Update!

OK, the picture of Biscuit has nothing to do with this update, I just like to add a picture to the post, and she is so cute. Anyhow, I was bitten by a spider, or so they are assuming it was a spider. I have lived here seven years and never been bitten by anything more than a mosquito or those pesky black flies. I actually felt it bite me, it hurt really bad. I couldn't find anything that had bitten me though, and since it didn't really itch and the pain ceased pretty quickly, I paid it no mind. It took a few days, like six I think, and I started to notice it looking kind of yucky. So, I hot packed it. And I kept hot packing it. Well that just made it worse. The doctor thinks the hot pack made the venom really go into full activation, even though it had taken so long to start. Usually within 48 hours of being bitten by something with venom, ie the brown recluse spider, it is a hot mess. My body doesn't do anything normal, so I was not surprised. So I started to put some Neosporin on it and kept it covered. Well by Saturday morning, it was really bad. Large area, hot, hard and edematous. Ugh now what, the doctor office was closed. So I called off from work and got to the doctor first thing Monday morning. Now it has been 48 hours and it is improving rather quickly. I had developed some slough on the wound and the doctor wanted to promptly debride it in the office with a scapel and a big needle. Uh no thanks, lets try something less painful and intrusive first, thank you very much. So, I got an antibiotic and wet to dry dressings started. Wet to dry dressings are extremely painful but effective. By this evening I have removed all slough, and the bed of the wound is healing nicely. Now I hope I can just do moist dressings once or twice a day to avoid the dry dressing ripping off new skin. The moist dressing is much less painful, and easier for me to get around with it on. So far it is going well, but I still have to be diligent in using good sterile and clean technique, eating healthy, and staying well hydrated during the healing process. I have not been able to exercise, and that has me bummed. It was just too painful. Hopefully tomorrow, I will get to at least walk at a snail pace, but still a walk.

I have to miss two Saturdays of work, which strains my pocketbook, but I always think it could be much worse, so I don't complain. I got all of DJ's photos ordered for his 4H photography book, book 2. He has one more book for next school year. We also are finishing up the first Entomology book, with two more to go next year and the year after. He still needs to do the 4H scrapbook, but that is not due until August, and other members have pictures they want to include, so I wait. I am not a good waiter.

In June, I am creating a new project everyday for a challenge. Now this can be you make one thing everyday, or if it is a big project you work on it, and then show your progress everyday. If anyone is interested in joining in visit my jewelry blog, for the info.

I have been adding all the cool school websites I have found over the past year, to my Pinterest board, Eclectic Homeschooler.   You can see them all by clicking the link.  Pinterest has a weird format for letting you share things.  If it can not locate an image, you can't pin it.  Also some websites, why I do not know, will not let you share their website on Pinterest.  So, after I am all done pinning the ones I can, I will do a blog post for the rest of them.  Most of them will be on Pinterest. 

Now that DJ's pictures have been ordered, over a hundred of them, I will uploading his images to his blog and his Picasa album and getting them off my computer.  He took way more than a hundred, but only certain ones were for each assignment.  He got some really good ones this year.  Since I want to watermark them all, it is a very time consuming project.  Might take me all summer. 

June 9th is our last official day of school.  Evaluations are already set for July 11th.  DJ will do math, some Science, and educational games over the summer.  Nothing that should take more than a hour out of his day.  Caitlin will do Math and educational games as well.

Memorial Day and Tropical Storm Beryl

Well unless you live under a rock, you know tomorrow is the day the US celebrates Memorial Day. A day to honor all vets. Also, unless you just are not paying attention, you know there is a strong tropical storm hammering its way towards Florida. Now this particular storm on Friday was sub tropical and not expected to bring anything more than rain. Oh yeah OK, why do I even listen to the media? Now it is almost an official hurricane and going to cause all kinds of havoc, including heavy rain, we need rain, just not a deluge, I have said I don't have a boat. So now I have to expect to have no power, at some point. To make it all better, I had a medical issue that needs to be seen by a doctor and tomorrow is Memorial Day, ugh. Thank goodness it is improving, and I can handle it for the most part. Even better yet, my husband is a volunteer fireman. In the last 24 hours he has had six calls. He has little sleep, nor have I. Tonight he is going to stay at the firehouse, as we both are assuming it is going to be a long and active night. Good thing he has tomorrow off to sleep, jeesh. I had to call off from work Sat night, something I despise doing. I think if you only work one night a week, you shouldn't ever call off. Unfortunately I did not have a choice in this matter. I will update everyone on the medical issue, after I know everything is OK. I hope everyone has a sunny and warm Memorial Day! We were smart enough to barbecue and swim on Fri and Sat. Talk to you all soon.  BTW do you know the history of our National Anthem?  I will try to find the video, it is cool.

