Friday the 13th

.....UUUUGGGHHHHH

KM's best friends -twins who live two states away - were born on 2/14. I received a phone call about 2 weeks ago BEGGING me to bring KM for their birthday party. We had not seen them in quite awhile and it worked out that I did not have SC on the weekend in question, so to quiet the squealing tweens I agreed to make the trek.

Since the sleepover was being held on Friday, I figured I would be able to be back by late Saturday afternoon to still spend Valentine's Day with CJ. We left right on time and everything was going great! We made it through Boston with no traffic, Rt 1 was clear sailing, and we made it to the Burger King just in time to not have to wait in line. I thought for sure everything was going to be fine! Then suddenly as I was coming to the crest of a hill, the car felt funny. It was as if I had hit the cruise control off, but I could not accelerate. I pulled to the side of the turnpike and my car died!

I must interject here to state that my ride is not really fancy, it is a Land Rover Freelander that I have had for just over 5 years. I have NEVER had ANY problems with it. Other than regular maintenance I have not had to spend a penny. It has under 50,000 miles on it, as most of my driving is within a 10 mile radius.

Now back to the story - I swear I thought my head was going to explode!!!!! What do I do? I am in another state. I barely know where I am. The neurotic over packer, only packed one change of clothes and one set of pj's for each of us, as we were only suppose to be staying overnight. I did not pack extra snacks or drinks as I knew we were going to be stopping at the same rest area we always do. So here I am the one who is always prepared for everything, TOTALLY UNPREPARED FOR THIS!

I call CJ and of course immediately start FREAKING out! I have no idea what I am going to do. I am not unfamiliar with the workings of a car, I took mechanics in high school, my grandfather was a mechanic, CJ is obsessed with Jeeping, my brother-in-law is a mechanic, and my father drag races and has been featured in several racing magazines. Yet here in this situation, where I have no control and there are HUGE trucks and cars whizzing by me at 80-90mph I can not think of what I am suppose to do! CJ of course is also freaking out at the thought of me broken down on the highway, but he talks me through checking everything as best as he can. This is no use as everything that I can check is fine!

Back into the car I go and we begin thinking. Okay I have a Land Rover, hey they have this really good roadside assistance program which is the reason why I do not have AAA. So we call them up and I am told that the nearest dealer - which is the only place that they can tow me to, is 58 miles away and they will only cover tows if they are under 50 miles. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

Okay next option - have the computer limited CJ look up a local tow service in the town that is listed on the only sign that I can see on the highway. NOT GOING TO WORK - I love him, I truly do, but he is just not computer savvy AT ALL. I think for a second and as I turn my head to the right I spot my GPS - DUHHHHH. I pull up the menu and locate the closest gas station - I love my GARMIN!!! it even listed the phone number! I called and they were only a gas station, but the attendant was sooooo helpful. He gave me the name of a station right around the corner and even looked up the phone number for me!

CJ was of course very leery of me going to some totally random auto shop to have my car worked on - see above mentioned reasons as to why this maybe so... - but I was very optimistic, when the man who answered the phone new right off the bat that they need to send out a car carrier to get me as my vehicle is AWD!!! Most mechanics don't even know what a Freelander is - they only made them for 3 years and as I mentioned they RARELY break down!

----Homeschooling Side Note---- KM was in the back of the car during this whole panic attack inducing affair with her headphones on and doing her SCOPE magazine assignment. She didn't even realize that there was anything wrong until I got out of the car before the tow truck got there!!!

So they came in no time to rescue us. When we walked into the shop, the very nice man behind the counter said "What were you thinking trying to travel on Friday the 13th!" Well gee thanks!!! I began to state how I am not superstitious and I don't think that the date had any relevance to the events of the day, but stopped myself mid sentence when the tow truck driver came up behind him with a not so happy look on his face. "It doesn't look very good!" Great, I thought, I am just going to hold off on my speech as to not tempt any further aggravation of the gods - hmmmm maybe I am a little superstitious. I sit down and wait for them to run the diagnostics.

