Year 5, December 14th-17th, 2020: It's Our Turn

 Video Playlist for December 14th-17th, 2020

I couldn't. Everything was going great yesterday. Lots of school work done, a great reading session with Jared, I felt good about the day. That is until Jared decided to take advantage of having my phone in is hand to sign into an app we use to control the wifi and the devices. He decided to try and lock me out of my phone from 12:30am-8:30am. Sounds ok to most, but I didn't ask for him to do that. I felt like it was a violation of my freedoms to choose those kinds of things for myself. Fortunately, whatever he did, didn't stick and I was still able to use my apps and such during those hours. I felt panicked because what if someone needed me? Not everyone has my phone number, so most contact me through Facebook or Instagram. What if I was doing something for IAHE last minute before I go to bed so I wouldn't forget and it was 1am when I finished? It was past 10pm when he did it, and I hadn't started this blog post yet because he had dictated to me (after I wouldn't come to a decision, so he had every right to tell me) that we would do our readings together on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. I had specifically planned to finish binge watching, "The Man in the High Castle," that night, too. So, Jared was severely crimping my style and my nighttime routine. And apparently, I really don't like it when someone else is controlling my life, whether it be Jared telling me what time to go to bed or what we have to do with Covid restrictions.

Which brings me to today. Benaiah went and got his rapid Covid-19 test done today. He tested POSITIVE. Oh boy did I feel like swearing and I was livid (still pretty much am). NOW he gets Covid?! NOW when I actually want to leave the house? NOW when I have real in person doctor appointments to attend? And NOW I have to lay down the law, my opinion, my boundaries. Am I going to fully quarantine? Or am I going to pick and choose until I have symptoms? Am I going to pretend I have Covid or not? Who should I tell? Well, here's the timeline.

Late Thursday/early Friday is when Benaiah was probably infected. He worked a normal morning shift on Friday and a night shift on Saturday night. On Sunday morning, he worked in the tech booth at church and that's when he first noticed symptoms. He then had lunch with us at Gary and Leah's for 2 hours with no mask and somewhat close proximity. He took off Monday from work and went in for the test this morning. Now he's quarantining for 10 days I think, which officially started on Sunday. The rest of us are to quarantine for 14 days starting Sunday? Today/Tuesday? And then if one of us gets sick, the 10-14 days start all over again. We could be stuck at home for 2 months if we followed all of that protocol. I'm not buying it. Not one bit. 

We were right in the middle of history lessons this morning. Justin had woken up late and I didn't want to wait until he was finished his independent work before I had to pull him out of his room so we could history before haircut appointment at 3pm. So, I quickly finished our reading and felt a minor anxiety attack coming on. I barely held it together. And then, the texting started. I kept telling the kids to go away as I deal with this "crisis" and figure out if I was going to stick to my guns and still go out or start canceling events and appointments. I ended up asking as vaguely as I could on FB what the protocols were for who has to quarantine and when and how. That led to Maria Houpt private messaging me and we ended up talking on the PHONE of all things. Gosh, I love Maria to bits. I might not take all her advice at this point, but I let her advise me and she said that her husband Mark was going to call Gary and advise him as well because we all know that Gary is not going to want to stay home. But, I think Gary and Leah have to quarantine 100%. Leah ended up doing two more errands before going home. Gary I think left the office in the middle of the afternoon. Jared was home at lunch time. And then, I unleashed my wrath. 

Wow, the stuff I've been holding in for 6 months or more. Everything from what I think of prayer and God and healing and protection to what I think of Covid-19 scientifically. Jared and I are on opposite sides of the fence about Covid-19. And that's the hardest part. To be in such a huge disagreement with your spouse, the one you trust the most. My heart was racing. I didn't want to eat lunch (I had just drank coffee), but I needed to eat something before the haircut appointment for the boys. I texted our hairdresser and asked her what her policy was. As long as the boys' hair was washed, she was fine with them coming in. We did go and we didn't talk about our exposure to Covid. But I didn't let Abishai touch things and play with the toys. Abishai did tell Jennae that Benaiah, "My 18 year old has Covid." Wow, he knows Benaiah's age! He was also extremely cuddly before, during, and after the appointment. I asked him if he was just trying to be nice to Mommy because she seemed not good (or whatever words I used) and he said yes. I told him, just like the doggy, he notices when people need extra lovings and that I loved that about him. I told him he's my little squish and then I showed him where we got that quote (Finding Nemo, jellyfish and Dory scene). And then I showed him the "squirt" scene with the sea turtles, too, and he liked that . Although he gets concerned when animated animals get hurt. He was a great moment to share with him though.

