Year: 2009 Page 13 of 15

MOM FOUND MY KNITTING!!!! I’d been looking for it for the longest time! The half-finished scarf was stowed away in a plastic bag in a drawer somewhere, but the important thing is that she found it!!  I was totally blah on knitting for several weeks because I had spent a lot of time on that scarf, and it was very pretty, and I had no idea what else I wanted to knit.  But now I’m back!

Today I did something that I should have done a long time ago.  I got out my CLEP History book to read for twenty minutes, but then I remembered all those study books that Dad got.  Simply reading a book for twenty minutes is not the best way to retain information!  So I pulled out a notebook, pencil and highlighter, and flipped all the way back to Chapter 1.  I skimmed the chapter and wrote down all the treaties and amendments and such, and the dates that went along with them. I also wrote down two sentence summaries of the important events, a list of Resconstruction Era vocabulary words, a list of the presidents in office between 1865 and 1877, and two timelines.  All on one sheet of paper! After reviewing the sheet for a little while, I decided to try to do even better than that! I got out a stack of notecards and wrote down dates, vocabulary words, presidents, and amendments (and such) on the fronts of all of them, and then wrote down information on the backs. Instant flashcards! 

I feel like a genius. 🙂

We had a wonderful weekend.  As is usual on Fridays, we had our family night together at home, complete with pizza and clever repartee.  I wrote a previous post about how the hard drive on our Linux/Homeschool computer went bad, so Christian and I worked through all that.  Actually, it was mostly Christian who did the computer recovery and reassembly work because I worked on some programming projects.  We wanted to finish up the ham radio project this weekend, but that pretty much went by the wayside with our computer problems.  One of the good parts of the weekend was that Lorena found a great deal on a table for the computer that she bought with the furniture money she has been saving.  I will put a picture of her and her new purchase up here a little later today.

Kelly hung out with her friend Jenna quite awhile on Saturday.  I think they were doing crafts, looking at dresses, and other girl stuff that is beyond the scope of my understanding, but I think the had a lot of fun.  We wanted to have Jenna over to draw with on Sunday afternoon, but we never really got around to that.  We HAVE to start making that a priority again.  I think I am going to start looking for a book on watercolor or something like that to move our art forward.  We really have not done anything yeet with color.  It is something I would certainly like to try.

Jenna stuck around for dinner when Troy and Youngin came (bringing the food, too–how good is that?) over on Saturday.  We had a ball with them even though I think we kept them way to late because we did not have an Ubuntu disk ready to install on Troy’s computer when he came.  What is awesome is that, when his screen went blank after he got his newly installed Ubuntu computer back home, he called us, but our phone was turned off so he got onto the internet on Youngin’s computer, found Ubuntu Forums and figured the thing out himself.  No problem!  Actually, the problem was a fairly non-trivial X-Windows thing, but he figured it out anyway.  Christian and I were both impressed.

We had a ton of stuff we wanted to do today, but the hard drive on our Linux computer went bad.  We had almost everything backed up, but I decided we ought to take this opportunity to get out backup situation a little better under control.  Troy has been talking about what he is going to do in terms of archiving stuff.  We bought a computer online from Dell, then ran down to Staples to buy a terabyte external drive to perform backups.  Then, while I worked on the program I owe to my buddies in Oregon, Christian, archived all the stuff we had on our old backup drive to the new one, consolidated two smaller drives onto a single drive so he could use the other one as a replacement for the one that went bad, and installed Linux Mint onto the computer that previously had the bad drive.  In the meantime, Lorena found a table on sale and bought that.  So now we have a new computer table for the living room, a new setup for Lorena to browse Facebook and for me to administer the homeschool, a much better disk backup plan, and a new computer to look forward to bringing on line a two or three weeks.

I am going to revamp the homeschool system later this weekend, too.  I have a much better plan going forward now that the kids have finished with the ACT.  I have been looking into the local community college catalogs, trying to figure out what is the best program and classes for them to take so I can figure out which CLEP tests would be the most appropriate.

A couple of days ago I finally finished Teaching Textbooks Geometry, and finally started Teaching Textbooks Pre-Calculus.  Phew!  Normally, I would not be jumping-up-and-down-excited over starting a new math book, but this time it was different.  All I can say is that Geometry is not Algebra. It does not give me the same comforting, logical feeling that Algebra does. And yes I know Geometry is very, very logical. It just doesn’t feel the same. Thankfully Pre-Calculus has a similar feel to Algebra.  It’s harder than I expected, but I am actually enjoying it and looking forward to doing it. I’m trying to not set my hopes up to high though. Every time I start a new math book, it seems pretty easy and obvious and straightforward in the beginning. And then by Lesson 15 I’m knee deep in corrections.  All a part of the learning process I suppose!

