Moving?

There is a very big possibility that we will be moving to Georgia. Not that we really want to, but my husband may have a job there. He flies out there Wed. for a Thurs. interview. Now to me, that would indicate that he has the job if he wants it. A company doesn't spend all that money just to tell you no. I am really torn about it too. My son has said that he will not move (of course he will since he's underage) and I don't really want to leave my home. I'm not real concerned about the homeschool laws out there. I can circumvent those, but the "rules" are so ridiculous it's funny. I do object to having to report anything to the local school superintendent though. I've never had to do that.

Just in case we do move, I've been doing some research on local homeschool groups and other activities that my son can become involved in. If the job does happen, then I will be able to find out more about the area we will be moving to and also get connected to the homeschool community ahead of time. My son doesn't want to leave his friends...really I think it's his one best friend. It's taken him a while to make some friends and I really don't want to take him away from that. That's why I want to get involved before we would move so that he would have some connection beforehand with other kids out there. I think though that now that my son realizes that people do accept him for who he is, that he won't have any problem making new friends. He is more outgoing now. He may not go right up to someone and start talking to them, but if they talk to him, he will converse with them.

I considered the possibility of putting my son back in public school, thinking that would be easier for him to acclimate himself into the local teen scene. But after looking at the requirements for kids going into public school, I changed my mind. They require several vaccinations and a letter from the health dept. that the child received those vaccinations. Now my son has had almost all of his shots except chicken pox and meningitis. For one, I've heard that some people who have gotten the chicken pox vaccination still get the disease. So what's the point in getting vaccinated? I don't know about the meningitis one. I don't really believe that either vaccination has been around long enough to know what the side effects are of the shot. If it wasn't for the shots, I seriously might consider putting him in public school. He would hate it I'm sure. He doesn't like most p.s. kids. Guess he's prejudice. I told him not all p.s. kids are bad. Just look at his bowling teammate. She's a great kid, but then she is an exception. Anyway, the vaccinations are my main reason for NOT putting him into p.s. in Georgia.

I'm still checking into all of the other rules and regulations. I've got to really investigate the driving requirements. It may take longer for him to get a license out there. And I wouldn't be able to use the driving program I bought which would suck.

I think it's so much harder to move while homeschooling than it was when my kids were in p.s. Seriously! I didn't have to deal with the different rules and regulations when they were in p.s. They were up-to-date on their shots and I had all their school records either with me or sent to the new school from the old one. With homeschooling, you have to find out what the other state requires and if they are homeschool friendly (and Texas is!). I would have to keep records for things that I didn't do before. And then submit some of those records to the local superintendent! I really don't want anything to do with the local schools. A lot of them tend to overstep their bounds.

Guess there's no reason to get all worked up about it though. I will have to wait until hubby goes for his interview and then he should know something within a few days of that. I'll let you know what happens.

MOMSENSE

Facts of the Day!

Sack of Rome
The Renaissance ended with the Sack of Rome by the armies of the Holy Roman emperor Charles V, in May 1527. In eight days, his Spanish troops and German mercenaries killed around 4,000 Romans and looted works of art and literature. Even the Pope, Clement VII, was imprisoned. Though the Renaissance was effectively ended, Rome bounced back and by 1600, it was once again a prosperous city.

Inauguration
The first U.S. inauguration was held in 1789 - for George Washington - at Federal Hall in New York City. Washington's second inauguration (and that of his successor, John Adams) was held in Philadelphia because the capital had been moved there. Thomas Jefferson was the first president to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C. Any Presidents who assume office upon the death of their predecessor take the oath wherever they are and do not have inaugurations: Chester Arthur took the oath in New York City; Theodore Roosevelt in Buffalo, New York; Calvin Coolidge in Plymouth, Vermont; and Lyndon Johnson in Dallas, Texas. The word inaugurate is from Latin and it meant "to take omens from the flight of birds and to install or consecrate after takes such omens (or auguries)."

Mother's Day
The second Sunday in May is set aside in the United States to celebrate mothers. There is also a Mother's Day celebration in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Australia, Mexico, Canada, China, Japan, and Belgium. England's "Mothering Sunday", similar to Mother's Day, is also called Mid-Lent Sunday and it is observed on the fourth Sunday in Lent, though it has largely been replaced by Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May. Anna Jarvis, born in Grafton, West Virginia in 1864, started the movement to have a Mother's Day. She wrote letters to politicians, newspaper editors, and church leaders and organized a committee called Mother's Day International Association to promote the new holiday. She wanted Mother's Day to be close to Memorial Day so people would recognize mothers for the sacrifices they made for their families in the same way that service people had for their country. The first official Mother's Day observance was in May 1907. President Woodrow Wilson gave the day national recognition in 1914. Jarvis spent the last years of her life trying to abolish the holiday she had brought into being, because she protested its commercialization.

