Adventures in Mama-Land

(well, not non-stop) 1) Printer jam – remove hard-to-access printer rear door, swearing and hurting broken foot. 2) Close printer, hope for reset.  Printer does not reset. 3) Send test page.  Resend test page.  Delete test page job; retry. 4)  Reboot computer.  Shut down computer; turn off power to printer and computer. 5) Wait a couple of hours (not non-stop, busy with other things) to see if it will resolve itself (don’t laugh – it’s happened before) 5) Reboot again.  Nothing.  Attempt to remove idling print jobs.  Attempt to delete printer. 6) Swearing quietly and politely, finally succeed in uninstalling the printer.  Reboot a few times and at last… it’s gone from the list of printers. 7) Go to unplug the printer USB cable to reinstall the printer drivers and discover… ta-da!… it was uninstalled all along .  It must have fallen out in Step 1 when I removed the printer rear door. 8) Struggle for 2 hours to reinstall...

I have never fully understood how insurance works here in Ontario.  We have a thing called “no-fault” insurance which seems to mean that YOU pay regardless of whose fault it was.  It’s supposed to be a marvellous system, yay, but I cannot for the life of me understand why. So here’s how it works, in practical reality. I saw something saying you had to file a claim within 7 days, so I called the driver’s insurance today to report the accident and potential claim (casts, crutches, bicycle repairs… any other unreimbursed expenses; I’m not asking for a fortune here, and it’ll probably be under $300, all-told). They said they were sorry I was hurt – and to call my OWN insurance company.  That’s right, MY insurance.  The nice folks who have gone on record that every inquiry phone call is automatically considered a “claim” and raises our rates, even if they pay out nothing. Not to mention, our insurance has a $1000 deductible.  So there you go.  Dead en...

Homeschool is mostly suspended until I figure out how I’m going to get through each day (blah), but we did manage to cut out and paste together a homemade Senet board game set, to tie in with our Ancient Egypt studies, based on Story of the World and a WHOLE BUNCH of living books. You can visit this site to look over the rules and print a copy of this Senet board as well as patterns to make decorative popsicle sticks for tossing instead of dice.  I used this online version (also available for download) to get a feel for the rules.  (slightly different arrangement:  the board zigzags back and forth instead of “reading order” like the printable one). It took Naomi Rivka about a minute to learn the basic strategies and the game held her interest for about 45 minutes – a complete game!  I’ve never tried playing a complex game with her, but this will lead nicely into Mancala, a category of African games I’ve been wanting to introduce, mainly because you can play ...

…The biggest excitement in your day was going to be replacing the teetery cracked hallway bookshelf. Nope. Here it is before it was casted:  I’m supposed to tell people it’s not a cast – it’s a splint .  Could have fooled me. I was biking home from tutoring when a MORON (with a yarmulke, and it turns out, a mensch, but still a MORON) opened his car door in front of me. … When I regained consciousness … ha ha ha.  No, thank God, I didn’t lose consciousness. Still.  I was lying face-down on the pavement, with lots of pain in my foot.  To his credit, the MORON came right away and called my mother, who came right away and now I’m home. And it turns out the guy wasn’t such a mensch after all – yarmulke or not, he went to the police right away and told them he didn’t do it:  I’d swerved to avoid his car door.  Ouch.

Not my FIRST thoughts when my friend told me. My first thoughts were sympathy, of course. Even second… third. But somewhere down the line, eventually, was this:  “How much is this going to drain from me, my family, my life?  How am I going to do this - again?  And yet, how can I not???” As Naomi Rivka has taken to saying when her lead pencil snaps or something else goes wrong in our day, “Oh, dear.”

A few weeks ago, I blogged about “ winning a gift card .”  I was joking, but guess what???  I won!!!  I got my card in the mail this week, and tonight, had some fun choosing and ordering homeschool books – what else? – online from Chapters / Indigo . I’m SO happy, I just want to tell all Canadian homeschoolers to go check out their site one more time.  Remember, the first issue even has an article by me in it!  (more to come if I can get my act together to write for their issue topics / deadlines…) So what did I buy???   Ancient Science , by Jim Wiese, as recommended by Michelle at Lionden Landing .  Before she was a homeschool mama, she was a science teacher who really knows her stuff!  I’m very excited about this book. Science Around the World , by Janice VanCleave, as suggested by our Grammar-Stage Elemental Science curriculum.  And finally, just to use up the gift card… Just So Stories , by Rudyard Kipling, bec...

The minute Naomi started taking ballet classes, there were questions from all sides:  “What if she decides she wants to be a professional dancer?  What will you do then?”  Not often, but often enough . Because obviously, such a thing is impossible for a religious Jew who believes women shouldn’t dance for mixed audiences, wear tight-fitting clothing… and so on. Maybe folks are just curious, but the unspoken question is sometimes, “Do you love your religion more than your daughter?” Of course, the answer is YES:  I do.  It’s not really the religion we love, but God, who offers powerful suggestions in the form we understand today as Judaism.  And hopefully, it’s not an either/or, like it was with Avraham.  I doubt I’ll ever have to choose one or the other. But the implication is sometimes that my faith is somehow abusing or limiting my daughter by cutting her off from these types of careers.  The stained-glass ceiling. But then, since I...