange about softwood lumber), and leaving the deputy PM to do most of the work aren’t all that, well, statesmanlike. Really rather underwhelming and [...]

Back-to-school day in Alberta, or, So you’re thinking about home schooling…

Today is the first day of school for Alberta public and separate (Catholic) schools, so in honor of that fateful day, two years ago, when Laura came off the school bus — a two-hour roundtrip, by the way — in tears after her first day of first grade (or Grade One as it’s known up [...]

Hurricane/Flood Relief and Information

A partial list, from The New York Times:
Relief Organizations:Charity Navigator; information on various charities and ways to donate to the relief effort.Red Cross or 1-800-HELP-NOWSalvation Army or 1-800-SAL-ARMYAmeriCaresEpiscopal Relief & Development or 1-800-334-7626United Methodist Committee on Relief or 1-800-554-8583Catholic Charities or 1-800-919-9338FEMA Charity tipsNational Voluntary Organizations Active in DisasterLouisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty [...]

Hurricane/Flood Relief

Had the following note this morning from Natalie in Mississippi, an online acquaintance from her postings at a Yahoo group or two and her blog. I’ll keep you posted on anything else I get from her, and will link to her blog when the information is up there. If you want to get in touch [...]

Happy Centennial, Alberta!

I’m still wondering which clever educrat decided that the first day of public school would coincide with Alberta’s official birthday, especially with all the (free!) centennial celebrations being held throughout the province beginning today and running late into the night and through the weekend.
Tom, the kids, and I are taking off to the small town [...]