So, in all, I decided to go to the hair cutting appointment because it's so hard to get in with our hairdresser. But I also decided to skip my mom's night out at a fancy restaurant because 15 people were going to be there at the same table. And I didn't know some of them and what their opinions of Covid-19 are. Plus it was cold and I shouldn't be spending that money right now. But tomorrow, we were supposed to go ice skating in the afternoon at an outdoor rink 30-45 minutes away. Well, it's supposed to snow and then we'll have a wintry mix in the afternoon, so that might get canceled anyway. But if not, if the weather wasn't a factor, I would still go because we would be wearing masks, outside, social distanced, doing our own thing. But after that, I was supposed to have a chiropractor appointment. Now, that I will probably cancel. In fact, I told Jared if he called while we were gone and canceled his morning chiropractor appointment at the same place, to go ahead and cancel mine and I'll call them and reschedule later. Our chiropractor is on the brink of retirement and I don't know if the assistants are going to see elderly folk or not this season. Everyone wears masks and everything is cleaned, but we are pretty close to face to face. I don't want to wait, but I can. That office will close after tomorrow for two weeks for Christmas break, which is a bummer because I really prefer to go monthly. And then I was going to try to go to Jingle Rails, too. Ugh! And next week I have an ultrasound. And Christmas Eve. And And And

For Benaiah, he wasn't scheduled to do tech this coming Sunday or on Christmas Eve. If he testes negative, he would be able to work on Christmas Eve, but they close early, so he said it wasn't worth it. I don't know if this is all across the board, but at his Chick Fil A, the company is paying the full time and/or leaders their same average weekly pay if they get Covid and have to quarantine. This will NOT infringe on Benaiah's personal paid or unpaid vacation time. Yeah! So financially, he will be unaffected. But this just means that he will have a total of three weeks off! Wow! He probably needed it anyway. He does have some weakness and blech feeling, but so far, nothing too serious. He won't give me any details. He said he was with Ava maybe Friday night I assume, so she is also quarantining and that he's got everything under control. I told him, he better not put me, or the rest of the family on some government Covid-19 contact tracing list. I don't want the government calling me and asking me who I've been in contact with or whatever they do. Just leave me be. So, there's that.

Now we wait. And wait. And wait. And debate on whether we should get our own tests if we show symptoms and be part of the "the count" and contact tracing numbers or not. I'm inclined to say no. No to testing. No to the vaccine. And yes, to not telling many people about it. In fact, this post won't go live for awhile. I will just hold it in the queue for awhile, along with subsequent ones, and post the in a week or right before Christmas. It's not like many people read them anyway. 

This just sucks. And I'm angry. I'm fearful of sticking to my guns. I just want to live if I want to go out. I wanted to take things back to Kohl's after the final shipment arrives. And go see Christmas train displays. I guess we can do it another year. But if I need to get groceries, I'm going to go out and get groceries myself. I don't trust the grocery pickup organizations. I've heard all kinds of stories about not getting what they ordered. I've looked at multiple stores online and I usually can't find what I purchase anyway. I don't want to deal with substitutions. Or wait for hours and hours because my order went to the bottom of the stack. Quarantining means for someone to go do your errands for you and drop groceries on the front porch anyways. Um, no. I will go do it myself. I don't need to involve anyone else. The likelihood that we got it is pretty slim in my opinion anyway, but if we have it, we should develop symptoms before we need groceries so time will tell. The kids won't notice the difference because we stay home all the time anyway. That's the thing. We aren't in contact with others. So we aren't going to be the ones who spread it. And like I've said before or read before, sure, we could give it to someone who might die. But by not living, we could also kill someone who doesn't have a job and ends up getting desperate and committing suicide. We don't know what ripple effects we may have.

One more thing. Between watching "The Man in the High Castle" about if the Nazis and Japs won WWII and finishing our unit on the Constitution, I'm convinced we are living in a socialistic nation. The federal, state, and local governments have overstepped their boundaries in 100's of ways, not just Covid-19 mandates. These mandates are not real laws. Who will enforce them? There's so much controversy and misinformation on this whole thing, so who do I believe? Well, I believe in freedom. This isn't freedom, not as it was laid out in Constitution, where the federal government was supposed to be extremely limited and whatever was NOT specifically assigned to the federal government or banned by the states to take care of, then each state is in charge of it. And if that is true, especially in Covid-19 stuff, then our state legislature CAN and WILL pass laws this session that I believe will redefine what authority the governor and the mayors have in making this mandates. I've heard the rumbles. I've watched the news. I follow several state reps and senators. When they officially opened the session in November, two people did not wear masks and nobody told  them to leave. This is Indiana's long session year so they can put another two year budget in place. I'm praying for the right legislation to go through in limiting single offices from having the control to decide on things like the masks or the riots and curfews. I'm also praying for parental rights and homeschooling freedom doesn't change because of all of this stupid e-learning. It's insane. So many great kids are failing. For no reason at all. None. And I see so many parallels to that TV show and how much control and protocol there was and fear from the Nazi party controlling North America. It was scary. It's mind blowing actually. And we are headed straight toward it. I don't know who these incredible writers for Amazon Prime Video are, but man, they are GOOD. Every show I've watched is interesting, sometimes deep in intellectual thinking, unique, creative, and beautiful. This show also focused on the Black community never having a Civil Rights movement and therefore almost being eliminated in concentration camps on American soil. Yes, scary stuff. If the government can control our movements by shutting down businesses and making people were masks and fining businesses if they don't have a mask policy, basically saying, "do it or you're out of business, what more can they control? I don't want that. I want less control, like the founding fathers wanted. 