As you’ve probably already read, I got my ACT scores in. I am very happy with them, but I hope to do better next year, especially in the math department.  I think I will, because just yesterday I learned a very simple something in my Pre-Calculus that was on the test.  That was kinda frustrating, but there’s nothing I can really do about it but retain the information for next year’s ACT.

Yesterday night I was trying to think of a new plotline for next week’s Betty Blonde. I’ve found it’s much easier to do a plotline a week than just several gag strips by the way.  Longer plotlines (like Nosey-book) will last two weeks, and normal stories will last one, with the occasional gag strip to separate the storylines.  Anyway, I was thinking and thinking. Christian suggested doing one about Big Wilma’s hair. I liked that idea because I do feel like I need to develop Big Wilma more, but I honestly didn’t feel like drawing that one right then. Dad also suggested one about Betty Blonde taking a test, and I want to do that one too! Bu I couldn’t think of any good jokes for it.  So then Dad and I came up with a new idea. It has to do with music, it includes a side character that I’ve already used before, and I really like the entire story. I hope you all will too!

Well, the waiting is over sooner than expected.  I checked the ACT website for Kelly’s scores yesterday afternoon.  All her scores were there except the writing score.  I tried to get Christian’s scores from the web, too, but did not have the right access ID.  Lorena handed them to me when she and the kids got home from their workout.  Both of them did very well.  I really did not know how to judge their scores so I talked to Evan at work.  He knew that, for some reason or another, most of the schools publish the range of scores the middle 50% of admitted students received on their ACT.  For example, 25% of the students admitted to North Carolina State University had an ACT composite score below 21 and 25% had a composite score above 26.  Oregon State had 25% below 20 and 25% above 26 on the ACT composite score.  Kelly’s composite score was well above the higher score for both colleges.  There is certainly room for improvement.  There were materials in both math and science that we had not yet covered.  We are excited to see how she did on the writing test.

Christian did very well, too.  He was took the test as a participant in the Duke TIP program.  A participant must receive a 20 or above in English, a 20 or above in Math, a 21 or above in reading, or a 21 or above in Science to qualify for state-wide honors.  He met that criteria in virtually evey category.  There are two sets of programs offered to students who receive high enough scores on the test.  They are called Academy and Center.  Christian qualified for the higher of the two called Center.  When I was going through the material, I saw that Kelly had actually qualified to attend the programs, too.  All in all, we were very happy with the results.  Best of all, it showed us some areas where we can focus for the rest of this year and the next and invigorated us to keep on going.

THANKS FOR THE HELP!  I fixed the blog header image a little.  Lorena tells me it needs more work.  I am glad there are artists in the family with an eye for that sort of thing.  Ruthie and Lynn were both gracious enough to let me know the theme was not displaying correctly on their computers.  I am really glad they took the time to pop me a comment.  It took longer to work that out than I originally figured.  I would be greatly appreciative if you let me know whether I actually fixed anything.  For that matter, if there is anyone else out there who sees a problem with the format, please let me know.

I think I have finally gotten the web theme to the point where it is not completely embarrassing.  Troy helped me find a bug last night that I think I fixed this morning.  I want to make more changes, but they will have to wait until I get some other things out of the way.  This is one of those times when the time available for self reflection is at a minimum.  That is why I very much appreciate Kelly’s post from yesterday.  I am glad she thinks about topics like “Social Graces”.  It is interesting that the book we are reading aloud in the evening about how to make the best use of your voice, even in tense or intimidating situations.  Those situations do not seem unlike the social situations Kelly describes in her post.  If things get tense, people start acting weird.  Some people are better at dealing with that than others.  I am sure practice really helps, but practice without some way of knowing what it is you need to change to maximize graciousness can actually exacerbate the problem.  Thinking, talking, and reading about how others deal with these issues is a good thing.  I certainly am excited that I might learn something about how to be more gracious.  Or at least, learn how to be less of a clod.

