May Chitter Chatter (2019)

[Ryrin]

                         

 

 

                                   

[LadyWordsmith]

Talk about May? Okay! Hrm.... my May is looking super busy, but mostly in good ways. Beltane (the SCA Event) is this weekend, and I'll be entering a cookie competition and doing some calligraphy for Their Majesties. It's a fun laid back event with lots of games! There are several other SCA events coming up in May, so it will be a busy month. 

I have only 7 more class days for my students to turn in work! The end-of-year looms and I just hope they get everything turned in on time so I can get it all graded and be free of grading for a while. 

My son has finished all his coursework for 8th grade. A little surreal. He's enjoying starting summer early (Online Public School. No such thing as busy work if you finish early!).  

And, tornado season has started with a bang. We've already had two stormy days (the tornadoes really started in April) with a bunch across the state and we're just now hitting the officially beginning of the season. Looks like it's gonna be a wild weather couple of months. 

 

 

[LilyElizabeth]

May is my birthday month.

 

I'm excited to be getting my first paycheck from my new job tomorrow. It will be nice to have enough money for all the bills now. I don't have any big plans for the month, though. 

 

My daughter went to school online. Is your son in a K-12 program or something else? (K-12 is the name of the curriculum.)

[LadyWordsmith]

Excellent!

We're actually with Oklahoma Connections Academy (one of the Connections Academy schools around the country. We're in a lot of states. I teach for the Oklahoma one, and that's where my son does classes). It's Virtual, but we're a Public School, so the students still do all the same credits, all the same State Testing. The different is because we have a Nationally Accredited Curriculum used across the country (unlike most Virtuals in our State, which are kind of a mixed bag and many are 'just' our state) we have a much more rigorous and (IMO) better curriculum than most of what you'll find in the State in any of the public schools (because it has to meet the standards of States with better written standards). He also has an actual certified teacher in every subject, and they are some really fabulous teachers. I love working with our faculty, both as a teacher and as a mom. (Also grateful I won't have to try and teach him Advanced HS Algebra ? ). 

Nationally, Connections has been around for 17 years. It's the school (I guess we could call it a System? Each state has different rules about Virtuals and Charters and blended-learning, so how it fits into each state varies a bit), but it's definitely growing. I found out last year that a lot of the figure skaters on the US team at the last Winter Olympics graduated from (not our 'state', but our Program. ? I think they were mostly from the California school. One might have been Utah?). 

[LilyElizabeth]

We have a Connections here in Arizona. My daughter didn't try that school when we were looking at different charter schools. She spent a few years at a K-12 school. That's why I asked. I loved their curriculum. 

[LadyWordsmith]

That's cool! There are many neat online schools. We have a K-12 School here, but I'm not sure if it's the same one. 

[LilyElizabeth]

Probably. They are national. I'm really glad there are online schools. They give a great education without all the distractions. 

[LadyWordsmith]

Yes! It's been a wonderful alternative to our local school district (which has some ongoing and systemic issues and has for the entire 20 years I've lived here), and we have no local private schools that I would have considered (which is to say I think we have 'one' very small one tied to a local church that is a step above traditional homeschooling). 

Edited May 3, 2019 by LadyWordsmith

[Ryrin]

I'm back!!

 

Traveled to Seattle to visit my oldest son.

 

Here is a pic of mountain Rainier from the plane as we were flying back to Los Angeles.

 

 

 

[LilyElizabeth]

That's an awesome pic!

[Ryrin]

2 hours ago, LilyElizabeth said:

That's an awesome pic!

 

Thank you!!!

[LadyWordsmith]

Welcome back, and yes that's a beautiful photo! I love photos of recognizable locations from planes. 

[Ryrin]

We went to an SCA BBQ and Baronial meeting on Saturday. Now, it's really raining.

 

There has been some pretty rough weather out there for some folks.

[LilyElizabeth]

We're having pleasant March weather in May. I hear we are in for a scorching summer, though. 

[LadyWordsmith]

We've had a full week of tornado warnings (last night and tonight are the first nights in a week we haven't had tornadoes, and tonight is the first without rain!). We're anticipating another day potentially as awful as Monday tomorrow and I'm really hoping they turn out to be wrong (it would be the only time this week they've been wrong though). The catastrophic flooding is doing even more damage than the tornadoes. 

That said, my house is completely fine other than a quarter-inch of water that got into the garage. We are fortunately in a relatively safe town and way up on a hill. (The water was due to whoever graded the hill behind our house when they built the neighborhood doing a terrible job). 

Can we hit summer and dry out now? 

[Ryrin]

It’s been raining here. Very unusual.

[LadyWordsmith]

Hopefully good rain on your end. ? The BBQ sounds lovely! 

[Ryrin]

It was really fun. Last night we took over food to my son's fire station and had a BBQ. Two firefighter girlfriends came and another set of parents. Of course there was an alarm right in the middle of dinner but they weren't gone long.

[JamesBrown]

My wife and I went to a taco shop. We saw a trio of fire fighters called away. They had ordered and paid for their meal, had just sat down to some chips and salsa. Then their alert sounded before they got their tacos, and had to leave without eating.

 

I hope the taco shop will comp their meal if they come back, but I wonder if that's a common occurrence--pay for food, don't get to eat food.

[Ryrin]

Usually they can come back and the places will have covered/stored their food or will make new food.

 

My son was outside of a “situation” for 7 hours the other day. A man had killed his wife and was holed up in his house with firearms. He was there in case any of the police officers got injured. I think he’d prefer a fire.