A Look Back at 10th Grade

Now that this school year is over, I can look back on it in a somewhat subjective way. While I'm not done with 10th grade yet, and really won't be until probably the end of July, my mom is off work for the summer (she works at a community college), and to me that means the end of the 2013-2014 school year.

This year was a challenging one in many ways. I have been sick in some way nearly the whole year. I had a horrible sore throat think for a week over Thanksgiving, I had a coldish thing that lasted most of the winter, and then I have what I think is whooping cough for all of March and April, and half of May. I've also been starting to deal with my asthma.

When I think about how sick I've been this year, and how much of that time I really didn't get any work done, I don't feel as bad about having a month's work left at this point. I've also had a lot of stress and depression I've dealt with this year, relating to school, illness, and other ongoing personal issues that I need to deal with.

On the other hand, this year has had a lot of great stuff happening too. Despite the introduction of boys and dating into our lives (or maybe even because of it), my friends and I really are closer than ever. I have the ability in our group of friends to run in many circles, teen girls, teen boys, younger girls, and even adults at times, and never really feel out of place. Through a variety of circumstances, I also feel like I've gotten a lot closer to all the people and families in our small group.

I turned 16!

I've done more Irish Dance, and gained a lot of confidence in my ability as a dancer. I really want to start experimenting with more types of dance, and I really want dance to be part of what I do in the future. I've started thinking more seriously about what I want my life to look like, and I'm finding I'm not really sure. For a long time, I've always thought that it was destiny that I would end up doing something involving writing or editing, but now I'm not so sure. This year, I've really found myself drifting farther and farther away from that realm. While I could see myself working at a library or bookstore, I really can't picture myself writing for a living anymore.

Dancing at the Highland Games

I've done a lot of editing, which really is something I enjoy. While I did very little this spring while I was sick, I've got a few rather large projects I'm finishing up for the author I'm working with. I've also started teaching Latin this spring to a small group of middle school age girls, which I absolutely love. I really like Latin, though I don't really have much time for it at the moment, and I really want to study it more seriously. I really enjoy teaching like this, and I would love more opportunities to do things like this. I spent a lot of time this spring working on the homeschool yearbook, which I think has been a success.

The three seniors opening their yearbooks, while the rest of us look on.

I read a lot of books, including Beowulf, The Song of Roland, and The Inferno, and before the summer's over, I'll have added The Prince and Hamlet to that list. For fun, I read A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and the first part of A Feast for Crows, in addition to many others.

While at first look, this year seemed to me to be a somewhat bad one, filled with stress, anxiety, and illness, there was much more to it than that. I've had a lot of great opportunities, done a lot of great activities, and been willing to try more new things than ever before. I have a lot of great friends, and we've had a really great year, despite the challenges.

Next year's going to be a pretty different one, in a lot of ways, but I think it'll be a great one too.

Making a Homeschool Yearbook in 40 Easy Steps!

This year, I made a homeschool yearbook for our group of friends. Here is how it happened. In case you wanted to do it too, exactly like I did, I put the whole process into a handy step by step guide.

1. Around Christmas, decide that, since this is the very first year that there are graduating seniors in your homeschool group, that making a yearbook would be a fantastic idea.

2. Decide that you are way too busy to even consider making a yearbook.

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 three to five more times.

4. Finally decide that this is something you really want to do, and that you'll manage to find the time some how.

5. On New Year's Eve, tell a few select people about your plan (your family is a good idea), and make sure that you have at least one person who is willing to help (an adult with a lot of pictures and a good camera is an invaluable resource to track down at this point).

6. Make a list of all the topics you want to include pictures of.

7. Now, once a week for the next month or so, while waiting for dance class, talk with your adult advisor (the one you picked in step 5) about pictures, logistics, software, and more, preferably while drinking hot chocolate.

8. Create a Shutterfly share site, where people can upload photos, and create a book in Shutterfly.

9. Do nothing for a while, since you have a lot of time until it needs to be done (late June), and you're not really sure what to do next.

