Bright and Beautiful

Upon which Harry turns two, admissions are made, and smelly things are dissected on my grandmother's dinner plates.


I am not making stuff up.

Harry is now two. My smallest, blue eyed, sweet as candy boy, growing up and becoming terrible. And I mean that in the most cordial way ever. Terrible twos are a right of passage.


He now spends every waking moment prying open front door locks and sneaking out to drive his new car.


Admission #2 (#1 here): Homeschooling can deplete you of yourself.

Wondering where I've been? Me, too. This is my sixth year homeschooling. #5 was rough. #6 has been rough. Every veteran homeschool mom to whom I have spoken has told me it happens. It happens to the best of the best. And it takes its toll. The definition of "rough" is completely relative to the persons involved in their own respective environments. For me, it's defined by depression, resentment, and laziness. I yell(ed) at my kids, took too many naps, and forgot to hug and laugh and say nice things. Also, I consider myself a control freak and the fact that I have lost control of the household happiness threshold means failure in my eyes.
Here's the point: It's either cave-in or dig out. I am currently holding shovel and gazing above, unsure which route will cause a collapse or rescue us all from suffocation and misery.

Onto smelly things.

Our co-op has been doing dissections every other week. You can now thank me for not posting pictures of the cow's head (definition: entire furry head with eyeballs and eyelashes and bullet hole). You're welcome. Also, I do not involve myself in the dissections (too many years of being a vegetarian), but instead ship my daughter off to the respective classroom as she desires to one day rescue animals from sickness and fertility; ie: become a veterinarian. But, last week, time ran away from us and I was sent home with a baggie of squid bodies.
We made do with nail scissors, exacto knife, tweezers, and printable instructions.

I only got sick twice. Score.

It was actually pretty neat-o. "Neat-o" is not to be confused with "let's do it again".

And now, as coldness sets in, all I want to do is read and burrito myself in a fluffy blanket.
And also make stuff like this:

And this:

Cooking blogs sometime in the future.