Rescuers of the East Coast

Hey, did you know we are now entitled to be in a sequel to Rescuer? I don't know if Disney will pick up the option, but we definitely qualify.

The adventure began when Eric came and mentioned seeing a small kitten at the side of the street on Wednesday evening. Sam and I ran down and discovered 2 very small kittens. I'd guess they were about 4-5 weeks old. They were also probably ferral since we couldn't get near them. They jumped down a storm drain and I came home for the cat carrier and some tuna.

I made a trail of tuna from the drain to the inside of the carrier, but kitten #1 (we'll call her Lonely) didn't act hungry. I tried mewing--it made her more skittish, so I purred. She perked up and starting moving toward me (I was behind the carrier). As I kept purring, she came and was looking for her mother. She ended up walking right into the box and I shut the door.

Now it was kitten #2's turn. We'll call him Cautious. Purring had no affect on him--he knew it wasn't mom (or saw the results of Lonely's search for mom). But luckily Cautious was hungry. He followed the trail up near the carrier, but wouldn't go in. Being a very young kitten, he ended up with his back to me and I was able to grab him and push him into the carrier before he even got a scratch in.

The next day, we took them to the animal shelter. They are so young, they are sure to be adopted. If it weren't for Dwight, we would have kept them and tried to tame them. It made me think of Sass and Frass who never tamed, but these little guys were much smaller and I think at least Lonely will warm to humans eventually.

Now what subject was that adventure? I think it was Civics. We protected the kittens from death by car, starvation, or predator. We protected our neighborhood from cats who could contract rabies or other diseases. Sam learned how to think through the rescue of an animal. And we had lots of fun.

Nevermind--nothing in my brain (aparently)

Okay, so after a couple of hours of dread and reflection on the uncertainties of life, I called the doctor back and asked her some questions.

It seems the spot wasn't in my brain, but on the picture. It was an artifact (which means that it was a glitch in the picture).

I have a clean bill of health and some mystery symptoms. Don't we all have mystery symptoms? Life isn't neat and categorized--there is much of life that is unexplained. It would be pretty boring without some mystery.

So, life is back to normal and if the double vision (which started this whole thing) doesn't return--I'm good to go and satisfied with life.

We have launched our study of the Eastern Hemisphere. We are reading about missions in Indonesia, and a couple of books about pacific island kids of long ago. Fun stuff. There is also some encyclopedia reading on the pacific islands. This year we added the SonLight Language Arts and I like it (Sam will tolerate it). I think we'll see some improvement in his writing and expression with this. He's still in the middle of Latin. We start the Algebra tomorrow and we are in the middle of the General Science book.

Oh, the coolest thing. A local teen, who has often babysat has agreed to teach Sam some computer stuff. They are both pretty excited about it. Classes start next Wed. last an hour and cost me $10 a lesson. Now that is cheap. She's going to start with JAVA and then move to C++. I am thrilled. Sam will eat it up and I don't have to learn the junk or pay through the nose. These two already like each other and work well together. God is good!!

spot on the brain

News for folks who care: I have a spot on my brain. It may be a brain aneurysm, but it is not a tumor. I will be having a CTA on Thursday to learn more.

Lessons learned:

1. God is in control and he knew about this before the creation of the world. He also knows what kind of spot it is, so he can direct the tests to show the doctors the truth.

2. Waiting isn't fatal. I waited a week and a half from hearing I might have a problem before I got the spot news today. I am still waiting to find out what the spot is and what can be done about it.

3. I have lots of friends.

Thanks for keeping me in your prayers.

half time

As we slowly finish the school year, I am looking at how Sam spends his time and thinking about how to encourage him not to be a "square eyes." This is the term given to someone who stares at screens all day by my friend, Sally. Sam is very much a square eyes when left to himself. I've decided he needs to spend half or less of his time being a square eyes, but was not sure how to accomplish this when his mother and teacher cannot keep track of time. In the past when we attempt to limit his time on computer or such, I would often forget and he'd get more than his allotted time. Then the next day we would deal with attitude when he was restricted to his allotted time.

So, I brought the problem to the headmaster (Dwight) and he suggested that Sam be restricted from all screens half of his days instead of half of his time each day. Today was our first no screens day and I think it will work. It may take him a while to figure out what to do with himself, but since the neighbor is thinking of doing this, too, starting Tuesday we may have success!!

To be fair, Sam's parents are not using the computers for entertainment purposes on the non-screen days. So maybe the whole family will be more productive...

Our days and evenings are getting busy--it seems the end of the school year is busy even though we homeschool. Probably because we are still a part of the community that doesn't home school. I have 2 graduations (one is a former NILD student), a groundbreaking for our expanded parking lot at church, a meeting with the youth leader since Sam is officially a middle school student once school is over...

But busy is good as long as it isn't stressing us out and so far so good.