Tuesday 10/30

Woke after 8. Had terrible migraine all night. Still have it now at 10:54 but I haven't gotten sick to my stomach which is a blessing.





H and W got up and went to 9:00 mass and then chemistry.





Everybody slept late except R who went to work on the earlish side.





I let B and S watch more TV, ick way too much screen time lately while I got my bearings and took a shower.





J took a shower as well.





Breakfast was English muffins and tea.





Said 2 decades of the rosary. Then I read the next chapter in Kat Finds a Friend. Now B and S are upstairs listening to The Glass Elevator on cd.





J and did part of his review section of FMMA and now he's working on math homework. I'm about to prepare for the Brit Lit class.

I read all about Robert Southwell and wrote up an outline for my class. Headache didn't go away until about 11:30.

Tidied up house and got everybody the very basic rudiments of lunch.

Class went really well. I gave a little lecture about Southwell and had some good discussion going. We broke for scones and then read The Burning Babe aloud. Then we watched the next show in A History of Britian. All about Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. Mary had such a terrible life!

After class was over I collapsed. I have been puttering about both in the house and on the computer not doing anything very constructive. My brain feels fried. H ran some errands, W is on the computer. I have no idea where J even is!!!!! B and S have been alternately watching TV, playing and running around outside.

I plan to whip up some kind of pasta dish for dinner and read the next chapter of Sophie's World to the teens. H has Theology of the Body this evening. We also need to focus on costumes for All Saints Day and I've got to come up with potluck stuff for tomorrow's Halloween party as well as All Saints. Haven't planned anything in that regard! I think we might go shopping for all this tomorrow morning then come home and carve the pumpkin. I have a drs appt at 1 and then maybe VT at 2:30; H and W have guitar lessons. Then I'll cook for the potluck. Kids can work on their All Saints costumes.

Monday 10/29

Woke nice and early! Actually felt rested.





S got up early too so we chatted a bit. He was getting excited about planning a chain reaction machine. Made him take a bath and wash his hair.





W got up. H slept in very late. But got up just in time to make it to Spanish class which she is now auditing. There was supposed to be a test today but apparently because she's auditing she can't take.





Said rosary with W, J and S. B came in for the last decade. Very grumpy.





Breakfast - cereal and hot rolls. J dawdled terribly about finishing up his math homework. W worked on his math as well, not very productively.





Did a little mental math with B and S. B wanted to count by 2's, 6's and 3's. Did rounding to the nearest 100th with S. Then reviewed briefly the different phonics rules S has done so far this year:

1. words with silent '-K



2. words with double 'ee's



3. rules for adding -ed and -ing to e c-v-c words as well as words ending with silent e



4. compound words



5. adding -ed and -ing to words ending in -y



6. words with -ay



7. words with -igh

Math tutor just arrived. J did finish most of his homework before she arrived. He had a couple problems he was shakey on. S is drawing cartoons and B has gathered up all her baby dolls and is reading them stories.

I have about 4 loads of laundry to put away right now!

4:34 p.m. - rest of the morning went quite nicely. S spent much of the morning drawing pictures, practicing gymnastics and playing piano. B played a lot with her babydoll. She pretended an old broken walkie talkie was her own cell phone and that she was a working woman with a baby! I was her babysitter and had to take care of her doll for her! She kept saying she had an important conference to go to. Then suddenly she got the bad news via her cell phone that she'd been fired! But it was okay because that meant she could stay home with the baby! Where does she get this stuff????

I made the boys clean up their room some more while I went downstairs and tidied up basement. I got my laundry (mostly) put away.

J and W finished up math with the tutor.

Cleaners came and house looks good now! We ate lunch. B played a lot on Starfall. I don't know what S and J were doing. H and W read through the next chapter in Chemistry.

After shower J and I did some Latin and history. I got very sleepy during it. B and S played outside for a while. H went for a walk and W is playing a new videogame. I'm doing more laundry.

Right now B and S are watching EWTN kids shows.

Notes on rest of the day: well, the kids pretty watched the tube for the rest of the day. Arthur, Wayside, etc. I managed to bake some chicken drumsticks for dinner but that was it! I quickly prepared for RE. J, H and I all went off to do that. W babysat S and B who watched Chicken Run. R came home and helped W with Chem.

The RE class was fun. Dr. T taught the lesson but then we played a saints bingo game that I have and it wound up being quite fun!

Came home and got little ones to bed. They want R to put them to bed because he's reading them Wayside series again. J read the next chapter in Mystery of the Periodic Table. But then he stayed up really late watching Narudo on the computer downstairs.

R, W and I stayed up until midnight watching October Sky which was an excellent movie but right around 11:30 it triggered a migraine.

Friday 10/26

H and W got up at 5:30 a.m. to take breakfast and go to 6:15 a.m. teen mass. My alarm went off at 5:25 but I turned it off. The next thing I knew B was in bed with me and it was 8:19 a.m. Holy cow, I haven't slept that late in ages. Very dark, gloomy, rainy weather. Wonderful for the drought and sleeping late!

Got up quickly and got J up. He had St. George Club today. That's 9 o'clock mass, talk with Fr. D. and then since it's raining they went bowling.

