The Christmas Journey Book Winner

The winner of The Christmas Journey has been determined, I used Random.org and the winning comment was:

#15 Charlotte Kay

Congratulations Charlotte :)

Happy Homemaker Monday - #3 - 2011

Hope you're all having a wonderful Martin Luther King Jr, Day!

On with today's list...............

The weather in my neck of the woods:
46 degrees and sunny outside.


Things that make me happy:
Seeing my refrigerator and my shelves full after a grocery run.


Book I'm reading:
Two books for review


What's on my TV today:
Pretty Little Liars on TV tonight
Upstairs Downstairs new version from BBC
Any Human Heart from BBC
The Sinking of the Laconia


On the menu for dinner:
Bangers and Mash

On my To Do List:
Sweep and Mop the floors
Finish the laundry
Change bed linens


New Recipe I tried or want to try soon:
Zesty Lemon Cookies, you can find the recipe over at my food blog.

In the craft basket:

African Flower Crochet Blanket
Crochet Votive Candle jars


Looking forward to this week:
Having a good week of homeschooling and just taking it easy.


Tips and Tricks:
When organizing all your favorite blogs in Google Reader, use folders for each category.  I find it much easier to visit the blogs I'm looking for when I know exactly where they are.



My favorite blog post this week:
Starting a Budget from Scratch over at Alicia's Homemaking


Blog Hopping (a new discovered blog you would like to share with the readers):
A Feathered Nest


No words needed (favorite photo or picture, yours or others you want to share):

Lesson learned the past few days:
That it's up to me to keep my children in the Lord's way and that it's up to me to feed them all that spiritual goodness while they're home. 


On my mind:
Trying to plan the kids birthdays in April, they both want to go back to Disneyland so we're thinking of doing that :)


Devotionals, Scripture Reading, Key Verses:

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

— Psalm 139:9-10

My Crafty Corner - Crochet Votive Candle Holder

I haven't had much time for crochet lately, matter of fact I'm missing my African Flower Blanket and need to find some time to get working on it.

But last night, the family and I sat and watched Everybody Loves Raymond and as we did, I pulled out my crochet hook and a small ball of yarn I had laying around and whipped up this quick jar jacket, which turned into a votive candle holder.

I didn't really use a pattern but I did use inspiration from Lucy's Jar Jacket tutorial.

I ended up making two, one is a candle holder, the other is holding our pens and pencils on the homeschooling desk.

I'm planning on making a bunch more in different size jars, all in white yarn and making a collection for one of my shelves, I think it will look really pretty.

I didn't stick with a double crochet stitch.  I did the first row in DC but then switched to a series of 4 DC in one stitch, skipped 3 stitches, then another 4 DC in the next stitch etc.  Just repeated until the size I wanted, then ended with a single stitch all the way around.

Took me about 30 minutes to complete.

Love the candle glow.  I'm using little votive candles which burn out pretty fast.  I didn't want the jar to get too hot either.

I'm also thinking of buying the little LED candles and using those too.

So there you go, that's what was on my crochet hook yesterday and what will be on there for another day or two.  I'll come back and show you a picture of the finished jars when it's all complete.

Set your DVR's!

It's been such a busy week here in our home and I'm needing some rest and some relaxation which means doing the things that I love, like crochet or catching up on some of my favorite shows.

And boy do I have some good ones to watch......so set your DVR's or head to your Netflix Queue, here is what I'll be watching this long weekend.

Lark Rise to Candleford
Did you know that Season 4 of Lark Rise to Candleford has started?  Oh yes it did, it started last week Sunday and I could have danced a little jig of joy when I found out.  If you haven't yet watched this series, you have no idea what you're missing, good family show very reminiscent of Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, Road to Avonlea and Dr Quinn.
You can find the first two series on Netflix and Amazon.

Upstairs, Downstairs (2010)
This is the newest version of the popular Upstairs, Downtairs tv series from the 1970's.  I've got the first 3 episodes to watch, can't wait.

Here is a trailer:

The Sinking of the Laconia
From BBC:
"On the 12th September 1942 the Laconia - a cruise ship turned troop ship - was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U-156 commanded by Werner Hartenstein. She carried a motley crew of women, children, wounded soldiers and Italian Prisoners of War. Having sunk the ship, Hartenstein should have left them to their uncertain fate in the water, but instead he made the incredible decision to save as many lives as he could. A true story of unexpected gallantry and humanity in the fog of war."

Any Human Heart
The four-part drama, adapted for TV by Boyd himself, intimately depicts the life of fictional writer Logan Mountstuart. In it, Oscar-winning Broadbent plays the older incarnation of the eccentric (and oddly-named) novelist, while Criminal Justice actor Matthew Macfadyen and newcomer Sam Claflin depict his earlier, more naive years.

