Monday, December 31, 2012

Year in Review

Year in Review...
Here's what you do!

(Oh the cleverness of me.)

Post the first sentence of each blog post for each month of the past year.

And/Or...

Post the first Facebook status update for each month of the past year.

Play along! Make your own list!

Blog Posts:

January: Every year, I promise myself I WILL NOT make any New Year's Resolutions.

February: Confession time--this is actually from a few weeks ago.

March: Mmmmmmm.....Chili.

April: Toa of Boy has claimed (again) the space behind the corner chair in the living room as his fort.

May: Mmmmmm.....Roasted Veggies

June: This post is progressing without much input from the birthday boy.

July: Even though I am *not* an organized person...there are few things I love more at the start of a new school year than putting together a lovely color coded schedule.

August:  In keeping with her own goal of becoming a professional writer, this year Sweetling made an in-depth exploration of the genre of script and screen writing.

September: There are no pictures.

October: The downside to being a certified Kansas City Barbeque Society judge is that the last time I made what used to be a favorite "bbq pulled pork" in the crock pot, I was completely disgusted at how soggy, mushy, and bland the whole thing turned out.

November: I had all the photos taken to include in a post about how much we like our new math curriculum.

December: Let me start today off with the BEST BROWNIE RECIPE EVER.

Facebook:

January:
ok, I don't often post about football, but that was clearly a pass interference. If you pull the guy's shirt half off, it's pretty blatant. where are the refs now?

February: 
yesterday's quotes:
Geometry--"A 'square rooty guy'? Really, Mommy?"
Toa--"No! Don't clip my toenails! I want to be a vampire-bear!"
Tae Kwon Do--"Wait! I need my leg!"


March--
(no updates--gave up Facebook for Lent)

April--
I'm breaking my Facebook fast with a request for help. I just got a phone call asking for clothes for a little girl, size 6, who's family lost most of their possessions during an eviction process. If you should have any girl clothes size 6 that you could pass on, could you please be in touch with me? I'll hop back on Facebook to check PMs and replies to this message. Thank you!

May--
 ok, I'm sewing this beautiful elven dress. (I'm using view A, the dress itself is cream crushed panne, the sleeves are a glimmering spring green netting). Here are my options, I can cut the sleeves out WITH the grain of the fabric and cut two pieces, front and back. This then leaves a seam running down the shoulder and top of sleeves. OR I can cut the sleeves out in ONE piece running AGAINST the grain of the fabric. This means no seam, but the sleeves don't drape as nicely. (The fabric isn't wide enough to cut the sleeve in one piece running with the grain.) Thoughts?
  
June--
Pre-seven this morning found me outside in the pouring rain, huddled under a gulf umbrella, scooping water out of the frog tank because both their large rocks were completely submerged and I didn't want them to drown!

July--
 I love technology! I can stalk my daughter across the country!

August--
Ok the two day fast from Facebook was totally worth it to watch the US women take gold!!!!

September--
 Life in a nerd home:
3 day holiday weekend is spent watching Lord of the Rings, playing a tabletop rpg, and buying and playing Zombie Flux.


October--
 Saturday night's Dr Who did not record. Much sadness.

November--
I come home with bruises from king of the ring. Sadly, they are not the marks of victory.

December--
Quote from today's Dr. Who game: "Last one there doesn't get the porridge!" 

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Quotes from a Boy Play Date

This was some of the equipment brought into my house for a boy playdate:
1 two-foot T-Rex; 1 two-foot dragon, and two huge transformers.


All three of us females are spending the day hiding in our rooms. Within minutes of boys arrival, I hear the cry, "Get the troll!" Woe unto you, O troll. Your doom is at hand.


I'm just jotting down some of the things I've heard through the day. Of course, at good half of the, um, dialogue, involves war cries, sound effects, and battle noises. Those don't translate into the written word well.

"Oh! My weiner!"

"I got hit where no one should ever get hit."

"We were trapped in a pretzel because the boy on top had part of him trapped on the bottom."

"Was that you who licked my feet?"

"We need some protein."

"We had silly putty and it got stuck on our couch for a long time, but then our dog finally got it off."

"Peace, love, and zombies." 

"Remember Burp Friday?"

"I'm protecting you! I'm protecting you!"

"Where's his head?"

"Here's the leader."

"No, the dinosaurs can't attack yet."

"But he has no head." 

"Dude, I know how to make cannons out of Lincoln Logs."

"This could be the town's protector."

"Don't destroy the town 'till your mom gets a picture of it."

"Ah! He's undefeated!"

"I'm alive! I'm alive! No! I'm a ghost!"

"Next comes the spinning wheel of death."

"Fight like a man!"

"Whoever loses, the winner gets to give him a wedgie."

"C'mon! Just one of you guys say 'uncle'."

"This is a dungeon....a level one dungeon."



Monday, December 17, 2012

Twelve Somethings of Co-Op

O We're halfway through co-op and t'day there's gonna be....

.....A Party at the Learning Tree!

O We're halfway through co-op and t'day there's gonna be....

.....Two awesome leaders,
and a  party at the Learning Tree!

O We're halfway through co-op and t'day there's gonna be....

.....Three great soups,
two awesome leaders,
and a  party at the Learning Tree!

O We're halfway through co-op and t'day there's gonna be....

.....Four caroling classes,
three great soups,
two awesome leaders,
and a  party at the Learning Tree!

O We're halfway through co-op and t'day there's gonna be....

.....FIVE TRIPS TO TARGET!!!!
four caroling classes,
three great soups,
two awesome leaders,
and a  party at the Learning Tree!

O We're halfway through co-op and t'day there's gonna be....

.....Six weeks of vacation,
FIVE TRIPS TO TARGET!!!!
four caroling classes,
three great soups,
two awesome leaders,
and a  party at the Learning Tree!

O We're halfway through co-op and t'day there's gonna be....

.....Seven forgotten jackets,
six weeks of vacation,
FIVE TRIPS TO TARGET!!!!
four caroling classes,
three great soups,
two awesome leaders,
and a  party at the Learning Tree!

O We're halfway through co-op and t'day there's gonna be....

.....Eight days till Christmas,
seven forgotten jackets,
six weeks of vacation,
FIVE TRIPS TO TARGET!!!!
four caroling classes,
three great soups,
two awesome leaders,
and a  party at the Learning Tree!

O We're halfway through co-op and t'day there's gonna be....

.....Nine plates of cookies,
eight days till Christmas,
seven forgotten jackets,
six weeks of vacation,
FIVE TRIPS TO TARGET!!!!
four caroling classes,
three great soups,
two awesome leaders,
and a  party at the Learning Tree!

O We're halfway through co-op and t'day there's gonna be....

.....Ten teacher presents,
nine plates of cookies,
eight days till Christmas,
seven forgotten jackets,
six weeks of vacation,
FIVE TRIPS TO TARGET!!!!
four caroling classes,
three great soups,
two awesome leaders,
and a  party at the Learning Tree!


O We're halfway through co-op and t'day there's gonna be....

.....Eleven billion raindrops,
ten teacher presents,
nine plates of cookies,
eight days till Christmas,
seven forgotten jackets,
six weeks of vacation,
FIVE TRIPS TO TARGET!!!!
four caroling classes,
three great soups,
two awesome leaders,
and a  party at the Learning Tree!



O We're halfway through co-op and t'day there's gonna be....

.....Twelve Praise Team dancers,
eleven billion raindrops,
ten teacher presents,
nine plates of cookies,
eight days till Christmas,
seven forgotten jackets,
six weeks of vacation,
FIVE TRIPS TO TARGET!!!!
four caroling classes,
three great soups,
two awesome leaders,
and a  party at the Learning Tree!




Friday, December 14, 2012

Friday Fast Five

Five quick thoughts...

1

We're on our way to see The Hobbit at 10:25 this morning. We've had the Lord of the Rings sound track playing during breakfast.

2

Facebook won't work on my kitchen laptop all of a sudden. It will let me view Facebook, but not post an update, comment on someone else's update, or even like a status. Let me tell you how far down the Jedi's priority list this issue is. Let me tell you how s.o.l. that leaves me.

3

There is currently a lego platypus and a lego starfighter and a lego undead creature sitting under my Christmas tree. This year is Toa of Boy's year to dictate the decorations for the tree. Our tree is exclusively covered in white lights and family-constructed lego ornaments. Pics to follow.

