A giant bee's nest

Check out the size of this thing! We stopped using the shed since we discovered it in there mid-summer. It would have cost us $140 to have it removed, so we left it there and moved the tractor into the garage. And we've been patiently waiting for it to get cold enough for the bees to cease being a threat.

Look at the beautiful texture on this thing:

I think I had more fun cutting it open than the boys did. Actually, B and I were really enraptured by the thing. The boys showed some interest, and enjoyed the cutting it up part, but nowhere near as much as I did.

The dozens of bees were still alive in there, but very much groggy from the cold, so they were no longer a threat. It was interesting to just look at their behavior in this state.

We also had the opportunity to see larva; it does not have wings or legs but looks like a small worm. Typically it stays in its cell until it urns into a pupa, which we also got to see. It was really cool to see them all lined up in their cells the way we've only see in books before. Here is the one we had handy and looked through after we saw all this cool stuff, and wanted to know more about everything we had seen!
We are so glad we did without our shed for a couple of months, and didn't spend the money to rid ourselves of this thing, because doing it ourselves was very cool! We even saved several pieces to bring inside and display.

Remember - you can click on any of the photos to see them up close.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I've been feeling the need for a break from my mother's family, so this year we stayed home for Thanksgiving, rather than go up to Maine.

This fabulous day started with R and E surprising B and I with breakfast in bed. This was the first time R had made sunny side up eggs and he did an excellent job. Also on the first time he made coffee. He figured it out just by watching me make it every day. E did the toast. I don't think I can adequately convey what a wonderful surprise this morning was.

After breakfast we all rolled around in bed together for quite a while. The only thing missing was the Thanksgiving parade since we don't receive any broadcast TV anymore. But it was still wonderful. B and I watched an episode of The Waltons while R and E kept busy getting their free food for their pets on Webkins.

Last time I made Thanksgiving dinner I did not especially enjoy myself, but this time I kept my preparations to a minimum. B was appalled to see a box of Stove-top Stuffing on the counter yesterday, but on the other hand he didn't offer to make any from scratch.

The day was very relaxed and enjoyable. I made the turkey and gravy last night so I could have the oven free for other things, and that worked out perfectly. The turkey ended up taking a couple of hours longer than the longest time on the label. I don't know whether that was because the inside was still slightly frozen when I put it in, or perhaps my oven is off, but either way, I had planned for the turkey to come out, and to prepare the gravy at 9:00 pm, and I actually didn't get to bed till 1:00 am. Would've been mighty crappy to be waiting that many hours for an overdue turkey on Thanksgiving!

I heated it up in the oven today in a quiche dish with some water thrown in, and the turkey stayed nice and moist. And I didn't have to think about actually cooking or preparing anything till an hour before we ate.

Dinner was very good. In addition to turkey and gravy, we had mashed potatoes and corn, and a casserole with the Stove-top and broccoli and cauliflower, which was quite good. We also had some cranberry sauce which I made yesterday. I was very happy that it tasted so good since I made it with maple syrup and unsweetened applesauce instead of sugar. Yum!

I toyed with the idea of making some pumpkin bread, but that was a two hour ordeal, and I really did want to keep it simple. So yesterday I made pumpkin cookies instead; a box of spice cake and a can of pumpkin. Spoon on cookie sheets and bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Easy and yummy.

Nagy Papa joined us, which was very nice. He had thought he might bring someone from his condo complex who had no place else to go, but it turned out she did. Worked for me since it meant I didn't have to get the boys to wash the walls in the hallway. That's coming soon though anyway since they are getting pretty gross.

I left a message on my mom's voice mail since she didn't pick up when I called this afternoon. I hope she is having a nice Thanksgiving. I miss being with her for it.

It was a beautiful day and we all spent some of it outside. I hope it's this nice tomorrow when we get back to our leaves!

After dinner we watched A Christmas Story which I had picked up from the library this week. And during the end of that we ate some of my pumpkin cookies and the Reese's Pieces ice-cream cake Nagy Papa brought from Sweet Claude's.