Being yourself is more easily said (or typed) than done.  I always believed that I was pretty good at being myself.  Or maybe I deluded myself into believing that I was pretty good at being myself.  Either way, being ‘me’ has proved to be not as straight-forward as I thought.  For example: I want people to like me.  Who honestly doesn’t?  So, when I’m talking to someone that I don’t know very well or haven’t talked with in a long time, I will begin to imitate them. I will mimic their way of speaking, I will use their slang, I will point out every little thing we have in common.  It’s always very awkward. And after the conversation is over, I will come out of my silly state of mind, psychoanalyze the conversation, and berate myself. I promise myself I will be real next time, so people will like me for who I am.  Like I wrote in the beginning of this paragraph, easier said than done. I also might go on and on about me and my life and how wonderful I am.  I know that’s got to be grating to all but the most patient and kind-hearted of people. Truth be told, it’s a sad cycle.

What about group situations? There I have a totally different problem.  I still want other people to like me, but it’s harder to act like just one person because (obviously) it’s a group.  So now I will tug and pull and push and shove the spotlight in my direction, until I am standing right in the center of it.  And then I’ll put on a ridiculous show.  But I’m working on it!  It’s the sort of thing that requires the help of God and a personal choice I suppose.

Oh the insecurities!

Thank goodness some people do see past that. And I know it’s not always as bad as I say it is. Otherwise I wouldn’t have all the lovely friends I have now. I do not know why they’ve stuck with me, but I am very glad that they have. 🙂

After the frustration of the superficial coverage provided by Sound and Look Professional on TV and the Internet, we are quite happy to report that a book by one of the collaborators on that book appears very promising. The name of the book is  Broadcast Voice Handbook.  We read through it and wondered why the author was willing to collaborate on such an obviously inferior work.  At any rate, we are enjoying this second book and looking forward to the arrival of the third:  On Camera: How To Report, Anchor & Interview.

Christian wound his first transformer last night for the ham radio.  Only two to go and then we get to start putting it in its case.

Last night we settled in to read aloud for a half an hour or so in the usual way.  Kelly, Christian, and I sit on the big sofa to the side of the fireplace in the kitchen.  Kelly inks a Betty Blonde comic–I don’t let her do the initial drawing while we are reading because she has to think too hard and misses what is being read.  Christian knits.  I read.  Lorena usually takes a nap over on the small sofa across from the fireplace.  It is all very nice, but yesterday it dawned on me that there is no way I wanted to subject my kids to any more of the inane nonsense in Sound and Look Professional on TV and the Internet.  So we are going to quit reading that until On Camera: How To Report, Anchor & Interview gets here from Amazon.  I really hope that is a little less grating and has a LOT more substance.  No wonder all the television networks and stations are in the tank.

On the bright side, Christian was able to wind a toroid last night for the ham radio.  It looks like we are back on track to getting it assemble in the next couple of weeks.  Of course we will not be able to get it tuned up and ready to go until we start the radio theory book, but it is great to see it come together.  Christian does not need me so much to do the assembly, but we like to do it together.  Now, I usually scan in one of Kelly’s Betty Blonde comics while he works on the radio.

Random story up ahead! :

Every Tuesday morning we go to my piano teacher’s house. It’s way up high on a very steep hill. I have no clue how they got it up there.  But every week mom pushes the minivan up the hill somehow, and we head in to my lesson. At least two minutes before we have to get out of the car and go inside, I start frantically cutting my nails.  My piano teacher is very much opposed to long nails. She says (and I’m paraphrasing here) that we can all afford to give up a little vanity in our lives. I get the feeling that she thinks I keep them long because it’s the fashion or something, but the truth is that I’m lazy, and it’s very hard for me to cut the nails on my right hand. Sad.  Anyway, she has threatened to cut my nails for me several times in the past, and two weeks ago she did it. Yes, you read that right.  She got her fancy-schmansy little leather nail-kit, opened it, and took out a fancy-schmansy little pair of nail-scissors. And she cut my nails.  It was embarrassing to say the least, but I lived. Thank goodness it’s my own fault and that she’s my friend, or else I’m afraid would’ve been rather mad.

Ah yes. My piano teacher is the source of many entertaining stories… 

I actually don’t know why I shared that particular story with you all.  I think it’s because I feel like I don’t have very much to write about right now. The ACT is over, Gospel meetings ended temporarily yesterday 🙁 , the Nosey-book fiasco is done with… things are really calm right now!! Well relatively calm…

