Notes from the trenches

So many things going through my mind, where to start?

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Well, first up: Demi-Sky is starting Lacrosse next month.  He is pretty lonely now that Teddy is no longer schooling with us.  He played inline-skate hockey a few years ago and has cousins who play ice-hockey...but we were not inclined in that direction first because it can be an expensive sport and second because it involves a lot of driving to practices and games.  Lacrosse looks a lot like hockey, but it is on a field, which there are a lot more of around here, so we figured the cost would be lower.  It does seem to be that way, so far.  We have him on a club team and the price was doable.  Big bonus, the practice field is only 15 minutes from us.

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Next, we are considering having Demi-Sky try out for a local magnet charter school for 9th grade, which is two years away.  This is a whole world-view game shift for us, our kids have always homeschooled.  We are really struggling with Demi right now, and I think he would benefit from more structure and purpose-driven day than I, as the Bridget Jones-homeschool-mom can give him.  We are talking about it now, because we will actually have to apply winter of next school year- and I was hoping that he would apply himself more whole-heartedly to his schooling and music if he had this goal in front of him.  And yeah, we are seeing better effort by him already.

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Related to Demi's possible school change: we are dropping Math-U-See for Math, and using Horizon's Math as our main Math curriculum and possible adding something else to it. (for the 2 youngers, the highschoolers love M-U-S and are using it for Algebra II and Geometry)  As much as the kids loved Math U See, and I loved it because they did- it wasn't doing us any favors.  The younger kids don't test well on the standardized tests each year, and the levels don't match regular school levels.  I knew all this, but figured it would work itself out by high school, and beside, we weren't planning on ever stopping homeschooling.  But, I am seeing, there is always the possibility of a bend in the road that you didn't anticipate.  I regret now, not keeping my kids up to regular grade levels.  Luckily, Sky is a Civil Engineer and loves Math, (and is not a softy/pushover like me) so I have turned him loose on the kids.  They will be eating and sleeping Math the rest of the year...

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I just finished up round one of the dreaded "Key Assignments" the charter school we homeschool through assigns our highschoolers to do.  It's not fun at all, and a big pain, frankly.  I have mulled over pulling out because of these.  And yet, now that I will be needing report cards and a transcript from a WASC accredited school, I kind of see the point of all the hoops to prove a certain level of learning.  It was still a lot of extra work outside of our normal work, though, specially considering that most of the assignments did not line up to our scope and sequence for the year.  Meg's Chemistry assignment was a chapter she hasn't gotten to yet.  I had to read it, have her read it, then I had to explain it to her so she could then go on to complete the assignment.  Fun. Josie's assignment for history was a good one, but involved comparing the American and French Revolutions (great subject!) but she is still reviewing ancient History right now in her World History course.  Sky wondered out loud why the school doesn't let the homeschool moms come up with their own assignments, and I guessed that they probably did at one point, but I also guess that if they did, not many moms would have done them.  We are just so busy most of the time, I wouldn't have done it.  We are kind of like herding cats, we homeschool moms, sometimes...

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Sky and I went to Ted Talks Orange Coast, it's written like this:  TedX....I'm not sure why...anyways, I 'll be doing a post on it, but wow- it was incredible!  Ted Talks as I knew them, are these short, intelligent, informative lectures you can find online, given by very intelligent people who are absolutely passionate about their topic.  Sky finds interesting ones and then shares them at home with me and the kids.  One of the Myth-Busters guys even did one.  So, I was invited to attend the Orange Coast edition this year, and wow!  Double wow!

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Oil-pulling.  I'm about to try this for better dental health.  Here's a link that describes what it does really well.} Oil Pulling for Detoxing?  Sky is looking at me like I'm nuts.  I'm also taking Cod Liver Oil (which I've done before but quit because I was dieting) and Butter Oil together.  The butter oil helps your body absorb the vitamins in the cod liver oil more effectively.  I'm still kind of freaking at deliberately consuming a teaspoon each of two oils every morning, it really goes against what I've always been told about weight and fat.  I'll report back.

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I'm going to the Diet Coke mother ship next week.  Yes, my close friends would say that of course it was inevitable that I would sojourn to this place.   :)

Seriously, I am attending the Conversations with Coca- Cola social media conference in Atlanta.  Coca-Cola is kindly, graciously, like a fairy-godmother: sponsoring me for this trip.  I am really excited, I have never been to Atlanta before. Did I mention diet coke??  :D

So, reasons all above why I've been a little absent lately. So much going on here!

