We’ve all been given roles to play – my character is a French chef so I’ve had an adventure trying to find the right costume. I was able to put most of the outfit together – kitchen shoes, beret, checkered pants – but couldn’t find a chef’s jacket. I checked all the thrift stores and costume places with no luck so I started calling around to the nice restaurants until I found a place willing to lend me one for the evening. So now I am complete! Oh, I’m sorry, that should be: Maintenant je suis complet!

It promises to be a lot of fun. Chris is going as a 40s  detective. He has the whole trenchcoat with a fedora thing going on – it looks so natural on him! I know two of the other people who bought tickets (Susan is putting this on as part of a charity auction) and they have neat characters, too – my sister is a jazz singer and my mom is a wealthy patron of the arts.

Au revoir pour le moment mes chéris. Avoir une grande soirée!

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In renovating the house, we tried to be forward thinking and to consider what might keep the house ‘current’ for the longest time. Most residential homes have 200 amp service, but we upgraded to 325, which is usually only given to commercial businesses. However, our boiler alone pulls 145 amps at max capacity, so we installed a bigger meter base and a separate disconnect for the boiler, which will keep that system functioning without putting a strain on the rest of the house. We also used 12-2 wire with 20 amp breakers rather than 14-2 with 15 amp breakers, as many modern conveniences require additional supply. Instead of using standard telephone wire we decided to go with CAT, which is a blue data cable that can handle phone, fax, and computer modem needs. It’s able to carry multiple streams of data at higher speeds – typically equivalent to DSL.

Hopefully by going above and beyond the standard materials and services, these things will help keep the house up to par with future supply & demand for decades to come. Although we plan to live in the house for many years, we don’t want to be faced with trying to sell a house that is already behind the curve and in needed of basic electrical or plumbing upgrades.

Drywall is going up in several rooms which is very exciting because it feels like the house is starting to be put back together! The house had blown-in insulation added several years ago and it was packed in very thick which provided excellent insulation, but unfortunately as the certain walls and ceilings were dismantled, the insulation had to be removed. R-19 formaldehyde free insulation is going in as a replacement to the blown-in fill and is providing weather proofing on exterior walls and acting as a sound barrier within interior walls and ceilings.

The kitchen design is finally coming along. I spent 3 hours with a guy from our cabinet company while he measured and remeasured the kitchen. My original design was off quite a bit which was frustrating but expected. When I measured the kitchen to draw up the initial layout, I had a lot of obstacles to work around such as the built-in cabinets and the chimney (all of which are now gone). The wall between the existing kitchen and the room we are expanding into was still in place which made accurate measuring difficult, but it was removed by the time the cabinet guy came.

I have never agonized over a room so much in my life! It earned the name Kitchen From Hell because it’s architecturally complex and all the old house charm (which exists from back when they didn’t have kitchens like we do today) made it impossible to come up with a simple design. But I hope to have the new plans finalized by the end of next week. Speaking of the kitchen, we’ve picked out our cabinets so at least that has been taken care of! I’ll post pictures of them later.

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I am however, still alive. Gotta love that part, right?

I took a break to get away on a family vacation (to a place with no Internet service – what the hell was I thinking?) and never fully made my way back here. Oh, I tried several times but I found myself sitting in front of the laptop staring at the screen for ten minutes before I remembered I was actually suppose to be doing something. More often than not at night, when I usually blog, I’ve had about the same amount of wit and energy as a wilted celery stick.

We are finally launching the major phase of our 1870 house renovation, a project that has been in the works for nearly two years. That’s the big news. It’s been the focus of my time and energy these last few months. The work starts in full swing next week. I’d like to celebrate properly by consuming impressive amounts of alcohol, but I can’t seem to find the strength to lift the bottles and pour. Someone please send me a barmaid.

I’ve been working on several posts behind the scenes, I just need to find a few quiet moments to finish them when I’m not feeling scattered in twenty-six directions. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, so I’ll be returning soon. You’ve been warned.

