A crown, for me?

Jenny at the Ridge School has tagged me to be the Queen of Awesome!

In order to accept this award I need to:

1. List Seven Things That Make You Awe-Summm!
2. Pass the award on to seven bloggers you read religiously.
3. Tag those seven bloggers

OK, seven things that make me Awe-Summm:
1. I've learned to love my hair despite the fact it resembles Medusa's hair some of the time.
2. I'm actually not a bad writer.
3. I'm a cancer survivor.
4. I can take pretty good photos.
5. I never really give up.
6. I actually like homeschooling.
7. I'm still learning something new everyday.


The seven bloggers I am tagging: Only a few of those I love to look in on.

Chris: http://seeker117.blogspot.com/
Mom #1: http://twomomshomeschool.blogspot.com/
Midassa: http://theedgeofdreaming.blogspot.com/
DebMc: http://creativesoulbydebmc.blogspot.com/

Okay these are double tags but I read them religiously:
Angie: http://cuppadangie.blogspot.com
Heather: http://fivewhites.blogspot.com
RockerMom: http://spinnersendnurseryschool.blogspot.com/

I Have Become a Translation Snob

I love to read. I love to read poetry. I've written some poetry before but most of it would be considered twaddle compared to any translation of Homer. However, yesterday I found myself becoming a translation snob. Okay, snob may be a stretch but I decided I did not prefer the above Fitzgerald translation of The Odyssey.

This spring I finished the Lattimore translation of The Iliad. It literally took me months to read it. I would pace in my bedroom book in hand reciting aloud the poetic language of Homer via Lattimore. I fell in love with phrases such as "a generation of leaves" and the use of Homeric names and they way the meter flowed as if I were reliving each moment of the book as it happened. It was like watching an artist at work.

I laid in bed last night ready to dig into The Odyssey hoping the same melody would fill my heart. I had started book 1 a few weeks ago but was distracting away. Perhaps I am prejudice as Odysseus is my absolute favorite character from these Ancient tales. While I did find the Fitzgerald volume easier to read I found myself missing something. It hit me as I finished book two, the melodic nature of Lattimore was not there.

This morning I rushed to paperbackswap and requested a Lattimore version. Thankfully there were two in the system. If they are not accepted soon I may be rushing to Amazon for an order or even (e-gads) my local bookstore.

I will save the Fitzgerald translation for ds. There are a few years before he will be assigned either and they will serve as a nice comparison, regardless of what translation he reads.

I'm truly not a picky person. I will drink most any coffee, except burnt, I will usually make do with what I have. But with books, apparently I'm more particular than I thought.

Air Force Armament Museum: Just the Coolest

Z posing with bullets, while trying to get away faster than a speeding bullet.

Sitting in an A-10. Everything was disconnected but there were enough buttons and switches to keep any kid happy all day. We seriously could have left him for the rest of the day, he needs something like this for his bedroom. (smile was not coerced on this shot)

Z checking out the underneath of an SR-71. He was fascinated.

Z and I standing under the SR-71 Blackbird. Enormous is a word that comes to mind.

Random Beach Shots: Because Life is a Beach

The place where my toes are most happy

Even the Gulf seems to be smiling!

Wow, this is just beautiful

Technically not at the beach, but a cool flower bush by our hotel, which was by the marina.

Walking on the dunes is against the law, admiring them is not.

Destination 2009

We just got back from a long weekend vacation to Destin, Fl. Of course before we even left the state of Louisiana we had to stop at the first Bass Pro we spotted. Cool building, boys had fun. I was anxious to get to the beach.

I have to say this trip was 95% planned by Tigger. Normally I am the hotel research consultant and plan more, but this time I left it in his capable hands. The above was the view from our hotel window. Okay it the zoom view on the camera outside the window, but it was still gorgeous.

This is Tigger finally getting to fish in the gulf. Can you say happy camper? Below is the happy shot of vacation. We are currently reading the Percy Jackson book series and I can say with certainty that if Tigger were the son of a Greek god he would be a son of Poseidon. Salt water makes the man happy. He was giddy the entire time we were there.

This was his first walk in the clear water. Beach therapy lowers blood pressure. I'm sure there is a report somewhere that confirms that.

