Nature's remedy

I love sitting next to my little fish pond. It's always peaceful there and there's always some little surprise. Sometimes it's a batch of new guppies that have hatched and are finding their way around their new home. Sometimes it's a couple of lovely dragonflies - red, blue, or both - flying in loops and swirls in search of lunch. And sometimes it's just having all three of our adopted frogs sitting on various lily pads at the same time, just chillin'. I love listening to the gurgling water as it splashes down from the rock water feature. It doesn't matter how stressful a day has been (or promises to be), the pond is a relaxing place where troubles just seem to shrink away. Inevitably, I start to wander around the rest of the garden, checking to see what new flowers have bloomed or what needs pruning or just enjoying being out in the garden for a few peaceful minutes. The hustle of daily life can't be escaped forever, but those few moments by the pond or just looking at what's growing in the garden are better than the most expensive of therapies.

A splash of color...or not.

I've put off painting the house since we moved in. It had been recommended to us when we first moved in, not to paint until we'd been here for at least a year - to give the house a chance to settle and avoid having to deal with cracks in the plaster after we'd already painted. So we waited. But then, once we'd moved in and all of our stuff was in the house, the idea of moving everything one room at a time wasn't really on my list of favorite weekend activities. So we put it off. And we put it off.

But this weekend I finally bit the bullet and started painting. I began in Meged's room as any day now she'll have her new desk delivered and I didn't really want to have that to move as well. So I left the three big kids to basically fend for themselves, tossed Holly in bed for her nap and proceeded to paint. It went fairly smoothly at first. I got three walls painted and began the fourth. That's when it happened.

The roller fell apart. And I'm too stubborn to just leave a wall partially painted and come back to it the next day when a replacement roller has been acquired. Besides, I didn't want to risk leaving a permanent line on the wall where I'd stopped and then needed to restart once the paint was already dry. But although I searched everywhere I could think of, I couldn't find any of my regular sized (meaning decent enough to justify painting a wall with) paint brushes. So what did I do, you may ask? Well, I'll tell you. I used one of my one-inch round craft brushes. To paint an entire wall. Yes. I know. I'm insane.

But...I got the job done. The next morning, however, I did hop over to our local hardware store. This time, though, I decided to avoid scraping the floor tiles for all of the roller splatter and opted for a sponge pad instead. I don't believe in using plastic drop cloths. And I don't have old sheets I'm willing to ruin. So I'd prefer to scrape than use unnecessary plastic. But I'd rather not scrape at all if it can be avoided by changing equipment. Sure, there were some drips with the sponge, but those were easy to get off the floor.

Now I have two bedrooms painted and three more to go - plus, of course, the hallway, bathrooms, living room, dining room and kitchen. But the bedrooms are the most important, so I'll focus on that for now and see how things progress regarding the rest of the house. Maybe I'll put that off until next summer!

the lost art of writing a "syllabus"?

You know, I remember when I went to school, my teachers had the whole year planned out ahead of time. In junior high and high school, we even had our coming year's schedule (with a syllabus for each class) by the end of the school year. Now, I don't mean they had each minute of each day planned. But they knew what subjects would be taught and for the most part what needed to be covered by the end of each quarter.

Yet each year when my kids start school, it's the same thing - no one knows what will be taught, let alone how many hours of each subject or on which days. Every day this week, the kids have come home saying something along the lines of "Today we had sports class, but they didn't tell us yesterday so none of the kids had sports shoes on" or "Our teacher said that we might have English and Art tomorrow, so we're supposed to bring our stuff for those classes just in case." It's completely ridiculous. Each year, this goes on for at least the first 3-4 weeks until finally the school and the teachers for each grade get their act together and decide what the curriculum will be.

How can they expect the students to get their work done on time if the teachers can't even pull it off? And how are the teachers supposed to write a syllabus, if the school can't even figure out the curriculum for the school year before the school year starts?

What a difference a year (or even just the summer) makes!

For the past two years, Brit and Zach have had daily planners in their school bags for writing down homework and anything else they need to remember. Getting them to actually write anything in those planners was a nightmare. Literally months could go by without a single word being written down. Getting privileges taken away, getting rewards for progress, yelling, pleading .... nothing worked to make a bit of difference.

Now, they are the ripe old age of 9 1/2 and suddenly, not only are they writing in their planners every day, they're writing virtual novels - and neatly too (see attached post photo)!

The trick? Well, with Brit it was getting her a High School Musical themed daily planner. "It's so gorgeous, I just HAVE to keep it pretty. And I like seeing all of the Gabriella pictures, so I like writing in it!" For Zach? I haven't a clue. I'm just glad he's writing his homework down finally LOL.

Meged is such a funny kid. She's got this idea that she already needs to know the stuff they'll be working on in school. So she's all stressed out wondering how she's supposed to do multiplication if she doesn't even know how to do 3-digit addition yet. This from the kid who already knows how to read (and kids here aren't expected to even know how to write the alphabet upon entering 1st grade). She also knows how to do all of the math work expected of a kid at the end of 1st grade. I keep trying to explain that her teacher will "teach" her what she needs to know....that's why she's called a "teacher". But I don't think Meged really buys my story. She wants to bring every one of her books to school every day too, even though the teacher said they don't need any books until at least the middle of next week. Yet every night, Meged says "But what if we need them tomorrow? I won't be able to do the work if I don't have them with me!" Poor troubled soul....

Holly has taken up DIY of late. She takes her little battery operated drill around the house and tries to "fix" everything...even her inflatable pool ring. And what with all the hammering and sawing she does in her room, I half expect for her to grab some wood and build a bookcase or something.