Took shower, finished addressing postcards, gathered library books. Went to Starbucks and got breakfast, then library to pay incredible fine for late books, then post office to mail off postcards. Kids helped me stamp and mail them. Then we stopped at Great Harvest and bought cheese bread and challah. Came home, B and S got books out on gymnnastics and starting trying out different things.

J is home now with bunch of boys; playing downstairs.



H and W must have gone to Chemistry early. Did W tag along?



H and W came home and ate. Nice visit with I. The St. George boys came to play so we had a slew of young gentleman running around the house and playing pool downstairs. B went over to neighbors house to play. She's had a regular playdate there at 3 every Friday for several weeks.



S went over to Joseph's house to play. St. George boys went home. J is playing on the computer. W has been on the computer as well and practicing guitar. Now he's outside in the rain wandering around the backyard. It has been a very gray rainy day all day.



B came home. We watched Angel Force on EWTN and now she's watching recorded Wayside school shows. H was trying to nap.



H and W are going to see movie Bella tonight.

9:18 p.m. R just got home. I sat at the PC for a couple of hours whiling away time researching how to start up a school. Really I'm thinking more of a resource center type thing. That's been my daydream the last couple of days. The kids have been giving me their input.

For dinner, I made broiled fish. We had the challah from the bakery and applesauce to go with it. B had strawberries. W practiced his guitar some more. He loves to play that thing! W wanted to say the rosary after dinner since we hadn't said it earlier. W, B and me said it, J started but then left after the first decade but H joined us on the 3rd. After that W took a shower. I read B a couple books from the library. Then S came up and said he wanted to learn to draw. He got the drawing bug yesterday out of the blue. He showed me a cartoon picture he had copied. Pretty good! I found Mark Kistler's site on line and S tried to draw the rocket pencil of the 1st lesson. I kept telling J to practice his pieces for the recital tomorrow. He's great with one but not so hot on the other. But right now R is reading to them all from Wayside. Actually they all decided to get in their PJs and then daddy would read to them.

10/25 Thursday

Woke early - worked on ideas for novel. Took a long time for everyone to get down for breakfast. Never got rosary said. Hoping for lunchtime after math tutor leaves. Spent a lot of time this a.m. making phone calls, looking for things, chatting, waiting for R to leave. He's going to see his mom. S kept playing Greensleeves on piano. We looked it up and saw a version written by Henry VIII which amazed S. B and I spent a while looking for a veil for her wedding costume.





H got up early for mass and Spanish. She wants to audit the course and take it for real next semester. She's getting a C- in right now which the teacher didn't think was bad and thought she could pull it up to a B but she feels like the course goes so fast and she doesn't have a good enough grasp on it as it is.





W and J worked on finishing up math homework. B and S and I went downstairs. B wanted to do mental math first. We wound up working on the white erase board adding numbers up to ten. Then I did the next mental math with S which was writing out numbers and identifying place value of different numbers. We also worked on rounding to the nearest tens. He liked it.





Then S and B and I sang songs. Kept getting interrupted by the phone. After that we reviewed -igh sound and S did short exercise in LLATL on ight words. Fill in the blank. B and I reviewed 5 words she'd learn so far. Me, jump, said, look and ride. I went over all the phonics rules for each and we sounded them out. Then B wanted to knit, we got out a kit but it was too complicated and I couldn't find my 1st grade OM teachers book for simpler instructions. S wanted to paint which was amazing because he never wants to paint. So we got all the paints out and he started working then B joined him. S got out the Cartooning book and started teaching himself how to draw faces.





J finished his math and then listened to music on the computer. W keeps practicing Smells Like Teen Spirit on the guitar. Sounds pretty cool. J is now with the math tutor.





I am starting lunch right now. Want to: read aloud at lunch, say rosary, watch October Sky movie (dreary, dreary weather out). Also, I am going to have an official reading time this afternoon. W needs to work on chemistry. But he can read as can J their science books. I want to read aloud next OM fairy tale and a couple more Bible stories to B and S. I also want to review Latin and History with J this afternoon.





We have to bring breakfast to the 6:15 Mass tomorrow.





H starts her first SAT Prep course this evening.



I forgot about the teen rosary this afternoon. H and W went to it. J and I watched first half of October Sky, a movie about a coal miner's high school son who became enchanted with rockets after Sputnik.

In the evening I read the next fairy tale from OM to S and B and also the next few bible stories on Isaac and Rebekah.

Wed. 10/24

11:25 a.m.





Woke late, 7:15. Cloudy, rainy day.





Took a while to get everyone moving. S and W took showers. W led two decades before breakfast. We planned our day. H is interested in learning phil and Theology more systematically because of last nights Theo. of the Body class. W practiced lots of guitar.





After breakfast. S and B played on Starfall.com and pbskids. J practiced piano (has recital this Sat.) but didn't do his math.





I read next chapter of Sophie's World to teens. Made outline of what we're learning.





Worked with J on Latin. Made paradigm flashcards. He reviewed some vocab flashcards and then translated 5 sentences. Also we did study questions on Clovis for history. H took shower and read CCC. W worked on Latin on computer for 45 min.



