Throwing Marshmallows

I read this quote today and it stuck with me…

“The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”

- Bertrand Russel

Which is why I have been so quiet around here! We are putting on the finishing touches and I can’t believe that it is almost here. You can read more about the Conference here.

I am so excited…I get to hear Thomas Armstrong talk…get to see Cindy again. Get to hang out with hundreds of other homeschoolers who get what we do and why we do it. Not to mention the shopping!

If you are going to be anywhere around Richmond next weekend, be sure to make it over. Walk-ins will be accepted and it should be a whole lot of fun for the whole family.

Now to go finish my outline for my “Homeschooling and Blogging” session I am doing (yup…that is my topic (one of them anyways…I am also doing several beginning homeschooling sessions) Wonder why they choose me to lead this one?)

So after next weekend, I should be able to get back to more regular posting. I have all sorts of things that I have been wanting to write about (like the new Harry Potter movie) and more pictures to post. Oh yeah…but when I get back from the conference, first order of business will be to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! Jason and I have been really looking forward to it (poor Kyle will have to wait a bit…we are only on Book 2!) Ahhh…so much to look forward to…

Just got a link to this article in the Washington Post about the Squished Penny Museum closing it’s doors. They are closing because, according to Christine Henry, co-founder:

The public remains as interested as ever in squished pennies, she insisted. Christine and her husband, Pete Morelewicz, would just like their weekends back.

For the museum, you see, is — or, rather, was — in the front hallway of the couple’s LeDroit Park home.

I blogged about our homeschool field trip to the Squished Penny Museum in a post calld “What is a Squished Penny“. It really was what jump started my collecting again. Christine and Pete are wonderful folks to have shared their home and their passion for pennies with so many. But I can’t say that I blame them for wanting their weekend peace and quiet back.

The Washington Post even has a video interview with them. Check it out!

The Discovery Channel is having their semi-annual DVD sale. Hundreds of educational DVDs on sale for up to 75% off and lots of titles for $4.99. Also, if you use code EMAIL07 you get an additional $5 off of a $25 purchase.

Enjoy!

So I tried to figure out how to post this wonderful 4th of July photo by Steve Wall, but could not figure out how to do it without uploading it to my account, which did not seem right. So you will just have to click over to see it. Not quite the same effect, but it is a really neat picture. Beautiful work.

We had a nice 4th. Had fun on the beach. Fireworks were postponed until tomorrow due to high winds (we are guessing). Except that it is supposed to rain tomorrow. Let’s hope that they go off!

Just discovered this wonderful storytelling resource – Storynory (have I ever said how much I love my homeschool email lists? You find out about the neatest things).

You can listen online or subscribe to their podcast and download lots of different types of stories…fairy tales (including ones from Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm), mythology, animal stories, Aesop’s Fables, Arabian Nights, Bible Stories, Poetry, you name it. They are also doing chapter installments of Alice in Wonderland. I had a lot of fun poking around and discovering the wealth of stories they have available (75 and counting).

We always have an audio book going in the car and I am always looking to find new resources that we can use. Podcasts are great because I can download them to my iPod and play them in the car. Plus they are free!

We currently enjoy Act!vated Storytellers (a podcast by a homeschool storytelling family) and I am excited to find another similar podcast. The nice thing about Storynory is that they have longer stories in addition to shorter ones. I am really looking forward to listening to these with the boys.

Check them out!

So I saw an ad on Salon.com this morning that definitely caught my attention. It was for the “Washlet”. The first time I saw it, I was amused. But then it kept popping up as I was reading articles and it kept grabbing my attention. I finally just had to see what the heck the washlet was and clicked on the ad (something that I never do).

You can see the ad here at CleanIsHappy.com. I do not plan on buying one, but I do have to give it credit for intriguing me enough to check it out (and even sit through the demo on their site because I really wanted to see what it was all about). That is way more time then I normally give to ads…I just really got a kick out of this one. Check it out for yourself and you will see why.

If you had asked me yesterday morning at 10am what I wanted to do, I would not have said “go for a swim in the canal behind our house”. But that is exactly what I ended up doing. Why, you ask? Let me explain…

I think that I have mentioned that we had a doggie ramp put in out back in the hopes that Ellie might like the water. Well, up until Thursday evening, she had only sniffed around it a bit. She definitely showed interest, but had not ventured down it.

Thursday evening, she got brave and went about half way down before coming back up, much to the enjoyment of the boys. She seemed to want to take it slow. So Monday morning, Kyle and I were out with Ellie in the backyard and she suddenly got brave…going down to the bottom and sniffing the water and then backing back up. Kyle ran to get Jason so that he could watch in case she went in.

Next, Ellie went down and put her paws in the water, getting really brave! However, as she backed up the ramp, she slipped and fell in! We quickly learned that she could indeed swim (we had been told by the previous owners that she could). However, she decided to swim away from the doggie ramp and under the dock! We tried for about a minute to call her back, but it became obvious that she was not going to come. So telling the boys to keep an eye on her, I ran inside stripping as fast as I could to get into my bathing suit (if I thought that she was in dire trouble, I would have jumped in clothes and all, but as it was she was doing a mean doggie paddle, albeit in the wrong direction, and I was sure that she could survive).

Came back out and found that she had made it a fair way down the bulkhead. Realized that I was indeed going to have to go in (despite the fact that it was cold!) So I went down the doggie ramp (too far for me to jump off the dock) and luckily found it fairly shallow and that the bottom was not as gross as I had expected. Swam a ways over to grab her (while our neighbor across the canal looked on from where he had been fishing) and carried/swam with her back to the doggie ramp where I showed her how to go up.

The boys, needless to say, were jumping up and down the whole time and found it all great fun. Jason found it funny (once he realized that she could swim). Kyle found it “scary and funny”. And I think that they both got a kick out of me jumping in.

By the time I got Ellie out, she was running on pure adrenalin and went into major psycho puppy mode…running round and round the yard, back and forth, stopping here and there to give herself a good shake. I really wish that I had my camera there to catch her drowned puppy look after she got out, but I did not think to grab it in all the excitement.

So far, she has not ventured back out on the doggie ramp, however she still shows a lot of interest in the water and I have a feeling that it is only time before she tries again (she saw a dog across the canal today and I was sure she was going to make a leap for it!) Now I just need to figure out how to teach her how to get back out. Luckily she is a smart dog and hopefully she will figure it out quickly.

At least I hope so! I really do not have any desire for more early morning dips in the canal. In any case, now that I know that the canal is not that deep, I may just send one of the boys!