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~~~~~~~~
Once upon a time in a land far away, a beautiful, independent, self-assured princess happened upon a frog as she sat down to contemplate ecological issues on the shores of an unpolluted pond in a verdant meadow near her castle.
~~~~~~~~
The frog hopped into the princess’ lap and said: “Elegant Lady, I was once a handsome prince, until an evil witch cast a spell upon me.”
~~~~~~~~
“One kiss from you, however, and I will turn back into the dapper, young prince that I am. Given my charm and handsome looks, I am sure you will fall instantly in love with me.”
~~~~~~~~
“Then, my sweet, we can marry and set up housekeeping in your castle with my mother, where you can prepare my meals, clean my clothes, and bear my children. I am sure that you will forever feel grateful and happy doing this, for this is all that you need from life and it will give you purpose. You will find the company of my mother enjoyable, for I will be too busy pursuing my dreams to provide you with companionship and attention.”
~~~~~~~~
That night, as the princess dined sumptuously on lightly sauteed frog legs seasoned in a white wine and onion cream sauce, she chuckled and thought to herself: I don’t think so.
~~~~~~~~

[ On a more serious note, a while back I read a collection of essays concerning the myths and fantasies we embed in our children, particularly our daughters, through common childhood fairy tales. While I think these stories can be a fun, imaginative part of childhood, I've found many of them impart subtle messages I'm uncomfortable with.

I want my children to have strength, self respect, perseverance, and the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality. I want them to understand that they must be thoughtful of the choices they make in life and that it is up to them to create their own happiness, because it will not be handed to them with the swish of a magic wand. I also think it's important they know not everything in real life turns out happily ever after, although that is certainly a goal worth striving for. ]

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Because the house has been under renovation, it’s no longer sealed as most homes are. Baseboards have been removed, floorboards taken up, openings covered with plastic, etc. Somehow a cat found it’s way into the house and had kittens in the space beneath the porch. Work continued on as usual and because we didn’t know about the kittens, it’s possible that we enclosed the space in such a way that the mama cat couldn’t get back to them. Or maybe she was hurt while hunting for food in the neighborhood, which made the kittens orphans.

We don’t know what happened exactly, but we’re very sad all the same. What pains our hearts the most is the fact that, for one reason or another, the kittens starved to death and that means they suffered and were scared and no one was there to comfort them… it’s just very upsetting. I wish we could have discovered them sooner. I can’t help but cry when I think about it.

Chris feels like it was his fault because he nailed some floorboards back down last week. I pointed out that he couldn’t have possibly known and that maybe something else happened, but I understand why that doesn’t make him feel any better. The kittens still died, regardless of why. He’s also the one who found them, which makes it worse. There were five fuzzy, solid black kittens. He’s taking it very hard.

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After much hair-pulling I finally got it working again – somewhat. It was an old system and I’ve known for a while that I needed to get a new one, but it’s not been a priority and well, as long as it worked okay I was going to use it until it died. And then it finally did. I might be able to salvage it enough for the kids to use for playing their games and such, but it’s not very useable for my purposes anymore. So I broke down and got a new one.

My lovely, shiny new laptop arrived via UPS on Friday and I am just estatic. Finally, a computer I can sit in bed with, lol. So now I’m trying to catch up on stuff and looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. I’ve missed blogging!

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All the cool kids are doing it, you know you want to!

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Tags: Themes | Homeschool Journal | Wordpress

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Take a moment to look over your recent & archived posts. Pick one (or two) that you’d like to share with fellow homeschoolers. Or, if you’d like, you can create an new post just for the Fair. If you’ve had a topic on your mind, now is the time to write about it!

The Country Fair is created by homeschoolers for homeschoolers and is a great way for you to “meet” other bloggers. Plus, it’s an easy way to create interest in your blog and get new visitors!

Tags: Homeschool Carnival | The Country Fair | Blog Roundup

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I haven’t been feeling too well these last few days. A head cold, which turned into a chest cold complete with all the lovely details like coughing, sneezing, wheezing, congestion, and body aches, has been occupying my time lately. But I’m taking lots of vitamin C and trying to get extra rest (HA!).

The good news is that you can’t catch this stuff from reading my blog, unless you’re using a public computer in which case you might want to get out the hand sanitizer. I’ve missed writing, so I hope to get back to normal soon.

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Additionally, the img align attributes, such as text-top, bottom, etc. do not work. If I align the pictures to the left they go off the post area. If I align them to the center it won’t “stick” unless I insert a div align tag manually using the html editor. Needless to say, this isn’t the most practical way to go about inserting images.

The only way pictures show up correctly is if they take up width of the post area, in which case the text will wrap around to the next line instead of sitting against the image. Although some of my pictures are this large, this is not a viable solution because it isn’t feasible to make all of my images this big. No one needs to see a huge book cover when I do a book review, for example.

The bottom line is this issue cannot be fixed except by changing the style sheet, which I don’t have access to at this point. I might download the theme and trying playing around with it to fix these problems. But I’ll need a ’sandbox’ to make sure the changes are taking effect properly. Perhaps I can persuade Andrea to play with it in her test blog. Hmmm… I wonder if I could bribe her with chocolates somehow?

Anyways, in the meantime I’ve put plan B into action. I’ve been thinking about starting a photoblog where I could post daily photos. There are lots of photos I’d like to post that don’t necessarily correspond with a written entry, so a photoblog seems to be the way to go with that.

So along that line, I’ve created Shutter Speed to be the new companion to Imperfect Genius. I’ll be moving pictures over there as I have time, as well as posting daily photos from my ever growing collection, where they’ll now be visible to all curious parties, so go have a peek!

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Your post does not have to be specifically or exclusively about homeschooling, it can be about an aspect of living life as a homeschooling family or any other related topics you can conjure up. You’re welcome to write an new post but you don’t have to, it’s perfectly fine to submit a post written anytime in the last few weeks.

A carnival is a great way to share your writing with others, drive traffic to your blog, and discover previously unknown-to-you bloggers. The Country Fair celebrates homeschooling bloggers and I know you’re out there! The deadline is July 18th at 5pm. You can submit your info by going here. Participating really is that simple!

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