Goings-On

The summer is going fast!  I have been spending the past several days trying to get together my order for the coming school year, but the normal interruptions of a mother's life have kept me from completing it.  That, and the state of general confusion that this tasks leaves me in after about ten minutes of concentrating on it.  If I didn't think my children would curse me some years down the road for neglecting my parental and educational responsibilities, I would un-school.  In this house un-schooling looks more like non-schooling, and we would be a fine story for the prime time news, now, wouldn't we?

Now that we are home at last from all of our running around the Midwest this summer, the Diamonds family is set to put our minds and bodies to the work of establishing a new church.  Although it is in its infancy, we have not had one Sunday yet in which my dear husband had to preach to just his own family.  That is a blessing!  


We spent last week at family camp and had a blast.  The campground and pavilion are in the middle of Nowhere, North Dakota, and used to be a hang-out for Glen Miller and Guy Lombardo and the likes.  I keep wondering where the people came from to hear them play, because there is just nothing out there but lovely canola fields!  After that it was a county park and a hang-out for wild teenagers.  But for the past 41 years it has been a place for God's people to be strengthened and refreshed spiritually. The Lord blessed our family so much, cementing a recent friendship with this great missionary family to the foreign peoples of Chicago.  I see another trip coming...

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UPDATE:

I finished my school order!  Hip! Hip! Hooray!

We have not been scholars at all this summer, not since maybe around March.  It has been a very long break, and the girls are getting tired of being lazy.  I have seen some signs of their minds stirring in the past few days.  Alison is going to take the GED and be officially done with school this year, but she will continue to feed her hunger for knowledge.  She has been working hard teaching herself conversational Hebrew, which is practically useless in the USA in 2011, but we trust God has put this passion into her heart for a good reason.  Who knows what opportunity might present itself?  She is also reading up on all things Israeli, following the Jerusalem Post, watching Israeli talk shows (in Hebrew!), and looking for someone to converse with.  Piano and violin are still in the works, and she will be attempting to rebuild her student base. Maybe I can get her to be a homeschool tutor, too!  Now that would be helpful here!

I stopped at the library last night and found this book on the sale table, almost brand new, for 50 cents:

Amy has had her nose in it ever since I brought it home, save for a few hours of sleeping.  Sadly, her good camera, which was, in fact, on its way out, but still very useable, was accidentally Kevorkianed and suffered a quick, rather than a lingering, death.  (Does that sentence hold a record for the most commas?)  Anyone have a really good late-model digital camera you have no use for?  Maybe you have decided it is too bulky and you have replaced it with a smaller one, and you know that eBay won't bring anything for it, but you can't bear to throw it out?  Amy is a good cause.  She would even pay the shipping on it. :)  Also in her talent repertoire, sewing and crafting.  She has once again broken open the sewing supplies and is in the process of making a sock-monkey-turned-sock-elephant. 

Elisabeth is a budding writer.  This is the girl who needs a stage to complete her.  Her creativity tickles me. A quote from her latest work:

Ben removed a book from his backpack. It was titled, Thoughts of an Alligator.
“What’s that book about?” asked Tom.
“A man who trains an alligator, that later escapes and causes an uproar in the White House.”
Uninterested, Tom put back his head and closed his eyes. Thankful that they had finally found the plane, and now assured that the rest of the trip would be peaceful, he fell asleep.

:)

Emily... is dying to start school!  She will be doing mostly ACE this year, with a bit of Christian Light math thrown in.  I unpacked a box of books the other day, deep in the bottom of which was our Draw-Write-Now series.  I love it when something old becomes new and exciting again. :)  Emily has now created a paper menagerie of giraffes, elephants, and zebras for me find a home for.  I'd take a photo of her excellent zebra to share with you, but the camera is out of reach and I am at the wrong computer, and any other excuse that will do.

Also in the news here, I have been doing some sleuthing for extra-curricular homeschooling activities in our new local area.  Stuff such as speech or drama or orchestra.... nothing we can participate in unless I want to do a lot of driving, and I don't.  So it will either be a quiet year, or we will come up with something else!  In the process I have come in contact with old acquaintances who are still in the general area... maybe more socializing is in the works.

Well, that's our life in bits and pieces, with more to come.  Thank you, all you faithful friends who have been leaving comments in spite of my not reciprocating.  My computer is dead, so my time here is limited!  :(  And, my apologies for the small print.  For some reason, my blog is now ignoring all font and size requests.