How 'bout you, bloggy friends?  How is Fall treating you?  How is school?

notes from the cool side

Today was to be an unusual scorcher of a day here in Orange County.  This could only mean one thing, Beach Day!!

We took off to our favorite beach, to meet our cousins and stay cool, enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the company.   It was a beautiful day at the beach.

There are no longer life guards on duty, at one point I went for a bathroom break.  When I came back, I noticed a lifeguard jeep out by the water- and then I watched as it slowly left.  I asked my sister-in-law if there was  a reason they came out?  S-I-L replied back that they had to tell some boys on boards to get away from the rocks.  I answered with a lazy, "oh".  A few seconds went by, and then I said..."um, our boys are the only people on boards in the area..."  S-I-L sat up really quick, surprise and mortification on her face, and she said  "you're right!"  my last comment was a scandalized ...."my, my, now WHERE were their mothers??!!"  Yeah, our boys were the trouble makers and S-I-L didn't even register it.

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We are looking for a sport for Demi-Sky.  Now that Teddy is no longer schooling with us, we kind of feel like he needs some kind of physical activity that involves team work with other boys.  I think we've narrowed it down to lacrosse.  I found a website for our county, but I was having difficulty contacting the coaches for the two teams near us, so we decided to try a club team a little further away.  We figured that "club" means more expensive, but the price I found was steep, but not impossible.  The other teams I looked at did not have any pricing information available...sigh, you think in the age of handy-dandy websites it would be easier to find all the information you need.

Anyways, in typical Jen-fashion  (in which everything takes longer than is should and is more complicated then it should be and the end result is always un-finished....) I decided to go ahead and sign up for the club team, even though I still felt a bit in the dark about when practices were, and where...but today was the first day for sign ups and they were running a discount if you signed up today...so I went through the very long and involved process of signing him onto the team- and then had to go through the long and involved process of getting him a US membership so we could finish signing him up for the team...and then I got to the check-out page and the price was more than twice what had been stated on the website!!  It listed a really steep late sign-up fee... I think it was a typo someone did, late fees start next month.  Yeah, so I left a phone message and an email and yeah, we are in limbo now with this.  Ugh.

On the bright side, now the kind of steep fee doesn't seem so steep after seeing it doubled!!  I guess we will kind of feel like we got it on sale, if they straighten this out and go back to the first fee listed!

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Dr. Who.  Wow, "Angels take Manhattan"  was anyone else a blubbering, upset mess when it finished?  A real and satisfying end for the Ponds, but emotionally hard.

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I'm on another Grace Livingston Hill run.  She was this Christian writer that wrote in the 1930's and 1940's.  They are a fun lunch read.  I collect her original hardback editions.  She wrote over 100 books, and I think I have read almost all of them (I used to work in a Christian book store when I was in High School and College-a perk, I could borrow books!) but I only own maybe 20 of the hardbacks.  I re-read them over and over.  Always with lunch or a snack, they make me hungry.  She lived through the depression and so, I theorize, she appreciated really good food- and took pains to describe delicious, dainty lunches.  She also hated flappers and abhorred girls who smoked.  I love how a scandalous vamp will often show up in the story.

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I tried these dairy- free, oil-free pumpkin muffins Sunday night.  I had to add chocolate chips though.  I guess they weren't dairy-free after that... They were pretty good, Sky was not real convinced, the texture was a bit different because of the apple sauce used instead of oil.  I think it was an okay trade-off for a healthier muffin.  (whisper, except for the chocolate chips)  the kids and the Bible college boys gobbled them up.  }We've always looked forward to making the Trader Joe's pumpkin muffins, but I really thought they were too oily.

*Here's the recipe from S.B. Creatively blog.  (found on pinterest!)

So, bloggy friends, how's the weather where you are?  Make me believe it is really Fall somewhere!!  Any comfy Fall recipes to share?

7 Quick Takes -Vacation brain edition

~1~

Sky and I haven't been away, just the two of us, in over 5 years...So, I decided it was time we took a little trip.  It was a late anniversary celebration (19 years in June!) We rented a house with friends,  this was the view on the property....

~2~

The destination? San Juan Island.  Funny, disjointed way that we ended up there, but then again, it's totally a Jen thing... Someone online mentioned what a great time her family had on San Juan Island.  I love the thought of anything with the word "Island" on it, so I googled it, wondering where it was.  It is actually close to Seattle Washington, which is actually doable for us.  I clicked on a website for the Island, and the photo that popped up was of people kayaking with Orca Whales.

If I had a bucket list, kayaking with Orca whales would be on it, top of the list!

