Mommy Brain

A moose. Of course, I was gone visiting my sister at my folks’ house and missed all the fun.

How did it get to be Friday again already? This week just whizzed by!

We had a great Independence Day: mid-day at the lake, home to watch – what else? – Independence Day – then fireworks when it got dark. Stayed up way too late.

Stayed up way too late Sunday night, too, since I took the kids to the drive-in to see Up and The Hannah Montana Movie. Loved Up (I don’t think there is a single Pixar movie I haven’t loved) and was surprised that the second feature was actually pretty good – and had some catchy music that I can’t get out of my head, because my daughter has been singing it ever since.

Went to the gym three times this week and walked on the treadmill. Increased my speed and duration each time. My butt and thighs hurt.

Got a haircut today for the first time in ages – my hair had grown out fairly long, now it’s a little longer than chin-length and layered again. Much cooler for summer.

Tonight, Natalie and I are going to a mother-daughter campout. I will stay for hot dogs and campfire songs and the scavenger hunt, but come home to sleep in my bed so a dozen tween-aged girls don’t keep me awake until o-dark-thirty.

Five days until my sister Debra gets here for a quick two-day visit. Haven’t been able to hug her in real life since her divorce. Can’t wait to get all caught up.

We have two members of our extended family undergoing treatment for cancer. My aunt is having radiation treatments to follow up on a lumpectomy for breast cancer. Kevin’s sister will undergo surgery and then chemotherapy for liver cancer. Prayers would be greatly appreciated.

Well, I’m off to run errands in 20 minutes, so I better get on with the links:

~ This comic is funny, and sadly, true. We love our public library!

~ The Best Books of the Year So Far.

~ ABC is holding a contest for budding song-writers: write a mock theme song for LOST.

~ This video is amazing: A choir uses their hands to simulate a rainstorm – and then they sing Africa.

At Books and Movies recently:

~ My favorite YA fiction, part one
~ Book review: Songs of the Humpback Whale by Jodi Picoult
~ Book review: The Book of Unholy Mischief by Elle Newmark

Have a great weekend!

… for kids who smell like grass and sunshine and chlorine.

… for less laundry, because shorts and t-shirts take up much less room in the washer, and because grass-stained knees on people are much easier to clean than grass-stained knees on jeans.

… for Vacation Bible School mornings when I get some much-needed kid-less time.

… for a wonderful rural library district that provides fantastic programs during the summer, like the wonderful quartet we heard play yesterday: jazz, swing, ragtime, showtunes, movie music. The kids loved it; and they learned the variations of soprano, alto, and tenor sax, what makes an oboe different from a clarinet, and how a bassoon works.

… for a husband who doesn’t begrudge me afternoons of downtime during our summer break from homeschooling – even if it means the house isn’t that much cleaner than it was during the school year.

… for dinners off the grill.

… for a beautiful city park with picnic tables in the shade that are perfect for lesson planning.

… for lots and lots more time for reading.

Wow – it’s been a while since I’ve done a links post! We have finished up our school year, but nothing seems to be slowing down. This happens every June – I forget that June includes friends’ birthdays, Noah’s birthday, Father’s Day, and Vacation Bible School! It should slow down in July, right? Except of course, there’s Independence Day, and my sister’s visit from the coast, and Dad’s birthday, and Natalie singing at Rendezvous, and….. Can anyone relate?

Last weekend I headed to Michelle’s Friday night for Mom’s movie night – we watched Last Chance Harvey, which was very good. Saturday I did some chores around the house, and then Sunday Michelle and I visited the local Episocopal church. It was a wonderfully reverent service, but not a church for a family with children. There were only sixteen people in the service – including Michelle and I and the priest and the organist! Not sure if I’ll be able to try a new church this Sunday or not, since Kevin is thinking of taking Noah on an overnight fishing trip Saturday night, and I usually don’t take the kids with me on the first visit to a new church.

We spent this week at the park, mostly. I’ve been working on getting as much lesson-planning done as I possibly can, since I won’t have my curriculum until the beginning of August. I also wrote up the kids’ end-of-year reviews and packed away the years’ work and records and assessment results away into storage, making room on the shelves for the new stuff.

