Our trip to the pond this evening to take pictures resulted in these:

I also took some pix of the owner on his tractor to give to him later.

We did homeschool today, and I drank the last drops from the cheap creme soda 2-liter bottle I'd purchased so we can do our water pressure experiment.  We did Circle Time.  We've been singing "This Is My Father's World," "America the Beautiful," and "Holy and Anointed One."  We read more about Joseph in Genesis and another portion from Matthew.  Then we did our kitchen chores, then handwriting practice and grammar and spelling, and language and math drills online (at the Math-U-See website).  We're still reading the Thomas stories (boys) and collection of short stories from St. Nicholas magazine (girls) at bedtime.

I have to confess, I've been feeling a bit like a failure because my 9yo doesn't seem to understand simple subtraction.  We can't really move forward without mastering that.  She does know some of her multiplication facts, but division...forget it.

It occurred to me today that I needed to relax.  This isn't about my ego anyway.  It's about her learning, and learning it well.  She's still young and there is plenty of time to remediate.  Math-U-See looks like just the thing.  I snagged the Alpha and Beta packages on eBay this week; saved a bundle.  Profuse apologies if the person I sniped it from happens to be reading.  All we lack are the manipulatives, which I'll probably buy out of the next paycheck.  Buster's Primer can wait, since I don't plan to introduce arithmetic until first grade.

Pudge napped this evening and allowed me to fold a veritable mountain of laundry.  All the upstairs and some of the downstairs is put away.  Downstairs laundry is a snap, though...I'll finish that in no time tomorrow.  I even got some jello and boiled eggs ready for DH's lunch tomorrow.  (Can you tell we're scraping the bottom of the food barrel?)  Pudge awakened for a midnight snack before I had quite finished it all.  The downside is, he's very well-rested right now, whereas I'm ready to fall over.  Bother. 

I read two novels this week:  The Lovely Bones and The Curious Incident of the Dog at Nighttime.  I'm not a big fan of contemporary novels, but these were given to me by a good friend some time ago and I wanted to read them to give her my thoughts.  I think I liked the latter novel best, though the former was inventive (to say the least).  Maybe more on that later.  I think I measure every novel by my favorite:  The Brothers Karamozov.  And most recently published novels just don't measure up. 

I don't think DH is going to finish the pond(s) by this weekend, so we're probably not going to see much of him at all until middle of next week.  He's been working 'til dark.  He played some X-Box with the boys tonight.

I realized on the way home from the pond-to-be that I need to be thinking ahead all day long.  I tend to slack off after accomplishing my major PODA items, but even speaking to the kids before we pulled in about bringing in their bikes and toys, then heading to the tub (in pairs) really helped move things along tonight.  Usually I don't do that; there's just white noise buzzing between my ears.  Earth to Susie.

More photos.  Chicken caught twin anoles today, her favorite animal.

Chicken and Bug built some houses from Lincoln Logs tonight for their lizards and ponies, respectively.  (Hope I'm not boring everyone to tears with minutiae.)

Seven minutes left on that photo upload.  Then I can paste 'em here and go to bed.  I'll go get some ice water.  Already had a cup of mother's milk tea.

Okay, done!  'Night!