Heart Surgery

My dad will be undergoing bypass surgery tomorrow morning.  He’s going to be in the hands of a very well-respected surgeon, and his procedure is as routine as heart surgery gets, but still it’s heart surgery.  I was able to visit him last weekend and I will be going to see him in the hospital [...]

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Happy Things

The lovely Meredith who has great taste in books and wonderful tales of homeschooling tagged me with this The rules say to share six things that make me happy right now so here goes… 1) Making Bread – After over a year of wanting to make my own bread but not making time for it, [...]

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Poetry Friday: Winter: My Secret

We’re just coming out of an intense cold spell, and we’ve been reading about snow. So I wanted to share something wintry from my favorite poet…. Winter: My Secret by Christina Rossetti Perhaps some day, who knows? But not today; it froze, and blows and snows, And you’re too curious: fie! You want to hear [...]

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Homeschool Resource Books

After sharing the craft book shelf from on our new bookshelf, I thought I’d go ahead and share what’s on some of the other shelves. I have a section for my homeschooling resources, an eclectic collection of literature guides, educational philosophy, and curriculum resources. Picture Perfect Childhood by Cay Gibson – I’ve used this constantly [...]

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A Study of Snow, Part 2

I had thought that with M sick, we didn’t do much this week, but when I started thinking more carefully I realized we did lots of activities for our snow study. After reading Snowflake Bentley, we cut out paper snowflakes and then painted snowflakes using spools. (Forgive the stream of sunlight in the picture. I [...]

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Cardboard Box Zoo

Cardboard Zoo Originally uploaded by inneedofchocolate M was sick this week and finally got enough energy back to play on Thursday afternoon. With temperatures in the teens outside, we needed something exciting to do after a very slow week inside. So, inspired by a post at Crafty Crow, we created this cardboard box zoo. M [...]

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Poetry Friday: Home by William Alexander Percy

I’m currently reading Peaceful Parents, Peaceful Kids (along with about 8 other books. I can’t seem to finish any books lately). The first chapter opens with a quote from “Home” by William Alexander Percy and since I too have a “a need of silence” I went in search of the rest of the poem. Today’s [...]

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Favorite Craft Books

I just got a new tall, thin book case (really a two-piece closet organizer unit) to put in the kitchen. I’m using it as a shelf for homeschool reference, activity books, and craft books. Having our craft books more accessible is making us flip through them and find cool things to do. Far more cool [...]

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What’s On Hold at the Library?

Inspired by Meredith’s post listing her latest library finds, I thought I’d share the things we currently have on hold: For Me: Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline – to help in my gentler parenting quest Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day – to help in my quest to make most of our bread [...]

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New Year’s Homeschool Plans

At the beginning of the school year, I posted about the structure of our homeschool days, unsure of how well my plans would work. We have generally stuck to our loose structure, sometimes abandoning everything but math and having M read to me and occasionally having a playdate or meeting friends instead though we usually [...]

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