There was a pottery store

Down the road

Now it would be trendy

Like espresso

Yet it wasn't trendy

Because some thought

The owner was a crochety old man

The truth was

He was ancient

Yet all in the same breath

He had more energy

Than a million two-year olds

And his mind was a swirl of colors

Not the usual gray matter

In the store

There was terra cotta

Blue glaze

Boxes, cups, bud vases

Flower pots, honey jars

Majolica

Hand painted daisies

After angels lit

And some slunk off

The store was raided

Hard clay hurled

Pieces lay in tiny shards

The ancient of days

Wept and allowed his son to

Enter the store to

Salvage the pieces

Blood came from

The places the pointy

Pots pierced

So much was broken

By the afternoon

He lay on the wooden floor

And cried "It is finished!"

An orange orb appeared

Over the place

But more radiant

Than the sun was the Son

And one by one

The pots were pieced together

Better than any super glue

There were no cracks

My son likes astronomy and rockets and so I wasn't sure how he would respond to this story about about a Japanese poet.  He has done well studying it though and even worked with me, hesitantly, to write two haikus.  So now we will have a little more poetry for the blog.  Here they are.

Winter haiku #1

It was cold outside

I was walking in the snow

Ice cracked under me

Winter haiku #2

Deer climbed down the hill

looking for something to eat

paws dig crunchy snow

These truly describe the outdoors around our house right now.

The other day I got to go grocery shopping without my young children, during the day, on a weekday.  I go to the same church as a lady who works in the bakery section of the grocery store I went to.  She looked surprised to see me alone.  It hardly ever happens.  I hadn't been to the grocery store in three weeks because it snowed and snowed and snowed.  We just stayed home rather than risking getting stuck out there.  It's been one of those winters where the sight of the sun is scarce and I like to see the sun.  Just now I saw pink on the snow so I ran to the other side of the house to see one of those orangey-purple sunsets over the icy landscape.  Ooh it's good to see the orange over the cruchy cold outside.  Now, back to the reason why I was alone, grocery shopping on a weekday.  This month I am on jury duty and my husband stayed at home and tried to work and take care of the kids while I went to do my service.  I got down the icy hill without too much slippy-sliding and went to the courthouse.  I was one of the lucky 14 to get in the jury box for questioning.  It was a battery case.  The judge asked some questions, then the prosecuting attorney and the defense attorney did the same.  The defense attorney, a youngish woman, smiled really big at us as she introduced herself and I smiled really big back at her.  I think maybe the prosecuting attorney saw that and decided I was on her side.  I did not get picked.  So, if you don't want to get picked for the jury try smiling really big at one attorney and not the other one.  After that I did my grocery shopping and got back home so my husband could go back to work.

The next day my son started ski lessons at the local ski resort.  It took a lot to get everyone up and ready to leave by 7:30 and then when we were about to leave my son's skis were no where to be found.  He had given them a test run a few weeks ago and then, like I said, it snowed like there was no end.  We were concerned and stressed that he had left them out beside the house and that they were buried under 3 feet of snow. We gave him an earful about being responsible. My husband finally tracked them down in our shop and we made it to the ski place in time after all.  I carried the 1 year old, boots and diaper bag and had the 3 year old tag along.  The child taking the lessons carried the skis.  It was much colder up on the mountain than down where we live and the wind was blowing.  I had images of the younger ones and I hanging out at the lodge drinking hot chocolate but that was not going to be the case.  We got to the lodge to sign in and then the three of us trekked over to the ski school sign to drop the student off.  The younger two came back to the lodge.  The three year old cried most of the time on our treks across the snow.  I got back to the lodge and realized I did not have my purse or keys.  A panicky feeling crept into my heart.  I told some ladies I knew and trusted at the lodge and they offered to look after the kids while I tried to retrace my steps.  I didn't  find the purse so I left the diaper bag and took the kids to find the security person.  We marched back out to the truck and flagged the security guy down.  He had me fill out a form that said he wasn't  responsible for any damage to the truck.  He got it open and the alarm wailed.  I turned it off and grabbed my purse.  Then we walked back to the lodge again.  When it was time to get the ski student I left the younger two again with the friends (they weren't happy) and got him.  Sometimes I ask myself why I don't just stay home.  At least the ski lesson went well.

In between Christmas and New Year's Day we took one day to finish up Wee Gillis from Five in a Row.  We learned about Scotland and listened to a great bagpipe demonstration from YouTube.  We have a bagpipe band where we live and I wanted to go see them but it just didn't happen.  It is starting to snow and snow and snow.  I am not motivated to try sliding down our driveway right now (I go only if I have to).  Today we talked about the difference between wool (like they wear in Scotland), cotton and synthetic fibers.  We also learned where Scotland is on the world map.  We did more but those are the highlights of our Scotland study.  With Christmas we kind of did a bare bones study but I hope some learning was still accomplished.

I am taking part in an unofficial poll and contest done by the Homeschool Blogger people.  I think I already answered some of these questions in a previous post.  If this doesn't interest you by all means skip it and read other postings that might be of interest to you.

