Winter Break

What is winter break for?  In this house it's not for a break.  I decided to take some time out of our leisurely boring schedule of lazily doing nothing of any consequence to work on some stuff with the kids.

Creeper has really been struggling with school.  He does really well with the math, but the reading and writing is a little more trying for him.  Instead of having a carefree winter break, we've been working on some school stuff.

Of course, this really makes me think about the whole situation with school.  If I'm having the kids do all of this work at home, would it be possible to just homeschool them again?  Would this be the best option?  It's something that's been really tugging at the back of my mind.

Since it's winter break, I'm not worrying about that too much right now.  My main goal is to get Creeper back on track, which seems like a productive use of this break from school.  I'm glad he's able to get some work done, even though winter break is half over.  It's good to feel like we're accomplishing something for all this time off.

Then there's Bear.  We've been doing some work together outside of the computer.  I've got to admit, Bear has been trying my patience on the peaceful parenting thing.  I'm trying to get away from using tactics like time out, but it's not easy when Bear is so worked up over the past week.  It's been pretty crazy around here.  It makes it hard for Bear to concentrate and focus.

Still, Bear has managed to get some good work in.  We've started working with the workbooks Bear got for Christmas.  This has been trying with the lack of focus and the suddenly hyper behavior.  We've had to work hard to keep focus and stay on task.  Overall, I'd say we're making some pretty good progress.

Today we worked with some tracing lines, drawing lines along a path, and (as you can see here) tracing letters.  Bear seems really eager to learn these skills.  If Bear could keep a little more chill and focused, I think we'd be making some pretty good progress, but that wouldn't be Bear, now would it.  Instead we've been plugging away, trying to work on focus and attention span along with getting the work done.  I think that's maybe the hardest part of this whole thing, the attention span aspect of it all.

This whole thing has me considering the homeschooling thing with Bear too.  So far we've been doing pretty well.  Most of what we've been doing has been on the computer with Time 4 Learning.  I'm also considering Starfall, which Bear loves the free version of, and it can be played on all of our devices.  Now we're adding in more workbooks.  The whole thing is coming together pretty well.

All of this has my mind set to homeschooling.  There are a lot of reasons for this, many of which I don't feel belong in this blog, but the root of it all is that it doesn't seem to be working out for my family.  The long and the short of it is wondering if perhaps this is where our lives are taking us again.  It's a lot to consider, and definitely not a path I'm ready to jump onto now.  For now I'll be happy with doing our vacation work and calling it a day.

Painting

I know it probably hasn't been talked about here, but we needed to paint the walls.  There was a serious graffiti problem because Creeper decided to go through a phase of putting murals all over the walls.  He roped Link and Bear into the whole thing.  As a result, we had to paint several of the rooms, pretty much all the bedrooms and the downstairs hall.

Pinkie's room was the first one we painted.  As you can tell, it's her favorite color, pink!  We wanted to do each of the rooms in something that suited the kids.  Her room needs some touch ups with a stain covering primer and a paint over, but overall it looks pretty good.

We don't plan to leave it at just pink.  We're planning on doing all of the trim in her room at some point.  Then, once that is done, we're going to be looking for some balloon stencils to go up around the border of her wall.  Then she can have a room that really looks like something inspired by Pinkie Pie.

Eventually we want to do up her room entirely in My Little Ponies.  We want to get bedding for both the bunks in My Little Pony print.  Then she can really have a pony inspired room.  For the time being she'll have some pretty bright walls.  It goes really well with her bright, white dresser.  Her room is definitely more cheery now.  Best of all she absolutely loves the color.  It suits her, and not just because she's pinkie.  Her favorite color is pink and it's a bright, cheery color   While I would call her anything but a little ray of sunshine, the color certainly boosts her mood.

The next up was the hallway.  This we decided to do in green.  Originally I imagined more of a sage color, but I wasn't the one that went to get it.  This is a bit darker than I'd thought of going, but it looks pretty nice.  I'm not disappointed in how it turned out.  It looks much better than the stark white walls.

The walls look streaky, I know, but this is when they were freshly painted before they had a chance to dry.  I did some touch ups over areas the roller didn't want to hit well, so it looks kind of streaky here.  I suppose I should have waited for it to dry.  Unfortunately, you can't really see it in natural light because the natural light is so incredibly dark in that hall.  It's also not really that dark or grass green either.  It looks pretty nice.  I like it.