10. Upload a few pictures to Shutterfly, then get extremely frustrated with how incredibly slow their online book creating application is.

11. By this point it should be about March. Tell a few more key people about the project. People with lots of pictures are very important. It should really be on a "need-to-know" basis at this point though, since you want to make sure the seniors don't find out.

12. Get really fed up with Shutterfly's web interface, and start looking for other photobook making programs.

13. Read a bunch of stuff online, and download MyPublisher. Since it's not online, it's way faster than Shutterfly, and seems to have all the important features.

14. Spend an afternoon with your adult advisor (and more importantly, her photo collection), looking for pictures.

15. Add several dozen pictures to a shared dropbox folder.

16. Add all those pictures into MyPublisher, and start messing around with putting them into a book.

17. Decide that you're just practicing for now, since you have a very clear vision of how the book will be organized.

18. Get pictures from a few other people, who you have now had to tell about the project.

19. Continue organizing the pictures, and begin to realize that maybe your idea of doing the book chronologically through the school year isn't such a good one.

20. Start putting pages together, a little more seriously this time. Continue collecting photos from people. By this point, pretty much all the adults, and a good number of the kids in your group will know about it.

21. Come up with the idea of putting in quotes and messages to and about the seniors through out the book, and send out an email asking for submissions.

22. Put together a few pages you like, save them, and make a few more, arrange them all throughout the book, decide that you really don't like one of them, then replace a few pictures from one page.

22. Repeat step 22 about ten to fifteen more times. All told, this should take about 2 hours a day for a few weeks.

23. Send out another email asking people for quotes for the book, since you didn't get much the first time. Also, send out your first "official" email to the adults, describing the project, and asking how many people want to buy.

24. Find spots for the quotes people are starting to send you.

25. Spend about an hour one day going through all the available font options, then switching all the writing already in the book to your font of choice.

26. Realize that the default text size is 7 point font, and go through changing it all to 14 point.

27. Rearrange the pages some more, add a few last pictures, and add the rest of the quotes. By this point, it should be early May.

28. Go through the book several dozen times, looking for photos that need to be cropped, ones that are cropped too much, pages with too much going on, double page spreads with too many pictures, pages with too much color, or not enough, and typos in the quotes. This should take a week or so, and should include a lot of time not working actively on the book, but thinking about it.

29. Write a letter at the beginning for the three grads. Rewrite it two or three times.

30. By this point, the book should be pretty much done, and you should have it pretty much entirely cataloged in your head. You no longer need a computer to decide on changes to make. This is a good time to send out more emails, and nail down everyone's orders.

31. Decide what kind of cover you want, what color, and what size. Decide what type of paper, what color end sheets, and what type of binding. Of course, if you don't want to pay extra, most of those choices are already made for you.

32. Get to the end of the ordering process, and freak out a little over the cost of shipping (it is incredibly expensive). Send out a final email to everyone letting them know the final price.

33. Put in your order.

34. Wake up in the middle of the night two nights in a row, realizing you forgot to add someone to the acknowledgments section, and forgot to replace that picture at the end.

35. Get your box with all 16 books! Check the books to see how they look, and get very excited. It's early June by now.

36. Wait. Everyone knows but the three seniors at this point, so keeping it a secret is hard, but possible.

37. Plan a party to give the books out at in late June.

38. Get nervous about letting everyone see this thing you've spent so long working on, and start collecting money.

39. Present the books to the seniors at the party, and then give everyone else their books. Start looking through your copy, since that's what everyone else is doing, and then feel silly, since you have the whole thing memorized and cataloged in your head. Pass out pens so that people can sign the books.

40. Watch everyone look at the books, realize that they all look happy, and finally relax. Your project is finally complete.

So there you have it: how I made my yearbook, in 40 easy steps. By the way, over the last six months or so, I have at several points mentioned a "secret project" or a project that I couldn't talk about yet. This is it.