V-E Day
V-E Day stands for Victory in Europe Day, commemorating the unconditional surrender of Germany to Allied forces on May 8, 1945. Adolf Hitler declared that Germany had proved unworthy of him and committed suicide in his Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945. Hitler's successor, Admiral Karl Dönitz, started negotiations with the Western powers, hoping to save as many troops and refugees as possible from Soviet reprisals. But the U.S.S.R. refused to recognize the surrender ceremony at U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower's headquarters on May 7 (the hostilities set to end at one minute past midnight May 9, 1945 - or 9:01pm Eastern on May 8 in the U.S.). A separate German surrender to the USSR was signed and a separate Soviet V-E Day held, in Berlin on May 8 to end the war once and for all.

Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad Company extended the American railroad system to the Pacific coast - built westward from Omaha, Nebraska, for 1006 miles to meet the Central Pacific Railroad's line, which was built from Sacramento, California, at Promontory Point, Utah. On that day, a golden spike was driven by Leland Stanford, present of the Central Pacific, to celebrate the linkage in 1869. This was a very important part (1800 miles' worth) of the first American transcontinental railway line.

Missed the weekend, so here's todays Facts of the Day

Skyscraper
The first skyscraper was built in 1884-1885 in Chicago. The 10-story Home Insurance Company building was designed by William Le Baron Jenney. It had a steel frame (steel-girder construction) to carry the weight of the building. The walls provided no support, but hung like curtains on the metal frame. This method of construction revolutionized American architecture and allowed architects to build taller and taller buildings. This first skyscraper was demolished in 1931. From the debris of the 10-story Home Insurance Building rose a 43-story tower framed by four 22-story wings: the LaSalle National Bank Building, which was the last major skyscraper built in Chicago before World War II and the Great Depression. The term skyscraper, which came into use shortly after this first one was built, originally applied to buildings of 10 to 20 stories, but by the late 20th century the term was used to describe high-rise buildings of unusual height, usually greater than 40-50 stories.

Mother Goose
Who was Mother Goose? "Mother Goose" was first associated with nursery rhymes in an early collection of songs and lullabies sung by British nurses/caregivers, "Mother Goose's Melody" (or "Sonnets for the Cradle") published in 1781 by John Newbery. The Newbery Company may have derived the name "Mother Goose" from the title of Charles Perrault's French collection of fairy tales "Contes de ma mere l'oye," (or "Tales of Mother Goose" - which means fairytales or old wives' tales) published in 1697.

Orthodox Easter
Why is Easter on different dates for the Orthodox Church? Since the Council of Nicaea in 325, Easter has been the Sunday after the full moon after the vernal (spring) equinox. However, there is still a difference between Eastern Orthodox and Western Orthodox churches, mainly because almost all Orthodox Churches, even those who otherwise use the Gregorian calendar, use the Julian date for the equinox. Thus the date of Orthodox Easter sometimes coincides with the western Easter date, but it is usually one or four or five weeks later.

Pitcher's Elbow
Pitcher's elbow or thrower's elbow is a term used for the injuries associated with a baseball pitcher's throwing method or overuse. Professional baseball pitchers produce arm speeds of 7000 degrees per second as the arm rotates inwards. The elbow is subjected to violent forces during all phases of the pitching motion. There can be damage to the triceps muscle, its tendon, and the olecranon process (the tip of the elbow) which may suffer stress fractures. Pitchers are also predisposed to osteoarthritis in the arm. Until about 1870, the pitcher was merely a player assigned to put the ball in play by pitching it to the batter to hit. Now, until a batter hits the ball, the game is a duel between the pitcher (and catcher) and the batter. Of a major league's team roster of 25, usually 11-12 are pitchers.

James Beard
James Beard (1903-1985) was called the "Father of American Cooking." He wrote more than 20 classic cookbooks and appeared on television's first cooking show ("I Love to Cook") in 1946. He championed American cooking throughout the world. Beard's Greenwich Village (New York City) brownstone was the site of his cooking school and is considered America's only culinary historic landmark. It is the headquarters of the James Beard Foundation.

End of the first week

Today is the end of the first week of the new school year. Even though he hasn't started todays work, it has been a fairly good week. There were only three days this week so it wasn't all that strenuous. My son managed to do all of one assignment in one day so that left him extra time the other days. In fact yesterday he only had to do Algebra, Geography and Biology. Even though I have things assigned on certain days, it doesn't mean that he can't work on the other days assignments that day too. He can work ahead all he wants but he is not to do so much work on one subject that he neglects the others like he has done in the past. I told him that I don't want him to become overwhelmed by the amount of work he has to do each day. He still hasn't started some of his other subjects like computer and foreign language. Those will come later when I see how well he is doing and what days he will have more time to work on other subjects. He hasn't started his outside classes yet either, so that will be a challenge for him once he begins those.

Now if I could just get him to get up out of that bed when I first wake him, instead of getting up an hour later!

