Lisa Zahn

Consider this my Valentine's wishes to all of you! We didn't get cards out this year...:( I hope you're all enjoying lots of love and a little chocolate today. I think this is one of those days to be a little kinder to yourself. Have a treat, a bubble bath, some leisure time just for you. Valentine's Day means so much more to me now that I have children. I never got into it much as a "lover's holiday", but to have my kids make me their own sweet Valentine card, and to spend some time doing something special for them is really wonderful. I'll spend some time making something sweet for George today too, and hope he remembers the chocolate!!! Unfortunately, the kids and I are all "under the weather" today so that will limit the merriment a bit. Rose came down with the high fever, headache and "crud" yesterday. I gave her homeopathic Belladonna 30c from Hyland's all day; each dose helped ease the head pain and got her to sleep. By 3...

In today's Minneapolis StarTribune , conservative columnist Katherine Kersten writes a very good article on the (major) problems with ethanol. In Ethanol: Is it a miracle cure or another dose of snake oil? she questions our Republican governor and Democratic-majority Congress on the subsidizing and ethics of ethanol production. I am happy to agree with her for once! I am sorry to write against the farmers who are so happy to have a crop that is making them money finally, but I just can not support ethanol. Kersten lays out the reasons very well in her column. They include the fact that it takes more fossil fuels/energy to produce ethanol than the energy that ethanol will provide. Also the fact that more grasslands are being converted to corn-growing land is causing more pollution. And, perhaps most importantly, the ethanol boom is causing skyrocketing food prices due to shortages of grain for food, and this is causing starvation in some poorer countries and even for too many Ameri...

This morning we made time to practice music flash cards. Rose wanted to be sure we took pictures of that moment and put it on the blog because her piano teacher informed her yesterday that she's been reading my blog regularly! Let's hope more practice works out and the piano teacher is also impressed by Rose's quick knowledge... Today I wrote down a schedule for our homeschooling. As you can see, we're using short lessons for about two hours in the morning. It's a lot to get through fast, and makes me wish we had the afternoon to do some things more leisurely, but I think this will work out well for Rose. Here's the schedule (which of course is subject to change for any of various reasons): 8-9 a.m. Wake up, dress and brush teeth, make beds, eat breakfast 9-9:20 a.m. Reading 9:20-9:40 a.m. Math 9:40-10:00 a.m. Spelling and grammar 10:00-10:20 a.m. Piano practice, music flash cards, composer study 10:20-10:40 a.m. History and Geography or Science (depen...

Rose and I had lots of fun reading, sewing, painting (only Rose painted today while I sewed) and playing Skip-Bo as a math exercise. She's an eager student. She also helped around the house with unloading the dishwasher, making pizzas for lunch, etc. That's another benefit of homeschooling--time for learning and practicing real-life skills. Poor Eli was sick on the couch, coughing and still slightly feverish all day. He is doing better, though. He listened to me read the first chapter of The Family Under the Bridge with Rose (which is, predictably, all she could sit for), and he played his Nintendo DS a bit. Speaking of which, we knew he was sick the last couple days when he couldn't even play a video game. Today felt so relaxing and, really, just natural for us. It's nice to have the kids home again. Not sure how we're going to fit in all we/I want to do for homeschooling, though, since the kids will only be home in the morning. We may decide to go all day next ye...

It felt so good this morning to wake up on our own, no cattle prodding of the kids to get out of bed and get ready for school, but "sleeping in" until 7:30. Now we are enjoying breakfast at the kitchen table and soon we'll get dressed and ready for "school" at home. Above is the fun project I prepared for today. I've cut out of wool felt three sizes of hearts. We'll sew two together and stuff them lightly with fleece. Then we'll string them up to make mobiles. I found this idea in the book pictured, All Year Round . This will be our Valentine's decoration. Rose is always ready to decorate for the holidays! Also this morning we're going to begin reading The Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson, a Newbery Honor Book which I happened to find for .99 at GoodWill last week. Then we'll do some math which Rose loves and is asking for, then who knows what we'll have time for until lunch time. Elijah is on his third day of being...