Homeschooling

I'm sitting here watching the fog lift, hoping for a beautiful sunrise. It's 10 degrees on our back porch and we have about a foot of snow.


I'm never going to homeschool. I've got one more year of teaching high school after this year before I retire. So, why, then, am I so fascinated with homeschooling that I'd read a whole book about it?

I picked this up at the library figuring I'd just skim through it but ended up enjoying it so much that I read every single page.

When the Millman's oldest daughter was in second grade at a Catholic school, her teacher marked an answer wrong that was really right. When her parents questioned the principal about it, he agreed that it was right, but she got it wrong because it was a fourth-grade answer and it wouldn't be fair to the other kids whose parents didn't spend time helping them learn. It was then that they decided to begin homeschooling their children.

They didn't know anyone else who homeschooled so just went into it blind and learned as they went along. They ended up homeschooling all six of their children. The oldest three are now in excellent colleges and the 3 youngest are still at home.

They took a kind of middle-of-the road approach to homeschooling. They weren't extreme. Sometimes they used TV but not to excess. Sometimes they used textbooks and worksheets but not too religiously. Sometimes they had a schedule but, more often than not, they just let the day unfold and produced lessons from that. Every trip was a learning experience.

In other words, it was a wonderfully well-rounded education.

There are times when I wish I could rewind the clock and go back to when my kids were young and do it all over again. I know, I'd seriously consider homeschooling.

Best Friends Forever and this world we live in

Woke up to a couple inches of snow all over everything. Pretty!



I spent the week reading this book. It was pretty good. I like Jennifer Weiner's writing. She's funny and doesn't take herself too seriously. But the underlying message is clear and easy to swallow.

Addie and Val were friends most of the way through school until an unfortunate incident in senior year tore them apart. Flash forward fifteen years. Val is now a successful weather person on TV and Addie stays at home designing greeting cards. Suddenly, Val needs Addie's help and how they rekindle their friendship while avoiding the law makes for a fun read.


I finished Best Friends Forever on Friday and was thrilled to see the ARC for this world we live in in my mailbox on Saturday. Thank you Susan for sending me one! And I finished it last night before going to bed. I had to. It was stuck to my hands. I couldn't get it off. Even my husband trying to make conversation with me couldn't penetrate.

This is the third "Moon" book by Susan Beth Pfeffer. I read the first two and just couldn't wait for this one and it didn't disappoint.

The moon is still closer to the earth causing widespread weather malfunctions and natural disasters. Miranda and her family survived the winter and are shocked when older brother Matt marries the first girl he runs into but also pleased when Dad, his new wife Lisa, and their newborn, Gabriel, arrive with three strangers, Charlie, a friend who helped them and two teenagers, Alex and Julie Morales from the dead and the gone.

How they survive and develop new relationships in such dire conditions is a testament to our human natures.

And the ending? WOW! is all I'll say. This one's going to stick with me for a long time.

But, now, I'm sad. I wish I hadn't gulped the book. I wish it was 700 pages long. I wish Susan Beth Pfeffer would get to work on a fourth one!

Run for Your Life

Finally, some blue sky after several days of clouds, fog, rain, and snow. In spite of the weather, Thanksgiving was so much fun with both my kids and their families home. It's taken me a couple days to recover, though. I hate getting old!


I finished this book earlier in the week. It was another page-turner by James Patterson. I was lucky enough to win this from Dar and now, I'll put it in my classroom library for my students since they love his books with their large font and short chapters.

This one features detective Mike Bennett, a widower with ten kids, and a serial killer on the loose. It's a typical Patterson plotline but the addition of all those kids and Mike's personality make it enjoyable.

I started Best Friends Forever and so far, so good.

Have a good reading week!

Malice and Olive Kitteridge

The sun just peeked over the mountain and I'm sitting here in my navy blue pajamas with stars and moons on them. Every window is bright with sunshine.