Minutes later they come out to tell me my fuel pump is junk! FANTASTIC!!! I know that on a "normal" car this would run about $300-400. The man calls around and finds one that is $975 - are you KIDDING ME! Well I don't really have a choice now do I. So the man gets back on the phone and goes about getting the parts and I go about trying to find a way to get out of this place!

A few minutes later the man calls me into his office. He says he has called several locations and not only do they need the part, but they need a special tool because it is a Land Rover - OF COURSE THEY DO!!! - they could do the work and it would cost me about $1480. I swear I thought my head was going to explode!

He then says, "but today is your lucky day! I called a friend of mine at the Land Rover dealership and apparently there is a recall on your fuel pump!" I could have kissed him! I swear I almost reached over the desk and kissed him! So my car was off to the dealership and will be fixed Monday.

At about this same time I get a phone call that the grandparents of the aforementioned twins we are going to visit are about 20 minutes away and would be more than happy to swing by and pick us up on there way! Yippeee!!! Rescued again!!

KM is very happy that she gets a few extra days with her friends and I get a few days of doing, well not much of anything, but hanging out really. Guess Noni thought I needed a break!

I truly don't feel that I am superstitious, but I think Noni was looking out for me today! Friday the 13th was always a running joke in our house when I was growing up because my parents got me on Friday 10/13/1978! I used to tell Noni that she should have known right then to send me back because I was going to be a handful!!! THANKS NONI for letting me know that you are still there keeping your eye on us! I guess I do believe the date played into the events of the day, but next time Noni, you truly could do something a bit more subtle!!!

Fitness Friday

So my Fitness Friday post is short and sweet - I totally tweaked my back last week doing kayaking on Jillian Micheal's Fitness Ultimatum - so I did not get any workout in! Not a one - I did the body test each day as it helped me to see how unbalanced I was/wasn't to help with my sciatic nerve. It is better, but I am now "TRAPPED" in Maine, so I am hoping I will have a better week to come!

Umbrella Day

Happy Umbrella Day

Umbrella Day is in honor of one of the world's most invaluable inventions. On a rainy, day, we are sure glad that someone was smart enough to invent it. It's also increasingly popular to use umbrellas to shade ourselves from harmful UV radiation, and the heat of the sun.
Umbrellas come in all sorts of sizes, colors, shapes, and, designs. Businesses and organizations use them for advertising. The smallest umbrellas fit inside a purse or glove compartment. Golf umbrellas are popular sizes. Then, there are lawn and beach umbrellas. There's one (or two) made just for you. Celebrate Umbrella Day in a couple of ways. First, make sure your umbrella is handy. Second, use it, or walk around with it. If you don't have an umbrella, isn't it time to get one?

Here are some great links for Umbrella Day! -

• Umbrella Coloring Page


• Practice spelling umbrella


• Make an Origami Umbrella


• Fun little Umbrella Man Game


• History of how umbrellas are made

Of course we are also planning on watching a classic movie that has a very important umbrella in it ----can you guess?

STILL CONNECTED AT THE HIP!!!

I JUST CANNOT GET OVER HOW CUTE IT IS THAT SC ALWAYS HAS TO SIT WITH KM HIP TO HIP!!!
SHE IS JUST NOT HAPPY UNLESS THEY ARE CONNECTED!

I DO WONDER SOMETIMES WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN WHEN THE NEXT ONE COMES?

Pangaea Project

We made a paper mache earth, using a one part flour to two parts water recipe and a balloon. We only did two layers as it seemed to be strong enough!

Then KM painted it blue to represent the water and we printed out a copy of Pangaea from here and taped it on.

Then we printed out a second version from here to show how the plates separated and shifted apart.

It was amazing to see her actually get the concept!

