It's been a quiet week of dejunking and getting ready for winter. Niki took a big step into adulthood by getting rid of all of her Polly Pockets sets. The drought is finally over, so I have grass again. I set up the Fire Station tour for the homeschool group, and found two sources of firewood - so that's two quests fulfilled.

I think this is my favorite picture of the bunch. The beautiful red head is doing her best scrunchy face while her brother is thinking of hiding from the camera again. Niki is giggling at her rescue of Michael from the "Vortex of DOOM" that the kids were doing in the whirlpool. How homeschool to do a science experiment with some 15 people in a hotel pool! I'll have to get permissions from the rest to blog those pictures, but they are so cute... Afterward, most of us trekked out into the blustery 40 degree weather to the heated outdoor pool and hot tub. The hotel had mini golf and roasted marshmellows for us - but it was too cold to get too far away from the heat sources. The Marco Polo game turned into a Roman-water wrestling, so there were some very tired, very happy soggy kids in Duluth that night.

Just back from Duluth, and it was terrific! This is Niki and William on the Lakewalk with a fish sculpture near the Vista cruise boat. The panda is a junk shop buy that went all over Duluth with us.

Wow - I did get busy and couldn't do too much with my shoulder acting up. The "Not Back to School" picnic was fabulous! We had about 20 families come - some as far away as Brainerd.

School is begun, and Eastern History looks like it could be stretched into infinity. We colored flags, and used wiki to find out facts about the Pacific Islands. I think they were more interested in the trench and volcanos than the islands - but ok. Deep Ocean studies ahead...

The homeschool group is set up with field trips, party ideas, and interesting things all around. I set up www.bemidjihs.com and even got it hooked into a free email server.

Planner Organizer Crazy!

I'm supposed to be looking for ways to teach kids about running their
own planner and getting them organized and self-sufficient.

Instead, I ran across the improvements in Google Desktop. WOW!
There's crap in there that I didn't know I needed. Did you know that
you can tell your computer when you toss in a load of laundry, and
it'll tell you when the washer should be done!

Google Desktop http://desktop.google.com/

Google Gadgets http://desktop.google.com/plugins/sidebar/
So far, I like the sketch pad for notes, the to do list, and the photo
thing (not sure what that was called), and I have to restart to get
the laundry one going. (I wonder if it tracks how many loads? Maybe
it'll buy me a drink when I hit 100 )

I did remove lots of things that I won't use - Stocks, weather, email,
network monitor. But, it looks like a very cool idea. I do happen to
know that one of the reasons that make Google a great company is that
employees are encouraged to take a certain percentage of their time to
work on "their" projects and interests, and they encourage independent
people to submit their projects.

First, I forgot to add that there is a "Google Pack" of good stuff to
download like Google Earth, Picasa, and Norton. (Symantec is better,
but free is good too) at http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/ (the
pack is at bottom right)

And, http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/default.aspx is the
address for the templates that I was looking for. There's a new
"Student ID" under the education section, and I use the Fitness Chart
for Women and the weekly meal planner quite often. I took a chart
that looked like what I wanted (Project To Do list?) and made it into
my chore chart that I've offered to share.

If you know how to save your form every so often, and use control Z to
kill the things that aren't working (it means back up one step) - then
it's pretty easy to change things around and make it fit you better.
I like using the templates because I'm not so good at starting things
from scratch, but I can set up nice things pretty well if I have
something to start with.

Rather like icky cotton candy - isn't it?

Took some time to get my house in order, and quite a few things happened. First, I have to update the "wierd hair" page. Leo decided to dye the dreadlocks pink and purple. It looks like he got a swirly in a cotton candy machine. Ok, I've found a zen about his hair - but my shower was purple. Not a little purple - the entire bottom half was purple. It took four tries and a female friend, but he did finally get it back to white.

I don't want to tread on feelings here - but this is important to me. Kids at my house do quite a number of different things. One of the big ones is bike riding. There's a golf course where they can play or just get a soda, and the bike trail system right close. One of the friend's was supposed to be picked up at 9am - so he was ready at 9 am. Finally at about 10:30, I call his mother and he was supposed to be at practice at 9am. She said she'll get him in an hour or 2. Never showed. About 3ish, we had to grab something for dinner, so I had her son try to call her. I heard yelling, and I think she hung up on him. So, I told the father what we were up to, and gave him my cell number. Took the dog, went to a park, grabbed chips and home for dinner. Mommy dearest rolls up at about 9:30 having a temper tantrum. Apparently, they'd missed me at both numbers and just never tried back. Uh, I don't have an answering machine - my voice mails get bounced to email.

(Put coffee down) This is a para (helper) who is supposed to be kind and patient with special ed kids in the school district. Ick, icky ick.

So - what to do? I'd like to perserve the boy's friendship, but I really do not want to deal with this again. Plus, if she rants and raves like this at an adult - then how does she speak to her kids? I already know what her son's self esteem is like - is it only a matter of time before he starts acting out?? This stuff is leaving me sleepless. I pretty much expected an apology the next day, and nothing.