4

Last night I traced, cut out, and glued 90 foam numbers to 90 small plastic plates. Today I have 30 more numbers to do and then 270 little round stickers to put on plates. Then I can assemble my preschool activity bags.

5

Homemade Cincinnati style chili for dinner tonight.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Weekly Wrap-Up: Unicorn Logic

Last spring, at the Midwest Homeschool Convention, Sweetling decided she wanted to learn formal logic. We checked out this awesome series from Memoria Press.

I came home and told the Jedi we were planning on including logic is Sweetling's curriculum for the upcoming school year.

The Jedi, wisely, asked, "Who's going to teach logic?"

I replied that we had found this great curriculum. We were going to order the books, and then read and work through them together.

The Jedi, even more wisely, said, "Ah."

The books came. They are well written and each chapter is followed by lesson plans for which sections to read on which day as well as review and comprehension questions for each section.

We dug in.

Sweetling is doing great. She understands the material readily and is able to answer all the questions with no trouble.

Mommy is struggling. Mommy reads a section and gets confused. Mommy tries using hand gestures to make sense of the sections.

Each day, Sweetling asks me if I understand what I'm reading. I answer by singing a happy song. This is Sweetling's cue that the lesson is quickly going south. Sweetling then re-explains the section using examples often involving unicorns.

I understand unicorns. Unicorns are my friends.

On days that are particularly challenging, Sweelting brings me my Webkinz unicorn and pegasus so that I can cling to my tangible representatives of my fantasy world while I wrestle my way through formal logic.

On days when I grasp the material the first time round, she brings me a large stuffed blue bunny to hold as a reward. I call that the Blue Bunny Award for Effort. I like receiving the blue bunny award.

Often the section review exercises prompt the learner to write their own examples of various types of statements. This is both Sweetling and my favorite part of the logic lessons.

Here are our samples by section. (Because I love them and want to be able to re-read them later.)

Statements (propositions....whatever the proper term is. I don't remember, Sweetling isn't here to ask, and I don't have the book with me.)

Sweetling:
Mommy is funny.
Milk is delicious.
The TARDIS is bigger on the inside.

Mommy:
I am a fairy princess.
Squirrels are good minions.
Ducky Mo-Mo is oblivious to his surroundings.

Not propositions:

Sweetling:
Hey, where's Perry?
Don't blink!
Nang nang nang nang....
Curse you, Perry the Platypus!

Mommy:
Avengers, assemble!
That's it? That's your tragic backstory?
Fish sticks and custard.
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?

Affirmative propositions:

Sweetling:
Ferb is British.
Some days are Saturdays.
Phineas's head is a triangle.
Everything's better with Perry.
Some birds are penguins.

Mommy:
Some pens are green.
All chocolate is Mommy's.
Some unicorns are on Saturn.
All bunnies are adorable.
Some squirrels are casing Mrs. Angie's house. (I play fast and loose with my copluas.)
All Pastor Andy's game nights are crazy.

Negative propositions:

Sweetling:
Perry is a not a cuperberra.
Sweetling is not food.
What we're doing isn't cooking at all.
I'm not exactly surprised.

Mommy:
Some leaves are not an autumn color.
Some schoolwork is not interesting.
No daleks are nice.
The statue of liberty is not a weeping angel.
No chores are exciting.
Some forest spirits are not small.

Universal propositions:

Sweetling:
All DVDs are discs.
No unicorns are living on Saturn.
All eagles are birds.
All oookas are tasty.
No kisses are zerburts.

Mommy:
All toes are piggies.
No chipmunks are evil.
All unicorns are real.
No rainbows are ugly.
All penguins like fish. (fast and loose copula)

Particular propositions:

Sweetling:
Some kisses are for Eswin.
Some hats are fedoras.
Some animals are platypuses.
Some blankets are not penguin blankets.
Some hugs are Mommy hugs.

Mommy:
Some toes are wiggly.
Some chipmunks are not in favor of hats.
Some unicorns like pepperoni pizza. (another fast and loose copula)
Some rainbows are not in the sky.
Some penguins are secret agents.

Contradictory propositions:

Sweetling:
No pairs of pigtails are connected. Some pairs of pigtails are connected.
All platypi are secret agents. Some platypi are not secret agents.
No whales are space whales. Some whales are space whales.
All lumas are Rebecca Schmorange. Some lumas are not Rebecca Schmorange.
No earthbenders are metalbenders. Some earthbenders are metalbenders.

Mommy:
All unicorns are loved by Mommy. Some unicorns are not loved by Mommy.
All fairy houses are built by children. Some fairy houses are not built by children.
All gnomes are garden gnomes. Some gnomes are not garden gnomes.
All chipmunks are awesome. Some chipmunks are not awesome.
All penguins should be snuggled. Some penguins should not be snuggled.
No Mommy's should be made to do logic. Some Mommy's should be made to do logic.

Contrary propositions:

Sweetling:
All oookas are for tickling. No oookas are for tickling.
All self-destruct buttons are necessary. No self-destruct buttons are necessary.
All Mommies are fairies. No Mommies are fairies.
All backstories are tragic. No backstories are tragic.
All random hand gestures are helpful. No random hand gestures are helpful.

Mommy:
All slipppers are fuzzy. No slippers are fuzzy.
Mommy is awesome. Mommy is not awesome.
No fairies are good at logic. All fairies are good at logic.
All hot chocolate is delicious. No hot chocolate is delicious.
Everything is fixed by kisses. Nothing is fixed by kisses.

Subcontrary propositions:

Sweetling:
Some vegetables are leeks. Some vegetables are not leeks.
Some otamatones are jumbo otamatones. Some otamatones are not jumbo otamatones.
Some Mokanas are black Mokanas. Some Mokanas are not black Mokanas.
Some towns are fun towns. Some towns are not fun towns.

Mommy:
Some otomatones are pink. Some otomatones are not pink.
Some Mikos are astrotroopers. Some Mikos are not astrotroopers.
Some bananas are for cereal. Some bananas are not for cereal.
Some music is from Zelda. Some music in not from Zelda.
Some oookas are pokemon trainers. Some oookas are not pokemon trainers.

Subalternate propositions:

Sweetling:
All troopers are astro troopers. Some troopers are astro troopers.
All pigtails are teal pigtails. Some pigtails are teal pigtails.
No platypi are platypi that do much. Some platypi are not platypi that do much.
All pigtails are connected. Some pigtails are connected.
No rides from outspace are "street legal." Some rides from outer space are not "street legal".

Mommy:
All your base are belong to us. Some bases are belong to us.
No Sweetlings like pink. Some Sweetlings like pink.
All timelords have two hearts. Some timelords have two hearts. (Sweetling complained again about my copula not being a form of '"to be". Sweetling doesn't get that Mommy is a rebel.)
All statues are weeping angels. Some statues are weeping angels.
No cosplay is bizarre. Some cosplay is not bizarre.


Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Two for Tuesday...mmmmm....brownies

Let me start today off with the BEST BROWNIE RECIPE EVER.

Do I have your attention?

Good.

'Cause these are the BEST BROWNIES EVER.