Painting Class

Yesterday was our first painting class in a few weeks. With my moms car out of order, and everything else that was going on, we just didn't get to do it. Yesterday my mom had herself and I paint on beach coverups. Mine was a gauze material, which I must admit is lovely to paint on. I hope she brings more. Hers was terry cloth material. She didn't get to finish hers, so she took it with her to finish at home. I finished the front of mine, but want to make the sky go slightly over the shoulder onto the back, just a little. I will do that the next class. I have tried different strokes, with different brushes, but I discovered the fan brush works best for me and clouds. Painting on fabric is difficult. You need a lot of it, and the strokes you learned get modified quite a bit. What do you think of the coverups? Caitlin painted a small picture frame, not pictured, and then she painted dolphins. Our friend Dave had surgery yesterday and he asked Caitlin if she would paint him some dolphins. Nice! DJ painted two little wooden cars, then designs on them. All in all it was a very good day. Still no rain here, and the spiders are wicked in this hot dry weather. We have killed more spiders this spring, than in the whole 7 years we have been in Florida. I think I have been bitten by one, but not sure what actually bit me. The bite mark is pretty nasty though. Matter of fact this is the second time in two months I have been bitten by something. Ugh!

Today was just a normal school day. Kids are done before lunch now, because we are almost done.

Water Conservation and Why We Should Care About Water

Monday is our co-op day, and this Monday it was my turn to host. At Christmas I bought a 4H book for water conservation, for DJ. I did not know it was for group activities, not a single child. So, I decided our group would do the book as a group. It will only be on the Monday's that I host. The first activity in the book was a discussion about the Water Cycle and how much freshwater there is vs saltwater. The answer is 97% of the Earth's water is saltwater. 2% of the Earth's water is freshwater, but found in polar ice caps, so not readily usable. That leaves 1% of the freshwater that is actually usable by plants, animals and humans. We discussed why water is important, and why we should pay attention to how we use it. It was fun to watch and hear them learn how much water we really need and use/waste in our daily lives. Water Conservation is near and dear to my heart. If there was one thing that I could actually call a cause for myself, Water Conservation would definitely be it. They also did an activity where you stood in a circle and tossed a globe to each other. Then you had to record how many times your left thumb landed on water vs land. They were surprised that at least 75% of the time they landed on water. I can't wait for the next chapter.

Today, was a normal school day, and tomorrow is Painting class. The school year is wrapping up, and I am ready to relax.

Weather For Kids

The kids are doing awesome, at the end of this school year. Usually it is a battle to keep them going towards the end, but this year they have done awesome. One of the things that helps is all the fun stuff we have done this year. I have incorporated into our school week a lot more fun activities, including a weekly co-op, volunteer days, 4H, and bi-weekly playdates, oh and painting class. All these things have helped to break up the monotony we call school. We also have been walking at least three days a week. This may have to taper off over the summer months because it is so unbearably hot, even in the morning hours. One of the things I want to focus more on next year, for both of them, is the weather. I am a bit of a weather geek, and would love them to learn more too. The little video below is a fun intro to the weather. I will be adding tons more of fun videos over the summer months. The leak that we had on Tuesday, did very minimal damage, praise the Lord, and my mom got one of her cars fixed, and didn't cost a small fortune. So some good news at the end of this week.

Lesson Plans For 05/17/2012:

DJ:
Math: Saxon 65 chapter 96
Science: Speed and Motion
Social Studies: Middle Ages chapter 42, map skills
Language Arts: Adjectives
Writing: Love Bugs blog post

Caitlin:
The Head of the Class: 3 Cycles
Language Arts: Adjectives, action words
Spelling: Consonants
Math: Addition, Money

Odd and Even Numbers Math Songs

Yesterday, at our coop we learned some more about the Theory of Evolution and how it does not fit into God's teachings.  We also went for a group walk.

