Mysterious Ways

So we still haven't moved yet.  We had a couple things go horribly wrong with the closing, and it went insane.
Last week, we ended up going and looking at different houses.  We found one that has ended up being the same price, but a little smaller.

HOWEVER, it doesn't require any work to make it presentable.  It has all new carpets and all of the walls are teh same color (the other house you could tell someone had TRIED to paint, but done a REALLY bad job, and in a few places didn't even go all the way up the wall... so the stairwell had three different shades of off white).  There is also a fireplace in this one, and a couple of rather large mirrors in the largest room downstairs.  The yard is a lot smaller, but the back yard is already fenced in, so that is less work for us as well.  This place went on the market literally right as the other one was falling through.  So some mysterious ways have been worked, and even our realtor feels like this was meant to be.

We are supposed to close later this week (in 2 days to be exact) and then will start the whirlwind of activity to get everything moved and get this apartment cleaned before the 10th of April.


In other news, Link and I celebrated our second anniversary yesterday!  We didn't do much, instead choosing to relax.

(And Thing 1 has just informed me he wants a baby chicken...)

Wow!

create your own personalized map of the USA
 or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

I have seen this type of map around a lot lately, and finally got around to making one of my own.  These are all states that I have personally set foot in, although most of them were while in the process of moves growing up.  I Was born in Virginia, but have lived in both Carolinas, California, Arizona and Maine.  All but Maine were before graduating high school and were more like VA, SC, NC, CA, SC, CA, VA, AZ.... then back to VA, to ME and now VA again.

I have family and friends scattered all over though.  It's just amazing at how many states I have set foot in while on those moves... (54%!)

Tick Tock

Time is moving right along while we get ready for this move.  And with this move comes settling in in a new place and then starting to more diligently do SCHOOL!

I've started creating a basic plan on what we'll do when, especially since I am slowly adding more subjects as we go along.  By the winter "term" we should be done adding things finally.

So for Thing 1's kindergarten prep and year I have chosen the following:
~Math-U-See, Primer and Alpha
~Lesson Pathways lessons plans for Science introduction and Social Studies introduction
~Astronomy study later on, this is what he WANTS to study, so we'll do a LARGE unit on it
~US Geography/states study
~Edcon Literature worktexts level 1
~Wordly Wise 3000 Second Edition, Level K
~Hooked on French (this is on the computer, and looks like lots of fun for a basic intro to foreign languages)
~Sign Language cards for learning a few signs (probably just once a week to begin with this year)
~Many many types of manipulatives, including pentominos, tangrams, pattern blocks, linking cubes, cuisineaire rods, opaque counters, colored wooden cubes, a geoboard
~Free-reading
~Handwriting practice, using the ream of handwriting paper I got, not workbooks
~Writing letters and such to family
~Drawing both on paper and on the computer
~Introductory typing (he uses the computer, and I want to try and steer him away from bad habits as much as possible)
~Playing with his brother and the dog and me and Link and a group of local homeschool kids


If at any point he seems overwhelmed (keep in mind that many of these are only once a week!) I can always back off some on most of this.  The joy of being able to work at HIS pace, not someone else's.