It's been too long since I last posted. Honestly, I am spending more time on Facebook.

But I need to remember that this blog is also a journal for me, a history of our lives together and a portfolio for Zoe's education. And, with that in mind, I am inspired to post more often.


For Zoe's 9th birthday we gave her the present of sleeping over at the Field Natural History Museum.


There best part was running around the different exhibits all by ourselves. I mean, isn't that something you've always wanted to do? We weren't really in there alone, but in certain places we could pretend we were. The tour of the Egyptian exhibit by flashlight was second best, only because it was a bit crowded. Overall it was great, though next time I would bring an air mattress rather than try to sleep on the hard floor with only a sleeping bag.

Here are just the highlights of what Zoe has been doing in her homeschooling

Math - Life of Fred Algebra and going to the Math Center 3 times a week. Yesterday one of the mom's at the Math Center asked me how old Zoe was and what math curriculum I used and then she complimented Zoe a lot on her math knowledge. One of the projects Zoe is working on at Math Center is writing an explanation of Base 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. for their website. They will also be doing a project on fractional bases.

Language Arts - Zoe has finished the Michael Clay Thompson Voyage series and will be starting the Word Within The Word and Magic Lens series. This is a secondary curriculum for gifted students and one of Zoe's favorite classes. She especially loves the poetry component.

History - Reading about Colonial America. Last week was a perfect storm about Slavery. She was reading about slavery in history, reading excerpts from Abraham Lincoln's speeches in Language Arts, reading Uncle Tom's Cabin in Literature and watched an episode of Hercules about slavery.

Science - I just got a new high school biology book for Zoe. It was written by biochemist Mahlon Hoagland, who discovered transfer RNA.

We talked to some science savvy friends and decided we could skip middle school science now that she is pretty solid in her algebra. We will problem just end up doing Biology, Chemistry and Physics in a loop with more advanced material as we go along.

Literature - Reading Uncle Tom's Cabin. Zoe is loving this literature choice. She says she is excited to be learning so much about slavery and that she really likes how Harriet Beecher Stowe brings the reader into the story. Did you know Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best selling novel of the 19th century? It was the best selling book of that century after the Bible.

Music History - Professor Carol is doing a great job teaching us both about music history. The videos are very interesting, and I really feel like I am learning a lot about music from a cultural perspective. I know Zoe is too.

Japanese - more of the same. This week she is focusing on reading katakana and describing what people look like and what they are wearing.

Reading - Zoe has been really into acting out Shakespeare's plays with her dolls. She spends a lot of her free time doing this, in the afternoon and before bed. Brian and I sometimes do it with her.

I realized that she would get more out of Shakespeare if she was more familiar with the Greek Myths. She has already read D'Aulaire's Greek Myths a few times, that is a great book. But I felt like she needed more. So we started reading Nathanial Hawthorn's Tanglewood Tales, but even that, whilst having excellent vocabulary, was still edited for children. Much of the passion was taken out, which is kind of misleading, in my opinion. For example, the book doesn't mention that Zeus was the white bull that took Europa, nor why.

Bulfinch's Mythology was a little better but still written for children in 1855, so there was censorship of the passionate appetites of the Gods. And hey, the passionate appetites of the Gods is what a lot of the stories are about.

So this weekend I found Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece, an English Edition from the German author Gustav Schwab. These stories seem to be oriented towards adolescents, at least as far at the content including Zeus's exploits with mortal women.

Zoe is enjoying the Hunger Games and Catching Fire, both by Suzanne Collins. Other books she has read recently are Gregor the Overland and City of Ember. She liked them both.

Mostly though she has been rereading/staging Shakespeare and reading her new Spyology book, which is really cool.

Whew! That is a lot but I am not done yet.

Zoe has a piano competition coming up in two weeks so most of her piano time has been spent getting ready for that.

She also auditioned for and got into a local performing dance troupe. They started rehearsals last week. They perform mostly over the summer, doing over a dozen dances at festivals, charity events, and in small theaters. Zoe is extra excited because one of her good friends from the neighborhood is also in the group.

Zoe also auditioned for a part in Seussical the Musical which is playing downtown South Bend at the Civic Theatre. She got in the Who Chorus and a part as a Fish Lady. But, unfortunately, the Seussical rehearsal times conflicted with her dance group's rehearsal, so she is not doing the play.

She is pretty busy. It can be a struggle to make sure she has enough downtime to just play and be bored and then inventive (because that is often the order of things.)

These days she is homeschooling from 8:30 - 3:30 with an hour and 10 minutes for lunch.

I am keeping busy too. I have been running for seven weeks now. I am up to running for 30 minutes at a stretch. I am really proud of myself because I have been able to keep this up and also because I am enjoying it. I really never thought I would enjoy running but I do. I imagine I will like it even more when I am not running in the snow.

I have also been eating 1200 - 1500 calories a day since the new year. Though I don't really stick to the calorie limits on the weekends. But I don't gorge myself either. But I eat what Pere cooks, which is usually high in calories, or we go out to eat. But I have been losing weight and it makes me happy to be taking care of myself.

My book is going pretty well. Some days I can get five or six pages written. Some days I feel like my writing is crap and no one will want to read it. But, I know I have written some good stuff, so I can keep on editing the parts I am less happy with until I am happy with them. Writing is so much about editing.

I am also reading Mean Mothers by Peg Streep. It is REALLY good. It has made me cry several times and I realize that I am not done with my grief and maybe I never will be. But I guess that is natural. Here is an excerpt from Mean Mothers