The most challenging part of painting the hallway was the little alcove upstairs.  It's pretty clear the two bedrooms used to be one.  There's some weird little features to the rooms and the hallway that make that pretty obvious.  For example, the hallway has a weird doorway into it that leads to two rooms.  Two of the rooms have ridges where a wall was clearly added in.  The doorway on one room has a weird little nook where the doorway was built in.  It's all a very odd architectural thing.

After the hall was done, the next room to be tackled was Creeper and Link's room.  Their room is blue.  As much as they wanted green, we didn't want to have that much green in one room, so we did Rainbow Dash blue.  We're going to go back in later and do the trim in green, which I think they'll like.

Their room is the biggest room, and the most difficult to work with right now.  They've got a large bed in there, a bed that used to be mine.  There's no safe place to put their bunk bed in there, so when we decided to swap the rooms around, they ended up with my old bed.  After the new year we're investing some money to put two twin beds in their room in it's place.  For now they share one huge bed.

Overall I like the way their room is slowly starting to turn out.  They got this room rather than staying in the room with their bunk beds because it's the biggest room.  It just made the most sense to put the two boys in the biggest room and leave the smaller two rooms for Pinkie and Bear.  There are two of them and they need the most stuff.  We're also going to be getting at least one new dresser to go in their room, which will make it so much easier to store all of their stuff, something that would have been a challenge in their old room.

Last of all was Little Bear's room.  Originally Bear wanted Elsa Blue, but after some consideration, purple was settled on as the perfect color.  It's a little darker than I was originally thinking, but I really like it.  Again, you can see the streaks from the drying paint.  It looks pretty good though.  I think this room, out of all the rooms, we're going to have to paint over when we leave.  It's so dark the landlord won't be thrilled to paint over it, but he told us we could paint and told us just no black or nothing really dark.  This isn't even as dark as it appears in the picture.  And we can always go lighter if he really objects.  The important part is Bear is happy with the results.

Bear's room we're planning to accent with Elsa blue and perhaps paint snowflakes around the top edge of the room.  We're going to be painting the dressers blue with snowflakes as well.  That will really brighten up the room.  I'm really hoping that will make Bear's room more comfortable to be in.  Right now Bear doesn't want to be in there much, but that may change.  Best of all, it covered all the graffiti on the walls.  That was what we really needed it to do.

So now all the work is done and we're ready to move on to other things.  It seemed like a never-ending process, but it's finally taken care of.  We're all pretty happy with the results.  It's looking pretty sharp!  I think we could get used to having some color in our house.  It's so much better than stark white walls!

Christmas 2016

Yup, it's Christmas again.  While the kids are busy playing Minecraft, I thought I'd take some time out to write a little something about our morning.  The kids are pretty well occupied and are having lots of fun, so why not?

This year, obviously, Minecraft is a huge hit this year.  Creeper and Link got Playstation cash to use to buy new Minecraft skins, maps, and texture packs.  They bought a whole bunch of stuff, including their new favorite, the Fallout map.  They're loving the chance to explore the world and ask about absolutely everything from the game.  Since they don't play Fallout (too many drug references for me to be comfortable with that), they want to know all about it.  I mean, they know some of the basics, like about Dogmeat, and Nuka Cola.  They don't know the world or anything about what they're looking at it.  They just love the world because the adults in their lives are pretty much all Fallout fans.  Their world is surrounded by it.  Besides, my dog gets called Nika Cola and I joked about changing her name to Dogmeat.

Actually, it's hard not to have Minecraft take over their lives.  They love the game and especially love to build and create.  It's a good outlet for them.  They mostly play in creative mode, so it's all about building and designing.  Minecraft is like LEGO blocks, in a way, but digital and totally changeable.

This year Pinkie's presents were all about the art.  She's been complaining about a lack of art supplies, so that had to be fixed.  She got pretty much nothing but art stuff, with some books and a Doctor Who necklace.  Some of the art stuff she got was pretty complex.  The book in the picture, for example, has all sorts of detailed pictures to color, something that will take her a lot of time to work on.  It's not like regular coloring books that take her all of two seconds to work through.  She'll be busy with that one for some time to come.

In a way she was a little disappointed at the lack of toys this year, but she's getting older.  The older she gets the less toys are going to be showing up under the tree.  Besides, I'm pretty sure she's happier with the art supplies and the Pokemon cards than she would be with a whole bunch of toys.  It suits her maturity level better.  She's been very much into art as she's always been.  She was so happy with the art supplies.  With the way she's going we may have to consider getting her more art supplies for her birthday too.  I've never seen her light up quite like she did for the coloring book and the geometric origami.  It's a little sad to see her so grown up, but at the same time it's really cool to watch her grow into the young adult she's becoming.

