Getting ready for school plus a Music Giveaway

The give away info is at the end and has nothing to do with the homeschool portion of the post.

I spent most of the day getting our extensive book collection into my tracking program. I use the free version of Homeschool Tracker to keep the records I need for the State of Colorado. It offers much more than I need right now but we can grow into it and there is a paid version if we ever out grow it. It is simple to use and while I wish it would let me have a bit more flexibility in bulk entry it works great for the price. ;)


Now the iPad apps that I have download so far. I'll start with the ones that The Boy is willing to play with before we even 'start school' they are all created by Dan Russell-Pinson and he LOVES them.

1. Rocket Math It covers everything from counting, money, time, patterns, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. But in doing that you get to build rockets and use the 'money' you earn to buy different parts. He loves experimenting with his rockets and building new ones. I'm going to use this to help him get his basic math facts into his head.
2. Stack the States I downloaded this tonight and The Boy and DH are playing it right now as I type this up. He is learning interesting things about the states and it will tie in with my geography lessons for this year. I'm so happy he is engaged with it enough to learn the facts as well as trying to stack the states up high enough to cross the 'finish line' 
3. Presidents vs Aliens You take out the Aliens with the Presidents. How freaking cool is that! Really cool that is how much. He was not as interested in the President facts, but he did love shooting aliens with the president heads. ;) 

The great thing about all 3 of those is they have a free version to try it out and even if you want to buy the full version they are less than $2. I can't beat that with anything else I can get my hands on right now.

In the productivity category I have loaded Evernote on my laptop, my Android phone and the iPad. Right now I'm using it to put my lesson plans in including websites I want to use during specific lessons. It doesn't matter what platform I'm on I can access all of it and I can update it from any of them as well. I will say that it is easiest to update lots of type.

Science I have found an app called Science 360 it has many videos on lots of different science subjects. Good content and even better it is free.

That's enough of that, I need to wrap this up now, so now on to the giveaway.

I love music, it lifts my soul up and makes me happy. I can't play it, I can't discuss it technically, and I certainly can't sing but I love listening to it. That said one of my favorite artists is Suzy Bogguss. We saw her in concert last fall with some friends and I bought her CD called Wildwood Flower that is her singing traditional American Folk songs. I love it, I knew she was going to try to get it sold in Cracker Barrel  restaurants. I forgot I bought it, it is called something else now, and well I bought it again. So I have a brand new never opened copyt of Suzy Bogguss American Folk Songbook to give away.

The cover with bonus cleavage.

To get it leave a comment by noon on Friday August 12 and I'll pick a random person to get it.

Also, trust me none of this is sponsored by anyone, well the iPad was sponsored by my Parents but the apps and the CD are all me. 

Found Joy

I convinced my husband that we needed to have a trip away. We were able to get away this weekend, to do this we had to miss a family reunion with my Mom's family, miss a bbq with DH's family, pawn the boy and the dog off on my Mom & Dad who had out of town company for the reunion. I can't explain how very grateful I am that my parent's did that for us.

We had such a wonderful time together. We had dinner at an Indian restaurant we used to go to prior to having the Boy. We talked, we joked, we remembered how much fun we have together. How much we like each other and enjoy having conversations. It was relaxing, wonderful and exactly what we needed.

A lovely adult drink

Mushroom, sheep cheese, arugula, grilled thingy, huge and yummy.

My pretty new dress.

The Beef Tenderloin the waiter suggested my husband get that I ordered.

A different fish than what the waiter suggested I get, the waiter didn't get us. ;)

 It is fun to watch waiters and others try to figure us out when we go out to dinner. Usually they will offer DH a beer if he can't seem to choose a drink, (DH does not drink beer, the kindest thing he has every said about beer involved donkey piss). This waiter also kept calling us studious, we enjoy our silence, actually we relish the silence when we can find it (although The Silence scares me). This weekend, even at dinner we allowed the silence to wash over us. The waiter didn't quite get it, I wonder if he worried that we were fighting, heh.

I was able to release the worries I've been holding onto over the last few months and face this week with DH out of town, again.

Joy, bliss, happiness, peace. These are things that I'm carrying closer to myself again. Ahhhhhh.

I'm trying to find happy, I really am...

Today started sucky and even though nothing monumentally bad has happened I'm just not feeling any happiness.

