Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Happy St. Patrick's Day!


May your heart be light and happy;
May your smile be big and wide,
And may your pockets always have a coin or two inside!
-an old Irish toast

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Samantha and I are starting a girl's book club and the first book the girls are reading is Island of the Blue Dolphins. Samantha has been dying to read this book and now her wait is almost over. Our first meeting is Monday, March 16th. There are 7 girls in the club right now. Below is a review from http://www.amazon.com/:

Scott O'Dell won the Newbery Medal for Island of the Blue Dolphins in 1961, and in 1976 the Children's Literature Association named this riveting story one of the 10 best American children's books of the past 200 years. O'Dell was inspired by the real-life story of a 12-year-old American Indian girl, Karana. The author based his book on the life of this remarkable young woman who, during the evacuation of Ghalas-at (an island off the coast of California), jumped ship to stay with her young brother who had been abandoned on the island.

O'Dell tells the miraculous story of how Karana forages on land and in the ocean, clothes herself (in a green-cormorant skirt and an otter cape on special occasions), and secures shelter. Perhaps even more startlingly, she finds strength and serenity living alone on the island. A gripping story of battling wild dogs and sea elephants, this simply told, suspenseful tale of survival is also an uplifting adventure of the spirit. (Ages 9 to 12) --

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

PaperBackSwap.com

Do you have any used books lying around? Ones you've already enjoyed, but you're never going to read again? I did, and I finally found a great way to share them with other people!

It seems that a few guys were sitting around one night talking about all the paperback books that they purchased over the years while traveling on business. Each of them had a large stack of books that they had read, so they decided to set up a website at PaperBackSwap that allows all of us to swap books with each other.

Let me tell you how it works -- because it is so easy! I listed a bunch of books on the site (listing 10 books gets the first member in your household free credits!) and I got 2 free book credits to get started. So you can order 2 books right away - free of charge -- and have them mailed directly to you! No strings attached. No gimmicks. No spam mail. Nothing. You just have to love reading books.

When another member selects one of my books that I have listed, I mail it to them. Yes, I pay for the postage. But then I get another book credit and I can select a book that I want. So another Club Member returns the favor and mails me one of his or her books free of charge. For every book I mail out, I get another book in return - a true shared system!

You really need to check this out. And if you do sign up, please use the following link:
PaperBackSwap

If you use the link above to join, I'll get a free book when you post your first ten books (and you'll still get free books for posting them!)

For more information about the site, you can visit the Help area, by clicking the link below, and select 'About PBS' to read how it works: PBS

And they have books for homeschooling too!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

School Days

Ashley attends school on Thursdays at Veritas. Her teacher, Ms. Kristina, brought a camera last week and all the kids took turns taking pictures.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Chlo-Dog


Today we found out our dog Chloe has cancer. Jeff took her in for a heart worm shot and while there he asked the vet to look at a little red lump on her leg. It had shown up after we got a lot of snow so we thought maybe she injured herself while playing in the snow and ice. Over the past week the lump had grown bigger.

When Jeff got home I asked what the doctor said about Chloe's leg and when he told me it was cancer I was shocked. Chloe is only 9 months old. We had to put our dog Lucy, a gorgeous yellow lab, to sleep last year and it was very, very hard on all of us. I just thought, not again.

Well after talking to the vet we are going to take Chloe in for a very expensive 15 minute operation tomorrow. The doctor will remove the tumor which is about the size of a pencil eraser and send it in for analysis. The doctor thinks that once removed she should be ok but there is the possibility that another one could come back. We will just have to wait to see what the lab says about the tumor.

 
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