I am amazed that we did most of the stuff on our list this weekend.  Lorena shopped at Costco after we had breakfast at Mcdonalds on Saturday morning.  We went to Borders and looked for a book on how to write for broadcast video.  They had nothing, so I ordered On Camera: How To Report, Anchor & Interview from Amazon. I think that book will be OK, but I really need to get a couple on how to do a documentary and how to do new writing, too. There is a Radio Shack right beside the Borders so we were able to find one of the wire gauges we needed, but we are still looking for the other. Kelly finished up a Betty Blonde and has some good ideas about some others.  I worked a little bit on all the things on my programming list, but the new WordPress theme for this blog is going to take more effort than I had originally anticipated.  We had Donnie, Rosemary, and Riley L., and Courtney and Caroline E. over for dinner between meetings on Sunday.  That was great.  Lorena cooked up a fabulous dinner (spiral cut ham, rice, asparagus, chocolate cake, etc.).  We met at Courtney and Caroline’s home for Sunday morning meeting in Florida just after we got married for a couple of years, so we consider them to be close family!  We have to do that more often.

We have a very full weekend ahead of us.  We LOVE to spend Friday nights together as a family just to hang out.  We plan to do that.  Then on Saturday we have a lot of things to accomplish:

1. Go to the MacDonalds by the Costco to have breakfast.
2. Mom will wildly enjoying her shopping at Costco.
3. Christian, Kelly, and I have to find a book on writing for video documentaries, news, or some other similar title at the Borders by the Costco.
4. Read some books, drink some hot cocoa (coffee for Dad), also at Borders.
5. Drop off the almost due books at the Cameron Village library.
6. When we get home (or on the way home), stop by a Radio Shack to pick up some #26 and #24 epoxy covered wire for the ham radio.
7. Work on the ham radio.
8. Do several Betty Blondes for next week.
9. Read aloud about video production.
10. Get ready for company to come over between meetings on Sunday.
11. Go through the “rest of the year” plan for homeschool now that the big test is over.
12. Program:

• BleAx program improvements for scanner integration and Christian’s graphic novel
• Water project programming
• Program for work
• Rework the truly pathetic theme I am currently using for this blog (probably not going to happen this weekend, but I can always hope)

It should be an awesome weekend.  I think I might even get off from work a little early to get started.

Last night we started reading the book Sound and Look Professional on TV and the Internet. It seems like it might have a lot of interesting information in it, but I suspect that it was not written for rocket scientist. It irritatingly uses the word “talent” to describe people who stand in front of the camera and talk. Even if that is the word comely used in the industry to describe people who stand in front of the camera and talk, we are pretty much unwilling to use it to describe the likes of Katie Couric, Peter Jennings, Walter Conkrite and Dan Rather. Still, it is not too good to speak pejoratively about anyone, so we use the word “talkers” instead. The good news is that the book appears to be a good introduction to the basics of video broadcast performance. The bad news is that I do not think we have a good book about video content preparation, so I am on the outlook for that. We do have a book on voice, but I think we will wait on that until after we finish our current book and one on writing for news or commentary broadcasts. I will keep you posted on whatever book we find for that.

About the same time Kelly started drawing her daily comic strip, Christian started work on a Betty Blonde graphic novel.  He filled an entire sketch book with his story, but it was pretty rough in terms of how it was drawn.  Since then, he took a little bit of a hiatus to work on our ham radio, study C++ programming, and knit his Ubuntu scarf.  A couple of days ago, he decided to start the big effort to draw and ink the story in preparation for publishing it in PDF form as a graphic novel.  He only has about a third of the story written so far, all of which needs to be redrawn and inked, but it is coming out great.  It has a completely different feel to it than Kelly’s comic that is just as fun, but equally as crazy.

The whole concept of a comic featuring Betty Blonde, Spike, Big Wilma, and Mr. Nobody started with a magazine the kids started all on their own.  They got the idea they would like to make a magazine, so they started writing articles, drawing pictures, and putting it all together with Microsoft Publisher.  They called their magazine Kaktus Kids.  I had absolutely nothing to do with it.  So, Betty Blonde is not just Kelly’s invention, but a joint venture.  Here are the three issues we put up on the web in PDF format:

February 2007

May 2007

March 2008

The layout of the comic will be quite a bit different from Kelly’s daily strip.  I scanned in the first four panels and used the program I used to format Kelly’s comic so I could put together an example of Christian’s work.  The Graphic Novel format will feature nine panels per page laid out in a 3×3 grid.  The panels will be larger, to print out nicely on 8½x11 inch paper.  I will have to add some functionality to my BleAx comic strip accumulation program to be able to automatically put Christian’s comic panels together in the format we like.  We think this might be a project that will take about a year to complete because we have so many other things we need to do in parallel, but it is starting our very nicely, so we are very excited about it. 

