First Day of School

Tomorrow is the big day, the day most moms LONG for, a day when they get to have a few hours to themselves, and maybe clean, do laundry, shop, or just sit and eat bonbons. Well, not for me. I have chosen to keep my children home with me, and not to have any free time, what-so-ever. And I love it!!! (mostly) Of course I still wish there were times when they were off and gone for 7+ hrs of the day, but 99.9% of the time, I am loving having them close to me, in more ways than 1.

I am so excited for tomorrow to come!! Even though we home school, we still do the new clothes, each of them got a new outfit today, and are super excited to get to work on their new desks!! I never got a new outfit :( But I did get this:

I will post some pics of the new school room soon!!

The beginning of the year Jitters

The whole summer when by without even a post. I never really had much to write about. We had kinda a boring summer. We only went camping once, and I didn't even take any pictures. I am getting bad for not taking pictures! Mostly it is because I don't like my camera...whatev.

School has started up all over the city, and in many of my homeschooling friends houses! We haven't started yet, cause we are redoing the room we do school in. AND it has taken a turn for the worse....we pulled up the carpet thinking we could use the old tiles underneath, paint them and it would be fine...found out yesterday that those old tiles have asbestos in them. So we should really get rid of them or our neighbour told us what he did, which is probably what we are going to do. He poured a quick set cement over his, and it seals in the asbestos. So, just another added thing to do. It seems like it is never an easy fix when it comes to house that were build in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Ours is 1964 I think.

I have a lot to do today, and it makes me kinda feel overwhelmed and makes me wanna just sit on the couch and eat chips and watch TV. But the work will still be waiting for me when the bag is empty and there is nothing more to watch. My children are having one last stay at their grandparents place before school begins. So, I need to get to work.

My husband informed me last night that he wants to rip our fireplace out next yr and get a natural gas one put in. I'm so excited! That eye sore will be gone!! Of course I should be taking before and after pics of all this...but I don't like my camera....I should just get over it shouldn't I?!

The "End of the Year" Jitters

Tomorrow (today) is our last day of school for the 09/10 school year! Let me tell you, I am soooo glad. I have a little surprise for them, and have been hinting as to a 'teachers' gift....lol I have yet to receive an end of the year gift. I did get a Christmas gift 2 yrs back, that I bought myself ;)

The jitter part comes into play because there will be things left undone, books left unfinished, and I'm sure teaching opportunities not taken. And I begin to wonder, did we have a 'good' year? Was it 'just another year'? And the big question, did they learn anything??? I sure hope they did!

As the school year winds down, and summer begins, I will sit back and try not to worry about this 'past' year and whether or not they might have learnt something, what I will try to do is push forward and be thankful we have the year ahead to 'make up' for anything we may have missed.

What are your summer plans? We have none really.....

She must have purchased it that way!?!

I had a bad thing happen to me yesterday...in my 16, no, scratch that in my 17 yrs of driving I had my first middle finger given to me, and for no reason what so ever really. But what happened after she passed me is what makes me so sick, and upset...well, the finger too has me all worked up, don't get me wrong. I cried...ya, I know, strange, but I cried for so many reasons. I'll tell the story now. If your familiar with Regina, you will understand the street names, but I will try to explain in other ways too. So, here I am parked on Victoria Ave facing east, about to turn onto Ring Road, a highway that goes around the city and can take you from south to north in 10-15 mins. Anyways, I know that once I turn onto ring road I will have to skoot over three lanes to get into the far left lane because there is construction up ahead a few meters and the right lane is blocked. So, like everyone else in front of me, we signal over to the left, well this speedy mini van behind me, driven by a woman, I guess beat me to the lane, even though I was ahead of her, and signaling to get into that lane and watching in my mirror for other highway traffic. Well I hear the horn and look to find her holding up the famous 'f' finger and holding it there to make sure I seen it. I was sick to my stomach.....shocked she would do that even though we all were heading into that lane. After we passed through the construction, I quickly moved over to the right lane to let her pass and cranked up Hawk Nelson, and was even more shocked when she passed she has the christian fish symbol with the word Jesus in the middle. My mouth dropped and stayed that way till I was nearly at Wascana parkway (a couple blocks from home). Then I started thinking about it more, how shocked I was and that someone actually "gave me the finger". I started crying. I got home and told my hubby, and he made me feel better...then I though, she must have purchased the vehicle with that on it. I hope. Then I went to church to pick up my daughter and prayed for that women all the way there.

Reason #153 why I love schooloing at home:

Their Imagination!! We are currently reading out loud the little house series and here is what they created outside:

the well:

(we plan on building a tree fort here this summer)

the fire where they cook and the pile of wood:

(Which is amazing that they were able to do this, and it's still standing)
The kitchen with all the dishes:

And finally the house with all the rooms:

Some days I wish this is all we could do, no work books, but I'm not smart enough. I love that they can do this in our yard, even though it may look junky to some, it is not to my kids. They did a lot of it with our backhouse neighbours kids who are also home schooled. Even though we home school they have 'recess' together once in a while ;)

We just took two loads of garbage to the city dump, but I think we will keep these things for this kind of fun!

News Flash!!

I DID SOME SPRING CLEANING!! Yes, it is true, I started last week Tuesday, the day after my birfday, and we worked for 3 straight days...and then it all stopped! We got a lot done, the side entrance, the basement and the kids rooms. Still a lot more to do like the living room, kitchen (including the pantry) and our bedroom. But we got off to a good start and hopefully by the end of the month it will all be done! We also started painting the kitchen. I am horrible though, I never took before and after pictures, of any of the rooms, or the kitchen. We also were able to get the dishwasher hooked up (thanks to my BIL) and built in (thanks to my AWESOME hubby)!! I LOVE IT!!!! It won't be flipping over on me if I have both racks open on it!! YAY. And I haven't washed a single dish by hand since FRIDAY!! Whoo hoo!!!! And I don't plan on washing a single dish for a LONG time!! Whoo hoo!!

It's raining here today, we had a thunder and lightning show earlier this morning...kids were running around and acting like a bunch of banshees!! It was hilarious.

I had no TV for 6 days last week!! Can you believe it?! It actually wasn't all that bad surprisingly. We had the shingles done and they took the satellite dish off the roof, and my installer couldn't come till Sunday to do it, no biggy. Next on the list (hopefully soon) are the eaves, soffits and fascia. Oh, and the fireplace cause the shinglers had to tear off the brick to get to the shingles around it. So now we have to do something with that too....not quite sure what though, maybe I will google fireplace pictures. I love to google!

Again, I am on the wrong computer to add some pictures, why do I keep doing that? Probably cause this one I am on now is much easier to access and type on! I will try to add some pictures of something next time I blog, cause blogs are more fun to read when there are pictures don't ya think? I dunno, maybe not, I like reading blogs even if there are no pictures!