Today's Facts of the Day

Audubon
John James Audubon (1785-1851) was a youngster growing up in France when he developed an interest in drawing birds. At 18, he was sent to the United States to avoid having to serve in the army and he became fascinated with North American birds - which he studied from Florida to Labrador in Canada. In 1824, he started to consider publishing the exquisite drawings but was advised to seek a European publisher because the methods for printing the drawings were more advanced there. The engraver Robert Havell of London undertook the project and published the four-volume The Birds of America with its 435 hand-colored plates between 1827-1838. The Audubon Society was founded in 1905. Although Audubon had no role in the organization that bears his name, there is a connection: George Bird Grinnell, one of the founders of the early Audubon Society in the late 1800s, was tutored by Lucy Audubon, John James's widow.

Morse Code
There are actually two codes called "Morse Code," though Samuel F.B. Morse invented only one (during the 1830s) - which was for telegraphy. The second one, a variant that proved simpler and more precise than the original, the International Morse Code (or Continental Morse Code), was devised in 1851 and it is the one with which we are familiar. In both, dots, dashes, and spaces represent the alphabet, numerals, and punctuation marks. Except for some minor changes in 1938, the International Morse Code has stayed the same and is still used for certain types of radiotelegraphy, like amateur radio.

Biological Clock
In 1994, researchers at Northwestern University announced the discovery of the so-called biological clock. It is purported to be a gene that governs the daily cycle of waking and sleeping called the circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythms are patterns seen in virtually all animals and plants. These rhythms are controlled by biological clocks - which are not perfect timekeepers. When there is an absence of external clues, as is the case in long airplane flights that cause jet lag - the rhythms tend to get off course and need to be reset. Light seems to be the key to reset many biological clocks - specifically, blue light. That is why jet lag can be helped by exposure to sunlight.

Arbor Day
Arbor Day is a day to honor and plant trees and its celebration (the last Friday in April, though dates can differ due to local climate) is generally a good time for planting trees in the U.S. J. Sterling Morton, the U.S. secretary of agriculture under President Grover Cleveland (1893-1897) was the founder of Arbor Day. An early proponent of forestation, Morton urged Nebraska, where he lived, to set aside a day to encourage the planting of trees. The holiday was first observed in April 1872 and was very successful; more than a million trees were planted on that first Arbor Day.

Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny debuted in 1938 in the theatrical short "Porky's Hare Hunt." Chuck Jones and Tex Avery further developed the character to ask, "What's up, Doc?" in 1940, when he also kissed his foe, Elmer Fudd. The rabbit's noisy munching on carrots was based on Clark Gable's carrot chewing in the movie It Happened One Night (1934).

Yesterdays Facts of the Day

Kindergarten
Kindergarten (German for 'children's garden') is a term coined by Friedrich Froebel of Germany, who was a pupil of the Swiss originators of the idea - though Maria Montessori had the same idea in Italy. In 1837 in Prussia, Froebel opened "a school for the psychological training of little children by means of play." By applying the name 'kindergarten,' he tried to describe it as an environment in which children grew freely like plants in a garden.

Daffodil
The daffodil's name is a variant of the obsolete affodill, from Latin asphodelus and Greek asphodelos. The daffodil is of the genus Narcissus and was first written about in English in 1548, though back then it referred to both the white daffodil and yellow daffodil. The term, which took an unexplained initial "d" somewhere along the line, now refers only to the yellow Narcissus pseudo-Narcissus, which has a long, trumpet-shaped central corona (outgrowth of the corolla). This flower is also playfully called the daffadilly.

Passover
In Judaism, Passover (in Hebrew, Pesach/Pesah) commemorates the Hebrews' liberation from slavery in Egypt and the "passing over" of the forces of destruction, or the sparing of the first-born of the Israelites, when the Lord "smote the land of Egypt" on the eve of the Exodus. Passover starts on the 15th day of the month of Nisan (March or April) and extends for seven or eight days. All leavened products are prohibited but matzo may be eaten and it symbolizes the Hebrews' suffering in bondage and the speed with which they left Egypt. A special meal called the Seder is held on the first night, featuring foods also symbolic of the liberation.

Lunar Eclipse
When the Moon moves through the shadow of the Earth, it loses its bright direct illumination by the Sun, although its disk still remains faintly visible. Since the shadow of the Earth is directed away from the Sun, a lunar eclipse can occur only when there is a full Moon - that is, when the Moon is on the side of the Earth opposite to that of the Sun. The longest that the total eclipse can last is about one hour and 45 minutes. During the eclipse, the surface of the Moon cools, depending on the makeup of the lunar soil, which varies just like the Earth's soil varies.

ANZAC
ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and it is an abbreviation made famous during World War I in the Gallipoli (or Dardanelles) Expedition in 1915 in which combined Allied naval and military forces tried to capture the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey so that a route would be opened to Russia. ANZAC, with a reputation of being elite troops, took much of the brunt of the battle, which lasted nine months and which was ultimately lost to the Turkish-German military.