Quick hits from Deb

I have a mammogram this morning. My first. Man, I feel old.

I caught that cough the kids started with three weeks ago and can't shake it. I'm coming up from laryngitis, though not fast enough to suit me. I'd hate to be croaky on the radio tomorrow morning. Plus, I have a big meeting with the station manager afterward about logistics for me working on a kids music show they want to syndicate around the country. Can't be croaky for that! And, I have a 10:30 meeting with a local TV station that is interested in my involvement in something called "Parenting Pointers" that they want to start. Must come off as TV-photogenic and sparkly, and it's hard to do that when one sounds like one has been smoking for 40 years. Tea with lemon and honey, here I come.

I'm finished with 12 of the 15 chapters in my book. Chapter 12 needs work, though I'm going to wait to do it until the end. Man, I love my evil tabloid reporter character. She made her appearance at the end of Chapter 12 and boy, she's a sticky-sweet-on-the-outside manipulative bitch. I'm going-going-going on the rest of it through this weekend.

Two weekends ago, my friend Candace came up to visit from Pennsylvania with her three kids. Ella had her first experience with a wonderful innocent crush she and the 10-year-old boy had for each other--particularly, I think, on his side. He's a great kid, and he just thinks Ella is the bee's knees. They went around holding hands, totally sweet. Madison has her Max, and now Ella has her Elliott. So great that it wasn't something stupid at school where kids would make fun of them.

The girls' new musical theater camp is Alice in Wonderland, and it's for the older-kids set...Ella is among the youngest, this time, and Madison is far from the oldest as she was in the last camp. They are enjoying it quite a bit less than they liked the last camp, although I think it's worthwhile nevertheless. For one thing, it's a lot more tiring: 9-5 as opposed to 9-12. And, they're not the stars of this camp... I think they got used to all of the littler kids liking them, and cheerfully hanging out with them. And now, they're in with older kids, some of whom are typical-preteen-and-early-teen snotty and competitive and cliquey. Mine are a bit innocent, remember, partly as a result of being homeschooled, and they just got on better with the younger kids who haven't become jaded yet. Anyway, there were no "issues" in the last camp, and now there are a few "issues" in this camp, which I think diminishes the experience. Next week starts a month of doing nothing.

Well, for them, anyway. And it's not exactly doing nothing. One thing they are doing is investigating Time4learning.com. It's a homeschool curriculum that is primarily online. They both love learning on the computer, and I told them that if they're interested in following that curriculum, they can do it in August as a test. If they like it enough to keep it up through August, then when the school year starts properly in September we can continue (and count ourselves as having started in August, which will let us off earlier next year), otherwise we'd go back to my normal curriculum, which I plan eclectically on my own.

I'm not sure which to hope for, although I mildly would like it if they liked Time4Learning because that would leave me with more time to work on my own stuff. The program covers all subjects, and you could choose your grade level per subject (I think). This would put Madison in the 7th or 8th grade instead of the 6th, and Ella probably in the 5th instead of the 4th. (I can never keep track of what grade Ella is in. She's made such a leap the last 4 months or so that it seems amazing to me that I was technically reporting her for 3rd grade this past year.)

Which reminds me, I must turn in their 3rd quarter, 4th quarter, and year-end evaluations to the school district. That is, I must write them and then turn them in, and submit a curriculum plan for next year and turn THAT in. My nice school district doesn't nag me, especially since the administrators of the home school folks get my newsletter; they know that one thing they don't have to worry about is MY kids' education.

Off to the mammogram. Yuck.