Guess the Book

I took the first two sentences from ten books on my bookshelf. Can you guess the books? If there was an introduction, I skipped that, but prologs I left in. Remember, these are books on my bookshelf. Put your guesses in the comments!

1. The sun sets in the west (just about everyone knows that), but Sunset Towers faced east. Strange!

2. "That is my decision. We need not discuss it," said the man at the desk. He was already looking at his book.

3. Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening Hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen. The three great tables that ran the length of the Hall were laid already, the silver and the glass catching what little light there was, and the long benches were pulled out ready for the guests.

4. When I saw the crowd gathering at the train station, I worried what President Roosevelt would think. I just hope he doesn't get the idea that Jenkinsville, Arkansas can't be trusted with a military secret, because, truth of the matter is, we're as patriotic as anybody.

5. When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie theater, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home. I was wishing I looked like Paul Newman-he looks tough and I don't-but I guess my own looks aren't so bad.

6. It was a dark and stormy night. In her attic bedroom, Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. 

7. Part of the problem, Nita thought as she desperately tore down Rose Avenue, is that I can't keep my mouth shut. She had been running for five minutes now, hopping fences, sliding sideways through hedges, but she was losing her wind.

8. Everyone thinks it was because of the snow. And in a way, I suppose that's true.

9. In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr. Justice Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, puffed at a cigar and ran an interested eye through the political news in the Times. He laid the paper down, and glanced out of the window.

10. The senior partner studied the resume for the hundredth time and again found nothing he disliked about Mitchell Y. McDeere, at least not on paper. He had the brains, the ambition, the good looks.

I think most of these are pretty easy. I tried to mainly stick with pretty well known books. A few might be harder. There are two that I think are very easy. Post your answers in the comments, and I'll post the answers next week. I added a couple of classics from the school room shelf to the mix too, since I ran out of books on my shelf that I thought people would be able to guess.

Week in the Life: Day 7

Today is the final day of the liveblog! It was fun, but a lot of work. It was also really, really popular. I think I might try to do something like this regularly, thought maybe only for 3-4 days at a time. I'll try to do one this summer something (July or August), and then, if I can, maybe one in the fall after classes at the community college start.

7:00: Get up.

7:30: Check email, etc.

8:00: Get dressed and ready.

8:30: Eat strawberries.

9:00: Update blog. I'm about to start a math lesson.

10:15: Finish Math lesson, do a bit of history reading and hang out for a while.

11:45: Eat lunch (the last of the leftovers from Sunday night).

12:30: Hang out with Isabelle.

1:30: Do chores in preparation for people coming over later.

2:30: Read, do stuff online.

3:30: Arrange chairs downstairs for class.

4:00: Current events class begins. The topic today is gun control.

6:00: Everyone leaves, and we have dinner (meatball calzones).

7:00: Mom and Isabelle go to do some school, and I get online and update the blog.

Week in the Life: Day 6

It's Monday, and that mean's it's Day 6. Today is going to be the most "normal" day so far of the liveblogging. This is actually more like what an average day looks like than any of the ones so far.

7:00: Get up as Mom is leaving for work.

7:30: Read The Beginner's Guide to Living.

8:00: Breakfast (leftover sandwich from lunch yesterday, plus fruit).

8:30: I take a shower and get ready for the day.

9:00: Hang out with my sister for a while. Update blog.

9:30: Update blog for the first time today.

9:45: Start a math test.

10:25: Finish math test, and start the next lesson.

11:15: Finish Math lesson, then go read and eat lunch (leftover Chinese from last night's dinner).

12:10: Check email, etc. Update blog.

1:25: Start getting ready to go. I also pack a bag for Mom and Isabelle to bring for me later when they meet me in town.

2:10: Leave for the library.