As far as American's view of freedom, rights, etc. and how it lines up with Biblical principles, I will take the founding fathers' words and trust that all came from a Christian worldview. Therefore, if I follow that same ideal of freedom, liberty, property, rights of speech, religion, press etc, then I'm also following God's word and ideals, right? So don't you dare tell me I'm not being a good Christian by questioning why we should give up our rights and freedom of movement to a government that is doing exactly what the founding fathers' feared. Don't you dare. I have always wanted to be that good little Christian girl. I don't want to go against the general consensus of the people that make up the church. However, I sincerely believe that most of them have been brainwashed by our secular, post modern "standardized" public school education that is designed to make everybody the same, a puppet for society, unable to think clearly on their own, who will continue to listen to sensationalized media. But it still hurts to be on the opposite side of your spouse and your friends. But here I am. Still, and it's now become very real.

Stay tuned to see how much I cave in and how much I push for normalcy. Praise the Lord, literally, that I'm a planner and we have enough food for the next week or so, and I have all the ingredients or can make substitutions for the baking we will do. And I've bought all the presents, we have the wrapping paper, we are finishing up school this week, I've got a plan for when to do all the things. So, I can move things around, sure, yes, but I don't want to. Especially that ultrasound. I had to wait to make the appointment and then it took another 6 weeks for that appointment to come around. I don't even get to talk to the doctor, just the ultrasound tech and THEN I make an appointment for the doctor. 

So, am I mad still. Yup. Will I still get groceries by myself. Yup. Will I give up my Christmas hopes and dreams of seeing Jingle Rails and going ice skating? Probably. I think I may have the social anxiety disorder that can go along with ADD, so not going out is ok once I think it through. I just want it all to be MY decision. And for me to decide if the risk is worth it.

So we wait and see. If we get symptoms, we might have to cancel our Tennessee Christmas or we could postpone. Who says we have to do it that week? Ok, ok, Benaiah might no have the time off. But the rest of us are somewhat flexible right? Or maybe Aaron and Shauna will need to come all the way up here. As far as we know, we are free to come and go between Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee without any quarantine period. But if you go to New York, you have to quarantine when you get back home even if you weren't with a Covid positive person. Well, they say you should. Again, who is checking up on all of this? Is it only my conscience trying to say it's wrong to disobey a mandate that is ridiculous and overstepping? That's the real quandary here.

I've spent enough time on this over the last 10 months. But now it's hit home. It's at the forefront. We'll keep it quiet for as long as we can. I'm sure Gary is saying, "Yup, it's fine, be flexible, no big deal." And me, I'm dying inside. Don't control me. Leave me alone. I'm more than intelligent enough to weigh the risks and make decisions. Just like I can decide on my own bedtime. 

Ok, that's all I have. Kids are ok. I was heavily distracted all day. One day at a time.

As you'll see below and on the YouTube playlist, because I didn't go to Mom's Night Out, I could sit and enjoy this little "live" show from For King and Country where they played their Christmas music, first from a hilltop in California, and then in a rough shelter of sorts.

Cutie doing his thing.

As you'll see in the videos below, this one was trying to "run" with his feet and legs while eating in his chair. Never ever stopping, this one just keeps going.

Lining up cars with Daddy for a big race!

Abishai had these genius idea of adding a light to the top of his Star Wars rifle like they have in the movies/TV shows. So I taped it on for him. The tape came off the next day, but, at least it was fun for a minute.

When Daddy went to the store to get milk, he also got more Hot Wheels cars as a gag gift for a white elephant exchange with the Bible study men. Well, he made the rookie mistake of bringing them inside instead of just leaving them in the van. Abishai saw them and immediately wanted them. Abishai had the meltdown of the century over them, crying hysterically and clinging to Jared's leg. It was pitiful.

