Hot & Humid in Houston: Scientific Drawings

Each week, Josiah has to write a science paper and present it to his class. These are short papers, so they are required to have only two sources. On one page is the short paper, while on the other side they are to draw whatever the paper is about. So, if the paper was about Mars, they'd draw Mars. And when the paper was about Venus Flytraps, as Josiah's was this past week, he was to draw an actual Venus Flytrap. But Josiah likes to take great liberties with his drawings. It's closer to An Artist's Interpretation of a Venus Flytrap. Where is the Venus Flytrap? It is the wee little plant that doesn't belong with the rest of the picture. However, he does seem to be doing a good job with his presentations. He's not one to make it boring and he enjoys an audience.

We also had our family presentation at CC this week. This was our 8th family presentation so we (I) were running short on ideas at this point. We brainstormed through other family's past presentations and chose to steal an idea from a family that is no longer in our group. A few years back they each dressed like a different family member. They got lots of laughs, so we thought we'd give it a try. It started off as excitement - who was going to dress as who. What will we wear and say. But then, when we got into the actual practicing of the presentation, certain siblings were not happy with the way they were being portrayed by certain other siblings. The day before the presentation I was ready to scrap it! After a few threats (and not just from me), we pulled it together and were ready to present. I think it turned out pretty okay. Henry, who was me, started us off. He said he loved homeschooling his three exceptionally talented children, enjoyed math, reading nonfiction books, and rowing. Josiah was Caroline. He said he was a princess, loved playing Barbies, did jiu-jitsu, and played a certain game on his phone. Caroline was Henry. She said she did Brazilian jiu-jitsu and had a grey-white belt, she loved reading Encyclopedia Brown books and playing Minecraft. I was Josiah. I loved dressing in a suit for church each Sunday, I was in Challenge A, did jiu-jitsu, sang/hummed Beatles songs all day long, and drew with a fountain pen all the time. Then it was back to Henry. He had changed into Todd and said that he woke up at 4:30 a.m. every morning to walk his kids' dog, he loved reading fiction books, and he did statistics and data analysis for a living. And last was Josiah who had dressed as Benson. On all fours, he said he liked walks, naps, and playing ball.

Nearly each week in Essentials, Henry plays Number Knockout. Basically someone rolls three dice. They have to use the three numbers to 'knock out' the board which has the numbers 1-36. So, if the numbers are 3, 4, 5, they can do 3+4+5=12. They're allowed to use parentheses, exponents, square roots, addition, multiplication, subtraction, whatever they need to knock out the numbers. Henry sits next to his friend and the two of them are incredibly competitive. As soon as those numbers are rolled, they're off. They typically get 5 minutes for each set of numbers rolled.

A few years ago, I noticed that I was holding things further away from my eyes to be able to read them easier. So, I did the most logical thing and bought the lowest strength of reading glasses at Costco. I tried them on and found they were way too strong. So I put them on a shelf and years went by. Until this week. I noticed that I was starting to read at a funny angle again. I dusted off the glasses and this time the words were amazingly clear and slightly larger. It was both wonderful and horrifying at the same time - my perfect 20/20 was no more. The kids were not a fan when I wore them. Lots of "Ohhh. Those look soooo bad. Your eyes are huge!" They're not coke bottle glasses! I officially feel old. Thanks.

Our church does Wednesday night activities. We haven't done any of them since before covid, but Josiah asked to try the KSM this week (student ministry). I dropped him off (ah! he's so old!) and picked him up when it was over. He came out with a big smile on his face and said he'd like to go again next week. Yeah? I asked him what he did and he said it was a Bible study. Yeah? I've never seen such a big grin from a Bible study before. He was happy to sit with friends and chat. He is a brave kid - always willing to try new things and he typically always enjoys himself.

This has been a very laborious Labor Day weekend. First, I had maxed out on Josiah's room being a mess. You could not see a single square foot of carpet. Legos, papers, art supplies, stuffed animals, lots of random boxes, clothing. I could not take another day. And since he does have a daily cleaning schedule to keep his room clean, one that he very clearly ignores, it was time to get back on track. If only for my sanity. So he cleaned for most of Saturday and Sunday (periodically with helpers). It took many hours, but then about halfway through he said he wanted to rearrange his furniture. That was great, because any furniture rearranging would require an even deeper cleaning of his room. By Sunday evening, we were debunking his beds and vacuuming his carpet. And the minute we finished that two day fun fest, Henry drew up plans to rearrange his room. Fortunately he keeps his room quite neat, so all we have to do tomorrow is put his furniture on sliders and move it around. That'll round out our Labor Day.

While Josiah was cleaning his room Saturday, Todd and I were sawing limbs off one tree in the backyard. It was the tree that already had three broken limbs hanging down. It also had two to three other limbs that were completely horizontal and needed to be taken down (they were brushing up against the house and shed). We never did count how many were taken down, but it was a lot. Then came the task of breaking them down and bundling them for the garbage men. We were able to get half of the limbs broken down. We need our backs to heal before finishing the job next weekend.