The Sinister Scribe

Pinnacles hike

Finally found the Pinnacles youth camp area to hike around. Had to come back early but it all worked out well. Sam and I played a bit of tennis. Rather we chased the ball for an hour. I am sore and he is now snoring. LOL!

Made another loaf of WF bread today. The recipe is from Gluten Free Baking. I substituted 1/2 cup of soy flour for the same amount of brown rice flour. The bread is moist but not as firm as I want. I’m hoping for somthing as firm as the Bob’s Red Mill “Wonderful” bread mix. Still, it did not collapse completely.

I am now off to plan next week’s lessons and study Latin for a bit. Will get pictures up as soon as I can from our hike today. We will be going back there!

Oh! All 3 of our monarch caterpillars are in their beautiful chrysalis stage now. They look almost too pretty to be real. Will get pictures of those too. Next year I want to plant milkweed to see if we can attract some here too!

Quickie post…Made soap yesterday! If you’re wondering why I used this or that, it is usually because it is what I had on hand.

8/29/09
Fats & Oils
Castor Oil…1oz
Coconut Oil…4oz
Pomace Olive Oil…39oz
Palm Oil…4oz

6.3oz lye
18oz distilled h2o

1.2oz Eos (lavender, bergamot & patchouli)

Notes: Softish. Think I added the EOs when the soap was too hot. So far the scent is very faint but that can change as it dries. Fingers crossed! Next batch I will have to buy some EOs or fragrance as well as oils. Just about out of everything now.

(picture to come later)

Not such a good math day. Sam didn’t do as well as he thought he did.
Tried to explain that math is a “language” in hopes that would help
his outlook. Maybe it will eventually. Not so much at the moment. He
confused “value” and “digit” which changed the format of his answers
BUT he did know where to look within the string of numbers. So I think
that is a good sign and this is only a minor issue of learning new
vocabulary.

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Jessie's new instrument

It is only Wednesday and it has already been a full week!

Jessie invented a “guitar”, painted it and explained it herself here. Too cute! This is all out-of-the-blue with no prompting or help.

Then today she proudly proclaimed, “Mommy! ‘actually’ and ‘architect’ start with ‘A’.” We’ve been working on the letter A this week and she asked (before I could suggest it) if we could make a list of A words. LOL!

Sam is pleased as punch with his progress in Latin and so am I. He even read one of the sentences from MY Latin homework: ” Periculum non parvum erat.” I only had to tell him what “erat” meant and he translated it immediately. He then suggested we put Japanese aside for now to concentrate on Latin. (insert happy homeschooling mom dance) He is also sailing through Singapore math so far!

Yesterday we accidentally went to the library book sale. Seriously. I’d forgotten about it because I’d been avoiding it for so long. (don’t look at me like that I’m being serious) Brought home some great old books… Sam picked out “Shakespeare’s Great Works” O_O and I found some really cool kids books for Jessie, like “The Alligator and the Magic Mouse”. And since alligator starts with A, it was perfect.

A visitor for story time

Oh! Today, while I was reading to Jessie a rather long rat snake peeked in the window. LOL! I really wish I could have gotten a pic of him looking in and Jess looking out.

Found some great gluten-free blogs and info this week too!

Gotta go. Sam is jonesing for the computer and I must clean so that I can dirty it again.

"Mommy! 'actually' and 'architect' start with 'A'." ~ Jessie

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Today was our first day of formal studies for the 2009 – 2010 school year. Can I just say that I am completely wiped out? We didn't get to everything but we did get to a lot. We hit the major subjects. Both had meltdowns at one point or another. Sigh. But it all ended well and with smiles.

Tomorrow is another exciting day. We're looking forward to getting back into Barbara's art and music appreciation program. I hope to find the time to tell you more about it. But now I'm off to get dinner going and mebbe fix myself a cuppa tea.

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