Getting Back In The Saddle . . . With A Potpourri Of Topics

Thanks for all the nice emails while I've been taking a break from blogging.


It lasted a lot longer than I thought it would. Turns out, although I thought I was the queen of multi-tasking, sometimes more things get done in real life if you just take a real live cold turkey computer break. Of course, those who know me from some of the home-schooling boards know that I didn't totally go cold turkey, but I did trim it down significantly and I have a lot to show for my time off . . .


We went to see the new Indiana Jones movie. If you liked the first three, this one will be lots of fun for you. It holds true to the series. If you are looking for a real action movie judged only by today's standards, well, not so much. Baby Boy has a full movie review. I'll have to get him to type it up this weekend and post it later. I really enjoyed it, but frankly, it doesn't take too much to impress me. It also doesn't help that I'm totally infatuated with Shai LaBeouf. He's like an adorable little Ken doll that I want to bring home in my purse and put on a shelf. It's amazing to me that he's the little Brady Bunch Afro-wearing boy from Holes. I'm not sure why, but, well, I've been known to have strange ways.


I went to see my niece's "Self Expression" exhibit at her fancy private school. She made a very cute self portrait. I think it turned out really well.




Speaking of self portraits. Baby Boy and I finally finished the six or eight or however many art lessons on how to draw the parts of the face. Today we did portraits of ourselves in charcoal. Don't laugh, remember, we are not trained artists. Just a mom and son trying to express ourselves a little bit, LOL.

Self Portrait


By Baby Boy

and


By Mom #1

In case you are wondering, YES I did intentionally make my face a lot slimmer in my portrait than it is in real life. I mean, that's the way I see myself, young and thin. I'm not letting reality get in the way of a good fantasy! One thing we couldn't figure out was how to make ourselves black (I mean African American) without making ourselves, you know, black (like the color), so we just left ourselves white (you know, the color, not the race). As you can see, this discussion could go into the wrong direction, so just look and love the art for what it is. HA HA HA!


Actually that is the kind of drawing I like to do. We've pretty much finished all of our subjects but seem to still be hobbling along at geometry. Unfortunately, that means the kind of drawing that I have been doing the most of lately looks like this . . .

. . . and poor Baby Boy has been spending his mornings looking like this . . .

But all of that hard work is really paying off. Recently we experienced something of a miracle around here. In five years of home schooling, we have never - until this week - witnessed this extremely rare phenomenon . . .




A perfect 100% on a math test! Yah! As you can see, stickers are a great currency around here.


In honor of all that hard work, and because we really really felt like we needed a break. We took a little mini vacation to our local water park. We had great big fun, although I am deathly afraid of the water and cannot swim at all. They provide lots of shade, fun slushy drinks, and chairs directly beside all the rides so lazy scary moms can watch their wild and crazy kids. That's where I was at.




So. As you can see, we're all doing fine. Busy, as life always is, but fine. I've enjoyed spending quality time with my family and friends. I'm going to try to find better balance in my life that allows for the real life closeness and the online fun. If anyone has the recipe for that secret formula, please forward it to me. I'm in desperate need! ;-)


Just for kicks, I'm going to round out this post with pictures of our new grand baby. She's still so new and beautiful and perfect in a way only grandmas can appreciate. She's a smidgen over three weeks old. These pictures were taken about a week or so ago when she was about 2 weeks old. She's already making lots of noise and funny faces, so we know she'll fit right in with the rest of our family.




Until next time . . .