Well hi... 'cause, that's how this starts out

Well hi. Thought I'd make one last post for August, for whatever it's worth. Today felt like fall, and that's just not right. Not yet. There are TWO blankets on my bed tonight, and the air conditioner's still in the window. What kind of sense does that make?

On the homeschooling front, we sat down at the kitchen table today and DID things. Woo-hoo! The snarkapoo started a spelling notebook... she likes to spell, and is good at it. We found some things to work on, though. I gave her a list of herbs and spices, some of which she wasn't familiar with, and she did a great job of sounding them out phonetically. Echinacea became ecenashea. I thought that was a pretty good guess.

We also started reading Book 1 of A History of US: 11-Volume Set by Joy Hakim. It looks like all the good things I've heard about this series might be true. It's full of information, but written in a very chatty, down-to-earth style, and has plenty of open-ended questions to get kids really thinking and forming their own opinions. I like that. She read all the quotes in the first chapter about the meaning of history, and we talked about them... after clarifying who Cicero and Marcus Garvey were. Here's a favorite: "It is one thing to write like a poet, and another thing to write like a historian. The poet can tell or sing of things not as they were but as they ought to have been, whereas the historian must describe them, not as they ought to have been, but as they were, without exaggerating or hiding the truth in any way." - Miguel de Cervantes, from Don Quixote. There's a lot to think about there.

There was more, but it's late, and time for a last cup of tea before bed.

**listening to: Music for Harp, Flute and Cello by Angels of Venice. I'm very much in the mood for soft and pretty at the moment, but of course, being me, with mysterious, Renaissance-y overtones. This music is awfully close to perfect. It soothes me, and makes me yearn, opens up windows in my heart, and provides a rich backdrop for imagination.