1.  Why did you start a blog? I've wanted a way to put my writing "out there" so that people could keep up with me and actually read my poetry.  Now I have more incentive to write it because I think it might actually get read here.

2.  What did/do you hope to accomplish with your blogging? I would like people to be able to see what I'm doing day in and day out with homeschooling and other areas of my life and if people like poetry I finally have a place to put it where it might get read.

3.  Have you found that you don't post as much as you did when you started? I just started so I don't know.

4.  If yes, why not?

5.  How important are comments to you?  I have one comment so far.  That's great.  I really didn't expect any.  I kind of wanted a comment from someone I knew and this one was from someone I didn't know but that's fine too.

6.  Do you ever find yourself wishing people would not always leave comments that agree with you? No, I like when they agree with me.

7.  Do you comment on other people's blogs a lot, sometimes, or very little? I comment very little on other people's blogs.

8.  What determines why you don't post a comment on someone else's blog? I pretty much have time to write my own blog.  I don't take time to comment on other people's.

9.  What determines why you do post a comment on someone else's blog? It helps if I know the person.

10.  Do you have more than one blog?  Where? No.

11.  Do you read random blogs either off of random blogger or friends lists? Sometimes.

Last week's school was cut short because we went to the Seattle area to attend my grandma's funeral.  Her final words before her death were "Thank you, Jesus.  Thank you, Jesus.  Hallelujah!"  I like that.

Anyway, we are back to our Owl Moon week in Five in a Row.  There are a couple of web sites where my student will be able to dissect an owl pellet that I think I will try to do.  I might do something a little different and do an owl craft too.  I've heard owls around here hooting at night just like the book talks about.  The next time I hear one maybe we will try to go out and see it; even if it is late.

My mom gave me some of that nice smelling Bath and Body Works liquid hand soap.  I got it out when I ran out of soap in my bathroom.  It was one of those nice tall bottles.  About two weeks after putting the full bottle by the sink I went in and there was about a quarter of a bottle left.  My husband and I called in number 1 son and asked him if he knew why the soap had almost run out so quickly.  He said, "I used ten pumps of it the other day because I accidently touched cat poop."  I'm not sure how he came to touch the cat poop.  Another day he picked something up by the door and asked what it was.  It turned out to be a dead bat that the cat had left as a gift.  I said, "Wash your hands immediately."  I heard him washing in there with the door shut and I think that is what really started the ten pump hand washings.  Really I am happy that he washed after touching what he touched.  I explained that it wasn't really necessary to use quite that much soap. Today I found an easy recipe for liquid hand soap, using the hotel sized soaps, on the internet.  I tried it out and it worked pretty well.  Some of the hotel soaps are getting pretty nice and I happened to have a Bath and Body Works one from a hotel.  You grate one bar of soap and put it in a glass mixing bowl with 3 cups of water and microwave it for 3 minutes.  Let it cool.  Mine congealed so I whipped it back into more liquid form with a fork.  Then I took a funnel and poured it in.  It was kind of thick and goopy and it didn't go through right away so I pushed on it with a spoon and got it to go in.  I was pretty pleased with my recoup on the wasted soap.

On Tuesday nights we usually go over to our neighbors house for a Bible study/Home group.  We don't go to the same church but they invited us and we really like going.  This week they were handing out bags of fallen, wormy apples so they wouldn't go to waste.  If they get rid of them the local bear might be less likely to come into their yard.  My husband promptly grabbed two bags and took them out to the car.  Later our hostess was asking another lady if she would like a bag and she asked if the apples were edible as is, to which the reply of course was no.  The lady who was considering taking the bag said that she was too busy to worry about what to do with them.  I said, "I think I'm too busy too."  Today I found a recipe for Crock Pot apple butter though and while my kids were fighting and the baby was digging into a box of choking hazards I peeled and chopped 15 apples.  Everyone survived and I still have almost a bag and a half left.  

The gymnasts flip

The politicians do too

No one is perfect

I'd give him a 6

He leans on himself

Not on the creator

And tension fills the air

as she falls off the balance beam

This is a homeschool blog site so I might as well tell you what Kristian and I are doing with homeschool.  We've returned to using Five in a Row this year.  It is a literature based unit study.  We are taking one great children's book and studying one book per week.  We also do Shiller Math, copywork for handwriting and Kristian is reading the Christian Liberty Press Reader about different animals for reading.  He has just read, on his own,  a children's version of Treasure Island too.  After Five in a Row  we have been studying Apologia Science's elementary astronomy book.

This week with our Five in a Row we have been reading Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car.  Our vocabulary word for today was convertible (the motor car is a convertible) and we are going to try to use the word convert in our conversation this week.  I got a signed copy of this book from E-Bay for under $10.00, including the shipping.  That was fun. 

Today Kristian also helped me write a speech about why we should not look directly at the Sun.  I wrote some key words down on a note card and had him give the speech and he did quite well. 

Gummy raisins

sweet potato glop

ugly bibs

grubby hands and face

transforms to crumbs, crumbs, crumbs

under the chair and everywhere

syrupy armrests

feet precariously perched

on the green booster seat

no, no, no, get down, sit down

cut, cut, cut pieces into miniscule meat

graduation from milk moustaches

brings such welcome relief