Best Brownies Ever


Ingredients:
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/3 cup cocoa
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder
Heavenly Fudge Top Layer: (You must make this. Must.)
  • 3 tablespoons SOFTENED butter 
  • 3 tablespoons cocoa
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
 Optional:
  • cute seasonal sprinkles, or, in the fall, reeces pieces candy. (I say in the fall cause the orange and yellow of the reeces pieces just says 'fall' to me.)
Directions:
  1. Put 3 tablespoons of butter out to soften. You'll use this for the fudge top layer. (Don't be a dork and try to soften it in the microwave. You know you're just going to melt it and that won't work. Be patient and let the butter soften for real.) 
  2. Preheat your oven to 350. 
  3. Grease and flour an 8 inch brownie pan. (By all that's holy, I can't keep typing. I want to go back and double everything in the recipe and tell you to grease and flour a 9x13 cake pan. That's what I've done every time I've made them. None of this self restraint crap of a dainty little brownie pan. OK, if you are taking these anywhere, go for broke and double the recipe. People will gobble them up and an 8x8 pan is just a tease. However, if you are just making this for the family and you yourself want to continue to fit in your jeans, leave the recipe as is. There will be NO RESISTING these brownies, so don't make a big pan and then come crying back to me when the whole pan is gone and you were the only one in the house.)
  4. Melt the 1/2 cup of butter in a large saucepan. 
  5. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar, eggs, and vanilla. 
  6. Thoroughly mix in the cocoa, flour, salt, and baking powder.
  7. Pour/spoon batter into your prepared pan, of whatever size you chose. I won't judge you.
  8. Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes. If the chocolate spirits smile on you, the brownies will not be overbaked or underbaked. 
  9. Combine the heavenly fudge frosting ingredients. (Butter, cocoa, honey, vanilla, powdered sugar). Spread over the brownies while they are still warm. (The fudge topping will be thick...as in unspreadably thick. Use your fingers if you need to mush it on like playdough. The warm brownies will make it pliable and it will smooth out. Promise.)
  10. If you're feeling especially festive, immediately sprinkle some candy or cake sprinkles or such over the top of the fudge layer.
  11. Let the brownies cool completely before cutting into them. Seriously. Otherwise they are goop. These are too good to be made into goop. Don't make me come after you for cutting into your brownies too soon.
And yes, this is just one recipe. But its SO GOOD I don't even need to put a second recipe up for today.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

A Glimpse into Toa's World

Yesterday's quote:
"This game makes me happy because it's monkeys defending our Earth from balloons."
This morning's question:
"Mommy, how do you draw a shuriken?"
The labels on a page full of little pencil drawings drawn during the sermon and then stuck in his Bible:
"Ninga Monkey; Dart monkey; ice monkey; barnoclel ? monkey; baby monkey; apprentice monkey; boomawing monkey; Balloon Guy; Rupper; Zomg Zomg; sun god; (and in speech bubbles: 'OHOH OHOH' and 'ya')"
 This afternoon's quote:
"Mommy, I'm really smart because I can play my game and clean my room at the same time!"

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Two for Tuesday: Thanksgiving Favorites


Let's be honest. Everyone has certain dishes that just must be on the table in order for Thanksgiving to feel real.

Yeah, yeah, it's all about stopping and counting our blessings. We do that. I promise.


And then it's all about eating.

Here are two of my must haves. (Other than a smoked turkey, which the Jedi is forever more obligated to provide for me. This year, he's adding burnt ends to the meat menu as well. Mmmmm....burnt ends......)

Sweet Potato Casserole


Ingredients:

  • 6 whole sweet potatoes ~3 lbs
  •  3/4 cup sugar
  •  1/3 cup milk
  •  1/4 cup butter  (melted)
  •  1 tsp vanilla
  •  1/2 tsp cinnamon
  •  1/2 tsp nutmeg
  •  2 whole eggs (lightly beaten)

 Topping:

  •  1/3 cup packed brown sugar
  •  1/3 cup chopped pecans
  •  2 tbsp flour
  •  2 tbsp soft butter

Directions:


  1.  Boil sweet potatoes for 30-40 minutes. Let cool, peel and mash. (I generally do this the day before. It's just easier. You can store them as is. Or you can mix up the casserole, put it in the fridge, and then bake it the day you need to serve it.)
  2.  Combine mashed sweet potatoes with sugar, milk, melted butter, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg (ie--everything except the topping ingredients). 
  3. Spoon into greased 2 quart casserole.
  4. Combine topping ingredients, cutting in the butter until crumbly. (I might be guilty of doubling the topping amounts when I bake this. Twice the sweet stuff. Yum. Yum. Knowing that not everyone is enlightened enough to want a dessert item on their dinner plate, the amount given in the recipe above is for the more moderate version.) Sprinkle over casserole before baking. 
  5. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes (casserole should be steaming hot in center). If you're pulling it out of the fridge to bake it, plan for a 40-50 minute bake time.

One year, I accidentally put the spices for pumpkin pie (1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp allspice, 1/2 tsp nutmeg) in the casserole and Vaya liked it better this way. More recently, I've been leaving out the nutmeg altogether because Toa of Boy likes it better with just cinnamon. So, feel free to adjust the spices some.

The second Thanksgiving must have is a pumpkin pie. Like, cook it from a pumpkin, pumpkin pie.

I'll include the cook it from the pumpkin directions after the pie recipe.

I'm all about logic. Ask Sweetling. She'll vouch for me on that.

Deep Dish Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients: 

  • 1 - 3/4 cup flour
  •  1/3 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
  •  1/3 cup sugar
  •  1 cup cold butter/margarine (cut into pieces)
  •  1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans, but why would you pick walnuts over pecans?)
  •  16 oz pumpkin (or 1-3/4 cup of real pumpkin, baby!)
  •  1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 oz)
  •  2 whole eggs
  •  1 tsp ground cinnamon
  •  1 tsp ground allspice

 Directions:


  1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
  2. In a medium bowl, combine flour and sugars. Cut in butter or margarine until crumbly. Stir in nuts.
  3. Reserve 1 cup of the crumb mixture. Press the remainder firmly on the bottom and halfway up the sides of a 12 x 7 inch baking dish. (Or a deep dish pie pan, but it has to be really deep dish.)
  4. In a large mixer bowl, combine remaining ingredients (except reserved crumb mixture, dur!) and mix well. Pour into prepared dish. Top with reserved crumb mixture.
  5. Bake for 55 minutes or until golden brown.
  6. Cool. Serve with vanilla ice cream if you'd like. (You'd like, trust me, you'd like.)
 Ok, And, because I said I would, here's how, in the past, I've cooked my pumpkin. The Jedi's mom taught me this method. I like it better than boiling the pumpkin, but I don't like how it makes my house smell. You have been warned.

Baking a Pumpkin

  1. You need a pie pumpkin, a baking dish, and a cup of water. Rinse the outside of your pumpkin. Scrub off any dirt.
  2. Cut your pie pumpkin in half. I'm not sure it matters how you cut it in half, but I find it easiest to let it sit on it's pumpkin bottom and then I saw it in half close to its stem on top.
  3. Scoop out the seeds and pulp.
  4. Lay the pumpkin cut side down in the baking dish. Pour enough water into the baking dish to have about a quarter inch or so in the bottom.
  5. Bake at 350 for about an hour. It needs to be tender when you stick it with a fork. 
  6. Remove it from the oven and let it cool.
  7. When its cool, scrape the soft meat out of the pumpkin skin.
  8. Now, some instructions will tell you to send it through the food processor. Like I'm going to climb up on the counter to drag that thing out of the top shelf of the cupboard. I don't think so. I just mash it up like I would a potato and use it as is. 
  9. You do need to store it in a plastic container in the fridge till you need it for a recipe. It also freezes well. 
I have two pumpkins sitting on my kitchen floor. One of them is going into a pie. I think the other wants to go into some dough for cinnamon rolls sometime after Thanksgiving.

Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Weekly Wrap-up: The Sweetest Vocabulary



My last two homeschooling posts were about Toa's curriculum.

Today, I started to put a snippet about Sweetling's vocabulary lesson on Facebook. Instead, I decided to put a couple of snippets about vocabulary together to make a blog post.

 

Snippet Number One

This scenario isn't atypical of a Sweetling school time. No Sweetlings were harmed during the making of this anecdote. Unless you count the therapy she might need later in life.

Me (singing): Ignominy, do doo do do do. Ignominy, do do di do.
 [pause]
Me: You know, I wasn't like this when I was in school.
Sweetling: Really? What were you like?
Me: When I was in school I was quiet and studious and serious.
[pause]
Me: So, maybe when you get older....you'll become like me.
Sweetling: NOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Snippet Number Two


This is Sweetling's list of challenge words for this section of her vocabulary book. We read through the challenge words and take a guess at them if either of us think we know what they mean. If we aren't sure, or if, as is often the case, we have no earthly idea, we make a mark by them and then look them up.

Here was the list so far:
  • literalism (knew it)
  • litarati (marked it)
  • transliterate (knew it)
  • scriptorium (think we know it, marked it to double-check ourselves)
  • serif (knew it)
  • shrive (could take a wild guess, but we marked it rather than go with Mommy's wild guesses)
  • superscription (knew it)
Then we got to eponymous.

