Our Homeschool Space

Lisa, at Canadian Homeschooler, is posting a weekly homeschool photo challenge. I think I might try to participate throughout the year.

The first challenge - to post a picture of your school space - was posted earlier this week.

We don't have a space dedicated exclusively to homeschooling. Our homeschooling takes place all over our house. This is a picture I snapped today of Anna doing her silent reading. The white board sharing the couch with her tends to follow us wherever we might be working at the moment. There is a small bookcase at the end of the couch which holds most of our material. The two fold-up desks in the foreground are are new additions, and we're loving them. They, too, get moved around wherever we happen to need them. One is mine and one is Anna's.

 

The big world map on our living room wall plays a major role in our homeschooling. It gets references any time a place is mentioned throughout the day, be it in a book we're reading, a history or geography lesson, or a video, movie, or tv show we're watching. Along side the map is where we post printout of poems, songs, or other memory material we are working on.

 

My girl is big time into art so her art work is displayed in many places throughout the house.

 

 

So, that's a little peep into some of the homeschooling spaces in our home.

 

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Coin trade game

 

Inspired by a game suggestion in the Let's Play Math book, Anna and I have been having some fun. She loves the game and is learning the value of coins without realizing she's doing math. :-)

You need about 9 pennies, 4 nickels, 3 dimes, 4 quarters, and one looney per player.

We have double this because just two of us are playing. We keep our coins and a die in a ziplock bag.

Players take turns rolling the die. Each dot equals one cent. Players collect the number of cents indicated by their roll and then check to see if they can make any trades before the next player rolls. Once they have five pennies they trade it in for a nickel, two nickels get traded for a dime, two dimes and a nickel get traded for a quarter, and four quarters get traded for a looney. The first to get the looney wins.

Here's a video of us playing the game. You can tell how much she loves it by her excitement at the end, even though she lost.

 

 

 

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2k walk in 30 minutes

I walked again today! It's been a long time. Life got I'm the way and messed up my routine. Today everything finally fell in place for me to get a walk in. I walked 2k in 30 minutes. I know that is a very slow pace, but its better than not doing anything at all.

My walking may still be sporadic for a bit cause life is still crazy, but I will try to get in a walk here and there when I can. And I will blog about it because it helps me to be more motivated.

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I'm a grandmother!

...To a beautiful tiny baby girl. She came early! She was only 3 pounds 15 ounces, but she's perfectly healthy. God is good!

I was at my cousins house having a laugh the night before our river rafting adventure when I got a call from my youngest son. He was away working but he had received a call from his girl saying she was in pre-term labor and they were prepping her for a c-section.

Needless to say that changed my focus. I felt so helpless being so far from both of them. I did the only thing I could do, I prayed - for a healthy delivery, for peace and safety for mom, and for peace and a quick flight home for dad.

A couple hours later I got that word that we had a baby girl and that she and momma were doing fine. Daddy was still trying to get home to them.

This is the first look we got of our baby girl, sent in a text message.

My cousins had all gone to their rooms earlier having given me orders to let them know when I had any more info, or if I got any pictures. I ran around the house making sure everyone saw our baby and we all celebrated together.

Because the baby was so tiny they decided to fly her to a children's hospital where she would be sure to get the care she needed. Baby was flown out in the morning and momma was flown out in the afternoon. Daddy was still trying to get home to his girls.

I never really understood how tiny the baby was until I saw a picture of her in her mommy's arms

 

After a long couple of days travel daddy finally got to see his girl in person. Because she was so tiny and had to spend most of her time in an incubator, he didn't get to hold her right away but I was anxious to get a picture of her with her daddy.

When he finally got to hold her he quickly became a pro and enjoyed every minute of it.

I haven't had the opportunity to hold my granddaughter yet. I haven't even seen her in person much. Only two people are allowed in to see her at a time so any time I go visit her either her mommy or daddy have to leave, and I don't like to take that time away from them.

I am happy to report, however, that she is growing and doing great.

I can't wait to hold her and kiss her. Soon, hopefully.

 

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How I found out I was going to be a grandmother

Way back in January I was sitting in a movie theatre waiting for Les Miserable to start when my cell phone rang. I quickly stopped the ringing and checked to see who it was. It was my youngest son. He rarely calls. My first thought was that something was wrong, so I quickly sent him a text. This was our conversation:

I immediately started to cry, and the movie hadn't even started. :-) I quickly sent off a few more texts - spelling, grammar mistakes and all -

So, that was a Tuesday.

