No comment here except to say if I had a triple dip ice cream cone like Mr. Spaceman I don’t think I’d be wearing such a terrible grimace …. except, of course, it’s black ice cream … so, there’s that.

This is my niece.

She is equally as cute as my own children.

And no, I’m not just saying that because I’m her aunt.

She’s really into towers right now.

On Friday a piece of my tire started to come off on the highway.  It was a very small piece and besides a terrible clunking nothing disastrous came of it.  That is to say nothing happened on the highway.  Later at the tire shop, looking at the bill for four brand new tires — because of course they all had to be replaced — with a nauseous sort of sinking feeling that had nothing to do with pregnancy I knew that something disastrous had happened indeed.

The remaining day, I filled with sniffles and sobs and “every time we start to get ahead…”.  It was quite pathetic really.  Not until the next morning did the pitifulness start to wear off and it occurred to me that perhaps, just perhaps, it would be okay.  I am a child of the King after all and He’s always worked things out well in the past.  In fact, He’s never failed me in my whole life - though I can think of countless times I have failed Him.

So on Friday I spent $755 on tires and on Saturday afternoon not long after I finally decided to trust God the mailman arrived with a $700 check - the return on an investment made so long ago I had given up on its ever coming.

When will I learn that He knows my every need?  He knows and He plans for them far in advance.  He is never, ever surprised and He is always on time.

I updated this page recently because we’ve been using the Sonlight curriculum consistently for some time now and I was starting to feel a little fake advertising as unschoolers.  But then I came across this note from who knows when written in my own handwriting.  It’s a vote of confidence from me to me.

“Curriculum is not meant to stifle but to encourage.  For this reason unschooling does not necessarily mean avoiding curriculum.  It means that you use curriculum as a guide to move you forward and to introduce you to topics you might not otherwise have investigated.

Of course this assumes that one remains flexible and allows the curriculum to change as necessary always following the needs and interest of the child.  Even so I feel much better.  This homeschooling thing is working and when/if it stops working it’s fixable.   Whew, what a relief.

When the week’s been busy and you’re behind on everything with stress closing in on all fronts; there is really nothing for it but a visit to the park.

Sunshine and smiles cure so many things.

Not sure what it is about slimy liquids that fascinate children so but anything that will occupy two children for an hour is well worth making in my book.  Last time we made slime.  Today - quicksand.

Slowly, so as not to arouse suspicion, hubby seems to be pulling the children toward a more geeky way.  Sometime after our Solar System experiment and after a lengthy discussion of the speed of light, they came up with this little cartoon.

You know when someone tells a joke so funny they almost can’t get it out for laughing so hard?   Well, that was the way of it.  It even occurred to Sister that perhaps they should make a series of “Atom and Sandy” books.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that such lofty humor is often misunderstood by those without geekiness as a dominant trait.

If the Sun were a 3 inch sphere and you could take pictures from that sphere this would be Sister on Jupiter (155.6 ft away).

This would be Sister on Saturn (285.88 ft away)

and this would be Sister on Uranus (574.20 ft away).

Sister would not be able to stand on Neptune or Pluto because you would have long since run out of street and both of those planets would be in someone else’s yard.

Want to do your own Solar System to scale experiment?  Try using these calculations or for more Universe fun try this website.

Had a little Spring blizzard last weekend.  Lots of snow.  The slushy kind that’s doesn’t hang around very long but is just right for building snow people.