Ripliancum Academy

Lone Scouting and minor updating

massageforfamilies — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:11:02 +0000

We’re getting back into some sort of routine with our life again. Between the office opening, and the funeral, we’ve been rather out of sorts (and have had some Flats for a couple months now because we can’t seem to get our act together to get the pics labeled for them.

We’re also trying to get things moving along for our Lone Scouting. Today I found a few blogs/websites, and asked to join to yahoogroups. We’ll see what comes of it.

http://lonescoutcubscout.wordpress.com/

http://www.lonescouting.com/

http://www.homeschooledscouts.org/lone_scouts.html

Right now we’re working on a nutrition/good health lapbook.

Guess that’s the update for the moment…

Crafted: Wallet

massageforfamilies — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 04:34:54 +0000

Pulled the sewing machine out today (for the first time in two years…the dust was AWFUL!). The wallet I have been using for the last several years finally reached its last legs and needed to be remedied ASAP. After recalling what a chore it was to find a wallet that would do ‘okay’ the last time, I opted to skip FartMart and looked at Etsy instead. There are a LOT of cute wallets, etc on there. But the more I looked, the more I thought about a scrap I have of a fabulous batik I used for a ring sling for my sister. And how funky-fabulous it would look juxtapositioned with the batik from the first ring sling I ever made.

So I went looking for wallet patterns and happened upon this tutorial. Then could not find the second batik for the life of me. I’ll spare you the additional drama from our day, but I did manage to find a cute fabric a most dangerous location: a quilt store!

I revised things a bit to better suit me, and had a serious dilemna about not having snap supplies, and not wanting velcro or magnets. I’m dang proud of what I ended up with! Especially since it’s the first zipper I’ve done in some 18yrs or so.

When I’m able to get the pics uploaded I’ll have to add more info and commentary about the changes, trials, etc. But for now I just had to toot the horn. YIPEE!

Ugh!

massageforfamilies — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 04:23:33 +0000

Things have been pretty crazy around here…as attested by the fact that we STILL have the flats from NJ. And now we also have a flat from FL. Think we finally have the majority of the pics collected to burn to a disc for NJ…need to label them and then ACTUALLY mail it all off.

Cleaned up the garden bed, and moved the strawberries into one corner. We picked up a four pack of red romaine seedlings from the farmer’s market last weekend. Have already tried to kill them off once by not watering as needed.

Starting in on a lapbook dealing with nutrition, serving sizes, general health/well-being….

Four and Twenty Blackbirds??

massageforfamilies — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:17:50 +0000

We haven’t been able to get a good look at them so are not certain WHAT kind of bird they might actually be. Tried to take some streaming video to at least capture the noise and maybe pair it up with bird call audio files. Will have to get it and pics loaded at some point of time. Anyway, we’re suspecting that a migratory path has shifted (temporarily?) over our area as there seems to be at least a thousand of these birds. Our neighbor noticed them at the library branch Wednesday afternoon (I found out about that observation Saturday). I didn’t post soon enough so cannot now recall if we came home to them Wednesday or Thursday evening, but around 5:30pm there was a mob of small-to-medium sized blackish birds over-running the back trees that the vulture roost in when they’re about. They were also in the east neighbor’s front trees, and the southeast neighbor’s trees. We watched FIVE groups join what was already roosting about and the noise was awe-inspriring. Then we watched a turkey vulture lazily fly in and circle one of the customary trees and a large group removed to the east neighbor’s and northeast neighbor’s yards. A bit later two vultures came in and two full trees emptied, then suddenly they ALL up and left and headed in east. …and all was quiet.

The Firday morning we heard them outside before 7:30am, but then they were gone again. We left the house at 8am for a breakfast gathering southwest of us. A few miles into our jouney we see a flock of these same kind of birds flying south a smidgen to the west of the road…but it’s not just a flock, it’s a RIBBON of birds cutting through the sky keeping a southerly course until a particular point where they distinctly veered south-westerly (i’m directionally challenged outside of a grid-system so don’t take these references as dead south, etc there’s expected to be several degrees variation…but the point is they were heading southerly). It reminded me of how the current the sea turtles were riding in Finding Nemo was characterized–distinct boundaries, but now real organization of the travellers within it. As for the way the birds were flying within that ribbon of flapping cutting through the sky, it wasn’t any real formation, it was akin to what we’ve seen on tv of bats leaving their caverns at dusk.

