1. First, a few complaints: I'm discouraged. I forgot to turn the dishwasher on last night before I went to bed, so I had to wash everything this morning. The kids were eating lunch by the time I finally had a chance to put last night's dinner dishes away. All our breakfast things were waiting in the sink, which I hate, and the kitchen was a huge mess. This, on a day when I still have to fold like 86 loads of laundry! Plus, (and I'm feeling sorry for myself now) it started raining, suddenly and hard, while we were out walking this morning. Do you even need to ask if I remembered to bring an umbrella? Because I didn't.
2. Snack time was nice though, with the girls giggling together over clementine sections and sliced bell pepper.
3. Does anybody know how to put tabs on blogger? I thought I might like to organize some of Katherine's home school projects along with some craft ideas into a separate space. I have a lot to say about home schooling, but I don't want it to become the entire focus of this blog.
4. Speaking of home schooling (see?), last weekend Katherine told me she wanted to use part of her time this week learning to make bread. My initial response was no. For some reason, bread making just didn't seem like a legitimate way to use a school day. In my crazy mind, cooking seemed like something she should learn at home. Luckily, I realized I was being irrational and we spent many happy hours in the kitchen this week measuring out flour and kneading dough. Katherine really likes to cook and I need to remember that it's important (and worthwhile!) for me to teach my children these basic skills. Besides, our breakfasts this week have been delicious: thick slices of homeade bread slathered with warm butter and raspberry jam. And if that's not enough, Katherine now knows that 3/4 of a cup is less than a full cup--and that's gotta be worth something!
5. Penelope spent most of this week learning to blow kisses. Or, I should say, Penelope learned to blow kisses and then spent the rest of the week learning about the power of blowing kisses. She can make anyone--Mommy, Daddy, even big sister--drop what they're doing and cross the room just by giggling softly and blowing a kiss. It's just too sweet.
6. Which do you like better, coffee or tea? (I think it's like dogs and cats, everyone prefers one over the other.) I'm a tea drinker who had a recent love affair with coffee, but now I'm back to tea and it feels like coming home. I'm so much more myself over a steaming cup of Ceylon than I ever was over even the most well prepared espresso. (Oh, and I prefer cats too, by the way.) (And yes, I know how trite this sounds.)
7. Okay, this is random, but we don't use a lot of technology at our house. Not because we're against technology or anything, we just live out in the middle of nowhere and it seems too inconvenient to try to figure it out. We have internet access and 7 channels on our TV, and that's about it. So a couple of nights ago, while I was watching a movie (on one of our 7 channels), one of the characters said something about caller ID: an invention I had completely forgotten about. I mean, literally forgotten. It took me a full minute to figure out what she was even talking about. Is this crazy? Do people still have caller ID these days? It's not, you know, obsolete? I thought we'd all just gone back to being surprised when we answer the phone. Am I really just that out of touch?
For more quick takes, head over to Jen at Conversion Diary. Happy weekend, everybody!
I think having Katherine learning basics of cooking is a very legitimate lesson for a homeschool day. All that measuring really takes math skills, and if you wanted to, you could talk about addition and subtraction, not to mention the fractions. Plus, there's science in a mixture of parts that comes together into a new thing. Or she could tell a little story about how the dough felt while kneading. Very school :)
ReplyDeleteAmy at My Front Porch Looking In recently put some Tabs on her blogger page. She might have some advice.
And tea, all the way. There's never been any point in time that I've liked coffee. To be honest, though, I've never really given it a fair shot. (And cats are much preferred here too. I like that they're not all over me with erratic, noisy behavior - I only want my babies to do that :))
How fun that Katherine loves to cook! And I agree with Sarah, totally school oriented.
ReplyDeleteUmm...coffee, but I love me some Chai tea.
As for tabs...yeah, I found a website about that a few weeks ago. It is definitely labor intensive, but fun at the same time....
http://www.reallifeblog.net/2007/09/how-to-create-site-menu-bar-in-blogger.html
Caller ID... I wonder if the rise of cell phone has led to the decline in Caller ID, since cell phones will tell us who is calling. I do still have a landline phone (so old school, I know) with no caller id, but not too many people call us on it - pretty much just telemarketers and our mothers. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm with you on the tea. For me there is nothing like a nice cup of Earl Grey to provide a little break in my day.
I am glad you changed your mind about the bread. After all, with bread you can talk about biology, chemistry, anthropology, measurement, history, geography AND yes ... cooking!!