Four days later, on a Saturday night, at 6:51 in the evening, I get this text from my oldest son

 

It was a little odd for them to be going out to our place, about a 40 minute drive from their place, at that time of night, especially on the snowy night that it was, but we had friends visiting for the weekend that they wanted to see and probably wouldn't get to see if they didn't come then so I didn't think too much about it. They came and we had a nice little visit. Just before they left my son got his wife's purse and took something out of it and presented it to me saying that it was the real reason the came to visit. This is what he handed me

 

Needless to say I was in tears again and the grin that I had started wearing Tuesday got a little bigger. Both my boys were going to be daddies!

Both couples swore us to secrecy for a while until they saw the doctor and knew more about how far along they were. That prompted me to send the boys this text a few days later

 

So, that's how I found out I was going to be a grandmother, twice. When they finally saw the doctors and got their due dates all straightened out they were actually due just a little more than a week apart!

Here are the two beautiful mommies showing off their baby bumps a few months back.

 

 

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Community Bible Experience

I heard about the Community Bible Experience quite a while ago and loved the concept but couldn't get anyone to commit to doing it with me. Recently i decided to sign up for the free trial anyway, just to see if it was as great as I thought it was.

I downloaded the complete Books of the Bible:NT into iBooks and I love it! I had already started the YouVersion Community Bible Experience:NT reading plan a few days earlier and was really enjoying doing the readings in YouVersion but I like it even better reading it from the Books of the Bible:NT in IBooks. There is a better option for making highlights and notes and there's also the additional introduction to the books. The introduction to the books are great!

My one disappointment is that I haven't figured out how to access the sample audio files on my iPad. I don't think it's a problem with the files; it think its my lack of know how on how to get them to work.

I would love to actually do this the way it is meant to be done - with a group of people. Maybe some day.

 

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No walking this week, but lots of excitement!

Its been a crazy, but exciting week since I last posted. I haven't managed to do any walking, but that does not mean I've given up, just that life is in the way for a bit.

Just a quick update on the excitement right now. I'll expand on it more in later posts. Two exciting events interrupted my walking routine.

The first event was a fun filled weekend with some female family members. One aunt, one sister, one daughter, five cousins, and one cousin's daughter, plus me, added up to ten crazy females gathered in one house a week ago today to set out for a crazy adventure the next day.

The second event was one I was not expecting to happen for almost another two months. I became a grandmother!

I'll share more about both these exciting events soon, but for now I just wanted to explain that my walking routine has been interrupted for a week, but that does not mean its over and done with. I'll be back at it again soon.

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Walking - day 1 of week 2

Walked again today. Normal Dawson route. I remembered to start the timer for the walk but I forgot to stop it when we finished walking, so I'm not sure how long it took, but I think it was about 30 minutes.

I had a new walking partner today. Anna's been wanting to walk with me every since I started walking. Today I decided to take her. I told her it was a test to see if she could come again or not. I think she's decided not to come anymore. It was too long for her.

She started out fine and was very entertaining. Here's a sample of the entertainment she provided.

 

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Summary of week 1 of walking and on to week two

Some tweets by friends and acquaintances about their running reignited my desire to run. Realizing I am far from being in shape to run I decided to start walking.

Day 1 - Wednesday, July 3

Starting slow. Walked 20 minutes. Main Street, 10th Avenue, Elmwood Crescent and cut across yard to join into Earle, 8th Avenue back to Main.

Day 2 - Thursday, July 4

Started with a 25 minute walk. Slight route change. Skipped Elmwood and went right to Earle. Went for a second walk in the night with Sarah. Passed by Earle and went right to Midland for the loop. Did it in 40 minutes for a total of 65 minutes walking on day 2.

Day 3 - Friday, July 5

Started the day with a 30 minute walk. Another slight route change. Skipped Earle and went to Dawson.

Day 4 - Saturday, July 6

Started the day again with a 30 minute walk, same route as yesterday.

Day 5 - Sunday, July 7

Didn't walk til late in the evening. Went with Sarah again and did the same Midland route we did last time in about the same time - 40 minutes.

Day 6 - Monday, July 8

Started the day again with the normal 30 minute walk on the Dawson loop.

Day 7 - Tuesday, July 9

Started the day again with the normal Dawson loop and cut a bit of time off. Did the route in 28 minutes 50 seconds.

And that was week 1. A great start!

