The Sinister Scribe

Meet Freddy, Frankie and Bertha. They live in our pool. Jessie and I figured since they were so big, they needed names. This was one of the fun things we did today while Sam was at camp. I do not know if these are bullfrogs or green frogs. I am assuming the big one is female. But I could be wrong.

Today, Sam got to explore Devil’s Icebox home of the pink planarians. Couldn’t find a picture of those. Sorry. I’m rather jealous because I haven’t been there yet.
Tomorrow Sam gets to go to a candy factory. I think Jessie and I will go to the Chocolate shop.

Jessie is down for some quiet time. Sam is at camp. Kirby is asleep on the couch. I’m reading over July’s homeschooling assignments and I think I just had an ephphany! (ouch) Mind you, I’ve already done a lot of the foot… err finger work (typing) but I think this will save time in the future AND (I hope) be more involving (empowering?) for Sam.

For Spelling I’m using much of “The ABCs and All Their Tricks.” (ABCaATT) For July (and purty much the entire year) I had meticulously typed words from different spelling rules (2 rules per week) and entered them and their assignments into HSTracker. Weeeeellllll, what if in the future I just give him the rules I want him to look up in ABCaATT and he:

• chooses and copies down 15 words from each rule assigned (Monday)
• Dictionary work: look up words, copy down syllable separations & parts of speech, read the definitions. (Tuesday)
• rule review, oral spelling test. (Wednesday)
• Dictionary work: origins & Respellings (Thursday)
• Oral Spelling Test, write down missed words for later review, write sentences using all those words, individually or together (Friday)

For Thursday’s dictionary work, he’d have to utilize the computer as our hard copy doesn’t include things like origins. I think I’m OK with that since it would help him practice his touch typing. Tuesday’s dictionary work would be on the hard copy and would give him practice using one the ‘old fashioned way.’ He’s pretty good at that but could use practice.

I also noticed today that I did not put anything into HSTracker for Writing Strands. I’ve already printed out scads of pages for my reference but not Sam’s assignment pages. I think I’ll make these changes before I print his stuff.

Sam has his first day at summer camp today. This is a picture of him canoing for the first time. It was very strange having just one kid today. He’s in the front of the closest canoe. Made me realize just how great a helper Sam is. I need to remember to tell him.

On a whim (I really don’t know why I wanted to do this) I made almond milk today. OMG! Yummy stuff! Basically 1 part blanched almonds to 4 parts water. You have to strain out the almond “pulp” but after that you have something that looks remarkably like cows milk but has a lovely light almond flavor. The pulp can be used in cooking or as a gentle body scrub. LOL! I think I’ll try both.

I think this strange food whim is a result of having to restrict my diet to keep my skin happy. I want to try different things that are really yummy to distract me from things like sugar, yeast breads and caffeine. My forbidden “trio.” Some new things that I CAN have and enjoy the taste of.
My skin hasn’t erupted as badly as I expected after Saturday’s culinary sins but I’m still not feeling great. I don’t know if it is just age or if it is a by product of eating (what I think is) very healthy. The only thing we eat premade any more is pita bread. (well the rest of the family eats it anyway) Everything else I make from scratch.

Well, I’m off to bed. Sam’s early moring (3am to be exact) putterings around the house (due to his pre-camp excitement) interfered with last night’s sleep. G’Nite.

Since Bob has promised our presence at Estrella next year, the planning has begun.

I’ve worked up a beginning budget and it seems doable. If we can save $200/mo starting with July, we can do it. We can save that much IF we don’t eat out and IF we adhere to a strict grocery budget. I’m thinking of putting one of those thermometer icons on the fridge showing our goal and how much we’ve saved. LOL!

One of the things included in the budget is a tent. Midwest Tent has a Norman wedge for a doable price. We’d still have to do the supports ourselves but buying the tent from them is about as much as it would cost for the treated canvas. MTs tent won’t be available for order until September though. I also need to ask them if it can be set up like the viking tent here.