We have agreed to try the two read alouds along for awhile to see how it goes.  We will do a week or two of only the broadcast book first, though, to give Christian and I a chance to finish assembling the radio.

The days leading up to the big test were manic days for the whole family.  We all worked hard to get ready, the kids took the test, and now we are back to what passes for normal in our household.  I worked out the homeschool schedules for the next couple of weeks on Sunday evening, but I have never included our read aloud books in those schedules.  We are on the verge of finishing our Intelligent Design book, and I am in a little bit of a dilemma about what to read next.  The choice is between radio theory and broadcast techniques.  I would really like to do both, because in some senses these subjects go together.  We could turn it into kind of a unit studies kind of thing.

Writing about this has given me a little bit of a plan to run by the kids.  Christian and I are well into building the radio.  All we need is some epoxy wire to finish winding the transformers (we did it wrong the first time and wrecked the wire, so we have to start over), then we can finish putting the thing together in just a few more days.  Kelly did not work on this because she has too many projects already and was less interested.  Nevertheless, the information in the radio theory book would be beneficial to both of them.  At the same time, it is a lot more fun to actually broadcast stuff and not just study the technicalities of broadcasting electronics.  So, here is what I am going to propose.

Now that the ACT is over, we have a little more time on our hands.  We might use that time to read through The Electronics of Radio together just one day per week.  We will all work on tuning, adjusting, and testing the radio we built (and about which the book is written) one other day of the week in place of reading aloud.  Then, we could start reading through Sound and Look Professional on TV and the Internet the other two days per week that are available for reading.  When we get far enough into the that material, we could go to one day per week of reading aloud about broadcast subjects and spend one day actually preparing and performing a broadcast.

I will talk to the kids to see what they think.  If they like it, that is what we will try for awhile to see if we can make it work.  They might have some thoughts on ways to improve this plan.

Note to Christian:  There is still time for this.

We got up at an insanely early hour on Saturday, got our stuff together, ate a banana and some Cheerios and headed out the door to the testing center.  I had a good time. I wasn’t too nervous when I got there and my pencils were sharp, so there wasn’t really anything to worry about.  They put me in a classroom with 15 older kids.  The girl on my left was perfect. She looked super prepared, like she did history and science homework for fun.  And she actually dressed nicely for the exam. If you’ll look at the picture below (on Dad’s post) you’ll see that I went for the ‘casual-casual’ look… black pants, t-shirt and running shoes. 😉

Anyway, I did better than I thought I would. Or at least that’s how it feels right now. We’ll see how I actually did when the scores come in in a few weeks.  The English exam was the easiest of all, then reading comprehension, then science, then math. Science was OK. It was basically analyzing graphs, but it helped to know the subjects that the graphs were dealing with. Fortunately I had studied most of the material that was on the science test before, but a couple of them really stumped me and I had to guess.  Math was nightmare-ish. It was simple at first. Then it got harder and harder. Soon I was dealing with things that I had only studied briefly or that I hadn’t studied at all! I’m pretty sure that I’ll be able to ace it next year though. By that time I’ll have all the math that I need for the test. 

The essay was amazing.  The topic was perfect! I mean, what can be easier for a fourteen year old girl to write about than ‘nice clothing’ and ‘dressing to impress’?  I honestly think that it was my best ACT essay ever. I don’t think my outfit helped my brainstorming much, but my mind was in the right place. 🙂

Troy and I sat in the Wake County Regional Library at Cameron Village and studied on Saturday while Lorena and Youngin went shopping in Cameron Village.  The kids were over at St. Augustine College to take their ACT.  I do not know how much studying Troy got accomplished, I was pretty manic almost all day and had lots of interesting things to say (at least they were interesting to me, I am not sure about Troy).  It was a beautiful sunny day.  The kids enjoyed the test.  Lorena and I enjoyed hanging out with Troy and Youngin.  We ate some GREAT food at a noodle place in Cameron Village after the test.  I was a little bit saddened because I know we will probably not be going to the Holly Springs library too much any more.  You can drink coffee in the stacks at the Cameron Village library, they have a McDonalds (for breakfast) right around the corner, Lorena can go shopping while Kelly, Christian, and I read books, it is on the way to Costco.  How much better does it get than that?  Still, I LOVED the Holly Springs Library.  We will have to go back there sometime soon for nostalgia’s sake.