Today was day one of week two. I didn't get a walk in until late this evening. Walked with Sarah again and did our normal Midland loop. I completely forgot to time the walk but I think it took about 40 minutes.

 

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Trying out Blogsy

I've discovered what appears to be a great app for blogging using an iPad. I have struggled with blogging since my lap top died, over two years ago. I thought that I would easily pick it up again about a year ago when I got my iPad, but I discovered it wasn't as easy as I thought to blog from an iPad. I returned to lamenting the death of my laptop and gave up on blogging - until now.

Yesterday I decided to start blogging about my progress in walking, but I almost quit again before posting my first post! The app that I had downloaded a nice while ago is very frustrating to work with. I decided to go ahead and use it for my first post but to search for something better. That's when i came across Blogsy.

I spent the morning watching the How-to-Videos on their site and becoming more and more amazed. Blogsy appears to be a great app! This is the first of what I hope will be many blog posts that I will create using Blogsy.

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Walking Again

A week ago today I decided to start walking again. I thought that tweeting about my decision and progress might help hold me accountable, so everyday I tweeted how long I walked. Then I got to thinking, that's a bit boring for tweets, and also sometimes I wanted to say more than what could be said in a tweet, so I started thinking about blogging my progress. So, here I am.

It's been a long time since I even visited my blog. My first thought when I logged in is that it is in desperate need of a makeover, but I have no idea how to go about doing a blog makeover from an iPad so that's not going to happen any time soon.  I almost let that stop me from blogging now, thinking I should do the makeover first but I seriously don't know when I'll be able to do a makeover and I didn't want to delay starting to blog, so here goes.

I recently became aware that some of my friends and acquaintances in my community, where I've been living now for almost two years, are runners. I don't know if they've been runners for years or if they just recently started. I learned about their running when some of them tweeted about it. That's what got me thinking about it again.

Back in January 2009 I actually started a blog, called Couch Potatoes to Road Runners http://couchpotatoestoroadrunners.blogspot.ca/ , as a basis for a challenge between some family and friends. In the first post on that blog http://couchpotatoestoroadrunners.blogspot.ca/2009/01/how-this-blog-came-about.html I shared that years before a friend had told me about a walk/run program that she enjoyed and I had tried it for a while and loved it, but didn't keep it up. I thought that getting some family and friends to join me in the challenge in 2009 might help me stick to it, but that didn't work either. In a post on May 11, 2009 http://couchpotatoestoroadrunners.blogspot.ca/2009/05/faithful-in-training-but-not-in.html I shared how I was disappointed in the lack of participation of others and I wrote my last post on that blog May 31,2009. At that time I was still faithfully training and had worked my way up to being able to run for 25 minutes straight without feeling winded. I was pretty proud of that but I think the training petered out shortly after that. 

I did try to start to train to run again once or twice after that but then I finally just gave up. I even tried just walking, but I didn't stick to that either. 

Reading about others close to me running sparked my interest again. I am certainly in no shape to run right now and I seriously don't know if I will work up to that or not.  For now I am content with just walking.  We'll see what happens as time goes on.

NaBloPoMo November 2 - live anywhere

Friday, November 2, 2012
If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

We just moved into our new house in a new community just a little over a year ago and I honestly have no desire to live anywhere else. I finally feel settled.

NaBloPoMo - favorite quote

It's November 1st - the first day of NaNoWriMo and also the first day of NaBloPoMo for this month.  I've been thinking about NaNoWriMo for a while now but I completely forgot about NaBloPoMo until today.

I would really like to do NaNoWriMo but I really don't have the time or set up for it. I did make a start today but it just made me realize how truly impossible it is with my present situation. I may, however, continue to plod along.  We'll see.

Rediscovering NaBloPoMo today gave me some hope when I thought all hope was gone. It gave me a new goal to shoot for, one that I think is a little more doable. These will be far from perfect. There will likely be many spelling and grammar mistakes and much fluff with little substance.  I do this simply for me right now and it's important that I just do it without striving for perfection.  I'm hoping it will help me in many ways. So, here I start.

Thursday, November 1, 2012
Tell us your favourite quotation and why.

I think my favourite quotation is actually a Bible verse - "thou wilt keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee", from Isaiah 26:3. This verse is my lifeline in every difficulty and struggle that comes my way. The faster I remember to stop and get my mind back on God and to trust Him, the faster I get back my peace back.

My First Book Launch

Well, it wasn't actually my book launch, as I have never written a book, but it was the first book launch that I ever attended. I'm hoping it won't be the last.

