Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

We've finally got tomatoes! Aren't they pretty? I've had a few ripe here and there and I've eaten WAY more bacon and tomato sandwiches than is healthy. I actually switched to turkey bacon after eating a couple pounds of bacon by myself. That wasn't in one meal, of course, though I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility. I do love bacon. But now, the real harvest begins!

All six of my plants survived this year so we are swimming in tomatoes! I picked almost 20 lbs of tomatoes yesterday! I just weighed them. I'm not exaggerating. That's more tomatoes than I've ever had at once and there's more on the vines that will be ripe this week.

Unfortunately, I'm the only person in this house who likes tomatoes. The guys will eat them in sauces but they don't like them raw, unless it's on a taco and we can only eat so many tacos! So, this year, I'm going to try freezing them. It seems easy enough. Wish me luck!

I'm In Love

Did you watch Sarah Palin's speech tonight? She's awesome. I finally have someone to vote for... and if that means I have to vote for McCain too, well... he's pretty old. ;)

Scholastic vs. Homeschoolers

I was flipping through the most recent Scholastic book orders when I came across a most interesting book. It’s described by Scholastic like this:

Schooled : Homeschooled Cap has never watched TV, eaten pizza -- or even had a
friend! How will he fit in at the regular middle school?

I haven’t read the book but I have read the reviews on Amazon. As it turns out, home schooled Cap ends up being the hero of the book but he’s portrayed as a social misfit. The book reinforces all those home school stereotypes that make people give us funny looks when we’re at the grocery store in the middle of the day.

Scholastic has even featured the author, Gordon Korman, as Author of the Month and, here’s the good part, sponsored a contest to be judged by the author. The contest is based on Korman’s new book. From Scholastic:

In Gordon Korman’s new book Schooled, Cap goes to school for the first time.
Tell us about your first day of school this year (one page or less)! One winner
will receive an in-person Classroom Writing Workshop from Gordon Korman!

Here’s our chance to tell Mr. Korman exactly what a home schooled child is like! Let’s flood his contest with entries from our home schooled kids! Give this guy a lesson in how prevalent and normal homeschooling is!

Fine Print:
Deadline: November 20, 2008. Sent to: First Day of School ‘08, Box 714, NYC, NY 10013-0714
Include: Name, Teacher Name, Age/Grade, School Name, Address, and Phone Number. No Purchase Necessary. Only students in grades 4-6 are eligible. For complete rules: www.scholastic.com/clubcontests (though I don’t actually see any info about this particular contest on their site).

This Kid

This kid has the worst life. He's bored. There's nothing to do. Then I give him stuff to do and he doesn't want to do that either.

Spelling was his undoing today. Last week, he did Bible, math, reading, and social studies. Today we added spelling. He was supposed to do one page in the book which consisted of writing his ten words in the word shaped boxes and then writing them again. It was the only writing he did all day. But he acted as if he were dying. Hw whined that his S's looked like 5's and his U looked like a V. I told him it didn't matter but he was insistent that he couldn't and shouldn't be writing all those words. Finally, I told him if he could finish that page, with no whining, in 10 minutes, he could play PS2. He finished in five minutes.

First Day of School

While the rest of the county's kids started back to school today, the homeschooled kids were all at the park...

swinging...

laughing....

jumping...
tie-dying...
eating...

passing and catching....

and, on the way home, sleeping.

Life Lesson

The boys have spent the past few minutes trying to hook their Playstation to the new tv. It's not as obvious as it should be so they're reading the instructions! They're reading, working together, and learning some new terminology. Voila! There's a reward for all their efforts. It's working!

Now, to get permission from Mommy to play. Bwaaa Haaa Haaa.

We've Got Books

The boys groaned when they saw the box waiting for us on the side steps. But I just smiled. The books are here. School can start. I'm so very excited.