2:52 p.m. Went to noon Mass. Said the rest of the rosary on the way home. H and W went out to get pizza for lunch. S had tuna, I ate the last 3 chix taquitos. Took a shower. Took S to VT all set to have a reading lesson w/B while we waited but she wasn't there again. I thought maybe there was just a mix up last week, but why isn't she there this week???????? Strange. I am going to e-mail her. I hope nothing is wrong.



Guitar teacher is here. I told J to work on his Nanowrimo workbook before I left. Need to hunt him up and see what he's doing. He also needs to do his math homework.

W helped J with math. I think it had to do with coordinates. J decided that he wanted to try to write a page a day (double spaced) M -F as his goal for the Young Writer's Project. He's got a story in mind which sounds pretty cool!

Took B and S to gymnastics. S and I went to costume store and bought Halloween costume supplies. Haven't quite finished yet. S is going to be Harry Potter and St. John the Evangalist. Don't have the St. John costume together yet. B is going to be a bride and St. Veronica. Need to work on both costumes. J has everything he needs I believe.

Picked up J at chess club. Came home and made bacon and eggs. Took W to CLC. H was had a babysitting job. Came home and made more bacon (turkey kind this time). Kids played on computer and dressed up in their Halloween costumes. R came home. Made him bacon and eggs. Said prayers. R read Wayside to kids. S read me a chapter 2 page chapter from the book.

I assigned Mystery of the Periodic Table to J and Uncle Tungsten to W.

I read a bit of Joan of Arc. I am going too slowly through that book, need to read more. R and I talked late into the night about religion and stuff. Didn't get enough sleep!

Wednesday 10/17

11:01





Been a chaotic morning. Woke late, got really involved in planning Am. Studies for next year and didn't get anybody up until almost 9! They've been staying up so late at night. Bad habits rearing their ugly heads!





Said 2 decades of the rosary. Really hard getting everyone settled. Had spat with H over college and her not working hard enough on her studies. I just don't want to spend all that money so that she can have a good time but not really work at her studies. So I told her the ball was in her court. If she wants to go to a private Catholic away college, she's has to make good grades in her high school coursework. That must have left me in an irriated frame of mind. Then poor B is constipated so she's been suffering great melodrama from this. I wound up putting her the tub. Then when we went downstairs to start school, we uncovered the garter snake that's been living in our basement. W tried to catch it. I lost my temper badly about everything, basically motherhood. Then I calmed down and said we were just going to play. But B wanted to put the sundials out again (didn't do it yesterday because the pool table truck was parked in the driveway most of the morning/early afternoon.





H showered and I have no idea what else she's been doing. (she told me later she'd been working on Spanish).





W practiced guitar, did some math and goofed off, besides catching and releasing a snake.





J practiced piano, did some Latin and also some math.





At some point earlier, S did read to me from his reader. I just read this to B.





We are leaving for noon mass in about 25 minutes.



3:06 p.m. Before mass I read B the book 12 Ways to Get to Eleven, which is a fun adding book. We were late for Mass (again!) BUT the priest was 15 minutes late so it turned out okay. H was really sad and cried on the way. I feel paradoxically too hard on her and too easy at the same time. Mass was very uplifting. Remembered to finish saying the rosary on the way home.



Got home, showered, did history with J on St. Benedict and Pope St. Gregory the Great.



Took J (and B) to VT but Dr. Malhotra wasn't there! Did she cancel or tell me beforehand????? Very unlike her. But I did a tiny bit of reading with B while we waited. I always bring her little reader with us just in case she wants to do a little one on one reading with me.



H is learning the theme song to Beauty and the Beast on guitar. The guitar teacher is here now. W's lesson is over. W's making himself a sandwich then hopefully he will now do Latin or math homework.

10/16 Tuesday

10:39 - got up at 7. Finished reading The Wife of Bath's tale. Got everyone up at 8:15. S took shower. Said 2 decades only. . . .sigh. Put on laundry, unloaded dishwasher.



At breakfast read the story of St. Margaret Mary Alocoque. H and W went to mass and chemistry.



We put out our sundials again at 9:30 and shaded in shadow.



J - practiced piano and did a little Latin.



S and B sang songs, did mental math. S told time from classroom clock. B did number sentence houses for 8 and 9 in her ML book.



S did some VT and spelling words on white board and a word search for spelling words. Read just one page of reader before the new pool table arrived. Right now all is chaos because the workman are putting the table together and B, S and J are really excited. R is home from work today.

Had Lit class. Everybody discussed the Canterbury Tale they read and then we took a sparknotes quiz. Watched next show on dvd series, Black Death. Very interesting.

After class I started my own timeline of Brit History which I was supposed to be doing all along. then took shower. Didn't make it to Curves. Got Chinese carry out for dinner. H went to her Theology of the Body for Teens class at church. W didn't want to take the course.

I am reading Mrs. Piggle Wiggle to B. R finished reading Spiderwick series to S. J is still working away on Rolf but is also rereading Encyclopedia Brown books. W fooled around on the computer. R and I watched the last two episodes of The Office. Now were are all caught up with the rest of the world.