~3~

And yes, we did kayak and whale-watch.  Sadly, we didn't see any Orcas, but we did see two harbor seals "displaying" in the water, some heron cranes, a bald eagle, a deer resting, and some beautiful jelly fish.  We went on a tour with San Juan Outfitters- I highly recommend them.  [here's a side-story, we went across to the island by ferry and it was really late because of fog, and San Juan Outfitters waited for us, we were like 45 minutes late for our tour because of the ferry]  Click here* to see my Wordless Wednesday post with a lovely photo of our kayak trip...

~4~

Another bucket-list item?

Yes, San Juan has a zip-line.  I've wanted to zip-line ever since I visited Graceful Mom in Singapore and found out that Asia's most extreme zip-line was at Sentosa Island (where we stayed) and I didn't know it.  It's been on my wish list every since.  Some day I will go back to Singapore and do it, but this scratched an itch.  My friend Jennifer, who lives in Seattle, did the zip-line with me and took photos.  :)

~5~

We had such a lovely get-away.  We have great heart-friends in Seattle, they picked us up from the airport, hosted us for a night, and then rented a house with us on San Juan.  We stayed for two nights, 3 days.  we really loved the island, and we really want to go back.  We visited a lavender farm there, I keep joking it was on Sky's bucket list :)  We tried to brainstorm ways to open up our own lavender farm and move to the island.  Someday....we'll keep dreaming.....  San Juan island is in the rain-shadow of Mount Olympus, and gets less rain then Seattle.  I'm totally sold on it.  :)

~6~

Sky and me in front of the rental house.  It was a lovely house.

Did I mention I'd like to move to this island?

~7~

The kids ran feral and not much homeschooling happened.  It's amazing to have an almost 18 year old who can drive...my life has truly changed!  It was amazing, the girls took themselves off to their Biola classes- boy, my life looks very different from when I had 4 kids ages 7 and under!   So that is my wrap-up of my vacation.  It was truly magical and adventurous and relaxing.  And I ate whatever I wanted.

Amen.

7 Quick Takes Friday happens every week at Conversion Diary, click over to join in!

Wordless Wednesday - reflection

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

Quick takes- what I did on Summer Vacation edition

Summer vacation came and went. Wow, it's already time to start the new homeschool year! But first, a quick wrap-up of my fleeting vacation...

~1~

We did a bit of this, but not as much as I had promised.  I am vowing to go often now that school is back in session. A perk of homeschooling is hitting the beach when the crowds are gone!  I plan to make up for not going as often as I planned this Summer.

~2~

Our Bible conference -with foreign guests (who stayed a extra two weeks) and the U.S. National Fencing Championships all happened at the same time.  I survived. Barely.  I will forever bless the dear Korean sister who took over the cooking for her family. They were happy (Korean food!) and I was happy, because I really didn't know if I was coming or going!  Here's a clip of Josie in fencing action (and me being loud sideline mom in the background-and no, Josie is not her real name.)

 ~3~

Bible conference and Josie's fencing tournament collided with my mother becoming severely ill and then dying.  It all happened so quick it still takes my breath away.  I wrote, when she first was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver that I wasn't sad- but angry and detached.  I was wrong, there are no words really, to describe the horror and pain of watching your mother suffering.  I lost my mother way too young, and despite our lack of a close relationship- or maybe because of that lack, losing her left a big, gaping, jagged hole.  This will be forever my Summer of regret.

~4~

Meg had a couple of these.  Irish feis time is a lot of fun.  Great photo opportunities!

I've discovered the video capabilities on my iphone, here's a short clip of Meg in action at her last feis:

~5~

Sky took time off work to attend a week-long wood marquetry class.  I can best describe it as making designs with inlays of wood. He has done two complete projects, and I can't wait to share a photo- I do have to wait though, because one of them is a gift, so I can't spill the beans yet. Grumble.

~6~

The Orange County fair is a family tradition. Lately, we've had several family members enter art into the competitions. This year, Sky entered one of his horse jewelry boxes, Josie entered a dragon painting(and won a blue ribbon!) and Amie entered 3 paintings into the children's competition and won one blue and two red ribbons.  It was a good showing for the {Home} gang :)

(I won't bore you with more photos, but if you follow me on instagram, you will see them there. )

How was your Summer?  I hope it was a good one, full of lovely, summery memories

<3

7 Quick Takes Friday happens every week, you can join up over at Conversion Diary

7 Quick Things {lost} edition

~1~

My mother passed away on Monday, her funeral was Friday morning.  My thoughts and feelings are such a jumble...they change each day.  {Lost} describes me.  Despite the problems my mother and I had, and despite the hard feelings I had for her- I always thought we had time to repair our relationship. She was only 60 years old.  Even when she got so sick and was in the hospital, I thought I had time to tell her how much I loved her, and the things I admired about her...  I was planning to tell her those things as a pep-talk to inspire her to stay sober.  Instead, I told those things to the people at her funeral- desperate for them to see her beyond her last few years. Time can be a cruel thing.