So here goes trying to purge the shit so I can release it and move on. I have made 17 phone calls/emails to the insurance company's financial 'planning' office, my doctor's office, the hospital when the procedures are going to take place and the pathologist's office who will, maybe, be doing the biopsy analysis after the procedures. I need to get the information in writing because we have been SCREWED in the past by not getting medical estimates in writing. As in I was quoted $1,100 for the surgeon's time and he charged us $10,000. While this time is different because we at least have a max out of pocket we will have to spend, and we are basically going to just get to that point, it still feels perilous.

I am questioning if the procedure is really necessary. Do we really have to pay $4200 to make sure they didn't miss something with the first test. If I'm responding to the meds doesn't that mean it really is the hormonal version and not the cancer version? This sucks.

I'm tired, and worn out about this and I have no idea what to do but wait.

I was thinking that I have recieved a lot of information this week and was waiting for answers but realized while I have answers for the dyslexia, I don't actually have any answers to the medical issues, I'm fighting for information that isn't actuallly informational. What do you call data that doesn't inform and is just to cover your ass? I mean each and every person I talked to and each piece of paper has said that this is an estimate and if the procedure takes longer or there are complications the amount will change. So data but not real data yet. I can't pay anything on it yet, I can't use it to learn anything. Ugh.

All that said, I'm feeling better for having written it up. For putting into words that this feeling of being on a hamster wheel really is being on a hamster wheel with no progress.

Test Results

Friday ended up being crazy, crazy, crazy. Oh and a little bit more crazy on top.

I did a business meeting, kind of, way, way down South.(30 miles south is too, way south) Then drove back north to make the meeting with the tester and hope that the crazy, heavy rain/thunder storm was not at our house where Honey was hanging out in the back yard. It wasn't hadn't rained at all yet at home but then Honey was not in the back yard. The short of a long emotional story is she was back in our yard Saturday morning. Maybe someday I'll write it up but I feel like it stole so much of my energy that I can't do it again right now.

Plus I really want to digest the information Joni, our tester, gave me yesterday. DH couldn't meet with us because he was flying home as we met and then had to go directly into the office upon landing in town. I don't think either Joni or I was in the best shape to be delivering or asking for information. Her mom is in the midst of a serious illness and I sat down with her after spending an hour walking all over our neighborhood talking to people and looking for my dog. Yeah, neither of us at our best but I got the basics of the info and I'll email her for clarification as time goes on.

The tests confirm what I thought was going on he is moderate to severely dyslexic and moderately disgraphic. The Boy has asked that I not discuss the specifics here so I will honor that. It was hard to hear the specifics of the results even though none of it was surprising. To hear that he really is struggling and not just blowing me off is good to know but now I have to figure out how to help him.

To that end I want some help with ideas. I am going to be helping him improve his working memory and want ideas of fun sentences to read to him and have him repeat back to me. I have used an oath of one of the lantern leagues or whatever they are called. A friend suggested Shel Silverstein, any other ideas? I'm looking for 6-15 word sentences. Thanks for any ideas.

I'm also looking at iPad aps that may help. If you know any iPad aps that help with dylexic children, working memory, reading, or fine motor skills let me know.

Thank you all.

Optimism you name is Summer

Now don't get me wrong, I don't love summer for the sun and the warmth, I would still rather have a lovely fall/spring day or even a below freezing winter day than the 90+ degree days that are facing me. That said, I'm back in the lovely imagining of what next school year could be. I'm looking through my 1350+ page Rainbow Resource Center catalog. Talking to the boy about what he would like to study for history, science. I'm excited about the possibilities.

I have to remember that the boy does not actually like doing crafty things very much, but I'm trying to convince myself that the cool sarcophagi set that is punch out and slot & tab construction isn't REALLY crafty and you end up with three sarcophagi that fit into each other. Come on how cool is that?!?

Yea, see optimistic that is me right now. I'm meeting with the tester today to go over the results of the dyslexia testing we had done a month ago. I'm glad we did it. I'm looking forward to hearing what she has to say and then seeing how best I can implement it.

The thing I do love about summer is that we are going camping again. We had not really gone camping for years but we have all of our stuff and are going again. It is lovely gets us out of town and I'm really looking forward to August when everyone else around here has gone back to school but we are able to camp still. yippee.

