7 Quick Takes -missing in action edition

Howdy, howdy, howdy bloggy friends!  Whew, blog-break!!  Life has been crazy-busy here at {Home}

-a girl can’t catch her thoughts, much less blog…!  Here’s all the crazy that I live:

~1~

Josie went in this week for her audition for the performing arts high school she’d like to attend next year.  I swear, this whole process has taken a year off my life, at least.  I admitted earlier that I think I have A.D.D. -at the least, I am scattered, Bridget-Jones -homeschool-mom and so imagine me trying to navigate a months-long process of detailed applications, different deadlines for different things, requesting transcripts, remembering deadlines, organizing/labeling/displaying artwork tastefully…. etc.  I had one midnight panic attack (I woke up Sky, sobbing my heart out because I thought I had messed up a transcript thingy- and it was either wake him up or call my E.S. in the middle of the night) and a dozen mini-panic attacks where my heart would jump and I’d ask myself “have I missed a deadline?”  and “the audition is on this date, right?” and then I’d have to go online and re-check.  And re-check.

Once we had everything packed-up, labeled, displayed in a beautiful manner…my mad scrapbook skills came into handy at 1 a.m. as Josie and I cropped digital art and used double-sided tape to put things into place.. who knew that particular skill would come into such important play?!…once it was all ready, Josie was dressed up, hair curled, subtle make-up in place….I delivered her to the door of the school and walked away.

The rest was up to her.  Poor thing then had to draw for 90 minutes.  She survived, and I did too.  We have to wait several weeks now to see if she got in.  I try not to think about it.  She really wants to go.

~2~

Standardized State Testing season has begun.  Demi and Amie had p.e. testing, and then Josie had to take the Math portion of the California High School Exit Exam the morning of her audition for the arts school.  Yeah, fun times.  Poor thing.

We also ended a round of key assignments for the charter school (my high school students) * I really hate these, stuff for a future post.  I contemplated pulling Meg out three months before graduation to avoid these.  I asked Meg how she would feel to get a diploma from St. Jennifer’s Academy and she was a bit ambiguous about it.  I decided to try to wait it out.  We also had portfolio samples due.  This month has been really, really crazy!

~3~

Amie loves her Hogwarts for Muggles class.  They had a class all about owls and dissected owl pellets, measured out different owl species wing spans, studied their diets and did a craft.  This week, they studied frogs and made chocolate frog candy.  She has such a blast with this class.  I love the lapbooks she brings home.

~4~

Demi is taking an eight-week creative writing class through Biola Star.  This is his first class with Biola, his older sisters have been taking high school classes with them for years now.  It is a great class to get his feet wet with them.  Next year in 8th grade, I am hoping to have him take an intro to composition class and Latin with them.  It is very strange to think that next year I might only have one student taking classes with Biola Star.

~5~

Monday I said goodbye to our very last hen.  Our flock has slowly diminished to one lone hen, and she was very, very lonely.  Ironically, Annabelle was the ornery hen.  Once she was alone, her personality changed and she became timid and tried to hang out with us when we were outside.  She was pretty misanthropic before, this change was pretty big.  We found a friend who has hens, to adopt her, so she left for hopefully a happy retirement with new friends.  It’s a bit strange, I keep catching myself saving my morning blueberries for her, or checking outside to see if she has water, or just looking outside to see what she is doing.  I am no longer Hen-Jen.

~6~

The Bible College boys are back for Sunday Night dinners (we miss them when they are on break), the weather here has swung from cloudy/cold to hail and rain, to sunlight on the same day as hail, back to foggy and then today it was really warm.  I am hoping the warm weather is back.  The hail was pretty exciting, since we really don’t get wild weather here.

~7~

Gas prices here in So. Ca are painful!  I am hoping they go down soon.  I drive about 60 miles each way to take Amie to her Hogwarts class once a week, Demi’s writing class is 20 miles away, and Josie’s fencing class is 45 miles away. We are about to yell “uncle!” with the gas prices!

Well, bloggy friends, I am really looking forward to getting back to a normal, quiet homeschool week after this week of chaos/stress.

Hope your week is wonderful!

**7  Quick Takes happens every Friday over at Conversion Diary