~2~

I put together a slide-show for the memorial, it came out really nice.  My sister and I requested the song "Day O" from the movie Beetlejuice to be played as everyone walked out of the service. For some reason, my mom loved that song, she got such a kick out of it.  We also brought Hawaiian leis for her pall-bearers to wear as they carried her out- she would have liked the touch.

~3~

My mom loved birds, and had many, many parrots over the years.  We all sat around the table one night and agreed that we were glad that she had given Beau away (a double yellow headed mexican amazon parrot she had since I was 9 years old) She had always threatened to leave her with us as an inheritance (they can live to be 75 years old!)  We were all part of the "I've been bitten in the face by Beau club" and were really glad she had given her away a few years ago.  We had a good laugh over that bird.

~4~

My house is just now, after 3 weeks, slowly being put back in order.  We had our week-long Bible conference and guests from Korea.  They asked to stay an extra week, and then we had a teenage friend stay the week after until highschool Bible camp started.  They call it the "School of Truth" -kind of a cool name :)  and then, in the middle of Bible conference my mom was hospitalized and it has all been chaos for me.  We had to send Demi to camp without a sleeping bag- we couldn't find it- we sent him with a pillow and comforter.  2 days later Sky found his sleeping bag under a pile of dirty laundry.  Yeah, it's been that kind of time here.

~5~

I tried to keep up with my p90x exercising during Bible conference, but I had to stop after that with my mom sick.  I was doing so much driving that my diet fell apart, too.  Chick-fil-A happens to be right next to where I jump onto the 91 freeway, and it became a comfort food for me, unfortunately.  It is not very close to my house, so it is a big treat.  I also have to admit to the navajo sandwich from cheesecake factory as a comfort food.  The week my mother died, Sky took me there 3 times. Love that man <3

~6~

I'm out of thoughts, but I thought I'd share this sunflower from my front yard. I edited it with a watercolor filter on photoshop elements. I love sunflowers, every year Sky plants several different kinds in our front and back yards.  Love that man <3

I'll leave you with this song- a reminder to say what you need to say, even if it's a hard thing, while you can...

*7 Quick things is hosted every Friday at Conversion Diary. click over to join up.

Sadness

Hello Bloggy-friends, so much going on here this week, I'm not sure of where to start...

This is our annual week-long Bible conference with our church, we have a family from Korea staying with us.  The Bible conference is a big time-commitment, and having foreign guests who need transporting/ hosting adds to it.  We so love getting to know other believers though, it is always worth it.

Josie is in our first big fencing tournament - it is the National Championships and just happens to be in a neighboring city.  She has to be there for 3 different days.  Of course it is this week...!

Now for the sadness.  I don't like to air family drama here, mostly because I don't want to hurt loved ones by venting my side of the story.  I haven't said anything about the person who hurts me the most in this life - and not because she would read it here, she has never read my blog and she never will because she is not interested in me or my family.  She's not interested in my sister either, or my sister's cute/clever/amusing kids.  She is not really interested in anyone but herself and she set my sister and I to fend for ourselves emotionally and physically as soon as we were [mostly] capable.

She's my mother and this week she was hospitalized with cirrhosis of the liver.  She lives over an hour away, so the driving is added on top of my crazy week.

{The sadness}

I'm not really sad.  I'm resigned, a bit angry with her for putting her loved ones through this, angry at her for wasting her life.  Sadness though, I walled myself off [long ago] from feeling much in relation to her because it was too painful and pointless.  I told someone at the Bible conference today about it all, and this friend prayed for me and my mom and this person was crying.  Me...dry-eyed, even as I told her about it.  I was an emotional wreck when Sky's dad was dying, but empty about my mom.

This is the sadness, that she shut me out and I had to shut her out.

Friends, if you could pray for her.  This would have to be a big miracle- which I do believe God hands-out...but I also believe in free-will.  My mother was sitting in a hospital bed, wasted away to about 80lbs, having blood pumped out of her stomach, not allowed to have water and too weak to hold a cup to her mouth for ice-chips...and she kept asking us to get her a "drink".  I truly do not think she will live many months once she gets out of the hospital.  Prayers for her family as we are manipulated and abused as she detoxes, and prayers for her soul are needed.

thank you,

-Jenn

This is your A.D.D. brain on Summer...

