It’s not like I don’t knit. I just got into a crocheting binge, and explored it to its natural conclusion. I haven’t listed all the crocheted items I created for the shop; I’d hoped to move those I did list, first.

But it was nagging me that I hadn’t knit anything for the shop. I’m sure there’s some mystical social media explanation for poor sales, but, hey! Knitting! Such a cozy activity for this time of year.

No matter that I still didn’t feel like putting up the crochet hook just yet.

I started with what I had in my hand. There was some leftover yarn from my mother. It’s the kind of three color blend that I would never pick out myself. I much prefer solid colors. There was also some leftover pink eyelash yarn from Yanni’s crafting days.

So I tested the knitting water with a scarf combining these two yarns. I chose the basket-weave stitch, because I prefer to knit in texture than just plain stockinette .

I liked the project enough to invest in more yarn after my existing stores started to dwindle. I couldn’t find an exact color match, though–a danger of using old yarn.

But the colors are close, certainly complimentary. I don’t know if I’ll sell the scarf. But it was a fun dive back into knitting.

Meanwhile, I started a hat for….one of my girls. I knew Chanya needed a hat, but it turned out, Joy really wanted one. So I used the same yarn and stitch to create a Joy-sized hat. It’s been a minute since I knit a hat, and I couldn’t find the round needles, so I wasn’t sure how the hat would turn out.

I finished Joy’s hat today. She loves it, so that’s important. I have yarn leftover, so I’ve started a hat for Chanya, too, this time in a different stitch. More on her hat later. Here’s Joy modeling the hat and scarf:

Can you even see a pattern in the stiches? Or is that multi-colored yarn too distracting? I don’t know. Maybe I should have put ‘crochet’ in the title of my etsy shop?

I posted last week’s best picture on Facebook, and I got good feedback on it.

This week, I’ve drawn everyone except Chanya, the subject of last week’s best portrait. I am torn between Joy and Esteban’s portraits. Which do you think is better?

But we got into some new territory, like the mathematical term for a corner in a shape–an angle.

It went something like this:

“Blah, blah, blah, mathematicians call corners in shapes angles. How many angles are in a triangle?”

“3.”

“Hence the name, triangle.”

The children are giggling.

“Does rectangle mean four angles?”

“I’m not sure about that. I’ll have to look that up. But what about a square? Or a trapezoid, or a rhombus…or a parallelogram? How many sides do all these shapes have?”

“4.”
Esteban stretches a ‘geoband’ (sturdy, colorful rubber band) on his board into the shape of a square.

“How do you know it’s a square?” I ask.

“Because it looks like one.”

“What makes it look like a square?”

Imani and Joy know the answer. They are bursting at the seams.

I make a rectangle on the geoboard. “How are rectangles and squares different?”

“Their sides are longer.”

I change the rectangle so that the sides are narrower but taller.

“What makes a rectangle different from a square?”

Esteban tries to gesture shapes with his fingers. “Use words,” I tell him.

I make a trapezoid. “How is the trapezoid different from the square?”

“The sides are different.”

“How? How do you know a rectangle and a square?”

“Because 2 of the sides of the rectangle are the same, and the square has all 4 sides the same.”

The room let out a collective sigh.

It was, ‘Dr. Huxtable took Rudy and her friends to watch this kind of show.’

She had no idea. I think Imani tried to fit the word, ‘placenta’ into the ‘vaudeville’ slot.

So that time spent watching Cosby was absolutely unredeemable. Good to know. I was like, “you act just like those kids on the Cosby show! When the parents ask them what they learned from this, they were like, ‘what?’” So that was awesome.

But after we got over that hump, I was able to get in there with Imani and talk about word roots and word meanings. She is good at spelling, but lacks understanding of word origins and definitions.

I have figured out how to give Joy and Esteban clues for their spelling crossword puzzles. They are able to solve their puzzles without much help. Focusing on the task at hand? Not so much. So there was that.

And then Xavier and I went to community college to take his entrance exams for summer semester. We were there for an hour, applying to the school, and decided to return later with a calculator to actually take the tests.

And then there was kitchen chores, dinner prep, helping Yanni with her laundry, working out, dinner, etc., all while dragging children through the paces of chores, helping with dinner, working out…
The little kids were more interested in playing today.

Wait, I guess that’s everyday.

I could tell Zumba was fun just from watching the infomercials. But zumba is much better when you participate.

The zumba party? Brilliant.

I wondered about those jingly skirts the first time I saw them.

This was Latin dance, right? Not belly dancing. But, there are a few belly dancing moves, and Bollywood, and hip hop, disco, you name it, zumba had some of it. There were even a couple show tunes thrown in the mix.

And we loved every minute of it.

Ok. the commercial is over. Go back to your lives. And attend every zumba party you can!

Then I wouldn’t get to it. I We took a few walks, drew and painted some pictures of the changing landscape, but I never made the time to pull out the science experiment books.

But last week we made dish soap. The children had been collecting old broken bars of soap for months, and finally we’d filled the empty truvia jar I’d been using to collect it.