Fitness Friday - Wk3

I have to say I ABSOLUTELY ADORE the Jillian Micheal's game!!! It has it's downfalls, but I must say it is a pretty good work! I had really good intentions this week, I tried to stay on top of things and then midweek I just lost it. Here is what happened -

Friday - I got the game in the mail late in the afternoon, but decided I had to try it out. I really wouldn't have considered it to be a work out because I was just fooling around with the controls and seeing what worked best, using the balance board on some, not on others and so forth. I figured out how to program a routine - LOVE THIS FEATURE - and that it gives you about 15 seconds of instructions if you need it, before it switches from one activity to the next - if you don't need the instructions then you can just click right through it, no wasted time - my biggest pet peeve with the Wii Fit game! You are moving the entire time from start to finish!

Saturday - I did an actual workout. I love the way it is setup because you can either do a custom workout where you choose the setup and order of the activities that you want to do or you can have Jillian pick your routine based on what you want to work on. I decided to let Jillian pick my routine and worked on cardio. I did the full 20 minutes and then played around a little bit more to try to figure out some of the more difficult games. Here is one of the downfalls - it does not give you the greatest set of instructions so you need to decode what it actually wants you to do. Once you figure out what the graphics symbols on the screen mean you are golden and can pretty much figure out how to do each of the parts of the workouts.

Sunday - I did a 15 minute custom exercise in the afternoon and then played a few of the games with KM in the multiplayer mode. Another AWESOME feature. Of course you can only have one balance board working at a time, but as long as you have multiple controller you can play the multiplayer games and go head to head against each other or against the computer.

Monday - I was SOOOOO sore that I had to have KM demonstrate all the yoga positions at the kids coop class that I teach!!! My shoulders were the worst, there is this one exercise where you swing your arms over your head as if you are crossing monkey bars - I was almost in tears the night before when I was finishing it up. Needless to say I did NOT do any workout on Monday.

Tuesday - I did a short workout on Jillian's game and did 20 minutes on the Wii Fit playing balance games, boxing and doing the advanced step. I felt like I needed to recover a bit from the weekend!

Wednesday - We had a lot of lessons to get through and KM was having a difficult time with one of her math concepts - remember when to divide and when to multiple while converting lengths - I got some disappointing news about a family member, the phone wouldn't stop ringing, I had to pack for a field trip......and these are the "reasons" I am sticking to as to why no workout got done on Wed.

Thursday -We were up and out of the house very early, to go into the Museum of Science with MC & SC. I did a TON of walking and we made sure to take the steps instead of the elevators. When we got home my back was aching, it hurt to stand, sit, lay down, just about anything caused a wretched shooting pain across my back. I have had siatic nerve problems in the past and I think I have been neglecting my yoga practice so much lately that it is coming back. So I did a few stretches, took a muscle relaxer and went to bed at 4:30. CJ made dinner and brought it in to me and I was sound asleep by 6pm, I slept straight through the night until 7:30 this morning! Yup, straight through!! My back is feeling better, but if I turn the wrong way or stand up to quickly it is still a bit sore. If it isn't better by Monday I am going to have to have it checked. I know it is just one of those things that they are going to tell me to rest and let it heal, so I don't want to waste my time or my doctor's for that matter.

Depending on how I feel tomorrow I will try it again. I may need to regroup my ideas and start out with just yoga again to get my back where it should be before I start anything else at the moment.

My goal for the week will be to do the body test EVERYDAY, do 1-2 yoga flows on my own EVERYDAY and at least 15 minutes of aerobics on WiiFit 4 days this week! Lets see how this goes...

Shakespeare & the Renaissance

Great American Authors

Homeschoolmania

We were finishing up a unit on geography, mapping, and archaeology, before we begin our study of the prehistoric periods, so I though it would be fun for the kids to design their own islands!

I took out the Crayola Model Magic, paint and let them have at it.....