Hello blog-land! I've been a little distracted/confused/busy/busy procrastinating/overwhelmed/exercising/dieting...um, pick one...

So much going on, so much to blog about!!  I guess I will do a few catch-up type posts:

***but first a plug to vote for the blawg!  I am in the running for Circle of Moms top 25 Homeschooling moms.  I am in the middle of a blogging slump, as you can probably tell...so I haven't mentioned it here on the blog, but somehow, I went from like 18 votes to 100+ {wow! someone loves me!}  So...if you could click over, scroll down and vote for me, I would so {heart} you.  You can vote once a day until June 27th -only 8 days left!

~1~

Meg went to Prom and I had a great "ah-ha" moment for a photography session.  We keep driving by this set of railroad tracks next to the freeway with these colorful empty train cars just sitting there.  I thought it would be fun, Meg agreed, so we drove around till we found it.  This was a Jenn-sort of adventure, I had no idea what street would come close to the cars, or if we could even get close.  It all worked out, though.  I got some great photos, a few that could have been better. It's such a learning process with me.  She had a great time at prom :)

~2~

I attended a small photography workshop here in Orange County at Crescendoh art gallery.  I have been wishing/looking for a local class only a day or weekend in length, but could only find semester-long community college classes.  I just don't have that kind of time to commit, this class was perfect- one full day of photography/blogger bliss.  I got to hang out with other bloggers *AND* have lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, which was just down the street.  This class was taught by Cynthia Shaffer and she physically took hold of my Nikon D80 and helped me change/find all the menu settings on it.  Finally!!  My photography horizons were expanded- I can now do so much more with my camera!  She taught us about settings, aperture, lighting- gave us lots of tips and hands-on help and then we went outside for an outside photo lesson, urban style.  It was an amazing day!

~3~

Our homeschool year came to a close- and not soon enough for me!  This has probably been my most lack-luster homeschool year, I was really overwhelmed & uninspired and we didn't do many creative things at all- just kind of survived the year.  I crashed and burned spectacularly with end-year stuff for Meg and Josie.  My charter school ES- a saint.  She's still talking to me...a miracle.  It was this weird situation where I actually had extra time to complete stuff, but I kept procrastinating and dragging my feet anyway.  I think in my brain, I was just done/bored/over it.  I keep mentioning A.D.D. in a joking way here on the blog, but it's kind of not a joke.  I am thinking maybe I have it.  Last week I grabbed a few books on A.D.D. at the bookstore and started looking through them, I started to read some of it out loud to Sky and we both laughed at how so much of it sounds like me.  It's funny that Sky can be so patient with me, he is so linear and logical and organized- I know just my way of being must drive him crazy, but he tolerates it /looks past it all very well. I like to think that I add the flavor to his life, linear would probably be kind of boring...

~4~

So, in light of #3- I am dedicating this Summer to getting organized/my house clean/and doing some major planning for homeschooling in the Fall.  But first! - I am in the middle of serious exercising/weight-loss.

Did I mention I seem to only be able to concentrate on one thing at a time?  Right now, it seems to be P90x.

refer to #3 again.

~5~

My baby-girl had her 17th birthday.  I can't believe she is 17!  She is finally driving, she has her own car now.  My life has changed so much just by having her driving!  She is my most busy child, I call her my Renaissance kid- if she could dabble in almost every activity/sport/art -she would.   Now, she does her various activities, like violin/Irish dance/ high school classes/ her job- on her own. It's like magic!  I was kind of in a daze at first, having a day or two where I didn't have to drive anywhere was kind of surreal.  Sky has been emphatic that I need to decide what I want to dive into and make this my time to shine.  [love that man <3 ]

~6~

First up on Jenn-time is p90x.  It's an intense exercise dvd set.  So far I have lost a bit over 9 lbs (it keeps bouncing up and down). I am going to do a blog series on it.  I have been watching what I eat and counting calories on My Fitness Pal.  In the past, when I needed to lose weight, I have done Jenny Craig- but I just couldn't afford it this time and I just couldn't stand the thought of eating the pre-packaged food again.  With My Fitness Pal, I can plan to eat the things I like, I just need to pick healthy/ healthier things.  More later....

So, blog-friends, how is your Summer shaping up?  Have any big plans? What do you hope to accomplish this Summer?