I googled the recipe, and the children cheerfully grated the soap with cheese graters. We poured hot water over it and the children could hardly contain themselves until the next day when they could stir it. Imani chose the yellow food coloring gel for our goopy mixture, and I added lemon juice to cut grease. We use the soap, but don’t like it as well as our homemade laundry detergent from this summer.

Friday night, Imani made caramel. First she tried to make sponge candy again, ala this fall, but she learned something about sugar’s burn rate when she looked away for just a second. She decided caramel was easier and tastier, and she made that instead.

Today Esteban learned about lines of symmetry in math by folding a piece of paper in half and spreading a drop of paint from the middle outward. Chanya and Imani and Joy joined in, and soon we had pictures drying on most surfaces in the kitchen.

It’s a shame about not getting around to science…

So after two weeks of vacation, we started back to shool yesterday.

We know the drill, but need new music for the practicing part, and people have misplaced the Suzuki CDs, etc., etc.

The handwritten wordsearch experience today showed me that Esteban can’t really read my handwriting.

But Imani knew an example of an epic Greek poem. If you had any idea of the disinterest and disdain with which Imani has looked at history, you would leap for joy at this little milestone.

And Esteban got 100% on both his tests and fact sheet today, so that’s good.

Meanwhile, people are busy setting up stores, tents, and begging to make the classroom into a rocket ship. They went outside and shaved their snowman to such proportions that Imani thought it better to just destroy the poor guy.

Welcome back, shool!

Yanni branched off on her own. She won the Michigan’s Perfect Teen pageant. She finished 7th out of 40 in her first national pageant. It was a big year for Yanni.

It was big for Xay, too. He learned programming and worked with his dad. Xay helped develop an iphone app during his internship. He also stepped up and became a leader in his volunteer groups.

Imani and Esteban sold baked goods and lemonade, respectively, for their birthdays in June. It was hot enough that they could have earned more if they’d just teamed up. Maybe next year they’ll figure that out.

Imani also earned her second 100 percent week in school–ever. She is now the most consistent to earn lunch out with Mom.

Joyous improved her spelling and has earned some 100 percent weeks this year as well. She also learned to knit and embroider. She is 1/2 a piece away from finishing Suzuki piano school book 1.

(Imani finished Suzuki piano school book 2 this year).

Esteban improved his piano this year, and is 2/3rds finished with Suzuki book 1.

Chanya was potty trained this year! I have no one left in diapers. I’m ok with that. She also gave up naps, and has really become one of the big kids. Next up: (gulp) reading.

May the new year bring you much joy, happiness, and freedom. May you attain your resolution goals.

Happy New Year!

I raced against Yanni and Xay in the early days.

This exercise got them up to speed with Pastor, when he’d tell the congregation to find a specific scripture.

This practice morphed into studying a specific topic. If I wanted to find out more about a specific word, like ‘rock,’ for example, I would go to Biblegateway.com and look up ‘rock’ in the King James Bible, and then take the children through the whole search, 5 verses at a time. When we completed a search, I would have the children write about what we learned. Sometimes, we’d write poetry based on the Bible search topic.

(I later turned my poems into songs, and had hoped to teach the children to do this at some point).

The trouble with Bible study was the children’s attitudes. They would scoff and roll their eyes with each topic, and I wondered if they ever got anything out of it.

Ayanna got to the point where she could appreciate what I was trying to do, and her attitude improved. Xavier began to get bored with the whole process. Then he joined the homeschool Christian Youth bible study, and stopped studying with us.

Before he stopped, though, Xay suggested a topic: Faith vs Works. This was a topic they were discussing in his Bible study, and he wanted some insight. It took some time, but we pushed through this topic.

Xay is now leading the Bible study, and is searching the Bible for his own answers. He apologized to me for his attitude in the past. He told me that he found some of the scriptures for faith vs works.

Today Xay was ready to dig into the ‘cornerstone’ scriptures again. I was thrilled. Going into Bible Study with the children, I wasn’t sure what would become of it. I knew that I wanted the children to know the Word, and I wanted them to know God, but I wasn’t sure how to ‘teach’ that.

I also feel guilty for having gotten in there with them. Shouldn’t I have learned it first and then taught it to them? Wasn’t I being selfish, trying to learn myself at the same time?

One thing I’ve learned through studying the Bible is that the Word does not return void. So if you are digging through the Word, it will do the work itself. We are talking about planting, and producing good ground. We are also talking about faith.

Now I’m doing Bible study with the younger children. I don’t race them in their search. They seem too young to compete against me. I hope this decision doesn’t weaken them. I am trying to make sure they understand what we’re reading.

Esteban just writes a verse from Proverbs. He can’t wait to get his own Bible to search through. Nobody has a bad attitude in this next group of kids.

That is something.

Here are the girls and me at Yanni’s 20th birthday celebration.

(I still don’t do the troll face right).

We all blend together well, I think, with none of us sharing the exact same complexion.

Here’s one of my favorites of my husband and our youngest son.

We’re a spectrum.