Spicing Things Up

I thought I'd skip the bullets and get crazy and try subheadings today.

I Blame This One On Bob Costas
I can't get into American Idol this season and I think I finally figured out why. After two weeks of non-stop Olympic viewing and bouncing from bobsledding to figure skating to nordic combined (which would be much more interesting if they had to shoot while ski jumping), my brain needs a clear beginning, middle and end for my television viewing hour.

Also, I get emotionally involved with the Olympics and root for some of the athletes like they're family members. So far American Idol is a big bundle of who cares so I'm stepping out for now. Maybe I'll pop back in when there's a top ten, then again, maybe not. For what it's worth, my money's on the Jodi Foster girl.

My favorite Olympic moments: Jeanne Rochet's short program, Shaun White's freakish stunts and the American men's bobsled team winning gold. I rooted for Canada during hockey and Kim Yu-Na in figure skating because, really, who wants to disappoint their entire home country?


Because You Can't Flip A Llama Over
I took Doc and Obi Wanda on a field trip to a local Petting Farm where Obi Wanda's first question upon seeing a cow was, "What is that?" I really could've sworn we'd already covered that. Lately Obi Wanda's been fixated on whether an animal is a boy or a girl and that question isn't always so easy to anwer without closer inspection. Kind of like looking at people at the mall.

It's also a leading question because all the answers lead to more questions and I wasn't in the mood to go there today. I was already sure the other moms thought I was a terrible teacher since my kid didn't know what a cow was (I'm still stymied by that one), I certainly didn't want an audience while I clumsily explained what's so important about attracting a mate and where the big ostrich eggs came from. Oh look, pony rides!


While We're on the Subject of School
I'm pretty well settled on our direction for next year. We're going to skip the Wednesday program Doc's been going to take a more relaxed approach to our week. I've been revisiting my Charlotte Mason books and feel like I want to make next year more relaxed and purposeful. Rather than trying to do a bunch of stuff rather poorly, I want to do a few things very well with the end result being peace.

Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but it seems like there's a lot of pressure to teach, do, experience everything. It's as if producing a trilingual second grader who can give a 20 minute oration on how the Revolutionary War affected the breeding habits of the spotted owl is the only way to justify our decision to homeschool. Knowing I was starting to frantically succumb to that pressure, God sent me the same message from a bunch of different sources, including His Word.

The message? Chill.

So I will chill.


I had a bunch of other stuff to write about, but my mind's all a blank now. There was something about mom shorts and PB's disgust over the fact my 8th grade history teacher used "Gone With the Wind" as part of our Civil War curriculum. PB's a yankee (obviously). Anyway, it's all gone now.

Must still be that Olympic brain.