St. Augustine College has a neat campus which seems to be right in the center of Raleigh.  While I was waiting for the kids to complete their tests, I noticed that they had won a ton of Division II NCAA National Track and Field Championships.  I think it would be kind of fun to go to a track meet there.  It will not be the Olympic Trials or even a UCLA-Oregon dual meet at Hayward Field, but I bet it would be pretty fun.  I am not sure how well the kids did on the test, but they seemed to think they did OK.  They felt like the math part was the hardest, the science next, and then the English and reading comprehension.  Kelly felt pretty good about the essay portion of her test, too.  We will have to wait and see how it comes out.

Sunday between the morning meeting and the gospel meeting in the afternoon, we all sat down, turned on some classical music, and did some portrait drawing.  We were a little rusty, but it was a LOT of fun.  We have decided we are going to try to do that as often as we can now on Sunday afternoons.  We did a little bit of reading, too.  While we did that, Christian knit a couple of additional rows on his Ubuntu Scarf.  It is coming out awesome.  You can see the logo now.  We can hardly wait until he finishes.  He is thinking of doing a Linux Mint scarf next.  They have a logo that would look greate on a scarf, but it might not be that easy to do.  Maybe he will be ready to try to do it on a sweater or something by the time he gets started.

Note:  I heard on the radio that we will be able to listen to Dave Ramsey on WPTF from 9-12 on weekday mornings.  I hope I will still be able to hear him on afternoons on the way home from work, too!

North Carolina law requires all homeschool students to take a nationally normed standardized test every year.  We would do that whether or not it were required.  It is just nice to get some confirmation that there is educational progress.  We actual enjoy these tests.  We have to do a few things to prepare for the test.  Each of the kids needs a couple of #2 pencils (we discussed that earlier, here), an approved calculator, some paperwork, and an eraser.  We plan for a good night sleep and a banana (for maximum synapse firing) along with breakfast.  After that, we will drive to St. Augustine College where we will check the kids in, then go find a place where Lorena can shop and I can sit and program.  The test times are 45 minutes for English, 60 minutes for math, 35 minutes for reading, 35 minutes for science, and 30 minutes to write an essay (Kelly, only).

Even though we enjoy these tests, it will be a relief to have them behind us because it will allow us to concentrate more on our day to day work.  This is generally, the most productive time of the year for us.  We will start to consider annual research report topics so we are ready to start research in March.  We are just about finished reading Understanding Intelligent Design, so we need to pick our next book.  I thought we would do something on electronics, but I am having second thoughts on that now.  Part of it has to do with reading A Mother’s Journal and feeling nostalgic about all our art (examples here, here, here, and, of course, here).  I think we will go on to books to prepare us for video blogging, but I have not made up my mind quite yet.

Christian

• Math:  Christian is poised to move on from Algebra II to Geometry in February.  He has been doing particularly good work of late, showing all his work and writing very neatly.  That is very important at this level of math.
• History and Literature:  The Sonlight curriculum works very well for us.  Christian continues on schedule in these two area.
• Science:  Apologia Physical Science is awesome, we are on course.
• English:  We are doing several things to prepare Christian for the CLEP Freshman English Composition test.  He will take that next month, after which he will start doing a lot more writing.  He will start his annual research report at that time.
• Spanish:  Second year Rosetta Stone – good progress.
• Music:  Guitar lessons continue.
• PE:  Four days per week of fitness at the YMCA.  He is also in the very beginning of a strength program and making good progress.
• Arts and Crafts:  Christian is knitting on a special scarf (we will have pictures soon) and working on his Betty Blonde graphical novel.
• Electronics:  We continue to work on our our ham radio.

Kelly

• Math:  Kelly is poised to move on from Geometry
  to Precalculus in February.  She is continuing on schedule.
• History:  Kelly is in preparation to take the U.S. History II CLEP test.
• Science:  Apologia Biology is awesome, we are on course.
• English:  Kelly, as always, writes A LOT.  She writes in this blog, her own private, girls blog (a bunch of girls, including one older “girl” who has lots of skills, training and experience in this area, write short stories and poetry, then judge each other — it really is an excellent tool), her diary, etc., etc.  She will
  start her annual research report in March.
• Spanish:  Second year Rosetta Stone – pretty good progress.
• Music:  Piano lessons continue.
• PE:  Four days per week of fitness at the YMCA.  Kelly has been studying health and nutrition and is doing a great job of assuring she gets the right kind of nutrition in the right quantities–not too much, not too little.  She has also been experimenting a lot with new recipes.
• Arts and Crafts:  Betty Blonde, knitting.

Beside all this, we have additional projects planned, not the least of which is the video blogging project that will probably not start now until this summer.  We continue to read aloud together every evening with a bowl of popcorn.