A facebook acquaintance northeast of us (10-15mi) reported there being a mob of birds in their yard as well, guessing it to be around a thousand birds.

We heard them again tonight when we returned from an errand…around 5 or 5:30pm again. But it sounded like they were in the back area of our neighbor’s yard (who had seen them at the library branch) that is southwest of us in a catty-corner way.

But isn’t this late for migrating?? And why are they now passing through here? Some disturbance caused by the haitian earthquakes? the wedge of arctic blast that’s been bearing down?

Of course I haven’t gone and looked for any information online; just like I still haven’t contacted Cornell or anybody to get more info about why we have the vulture roostings that we do—that we still haven’t been diligent about recording….

New Jersey Flats

massageforfamilies — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:34:01 +0000

Flat Alexa and Flat Liz arrived from NJ Friday. They helped supervise the cleaning for the open house for my office that afternoon and then went galavanting about Raleigh with the kids and Papa Saturday–enjoying some Pizza Hut for lunch. Of course the camera didn’t travel with so there are no pics to share of our Flat guests at the Lego store, or the flea market at the fairgrounds, or the number of other stops made on the Tour de Triangle. *grin*

Sunday was relaxed. Papa called for a day of family so we didn’t go to church, but we did enjoy some fresh air and sunshine before snuggling down on the couch for some football.

Monday consisted of learning about multicellular organisms for our cells/microscope lapbook, and a long-anticipated playdate with good friends we cannot mesh schedules with often enough.

Today, the Flats participated in fort building and utilizing their sense of hearing for a number of rounds of hide-and-seek with the hyperdash cones/disks. The afternoon we were at the BSA office to file as a lone scout and to gander about the scout shop. We were good and only came home with a merit badge book about winter sports to add to our study of the winter olympics. We were bad and stopped by McDonald’s on the way home for a yogurt parfait snack since we were at BSA a LOT longer than originally anticipated.

Gingerbread!

massageforfamilies — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 06:00:50 +0000

Our unintended hiatus from blogging and all other things is ending joyously with the announcement that our gingerbread house received the runner-up (or third place) in the youth category. We surmise that there might have been additional votes had we actually done any signage indicating that it was the House in the Horseshoe. We plan to take it down to the historical site for the enjoyment of the staff this week.

Our Flat guests from Ireland came with us, but the valet parking allowed us to just pull up to the curb to fetch the gingerbread so we did not pause for a photo shoot with the Flats…we do have a pic of them assisting with the making of the house though…just need to remember how to get them from the phone to the computer. *wry grin*

We enjoyed a very mellow, vegetative Christmas. Had hotdogs for Christmas Eve dinner, then the leftovers from it for Christmas dinner. Hmmm, it’s a little telling that we had nowhere to be, nobody coming, and no preparations made….we didn’t even think of the hot dogs until Christmas Eve-eve. *lol* We were bad Flat hosts and forgot to photo op with our guests then as well. *sigh*

This week were polishing off a unit about Christmas traditions and steadily working on a unit regarding the 12 Days of Christmas since the kids really latched on to that song this year. We start our microscope unit the 3rd, and thanks to a friend we’ll be checking out the blue moon on New Year’s Eve. Oh, and there’s moving into the office this weekend…then our visiting friends head home next week. *sniffle*

ugh

massageforfamilies — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:34:04 +0000

got busy with the holiday, then i started coming down with some allergy/sinus thing. haven’t packed up our return package for the Flats visiting from Kentucky. Haven’t received Flats from Texas that we were half-anticipating…will send that email when I get a bit more functional. Haven’t started on our gingerbread house….

gotta get a move on…

Flats Update

massageforfamilies — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:04:16 +0000

FlatGrayson and Flat Ashley have self-toured House in the Horseshoe outside of Sanford/Goldston/Carthage. One of the boones of homeschooling is being able to do fieldtrips whenever and where ever, one of the drawbacks of that is you run the risk of being trodden by public school groups. We didn’t get out of our house when we had planned to and ended up in the mix with about 70 public students at an inconvenient place within their cycle. HiH only has two guides…one was touring the house, the other the museum in one of the outbuildings. We politely stayed out of the way and took lots of pics of the house and most of the rooms. We got some pictures of the bullet holes still in the exterior from the skirmish between the Whigs and the Tories. FlatGrayson and Flat Ashley have a couple of postcards between them, but we couldn’t get the DVD for their class….maybe on another visit.