"Oh, I know that one," says Sweetling.
"What? How do you know that one? I don't know that one," says me.

Then Sweetling proceeds to give me a definition of eponymous and uses it in a sentence. I was still incredulous, so she looked it up to prove that she was right; and that I was less right. Really? What young teen has "eponymous" as part of her working vocabulary?

Sweetling does, that's who.

(The rest of the challenge list was euonymus, metonymy, paronomasia, agnomen, cognomen, nominalism, nominative, and praenomen....just in case you were wondering.)

Our curriculum:


This year, we returned to Vocabulary for Classical Roots.
 
 Last year, we took a year off of a formal vocabulary program. As you can see, Sweetling isn't lacking for an awesome vocabulary, so a year off wasn't going to hurt her.

But now, we're looking at PSATs in a year, followed by SATs in another couple of years. So, I felt a return to a formal vocabulary program was in order.

The book itself is divided into 16 "lessons". (We work through one "lesson" every other week.) I love the way the text groups words around central concepts. Lesson 5, which is the one we're currently in, and lesson 6 together form a section titled "Reading and Writing". Each lesson uses four or so classical roots, teaching the classical root, its meaning, and its spelling. From those few roots, the lesson focuses on learning fifteen vocabulary words.

I find this approach to be a much more effective and sensible method to acquire language than a list of words that seem to be randomly selected with little in common.

I purchased two workbooks, one for Sweetling and one for me. We sit together to work on our vocabulary. After the various exercises, we compare our answers with each other. When we differ, we discuss our reasoning for each of our selections and decide together which response is the best choice. (I won't say which of us is often less right than the other. I'm trying to get through this school year with some of my dignity still intact.)

The engaging discussion during the lesson and the unofficial challenge for us each to try to use the vocabulary words throughout the week increases the long-term retention and use of new vocabulary. Plus, it's FUN.

(And what teenage girl doesn't welcome the opportunity to prove that she knows more than her mother?)

Check out what others are doing this week on Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Friday, November 02, 2012

Weekly Wrap Up: Bad Day and Good Math

I had all the photos taken to include in a post about how much we like our new math curriculum. And then we had...

A Day.

One of THOSE days.

One of those maybe-the-yellow-school-bus-isn't-such-a-bad-option-after-all days.

I'll spare you the details. They aren't pretty. Highlights included Toa of Boy dumping his uneaten lunch in the garbage in an act of defiance and then going hungry for the afternoon while he sat at the kitchen table doing worksheets I printed off the internet (in my own fit of frustration and defiance.)

Like I said, not a pretty day.

But, Toa crafted and apology in Legos (the two r's aren't quite visible in the photo). I made his favorite dinner that evening. So, hopefully things will be back on track now.

And, despite our horrible, no-good, very-rotten day, both Toa and I do like the math curriculum, so I'm going to share about it anyway.

Everyday Mathematics was recommended to us by a good friend. I visited the website and watched a video of a classroom lesson. Then I looked at the prices and had a sticker shock moment. But, I was able to find the two student journals I need on ebay, used, but not written in.
(I skipped buying the Student Resource book that was supposed to go along with the curriculum. Even on ebay, it was out of the budget and it didn't seem like we absolutely needed it.)

Each lesson includes a page of "math boxes" that are a collection of very short review work. Normally, Toa of Boy hates the review section of math lessons, but the math boxes are different enough that he hasn't realized they are meant to keep skills fresh. (Shhhh---don't tell him they're review work!) I am NOT a fan of 'busy work' or generic worksheets....despite my breakdown this week. But the math boxes have a wide enough variety of skills to keep his mind engaged.

Sadly, the one random Math Boxes I happened to snap a picture of has a section of simple addition/subtraction problems which is pretty rare. I thought about cropping them out of the picture before I loaded it to my blog, but I thought I'd leave it. There are the occasional computation reviews. Still, they are rare enough that the math box page doesn't become a drudgery.


(You can click on the image, or any of the images, if you'd like to see a slightly larger version of it.)

 The lessons are set up so that the math boxes are supposed to come at the end of the lesson, however, we do the math boxes first. For the most part, Toa of Boy can complete the math box page independently, with only an occasional question or two. There are a few times, like today, when he completes the math boxes when I'm not even around, and then I check them and we do the teaching section later.

We don't have a teacher's manual for the teaching sections, but for the most part we haven't needed one. In part, we don't need one because I'm comfortable enough looking at a lesson on multiplication arrays and coming up with a spur of the moment hands-on activity.

But, mostly, we don't need a teacher guide because the lessons have clear student instructions for unique and engaging math activities.

Here are a couple of Toa's favorites.

This lesson involved measuring how many steps you took to cross a large room, measuring the room, and then finding an approximate length of a step. Then you time how long it took you to take so many steps...and somewhere in there it lead you through approximating a walking speed. We skipped some of this process, because Toa looked at me and told me that it takes him and Grandma about 30 minutes to walk the big block of our neighborhood and that he asked the Jedi drive their walking route to measure it's distance with the car's odometer. From this, Toa told me it takes him about half and hour to walk ________.

Next, the lesson asked us to pick a destination in a different city. Toa had to measure the distance to the city, and then figure out how long it would take him to walk there if he walked continuously with no stops for rest or food. Then he had to figure out, realistically, what stops he would need to take and how long the stops would take, and what a more realistic arrival time would be.

His other favorite, so far, has been a lesson on data collection and examining data to find the mean, the mode, the median, and so forth. Not too exciting....unless the data you are examining is first collected in a cool 'reaction time' process. First, the 'reaction time' strip was cut out of his workbook. Then I held the strip, and he kept his thumb and pointer finger open around the bottom edge of the strip. With no verbal warning, I dropped the strip, and he had to quick pinch to catch it. The strip had a gauge to measure his reaction time according to where his thumb landed on the strip.

Now, if I, or some textbook, had just given Toa of Boy a set of random numbers and asked him to do some landmarking and computation with them....getting the lesson done would have been like pulling teeth. But test his own reaction time and then crunch those numbers to learn which hand had the quicker reflexes? Oh yeah. Bought and sold, baby.

I also was blessed with several fun and interesting learning books at a used curriculum sale last spring. I had a nice stack of 50 cent to 1 dollar books in my hand, and the sweet mom running the booth told me I could just have them. "Be blessed," she said. And I was and am!

One of those books was logic links.

We aim for doing a few logic puzzles about once a week or so.

Another book we were blessed with is a math card game book. It's SO MUCH BETTER THAN FLASHCARDS for practicing multiplication and division skills!

Here's a sample game, taking from a side view of course, so as to be totally confusing. Each of two players is dealt three cards (the columns on the left and right of the photo.) Then two cards are flipped over in the middle. They are multiplied to find the "target number" for that round. Each player gets a point for each of the cards in their hand of three which can be divided evenly into the target number. (We kept track of our scores with tally marks on a separate piece of paper.) Then all the cards are discarded and new cards dealt out for the next round.



(And, just because I'm me, this post was actually written at the beginning of  September. Then it sat unfinished waiting for me to resize photos so that they would load easier and not take up so much of the space blogger allocates for saved photos. BUT, it's still a good overview of how math is working for us this year!)

Check out what others are doing this week on Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers!

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Two for Tuesday: Fall Apple Favorites

Fall is the time for apples. Even Amelia Pond thinks so....

Today's recipes are all about apples.

The first recipe is a fast and easy dip to make to serve with wedges of crisp fall apples...

Peanut Butter Apple Dip

Ingredients:

  •  8 oz cream cheese (softened)
  • 1 cup creamy peanut butter
  • 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup milk

Directions:

  1.  Use a blender mix cream cheese and peanut butter. Add brown sugar and milk and mix.
  2. Serve!

See, you can't get much simpler than that. Oh, and refrigerate your leftovers. If you have any. Makes a great party treat.

The next recipe is more time consuming, but well worth it. It comes, with a few variations, from an old Better Homes paperback cookbook. I've used this particular recipe so much that the cookbook practically falls open to this page.