I keep seeing reference to experienced folk saying it is cheaper to make the tent cloth yourself but I am just not seeing that. The Sunforger treated canvas is $5 - $7 per yard and the place I found it at $5/yard had a 50 yard minimum. If I calculated correctly (12.5 oz per yard times 50 yards is 625 ounces) it should weight about 30 pounds. So say $50 for shipping and $250 for fabric. $300-ish. The Viking/Norman wedge at Midwest tent is $370. Hmmm… $70 more and someone else does the sewing with two colors of fabric no less. Me likey! There is however, Highland Tents, that is having a sale on SF flame-retardant canvas for $5.85/yard. Twenty yards of that with shipping should be around $200 but then I’d have to sew it. *sigh* Much to think about…

And much to do. Bob and I need more garb. Hmmm… need to add some money to the budget for fabric. Sam will need garb too. Jessie is set thanks to a good friend with a daughter a little older than she is.
Then there is shoes. For Bob and I at least. Maybe the kids. This could wait if budget demands but it would be nice to be able to make them. I found a medieval shoe list and am waiting for my first post to be approved.
Last, but not least, there is Eilidh’s AoA scroll and a few other scribey things. I need to get them done so that they can be delivered at Estrella. I’m going to have to alternate sewing with scribing I think. ‘Course all this means that Queen’s Prize and the Beekeeping classes will have to wait until 2009.

Yawn. Back to the present. I need to finish packing Bob’s lunch and get to bed. Sam has packed his since he goes to a day camp for the next 2 weeks. It starts at 8:30 a.m. so he’ll be getting up earlier which is good. Right after camp we go back to our serious homeschooling schedule.

Bob and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary today. Huzzah! The actual day isn’t until Tuesday but we had a sitter lined up for today.

We ate at a local restaurant that serves wonderful food. They have the most sinful bread there. Deep fried sourdough! OMG! It was sooooo good. The food was delish too and the service was great.

After that we had planned on hitting the local chocolatier but we had forgotten they close at 5:45 p.m. So we turned around and went to a local coffee shop. I highly recommend their carmel turtle cheesecake. I also recommend sharing with a friend. I couldn’t finish more than half of it. Same with my latte.

So, yes. I hit all my forbidden food groups tonight. I can’t wait to go back to our regular eating pattern. LOL! The food and goodies were great and all but I just feel kinda bleh now.

It was great to have a few hours of just the two of us. Kinda weird not having to jump up for any reason. At one point we were pondering what our lives will be like when we celebrate our 30th anniversary. Bob pointed out that Sam would be an adult and I was unable to suppress an involuntary shudder.

So, a toast to the next 15! I know they will be as exciting as the last.

You know those podcasts I found in the wee hours this morning. Well, I burned some of them to CD, the NOVA ones, so we could listen in the car on the way to the Library. Well, one of the podcasts was on Sir Isaac Newton and his interest in alchemy.

So what did Sam want to look up at the library… books on alchemy. The search took us on our first foray upstairs into the grown-up section. The book we found, “Alchemical Psychology.” I’m sorry, my jaw just shattered on the floor. Lemme go glue it back together. BRB.
All because of a four minute podcast… on Newton… It will be interesting to see how this “rabbit trail” pans out.

I really feel unprepared for this one.

I sat down at the time-warping gadget computer to quickly check email and go to bed. That was 10:30 p.m. … it is now midnight. *sigh*

But this is so cool!!!!!!!!!!

I stumbled upon a new homeschooling related blog called Homeschooling Journey and thier post on Frugal Curriculum. Yeah, I know. Why look at that NOW when I’ve already BOUGHT EVERYTHING. Anyhoo. It mentions using radio as part of your curriculum. OMG! Duh. ( smacks self on head) With great podcasts from Science Friday and NPR. It shouldn’t be too hard to find some great stuff. From some reason, I even have iTunes software installed!