Saturday our guests went to Greensboro with Papa for the toy show (to scope out HotWheels), and then stopped in to see me at the Burlington Christmas Market and meet Lucky the Plott Hound. I’ll try to get my hands on the storybook about Lucky to send to FlatGrayson and FlatAshley’s class.

Monday we went to a new storefront for our favorite farmer. DodgeLodge Farms opened a little produce shop in downtown Greensboro within walking distance of some of the older neighborhoods. Mike Causey shared with us how excited many of the residents were that he was there. We’re very happy for him!! We picked up most of our Thanksgiving fixin’s while there–a free-range heritage turkey (they are SOOO much tastier than the store bought varieties), cauliflower, asparagus, sweet potatoes, apples, potatoes, and green beans. only the cauliflower was not from an NC farm, and all of it was pesticide free.

Yesterday was a bit of a bummer day due to going-ons of our extended family. Our hearts hurt for them. We did get to the post office and mailed out our own Flats to Ireland and Kentucky. Hopefully they get to their destinations before Christmas/Winter breaks!

Today, we’re going to see about a play-date with neighbors and do a lot of baking. It’s just us for Thanksgiving…all of our family is distant, and all of our local friends have local family so we can’t even host an “orphan holiday.” There was a great article in one of the weekend circulars (Parade, etc) recently…I thought I pulled it out, but apparently it’s already gone. Anyway, it was by the author of Eating Animals (I remember that from the little post-script) and talked about creating your own holiday traditions. There was some discussion about the Thanksgivings they grew up with, and how this is the first year they are making/hosting Thanksgiving. I liked how they said that Thanksgiving is about what we aspire meals to be…the good food, the good company, etc. It was really well-put. I’m rather dismayed that I didn’t manage to keep it out.

Today we’re also going to attempt to start on our gingerbread house entry. We’re running out of time and have LOTS to do!!

FlatGrayson and FlatAshley will be heading home Monday. We enjoyed their company, but alas, all good things must come to an end so they can be savored and relished. *wink*

Flat Wednesday

massageforfamilies — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:13:19 +0000

…was a bit monotonous I suppose. It got dreary and drizzly again so we opted to go to Auntie’s house (a good friend who plays surrogate auntie for the kids since their closest aunt is in Kansas and their closest uncle is in California). The kids played while Auntie and I chatted, planned an Usborne show, and couponed. Then we went into town to drop off our application to enter a gingerbread house in a competition at an upscale hotel; banking for Auntie; lunch; and Target for a table that I can use at markets and exhibits/conventions. We spent the entire day with Auntie until it was time to go home so we could go to our chiropractor appointment. I was going to take a picture of our Flat visitors on the chiropractor’s table (where we lay down for our adjustments), but I forgot because Wee-One had fallen asleep on the way there! He slept through his adjustment, all the way home, and even through the transition to his bed. He didn’t wake up until around 5am when he climbed into our bed (after being sent to the bathroom) and snuggled down to sleep until 7am or so! That’s almost 12hrs of sleep!! What a tired kiddo!

We have excitement today (Thursday), but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out! *grin*

Dinosaur-fighting farts strike again!

massageforfamilies — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:03:57 +0000

When we were in the process of moving back to North Carolina from a 20-month stint out west, the kids had stayed at Grandma’s house for a week or so while we cleaned up the house and unpacked the moving truck. While at Grandma’s they watched the first Night in the Museum, and while the T-Rex is as friendly as an excited puppy in the movie, one of the kids had nightmares for weeks on end about a T-Rex coming and eating our house while we were inside. My efforts to discuss how we can consciously change our dreams (reminding them of an episode of Blues Clues we had received as a hand-me-down year prior), how we can say a little prayer when we’re frightened, or sing a song to quiet a thumping heart, were in vain. We even went looking for “dinosaur-fighting flowers” to plant in front of the house and property–with an unenlightened greenhouse operator not helping much.

What ended up being the perfect solution was Papa’s off-handed remark at the dinner table about dinosaur-fighting farts.

So, a few years later, and a child complained this morning that they didn’t sleep well because a bad dream had just awakened them. A monster was chasing them and they were running and running andrunningandrunning…. My response? Did you turn around and tell them “stop chasing me! it’s rude!”? They hadn’t. So my next query was:

What? You didn’t knock ‘em over with your dinosaur-fighting farts?? They’re BIG creatures, can you imagine how BIG their farts are???

It took awhile for them to recover from their peals of laughter. Ah….the joys of childhood!