Last year for Christmas Nagy Papa gave R a K'nex kit with three pieces of an amusement park. He had cleaned his room earlier this week, hoping that some friends could come over and play (unfortunately that didn't work out), and couldn't resist filling up that empty floor in there! He enjoyed showing of his amusement park (with ferris wheel which had come from Grandma another time) to Nagy Papa. He is now talking about modifying it all. We'll see where this weeks takes us.

E spent a portion of the day creating a laptop computer out of paper and sending emails back and forth with Nagy Papa. And getting his feet incredibly dirty outside barefoot (while R ran around in shorts).

What a great day! And it's nice that since I cooked I have leftovers. We are looking forward to turkey sandwiches tomorrow, and turkey pot pie on Saturday. And I used the carcass to make a stock so we can use that for other stuff this week.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Risk

Our playgroup used Wednesday for an "educational" activity this week. The boys were not interested in making and talking about their own altars for The Day of the Dead, or listening to a book about it, or learning the Mexican Hat Dance, or eating Mexican food with their playgroup friends. They want playgroup to be playgroup. So instead we stayed home and learned how to play Risk.

I was never really a fan when I was a kid, but I'm so loving it now.

There are amazing things to be learned from this game. All those little pieces on the board are roman numerals. We learned them very quickly. Multiplying, or skip counting, depending on whose turn it is, is also essential. We talked about how geography has changed over the years, and what happens to people when someone else takes over their country. And most importantly we learned about sportsmanship. That one has been an ongoing lesson...

We spent at least five hours playing on Wednesday, and left the game on the table for four days before we agreed to call it a draw. I'm thinking about cutting the legs down on one of the tables in the basement to use as a coffee table in the living room. It will take up a lot of room, but will give us a place to leave stuff like this. So far no one else likes the idea except me. One of those tables is leaving the basement either way.

Snow

Yes, that is snow. Friday, November 16th. Litchfield County, CT.

Final Beardsley Zoo class till the spring

This time the younger class got the good teacher. She still has problems with watching the time though and always ends up spending too much time on the lecture portion and having to run through the activity. E got to touch another snake this week during the lecture.

The fun activity today was going through those cool "staff only" doors. This time around we got to see the zoo keepers preparing all the food for the animals. We got to see them cutting up fish and meat for some of the carnivores, and veggies for some of the herbivores. Both age groups got to see this at different points.

They also got to go into the basement and check out what was in the freezers. Yes, we got to see lots of different bags filled with different sized frozen mice. It was really cool. I'm so glad I'm a chaperone and I get to do this too.

The younger kids got to prepare the food for the bison and deer. They had big garbage cans full of food (the dry stuff like they have in the candy machines to buy to feed in the petting zoo) and the kids had to measure the food into buckets for breakfast the next day. They had to weigh the food to precise amounts, since they are very strict with the amounts the animals eat. R says the older kids did the same thing for the farm animals. He loves getting to hang out with the two boys he's gotten to be friends with in this and the White Memorial class.

About divorce

Today E asked a couple of interesting questions. First he wanted to know what a half brother is. Evidently R had gotten that one wrong.

He also wanted to know what happens when people get divorced. After explaining how forms are filled out to submit to the government, etc., I got "Oh. I thought people dressed up in their fancy wedding clothes again, and slapped each other all over to take back all their kisses."

Our passports...

have arrived in only 10 days! I simply cannot believe that 10 days ago, on Saturday, November 3rd, we sat in the post office getting all our paperwork in order, and here we are 10 days later with our passports in hand. I guess the government is all caught up now!

The whole world is ours...

A Pirate Show

A homeschooling family here in CT organized a show at a local library; a pirate who performs Cajun, Zydeco and New Orleans music for kids. He was supposed to have performed from 1:00 till 3:00, but the show went from about 1:15 till 2:15. He would've been a lot better if parents got in free. Fifteen dollars to see this guy was simply not worth it. He is the kind of guy that the libraries should pay for and invite the neighborhood kids to see him for free.