I was excited when my dad pointed out to me that one of the people that attended my church in my new community was none other than Newfoundland author, Nellie Strowbridge. I had read her books Catherine Snow and The Newfoundland Tongue and I took advantage of the first opportunity I got to let her know that I was a fan. I was thrilled to get to chat with her about her past books and ones she is working on.  I was really excited when I received an invitation from her publisher saying that she had requested I be sent an invitation to attend the launch of her new book, Maiden From the Sea.

I asked her permission to tape the launch and post it to my blog. She graciously agreed.  It's taken me a few days to get it ready to post.  I had taped it with my phone and needed to edit it before posting it. There were people coughing and moving about and chatting during parts of the taping and I wanted to get rid of that stuff.  I had never edited a video before and didn't have a video editing program and the only thing I had to work on was my phone.  I downloaded IMovie and googled help to learn how to use it and I finally got it done.

Here is the video I put together with clips from the book launch that I attended in Deer Lake May 19.

Yard Tour Part 2

Last post I took you on a tour of our front yard and one side of the house.  This time we'll tour the other side of the house and the backyard.  It really is not an exciting tour at all right now because there is nothing there yet but it will be fun to watch the yard change over the years.  This part of the tour takes place in two videos because I ran out of space on my phone on the first video.  The second video is a little frustrating for two reasons - the wind plays havoc with the sound at times and Anna interrupts often.  Oh well, this is simply for my benefit really so I'm not too worried about it.

Side Yard



Backyard

Come Tour My Yard

We moved into a new house on totally undeveloped property back in August of 2011.  I have some pictures somewhere of what it was like then.  I'll try to find those and post them later. We still haven't done much at all to the property, other than cut down the forest of tall grasses in the back yard.  We do want to develop it but it will not happen quickly.  I've been on a Dave Ramsey kick for a while now and Sheldon is playing along somewhat so it is my hope that we will only make improvements to the property as we can pay cash for it.  We've had a few "discussions" about that so we'll see what happens.

Anyway, I decided that I would like to do a kind of video documentary of what we do with the property over the years so I taped the first part of that today.  This video takes you on a tour of our front yard and along one side of the house. Not much to see there yet but here's what it looks like now.

Gardening With Anna Episode 3: May 7th Update on Plants

Chilly outside but things ares growing inside

Our egg cartons are full of growth!  I have to figure out how to get pictures from my phone on here.  We have been amazed to watch our onions and sweet peas grow.

I started measuring the growth of some of the bulbs because I was so shocked by it.  It's been growing about an inch every 24 hours.  So much fun to watch!  I think the Yellow Onion Bulbs are doing a little better than the Spanish Onion bulbs but they are both doing good.

Our sweet peas and green onions seeds took a while to catch up put the sweet peas are as tall as the onions now.  I need to thin out the green onion seed plants.  The seeds were so tiny we dropped loads in each compartment of the egg carton.  It's funny to see.

Hopefully I'll figure out how to get a picture up or else do another video to show the growth soon.  Fun times!

Our Visit to the Greenhouse and Garden Store

This is a totally unedited video of our visit to the Greenhouse and Garden Store in Little Rapids. Anna was doing great until she found a lady bug. Doing the video was her idea but then she lost all interest in the video when she found the lady bug. We will definitely be going back there again, probably a few times throughout the summer to see the development of the gardens.
 

Greenhouse and Garden Store in Little Rapids!

I am so excited!  I just discovered that I have gardening help close by! I have been combing the web for gardening info and I just discovered that there is a Greenhouse and Garden Store very close by!

Check out the Greenhouse and Garden Store website. The title on their opening page tells me this is the place for me - "A Green Haven for Amateurs and Pros".  I fit into the first category. I was hoping to find some workshops scheduled soon but there aren't any posted for this season yet, just some info about past workshop, which looked great.  There's also a note on that page about a newsletter so I signed up for that right away. I wish they had links to their past articles on their gardening tips page so I didn't have to wait for the first newsletter to start learning from them.

Also check out the Greenhouse and Garden Store Blog. The description here says that they have demonstration gardens that you can walk around in for ideas.  We will definitely be visiting there soon, and maybe we'll do a short video while we're there.

The Greenhouse and Garden Store Facebook page seems to be the place for up-to-date information so of course, I've like that too.

It appears the only thing that is missing is a Twitter account, but maybe I just haven't discovered that yet.

There just might be a nice garden in my yard yet!