Today started with a bang, literally.  I woke up at my normal time, went into the bathroom, and heard water running.  Since I really wasn't awake, and my husband hadn't slept well, I though wow Craig is doing laundry.  Yeah OK, should have known better, lol!  When I felt the cold water hit my foot, it woke me up rather quickly.  The noise I heard was in fact the washing machine, but the pipe to the washing machine had busted, and water was pouring everywhere, in the back hallway and the BR adjacent to it.  What a mess, but it is fixed, and I am praying for minimal damage.  We did do a full day of school, after all the excitement ended.  I started a new workout routine.  I have been walking since last Oct, but now it is getting too hot, and I want to mix it up a little.  So my husband bought me a video set similar to the P90X system.  I did the first DVD today.  I actually don't feel as sore as I thought I would.  I don't have a balance ball, so on that day we will walk.  Do you exercise?  What do you do?  Caitlin is learning about identifying odd and even numbers.  I thought the videos below were cute, and would help her understand it a bit easier.

Lesson Plans For 05/15/2012:

DJ:
Math:  Saxon 65 chapter 94, plus division and fraction worksheets
Language Arts:  Adjectives
Social Studies:  Map Skills, Middle Ages chaper 40
Science:  Speed and Motion
Writing:  Poetry

Caitlin:
Head of the Class:  3 cycles
Spelling:  Consonant Word Search
Language Arts:  Action Words, Beginning Sounds
Math:  Saxon 1/2, even and odd numbers, measuring and ordinal numbers

Love Bugs, Water Park, Lady Bug Cake and Mother's Day

Friday, we did school.  Not a full day, but still school.  DJ was quite busy.

Saturday was the day we took Caitlin to the water park, for the big part of her birthday gift.  She decided rather than a small party with friends, she wanted to go to Wild Waters in Ocala.  Now normally it is 35 dollars per person to get in.  For four of us that would be 140 dollars, plus parking.  You can imagine I didn't really want to spend that, but I would have.  Lucky for us the local radio stations sponsor the weekends in May, and tickets are reduced to 12 bucks per person, for a total of 48 dollars, plus parking.  If you decide to go in May, be sure to check the Wild Waters website for the radio station sponsoring that weekend.  You will need to mention the radio station to get the deal.  Now for me it wasn't really worth the money you spend.  You see I have a pool, so going to a bigger pool, with some fancy slides really does nothing for me.  But, we all did have a very good time, and then we went out for dinner after.  Wild Waters has alligators, that are native to the outside of the park.  We got to see a young alligator, about four feet, when we were leaving the park.  It was trying to get a turtle, that was trying to eat a piece of watermelon.  The turtle won, lol!  Lovebugs are gross!  Do you know what a Lovebug is?  I am going to have DJ do a writing assignment on Lovebugs.  They are native to FL, and actually lab created bugs by the University of Fl, or at least that is the story.  They were created because it was thought they would be natural predators to mosquitoes.  First of all the Lovebugs are only here a short time, second of all most of the time they are here all they care about is mating.  They were everywhere at the water park.  Really gross just flying all over you, much worse than a mosquito, except they don't bite, they just swarm.  It kind of took the pleasure out of the park.  And, if you hit them with your car, or they hit your car, the insides of the bug are like toxic juice to the paint on your car.  If you don't wash them off pretty quickly, like acid they corrode your paint.  I am not sure why someone thought these bugs were a good idea, but I disagree with them for sure. 

My second ladybug cake came out much better, than the one last Monday.  It was good tasting too!  This one was for Mother's Day at my mom's house today, and Caitlin's birthday.  My mom and I had a wonderful Mother's Day, and I hope all moms did.  It was a beautiful weekend, and now it is raining, which is such a relief.  It is so dry here, and we are in a pretty good drought. 

Tomorrow is our coop day.  I am not hosting, so I am not sure what we will be learning.  Next week is my week, and we will beginning water conservation, for all of my classes.

Happy Birthday To My Sweet Caitlin

My sweet baby girl is eight years old today.  I really can't believe it.  Happy Birthday, Caitlin!

We spent a good part of the day at my Mom's getting her where she needed to be, while her vehicles are incapacitated.  Caitlin got treated to McDonalds which is a real treat, because we hardly ever eat there, maybe once a year.  Tomorrow it is back to a regular school day, and Friday as well.

Happy Nurse's Week!

Happy Nurse's Week to all my nurse friends, readers, and nurses everywhere.  I didn't forget it this year, lol! 