One morning the boys went to play a round of golf, nine holes. It was Z's first real game of golf and apparently he is a natural. We are quite pleased that they are putting in a new golf course just a few miles from our home. We plan to add golf to the PE schedule. Tigger said that Z played better than him. Oh, the picture below is the happy state of sleep and silence that I experienced while the boys were golfing.

Z at the beach. He could also be the son of Poseidon as he loves all water. Step 1: insert boy into body of water. Step 2: watch smile appear on face. Step 3: Rinse and repeat.

We took a back route home and happened upon the Air Force Armament Museum @ Eglin Air Force Base. It was the coolest place. Z loves military aircraft and he was a wonderful tour guide. He truly knew a lot about these aircraft. Let's just say the Military Channel has been very educational. This photo is staring down the nose of an SR-71 Blackbird. (Daddy, this one is for you, I'll post more photos of it soon)

This is Z posing again. Thing about being an only child is that you're always the one posing in front of the camera.

This picture was from our final dinner out in Destin. It was at Cheeseburger in Paradise and as you can see I had two tired and happy boys.

We have been beach lovers most of our lives. We absolutely fell in love with Destin. My favorite new state park is Henderson State Park, which is gorgeous. We are now planning to make Destin an annual event. None of us really wanted to come home.

Our Books for 2009-2010 School Year

This is the stack. Can I just say I love books. We will be starting our sixth year of homeschooling in a few weeks. This will be our second year following LCC (Latin-Centered Curriculum). I'm looking forward to where this year will take us. Our core subjects will Latin for Children (primer B), Classical Writing Homer for older Beginners, and math.

We will be transitioning through a few math books this year, I'm not sure how it will play out but we are going to start the year by finishing Life of Fred: Decimals & Percents. We will follow that by starting with a 1972 Dolciani pre-algebra text. I will follow that or mix it with Life of Fred Beginning Algebra. I plan on taking two years to get through the pre-algebra and LOF book, so we're going to take our time and solidify those algebra concepts.

Our religion subjects for the year are mainly three items. The History of the Church, Dig Deep which is a study of Proverbs for boys, and Louie Giglio video teaching. A little Louie Giglio will brighten anyones day.

History is going to cover Medieval times and most of our study will center around Famous Men of the Middle Ages. We are also going to spend some time discussing family genealogy from the Middle Ages, which I'm looking forward to myself. Science is going to be centered around the book Science Matters, which I reveiewed in an earlier post.

Art and Music are going to follow a new path this year. We are going to study an artist and a musician each for a month. Four of the artists (or art period) books are above. We are going to do an art project tied to the study of the person or period for the month. I have not purchased the books for it yet, but we also plan to study The book of Kells and the Bayeux Tapestry each for month. Music is going to take a similar format with a few contemporary musicians thrown in for good measure.

Art Talk was recommended by a Jenny at the Ridge School and I'm loving this book. We will probably take three years to work through the entire book. The Western Music book is one we will pull excerpts from to use during the year. The Heraldry book will come in handy during one of our art projects.

These are the literature books we will dig into this year. No, you're not seeing double. I do have two King Arthur and two Robin Hood books. One copy I can make my notes in and one copy Z can read on his own. We will also read The Canterbury Tales (an abridged copy) and Dante's Divine Comedy which I also reviewed earlier.

I am looking forward to this year. I did re shelve the pile of books, to look at it all at once was a tad overwhelming.

Where has the Summer Gone?

We have five more weeks of summer before we start back to school. It seems we have done nothing but deal with bugs and heat. In the next week I'll be finalizing our schedule and getting ready to start our sixth year of homeschooling.

The children in the photo above don't look too happy to be there either. I'm sure I've made a similar face to the girl in the first row, not the glowing one, the scowling one.

I have a to do list as long as my arm but this is the first year I'm not totally stressing getting through it all before the start of school.

I guess we have accomplishated a few things. I rearranged the classroom, I'll get pics posted soon. I found a new veterinarian and my dogs is now getting some relief. Bless her, she is allergic to everything in our yard.

We start back to school a week before public school. Why? Because we can. No, seriously so we can take off a few more days when needed, like sick days, spontaneous I-don't-wanna days, and sometimes well days "Well I don't want to teach today". Last year our momentum was interrupted by a double dip of hurricanes that was enough chaos to send anyone into a tailspin. We ended up having two weeks off from schoolwork and substituted Emergency Preparedness training instead. Hopefully we'll just get a vacation this year.