First bit of frost and/or snow on the ground. Keturah and Abishai went out there and froze their feet on trampoline. We are supposed to have up to 2 inches of snow tomorrow.

Well, this was an interesting find in the Friends Online Facebook group. Someone, actually less than an hour from us, saw this in their newspaper! How cool that we it was celebrating the Bill of Rights when we just finished studying them today! And no other than Michael W. Smith was part of it! So cool!

The donation could have been a ton more IF I had remembered to use the Smile url. I don't know if this is what we contributed or what all other Smile uses contributed as a whole for this quarter.

Abishai got to play with Nash, Jeanne's salon's chicken puppet! And he danced to it and the Christmas music that was playing. (See below). This guy often has a song in his head that he's dancing to as he goes about his day.

So this is a fun story. I was actually leaning in pretty close to the new coffee machine counting how long it took for the water to warm up and the coffee to brew (just over 2 minutes by the way) when I heard this "pop!" And coffee grinds hit me in the face! What?! I've never had k-cup do that! Sure enough, the water was super hot and couldn't get through the pinprick of a hole soon enough and pressurized and exploded! Wow! That is absolutely crazy!

Grinds all up in the mechanism.

Coffee itself was a tad weak but ok and it was pretty much brewed all thew ay.

Grinds all the way down to the tray. Jared thought it wasn't fully brewed, so he rebrewed it in the resuable basket some how as a kind gesture to me.

While we were waiting for Daddy to fix something, I showed Abishai where the "come here my little squishy. He's my squishy and he shall be mine." comes from. Finding Nemo!

Yeah for having multiple devices! I could type the blog AND watch/listen to a concert AND play my phone games all at the same time!

It was obviously prerecorded with how fast the sun set and there was no microphones on the mountain to create the right balance of sound. I'm not sure if they recorded the songs or just played from their album. Although they did had some nice story times to the "live" concert.

They said take a photo of where you're watching this and who you are watching with, and I had the perfect photo op with their flag behind me!

Nice and bright at sunset on a mountain somewhere in California, probably filmed in between some of their drive in actually live concerts.

Facetiming the soloist that sang on the song originally so she could sing live with them. Well, again, the audio was perfect so they were lip syncing.

The sun set quickly behind them. It was completely dark after just 3 songs.

Then they all walked into this barn set. I do love that they play real instruments instead of relying on tracks on keyboard. It's not every day that a violinist gets to play in a pop band. They also had a trombone and trumpet on one of the songs.

The xylophone! You don't find that very often outside of marching band or in the music department at a college.

Nice setup. I realize too late that my lights on the left were visible.  Whoops!

Luke Smallbone

Plucking part of a song.

A nice one of Joel.

Xylophone

I love the percussion!

Uh, what day is it? Oh yeah, Wednesday. Once again, we are going to loose track of the days, especially with being on Christmas break. Sigh. We pushed hard through school today and wrapped up a few subjects actually. I'll try to get Abishai to get two more days of bookwork in. We don't want him to loose what he's already has learned. He blended several words today pretty well. I'm very pleased with his progress this semester. His friends might be doing more and better than him, but they all started before him. I think he's fine. And, oh, he's definitely a lefty now. He doesn't switch back and forth anymore. Keturah has more work than Justin to finish, but she'll get it done no problem. She is having an issue with math again, and I've been very impatient in teaching her and just assuming she gets it. I think I'll need to come up with some review pages for her in the next semester. She halfway gets most of the concepts, but keeps messing up the more minor parts like where to put the decimal or the addition after the long multiplication problems. We can tackle that in a few weeks.  We are almost done with our history reading. They will both finish up their extra history readings before next semester.  That will keep them from being bored the next two weeks. They don't seem to mind.

I did ask on the homeschool FB page today if I'm being too lazy on grading. I just don't want to nitpick grammar and content on little things like a paragraph about llamas. We do thoroughly nitpick IEW papers and math. I don't typically go over in detail any of their history readings either. I did try to go over the science chapters with Keturah, but now I'm only going over the answers to the study guide and the test. The study guide is open book, and the test is closed book.  Sometimes I have looked ahead to see what was on the test and what they should study. The study guide answers, the tests, and the answers to the test are all in the same book. I know Keturah isn't cheating because she gets some answers wrong. I keep asking if Justin is cheating because his answers are near perfect. He says he is not cheating. One thing I should do next semester is take away his book and copy the test out of the test booklet and see how he does then. He just doesn't do that well in all the other subjects, so it surprises me that he would write it all down perfectly for science only. And I can't read his facial and body language when I ask him. I hope he's not. And if he did cheat, oh well. I'm not having him do science perfectly and I know he is learning and understanding a lot of it. So, there's that.