I thought this week was going to be a normal week, well sort of it has.  My mom contacted me on Sunday, because both of her cars are undriveable, and she will not be able to paint on Wed.  I am going over there tomorrow to take her to the bank and get groceries, then maybe we will paint at her house.  I am going to try to help her fix the one car, it sounds simple enough, wish me luck!  The other car is in need of major repair.  Since Sunday is Mother's Day and I was not sure what to give her anyways, money will do nicely at this time for my mom.  It is hard to live on a fixed budget, as she does, and then thinks happen.  This is why we moved to Florida, so we can assist her when needed.

Today is  my baby sister's birthday.  She is 33.  Happy Birthday Flea!  Since we are at the end of the school year, most school days are shorter.  DJ seems to be goofing off though, and taking way too much time to finish the little bit he has to do. 

Lesson Plans For 05/08/12:

DJ:
Math:  Saxon 65 chapter 92, division, and fractions
Social Studies:  Middle Ages chapter 38 and map skills
Science:  Insect Olympics, motion and forces
Language Arts:  Adjectives

Caitlin:
Reading:  Snow
Head of the Class:  3 cycles
Math:  Subtraction, addition, fractions, tally marks
Language Arts:  On the Go, punctuation
Science:  Insect Olympics, Seeds

Dissecting Owl Pellets

Tomorrow is our education coop day, and Ms Marcia is having us dissect owl pellets. Now if you are not sure what that is, but you might think it's owl poo, then you would be correct. You find bones of whatever the owl ate inside the pellets. I am not sure where Marcia got owl pellets from, but I will be sure and ask her. This is a lovely group class. You can use the video below, plus I found a website with all kinds of info to use and share on dissecting owl pellets at Kidwings.

This week should be back to normal, and I will share some of the excitement from last week, later in the week.

Oh What A Week!

I told you all it was going to be a crazy week! I didn't get any of my regular work done, and I think we did like 5 min of official schooling, lol!

Monday was our co-op day and this week we learned about The Galapagos. It was good, but kind of slow. I get bored easily and when you do more talking in such a beautiful place, without images I am bored rather quickly. I wasn't all that impressed.

Tuesday: We did get some school done. DJ had to go through all his pictures and decide which ones to add to his 4H photography book. Since he is also the Historian in our group, he has to make a scrapbook, so we wait for the minutes from the meetings, so we can start working on that. It took almost two hours to go through, mark and date which images he chose. He took so many awesome shots, but since the assignments were so specific you have to really choose the images you took for each assignment.

Wednesday: On Monday my husband said to me, Dave and Lynn want to come for dinner sometime soon. I said, OK please just not Wednesday. On Tuesday he told me they could only come on Wednesday, and were already coming. Wow thanks! Now mind you I love Dave and Lynn, but I was having a house full of kids until almost five, when they were supposed to be coming. I only had like five min in between guests to clean up quick, let the dogs out and feed them, freshen myself up a bit and poof they were here. I was so hot and gross feeling. They are friends though, and good friends, so the only one worried about it was me. Thank goodness we ordered pizza! Dave used to be a chef, and a pretty good one, he taught Craig how to make Bananas Foster. Oh my it was delicious!

Today was our last day to volunteer at the Nature Refuge until Fall. Though Ranger Pam did tell us today that all work from here on out would be indoors, but we have already made a commitment to my mother for the Summer. Today there were horseflies as big as walnuts. I have never seen horseflies this big. No one got bit so that was good. We stopped at the same pond we stopped at many months ago, and it was very dry. Still pretty, but dry. We have had no rain in our area, for two weeks. We didn't see any gators or snakes, thank goodness. After that we went into Cedar Key for some fun in the Gulf of Mexico. If you ever come to my neck of the woods there is a hotel right on the water, shown in pic, view is lovely and quiet. Lots of Pelicans today, at Cedar Key. Ranger Pam did get to show us her nicely painted new classroom. We are excited for when she can start offering classes. She is just full of tons of information. I have to thank Ms Kristi for introducing us to Ranger Pam, and allowing us to help them volunteer. It has been a blast.

Tomorrow is sort of back to normal. We grocery shop in the morning, then I have online work, laundry, and lots of housework to catch up on. I need a vacation, lol! Next week will be mostly quiet, until the weekend that is. I will tell you about that later.