ReplyDeleteOh, and if I had to pick a side, it would be coffee, though I do enjoy a nice black tea.
Oh, and don't worry about technology. We have no home phone, no television and for the moment no home internet connection. And we live steps from the financial capital of the world!! :)
Thanks for visiting my blog today! I came over here and it just so happens that I know how to make tabs.
ReplyDeleteI am a coffee drinker, but am considering cutting it out if it really does help alleviate PMS. This is a new idea to me today, though, and I may forget about it come morning coffee time tomorrow.
I know what you mean about starting a day discouraged when yesterday's housework is still waiting for you today.
Have a nice weekend.
Em, are you imagining the Katherine's-projects tab as a sort of mini-blog contained inside your site? (I.e., when she draws a new picture, you put up a post about it that goes in the "projects" stream rather than in the "Keeping Time" stream?) If so, make sure there's a way to split up your blog feed by label or something before you start messing with the tabs problem. I don't know much about Blogger, but my first thought is that dividing your blog is going to be more of a headache than coding the tab bar would be.
ReplyDeleteIf it turns out to be too much trouble to do it that way, why not just create a second Blogger blog, give it the same design as this one, and put a link to it at the top of your sidebar? That way, you could have two separate blog feeds, and your readers could switch back and forth without feeling like they were leaving your site.
Also: Tea. Dogs.
I am a tea drinker too. My husband is coffee all the way, so sometimes I join him for a cup, but tea is my true home.
ReplyDeleteI love your blog -- your daughters are so beautiful!
Your book list is so wonderful, almost all of my favorites as a little girl. :)
I love that you and your daughter made bread this week! Definitely, totally legit :) (Really.)
ReplyDeleteI'm a coffee girl, but then again, I didn't grow up in a house where tea was prepared very often. The few times I've had it I've really enjoyed it, so maybe I'd switch to Team Tea? Who knows.
I used to be an equal fan of cats and dogs because we had two of each when I was a kid :D Now we have one dog (as you saw in my quick takes) and no cats because 2 out of my 4 guys are allergic to them. So now I root for cats if only because I can't ever have one :(
Katherine's projects tab sound like great idea, I've never seen anything like it. I know it woulod attract more readers to your site. :) Oh and I wanted to tell you, don't feel bad, we usually don't get around to running the dishwasher until the morning. Ours is so LOUD, the sound bugs me in the evening when the kids are in bed and I want peace. :)
ReplyDeleteTea, of course.
ReplyDeleteAnd caller ID has gotten fancier. Now that you can get cable and phone from the same company, your TV will actually tell you who's calling. As in, you get a pop-up window on the TV with the name and number of the caller. It's nice, so you don't have to get up for telemarketers anymore! And also we can become lazier people, so that's good, right?
Cooking is how I first knew math was relevant, and how I most often use any sort of math, these days! I'm always halving or doubling or one-and-a-half-ing recipe proportions. I think baking it's a great way for Katherine (and for me!) to understand fractions and percentages. And what better way to apply home schooling--since it proves that the stuff we do at home is constantly educational, even in little ways?
ReplyDeleteI'm for coffee, coffee, coffee (need you ask?). And dogs.
I think it is great that you are incorporating cooking into Katherine's home schooling. There are only advantages that I can see. I'm definitely a tea person. And we have the most gorgeous cat that is really part of the family. We don't even have a phone at home, because of the fixed fee being rather high in Italy (I think that was the reason) we decided just to keep our mobiles so I have no idea about caller ID. I'm a bit of a technological ignoramus.
ReplyDeleteis that a lime? thanks for sharing, I love green.
ReplyDeleteI know when you say you prefer cats over dogs, that Heidi must be an exception...right? ;)
ReplyDeleteLori: Heidi (along with my other doggy-love, Harley) is definitely the exception!
ReplyDeleteCoffee person over here, but I also drink lots of tea in winter. I spents hours baking with my boys: the older measuring away (he's always been into numbers), the younger experiencing and discovering. In fact, their first writing projects were all about writing recipes and quantities down on index cards!
ReplyDelete..."she wanted to use part of her time this week learning to make bread."
ReplyDeletebrava! I'm glad you came around. You ladies must have had a blast :-D
RE: the "te / caffe" debate. I'm coffee in the USA, tea here. (At least when I can get it. I have so much espresso that tea is just a vacation for me here!)