KM decided to draw out a plan for her island on the whiteboard first.
Then they formed the bases and began painting.
Next she formed the higher points, painted them, glued them on and stuck toothpicks in to be able to label them after it was dry.
She named her island "Homeschoolmania" and declared that EVERYONE WOULD BE HOMESCHOOLED HERE!

SC's was a bit less structured, but I believe it would be a very interesting place to visit!

Celebrate Imbolc & Groundhog Day

Imbolc is the holiday in which we celebrate the midpoint of winter! As during Yule, we celebrate the return of sun. Spring is nearly here, though the days are not warmer they are getting longer. I really liked the image above, as it can mean so many different things. KM felt that it was mother earth rejuvenating the "earth's energy".

Here are some great links for information and activities to help you celebrate Imbolc -

• Fun Things for the Kids
• 13 Ways to celebrate Imbolc
• Pagan Dad's Blog has some incredible ideas

The mainstream for this holiday is of course Groundhog Day so I thought I would also add some links for things to go with that theme -

• The Official Punxsutawney Phil site teacher's section has some cool resources
  
• About.com has a ton of printables
• Enchanted Learning also has some simple projects and printables

That should be enough to get you started, I will be back later to let you know how our day goes!

Mostly just a TV DAY!!!

We really NEVER do this, but we have spent most of our day today in front of the television!!! Sometimes you just need to have one of those days, to unwind and not do much of anything.

We started off the morning with part one of Gulliver's Travel - I absolutely adored this book when I was young and remember watching the movie when I was pregnant with KM. They do such an incredible job of bringing the book to the screen.

When part one was over I decided to get the bread baking started and KM watched some Saturday Morning cartoons, a rare happening around here. She is usually so into things that she doesn't realize that they are on until well after the ones that she likes are over. Her favorites are part of Kewlopolis on CBS and therefore she can watch them online at Kewl Cartoons, but I think she really likes the novelty of the "Saturday Morning Cartoons" idea.

While the bread was having its first rising time I made some lunch and got some dinner prep ready. Then we watched the second part of Gulliver's Travel. It was amazing to watch her try to figure out what was going to happen. We had to pause it several times to discuss what was happening or to have a further discussion of the comparisons that Gulliver was making along his way. If your kids - or even you for that matter - have not seen this movie I highly recommend it! It is a great family fantasy film, but can lead to such great realizations of society and the way that our lives are built.

When the movie was over, KM decided she would go out and see what CJ was doing - sure enough she found him outside sculpting the sledding hill. I am thinking it more closely resembling a luge at the moment, but I could be exaggerating a bit. Whilst they were out in the snow, I decided to go to the big screen TV try out my new Jillian Micheal's game for the Wii - it came in the mail yesterday afternoon...I am however waiting to make a full opinion of it until next week's Fitness Friday posting!

When they came in from the cold, I made some hot cocoa and we snuggled up by the fire to listen to a few more chapters of Dragon Rider - Can you tell we are on a fantasy kick lately? I have even reorganized our literature units to accommodate this need for the fantastical.

We made breakfast for dinner together and then we watched Before the Dinosaurs Walking with Monsters - I thought it would be a good way to start our prehistoric studies and since we had already spent most of the day in front of the screen, I thought we should throw in a really fantastic educational one for good measures!

I wonder if she realizes how much schoolwork she actually did today? On a Saturday - I know I am a cruel CRUEL mother!

Fitness Friday - week 2

I have done better this week, but it has just been the body tests, some games and aerobics part. I just get so aggravated with the wasted time during the yoga and strength training. They should have a way to set up flows or routines once you have the moves down. KM and I have also been doing the Wii Ski a lot - together as well as individually with the balance board. I was pleasantly surprised at how much you need to use your core muscles to really control yourself during this game. In case you didn't see my comment from last weeks Fitness Friday - I am awaiting the arrival of Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2009 which I ordered last weekend from Amazon. I am very excited about the Jillian game...especially the fact that you can use it in a multi-player mode. I have seen widely varying reviews on a number of sites, but I am going to make my own opinion - and of course I will post it, hopefully by next week. Until then -keep up the good work everyone!!!