2:30: Volunteer at the library. Normally, I clean books and toys, but since the summer reading program just started, things are a little crazy there, and I had some different things to do. I did do some toys, but mostly I stamped a little gold symbol ( I think it is to prove authenticity) on a ton of coupons that kids get as prizes when they finish summer reading. I'm guessing I stamped about 700, maybe a bit less.

3:30: I finish volunteering, and grab some books that I had on hold, and then sit down to read for a few minutes.

4:00: My friends show up, and we head over to the dance studio, and stop across the street at a chocolate shop. I had chocolate and salted caramel gelato.

5:00: The three boys head over to their dance class, and the mom and I head over to a clothes store nearby to look at some stuff for her.

5:45: We get back to the dance studio and I wait for Mom and Isabelle to show up with my dance bag.

6:00: Dance class. Just hard shoe this week.

7:00: After dance, Heather (our teacher) lets us know that we were invited to dance at a Highland Games a few hours from here Labor Day weekend. As is typical, everyone stands around outside the studio for a very long time talking. Ted (one of the dads), tries to think of something crazy to do to so that he can get a mention in my liveblog. :)

7:30: We finally leave.

8:00: Dinner. We have some sort of past with a creamy sauce that has peas in it.

8:30: We do some cleaning, since we have a class at our house tomorrow.

10:00: We read some more of West with the Night.

10:30: Go to bed.

Week in the Life: Day 5

Sorry this is late, today has been kind of crazy.

8:00: Get up.

8:30: Eat some strawberries, get dressed.

9:00: Generally collect stuff.

9:30: Leave for Highland Games.

10:00: Arrive at Highland games, and begin organizing and warming up for first performance.

11:00: First performance! 

11:40: Done dancing for now. We eat some lunch, and watch the bagpipers play some.

12:45: Return to stage for second performance.

1:00: Dance.

1:45: The first performance ends and we do a group dance where we teach audience members an easy dance, which was really fun, particularly since half the audience were friends of mine. 

2:00: Hang around for a while. I bought a snow cone, and lots of of bites of everyone else's food. Through everyone else giving me food, I ended up having some cherries, a bit of a pretzel, some caramel corn, some lemonade, and some chips.

3:00: Return to stage for last performance.

3:15: Dance again. It was really hot and the stage was pretty slippery this time, plus we were all pretty tired.

4:00: Finish dancing, collect stuff, and get ready to head out. We went to look at some of the vendors on our way out.

5:00: Get home.

5:15: Update blog for the first time today.

5:45: Crash on couch. Read for a little while, but mainly just sit there and be tired.

6:45: We ordered come Chinese food for dinner, and Mom goes to pick it up.

7:00: Dinner. We have broccoli beef, almond chicken, and BBQ pork fried rice.

8:00: We watch an episode of Gilmore Girls.

9:00: Check email, and other internet stuff.

10:30: Go to bed.

Week in the Life: Day 4

It's Saturday, and Day 4 of this liveblogging project. Yesterday ended up being a little quieter that I expected it to be. Today, being a weekend, should be the first really different day so far. It'll be a busier day, tomorrow will be way busier (and I probably won't be able to post about it until the evening), and Monday will be busy too. Here are Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

9:30: Wake up.

10:00: Eat a scone leftover from yesterday, hang out with Mom and Isabelle, check email, etc.

10:30: Update blog.

11:15: paint nails, and watch Crashcourse Lit videos. I always have to make sure I am watching something when I paint my nails, because otherwise I try to do stuff right afterwards, and mess up the paint.

12:00: Eat lunch (leftover pizza from last night).

12:30: Read, play computer games, hang out outside.

1:30: Go to a dance shop in town to look at leotards, and buy tights.

2:30: Go to Starbucks. I have a giftcard.

3:00: Get home, do laundry, read some more.

4:00: Clean room a little. My room is a mess, and needs way more cleaning.

5:00: Read some more. Let the cat in and out about fifty times.

6:00 Eat dinner (broccoli and cheddar calzone), while reading the children's version of A Midsummer Night's Dream to mom and Isabelle.