Ok now to clean the dining room so I can have a meeting on it then I'll wake the boy and see what we can do this morning.

Information gathering...

Right now I'm trying to breath and feel my breath in my body. I am in an information gather phase. I don't have answers to anything right now or I have partial answers but not enough to make decisions.

On the dyslexia testing front, Everett completed his 2 days of testing and proved to the tester that having a large vocabulary does not preclude one from having dyslexia. ;) She was surprised that he knew the word sabotage. I'm guessing she didn't use the word I'm guessing he told her in his lovely way that he had chosen not to sabotage the test results. By choosing to not sabotage the results he earned a stop watch from the tester and a $50 gift card to Target from his mother. Which translates to $12.50/hr pay rate I realize but I felt it really was hard work and he did earn it. So specifically how to help him read is not going to happen yet.

The Boy telling me how something works.

 

On the medical front, I have to get out patient surgery scheduled for a D&C. It will be done under anesthesia (side note the boy heard amnesia and wanted to know how much I was going to forget, yeah his vocabulary is rather large for an 8 year old.) but I should be fine the next day. Probably don't want to plan a camping trip that leaves the next day but I should be fine to putter in the garden and yell at the boy. ;) I have no idea how much this is going to cost me and won't get to know until it is actually scheduled since it depends on where the procedure will take place as to how much it will cost. I'm also very glad I didn't look at Kaiser's information on Endometrial Hyperplasia first. The info I found through Googlefu said that what I'm looking at is not pre-cancerous but instead kind of pre-pre-cancerous and can be treated with hormones and may never progress to cancer. What Kaiser's site says is it is endometrial cancer and what to expect after cancer treatment. The D&C will rule out that there is any of the pre-cancerous cells or cancerous cells. I will continue to believe that this is going to rule it out and not find something worse.

ETA: I now have a date for the procedure July 21st, so forever in the future. Heh.

So I'm practicing breathing, I'm looking forward to camping this weekend and getting to see the Sand Dunes with my boy. I'm going to prepare food and pack food for our weekend today. I going to be much happier once the 'haze' has burned off today and the sun makes its appearance (which it will damn it!) I'm going to enjoy my iris that have now bloomed

My Iris, they make me so happy, even if I am only getting 3 stems this year due to thinning.

Here is another picture of The Boy, my heart, and why my life is truly wonderful.

Exhaustion, in many forms

I'm feeling worn to a nub, as though I have nothing left to give or contribute in so many places in my life.

First I'm so worried about my boy and reading. Partly because I really want him to enjoy the worlds that are opened to one with fiction, be it graphic novels, science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, or literature. I saw this poster by Mary GrandPre (Artist for the American Harry Potter books) and it just reminds me so much of how books take me away, let me live another life. Partly because I really do get that it is really, really hard to get around the world without the ability to read. Partly also because my husband keeps reminding me that he is 'functionally illiterate' and I feel like a complete failure every time I hear him say it out loud.

Second, I'm dealing with 'female problems' (David this is the paragraph to skip) I have 'endometrial hyperplasia w/o atypia' Basically my endometrium grows too much but it isn't pre-cancerous just a hormone imbalance that needs to be put back into balance. I went to have an ultrasound today and it was emotionally exhausting. The last time I had an ultrasound was when I found out my last pregnancy was no longer viable. Add to it that this stuff is all perimenopause stuff and it just points out that my baby days are well and truly behind me. It hurt more than I thought it would hurts more than I thought it would.

Third my husband was gone for 9 days and he will have more travel this summer for work. It is so exhausting to be the only parent and teacher for that long. He does not travel much and so when he does it throws us all off. So there was more fighting and arguing between me and my boy, we did finally find a balance for the last couple of days but it was a hard won peace.

Fourth I now have a dog, a dog that is defacto mine, and I never, ever in my life wanted a dog. She is sweet but she is still a puppy and has decided that the house training she knew is gone. I HATE that my house now smells like dog pee and that I find dog poop around the house, cause that smells even worse.

I know my life is good, I know that we are working on finding ways to teach my boy to read, and that I will be able to slow the bleeding and have a more normal life without having to have a hysterectomy. I'm going to get alone time. I'm going to find a balance in my life again I just need to work on it.

If you would like to see the rest of the posters made for the Scholastic Read Every Day Lead a Better Life campaign you can see it here...Scholastic: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"