Happy Freethinkers Day!

Observing the birthday of Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense which advocated the independence of the American Colonies.

Here is an incredible list of Famous Freethinkers that prove thinking outside the box is what has brought about inventions and innovations that have changed the world!

Here are some other pretty cool things that I came across to help you celebrate this rather interesting day -

• download this handy lesson plan - Freethinkers Day from ESL holidays
• Secular Seasons - has several links to other Thomas Paine related sites
• Movie-a-day - recommends the 1960s classic INHERIT THE WIND
  

Great Free Resources for Stories

I have been wandering around the WWW lately trying to find some new and interesting things to keep SC a little occupied on the days when I need to get a bit more one on one in with KM. Now since I don't have SC all the time, I do try to schedule our bigger projects on days when she is not here, but sometimes life gets in the way and you just have to push through and get things done! Anyway I thought I would share some of the great things I have found, so here are the top five in no particular order -

1. On one of the many homeschooling/parenting Yahoo groups that I belong to someone passed along this site and SC can not get enough of it. The site is called Silly Books and here is a synopsis -

Literacy is contagious. Catch it here. You'll find animated books, children's music, puzzles and games that entertain kids while promoting child literacy. Have your children had their stories published HERE yet?

2. From the previous site I stumbled across an equally interesting one for emergent readers - Mighty Books - It says that you can get a subscription, but I am not really sure what more you would get with it, the free content including stories, songs and games in several categories seems very good -

Thousands of young children around the world have discovered the joy and power of reading at MightyBook.com. Now, we'd like to introduce this wonderful reading resource to your students. With more than 500 animated read-aloud books, songs, poems, jokes, puzzles and games to choose from, MightyBook provides many exciting opportunities for children to discover how much fun reading can be. Five new books or songs are added each month throughout the year

3. This next one I have known about for a while now, but never really had a reason to check it out. Now that I have KM has actually been poking around on it as well - Storyline Online - it has activities and printables to accompany all of the stories as well -

The Screen Actors Guild Foundation is proud to bring you Storyline Online, an on-line streaming video program featuring SAG members reading children's books aloud! Each book includes accompanying activities and lesson ideas.

4. This next one has lots of clips, games, and activities as well for the younger crowd - Up to Ten - I thought it would be great and though she may like it when she is a bit older, right now when I put it on SC walks away or squirms in my lap as soon as she sees the little guys - don't know why, I think they are awful cute!

UpToTen has been building prize-winning early-learning games and activities since 1999. Your child will love the reassuring, friendly world that our unique games inhabit. S/he will have enormous fun whilst building independence on the computer.

5. Finally this is just a fun click, click, click site - SC likes to move the mouse around and make the balloons and bubbles pop and she likes anything that allows her to be free to click away! Poisson Rouge or Red Fish Soup allows her to be able to do that. As you will see in the intro below, they are a very freethinking bunch and I think it is such a great site. If you get through the language features and can find English, you can also find a lot of cool printables as well.

There are no instructions on the site and there are some good reasons for that: most people, even adults, do not read instructions, children who cannot read will ignore written text anyhow, but most importantly for us, there is no need and in fact, instructions get in the way of the experience : the navigation through the various sections of the site is purposefully simple and intuitive, the functionalities within games are carefully thought out to afford a maximum of possibilities while keeping that special relationship to the real World.

So these are our newest favorites for SC, if you have any suggestions I would LOVE to hear them!

Thinking Ahead -

She has been diligently working on her Valentine's Day cards all week - she thought it would be more personal to make them this year instead of buying the generic ones.
She is using lots of leftover craft papers, stickers and stamps ~ they are very unique and she is really taking time each day to make them all a little different from each other.