Link didn't get a whole lot of toys either this year.  He did, however, get a lot of Pokemon cards.  I think he's getting to an age where toys matter less and he's getting into other things.  I'm not going to say he's not into toys anymore.  He very much is, but he's getting to a point where other things are super cool too.

As you can tell by the picture, Link got a lot of Pokemon cards.  He should be able to build a pretty good deck with all of those  cards, especially since some of them are from the newest set.  He's got the special Pokemon set that goes with the Pokemon Moon game.  The set came with a few booster packs, some special holographic cards, and the Pokemon figure you can see in the picture.  Can you tell he was excited for his Pokemon stuff?

I think this is going to be a growing theme for Link.  I'm not going to say I don't want to buy him anymore toys but it's nice to be able to get him something that takes up less space and is equally fun.  Pokemon requires reading skills, logic, and a sense of tactics, making it an educational choice as well.  He's been more into video games than toys lately, but new cards should allow him to make more competitive decks, allowing him to win a bit more often.  It might be a good way to reduce screen time, as well as possibly a way to make new friends at Pokemon League events.

Then there's Creeper.  Creeper's big gift of the year was Minecraft for the PS4.  We had it before for the PS3, but that required changing between game systems, which was sometimes a bit of a pain.  Having it for the PS4 means he gets to play more often without having to change between systems.  This makes for a very happy Creeper.  He couldn't wait to play and didn't want to wait for the new stuff to download to play.  It was an exercise in patience.

There was a bit of a Minecraft theme to his presents this year overall.  Aside from a really cool Hulk figure and some art supplies, he got a bunch of little Minecraft mystery boxes and figures of Alex and Steve.  I think if Creeper's every present could be Minecraft themed from now until the end of time he'd be pretty happy with that.  He was super excited to get more Minecraft stuff.  It's just too bad his birthday and Christmas are right on top of each other.  He could get Minecraft presents twice a year to keep the present flow going.  We might just have to make half birthdays a thing, even though it'll be right around the corner from Bear's birthday.  At least it gives him a chance to get stuff at a different time of the year.

Then there's Bear.  Bear was positively spoiled this year.  Aside from the requested Batgirl costume (in nightgown form), there was also a lot of Frozen stuff, a Rapunzel tiara, a Barbie doll, some DC Superhero Girls action figures, arts and crafts stuff, and some stuff for Bear's baby doll, La-La, a gift from Bear's first birthday.  However the best gift of the whole lot was a little ceramic tea set.  Twice today I've been roped into playing tea before noon.  The only distraction was when Bear decided La-La  was hungry.  Then it was time to break out all the baby stuff and play with for a while.

Now, moment of honesty here, it's sometimes hard to get people on board with getting presents for Bear.  Bear was born male, so people often default to trucks and action figures.  However Bear prefers nightgowns, tutus, dolls, and apparently tea parties.  A lot of people aren't comfortable with that because it buck traditional gender roles.  Some days Bear wants to be a girl, and I'm okay with that, but a lot of people aren't.  I'm just really glad I was able to get Bear some really awesome and enjoyable stuff, and that we were able to have such a nice tea party together.  That really made Bear's day!

Even Nika got some nice gifts for Christmas.  She got a stuffed dragon and a Hover Disc from Ruffwear.  She's honestly not quite sure what to do with the Hover Disc.  I got it on a whim thinking it would be good to use out at the park, whatever parks allow dogs to be off leash.  It would be a good alternative to a ball and it's less strain on my elbow to throw a disc anyway.  That's why I'm able to go disc golfing.

More than anything Nika seemed incredibly confused by everything that was going on.  She didn't know what to do with all the noise, chaos, and paper flying everywhere.  Not sure what she was supposed to be doing, she chose to lay down in the middle of it all and watch the chaos from there.  I would think that would be the most overwhelming spot, but she seemed to like it well enough.  She was the calm at the center of the storm, I guess.  She was so overwhelmed that she barely wanted to hold her disc, though she carried it around for some time.  She didn't even play with her dragon toy, even though I know she loves those kinds of toys.  She likes to snatch them up, chase them around, and toss them.

Overall I'd say it's been a pretty successful Christmas, and this is just round one!  We've got two more Christmas events to go yet.  My parents are coming over tomorrow to celebrate Christmas with us.  Then the day after that my aunt and uncle are coming over.  I don't know what the kids are going to think of all that.  I'm sure they'll feel pretty spoiled after all is said and done.  It's also going to be chaotic for us.  We don't usually have that many people coming over to the house in such quick succession.  We've had our game nights, but that's about it.

