Took the kids to visit my Grandparents today.

Last time we went Baby Girl earned $2 for picking up pinecones at a rate of $.01/pine cone. The Boy made $.45.

This week they each made $3.

After making so much less than her last time The Boy decided to put in a bit more effort this time which paid off.

They seem to be catching on that money isn't going to be just given to them.

Hopefully this will build good work ethics in them for the future.

Of course, they were asking to spend it before we even left. We will have to start working on saving.

One step at a time.

This year we signed up for the Flat Stanley Project. It was great! After sending out our Stanley a few times as well as hosting Stanley's from other families the kids were really getting into it. Our Stanley even had his own Adventure Journal, which was slowly being filled with pictures of the places he had been along with letters from the families he had visited. There was actually a waiting list of people he had yet to visit and then it happened.

We had only sent him to other homeschooling families who we came in contact with via the Flat Stanley Project site as well as a few personal friends. He had already visited several states when I got an e mail from a 1st grade teacher in TX who wanted to exchange Stanleys. She had gotten our information from the site and was excited to exchange with a homeschooling family.

So off our little Stanley and his Adventure Journal went to meet his first public school class. As always I made sure to include his introductory letter and a SASE for his trip home.

After a few days we received a Stanley from the teacher. We kept him for a week writing down the activities that took place while he was in our care and off he went back to TX. I dropped an e mail to the teacher letting her know that her Stanley was on his way home and that we were anticipating the return of our Stanley.

That was 4 months ago. I have since e mailed her several times requesting that she please return our Stanley. Each e mail goes unanswered.

The kids have finally stopped asking when he will be back. And my anger has faded a bit but is not, and probably never will be completely gone. I just don't understand how someone who works with children could possibly be so malicious.

Just another reason I hate public schools. Because their teachers are ASSHOLES!!

I found this recipe earlier this year and have used it several times. It always gets rave reviews so I thought I would share.

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies EVER!!!

Just a few personal notes:

Don't turn your oven on until you are done making the dough and then put the dough in the fridge while the oven preheats. I find this makes for thicker cookies. I also keep the dough in the fridge in between batches so it doesn't get warm.

I like smaller cookies. They seem to last longer in my house so I use my Tbsp measuring spoon as a scooper. The cookies also come out more uniform then just dropping the dough on the cookie sheet.

I always line my cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Less clean up and the cookies don't stick to it.

On Education

"Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs."
"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."
"Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty ."
"Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value."
"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge."
"The point is to develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition and to guide the child over to important fields for society. Such a school demands from the teacher that he be a kind of artist in his province."
"To me the worst thing seems to be a school principally to work with methods of fear, force and artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and the self-confidence of pupils and produces a subservient subject."
"One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community."
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods."
"The example of great and pure individuals is the only thing that can lead us to noble thoughts and deeds."
"One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year."
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
"The only source of knowledge is experience"
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
"We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality."
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day.Never lose a holy curiosity."
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds.The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods."
"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."

Not sure of the origins of these prayers but the kids love them, the night one anyway they haven't used the morning one. Very short and simple rhyming prayers.

Morning/Night Prayer
Lady of the Moon
Lord of the Sun
Protect me and mine
Now day has begun/is done

It is invitable that if one family member gets sick everyone is going to get sick and it will probably make its way around the household atleast twice.

It started with a cough. That was two weeks ago. We are going on our second round and it isn't showing signs of stopping anytime soon.

I wish they would invent some sort of anti bacterial soap that you could bathe in that would stop the funk in its tracks. As soon as you felt it coming on you could hop in the shower and be done with it before it even started.

Until then we will be fighting this plague until it is through running its course through the small confines of our household. Gotta love the cold and flu season!!

When I was in school we were taught that you should wear light colored clothing when out at night so that passing vehicles would be able to see you in the dark. Apparently not everyone was taught this same thing.

The other night on our way home from Tae Kwon Do we passed not one but three people within a mile. Each of whom were wearing not just any dark color but black. BLACK!!

Who wears black when jogging on the side of the road in the dark? Were they never told about the safety hazards of wearing dark colors while out at night? Are they trying to add some dangerous excitement to their otherwise mundain lives?

Either way, wearing black, or any dark color for that matter, while jogging down the side of the road at night is assanine!!