Jared was in and out of our room today doing things for work, and back to spending time in the kitchen every 1-2 hrs and eating at odd times. I'm going to have to lay down some ground rules again if we are truly quarantined until Christmas and/or staying home for Christmas break. At this point, if ANY of us, the J5, comes down with ANY symptoms, we have to start the quarantine over again. The CDC did reduce the time to 7 days if you test negative or 10 days if you don't take a test. That puts us right at December 23rd, the day of my ultrasound appointment. I'm not going to haggle with friends about the exact day Benaiah's symptoms really got started, which was Monday night, which could potentially put Gary and Leah in quarantine for longer. It's annoying that the cycle would have to start over. It's a virus, and I know all about the incubation period starting before the symptoms and then how long you are contagious after the symptoms start, etc. It's the same for EVERY bacteria and virus but again, why is this one so highly enforced when for YEARS people would still show up to work with the flu and spread it around and around and around. Especially in the schools. But whatever.

I don't have anything major to go to protest about. We didn't go ice skating today because I'm exhausted and I didn't want to go out in the wet weather and find the place and deal with whiny kids, although they said they wouldn't have been whiny. And we moved our chiropractor appointments. I asked the kids at dinner time what makes up their Christmas memories. What parts of what we've done in the past did they like the most or didn't like? Well, surprisingly, they said all the things that we have done like making gingerbread houses, decorating cookies, the few special baked goods we make, sledding and ice skating, the Children's Museum, the advent calendars. I asked about if we need to do more paper crafts and they all said, "No!" I asked Abishai if he wanted to see more Christmas lights and blow up lawn ornaments and he said no. It's something we COULD go and do, even with quarantine because we wouldn't be getting out of the car. The mom blogs have a listing of the best houses and neighborhoods and we could make up our own route. Abishai was tired by this point in the evening though, so I don't know what he really feels about it. The others didn't seem too interested either, so we crossed that off our list. We did the Indiana State Museum with some Santa and reindeer stuff and rode a train there. We did go to Newfield's for their lights. Oh, and I don't think the train display is something they really want to do either. So, we've accomplished enough for this year and have plans for the rest. Keturah wants to dress Socks up in a Santa hat, ok, go for it. We have some idea for gingerbread houses, although we don't have any kits this year, we can make do. I do have a gingerbread house mold though! So, we'll see. Baking and gift wrapping is next week I told them.

Jared thinks Abishai is sick. He thinks Abishai's bags under his eyes are darker. And Abishai complained about a yucky tummy this morning and took all his bed gear to our bed and asked for me to snuggle him so he could "settle." He never really did, but it was fun to indulge him. Jared put him to bed super early tonight, too. But he had played outside in the SNOW we got! We did get a couple of inches of great snowball making snow! And the kids did gear up and play in it, so that's a win! Put that on the list and cross it off! The list was very helpful to me to see we've done ENOUGH. And the kids aren't whining that it's too much and they were talking about gingerbread houses like they were fond memories, so,....those are all good signs of great Christmas seasons and memories which has always been my goal.

Speaking of gingerbread houses, we have the mini milk cartons we can use for them! Why? Because a very thoughtful and kind neighbor decided to bring us some the free food from the school. I didn't ask her to and I don't know if she knows we are in quarantine. She has no idea what kind of blessing this is! I was wondering when and how I'd be able to go out and get milk for Justin. And we were starting to get low on vegetables. She said she would do it on Friday as well, which is the last day for the free food since it's the last day of school for this semester. Sweet!  When Abishai realized what it was, he was jumping for joy! I hadn't gone to get any of the pickups this month (everybody is e-learning in the district, so like in the spring, they offered the free food to every child), because I didn't want to go outside and I know we are financially stable and that others need it more than us. But today's drop off and Friday's drop off are EXACTLY what we needed! Thank you, Jesus!

So, mini milk cartons are GREAT for graham cracker gingerbread houses! We have some graham crackers. Maybe not enough, but I'll figure that out tomorrow. And I can make icing. We probably won't do it tomorrow, but perhaps Friday or Saturday.

Ok, my eyes are starting to droop themselves. Let's try this early bedtime thing. After I eat a more proper dinner. I had just drank coffee and therefore wasn't hungry at dinner time. We went over the Christmas event list. And I ate some vegetables that were in front of me. I know I'll be hungry in  bit here. 

So, another solid day of quarantine is done. Day 3 is in the books. 4-7 more days to go. So far, no one has had symptoms over at Gary and Leah's or hear. Benaiah feels about the same. Just flu like symptoms.  So, we'll see.

Thank goodness for a second fridge! Man, I like this kind of fridge so much better than a side by side!

