Cold, inside and out

We are all bundled up today, in blankets, sweat suits and cuddled with warm doggies whether we want to or not. Our heat went out Saturday, taking all the power to the house with it. I was home alone, working on the computer, when I heard a loud bang and the power crashed. I thought it was probably the transformer outside due to the cold weather and demands of all the heaters in the neighborhood. I went to look out the backdoor and smelled smoke. Turns out the breaker for the heater blew and was burning, inside the house. Fortunately, the box is right at the back door so I could see and smell right away it was the issue. I shut all the breakers and called my hubby to get his advice. Once I realized it had burnt and was done, I calmed down. I had been having visions of having to toss my photo albums and dogs outside and wondering what else I should grab if there was a fire inside the wall.

When he and the girls got home he called the electrician he uses on his property. They were able to get out a few hours later and restore the power. Our heat however, is still out. Our breaker box and breakers are original, 31 years old, and very hard to find. They will be trying to find a replacement today or else we'll have to replace the whole setup. I don't care which, but I hope it is soon!

The highs since then and for most of this week won't make it out of the mid 50's and are hitting low 30's-high 20's. That is darn cold for central Florida. We've all been keeping bundled up and it hasn't been terrible, but I can totally respect the idea of a Snuggie now! It truly is difficult to manage a keyboard/mouse when under a blanket. It's 45 out right now at 12:30, feels like 40. It's 57 right now inside. While I'm mostly toasty from the mobile fuzzy heat sources that follow me around, my toes and fingers aren't even a bit warm.

Somewhat related to this, my computer monitor is dead. A few weeks ago we'd noticed that if the monitor was off for more than the time it took to reboot, it was slow to turn back on. After being off for several hours while the power was down, it won't come back up. I'll be taking it apart later to see if the capacitors can be replaced. That may sound like I know what I'm doing, but I totally don't. It's not under warranty anymore and would likely be more expensive to have serviced than it would cost to replace, so it won't hurt if I tinker with it. Fortunately, I set up my computer to connect to our big screen in the other room a few weeks ago, so I can still access my computer without having to drag and old CRT out of a closet.

My SIL asked several families about homeschooling via email, she plans to start homeschooling her oldest next school year. I'm afraid I went overboard with giving her information, the email reply was very long. I hope she takes it in the spirit given, sharing all the info I can, not telling her what I think she should do. We've been at this so long, I have lots of opinions on what I think works and doesn't work, at least for my family.

Tori starts College Composition I this Wed at Polk State-dual enrolled. She starts American Govt through FLVS next week. This is supposed to be her last week in American History through FLVS, but a glitch has kept her from working in the class since last week, so it may be a week longer than expected. Evie will start M/J Comprehensive Science 2 in two weeks and we just requested World Cultures to start at the same time. We are waiting to do Welcome calls with the teachers for both of those classes. We'll be skipping HomeschoolPE this week due to the cold, and it is cancelled next week. We've only been out twice or maybe three times this year due to weather, illness and scheduling problems. We have a Lighthouse field trip to Crystal Springs and archery Thursday afternoon. I need to get with my co-op buddy to plan for art co-op, and hopefully will see the electrician soon!

Here are a few pictures to end this longish post...

The girls asked me to give Bubba a mohawk while I was getting ready to groom him. Our dogs are Bichons but we keep them in a home done puppy cut, which means cut short except the head. It's $35 to get them groomed, so I just do it myself with clippers. We don't brush them as often as we should, so Bubba had several mats around his mouth. I just trimmed it all down, but left the mohawk.


Phil and the girls love to play with face paint. I don't, it really irritates my skin, plus I'm not such a playful person. Good thing he loves the silly stuff.
Does he look tough?


Is that a mer*man* or maybe a genie ready to grant wishes?

Almost 3 months gone, a lot can change in that time, but it hasn't...

It turns out that I'm a blogger/twitter drop out and I don't know why that happened. I was going along just fine almost a year ago, but then the posts started getting further apart until it's now been almost three months again. Oh well, better late than never, right?

The girls are still sleeping right now at 11am, though from the sounds of creaking beds, I think they'll be up soon. Evie got up about an hour ago. I think this is one of the less respected benefits of homeschooling. My growing girls can get all the sleep they need most of the time, often 12 hours plus a night. We have days where we have to get out early (before 10 is early for me) for field trips, classes, etc. but we don't have a set wake up time otherwise. I really think this is a huge help for the girls, growing is hard work for bodies. I can remember having to be at the bus stop at 6:30 or earlier each morning and getting home from school at nearly 3pm. I still had chores to do, homework to complete, and most of the time a job to work. I'd go to bed at midnight if I was lucky and have to be up and out of the house 6 1/2 hours later. No wonder teens tend to be sullen and disagreeable, I know I'm a cranky shrew when I haven't had enough sleep.

Not a lot has changed in the past few months wrt. schoolwork, it's mostly the same. Tori finished Intermediate Algebra at PSC (dual enrolled) and will start College Composition I (also dual enrolled) in a couple of weeks after the holiday break. She will be finishing World History and American History through FLVS at about the same time. She'll immediately start American Government with FLVS which will be her last high school class. Evie is nearly finished with Art 2-D and selected M/J Science (7th grade level) to take through FLVS next. Beth and Lili are both halfway through their current FLVS classes, Geometry and Earth/Space Science for Beth, Earth Space Science and Spanish II for Lili.