Last night, all four kids were at various sleepovers. It’s amazing how quiet this house is with no kids in it! The two oldest boys came home while I was at Michelle’s picking Josiah up this afternoon, and I come home to two boys completely conked out on the couch. They slept until 6 pm! Turns out they stayed up until 4 am and then woke up at 8. They played on a zipline, jumped on a trampoline, caught snakes and tadpoles in the pond, and played X-Box. A thoroughly boy-style slumber party.

Tomorrow morning, Josiah has a Tae Kwon Do promotion, trying for his yellow belt. My only other plans for the weekend are to get caught up on laundry before we run out of things to wear.

Here’s what’s been going on at Books and Movies lately:

~ My favorite memoirs, part two
~ Book Review: Everyone is Beautiful by Katherine Center
~ Book Review: The Sense of Paper by Taylor Holden
~ Book Review: Crossed Wires by Rosy Thornton
~ Book Review: Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
~ Book Review: If I Stay by Gayle Forman
~ My favorite contemporary fiction, part one
~ My favorite contemporary fiction, part two

Other links:

~ Short film: Validation, starring TJ Thyne from Bones.

~ Barnes & Noble Summer Reading Program – if your kids read eight books this summer, they get a coupon for a free paperback.

~ 100 Best Movie Lines in 200 Seconds.

~ My Friend Amy is giving away a copy of Sisterchicks in Wooden Shoes by Robin Jones Gunn.

~ If you ever watched Saved By the Bell, you must watch this. (Go ahead, I won’t tell anyone.)

~ The theater major (read: geek) in me will be watching Chess in Concert on PBS this Wednesday. Starring Josh Groban and Idina Menzel!

~ The theater major in me is very sad to read that WSU is cutting their Department of Theater and Music. (This is where I attended, but didn’t quite graduate.)

~ NY Times: The Case for Working With Your Hands.

~ Is Anyone Minding the Store at the Federal Reserve?

~ Will Higher Education Be the Next Bubble to Burst?

Have a great weekend, everyone!

I know this picture is dark, so I hope you can see it. It’s my favorite of the pictures Kevin took over the weekend. Kevin took the kids camping Friday through Sunday – yes, all four! – and left me home all by myself. I know, I know – I’m blessed. He has done this at least once a year ever since the kids were younger. When we were involved with our former church, I would use my weekend to go to a women’s retreat. The last several years, I have spent my weekend at home – reading, blogging, watching chick flicks. It was a wonderful weekend.

We are now officially into our summer schedule: read-aloud, history, and reading in the mornings. Park and pool in the afternoons. I’ve been doing a bit of pre-planning for next fall, but mostly just enjoying our more relaxed schedule.

I am still having trouble digesting the fact that I will have a junior high student in the fall. Until I look at her, at least. She’s turning into a beautiful young woman – not a little girl anymore! And she’s following in her mom’s footsteps and will have her first author interview – with Lisa Samson – going up on her blog in the next week or so. I’ll be sure to link to it when it goes up.

We’re looking for a church again. Sigh. I’m curious – are there any believers out there who have done family worship rather than attend a church? We’re not sure what we’re doing, but know that the Baptist church we’ve been attending isn’t the place for us. We’ve given it a couple years, too, which makes it harder to leave. Summer is a good time for us to explore some other churches, though, since our attendance is always sporadic in the summer due to camping trips.

So our plans for summer are basically camping, swimming, park trips, a visit from my sister Deb and her kids in July, a Tae Kwon Do tournament in July, archery, church-shopping, summer reading programs at the library, and lesson-planning. What are your plans for the summer?

I’m alone tonight, as Kevin has taken the kids camping and given me some much needed alone-time this weekend. I’m not going to take the time to do a links post – I’m having too much fun reading, listening to music, and just being alone. The rest of you homeschooling moms know: alone-time just. does. not. happen. So I’m going to soak up every bit while I can.