This will be a snack before bed, well, just a little part of it! So yummy, and fast, and easy to clean up!

This photo and the next one belong with the others, but the numbers on the photos came around to 0009 and such again, so they computer thinks it comes before the others. Kind of sounds like the Y2K problem. Remember that? My dad was one of the computer programmers that were switching dates on the computers from a two digit year to a four digit year. They were afraid that when 12:01am 2000 happened, that computers would think its 1900. There was a big to do about industries shutting down because of it. 21 years later, it's pretty laughable. We survived just fine. I'm sure not every computer program was properly switch over.

Nice arm, Justin!

I'm going to try this!

I want one but it will cover up the IAHE logo on my phone.

I liked watching this point of view of Michael W. Smith playing today on Instagram. I've never really seen that point of view before from him. Man does his fingers fly! And I watched for how wide he goes and he definitely can reach 10th's and 11th's! Crazy! That's why it's hard for me to play some of his music!

Got a recipe from one of my MOPS cookbooks and a helper this time.

I knew the no bake recipe was in one of these books.

I've kept all my MOPS cookbooks. I TON of work went into these, gathering recipes and typing them up and formatting everything. Every single person who made these happen worked so hard.

My cookbook cupboard that I don't really use. Maybe I'll purge it again someday soon.

This dog LOVES LOVES LOVES snow. He immediately puts his nose into the snow, and eats it!

Justin and I both have ADD. He left a wad of dog hair on the library books and I left my gloves there as well. Lol.

What do you have on your pizza?! Raisins?! Why?! But he ate the whole thing!

Leah and I have been discussing advent calendars, the ones that you fill and are made of wood. She found one at Michael's craft store on sale and I think she's letting me buy it off from her. Anyway, I did a quick search to see what was out there and my oh my they are come so far! Gorgeous sophisticated ones. Whimsical kid ones. Ones that light up. Oh my! Check these out!

This one made me think of Nora.

This one lights up! So pretty! It could be a countdown for anything!

This guy is very, very tempting! Look how cute he is! Keturah thinks it's funny looking. Very interesting!

This is the one that Leah bought. I was thinking about getting this one myself!

Very nice for sitting on the dining room table.

Elegant and beautiful, but there are no little boxes.

Why is my hair so awesome right when it 's time to go bed.  Ugh!

Clutching his blankie. Awww

We woke up to a winter wonderland!

Keturah and Abishai didn't wait for me to pull out the winter gear. They just went outside as is!

It was still snowing so Keturah used the hamburger towel to stay dry. Crazy girl!

This photo popped up on my FB page today. 8 year ago in the Charlottetown house basement, we had put a big dining room table and chairs intending to use it as our school room. It was too dark and cold, but that's ok. We did get to do things like this, wrapping presents for the others. And I also separated the books out into piles according to the history lessons, just as I do now in fact! But this photo is now 8 years old! That's 4 1/2 yr old Keturah, ladies and gentelmen! Awwwww

Too adorable. "I'm sick, Mommy, I need to rest. On your bed. And I need you to snuggle me so I can settle down." It was a cute game for awhile. We laid down face to face and when we both opened our eyes and realized the other person had their eyes open too, we giggled. I think he just wanted to be near his Daddy. And yes, he brought his monster trucks with him.

Now they have the proper gear on! They were attempting to move the snow from the treehouse to the tramlines or slide so they could move around faster.

Putting snow on the slide so it gets slippery.

"I give up!" - Keturah

Doggy prints!

Back yard.

Abishai showed us how to eat snow! Yummy! He had a blast outside. Keturah and Justin enjoyed it.

 

 

Well Saturday, er Monday, er Thursday?! Wait, it's Thursday?! Oh yes, it feels like we just went backwards 6 months to lockdown and every day is a perpetual Saturday! Thankfully, this will be short lived because NO ONE ELSE has gotten Covid symptoms. Praise the Lord! 4 days down, 6 to go (officially if we don't get Covid tests). Benaiah said he's feeling better as well and finally got to play video games today. I guess it knocked him down pretty good. (Bad grammar, yup, I need a thesaurus, anyway). Actually, the last time he had the flu it was several days in bed as well. MAN COLD Lol. Aaron was still weak yesterday but ancy to get out and about. He's like Gary in that way because he likes to keep busy. The rest of us are pretty peachy to just stay home. But with Jared at home, granted he was in our room working, and not as much schoolwork to do because we are winding down, it felt like a Saturday. Maybe because we've had many Saturdays where we were finishing up school on a Saturday. But not this week! They have one more day to finish or NO ELECTRONICS until they do. Keturah wanted to keep procrastinating. Sigh. She did finish her Lego cleanup. But I want her to now keep going with it.