The day started out the right way with presents then pancakes for breakfast.  We had our big turkey dinner last night, so tonight we're going to be getting Chinese food.  It's a Christmas night tradition.  I think that's my favorite part of the Christmas tradition.  The kids particularly love it too.  We didn't do it last year because we went to a friend's house for Christmas dinner, but I hope to make it our regular holiday thing again.  If we end up visiting on Christmas in the future we may have to swap things around and make it a Christmas lunch thing, but I particularly like not having anywhere to go on Christmas Day.  It makes for a wonderfully chill day!

Christmas Eve 2016

This was a Christmas Eve to be remembered.  The kids all got new pajamas to wear for Christmas Eve.  Pinkie got DC Superhero Girls.  It looks like this will be the last year Pinkie will be getting pajamas from the kids section.  These were almost too small for her.  Link got Star Wars pajamas in a favorite color, purple.  Creeper got Mario Bros.  Bear got Batgirl "nightgown costume."

This picture happened later in the evening, after all the kids had dinner and settled in to watch Prep and Landing, followed by Prep and Landing: Naughty vs. Nice.  This has become a yearly tradition.  It's also a tradition that makes me realize how much television companies must hate families on the East Coast.  The shows weren't even over until nine!  That meant the kids had to be hustled off to bed so that Santa could come.  It was an exhausting night for me.  Thankfully the kids went to sleep almost as soon as they were sent to bed.  I think it's because they all wanted Santa to come.  We watched Santa's launch on Reindeer Cam, then watched our shows.  We even tracked Santa on the Santa Tracker.  I think that helped motivate them to get to bed on time.

Of course, that wasn't the start of the day.  We began the day with lots of cleaning.  To keep Bear out of the way we decided to make a Christmas potholder.  I'm an evil mom.  I made Bear work on patterns.  Bear picked a pattern for the colors and we had to follow them.  Now there's a Christmas potholder hanging on the tree.  I suppose that's a good place for it.  As always, I realize just how challenging those things are for little hands!  I can't imagine how I must have done them when I was a kid!

Pot holder making wasn't the only bit of creativity we had.  The printer I got as a Christmas present to the family was set up, so I printed out Christmas themed coloring pages for the kids.  This kept them busy and out of my hair while I served up dinner.  We had our big turkey dinner then instead of on Christmas day.  Christmas Day is always Chinese food for dinner, unless we go over a friend's house.  The coloring pages were a brilliant idea.  I get the feeling I'm going to be shelling out a lot in printer paper, between school workbook pages (which the kids surprisingly like doing) and coloring pages for the holidays, I think that thing's going to get a workout.  That's not even taking into account the things that I may need to print up!

As things settled down for the evening I was able to finally start to relax.  The kids got to put on their pajamas.  Bear particularly loved the Batgirl nightgown, especially because it had a cape.  How often do you find pajamas with a cape?  Especially one as sparkly as this one has.  I'd gone out earlier in the day to get the pajamas, braving the cold, rain, and crowds.  It was our special Christmas Eve present, which they got on Christmas Eve, combining two traditions into one.  Usually the kids all get at least one present on Christmas Eve.  There's also a tradition where someone has to go out and buy at least one Christmas related item on Christmas Eve.  Usually this ends up being some kind of chocolate for the stockings.  This year it was pajamas, an afterthought really, but I had a gift card, and surprisingly they were all about half off, some even more than that.  At the end of it there was money left over on the gift card and I'm pretty proud of that.  Since we usually aim to get the kids a pair of new pajamas every Christmas, I guess you could say this blended all three traditions, and it wasn't all that expensive.  Unfortunately, waiting until so late made for incredibly limited selections, but it all worked out in the end.

Finally the night ended with all the presents neatly under their respective trees.  Bear had the live Norfolk Island Pine.  Creeper used his Christmas cactus.  Link used our sorry looking bonsai that's looking more like a Charlie Brown tree these days.  Pinkie, being the oldest, got the biggest tree.  I almost wish I'd swapped Pinkie and Bear's gifts as Bear had the most of all.  Bear, being the littlest, got spoiled, which is okay by me because Bear is usually the one left out or forgotten about.

