This and That

 I love January and February because they tend to be the quietest time of the year: after the holidays, but before things start up again in earnest.

So excited!

Unlike summer, we don't plan a ton of activities since we know we're bound to get sick, and when we do, we can just hunker down and rest.

Near the end of January, Leena and Zorg started up some new college classes including Music Theory, which Leena loves, and Public Speaking, which she does not.

Zorg, meanwhile, has been really enjoying both Philosophy and Business Management.

They are actually also taking a home school economics class from a Catholic U professor of Business Ethics who also happens to be a fantastic and in demand speaker.  He is also my friend Shelli's husband, and Zorg's friend Eli's dad!!

 Can I just say that having an affectionate and clever bird around is more fun than I ever would have guessed.

He sings a wide variety of songs, usually to the person who taught him that particular song.  He also has learned a few words, mostly "hello" and "pretty bird."

I can't whistle, or even sing very well, so he likes to sit on my shoulder and jabber, jabber, jabber, and then laugh!

Just in case I ever wonder what I sound like...

In other news, thanks to all who prayed for my dad, he's doing much better!

With amazing irony, the good news is that he has bone marrow cancer.

We had thought that the Parkinson's he's been fighting for nearly 30 years was finally winning.  Nope, he was actually extremely anemic because his bone marrow had stopped making new cells.

In case that still doesn't sound like good news, the hematologist was able to get his bone marrow working again, and told us that his form of cancer is extremely slow growing and they should be able to manage it comfortably for a decade or two.

My sister, who had come home to help out, just went back to North Dakota last week.

Speaking of which, yes, it's been shockingly cold this past week, down in single digits (-15 C) with wind chills below zero (-25 C), and yes, the people from Northern North Dakota are laughing at the rest of the country.  To them, cold is only worth mentioning when it passes 40 below (mostly because -40 F = -40 C), and only really remarkable at -60.

Catching Up

 Welcome back!

We've been off being sick, finishing Lent, and celebrating Easter, but I think we're just about ready to get back in the saddle.  

If we can fit back into the saddle after the amount of chocolate consumed during the Easter octave.

So!  Things you might have missed!

Leena went on her Confirmation retreat!


It was lovely, and she is super excited about her Confirmation which is coming up next week!

Mxyl built a bat box for his Evolutionary Biology class!

This class, which features the Massive Biology Book of Epic Proportions (his description), was chosen when he needed a science to fulfill a graduation requirement.  He picked it because he was interested in the topic.

It's rigorous, even by my Biology major standards!

But he likes it, and he's doing amazingly well, even with the biochemistry bits.

He's the only art major in the class.

Homeschoolers! We take what we like because we like it!

Which makes us sound like pirates, actually. Arrrrrrrrrr!

In other news,  during the month we were down with pneumonia, Spring breezed in with flowery smiles, tossing her green gold hair.  We've been spending as much time as possible outside enjoying the garden!

Wahoo!

Congratulations, Mxyl!

Last Friday, he was inducted into the National Society of Collegiate Scholars!

NSCS has been around a long time, but his college just opened their chapter, so he was in the inaugural class of inductees!


 I have to say, the homeschool-college crossover has gone really well for Mxyl.

What we did was to allow him to take classes at the local community college starting at 16.  In our
area, this is called dual enrollment, and you can get 50% off of tuition.

We start off with one class, then gradually add more so that they are ready for a full load when they actually graduate high school.  In Mxyl's case, he had 18 credits, which was why he was eligible for the honor society in what should have been his first semester.

Our original thought was to have him take all his basic classes, the ones he would need to take no matter what major he chose.  I'm so glad we didn't do that!

Instead, we encouraged him to take whichever random classes caught his interest.  He took all sorts of classes: photography, philosophy, 3D animation, and so on.  This scattershot approach really helped him decide what he wanted to do, and helped him choose his major.  Ironically, all the classes he took will actually fit in the major he chose (animation and multimedia)!

At this point, it looks like he will finish a professional certificate  next semester, and his AA degree one semester later.  And then he has automatic access to any of the 4 year state colleges as a junior.

For us, this is a triple win: he had a comfortable transition from a fairly unstructured high school experience into college, we skipped the college admissions angst, and we saved a ton of money both in the first two years of college, and in him finding something he's passionate about.

Well done, Mxyl!