6:45: Change clothes.

7:00: Leave for the ballet of Midsummer Night's Dream, which has some friends of mine in it.

7:30: Ballet starts.

9:30: Ballet ends.

10:00: Get gelato with a ton of friends downtown.

11:00: Get home.

A Week in the Life: Day 3

It's day three, and we're still here.Today, I'm actually not sure yet what I'm going to be doing for a lot of the day, so it could be boring, or it could be busy. Here is Wednesday, and here is Thursday. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful day again, so I'll probably end up outside, wherever I am.

7:00: Get up, and eat some vanilla scones with blueberry jam.

7:25: Check email, Facebook, news, blogs, etc.

8:00: Update blog for the first time today. Try to plan out the day, which is challenging, since I don't really know yet what I'm going to be doing.

8:30: Read A Feast for Crows while I wait for the hot water to warm up enough so that I can take a shower.

9:15: I decide that the water is has hot as it's going to get at the moment, and take a shower and get ready.

10:00: Math. It's a long and relatively frustrating lesson, but I spend a lot of time on it, and as a result have a much better grade than I did on yesterday's very similar lesson that I didn't spend as much time on.

11:00: Set up my account on the new Teen Summer Reading website. It's pretty different from the past few years (FYI - local teens), but I am kind of excited about it. It could be cool. I then waste a ton of time looking at everything there.

11:30:  Update blog.

12:00: Lunch (pasta).

12:30: I read a few chapters of The Inferno.

1:30: Watch a few youtube videos.

2:00: Do a few chores, and clean up my desk.

2:45: We had been thinking about going to a friend's house for the afternoon, but that didn't really work out. I ended up spending most of the rest of my afternoon just wasting time reading and playing a few internet games (like Matuesz Skutnik's newest game, Escape from Jay is Games).

5:30: We leave (after my mom gets home) for a friend's house for dinner.

7:00: We leave from there to the community college to watch a play (actually a collection of student written one act plays), which a few of my friends were in.

7:30: The play begins.

10:15: We head home.

12:00: Bed.

Week in the Life: Day 2

It's day 2! Yesterday went pretty well, so here's another one. Today, we don't have a lot going on during the day, but a busy evening. Tomorrow, things will pick up a bit more, and stay busy for a while. As with yesterday, I'm going to update this post periodically as the day goes on. I'll try to get some pictures today if possible, since I didn't get any yesterday.

Disclaimer: While one purpose of this is to show that all homeschoolers aren't unsocialized and that we don't sit around all day, I'm just one person and this does not reflect the lifestyle or schedule of all homeschoolers, just of me. 

7:00am: I get up, just before mom leaves for work.

7:20: I check my email, Facebook, the news, the weather, Feedly, etc.

7:40: I start this post for the day, and update yesterday's post with last night's happenings, and send  few emails.

8:00: I eat some breakfast (leftover rice from last night with sweet and sour sauce).

8:30: I get distracted by a trivia game on Kongregate. I usually don't like those kinds of games, but I'm actually really good at it, and play for a while.

9:00: I get dressed and ready for the day.

9:20: I do some history reading. I read one speech made by a priest about the importance of going on the second Crusade, and then the introduction and first canto (chapter) of The Inferno. The introduction was a little long, but really, not that bad. The one to the Iliad was about 70 pages, so now I compare all introductions of classic literature to that. :) This one was less that 15 pages.

10:30: I debate between the various pieces of school that need to get done. Nearly all of it needs to be done on the computer, and it's such a nice day that I really don't want to sit inside on the computer all day. Eventually, I come up with a plan, and watch a few youtube videos.

11:15: I'm actually not totally sure what I did for this hour, but I know it involved planning out my outfits for the next few days (a complicated process, considering all the stuff we have going on), debating whether or not I should go to the store to get green nail polish to match my scarf for Sunday, and letting the cat out and in and out and in and out and it many, many times. I also read this rather interesting article, which I wholeheartedly agree with. I like this blogger, though I certainly don't always agree with her, because her arguments are always well thought out and well articulated.

