Blaine the Chef

Is there any better activity than sitting and watching someone else make dinner and do the dishes on my birthday? I don't think so. :)

Thanks, sweetie.

For the record because I know you're curious, I'm 39 years old today.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

So there are big things happening over at Hedgehog Print Solutions. To wit: Blaine is no longer the manager of graphic design*, he's been promoted to general manager. I think this is a terrific move for him.

• A graphic designer can really only climb so high, and he was basically at the top rung. Yes, he could have moved to the top rung at another company for more money, or perhaps become art director somewhere, but managing a graphics department is managing a graphics department, really.
  
• He is fabulous with people. He inspires and guides without being bossy and overlordy. He's a people person, and I think both he and the company will thrive with this arrangement.
  
• It's a career move he probably couldn't have made under any other circumstances. Without an MBA he'd never have moved into running a company, except in this small business situation where the company's owner trusted him to do so.

I am really so proud of him. Now here's hoping that he hires all the people he needs!

* Well he really still is the graphics manager, until he hires a new one. He's sort of doing several jobs right now, juggling a lot of balls and sort of long hours. Hopefully that will all work itself out soon.

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Now playing: David Bowie - Changes
via FoxyTunes

Yummeh!

Here's an oddity for you: I had no idea what a scone was until a couple of years ago. That is, what we Utahns call scones the rest of the world would probably call fry bread. I had no idea we were out of sync with everyone else; I assumed that because we have a chain of restaurants here called "SconeCutter" that feature [Utah] scones [=fried bread dough] and Navajo tacos [=tacos not on a shell, but on fry bread YUM] there would only be one definition of scone, and it was my definition. So when I read about scones for tea, I assumed I was on the same page as everyone else. It was only a couple of years ago that I realized, no, scones are something else completely.

Tonight on the menu was muffins, roasted veggies, and corn on the cob. But as I got to cooking I wanted a little change of scenery: we have muffins or my own version of whole wheat baking powder biscuits so often, I just figured I wanted to do something a little different this time. Scones, I thought. The rest-of-the-world version. So I did a search for whole wheat scone (just for fun) and found this recipe. I'd never made scones of any description before, let alone whole wheat, so I didn't know what I was doing, but they turned out great. Like, yummy to beat all yumminess. Soft and barely sweet and just delicious to my mouth. So I'm sharing just so you can make yummy wheat scones too if you want to. And if you want to make them for me, substitute soymilk for the cream. ;D

Reading and Writing

After all these years and all these students, I finally feel like I have a system. So here, to remind myself of the system again in two years when Kyrie is in kindergarten, I'll list:

My favorite tools for teaching a kindergartner how to write:

• Magnetic doodle toy. Kids go through so many pieces of paper trying to get their Os round and their Bs and Ds facing the right directions. But paper is work! Magnetic doodle toys are fun, and they'll doodle Os and Bs and Ds over and over if only they get to slide-erase after.
  
• Box of fine sand. Because it is so tactile to draw a new letter in the sand and see the blue shape of letter emerge! Kudos to my eldest sister Sherri for this idea—she passed along the perfectly-sized box with waxy blue paper already glued to the bottom and said, "Fill it with sugar! Or something! And then they can draw!" We used a fine red sand and it makes all the difference in helping kiddles connect with the letter they're learning.

My favorite tool for teaching a second grader those tricky spellings of English:

• Magnetic letters. We have a magnetic white board here in the school room that functions like a classroom chalkboard. Whenever Jackson encounters, in his reading, those tricky combinations like ight and eigh and even easier ones like oy or ay or ie, we can put the core letters on the magnet board and then with a FUN! swish and a swipe we can make all kinds of words out of it right then as he's reading. So he gets ow and brown and cow and wow and how and howdy (...etc.) all at once and it is so much easier to remember the construction and the sound.

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Now playing: Vivaldi - Concerto op.3 no.2
via FoxyTunes

Much better today

We started off on a better foot; while the eldest three were reading I completed all of Ethan's kindergarten tasks (we can only do so much academics until he knows more than A and 1, right?) and all of Jackson's out-loud reading. Then we did chemistry as a group. So I've done most of my time-consuming stuff already, by 11:10 a.m. Today I feel more on top of things. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?

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Now playing: Rene Gruss - Bellatrix
via FoxyTunes

*head explodes*

Homeschooling Five Students All At Once

Oh my gosh, this is rough. Not throw-in-the-towel rough, but perhaps kiss-my-life-goodbye rough anyway. Because of various impromptu activities last week, today is the first day I'm doing a full school with everyone, all the subjects at the right times. Talk about juggling! I haven't had a moment to breathe since 9:00 a.m., and usually I've had a queue of kids waiting for me behind the one I'm working with. Crazy. Once we get Libby used to her new and more difficult subjects, and once we get Jackson working just a little more independently, I'm hoping it will calm down. Kindergarten years are always the most time-consuming for me, because the kindergartner can't do anything without me. Jackson has always had someone older to work with which was helpful, but LIbby moved up a level this year and so I have intensive work with Ethan on letters and math and with Jackson on history and reading. *faints*

And it was this nutty and busy even though Kyrie and Macklin had miraculously both fallen asleep around 10:30 a.m. and remained asleep 'til lunch. So I didn't even have demanding toddlers to add in to the mix. Anyway, just thought I'd surface for a scream of terror. Ack!

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Now playing: Rob Thomas - Lonely No More
via FoxyTunes

Twelve Big Years Old

Happy birthday to my wonderful Christian! Whatta kid. I wish everyone had a Christian like mine – such a hard worker, so obedient, so willing. He's my hero. :)

On the homeschool schedule for Wednesday: Home Economics

This is one of the great things about homeschooling – when my visiting teacher calls up and says she has rows and rows of beans ready to pick, I have built in slave labor! No! No. I mean, I can lighten up on the history for one day, and teach the kiddles a skill I never learned myself: canning.

We went and picked beans Tuesday afternoon during a light rain. We only got one row picked before it became a heavy thunderstorm, but given that I'd never done beans in my life one row seemed like enough. Wednesday morning we rinsed, rinsed, rinsed, snapped, and packed jars. (I used every quart jar I had and then called two older sisters in our ward who don't can anymore and got jars from them, too.) We ended up with seventeen quarts, after a good two hours' work.



Then I went to my visiting teacher's house and watched the pressure gauges while we processed the beans, and six hours later, voila! Sixteen quarts of beans for the food storage! (One quart broke in the pressure cooker.)



Yes, this is not a complete year supply. But I'm ridiculously proud of it anyway.