If you were to look at pictures of the number of presents this year in comparison to last year, the amount is far smaller, aside from Bear's.  I have to admit, I'm pretty happy with the turnout though.  It feels good to not have our tree spilling over with stuff, Here's the shocker.  Next year we might even be able to fit everyone's stuff under the same tree!  I guess that's the joy of becoming a little more minimalist.  We're filling the house with less quantity and more quality than we have in the past.  Then again, we have two more rounds of Christmas to go before the holiday is over.  I just hope their Christmas is as good as I hope it's going to be!

Happy Birthday Creeper

Today we celebrated Creeper's birthday.  Though his birthday is close to Christmas, he's taken to enjoying Christmas as the theme to his birthday celebration.  He always wants to have a gingerbread decorating party for his birthday.  I can't say as I can blame him.  Cookies are yummy.

Instead of having a typical party, we all sat around the table with our friend, Sable, decorating cookies.  We didn't have as many supplies as we have in years past, but we had a lot of fun with it.  We used some premade cookies that we decorated.  Lacking a rolling pin, we decided that was the best way to make cookies.  Next time we're thinking of using the ninja cookie cutters we were given to make some really cool ones, but this year we did things differently.  We went with what was easy.

The kids really enjoyed making cookies together.  I'd hoped we'd have a bigger turnout, but it didn't work out that way.  In other years past we've had quite the crowd over to decorate cookies, a tradition that started before Sander was even born.  The year Sander was born he made his appearance on the day the gingerbread party was supposed to be, putting the breaks on any holiday celebration.  Since that day we combined his birthday with the gingerbread party.  I figured in time he'd want something not Christmas themed for his party, but he's really taken to it.  It's a tradition he's really grown to love.  I have a feeling this is going to be a tradition we keep for some time to come.

The best part of the gingerbread party?  Eating the cookies, of course!  It seemed at first that they were going to eat them as fast as they made them, but they slowed down eventually.  I can't blame them though.  If I could eat regular cookies I would have been all about it too.  I guess they were all safe because they're not gluten free cookies, so I couldn't have any.

I think next year we're going to plan to have more supplies.  The jelly frosting ran out too quickly and I think we needed more variety of sprinkles and candy to put on them, but it seemed to work out okay.  Bear in particular didn't want to put much candy on the cookies.  Instead each had a cluster of candies.  Bear said that was their "Yo-Kai watch."  Can you tell there was an influence there?  Next year I think we need more red because we had a number of zombie cookies.  There was also a ghost.  Sable made a penguin and Violet Beauregard from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  We seemed to have just the right number of cookies for the number of people we had.  I think if everyone showed up that originally planned to there wouldn't be enough cookies, or enough room to decorate.

The highlight of the party was, of course, Creeper's cupcake with candles.  It wouldn't be a birthday without cake and that was exactly the right size.  It almost wasn't big enough to hold the right number of candles.  We only did seven because I've never been one for the extra candle for good luck.  It somehow seemed silly to me.  I couldn't imagine trying to do an extra anyway.  There just wasn't enough room!

We did the whole birthday thing without the song, because that's what Creeper wanted.  We just lit the candles, said "Happy birthday!" and let him blow them out.  Of course, he made a wish, but you have to make a wish if it's your birthday.  He was so super excited about blowing out his candles.

After all the cookies the cupcake was divided up among anyone who wanted a taste.  Creeper was very good about sharing with everyone, even though he didn't have to.  The cupcake was for him.  He's such a good sharer, at least when he wants to be.  it seemed like the perfect end to the gingerbread party.  He had his cake and everything was good.  This was definitely a successful birthday.

Not only did his birthday go well, but we found the perfect cupcake for his birthday.  The frosting was green, Creeper's favorite color.  It was an extra large cupcake, so perfect for sharing.  Best of all, we were able to find some LEGO block candles, which really set this cupcake well above everything else we've done in the past.  The cupcake was a little Christmas themed, but it wasn't too bad once all the candles were on.

I have to admit, I'm pretty happy with how that little cupcake turned out, though I think next year we either need smaller candles or a bigger cake.  That thing was full to the brim.  As it was the candles were already trying to topple over.  Thankfully Creeper didn't care.  He was thrilled with his cupcake just the way it was.  I think his favorite part was being able to make a wish anyway.  I can't blame him.  Wishes are some pretty awesome stuff.

Overall, I'd call this a pretty successful birthday, perhaps one of the most successful one's we've had.  I'm really happy with the way everything worked out, even if it would have been nicer to do it with more friends around.  We didn't really have room for more people, so it worked out.  Creeper didn't seem to care that his friends weren't there either.  The whole day included MineCraft and watching The Wizard of Oz and Wreck-It Ralph, so I think that totally added the finishing touch.

