Today's Home Economics Project

Today Kiran decided to make an Owl Post Bag. The bag was to be used for purchases at Game Stop with a strap long enough that should he drop the bag it would be less than an inch from the floor, thus saving any games from harm.

The attached slide show is of him making the bag. :-)

European Immersion

A little less than 2 weeks ago Kiran finally started reading the Harry Potter books. (I've loved them for years.) Technically, it started when he was sick and I read him #6 and 7 within a week. Then he started on #1 and read #2 within a day.

While I was looking up to see you one could still buy Chocolate Frogs (with trading cards of course) on Amazon, I happened upon the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook and happened to get it at our local Barnes & Noble a day or two before it technically went on sale. :-D

And don't you know that the Harry Potter books and the cookbook just happened to coincide with us starting a social studies/geography study of Europe. We also just happened to own a Lonely Planet guide on British English and both the Travel Channel and Create TV were having a ton of programmes on Europe.

So for more than a week we were speaking British English (driving my husband bonkers of course :-D,) eating British, reading about the British, "touring" all over Europe, and even smelling like the British thanks to Yardley of London English Lavender Soap!

Our studies are don't yet. We've had to pause because Kiran's Halloween costume MUST get finished in time. (That's a whole other blog post!) But for now, enjoy some pictures of the excellent food we made using recipes from the excellent Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook and the Victory Cookbook.

The picture up top shows some of the books we're using to study the United Kingdom. They are: How People Live, Material World, Time Magazine special issue - The Royals, Evan-Moor's Europe workbook, The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, and The Victory Cookbook.

Great, I'm Awake & Can't Sleep

I'm semi-awake, want to sleep, but can't. Frelling mind won't shut off. Then again, I'm used to it as my son and I are uber nightowls. Uber, you question? Yes, uber. How else would one describe going to sleep between 2-6 a.m., sometimes later, a lot later. Though to be fair, my son has jumped back to a normal-to-the-rest-of-humanity sleep cycle yet I can't get on it.

Anyway, yes, I use that word a lot, I figured for those who don't know me, I'd describe our home a bit. It is decorated in Sci-Fi Geek Meets Homeschooling Family. It's the latest rage you know, soon to be seen in prestigious style magazines and on various decorating shows on HGTV.

On our living room walls are Math Monsters, small posters in the shape of cute monsters each giving the multiplication facts for the numbers 7, 8, & 9; 2 black & white maps of Europe that I copied from Evan-Moor's geography workbook on Europe; a cut-away poster of the USS Avenger, a ship/local chapter of Starfleet: the International Star Trek Fan Association that we used to be very active in; a Farscape poster (let's all pause for a moment to drool over John Crichton/actor Ben Browder in tight black leather pants;) photographs of my son including 4 when he was an adorable blur in my tummy; sketches that my dear friend drew of characters in the sci-fi novel that I've been writing for the past 10-15 years (I hope to be done by the time I'm 80;) a painting I made called "Ancient Ancestor" - a portrait of an elderly rabbit in dark purple coat & hat that is essentially my dear departed Grandma Edna; sketches that another friend made of the fictional characters of myself & my husband from our Avenger days; a shadow box containing decorations from our wedding; a marker-on-wipe-off-board drawing called "Math Monster" that my son made one day to express his loathing of math; and finally, a black & white photograph that my dad took of my older sister and I went we were little.

Then there are the books and DVDs. Tons of them and that's only in the living room. Our library is literally overflowing with them, more so than the single bookcase (half books, half DVDs) and 4-5 DVD crates, 2 "foot stool storage bins" and a crate full of currently active homeschool books in the living room.

Other decorations in our Sci-Fi Geek Meets Homeschool Family home include a model of the trimaran with Mariner action figure from "Waterworld" (yes, I loved that movie,) a model of "Serenity," photo stills from various movies and shows, Harry Potter posters (let's all take a second to cheer that Daniel Radcliff is of legal age and it's no longer creepy for me to say that he's attractive,) a "Serenity" poster, various Star Trek gadgets & ship models, and a model of an AT-AT. If my husband ever finally fulfills my birthday and/or Christmas wishes, I'll soon have "Firefly"/"Serenity" travel posters that can easily be purchased here:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/posters/ad49/
Hint...hint...hint...dear husband or anyone else reading this. :-D

And if you're in the mood to buy me pressies, there's also:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/popculture/a231/
Which seems to be available only in XL or XXXL, and of course, an XXL fits best, not because I love my Taco Bell, but because cotton shrinks, you know? :-P

Okay, enough rambling for tonight. Or at least I think so. I'm going to finish my game of Spider Solitaire (800+ wins so far,) reboot, and maybe get some writing/edits on my novel done.

Give Me a Few While I Sort Things Out

This is my first blog on this particular blog site, but not to the blogging world in general. For those that know, or have known, me on various homeschooling boards, I used to have a blog (technically I still do) here:

http://homeschoolblogger.com/coffeeheidi/

However, I stopped it after some very nasty hate mail from a few nutjobs on a homeschool forum that I won't name. Long story that I don't feel like rehashing as I've found other homeschool forums to call home. (I do miss the friends that I had made there though.)

Anyway, it's 3:43 a.m. and my brains aren't all here. I was sleeping till husband woke me up and I had to go ding my dishes in Cafe' World. What I really meant to type was "Give me a few to figure this site out please."

Eventually, I want to start posting all the things I've been posting on Facebook about our crazy life, homeschooling and otherwise. Then again when you're homeschooling it is your life and you really can't separate the two.

And I'm going to stop typing now. It's better for everyone that way. LOL!

Till next time,

~CoffeeHeidi