Crumble Nut Apple Pie

Ingredients: 

  •  1 cup sugar, divided
  • 2 Tbs flour
  • 6-7 cups thinly sliced, peeled Granny Smith apples 
  • cinnamon (you need 1/4 tsp for the filling and 1/2 tsp for the topping)
  •  pastry for single crust pie (you can use a refrigerated crust that you roll out or make your own)
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1/4 cup finely chopped pecans (or bump it up to 1/2 cup if you love pecans)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375.
  2. Combine 1/2 cup of the sugar with the 2 Tbs of flour and 1/4 tsp of cinnamon. Sprinkle apple slices with the sugar/flour and stir.
  3. Roll out pie crust. Place into 9 inch pie dish. Crimp edges.
  4. Combine remaining 1/2 cup of sugar with 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Cut in butter until crumbly. Stir in chopped pecans.
  5. Spoon apple mixture into prepared pie crust. Top with crumble mixture.
  6. Cover edges of crust with strips of foil and bake at 375 for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 30 minutes.
  7. Let the pie cool for an hour, but serve it while its still a little warm. It's delicious topped with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce.
Happy Fall Y'All!

Friday, October 26, 2012

Unfinished sketch

Rough pencil sketch. I'm torn on whether to clean it up and then finish it up by shading it with charcoal pencils or whether to clean it up and try to work it in colored pencils.


This by the way, is Gwilminawyn, who's character history is what I've been posting this week.


Gwilminawyn, conclusion

to read from the beginning, click here

Evelyn had chosen the sword. Gwilminawyn wished Evelyn had confided in her more. Did she leave to search out her roots? To avenge her family’s death? To simply live among the humans for a while?
What had happened to Evelyn?

There were no answers yet.  Should Gwilminawyn wait for answers? If she was a leaf, or if she was a fish, should she stay in the pool formed at the base of the rock, waiting for answers?

Gwilminawyn contemplated this option, closing her eyes and imagining her life. She would stand up from here, walk back to her home, climb back up the vine and slip into her house unseen. She would sleep and eat, and wake, and go through the rest of the grieving with her parents. There would be songs, music, candles placed along the garden wall, lanterns hung in the trees around her home and around the homes of her neighbors. There would be gatherings, eulogies, memorials attended together.

And then life would go on. Slowly at first, but certainly. Eventually Gwilminawyn would be back at her studies. In a couple of decades or so her parents would be speaking to her about apprenticing, if she knew what she wanted to pursue. Or, if not, they would be speaking to her about spending some years in sampling…rotating through mentors till she found a path that fit her.

Maybe somewhere during that span her uncle would leave, would travel, would find and bring back answers about Evelyn. Maybe.

Gwilminawyn opened her eyes.

One thing she knew now. She did not want her life to go on as if Evelyn had never existed. Surely Evelyn’s life had meant something. Had mattered.

Gwilminawyn couldn’t avenge Evelyn’s death, but surely Evelyn’s life had been more than just a wind through the pines. 

She wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the foil.

 Against whom would she wield a sword? Against orcs for causing the destruction of Evelyn’s first home and first family? Orcs might make a fine target for her anger and her grief. It would be easy to hate them.

But it wouldn’t bring meaning to Evelyn’s life.  And, even as she thought about taking up a sword, training to track and kill orcs, Gwilminawyn knew that wasn’t who she wanted to become…some anger filled slayer. Gwilminawyn, raised in a peaceful home surrounded by beautiful garden and filled with music and love, didn’t want to be so cold, so bitter. “Unforgiveness,” her father had said, “is like taking poison daily and then expecting some other person to suffer its effects.”

Not an orc hunter then.

If not that, then what?

It was not fair, not just, that Evelyn should have lost so much. It was not right that Evelyn’s village was just one of many to fall to flames and violence. That Evelyn, vibrant, brilliant Evelyn should have lived so short a time before she was snuffed out.

Gwilminawyn stood, foil in hand.

Suddenly she knew what she wanted.

Nothing she could do would bring Evelyn back. Not now, not ever. And nothing she could do would make Evelyn’s death right.  She couldn’t change what had happened to Evelyn, but she could step in, and keep it from happening to someone else. Not as a ruthless hunter, or a cold-hearted slayer, but she could step in as a Protector.

She smiled, savoring the word again in her mind, Protector.

The foil felt right in her hand.

A sword for the hand, a goal for the heart….that took care of two of the three realms of being, body and spirit. Now, for the mind, for the intellect…

Gwilminawyn let out an audible gasp as the last piece slid into place. Arcana for the mind. Body, mind, and spirit, she knew what she wanted to become. The realization sent a shiver of excitement over her.

Grinning, she jumped off the rock, landing with a less than graceful splat in the mud on the far side of the small pool. She rubbed her soiled hands and the edge of the foil along a nearby clump of moss to remove the biggest part of dirt. Even a botched landing didn’t serve to damper her enthusiasm.  Her foot and handprints in the silt at the edge of the pool still left a smooth unmarred stretch of mud, and that was what Gwilminawyn needed.

The foil tip was capped with a round knob, making it less than ideal as a stylus. But Gwilminawyn dug it through the soft clay anyway.  It left no graceful elven script in its wake, but fat furrows punctuated with clumps of mud.  Intent on her purpose, Gwilminawyn gripped the foil with both hands, her right around its hilt and her left curved around the blade just below the guard. Letter after chunky letter she carved into the ground.

A few moments later, she stood surveying her handiwork. The thick pine forest filtered out most of the moonlight, so that even her elven eyes had to strain to see. Her bare toes were nearly numb with cold and her shivering now was not out of excitement alone. She’d be running home, cold, wet, and muddy. But the word she stood looking at now, that one word made everything else seem insignificant.

Tomorrow, she decided, she would come and line each letter with flower petals. But now she began slowly, carefully picking her way across the dark rocks, heading for the path that would lead her home.

Behind her, the night would keep her writing hidden for hours. Unseen in the dark, cold mud was one single word of hope.

Bladesinger.


Gwilminawyn, pt 3

Click here  to read this short story from the beginning.

*****

 “One…two…three…four…five…seven…”

“Six,” corrected Gwilminawyn.

“One….two….three…four…five….seven….six…”

Gwilminawyn laid the stylus beside the wax tablet and leaned under the writing desk.

“One…two….three….four….five….six….seven….eight,” she said, tapping on each white buttons in the row as she helped Evelyn count. “Now, can you count the metal buttons?”

While Evelyn’s fingers worked on finding and lining up the four metal buttons, Gwilminawyn picked up her stylus and went back to her copy work.

*****

Hand in hand the two girls skipped down the path. The late afternoon sun slanted through the boughs of the pines.  Though of a similar size and statue, the two looked like spirits of two opposing elements as they flashed between sun and shadow.  Sunlight turned Gwilminawyn’s long elven hair silver, and in the shade it took on a ghostly sheen.  Next to her, Evelyn’s riotous curls became a flaming corona as she bounced along, and then just as quickly a burnished cloud.

*****

 “Hold still, Gwilminawyn. I swear, I should go back to calling you ‘Minnow’ the way you’re wiggling around today!”

“Not fair, Evelyn. I only want to see!”

“When I’m finished. What happened to this famous elven patience I keep hearing about?”

Gwilminawyn took a deep breath. “That,” she said, “was a low blow. But fine, fine, I am being patient!”

“I’m nearly finished anyway.”

Gwilminawyn watched the last of the aster flowers traveling from the bowl near Evelyn’s hand. She felt another pin slide into place in her hair.

“There. Now, you can look.”

Gwilminawyn stood from the chair and turned around to see herself in the mirror. Cool pink and lavender blooms formed a wreath around the crown of her head.  Below the blossoms, fine silver braids hung in delicate loops. Under all this, the rest of her hair hung like a sheen of silk around her back and shoulders. “Oh Evelyn. Thank you. Thank you, it’s beautiful.”

“Well,” said the taller teen with a smile, “you only turn one hundred once. Happy Birthday, dear sister.”

*****

Gwilminawyn pulled herself back to the present. She could not bear to relive Evelyn’s leave taking. The earnest discussions to try to convince the brash young woman to wait. The concern on her uncle’s and parents’ faces. Evelyn’s insistence on traveling alone, without the man she had come to call father. Gwilminawyn sitting at one of the lookout posts, staring at the empty road long after Evelyn had walked out of sight. The sentry gently suggesting Gwilminawyn go home after the last rays of the sun had faded.