The boys had fun though. But when I asked R, he admitted that the show wouldn't have been if we hadn't run into some old friends there.

A few weeks ago we watched National Geographic: Blackbeard - Terror at Seaand the boys learned about the reality of being a pirate. The show was really terrific, blending acted out scenes with facts to create a captivating program. R loved it, and was thrilled to be able to recognize Blackbeard's flag at the Renaissance Faire last month (never did get around to blogging about that - maybe I'll find time to go back).

Anyhow, when the homeschool show pirate asked the kids if it would be fun to be a pirate mine said "no". E still loves a good game of pretend pirate, and playing with his pirate action figures, so I had to chuckle when I heard the response. I guess he can appreciate "pretending" to be a pirate vs. "being" a pirate.

I quit my job

I'm copying this over from my other blog. I originally posted it on the other one since it is more about me than info about our unschooling family, but then I decided it's really one and the same. Plus, I know some people only read this one and would miss out. So here it is; I quit my job...

I've been freelancing for a woman for a several months now. She actually sent me home with a mac so I could work when she needs me to. It's been really wonderful to make some extra money for us, and I really do like what I do.

Recently though, my client discovered she has breast cancer. So she started farming out her work, so that she can have the next few weeks unencumbered. She gave me two jobs to work on. One for a local Chamber of Commerce, and another for a car dealership which does a weekly newspaper ad. I knew the next couple of weeks would be very full and somewhat stressful, but I felt I owed it to my client to be there for her. Plus, to be honest, all those billable hours would be really nice.

Well after several days of working on the Chamber of Commerce thing, my client added up the hours and decided it would be best to give the job back to them. Apparently even paying me at less than what she was billing, she would lose money. It was a combination of reasons, really. The customer made many changes which had not been included in the original quote, and passing the thing on further down the line meant communication was being lost; kind of like the telephone game. So I spent four hours on something before I was told that it needed to be completely redesigned, at which time I spent another four hours redesigning it. If my client had not been ill and distracted, I'm sure the information would have been passed on correctly the first time around, but that was not the case, and I spent a lot of time doing work which was wrong. So in the end she (rightly) decided it was best to give the job back to the agency and let them deal with it.

Then we have the car thing. These folks are completely unprofessional. I'm not going into the details of the whole thing, but the bottom line is they were supposed to have had the ad all approved so I could upload it to the newspaper by noon on Thursday, and Friday at 5:30 is when I was finally able to upload it.

So I told my client that I would not be able cover the car ad for her until she returned to working full time. It would make me a slave to the house on Thursdays and Fridays and wasn't fair to the boys. So Saturday morning she came and took her computer back so she could give it to someone who could cover for her.

My feelings are so mixed. Bottom line is that I made a choice to stay home and raise my children, and homeschool them, and to expect them to entertain themselves two days a week for the next several was not fair. Not to mention that we would have to cancel plans already made for those days.

I also feel frustrated that my client left feeling that I took way longer to do the work than she would have. I know this would not be the case had she been her normal self - instructions would not have been missed, and I certainly would not have had to spend the enormous amount of time I had to gathering all the files together from all the different places she had it stored. I only hope that when she is herself again that she is able to see that I am still valuable to her, and that the time I spent on all her work is justified. "If you always do your best, there is no way you can judge yourself." Man, this book rocks. It is my life preserver.

There is also a piece of me which feels proud on a couple of levels. First, I have my priorities straight. Second, I feel that car dealership and the agency who represented them really were unprofessional. I refuse to work with people who don't respect me, especially after I explained my circumstances to make sure they were okay with my time limitations.

Finally though, I am dealing with the whole money thing. It doesn't seem fair that society judges people on their worth according to their monetary worth. And that that viewpoint is so prevalent that it has rubbed off on me, even though consciously I know I what I contribute to my family is worth more than some extra money. If I could just get my husband on board with that...