So now I’ve subscribed to:

• Science Friday
• PRI’s The World: GeoQuiz
• Classicool Kids
• Nova: ScienceNOW
• Nova
• Kids Music: Spare the Rock, spoil the child

Looks like I need a whole new section on my homeschooling links page! Besides podcasts, there are things like RadioLovers.com.

Granted, I haven’t HEARD anything from them yet. It is midnight after all. Hey! Waitaminute! I do have headphones!! Mebbe I’ll listen to just one thing before going to bed.

My quandry over a name for my 10th century Danish persona is nothing but worse. At first I liked the name Ithunn (pronunced EYE-thewn with the “th” being aspirated as in “that”.”) Now, I am now so sure.

Bob and I had intended to submit new names at Lilies but didn’t get a chance. So of course that gave me time to go back through the Viking Answer Lady’s Norse Women’s Names page, this time looking specifically at Danish spellings. Several new possiblities came to mind: Thyrwi (pronounced THEER-uh, with a soft ‘th’, I think) or Thorwe, Thorkatla, Thorfinna, Thorgard. The neat thing about the names that start with “Thor” is that the short form of “Tova” is used. This just happends to be the name of my friend from high school with whom I still communicate via email.

As far as last names… well… so far I like Arnbiorn (eagle bear). I’m still not clear whether it should have -dattir, -dottir or….?

We did it! Our first overnight camping trip in years.
We arrived Friday evening in time to see the fireworks. It was really hot still and we pretty much just climbed onto (not into) our sleeping bags once camp was set. I was very itchy and worried that I wouldn’t make it through the night but a Benedryl helped a lot.

Next morning came way too early but we managed. Bob made a great breakfast of scrambled eggs and ham, coffee and tea. It was greedily consumed!

The day quickly became hot and much of it was spent trying to escape that. My linen coif was usually wet. I need to make several so that I have a clean one for each day and a spare for court if necessary. The lake was a blessing and a curse. It did make the heat more bearable but it also made sunburn inevitable. None of us weren’t burned too badly. We kept applying sunblock but the water would quickly wash it away.

Both Sam and Jessie did very well in their first lake swim. The all the swim area was about shoulder height on Sam. At one point he was being tossed in the air (flipping too) and came up with a big grin. Maybe instead of swim lessons, we just need to go to more lakeside wars? Jessie was not sure about the squishy mud at first, but soon discovered it made great mud pies.

By late afternoon we were all overheated. Sam was looking kinda bad so we decided to pack it up. We were really hoping to make it to court and the heraldic display competition (This is what those tabbards were for) but didn’t think we could make it. As it turned out, we were packed up just in time to make it to the 6:30 p.m. judging line-up. So we made it to that and left right after.

I feel bad for not usually being able to make it to court. I like to see who gets recognized for what. I still don’t know if Amlesmore won the heraldic display competition! But right not it is just not possible (or pleasant).

So we’re home now, recovering. Planning what we’ll do different for next year at Lilies.

Today will be spent packing everything (including the kitchen sink) into the minivan so that we can leave when Bob gets here. ‘Course I need to clean out the minivan first. Then there’s shopping for food.

I finished Jessie’s Eura dress. It is very cute with the machine embroidery on it. Mine is put together but the seams need finishing. I am crazy going to do those by hand. I figure I can wear it at least once without all the seams finished. *fingers crossed* The bottom hem is done though.

The only worry is that the adapter for Bob’s CPAP won’t get here on time. It is due to arrive today… sometime. UPS usually delivers by 4 or so if not earlier.

One last thing before I hit the shower. From the Norse2 email list I found Scanglas AB. They are a company in Sweden that does museum quality replicas in glass, pottery and metal. Some really cool pieces from the Viking era. No prices though. I am sure they are beyond my budget anyway. The pottery pieces I could probably give a good go myself, but the metal items I think I would rather buy.

OK. Better get going!