Knowing she was close to reckless sobbing, Gwilminawyn stood to take her leave. She wiped her hand over her tear streaked cheeks, a motion that was quickly followed by her mother’s hand caressing the young elf’s face. On other days, Gwilminawyn might have resented being treated as a child. But today she was content to accept the comfort in the familiar gestures of having her face wiped, a loose strand of hair swept back and tucked behind a pointed ear, a kiss bestowed on her forehead.

Her father, she noticed, was sitting with his eyes shut and his fingers twitching rhythmically against each other. Gwilminawyn lips curved to a smile. Surely her father, Master Harpist, was translating his memories into a beautiful melody, a musical eulogy for Evelyn.

Gwilminawyn, on tip toe, kissed her mother’s cheek before mustering the courage to turn to her uncle. She was relieved to see he had slipped into his own reverie. She did not think she could face him, not yet.

Silently, she slipped from the room. The adults would keep their vigil long into the night, she was sure, but youth excused Gwilminawen.

She slipped up the tight spiral stairwell and into her bedroom upstairs. Opening her wardrobe and moving her dresses aside, she pulled out Evelyn’s going away present to her.  Unthinking, Gwilminawen had begged Evelyn to wait to leave until Gwilminawen was old enough for them to go together. Evelyn had laughed and reminded the young elf that she would be an old woman by the time her favorite “Glowworm” would be old enough to leave home. Instead, she had left Gwilminawen her practice foil, promising that Gwilminawen’s time to travel would come.
It was this foil that the young elf now held, Evelyn’s parting gift. The metal was cheap, a dull ugly grey next to Gwilminawen’s own pale skin. The end was knobbed, and the long ‘blade’ itself was rounded and would never hold an edge. Still, it was well made and well balanced, even counterweighted to compensate for the cap on its tip.

For one brief moment, Gwilminawen’s blood rushed and her anger pooled. She stood in her room heart racing, considering swearing a blood oath of vengeance. But vengeance on whom, exactly? All they knew of Evelyn’s death was simply that the wards the elves had secretly placed on the bold young woman had been triggered. The spell returned to her uncle with the information that Evelyn’s life had been extinguished. The where, the how, the why….all of those questions were of yet unanswered. So against who or what could Gwilminawen direct her anger?

Gradually her pulse slowed. Her rage dissolved into weeping that refused to be held in check any longer. When she had finally exhausted her store of tears, her room and fallen into the shadow of evening.

Without really knowing why, Gwilminawen took the foil and headed out to the small balcony off her parents’ bedroom. Slipping the foil’s strap over her shoulder, the girl climbed over the banister and shimmed down the thick vine clinging to the side of the circular home.  It wasn’t her intention to sneak out necessarily, but only to spare her mother more worry. She told herself that going out through the downstairs doors would bring questions and disturb the hushed vigil. Once outside, she kept well away from the arched windows of the front room, leaving her mother’s well designed garden through its back gate.

Elven dwellings are often widely spaced and at this time of day, with most families at dinner, Gwilminawen met no one else as she made her way along the paths. Belatedly she wished she would have thought to slip her feet into some coverings since the fallen pine needles along the paths were prickly.  She was not usually so careless.

Soon enough, the soft dirt path gave way to a simple flagstone walk, which in turn became proper stone as it wound nearer to the edge of one of the many cliff-like ravines that formed the landscape of her home.  Down she walked, disappearing into a crevice in the rock. Smooth steps had been carved into the stone and rock walls rose to either side of her. Along her right, rough tree roots twisted and turned where they were ever working to pry the stone farther apart. Along her left, elven script carved in raised relief harmonized with the sinuous roots opposite. When she was younger, she had loved to run her hands along roots and script alike. But, now that she was older, she knew that each contact with the carvings, however miniscule, hastened their ultimate removal.  She let her eyes delight in the texture instead of her fingers.

The end of the staircase opened onto a natural promontory near the top half of a massive, water carved hollow in the cliff face. Below and to her left, the hollow formed many wide deep shelves, all covered with a carpet of green moss, draped with delicate ferns, and rimmed with low walls so skillfully constructed they blended seamlessly into the vista. It was here where the elves gathered to pray and to offer songs of thanksgiving. Gwilminawyn remembered her uncle explaining that humans sometimes mistook elves worshipping in spots of natural beauty with elves worshipping the natural world. Whereas Gwilminawyn knew the truth was that elves choose to pay homage to the Creator in places where His artistry and masterwork were most prevalent.

Gwilminawyn turned to her right and began descending down a path which hugged the wall of the outer cliff. Soon enough, the path turned back on itself and, still descending, headed toward a gracefully arched bridge that crossed the space between the two arms of the cavern.  As it joined with the bridge, the path widened and passed around both sides of a large stone. The top of the stone was flat save for a perfectly round bowl which the elves kept full of fresh water, even in the driest months of summer. Gwilminawyn paused here, dutifully checking the level of the water. In the center of the tiny pool someone had floated a perfect circle of narrow yellow leaves, connecting them stem to tip, stem to tip, one to the other. Gwilminawyn inspected the leaves as well, ensuring that none were so waterlogged as to be in danger of sinking and disrupting the circle. The neverending circle represented the Eternal and three connected circles, the Eternal Three-In-One. Gwilminawyn smiled, pleased that she had, after years of puzzling, been able to find the other two circles present here.
Across the bridge, she took another flight of steps down to the very bottom of the ravine. It had been a several weeks since the last decent rainstorm. In the spring, a waterfall spilled over the edge of the cliff high above in several shimmering strands. Now, in early autumn, it had dwindled to a few glistening drops seeping from the rock. The streambed, where Gwilminawyn now stood, had dried and left behind many elongated ponds.

Gwilminawyn picked her way across the rocks with ease. The evening cast the ravine into deep shadows, but like a cat, Gwilminawyn’s silver eyes reflected the lingering light. She stopped at the object of her journey, a large wedge shaped stone which perfectly split the mountain stream, forcing the water  to run to either side of it. Now, a pool formed in front of the stone, and only a trickle of water dribbled to either side.

It was a good place to come to make a decision. Gwilminawyn had last been here with her mother who had explained, “As the waters split before the stone so too where there will be times in life when the flow of our lives hits an obstacle. We will have a choice of paths to carry us beyond the obstacle. We also choose in what manner we move beyond the obstacle. We can be like a leaf and just be swept along with the current, or we can be like the swimming fish who navigate the stream.”

Gwilminawyn sat cross-legged on the stone with Evelyn’s foil across her knees. She felt like a leaf, spinning out of control in a current she was powerless to change. She had crashed hard against a cold, unyielding rock. But she did not want to be swept away. How could she change from a leaf to a fish?

She ran a pale grey fingertip down the dark steel of the foil.


Read the conclusion here.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Gwilminawyn pt 2

What the heck is this? Read part one :)

The shadow and sun alternated as the morning chased away the last remnants of yesterday’s rain shower.

“Like this,”  coached Gwilminawyn, speaking human once again. For that is what the small child turned out to be, a little human girl. Gwilminawyn ran her finger gently over the strings of her toy harp in a murmuring cascade of tinny notes.  “Now you try.”

But the girl only stood and stared, keeping one short, and to Gwilminawyn’s eyes, stocky arm wrapped around Galanian’s elbow. Gwilminawyn stared back, marveling anew at how round the eyes, the face, the ears all were; how red and short curly the hair was; how mottled the skin looked. Freckles, her mother had called them.  And they were normal, for a human at least.

Gwilminawyn sat down near the child and held her harp where the girl could reach it. “Like this,” she said, and ran her own slender grey finger along the strings again.

“Don’t push her, Gwilminawyn,” her mother cautioned. “It’s enough that she sat and ate with us. She’ll play with you when she’s ready.”

“I’m not pushing her. I’ll just sit here still and quiet and hold my harp for her. It’ll be like holding nuts for the chipmunks in the garden.”

*****

Once again Gwilminawyn sat on the floor of her family’s front room. The thick rug had been unrolled and served as a soft surface to play on. Gwilminawyn had her doll, Sarananae, and her plush floppy ear bunny and her little wooden dishes on the rug near her. Also sitting on the rug was the small human girl wearing Gwilminawyn’s tunic as a short dress. In two days, she still hadn’t spoken, so the elves did not know her name, but she was playing a little now. While Uncle Galanian had to remain in the same room with her, she had become comfortable enough to venture a few feet from him.

