Weekly Wrap Up 10/29/21-- Visiting my Mom and college Visit

 A week or two ago I went to visit my Mother as she has moved into her new place.  Since my Dad passed away two years ago she decide to downsize and sell her house.  She has a friend from Nursing school that she has know for 60 years and her husband died 4 or 5 years ago.  Mom's friend ask her to move in with her since they are both widows and kinda lonely.  The lady lives in a split level house and has redone the lower level so Mom basically has an apt.  They get together every morning for coffee and walk the dogs together.  During the day they do their own thing, Mom is volunteering and doing art classes, then in the evenings get together for dinner and another dog walk.  So far it is working out great and Mom seems happy.  I went to visit to try to help move her things into her new space.  

Mom and I visiting Solomons island for the day 

My cousin from Florida dropped by and we spent a lovely afternoon walking around a cute little town (forgot the name of it) 

of course the dogs came with us

My Mom and her friend

Mom and I taking another walk at Kings landing which is absolutely beautiful.  My Mom loves living by the water and there is lots of history in the area 

Lexi the husky--- both dogs and are still learning to get along with each other, it has only been a few weeks and they are only dogs syndrome (as in they don't share well)

Before heading home we visited family friends whom I haven't seen in years., but Mom still keeps in contact with.  The Man in the picture I grew up with and he is now the father of three children all over 18.

It was a lovely visit and as usual way too short.  However I will be heading back to pick my Mother up to bring her to our home for Thanksgiving.  

While away my husband and son went to visit  our college student who proudly showed off her college to her brother.  My husband was responsible for taking pictures of this but I have very few as excessive picture taking apparently is only something I do according to my kids and husband.  

He took 1 picture the whole weekend!  Firedrake loved showing her brother around the campus .  As all her roommates left that weekend he even got to see her dorm room!

MarioFan was able to drive a portion of the trip and hit the speed limit of 75, he was very happy to finally be able to drive on the highways.  

When I return home MarioFan was very excited to show me a house that went all out for halloween.

Nightmare before Christmas decorations -- pretty cool

I on the other hand haven't got any decorations up for halloween.  I am also not handing out candy this year, instead Mariofan wants to attend Frightfest at Six Flags on Halloween night.  It will be cold and very crowded but that is what he wants to do.  

Weekly Wrap UP 10/22/21-- Scarecrow festival and stain glass project

  Every year our little town holds a Scarecrow festival for the entire month of October.  This year there are over 200 Scarecrows all over town, some are recycled from last year but there are many that are new.  I always take a few pictures of some of my favorites.  I don't find any of them particularly scary but you always get the Debbie downers of the town throwing a fit about this festival saying the scarecrows are disturbing or scary.  Seems like you can't do anything anymore without someone having a complaint about it.  oh well 

Lots of theme ones this year for the local high school 

Raggedy Anne and Andy

Dorothy from wizard of OZ 

a toilet spider outside a plumbers building

an entire skeleton family just enjoying the day 

This one reminded me of Mrs Potato head

there were several groups a scarecrows

This one is appropriate for outside our local Barbecue restaurant 

The Scarecrow festival is also in the month of the towns local celebratory weekend.  Last year it was cancelled but this year they are determined to hold it, even though our area is still reeling form the increase in hospitalizations.  While the county has a mask mandate our local Knuckle-headed mayor has decided not to enforce the mandate so we will be skipping it this year:(!

I started working on a new project.  I bought a pattern but am modifying it slightly.  It will be the Yggdrasil tree of life.  This will be my fall/ winter project.  

I have spent about three days so far (approx 14-16 hours) on this so far.  

I have had a few people contact me about doing commission pieces whether they come through or not is still pending as I gave them the price and they now aren't sure.  I keep telling people glass supplies are expensive and the prices of copper foil, solder and zinc just went up at supply shops.  This usually makes people reconsider lol.  Oh well I will just keep making them for myself!

