EKjourney Backup

Spring Break has arrived with its normal weather pattern of rain and clouds.  We can be thankful that it isn't raining or forecasted to rain all week!  Phil has worked on his projects trenching the front acreage to run water lines and I have worked on my projects repotting the carnivorous plants and then weeding and pruning along the driveway.    Big duckies Little duckies Sunset When I am outside working all day, I don't have time to get to the housework (I don't have time when I am not outside all day LOL). Before.... ...After (Yes, I just moved the big pile from the bed to the couch)  LOL!

It has been a busy and weird week and a half or so since I posted.  The post that I made regarding the mandatory vaccination bill has weighed heavy on my mind.  I have read so many articles, done so much research, talked to so many people, sent more emails to senators, and sat in on the work session and watched in disbelief as every Democrat (the majority) voted to pass the Bill on to the next committee and every Republican voted it down. The more I dive into this bill and do my own research, the more concerning it is, and the more irrational it has become.  Hep B, for example, is a required vaccine for infants to attend daycare under the law.  Hep B is spread through an irresponsible lifestyle of IV drug use and unprotected sex.  A student who has Hep B is NOT excluded from public school or daycare or playing sports in school.  Their right to an education is protected.  BUT, if you do not have all the Hep B vaccinations, you are denied an education....

As the saying goes...In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb.  I am sure hoping that the end of March brings some warm and sunny weather!   This was on Friday.  It snowed off and on and it was so cold.  Not quite cold enough to stick (unfortunately, because the kids sure do love snow play!) but cold enough for big flakes and steady snowfall.   Friday was our "fun day".  I read all.day.long to the children until my voice was scratchy and my throat felt raw!  They made forts to listen in and colored (and Glorielle dozed).  Wednesday, I started one of my novels and couldn't put it down and ended up staying up past midnight to finish it.  We buy a book kit every month that has a novel for a read aloud, a picture book, a teen book, and one for grown ups.  I want to read the teen and the grown up book from the kit every month.  It doesn't seem too far fetched that I should be able to read 2 books a month.  Well, I finished the tee...

I normally don't get into politics or anything highly controversial even on my own blog but the bill being proposed before the Senate is a shocking violation of civil rights and my children and I showed our opposition as well as our support to fellow vaccine injured children by going to the capitol and exercising our first amendment rights.   In a nut shell, this is the proposal: "Children who don’t have all 31 recommended shots or a medical exemption on file will be excluded from public school, private school, online/home school and daycare. "  My own experience with vaccines are this:  Sawyer had a Hep B vaccination (look up the aluminum content and the safe numbers before it is considered toxic!) before he even left the hospital following his birth.  He was a fussy, colicky baby, he lost 10% of his birth weight, and he was failure to thrive (did not gain weight) at his 3 month check up.  When he was 12 months old, he had his normal, scheduled vaccination...

The last week of February included 2 snow days, one on Monday and one on Wednesday.   Phil went to work both days but he took the children with him so I could get some work done.  I spent all of Monday setting up our independent projects which entail history, literature, sometimes science or art.  Basically, whatever we are learning in History, I check out books on the library that go with the era or subject.  We are learning about the Revolutionary War for the next couple of weeks and this took me a long time to plan because I had to skim through the books to make worksheets or a list of questions to help guide their reading.  "The constitution" is a much more complicated subject than reading dragon folklore for instance (which we did last week).   Tuesday was school and Wednesday afternoon the children went to work with Phil and I deep cleaned a small section of the school room (literally spent hours dusting and organizing and going through pape...