Spanning nine decades, Any Human Heart tells stories around some of the most significant historic events of recent decades. World War II and the New York art scandal of the '50s and 60s are explored through Logan's eyes, as are his various relationships. Kim Cattrall takes a role reminiscent of Sam in Sex and the City, playing one of the lothario's glamorous lovers when the show starts later this year.

Alice (Syfy Channel)
I love Alice in Wonderland and I do enjoy watching all the different versions out there, so when I found out that the Syfy channel was airing this modern version, I immediately went in search of the details.  I've heard pretty good things about it so I am eager to sit down and watch it. 

Downton Abbey 

I'm sure you've heard me mention this one before, SO good, I absolutely loved it.  I watched it while it was being aired in England but now PBS is showing the series on Masterpiece Theatre and yes, I'm rewatching.  To find out more you can look here.
You can watch Episode 1 and see scenes from Episode 2 which air this Sunday the 16th.  There will be two more airings, January 23rd and the 30th.  Do watch this series, they are superb.

I'm sure you can find something to watch from that list.  Of course I have some Everybody Loves Raymond on DVD and some DVR'd shows from last week waiting to be seen.

I'm determined to settle in for some good tv watching and whip out a bunch of african flowers for my blanket.  I do have to get groceries in the morning and iron some laundry and of course prepare meals but other than that, it's a very low key relaxing weekend which is just what we love around here :)

Hope you enjoy your long weekend too!

Because you just don't learn this at school

First I want to thank you all for the votes in the Homeschool Blog Poll, I so appreciate your input and it seems that the majority want to keep things just as they are.  I'm kinda glad in a way, I don't know if I could handle another blog right now, it's all I can do to keep this one and the food blog updated.

Maybe someday I may just be inspired to open a Homeschool Blog but until then, I guess you'll have to put up with my random posts about schooling and food and crocheting and all sorts of other things.

It was a long day and I mean LONGGGG day and we still have two lessons to get through tonight because my little one is not feeling very well so schooling was kept to a minimum today.

But one thing we did do was have fun with experiments and that is the one thing you just don't learn at school....to get hands on, to try all these different things, to experiment and spend an hour or two gathering and planning.

Everything seems too rushed in public school.  The kids get shuffled from subject to subject, to class and lunch and recess and shoved back into a chair for another couple of hours.  There's no fun, there's no real interaction and I don't care what anyone says....there is NO socialization.

Saying a couple of words to each other over forkfuls of food or 15 minutes of recess which really is no time to do anything at all, is not exactly what I call socializing....but who am I to decide right???

But back to hands on.

One of the things we're most loving about homeschooling right now is the experiments and the projects and doing it together and most of all.....having fun.

Here's a brief look at what we've done the past two days.

Nicholas - Second Grade

Social Studies - We've been elbow deep in Government studies...mayors and governors and presidents and federal government.  We're learning about laws, we're learning about what is where, who does what and what this Country is built upon.



Math - It's all about shapes, lines, symmetry and reflection etc. 



Math Live Lesson with Ms Clark.  Nicholas enjoys these but he is finding them very boring, everything is just way too easy so I'm going to talk to her tomorrow and see what we can do.



Tomorrow morning Nicholas will also be testing for the Dibels.   We'll see how that goes :)

Art - Textures, Lines and what artists use to create.  Today's project was to gather as many different textures as possible and either glue them on a piece of paper or put them in a box.





Here is what Nicholas came up with.  I love how it turned out, I think he did a fantastic job and he was so thrilled to be able to do something like this.  He kept saying "we couldn't do this at school, we could never do this at school".




Jasmine - Sixth Grade

Help me Lord, I'm in trouble.  Jasmine is in the Gifted Program so she is currently doing 8th Grade Language Arts and 7th Grade Math.

So we open up her lesson for yesterday and were met with this and I literally felt sick to my stomach.  Geometry.  NO, No no no no no no, no good.  I am NOT good with Math at all.



We stumbled through it but ended up BOTH learning and both working together to figure out rays and segments and all that other nonsense that is like Greek to me.  One perk of homeschooling, mommy gets to go to school too :)

Health and Physical Education - We learned about the eyes and ears.



Science - We're studying the Oceans and having a BLAST. I'm so thrilled to be doing this right now, I'm learning so so much.  Thank you Lord for giving me this opportunity.



Her experiment for today was all about Salinity and what happens when salt is present in soil or water.



Again, she really loved it and said "Mom, this is great, we would never be able to do something like this in school, I love it".



That is all that I need to hear, because any kind of doubts of whether I'm doing the right thing right now, is completely thrown out the window when my children look at me with smiles on their faces and tell me just how much they love being homeschooled.

It feels good!