Ugly

That's the only way to describe how it looks outside. Ugly. The grass is brown. The trees are bare and many of them broken from ice storms. The ground is muddy. The remaining traces of snow are dirty and black. It even smells bad out (like rotting leaves and things I can't identify - Violet said it smelled like a rat, rolled in cat poop and drowned).

Friday we are supposed to get snow flurries and possible snow accumulation. I don't have to tell you how that makes me feel.

But I am actually feeling good today. Violet and I got our hair cut this morning. I got 4 inches chopped off mine. I love it! She only got a tiny trim, and even that was under protest. After the stylist and I both assured her that her hair would grow faster and be easier to comb out with it trimmed up she agreed. But wasn't happy about it. I bought her a cherry Slurpee from 7-11 afterwards.

Violet has been making HUGE strides in math! I am so happy. Things are really clicking. She's been using Noble Knights of Knowledge to learn concepts she doesn't get through Miquon and using Miquon for the extra problems to practice. If one approach doesn't work, we drop it and try the other. She loves the story format of Knights. I like that Miquon has so much practice that I don't have to make up. She's about to finish the Blue book in Miquon which is the third of out the six books. Hoping to have her up to grade level by the end of the year. I think other than not having memorized her times tables, she'll be there.

I'm pretty sure I am going to order the Discovering Great Artists book I mentioned in my last post. I have it on interlibrary loan request. I thought we could do a test run with one lesson and see how it goes. Most people who've commented have liked it. The main complaint I've heard is not enough sample pictures, but we do have quite a few other reference books around. Hopefully that will work okay.

We are heading up to my in-laws in Wisconsin this weekend for Easter. We'll be going up Friday night. Violet is making Razzle Dazzle Cinnamon Carrot Cupcakes to take with. A picture of them and the recipe is here: ABC Cookies. It is another of our Girl Scout cookie recipes. They are delicious. I had one at a volunteer meeting. (I know Piggy, never drink the Kool-Aid OR eat the cupcakes.)