Our tubing evening didn't happen, partially due to bad head colds but mostly due to the hill closing a week before Jeff thought it was going to close. We're not sure why it's taken us this long to utilize the little ski/snowboard/tubing hill near us, but when Kaatje started asking for snowboarding lessons around Christmas time, we knew where to look. Lessons one and two went great... lesson three's backside turn practice led to a painful wrist sprain. Ah well, she's already asking for lessons next year, and we've already marked it on the calendar.
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A huge horray for homeschooling in our lives: we made the trek to our local homeschooling store (how many people can say that?! we're very blessed.) and Kaatje and I chatted with the invaluably helpful owners about the "math issues" we were having. Now we're happily using new curriculum where I'm remembering statistics and proof theory from college, and Kaatje's learning mice can't read. (Partially kidding, she's learning more than that, too.) My math major heart loves that she's happily learning set unions, and her math-is-stupid (not hard, just stupid) heart loves that she's not doing repetitive long division problems. If you're a homeschooler with a voracious reader who finds typical math hair-tearing-out-boring, check out Life of Fred. The pure greatness of homeschooling is that this might not even be the end-all... I might come back later saying how Fred's not working anymore and we've made another change, but where I was at the end of my rope before (and so was Kaatje), we're once again contentedly remembering why we do this. Must always keep in mind that the best way to move forward sometimes is to talk to those wonderful homeschool pioneers around us, from the friends at church with highschoolers to the now-grandparents of another generation of to-be-homeschooled kids. Our girls' learning won't look anything like anyone else's, and the ones who know that best and can help us grow are the ones who've already been there!
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Lots on the needles lately; since our LYS closed (*sniff*) I picked out some yarn on their closing day to make the girls whatever they wanted. Greta picked a short-sleeve cardigan in bright pink wool (Ravelry here), Kaatje a hat in greens and browns (same pattern as this one). In a fit of cold late winter knitting, both are finished except for the fox ears Kaatje wants on her hat... need to research those a bit. I'm forever working on a shawl out of some gorgeous soft and so very splitty rowan cotton/silk, from the market in Ireland. Splitty means despite an easy pattern, I have to watch what I'm doing: sad for movie watching, fine for piano lessons and car rides.
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Despite snow in the forecast, the paper flakes have been peeled from the windows. I don't seem to be able to come out of the little chain speciality grocery store without another plant, somehow a shamrock has been added in the window. (I'm a sucker for anything that says "full sun;" until the leaves appear, our huge south widows will kill lesser plants.) Snow covers most of the ground still, grimy and gritty, but I've been watching the garden plants slowly be revealed. No garden plans yet, just some spindly tall basil whose seeds Gret and I threw in a pot a while ago, pampered in our funny little greenhouse. Nothing like the smell of basil as the first day of spring approaches.
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