I even had time to work on switching out the school books for next semester! The 1800's can be tricky, because you have Westward Expansion both before and after the American Civil War. And you could do Native Americans at any point in the century, maybe focusing on the eastern Native Americans first. But that would take more time to put the books in order by tribe. Instead, maybe I'll have them draw up a map of the different tribes so they can have a reference when they are reading those books. We'll start with 5 weeks of western expansion, and then pause when we get to the Civil War for as long as it takes us to get through what I want to get through. I haven't decided on all of that yet. It shouldn't take as long though. We will slip in more studies about all the presidents and some of the states (they did an in depth look at states at co op a few years back). And we'll go through some books on economics but none of that is tied to a specific time period so I have all semester long to do that. They already have a great grasp of the Civil War just from living here in Indiana and seeing Conner Prairie and such. Too bad I don't have Oregon Trail for my computer, eh? And Keturah won't be into Little House on the Prairie either. So, we'll see. Then we'll polish off that quarter in the book and see how far we get into the 1900's. Whatever we don't do this year we will do next year. So, world history will have taken 5 years and American history 2 years, and that will all count for high school in my book. The transcript won't say what centuries we covered in World History, so I'm not worried too much about it. Perhaps when we loop back around to ancient history I'll throw a more mature book Justin's way during his senior or bonus year. He will have had plenty of history over his K-12 years to count anyway. Keturah will get to do a more abridged version of American history because she will already be a junior and senior when we hit on it again. At that point, I'll ask her how much she remembers from this year and then fill in some gaps with whatever I have at home but probably not in as much depth. Then Abishai will be on his own and I'll do what I did this year, but just with him or maybe at a co op with him at that point. It's exciting to see how each one will play out, but all in all, they will of course have the most in depth education I can muster up, focusing on things I think are important and touching on subjects they need for post secondary school. Some homeschoolers start really focusing on the kids' interest by 10th grade and I agree with that to a point. There's just some really basic truth and things like the Constitution that I want to hammer home. Both are already writing 5 paragraph essays. Both are able to do some basic research. Math is straight forward and science will be, too, as both are textbooks. Well, if I find they want to do a dual credit science or math, go ahead I guess. But not until you can drive yourself downtown. Justin's not ready yet for dual credit. And I'm ok with that. Again, I have way more I want to teach them than time will allow. So I might give up the ghost entirely on dual credit. This is why we don't use a co op either. I WANT to teach them. I want to KNOW what they are learning and how they've learned it. I already have notions of what I want them to come away with knowing, yes, including the writing, which I loathe to edit. But I worry less and less because the program is working in ways I wished I had at their age. And because they are well read, they have some decent vocabulary and sentence structure. 

Ok, ok, enough about all that. I LOVE to plan, but I have very little patience for the execution, sigh. We finished our book on George Washington's World today and there IS one for Abraham Lincoln! I'm putting that on my wishlist RIGHT NOW. This book was incredible! It was written in the same format as our history spine/textbook and pulled in world history as it went through George Washington's life in more detail. That is a great way to show that all these things happened at once, and sometimes played into each other, even before the digital age of today. And it included science and music and all the things! Woot! Woot! Now, I just have to get on the library website and start ordering all the books for next semester in case there's a full shutdown. Just kidding. I'll start with the first month or so. Then I'll match up the Civil War books. I was really happy to get part of that project done today. I was wondering when I was going to have the chance to do that, so God provided a way. We HAVE to stay home (but really, no one would know if we went out and didn't quarantine, it's just an honesty policy, which is CRAZY, because who IS staying home? Well, the good little sheep are, but that's another story.) So, some books are switched out and the history corner has been vacuumed. There was a nice fat remant of a bee or hornet back there. I think it was a bee probably an inch long. Ew! But not much mouse poo this time! 

We had leftovers for supper and then Jared tried to get Abishai to watch The Polar Express. Abishai was deathly afraid of it! So Jared skipped a bunch of it. It's a good thing we didn't do it over at Gary and Leah's house like we were trying to plan to do next week. We could still watch it on vacation though. Maybe Abishai will be less scared to do it with others around. So that was our Christmas activity of the day. Oh and I found a hidden box of graham crackers so we can now make some gingerbread houses! We have done them two years in a row with the cousins, but I might just do them at home because we are bored. Anyway, that's about it, really. Stuck at home. Doing the normal thing. 

What a beautiful ornament! HSLDA Action is similar to IAHE Action in that the money goes directly to funding advocates to keep homeschooling free. I believe I sent them a donation earlier in the year. I don't support them monthly like I do our own IAHE Action group that reads the state bills and keeps us on track to stay free. I'm guessing, actually, that HSLDA launched their Action group (PAC or Political Action Group, which is NOT a non profit) and modeled it after the IAHE one. The leaderships are in close contact with one another. Nice ornament though!