“What. Do.  You. Think? Which. Dress. Shall. The doll. Wear? The blue dress? Or…. the white dress?”

A short pudgy finger touched the white dress.

“The white dress? It is good. Let us. Get. The doll. Ready for tea.”  Gwilminawyn had no idea why humans would need to change their clothes before drinking tea, but Uncle Galanian had assured her that he had watched a group of human girls engage in just this sort of pretend play.

“She is making progress, Galanian,” Gwilminawyn’s father observed from the doorway. “Though, I am still not sure why you brought her here. Would she not be better with her own people?”

“I tried, Thurvial. I tried, but…..here, let me start from the beginning. Perhaps then you will understand how I could not…. Let me start from the beginning.”

A little hand grasped the blue dress and laid it on the head of the stuffed bunny.

“I do not think. Rabbit. .. will go.. into.. the blue dress.”

In answer, the hand patted the dress and the rabbit twice, insisting.

“It is good. We shall. Try. The rabbit is… bigger… than… the dress. But.. we shall try.”


“I came across the remains of another village. The orcs have been particularly brutal in their raids against the human frontier. The humans had taken to clustering their homes together for protection, but a dirt embankment around a group of twenty to fifty small hovels is little defense against a orc raiding party. There is often little left. They have little enough to begin with, and the orcs just leave a cluster of smoldering heaps when they go through. I always make a search for survivors, but what I usually find--“

Gwilminawyn ducked her gaze back down to the dress tangled around a set of felt ears. Too late, her uncle had already noticed her eyes on him as she was listening to the tale.

Her uncle cleared his throat. “This time,” he continued, “the little girl was the only one I found alive. I made a sweep of the area, looking to see if any others had fled and hidden nearby. But I found no one else.  I traveled with the child for several days before I came to a properly walled town where I thought it safe enough to leave her.”

“The Rabbit wears the dress. The dress will not….. close. But… the rabbit wears the dress. Is it good?”

“And then, where should I leave her? With whom could I entrust her? She still had not spoken, no matter how I coached her. I began to wonder if she could speak. That made the choice of how to place her even more difficult. Which family could I trust to raise an orphaned, traumatized, perhaps mute child as carefully as they would their own? I spent several more days in the town, calling upon a few of the families there. When at last I had made my choice, the child had to be pried from my arms and given to the woman that would, I hoped, be her new mother.  And then, for the first time, she made a sound. She started crying so piteously, not loudly, just the barest, heartbreaking weeps. I turned to leave, but if I had walked out on that sound, it would have haunted me forever. I took her back. What else could I do? We had both seen too much, been through too much. What else could I do?”

In the quiet that followed her uncle’s question, Gwilminawyn lowered her voice to a whisper. “Rabbit sits here. Doll sits here. I sit here. You sit there. Here is a cup… for the rabbit. Here is a cup for the doll. Here is a cup for you.  Here is a cup for me.” 

*****

 “We cannot call her ‘Little One’ indefinitely.”

“Of course not, Galanian. But you have been spending too much time around the short-lived humans if you think a few fortnights an ‘indefinite’ period of time.”

“You tease me, as usual, sister of mine.”

“Of course I do. She speaks now, give her more time.”

“She speaks only to Gwilminawyn.”

“But she does speak.”

Under the blanket draped table, Gwilminawyn paused when she heard her name. But the adult conversation seemed nothing new.  “Can you find your nose? Good! Can you say nose?”

“Nose!”

“Right! That is your nose!”

*****

Gwilaminawyn held the book carefully, balancing it on her lap, cradling the spine in one hand and not letting either cover fall completely open….just as she had been taught. It was awkward to do since the book was so large, but being considered mature enough to enter the library unsupervised was a privilege, and not one which she wanted to lose through carelessness. She scanned through the pages of history.

“Hel-eh-wi-sa”, she sounded out. She looked up to study Little One who sat playing with lengths of ribbons. “No.”

She turned a few pages and tried again. “Maz-a-lin-a.”

Little One showed no interest.

“Sarah.”

“Doll!”

“Oh, yes, the doll is named Sarah.” Sweet Sarananae  surely wouldn’t mind having a human name as well. Gwilminawyn turned more pages.

“Ev-eh-lyn.”

“Ev!”

Gwilminawyn gently put the book down. “Evelyn,” she said again.

“Ev!”

“My name is Gwilminawyn. What is your name?”

“Min!”

“No, your name is not Min. My name is Gwilminawyn.  Is your name Evelyn?”

“Ev!”

“You say Ev-eh-lyn.”


“Ehv-L.”


Gwilminawyn smiled.

*****

(Go to part 3.... )

Gwilminawyn, pt 1

(I have a 12 page document I want to share, that's a little long for one post. Instead, I'm going to share it in 4-6 parts. I'll post one or two parts per day to keep it easy to read--I hope!)

It still needs some editing and rewriting, but I need some feedback on it to know *what* to rewrite and *how* to rewrite it. I've already identified a few things that need tweaked, but I'm still not quite sure how to tweak them. All this to say, please leave comments, either here or on Facebook. I'd really appreciate  some specific critiques. 

This isn't for anything in particular. Essentially, this is just a character history, but its turned into an interesting writing exercise for me. 

Thanks so much!)

The silence was not complete.

Outside, the wind still wound its way through the piney boughs. Scattered bird calls punctuated the late morning and the occasional chipmunk chattered. Silvered notes of wind chimes kissed every current of the air. Outside, the mountains breathed their melody with stately grace.

All these lovely sounds traveled easily through the arched stone of the tall windows where inside, four elves sat in stillness and silence.  Their loss was yet too new for words or sounds.
It seemed impossible that she was gone so soon, so suddenly.

Gradually, Gwilminawyn became aware of a new noise in the room. A few soft sobs slipped into their sorrow. No sooner did she hear them, than she realized they were her own.
How could she be gone?

Gwilminawyn pulled her shaky breath back in, felt her mother’s gentle fingers slide through her hair. The young Gwilminawyn, seated on a floor cushion at her parents’ feet, leaned against her mother’s legs and rested her head against her mother. She took a deep breath and let herself slip into an elven reverie as she delved into her memories of Evelyn.

*****

Only the slightest pause separated the soft rapping from the turning of the door handle. Gwilminawyn and her mother looked up from where they sat on the floor drawing the flower blossoms  scattered on the smooth stone around them. Gwilminawyn sprawled on her stomach, and just as much colored chalk had made it to her fingers as did her paper, but she was quite pleased with her efforts, as all young artists often are.  The visitor surprised her, not that someone would come calling, but that someone would let themselves in without waiting for a response.

The door swung open and a man stepped in and wiped his wet feet on the small rug. His hood was pulled up and hung low over his face to keep off the rain...the same rain which kept the ladies drawing their flowers indoors rather than out. The man turned and closed the door behind him, but something about his movements struck Gwilminawyn as awkward. It was then she realized that in one arm the man carried a bundle under his cloak. 

In one smooth movement, her mother rose to her feet. Gwilminawyn, who had never known any danger, remained interested, but unalarmed, on the floor. 

“Eruarwen,” the man said. “I did not mean to startle you.” Using his one free hand to pull back the hood of his cloak, he added, “Surely, I have not been gone so long that my own sister fails to recognize me?”

“Galanian!”

Gwilminawyn could hear the excitement in her mother’s voice and found herself smiling and standing as well. Uncle Galanian had come home at last.

Eruarwen nimbly stepped over the flowers and the pads of paper to greet her brother, but drew back from his embrace as soon as the first kiss of greeting had been exchanged. Gwilminawyn,  close behind her mother, stopped short, wondering what was wrong.

“What have you there, brother of mine?”

Galanian took a deep breath and gently opened his cloak. In human, he said aloud,  “It’s all right, Little One. See, this is my family, which I told you about.

Gwilminawyn, even after stepping around her mother to get a better view, did not at first understand what she was seeing.  Her uncle seemed to be holding nothing more than a bundle of coarse fabric. Neither did his words make any sense to her. Why switch to a different language than their own beautiful elven? And, though Gwilminawyn was diligent in her studies, she must be translating her uncle’s words in correctly, or why would he be introducing Gwilminawyn to her own mother?