We've attended (and hosted) many field trips with Lighthouse, our homeschool group over the past few months. We've toured a phosphate plant, attended the Orlando Philharmonic, participated in a personal and internet safety seminar with the Polk County Sheriff's Office, had an astronomy class at Florida Southern College, helped make cards and pack food boxes at VISTE (Volunteers in Service To the Elderly), participated in a SIDNE demo with the Polk County Sheriff's Office/Lakeland Police Department, played at a Thanksgiving social, visited Homeland Heritage Park and the Polk County Historical Museum, toured USF and have a Kid's Cook/Get To Know You Social to attend tomorrow.

The girls are still writing for The Beam, the monthly kids newsletter for our homeschool group. Tori is editing this year, she was Editor last year as well. We attend homeschool PE class every other Tuesday morning, alternating weeks when we have archery practice. We also have our art co-op which meets about every other week and Jr and Plus Lit Clubs meeting alternating months. We had a small family reunion or large family get-together with my husband's family, including his Grandmom who I adore. She has the best personality, never a negative word and so cheerful. My parents and one of my nieces and her boyfriend were here for Thanksgiving dinner.

I've been teaching a personal economics class to about 15 kids, including my own. It's going not so great. I am running the class through a website and youtube videos I create so it can be done virtually and when each student has time. Our schedule was full enough that I didn't feel we could add another co-op, and to have such a large group would have been difficult to coordinate. Unfortunately, it can be hard to motivate the kids when they don't have a set deadline for completing work, and since I am using a free Google site for the class, I have to work within it's confines which has proven confusing and difficult at times, for me and the students. The material I've come up with works well, the actual practice does not. I let the students know I was going to take time off during the holidays to try and improve the usability, I hope I can find a solution.

I rarely remember to bring the camera, but the girls grab it some of the time. Here are a few photos from the past months. Ugh, just noticed the date has been reset on the camera, all of the pictures from the beginning of December are dated January 2008. I don't know if I can fix that...

Phil's Grandmom, the girls Great Grandmom!

November 2008 - She's ready to rock!

November 2009 - Looks like she got a tan and her hair went white

Phil - for his fantasy football team... I don't get it either, but he is having fun.

Alissa (my niece) can be three places at once! (click to enlarge)



Typical cold day in Florida, one in sweats and a sweater-no jacket, the other in shorts and a warm jacket.

The kids ready for the Homeland Heritage Tour


Polk County Historical Museum Bartow, FL I think this is a beautiful shot!


A crab found in our pool one day, in the house the next. We think a bird may have dropped it in since the nearest lake is about a mile away.

An update of epic proportions

It’s been 3 months since I’ve posted anything, so it’s long past time for an update. I’ll try to keep future posts a little shorter.

Let’s see what happened this summer. My mom went in for emergency double bypass heart surgery, it went very well. She just got the all clear from her cardiologist and doesn’t have to go back for another year.

My dad went to the hospital after my mom and I nagged him to go get treatment for what seemed to be kidney stones. Good thing he listened and went in, the pain he was feeling was actually a blood clot in his right lung. He is also doing very well. He will be taking blood thinners for the next 6 months, but fine otherwise.

The girls have been trucking along in their schoolwork and have moved on to a few new classes. Tori is now taking Intermediate Algebra at Polk State College. For FLVS, she just started the second semesters of her World and American history classes. Beth has moved on from Algebra I to Geometry. She’s feeling more confident in her math skills now. She finished Language Arts 3 (8th grade English) and is now taking Earth/Space Science. Lili has just finished Personal Fitness and is also taking Earth/Space Science, with a different teacher. She will finish Spanish I in just a couple of weeks and will move on to Spanish II. Evie took and just completed her first FLVS class- Keyboarding and started in Art 2D this week.

We’ve had a gopher tortoise adopt us. We don’t know how he got into our yard, possibly through a hole under the shed. He travels through the yard, eating weeds, dog poop and the occasional flower. He’s really curious and bangs his shell on our doors to the screen room. If we open the door to look at him, he walks right in. He does laps through the house then walks back to the doors to be let out. We haven’t named him and don’t feed him. We try not to interfere unless he decides he wants to stay in the house for longer than we think he needs to, in that case we just take him back out to the back yard. He isn’t scared of the dogs and they aren’t interested in him, they mostly ignore each other. If the dogs come too close or walk by too fast, he will bang his shell on the ground and hiss. It’s pretty cool to watch him trek around, he’s really fast and his back legs look like elephant feet.

Videos of the tortoise
When we first discovered him in the yard.


A couple weeks later.


Our extracurricular events have started again. PE started last week, though we won’t start until October 6th, waiting for temps to drop a little more. We just had our second Lighthouse Teachers’ Meeting this week. This is the large field trip planning and sign up meeting held once a month. The year is off to a great start with lots of fun field trips planned. We’ve already been to a field trip to the art museum and had a pool social today. I hung out with the moms in the shade and still got sunburnt. We had the first Jr Lit Club meeting last month and will have the first Lit Club meeting next week. Evie still participates in the Jr group; it is for kids in 3rd through 5th grade. The other girls are in Lit Club, the group I lead, which is for 6th grade and up. Phil is off with the girls today and tomorrow, so I’ll be working on the personal economics class I will be teaching-virtually-to a group of the older kids in our homeschool group.

A few pictures from the teachers's meeting and pool social.

Evie is a little strange
a lot of the time.


Lili looks a little overheated.


Beth and Tori don't play chess.


Evie's first diving board jump.

Evie's first jump from Melissa B on Vimeo.

Lili walks on water.