A Cold Day?

I've heard of snow days, but this one was a first for me.  School was delayed not because of snow, but because it was so cold.  They wanted to give it time to warm up before the kids loaded up on buses to go to school.

Well, I'll admit it, I'm a bad parent.  Instead of sending my kids to school, I decided to keep them at home.  I'll be honest, a two hour delay makes the school day almost not worth having.  On top of that, it was just as cold when the buses rolled out.  It hadn't warmed up at all, though maybe the wind had died down some.

Instead of school we decided to spend the day watching movies and the kids played some MineCraft.  Yes, I know, it shouldn't be surprising that the kids were playing that game again.  I really value it as a part of their education.  It allows them some creativity and they're able to play around with a lot of different concepts.  I'm seriously thinking about looking up some ideas for using MineCraft as an educational opportunity.

Now it's still cold, but the snow is rolling in.  By the end of the weekend it's supposed to be warm and raining.  That's going to be a nice change of pace from the cold we've been having.  That also means we can go pick up some more paint and get cracking on finishing up the rooms.  I'm really looking forward to that.

For now I think we're going to start up some hot chocolate, something to keep us warm on this cold night.  We'll do something nice and warm for dinner, though I haven't quite decided what.  That leaves bean soup right out of the running, since I should have started that this morning, but we've got a few other options.  It's going to be a night of raiding the pantry and the fridge to find the warmest meal I can conjure up.

Well, it's about that time, so I'd better start cracking.  I'm thinking we're going to do one of my cold weather favorites and cook up the shepherd's pie we have waiting to be made.  That would really make for a good meal tonight.

Getting It Done!

There are so many things that need to get done in this house.  Most of them involve some sort of struggle or fighting.  No one wants to do chores.  No one wants to help cook.  No one wants to take out the trash and recycling.  Most of all, no one wants to do homework.

It's been a constant struggle since school was started to get the kids to do their homework, even the good students when it came to homeschooling.  Once the kids got home from school, they wanted to do fun stuff.  They've been doing school all day.  The last thing they want is to do more school work, especially Creeper.  He gets home latest of the kids (4 pm) and still has to do homework.

As I'm sure you can imagine, the last thing he wants to do is homework, so we try to work someplace fun to work.  The other day it was on the bed in my room, which seems to be his favorite place to work.  This gives him a great chance to have a little more control over his working environment, so as much as he has to do his work, he can at least have some say in how.

How long it takes him to do his work varies.  He's pretty good with math, so that takes him almost no time at all.  It's the writing that ends up being rather time consuming.  He takes a full half hour to do his work on a good day, an hour on a bad day.  It time for me to make dinner by the time he's done with his work.

Still, in spite of it all he manages to get all of his work done most days.  When I'm in charge of his homework he does every page.  When he's left to do it on his own he makes some excuse about how he was told he didn't need to do it.  Then he leaves his homework at home instead of putting it in his bag.  It's been a struggle to get the assignments complete and in school on the day they're due.  It seems like he'd rather not have to do the assignment at all if he could at all help it, and I don't blame him.  It takes him so long to get it done, then has to do his reading on top of it, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes either.

Today was also another great adventure.  We went out to meet a friend at the train station today.  That led to an interesting walk home, and a wonderful snack of donuts and fritters.  Pinkie was with us after a trip to the ER yesterday.  She wasn't hurting too bad so she opted for the walk.  It reminded me of what things were like when we used to homeschool.  We always used to go on the grandest adventures.

I miss the days I went out with all the kids to the library or just out for a walk.  We used to have all sorts of adventures, or moments like this tree hugging one here.  It was fun having them all along, and it actually meant getting out of the house more.  We had so much more to do all the time, which helped.

I'm looking forward to more days when we can get out of the house, especially when the weather gets nicer.  It's going to mean we have more freedom to go out, though that's a long ways off.  I really miss having the freedom to do that any day, but I think we'll just have to make more of our weekends.

That's one thing I miss about homeschooling.  The name was so misleading.  We were almost never home.  We were out having adventures, hiking in the woods.  We had so much more to do.  I miss that.  It was so much better than being stuck in the house all the time, waiting for this bus or that one.  True, I was able to go back to school easier once the kids were in school, but my class availability is extremely restricted because I can't even leave my house until almost 9 and have to be home by 2.  That means cramming all my classes into the morning.  It's been a good week, but it's been frustrating too.  I really miss homeschooling and the kids do too.