When the coarse bundle moved on its own, Gwilminawyn gasped and jumped back.

“Little One,”  her uncle still spoke in human, and now Gwilminawyn realized he was speaking to the bundle,  “will you let my sister see you?”

The top part of the bundle shook its head no. Gwilminawyn crept closer and found a little foot protruding from the bottom of the bundle, and a little arm coming out the side of the bundle, with a tiny little fist clinging to her uncle’s tunic.

“Oh!” gasped Gwilminawyn, “It’s pink!” Instantly she clamped her mouth shut, realizing she had spoken in haste, and was likely very rude. She looked up at her mother, regret on her face, and received her mother’s gentle nod of pardon.

Her uncle, in turn, chuckled. “Little One, look, there is another little girl here too. She wants to say hello to you.”

On cue, Gwilminawyn, in what she hoped was good human, said, “Hello. My friend. My name is. Gwilminawyn. What is your name?”  Yet the bundle didn’t turn its face away from where it was buried on her uncle’s chest.

“Nevermind, Galanian,”  said her mother, also now speaking in human,  “the little dear is cold and wet and frightened. Introductions can wait. Let’s get your wet cloak off and some warm tea served.  Little One will meet us in time.”

*****

Go to part two.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Finished Sketch

The part to celebrate: I finished the sketch and I'm happy with it.
The part to improve: This is the first sketch I've *completed* in two years. I've started other projects, but haven't seen them through to completion.


Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Two for Tuesday: Delicious Shredded Beef

The downside to being a certified Kansas City Barbeque Society judge is that the last time I made what used to be a favorite "bbq pulled pork" in the crock pot, I was completely disgusted at how soggy, mushy, and bland the whole thing turned out.

In short, I lost what used to be a quick and easy, crowd pleasing dinner option.

Curse you, refined taste buds.

However, in my search for an easy crock pot dinner, I decided to give the slow cooker one more chance at making a nice and easy dinner sandwich meat option.

I'm not happy with the string of adjectives at the end of that last sentence. And yet, I'm not unhappy enough to go back and fix them.

This is why I will never write a novel.

ANYWAY---

I came up with this great sandwich ALL BY MYSELF. I can't craft a good sentence, but I totally nailed this recipe!

Slow Cooked Shredded Beef

Ingredients:


  • 2 to 3 lbs beef chuck roast (another cut might also work, I just grabbed what was on sale)
  • 1 onion
  • garlic
  • chili powder
  • cilantro
(Also needed for serving/assembling sandwiches)
  • buns
  • sliced cheese (we like provolone or colby jack)
  • a favorite bbq sauce, warmed

Directions:

  1. Slice one or two onions into the bottom of a slow cooker. 
  2. Rinse off beef and pat dry. Sprinkle both sides with just a hint of garlic followed by a solid dusting of chili powder and a little bit of cilantro.
  3. Place beef in slow cooker. Cook on high for 1 hour and on low for 8-9 hours. 
  4. Remove beef from slow cooker. Allow to rest for 30 minutes. Shred with two meat forks.
  5. Place shredded meat in a serving bowl and drizzle with juice from the crock pot. 
  6. Remove onions from crock pot and place in another small bowl.
  7. Assemble sandwiches on a bun with a slice of cheese, some onions (if desired), a generous amount of meat, and a spoonful of bbq sauce on top.
To finish off this meal, I scrubbed, pierced, and microwaved a few sweet potatoes. They were delicious sliced in half lengthwise and served with a generous pat of butter and a sprinkling of brown sugar.


Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Two for Tuesday: Chicken Dinners

There are no pictures.

Know why?

Because even with my new camera, my food photos just aren't great. Instead of presenting a visually appealing, appetizing picture of the food. Which is a shame, cause the food is good.

In short, if a picture is worth a thousand words, my food photos have overdrawn their accounts.

Yeah, my mixed metaphors aren't the greatest either. Too bad. You're stuck with those.

Today, I bring you two great chicken dinner recipes. 

Or, more accurately, I bring you one I know is great, and the other that I writing out from memory and hoping it's pretty accurate. May the Force be with you on that one.

The one I know works:

Slow Cooked Roasted Chicken


I'm experimenting with crock pot recipes on Monday. We're gone all day on Monday to co-op, so having something in the crock pot that's ready to go when we get home is awesome. Sadly, a lot of crock pot recipes call for cans of condensed soup and packets of dry soup mix and other such shortcuts that are way too high on sodium for me to use.

I'm being brave and inventing my own variations. This one was delicious. I served it with microwaved baked potatoes and broccoli and cheese.

Ingredients:

  • chicken leg quarters (one per every 1-2 people
  • Mrs Dash's chicken grilling blend
  • vegetable oil for frying
Complicated list there, I know, but bear with me.

Directions:

  1.  Heat oil in a large skillet. I don't know how much. Pour some oil in your skillet and heat it up. This isn't rocket science.
  2. When your oil is nice and hot, put in your chicken leg quarters, one or two at a time. Let them brown nicely on one side, then flip them over. You aren't cooking them, just browning them. It should only take a few minutes.
  3. While the chicken is browning, crumple up some balls of aluminum foil and place them on the bottom of your slow cooker. The goal is to keep the chicken two to three inches off the bottom of the cooker while allowing some space for the juices to pool.
  4.  Season both sides of your nicely browned chicken quarters with Mrs. Dash's blend for grilling chicken. Place the chicken in the crock pot.
  5. Cook on high for one hour, then cook on low for 6-8 hours. Or, you could just cook it on low for 8 hours I bet. 
The chicken comes out tender and juicy, without being fall off the bone over done or mushy from sitting in its own broth. I refrigerated the broth and used it in soup I made later that week. If I had been thinking, I would have put some wheat bread in the bread machine to serve with the dinner as well. Still the potatoes and the broccoli rounded out the meal quickly and easily.

Second recipe--

Chicken Pot Pie

It's been a while since I've made this. Hopefully, I'll remember how it goes. But Vaya the Elf was asking for this recipe, so here it is. 

Ingredients:

  • precooked chicken. Either use the leftovers from a rotisserie chicken or cube and sautee a couple of boneless, skinless chicken breasts
  • pie pastry for a double crust pie. Either use a refrigerated crust that you roll out yourself or make your own from scratch
  • cream of chicken soup. Campbell's makes a Healthy Request variety whose sodium content is at least a little better than the typical can.
  • 1 or 2 cups frozen veggies, thawed. My family will eat corn and peas in this recipe. If you can get your family to eat more variety than that, more power to you.
  • 1 or 2 medium potatoes
  • assorted seasonings

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 425.
  2.  Scrub, pierce, and microwave the potatoes until cooked, but not so done that they crumble when you cut them.
  3. While potatoes are cooking, roll out your pie crusts. Place one crust in pie pan. (I use a deep dish pie pan. Adjust the amount of filling you add to the size of your pie pan.) The other crust will be the lid, just let it sit on your dough board for now.
  4. In a small bowl, mix one can of cream of chicken soup with some seasonings. I just through whatever seems good it. I usually put in parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme. (I sing 'Scarborough Fair' while I add these. It's traditional.) I also like to add a little bit of garlic and paprika.
  5. When potatoes are cool enough to handle (just kidding...I just hold them with a dish towel and cut them while they are hot), peel and cube the potatoes. Or cube them and then pick the peel off of each little cube. Your choice.
  6. Place the cubed potatoes in the bottom pie crust. Season with Mrs. Dash. (or salt and pepper if you aren't on a restricted diet.)
  7. Spread one or two cups of thawed veggies on top of the potatoes.
  8. Spread seasoned chicken soup over veggies and potatoes.
  9. Layer cooked chicken over soup.
  10. Place top crust on pie. Fold edges of top crust under edge of bottom crust and pinch to seal.
  11. Cut a few steam vents in the top crust. Cover the edges of pie with strips of aluminum foil to keep them from over browning.
  12. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Remove foil during the last 15 minutes of baking. 
  13. Let stand for 10-15 minutes before serving.
Even though the pot pie really is a complete meal, I like serving it with homemade wheat bread. Big thick slices of warm wheat bread on a plate next to a savory pot pie is just heavenly comfort food with a capital MMMMMMMM.......