Where am I?

Okay, I DO know where I am. But I feel like this week has been spinning...not out of control, necessarily, but it has been as busy as usual but with all the cracks filled in. Make sense?

Today, I rearranged the day around the fact that my new workout is nearly an hour long. I also feel it might be better to work out earlier since it seems to make me very energetic. HOWEVER, my best laid plans went by the wayside when I started trying to expedite our new renter's credit application. In addition, I was EXTREMELY sore today from yesterday's long workout, so I could hardly imagine completely same exercise today. PLUS, we had book club today, so Kat and I had to leave a bit early (1:15), and to make things even more CRAZY...tomorrow is the first day of co-op. Yes, Hillside Co-op begins tomorrow, and I need to pull together all my ideas and make concrete lesson plans for (3) 45-minute periods tomorrow. I will have nursery duty first period, but will then be teaching for the other 3. Did I mention my body is SORE as all get out? (What on earth is "get out," anyway?)

(The picture at the top is of our "lava" experiment. That's a plate with flour on it. The custard dish in the middle is inverted and acts as our "mountain." Then we melted butter and poured it onto the top of the mountain. The butter ran down in rivulets into the flour. Later, it hardened up and we were able to see a picture of how lava flows out of a volcano, melts some of what it comes in contact with, and then hardens to become part of the land.)

Kids started with Psalm 23. Then Kat & Dane did Math. I unpacked my Amazon Fresh groceries...SOOOO convenient, and yet it does take some time. So I helped with Math while I unpacked groceries AFTER I fed the baby. Then the olders had Grammar tests while the littles did cutting and pasting. Then Bailey read for Literature, and I launched into the rental credit app stuff. Then Geography (we studied Cuba today). Pretty funny--sweet Dane pronounced Cuba as "Cubba" the other day, and it has somehow stuck. So I guess we studied "Cubba."

We discovered that Cuba is 75% urban and 25% rural, much like Japan (the kids remembered that--yay!) The family we looked at had quite a lot more than others we have studied so far. I am hoping to look into the politics a bit more so I can explain it better. From what we read, the U.S. and Spain fought over the right to be "in charge" of Cuba, and then the country had various weak regimes which eventually led to Fidel Castro taking over. Apparently the Soviets used to subsidize the socialist economy of Castro's Cuba...but that has ended. So now it sounds like EVERYONE has health care and dental, but people still don't have much food or access to food. Hmm. Lots of folks have exiled from Cuba and are waiting for Communism to end there. It doesn't sound like the people in-country are very pleased either...the family we studied did have a photo of Castro as one of their pictured possessions, but refused to display a bust of Jose Marti, which had been given them by the Communist party chief for the "big picture" at the beginning of the article. Interesting stuff...I need to learn more and explain it to the kids...

We scarfed down lunch and Kat and I headed to Book Club. It was sooooo great! We had read, "A Little Princess," and the discussion was fabulous. Also, our friends brought lemon bars and tea--what fun! It was nice to have time with my girl AND our good friends (and new friends!)

Time to get ready for co-op...hope it goes well!