…who left enough money to cover the meals of everyone who was in line behind you:

Thank you so much! You were a blessing to my daughter and I. I wish I could thank you in person, but we were so caught up in our giggly conversation that we didn’t notice who was in front of us, let alone two people in front of us, and you were gone before we knew what you had done. What a treat to get to the cash register and be told our meal was already paid for!

Thank you again.

Some random thoughts:

I love spring, but I would love it even more if someone could invent jeans that completely repel grass stains.

I think it’s sad that it has been necessary for the staff at Subway to put up a sign that says, “Please refrain from using your cell phone while placing your sandwich order.”

How is it possible that I’m purchasing fall curriculum for a 7th grader?

I am very proud of Kevin, who gave up chewing tobacco eleven days ago.

I re-connected with an old friend/flame on Facebook. How is it fair that he looks exactly the same as he did the last time I saw him – 16 years ago?

I hate that my sisters live so far away from me. I miss them.

PG-rated movies from the 1970s and 1980s are a lot more adult than PG movies made recently.

I’m going to be very angry if NBC cancels Life.

And now, some links:

~ Anne Hathaway will play Judy Garland in a biopic. Brilliant casting, in my opinion!

~ 1 More Chapter has the new trailer for Terminator Salvation. Can’t wait to see this one.

~ Take Your Vitamin Z has the trailer for the upcoming film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are.

~ Any of you moms Twitter? You’ll get a kick out of this comic.

~ Does Satan exist? If that topic fascinates you, check out the Nightline Face-off on this topic, in which Christians Pastor Mark Driscoll and Annie Lobert debate Deepak Chopra and Bishop Carlton Pearson.

~ This little girl singing The Lord’s Prayer is adorable.

~ April is National Poetry Month. If you’d like to receive poetry in your inbox every day during April, you can sign up at Poets.org and Borzoi Reader.

Whew, this week has just whizzed by! We’re all feeling better, mostly over the creeping crud, thank goodness. I don’t have a lot planned for my weekend, but on Monday I (finally) have my appointment with the neurologist about my headaches. His office is called The Headache Clinic, so he should be able to help, right? I’m optimistic. I’m going to take Natalie with me so the day isn’t completely a drag – we might even stop at Barnes & Noble on the way home, though mostly just to browse and pick up the third 39 Clues book for Noah.

If your weekend includes time for surfing, here are some links to check out:

~ Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’? has compiled a list of the books book bloggers considered their best read of 2008. Lots of good titles there.

~ Take Your Vitamin Z posted about how Mark Driscoll handles family devotions at dinner time. This actually seems like a relatively painless approach – we may give it a try.

~ Ever wanted to find out what book bloggers think about a particular book? Fyrefly has created a custom Google search of book blogs.

~ Are you jonesing for a Harry Potter fix? The Leaky Cauldron has a First Look video with highlights from the upcoming Half Blood Prince film.

~ There’s still time to enter my giveaway for Good Egg.

~ For you writerly types, here’s a great article on procrastination by Janet from Quoth the Maven.

~ The Sacred Sandwich imagines the reaction if the book of Galatians was published in Christianity Today.

~ This is one comeback I could do without.

At Books and Movies lately:

~ A list of our favorite read-alouds in the past couple of years.

~ If you read this before midnight Pacific Standard Time, there’s still time to enter my giveaway of Interred With Their Bones, Capote in Kansas: A Ghost Story, and The Read-Aloud Handbook.

~ I’ve joined The Classics Challenge 2009.

I just wrote a post about what a day from you-know-where it has been, and saved it, and it disappeared, proving the first part of my statement true. Sigh.

I have no energy to retype the whole thing, so here’s a quick recap:

~ I’m on day nine of a cold that comes with a killer headache.

~ Natalie’s comptuer has some virus on it that highjacks her browser.

~ The toilet was plugged – on the one day of the week that Kevin is working at the office instead of at home.

~ Hugh Jackman’s hosting the Oscars – woo hoo!

~ Inkheart the movie was not near as good as the book.

I know I mentioned more than that, but I can’t remember anything else. Here’s hoping your day is going better than mine.