Scouts -- or boys are crazy!

Jonny and Steven both went camping on Friday, but not together. Steven went with his 11 year old scout troop. They camped in Deception Pass State Park (just down the hill) and did a service project. He had a blast and came back with a huge smile on his face. Steven now has his 2nd class in Boy Scouts and is really loving it.

Jonny on the other hand, went with the older scouts on his first snow camp ever. It was just warm enough to rain and rain it did everyone was getting soaked. Jonny was pretty well off since he had his sailing foul weather gear with him. Several of the boys had good warm clothes, but once they were wet, they got cold. Jonny kept checking on the boys and asking them math questions to make sure they were ok. One of the boys was cold, shaking, and couldn't even tell the difference between a sleeping bag and a sleeping pad. He sent him home. Jonny said he didn't sleep at all. He kept checking on the boys through the night and waiting for their snow caves to cave in on them. He had brought several extra sleeping bags. This turned out to be a good thing. Some of the boys' bags got wet. Yet, surprisingly enough, he too came home with a huge smile on his face. He said that was the most fun he had had in a long time ... BOYS!!! He is already making plans on how to make it better next year.

We finished the day by going to the Cub Scout Dessert Auction. It was a fund raiser for Cub Scout Day Camp. It was fun and they met their goal . They had some fun creative desserts.

Making Myself Heard

I have to laugh at myself. I finally convince myself that no one is really paying attention to this blog. After all, my dear brother still doesn't read it even if I do put pictures on. (at one point he said that if I did, he would pay more attention) And it was intended to keep family up to date on what we were doing. So no one is reading it, fine. I'll talk to myself. Then I start this website. No problem, no one is really going to pay attention to that either. Especially since I won't be able to spend tons of time on it until this degree of mine is finished. And then I find out that several people are actually reading it and sharing it with others. Now I panic. YIKES. Now that I have exposed myself they will more likely be able to judge me and maybe not like me. I'm so wishy washy. What was the point, if not to share? Oh, but what if someone actually thinks I'm an expert or something crazy like that?!?

I think I pretty much have the website together for now. I am not thrilled with google sites. It is great for what it was intended for: small group collaborations, but it is limited on functionality. I think I will live with it for now though. When I start projects like this I tend to hyper focus. My children have not received the attention they need and I can tell. Basically because I am more testy and not at patient as I should be. I need to put this away and get back to them.

I still need to finalize my lending policies for the lending library and decide how to formally open the business. The library could be a non-profit, but I also want to be able to offer the annual testing services that WA requires for its homeschoolers. (after I earn my degree, of course.) I don't think that part can be a non-profit. I still need to investigate that part.

For now, back to school and business as usual. We can get back into a groove and... wait, that won't happen either. We start swimming lessons this week. That will totally mess up our rhythms. Oh well, there is always something.

Changing Educational Paradigms

I chose to homeschool because I felt strongly that my children would need a different learning environment than I had. As I studied how I might go about that daunting task I learned some more about our educational system. This little video shares some of what I learned. Essentially I homeschool because I felt I needed to; I continue to homeschool because of these reasons:

Oh, My Goodness

Look what I did! I made a link button for the Washington CAR. Look right over to your left. I did it all by myself. Well actually I used and existing code and put in my info instead. But I did it. I'm pretty proud of myself.

You want me to make one for you? I wonder if I can do it again.

Whoo, hoo. I did. Now I have one for my website. (can you tell, I'm dancinig a jig?)

I might figure out this HTML stuff yet.

A New Year - a new beginning

Ya know, these new years are coming more frequently all the time. If I'm not careful, I'm going to wake up any day now and realize that all my children have grown and left me.

First a little update, and then I have something exciting to tell you.

I have one more assignment left to finish my current class. I should be done with it in the next few days. I won't have time to fit in another class before the term ends at the end of January, so I will have a couple of weeks to myself. I will have completed the equivalent of 27 credit hours this term. I love the fact that WGU lets me test out of some of these classes. Unfortunately my current classes have projects so I have to do them, I can't simply pass the test and move on. I can, at least, simply review the information and do the projects, so I am still catching up relatively well.

During my holiday break, instead of staying away from the computer like I intended, I ended up starting a new project. I made my own website. It ended up being more than 15 pages. I thought I was done and then I had an epiphany. A friend asked me if I had such-and-such a book and if she could borrow it. It occurred to me that I could add a list of books on my site that I would be willing to lend out. I put together a quick list of 30 titles; that wasn't even any curriculum, just the how-to home educate books and seminar CD's. - I have a lot more.

So I thought, what if I start a home education curriculum lending library? I think there could be a real market. The economy is tough, money is tight. I would love to be able to check something out for a short time and look it over, or even longer and use it for several months. To try before you buy. Potential home schoolers are easily intimidated by the cost of materials. The more I think about it, the more excited I get. The public libraries sometimes have things, but not very much and you can't keep it for very long. The post office has a library mail rate that is very reasonable. I could solicit donations of used materials. I just need to figure out the lending terms. Should I charge a rental fee? A deposit? Run it more like a membership club? I'm not sure. I need to find that balance between making too easy and it being abused, and making it so hard that I miss my intended market.

You want to know the most amazing thing? Throughout our marriage, I have come up with crazy ideas. Jonny is my sense of reason. If the timing is wrong, or it would put my energies in the wrong direction, he seems to know it and shuts me down. When it is good, he supports it. I have learned to trust his wisdom and insight. Well, Jonny is supporting this one. That is my biggest confirmation that this could be good. But yes, Crazy!