Growing with Grammar: a review

A friend of mine, Tamy Davis, has just finished her new third grade grammar book, Growing with Grammar, the first in what will be a series. Homeschoolers, especially secular homeschoolers in search of a rigorous grammar program, will be delighted.
Since we were lucky enough to be part of the test group, we’ve been using the [...]

Crash, bang, boom, or, Throw the bums out

Oh dear, is that the sound of a Liberal minority government falling that I hear?
I rather imagine that it would sound something like Fibber McGee’s hall closet…

A Night at the Opera

We’re off to the little city tonight to see Alberta Opera’s production of Rapunzel. Tom is knocking off work early, because we have to leave here around 5 p.m. and the curtain is at 7.
Interestingly, when I called to order tickets, the woman who replied sounded rather reluctant to take my money, reminding me [...]

Thankful

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.Cicero
I’m particularly thankful as a born American and naturalized Canadian that I have two official opportunities each year to be thankful, and so many unofficial opportunities and reasons.
Many of the things I’m thankful for this year are the same things for [...]

Happy Birthday, my tan-faced prairie boy

Now we are five, and I love you even more now than when I first held you in my arms, even if you did wake me up at 5:30 this morning to open your presents. But you know, the presents really are all mine.
O Tan-Faced Prairie Boy by Walt Whitman
O tan-faced prairie-boy, Before [...]

The not so Amazing Race

Not a particularly meaningful entry for my 100th post (tee hee), but I’m having difficulty getting interested in the current edition of the Amazing Race. Especially since the Gaghan family with the two little kids was eliminated. After last night, all I have to say is, what she said. And I’m [...]

Something immeasurable and almost indescribable

From The New Yorker, November 30, 1963, by E.B. White:
When we think of him, he is without a hat, standing in the wind and weather. He was impatient of topcoats and hats, preferring to be exposed, and he was young enough and tough enough to confront and to enjoy the cold and the wind of [...]

All the lost boys and girls

Laurie Gough’s article in yesterday’s National Post is one of the saddest and dispiriting I’ve ever read. Gough, an author who pays the bills by teaching, writes,
In recent days, the Canadian media has focused its collective gaze on Kashechewan, the tiny native community on the shores of James Bay in Ontario. Much has [...]

The 100 most important Canadian books

as determined by The Literary Review of Canada. Not the 100 greatest, or the best, but the most important, arranged in chronological order. Everything from Jacques Cartier to Anne of Green Gables to Peggy Atwood.
Get cracking!

Just ordered from interlibrary loan

The one on the right, in case you can’t read it, is Mangoes and Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels through the Great Subcontinent, by the husband-and-wife chef team of Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid.
I am definitely doing the library happy dance in the kitchen, even though I am number eight for Talk to the Hand. [...]

What to give the man who has everything

Okay, Tom doesn’t have everything, but he’s a pretty content guy who seems to have everything he needs and wants, which makes finding Christmas and birthday presents for him an annual difficulty for me. He doesn’t collect anything other than tools, about which I still know next to nothing (I bought him a lovely English [...]

Reading aloud

Patricia Storms, who has a way with words and pictures (her own and others), at her blog BookLust asks the questions,
“Do you remember being read to as a child? and Would you like to be read to now, as an adult?”
Good questions, and ones that have particular resonance for me as a home schooling mother [...]

Semper ubi LONG sub ubi

Hey, we are classical homeschoolers, and this is Alberta in November, so I have to admit that it was one of the first thoughts to pop into my head when the temperatures dipped down below zero (in Celsius at least). Way down, to -19C last night. Brrr. Right now, it’s warmed up [...]

Why we love going to dentist

We camped out at the dentist’s office yesterday for nearly three hours so all three kids could have their check-ups (and Laura ended up with sealant on her molars; she was delighted to hear that she, like her beloved horse, has deep grooves). Not as bad as it sounds because
1. thanks to checkups every six [...]

Confessions of an idiotic Luddite

I don’t know whether I should blame my recent computer woes on being an idiot or a Luddite, so maybe I should claim both. The good news is there was no “hard drive” or “hard disc” failure as my father had feared. Instead, I was out of self-imposed commission because in the heat [...]

Yoohoo…

Over on the right side — under “What We’re Reading, Watching & Listening To” — are some new listings. Instead of using all that extra time in the last month and half gained from not having a computer to, say, become an obsessive house cleaner, I decided to use it to add some more [...]

As Squeeze would say, "I’ve Returned"…

Tom, the kids, and I went to Edmonton yesterday, mainly to get Davy’s passport sorted out (three tries at the photos, and one application mailed off but returned by functionaries), which we did and successfully to boot. Very nice since we’re supposed to be in another country in about two months. As a bonus, we [...]

Remembrance Day II

From Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain:
When the sound of victorious guns burst over London at 11 a.m. on November 11th, 1918, the men and women who looked incredulously into each other’s faces did not cry jubilantly: “We’ve won the War!” They only said: “The War is over.”…
Late that evening, when supper was over, a [...]

Remembrance Day

Anthem for Doomed Youthby Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?Only the monstrous anger of the guns.Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattleCan patter out their hasty orisons.No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;And bugles calling for [...]

Thoughts on returning home from the weekend’s organic farming seminar in Regina, Saskatchewan

“Pasture Management”by E.B. White
Down here below the pasture pond,O’er the lovely lea,I went spraying the bushesWith 2, 4-D.
(For young, susceptible annual weeds, apply one to two pints per acre.)I had read my bulletins,I was in the know.The two young heifersCame and watched the show.
(Along ditches and fences rows, use 2,4-D when weeds are in a [...]