Weekly Wrap UP 10/15/21 -- 12th grade

 This week I am away visiting my Mother, but MarioFan is at home with his Dad and is continuing with his studies and online classes on his own. MarioFan and his Dad took a weekend away to visit Firedrake at college while I was away. 

He is now reading the book Lord of the Flies by William Golding for Literature

For Human geography we are learning about the Anthropocene era and have begun reading the book Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond 

For Social Justice we are learning about race, racism and reading the book Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram Kendi

MarioFan is doing a lot more driving and doing well.  However I am very much a nervous mother in the care which is driving him crazy.  He prefers to go driving with his Dad because he says I make him nervous!  

Still working on all the other school stuff but nothing too exciting to report on.  :)  Maybe when I get home I will have a few pictures of their visit from college.  Mario fan is excited because his Dad said he could drive on the highway part of the way and go 70 miles per hour!  I am so glad I will miss that trip as I have a heart attack if he drives above 40 at this time lol

Weekly Wrap UP 10/8/21 Happy 22nd Anniversary

 Can't believe it has been 22 years since I married this amazing man!  We just get each other through thick and thin.    

We look so young

Since Covid he has decided to grow out his hair in preparation for retirement.  I think he wants a man pony tail:). 

For our anniversary we went to one of our favorite local restaurant and spurge a little bit from our dieting. 

Since being married we have had two amazing children, moved  4 times, bought 3 homes, and been on countless adventures together both in the US, Europe and even Africa!  By this time next year our youngest will be in college and we are starting to plan our future retirement and being empty nesters.  We have plans to travel the country together and take fun classes together that we have always wanted to do.  

Here's to another 22 years of marriage together!    Love you Babe!

Weekly Wrap Up 10/01/21--School and family update

 We are now at full load for MarioFan's Senior year.  All online classes have started and we are working out all the little kinks that come with a new school year:)!  All additional activities have started which means I am running around like crazy getting MarioFan to various activities.  we have late nights 3 nights a week and since everything is back open that means I am driving to places.  I actually missed MarioFan being able to do his extra activities online.  So much easier for me;) 

For Literature are reading:  Things Fall Apart

For his writing assignment he is looking at writing a research paper on the Igbo people.

Physics class started last week and seem to be going well.  First  lab was completed!

MarioFan participating in the online class!

The Spaghetti Lab -  looking at the weight spaghetti noodles can hold 

They did this using 3 strands up to 9 strands of spaghetti noodles.

then weighed the amount it took to break the spaghetti strands.  

Spanish tutoring class began last week as well 

it is a small online group that meets weekly and they are concentrating on speaking more Spanish 

We are meeting every Friday with a friend to do three classes together; Personal Finance, Human geography and Social Justice!  Afterwards the boys get to have some fun time together to socialize because we have all heard how homeschoolers don't get any of that, right;)

For Social Justice watching a Great Course video on anthropology and race.

which was a homework assignment 

We have been enjoying this program from Beyond Personal Finance.    If you are looking for something different than Dave Ramsey I would recommend this program.  The instructor in the video is very engaging and the weekly budgeting is eye opening for the kids.  

For Human Geography we have just wrapped up our unit on Maps and understanding the five themes of geography and absolute and relative location.  We have also identified many different types of maps and how each of them are distorted in some way.  We watch the very funny "West Wing" clip on the Mercator map:) 

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Firedrake is doing well at college feeling much more relax overall which is good.  She is required to work a 4 hour volunteer job weekly which is a condition of her scholarship which is throwing a slight hiccup into her schedule but she is figuring it all out.  I think I should have done a little more time management skills with her before sending her off as she is definitely not finding it easy to balance everything even though her parents think there is more than enough time to do what she needs to do and have down time to relax with friends.  Some things they just need to figure out on their own and learn from mistakes made (not that any mistakes have been made yet)

I have resumed going to the gym (I am up and out of the house by 6:30 am) and trying to talked my husband into joining as well so we can both get healthy.  He is off the supplemental O2 (from his covid nightmare) but still needing to build up his overall endurance.