Way long time -- need to post an update.

J-boy and I are still doing Ambleside Online this year... Year 1... like we have been for going on 22 months...  ::sigh:: time standing still in the land of family deaths and estates, etc.

So, let's see, an update since August.  B-girl has been attending college out-of-state and not enjoying it there. It's been very expensive funding her trips home to help her recouperate from home-sickness and other sickness...  She is going to attend school in-state next semester, and I couldn't me happier.

J-boy is bright and learning well.  A good day of school includes nature-study, composer study, read-alouds from Fifty Famous Stories (finished), Our Island Story, Parables of Nature, Comstock Book of Nature Studies, Burgess Bird Book, Pinnochio, (not all on the same day, mind you...), but a bad day includes, "Here's your math book. Do two pages." and "Do a lesson in your handwriting book."

I have also been teaching from Romalda Spaulding's The Writing Road to Reading (TWRR), and it is working well for us.  He learned to read on his own last year, using online program www.StudyDog.com - which I highly recommend for anyone in a panic about teaching reading.  I was truly preoccupied from my homeschooling responsibilities last year by family deaths (4/06, 10/06, 6/07) of my parents (and step-dad), and corresponding responsibilities of being responsible for estates, not to mention being Taxi daughter and bedside attendant during end-of-life times... ::sigh::  I've taken up crafting for my favorite on-line charity (Online Angels) to keep my sanity. I've made amazing things I didn't know myself capable of (baby sweaters, slippers, hats, mittens, afghan squares...).

This year has included much more school, with an accelerated pace on the AO Y1 schedule, in my desire to manage to finish one year of AO before two years had gone by...  As it is, I am still not finished with estates, and have decided to focus during December on estate issues in the hopes that I can wrap up all "estate" issues in early 2008.  (Then I start on "Trust" issues, in the case of my mom, which will include selling personal property, finding living arrangement(s) for sibling(s), etc.)  Don't get me started on why the plural is in parenthesis... One sibling should probably be getting living arrangements through the county penal system before too long...

Well, J-boy just went out back to rake leaves (I'm paying him $1/bag, cause we'd pay someone else if we could find someone willing, and the money certainly motivates him!....), and it's almost 10 a.m. and I'm still in my pj's!...   Off to a quick shower and to dress.

Hope everyone's doing well.