I guess Jared didn't want to start the temperature wars again, so he let us set the thermostat up one degree to 73 degrees instead of 72. His preference would be 70. However, he is wearing long pants and a fleece while he sits in our bedroom. So I know he's not hot. I'm freezing though and still have to sit in front of heaters to "thaw" and my fingers and nose be warm enough. I'm guessing it's closer to 80 degrees in my 2 x 2 ft piece of real estate. I DID discover today that more caulking is coming off of the windows in the sunroom, so that's not helping!

Meanwhile, these kids go out without jackets on and in their pj's. They liked crunching in the snow that they slid in yesterday.

This is that book I was talking about. Amazing! Originally written in 1941 and then expanded in 1997. Perfection!

I screen shot this because how cool! Not that I have a place to put it, but there's two of these ends and you can put a roll of paper in between them like they have at professional stores like Von Maur.

And then one end has this tape dispenser! It just clamps to your table! Brilliant!

I have decided to try and dress up at home because why have I spent all this money in the last few years on a brand new wardrobe when I only wear it when I'm out and about? And since no one sees me much, I might as well wear it at home and enjoy it now that I spent the money. I need to stop spending the money of course. I'm still wearing my new jeans or corduroys, but I can switch out my "at home zip up hoodie" and my basic shirt for a more sophisticated look. Usually I wear all my different shirts, but then cover up with the same hoodie for weeks because I'm afraid of getting something on my nice shirts. Do I really stain my shirts that often? No. So what am I afraid of? I feel more productive and professional and good when I'm dressed up a bit. But I am more comfortable in things I can get dirty, just in case. Never leggings or pjs. Nope. Always jeans with pockets. Always. For my hankie and my phone. And for the pull on mom jeans and corduroys that don't have pockets? That's what zip up hoodies are for!

Some of the snow is gone. But this crazy cold guy is yes, out there in pjs like his siblings were with just a tshirt and hoodie. It's 30 degrees peeps! You crazy Canadians!

Abishai wanted to play Fortnite Monoply so he set it up himself and said he was playing against the "computer." I guess he's been playing a lot of solo video games, lol! I remember playing "against the computer" on some of those more simple PC games 20 years ago. He was playing by his own rules, but rolling the dice and counting spaces and turning over cards. So cute!

Abishai is deathly afraid of animated movies but also Home Alone and others were the music is swelling in the scarier parts and real people get hurt. So, we watched about 15 minutes in the beginning and about 20 minutes towards the end and skipped the scary part of when they go across the ice and probably the part where they have to get passed the elk, which is one of my favorite parts. They yank on one of the engineers beards to make him sound like an elk and then the elk move off the tracks. It's a good thing we didn't try to go to the IMax to see this one! They do it every year and it's one of the ones that Gary and Leah like, too. The Polar Express is a gorgeous movie with the storyline, the music, and the animation, although the animation is now nearly 20 years old itself and we've come a long way in digital animation now. It's a bit creepy in a couple of spots, but overall, it's awesome!

Shauna showed me a screen shot of a gingerbread house made out of chocolate pop tarts, which I think is pretty cool and had heard about it a week or two ago. I did download the instructions for this graham cracker nativity but in doing so....

I found this one! I don't have any of the ingredients shown here, but I think I'll get them as soon as I can before vacation. How precious!

Abishai got to finish his day with Rocket League with Daddy. Daddy hates this game because the controls aren't great.

Daddy gets the ball or puck into the net and Abishai gets all the other vehicles and kills them off. Team effort! But Jared yells at the screen during video games like other men yell at the screen during football games. I guess it's mostly a guy thing to yell at a screen!

Yes, I'm still religiously playing this game! With the purchase of my new phone, it automatically added $50 of Apple pay money and therefore, I was able to finally get rid of all the ads on this game! No more waiting 30 seconds every time I want to speed things up! It's been wonderful! BUT BUT BUT tonight, after MONTHS of playing this ONE MINE, it is FINISHED! These are the hardest mines in the game and take months to accomplish. I had to watch each additional one be launched over the last year as I tried to get through just two of the mines. There's lots of other mines and islands and special weekly mines to go through, but this is a BIG accomplishment. Only accomplished now because I also purchased a special power up, too. But, this is why my credit card is NOT saved on my phone and I got it blocked last year when I accidentally hit "spend" on a $100 power up. They refunded my money, and I got to keep the power up, but I wasn't taking that chance again! Anyway, this is a great way to end the day and this blog post!

The End