12:00: Lunch (hot dog and carrots). I spend a while hanging out outside with my sister and eating. I also finish The Tragedy Paper.

1:00: I come to do some math, but get distracted reading about The Wil Wheaton Project (Wil Wheaton's new tv show on SyFy) on Wil Wheaton's blog. I then somehow accidentally manage to attempt to gain access to view it online via Comcast, which I didn't want to do (and couldn't actually even do anyways if I had wanted to), so then I had to finish setting up the online Comcast account so that I could go and delete said account.

1:30: Having finally sorted that all out, it's actually time to do some math, and update the blog with the latest happenings. Also, I just looked at my Analytics account, and the page views from the past few days have been through the roof! People are actually checking back through out the day to see what I'm doing, which is encouraging. This is a lot of work, so it's nice to know people are actually reading it!

2:30: I finally finish a long and frustrating math lesson. I then see a link to this article (that's a no follow link, since I certainly don't want to help Slate any). Obviously, I don't agree with anything there.

2:15: I color for a little while. I am never sure what people are going to think when I say that, because people think of coloring as such a little kid activity. But, whatever. I do a lot of it, and I enjoy it. I'll add some pictures of what I've been working on later. I love color and design, which is mostly what coloring is, so I enjoy it and almost find it therapeutic sometimes. It's one of the only art forms I really feel confidant about my abilities in. I have really steady hands, which is important, but also is one of the reasons I hate taking albuterol for my asthma, because it gives me hand tremors (the official term. I get really shaky) for almost an hour after I take it, and then I can't color, and can barely even write.

One I finished recently.

The one I started this afternoon.

3:30: Blog update! Now, to I am going to finish some history. I have to write half page biographies of a bunch of people including Geoffrey Chaucer, Henry VI, Catherine de Medici, and John Wycliffe, among many others.

4:15: Done with history. I also managed to add some pictures above. Now, I'm off to try to read a little more of the Inferno, and do a few chores, before I need to get ready to head off to dance. I change, and get my stuff together.

5:15: Leave for dance. Right before we leave, I see that there was a shooting at SPU, which is not that far from here. It's weird how it's kind of easy to overlook those kinds of things when they're far away, but suddenly, when they're near you, at a place where people you know might potentially be, it's very different.

5:30: Dance. It's the last rehearsal for our performances on Sunday.

8:20: Leave rehearsal, and eat dinner at a burger place downtown.

9:00: Get home, check email, Facebook, news etc.

9:30: Read a little, get ready for bed. Update blog.

10:00: Read West with the Night for a while with Mom.

10:30: In bed.

A Week in the Life: Day 1

It's Wednesday morning, and so it's time to get started on this. As the day goes on, I'll try to update the post every few hours with what I've been doing. Today might be a little boring, but that's real life. The rest of this week will be crazy busy, so it's good that today's not too exciting. If anything exciting happens, I'll take pictures and add them in for variety. :)

7am: I woke up in time to say goodbye to my mom as she runs out the door to work.

7:30: I check my email, Facebook, the weather, the news, Feedly (a blog reader). Answer a few emails, check the FedEx website to track a package that I'm expecting.

8:00: I watch the lesson for a math lesson (Teaching Textbooks Algebra II), and do the practice problems. I then go eat some fruit my mom and sister left on the table from when they ate breakfast.

8:30: I watch a few Crash Course Psychology videos (I'm almost a month behind), then suddenly remember that today was going to be the first day I live blogged. Oops.

9:00: I get on the blog for the first time today and write up this post so far. Now, I'm off to take a shower and get dressed (yeah, I did all that stuff up there in my pajamas).

9:45: Now, dressed and showered, I finish working on a History lesson I started yesterday. I'm reading a chapter in New History of the World about the Europe coming out of the Dark Ages.