I just couldn't get into this book. It's not that it was bad; I guess I wasn't in the mood for this type of novel. This guy, who is a cop but is on disability leave, keeps seeing his ex-wife who died twelve years ago. So he starts investigating. And that's as far as I got.

Instead, I started this book and was mesmerized by Olive.

Basically, it's a series of 13 stories that revolve around Olive Kitteridge. Some of the stories involve her directly while others just touch on her peripherally. In fact, in one of the stories, she's only mentioned once.

These tales take place in Crosby, Maine, where Olive is a junior high math teacher, is married to Henry, the local pharmacist, and is the mother to Christopher.

She's brash, and insulting, and caring, and so human! I loved her and hated her and in the end, wished she was my friend.

Thanks to Dar I won a copy of Run for Your Life by James Patterson and Micahel Ledwidge and started it last night. Looks like this is one I'm going to enjoy.

Happy reading, everyone!

Against Medical Advice

Here it is another Sunday. It's amazing how quickly they come around. I didn't do an awful lot of reading this week. For some reason, nothing looked good.

I finished this at the beginning of the week. It was pretty good. It's about a young boy with Tourette's syndrome and it's told through his eyes so we get an in-depth look at what was happening to his brain and body. It's the true story of Hal Friedman's son Cory.

That's it! I've started Malice by Lisa Jackson and am about 60 pages into it. So far it's okay but a bit formulaic. I guess I'm just sick of the same old, same old. My friend loaned me Olive Kitteridge so I think I'm going to try that one, instead.

Living Dead in Dallas and Push

Good Morning. It's in the mid 20s and mostly cloudy but the weatherman said it's supposed to get up to almost 60 today. Balmy!

I sped through this book. It's the second in the Sookie Stackhouse series and Sookie and her vampire beau, Bill, are in Dallas to help the vampires solve a mystery. There are other things going on, too, with an interesting revelation at the end. This is a good inbetween book: light and silly but with moments of seriousness.

I had to go to Walmart on Thursday for groceries and crafting stuff and kept telling myself not to go to the book section. But, did I listen to myself? No. I only bought one book, though, since I'd just gone to the library the day before and gotten 5 books from there.

The new movie, Precious, is based on this novel Push by Sapphire. Oh. My. God. I could not stop reading it. Precious is a sixteen-year old overwieght black girl who is pregnant for the second time with her father's child. It's the mid 80s and she gets expelled from school for being pregnant. She begins attending an alternative school and her teacher helps her to change her life.

Of course there is so much more to this book including a mother who should be shot!

It's gritty, raw, painful, brutal, and hopful all at the same time.

Handle With Care and The Road

Happy Sunday morning! I love this long weekend when we get an extra hour. I know it's not much but it feels like more. When I woke up I looked at my clock and it said 6:48. Then I realized that it was 5:48 and I was well rested, ready to get up and start my day.



I pretty much gulped this book. I love Jodi Picoult's writing and this one is beautiful and interesting all the way through. Sometimes it's hard for a writer to do both but she blanaced them with finesse.

Charlotte and Sean O'Keefe's second daughter is born with osteogenesis imperfecta or OI which means that she lacks collagen and her bones are very brittle and break easily. When her ultrasound showed this, poor little Willow already had 7 broken bones and she hadn't even been born yet. How they and their older daughter cope with this disease and what they are willing to do for Willow makes this a book where the pages practically turn themselves.


The second book I finished this week is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I had heard good things about it so when a friend at school loaned it to me, I got right into it and could barely stop reading. It's about a post-apocalyptic America where there is no sun and everything is colorless with ash. Nothing grows, nothing lives except for a few stragglers, some good and some bad. Two of the good ones are a man and his son. How they survive in this bleak world and how they remain human and caring is the glue that holds this novel together.

It's cloudy here in NH so I think it's going to be a good reading day. I've got laundry to do and bread to bake and an extra hour to use any way I want!