10:15: I update the blog again, and then go to copy my scribbled notes about from the history lesson into a legible and understandable summary to put in my notebook. I then spend the next hour finishing the summary while also attempting to promote a dance performance I'm doing this weekend on Facebook, and answering questions about said dance performance.

11:00: I finish the math lesson I started earlier. The power also goes out about this time, for some yet known reason.

11:30: After calling the power company to report the outage, I make up some lesson plans for Latin class next week, and grade all of the assignments they handed in yesterday.

12:00: A package I have been waiting for finally arrives. I spend quite a while looking at the stuff that arrived.

12:45: Lunch. Tuna sandwiches and carrots. We spend quite a while talking over lunch.

1:45: The power comes back on!

2:00 Isabelle and my dad go to park day, but I stay home to get more work done. Now that the power and internet are back, I send a bunch of emails, and get a bit distracted reading blogs. Back to work now.

2:45: I read The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban for a while. I really should have done more school work, but I really didn't feel like it, so I just read that book for a few hours. I also watch a few videos online, and try for a while to understand why some of my posts on Facebook are shareable (by my friends) and others aren't, but still don't understand it. I also remember a few hours later than normal to take Flovent, my steroid inhaler for my asthma.

5:45: My mom and sister get home from park day. I clean up my desk a bit, and decide that I really need to get something more done today.

6:30: Mom is making dinner, so I decide I really need to get something more productive done today, and finish up the Latin reading I started last week, since it's obvious I won't get around to writing up some mini biographies of people from the place/time I was reading about earlier for history, which is the most urgent thing on my school list right now. I have only have a few paragraphs to translate, so hopefully I can finish before dinner.

6:45: I almost manage to finish before dinner (Cod with asparagus and some kind of garlic soy sauce thing on it, and rice).

7:20: I clean up the table after dinner and very quickly finish the Latin Reading. Time to update the blog again. I was thinking about do more homework, but against it. So, time to waste time on the internet (not a hard thing) until mom and Isabelle are done doing some school reading.

7:45: We watch an episode of Gilmore Girls.

8:45: I read a bit, and try to organize school for tomorrow, and plan my schedule for the next few days.

9:30: Mom and I read West with the Night by Beryl Markham, and get ready for bed.

11:00: Bed.

Week in the Life: Coming Soon!

In my last post, I mentioned a few posts that I was working on, but, I haven't actually finished any of them. I have been really busy, and things aren't going to be slowing down for a while.

Since I realized that I won't be having any more time to really sit down and blog for a while, I thought that maybe I'd do a "Week in the Life" series. I did this almost two years ago on my old blog (which isn't up anymore), and it was pretty popular. Also, on homeschooling websites and blogs, one of the most common questions is "What do you do all day?" I thought this would be a good way of showing you a little of our schedule.

Granted, this is a way busier than normal week, but all of the normal activities are happening, and any given week we usually have a few extra things going on anyway. To give you a little context, I thought I'd tell you a little about what's been going on the past few days, and what we're doing today, and then the firs real DITL post will be tomorrow. I'll start the post in the morning, and publish is, and then edit it throughout the day as I have time with what's been happening. I'll see if I can edit the post from my phone, because if I can't, there may be a few days with nothing until the evening (mainly Sunday). If I can, I'll post pictures from the day too, but no guarantees.

So, this weekend was my 16th birthday party (yay!) which was a ton of fun. My friends and I painted some pottery at a local place (I'll try to post pics of the finished product later), went on a scavenger hunt through the beautiful part of Bellingham called Fairhaven, and ended up at a pizza place for dinner.

Sunday we went to hear some friends sing, and then went back to their house for a party. Also fun, but overall kind of exhausting. Monday, I volunteered at the library, and then went to dance class.

Today, I've been working on school all morning, and then I'm teaching a Latin class to four girls this afternoon at a friend's house.

Come back tomorrow for the first in a week's worth of "real life" posts.