School of Box

How do you unpack a house and still do homeschool at the same time?

You don't.

What's my secret? I started school a month early so I could take time off when we moved. Still, we've needed to return to our school routine recently. I couldn't find all our school stuff (it already takes up more than one box) so we didn't have a flag to say the pledge.

That's ok. Homeschool Mom will save the Day!

I just found a moving box with a flag printed on the side.
We said the pledge to a box.




In my head, my pledge went something like this:

"I pledge allegience to the flag
on the United Van Lines box,
and to the housefull of boxes in which it stands.
One family, under boxes, unpackable, with bubble wrap and tissue paper for all"





That being said, we've made some great strides in school recently, with the addition of a new math curriculum. Here you see the blocks that we used today to learn place value (ones, tens, hundreds). Julia plays too when we play "Math blocks" Before we know it, she'll be learning about the ones, tens and hundreds who live on decimal street.

The (Silverman) History of the Renaissance Festival

Long before we ever considered dating, Eric had invited a group of friends (including me) to go the the Maryland Renaissance Festival on a particular Saturday. Sounded interesting to me, I'd never been so I said I would go.

Turns out, I was the only one who said yes.

Several friends had other plans, or just didn't want to go for whatever reason, so it just ended up being the two of us. This wasn't so weird to us, we were good friends. We hung out regularly at "the guys" apartment. No biggie. Hangin out with my pal, my bro, my bud Eric. Off to the Renaissance Festival.

The Maryland Renaissance Festival is in Crownsville, Maryland. It's about an hour drive (which we did together) from Baltimore.

Soon after we arrived, we strolled past a vendor selling flower crowns. We stopped to browse, and Eric pointed to the crowns saying "I think either this one or that one would look beautiful on you".

I was surprised by his use of the word BEAUTIFUL in a sentence concerning me. After all, I was just "one of the guys". He offered to buy it for me but that was more of a gesture than I was willing to accept at the time....this NEW time.

So, faster than a wink I whipped out my cash a bought the flower crown that would look BEAUTIFUL on me.

When I got home, I told my roommate, Wendy "I think I like him, like him."

We started dating about a month later.


The following year, we were quite serious in our dating relationship. Eric suggested we go the RenFest. Fun times. I said yes.

All my over-zealous co-workers had me convinced that he was going to propose to me there. I knew we'd eventually get engaged, but I wasn't ready yet. I have to get used to an idea for awhile before I commit.

So our whole visit the the RenFest I was a little....nervous. Is he going to do it now? How about now? I kept thinking he was going to propose. Finally I started to get annoyed that he wasn't doing it. This was the perfect place to propose, wasn't it? Perhaps that was his strategy.

We got engaged about a month later.


Several months later, during our first wedding, I wore the flower crown he had picked out for me.

Fast forward 10 years to present day. We took our two girls to visit the Maryland Renaissance Festival with some friends. Here are the pics.

Discovered a new beach

We live on a peninsula, surrounded on 3 sides by water. I knew intellectually that the easternmost side was ocean, but it never occurred to me that there would be a BEACH there. Duh.

I just kept thinking I had to drive an hour south to Virginia beach to see waves and sand. It is true that if I want the whole beach, boardwalk, t-shirt shop experience, VABeach is the way to go.

But just 15 minutes away is Buckroe Beach, with a wonderful playground on the sand and lots of waves. We visted there recently with Eric's Dad and Roberta. There was a rough storm a day or so before we visited, so there were some larger items washed up on the beach. Allison found a red seasponge (or maybe it's coral), a horseshoe crab shell, and lots of large seashells. Julia did her usual...she picked up fistfulls of sand and dumped it in the water over and over.

Recent pics

Here are some pics of Allison on her first day of Kindergarten at the co-op. Julia, who also attends the co-op is also ready for learning too. The squinty face is what she does when I say "smile".

Lollipops for breakfast

It's 9:30 am and my kids are eating lollipops shaped like a baby bottle nipple and dipping it inside the "bottle" full of powdered pixie dust candy.

Yep, you guessed it...there are grandparents in town.


Each of the girls has another pile of candy, more colorful hairbands, little pet shop puppies, bubble wands, and almost a complete set of wizard of oz dolls from McDonalds happy meals (ok, many of those dolls are my fault).

I made the mistake of allowing Julia to eat the giant tootsie roll at her own pace, when in a confused and sticky state she came to me with her mouth almost stuck shut. I had to pry layers of tootsie roll from her teeth until I could see any white. After today, we should probably get her a new toothbrush.

In spite of all the new toys, the girls are presently outside playing with a broom and a stick. In their defense, they ARE using one of the new hair loops to decorate the broom. After all, it is a horse, I guess it needs a ponytail.

Our new house...

Here are just a couple pics of our new house (still with the current owner's stuff). We just had our inspection on Friday, and our closing date is less than 2 weeks. We will move in mid October, as the current owners need a little time to vacate. Once we get moved in, I 'll put more pics up.

Today I learned in school....

We've been doing homeschool for almost a month now, so it was bound to happen...our first meltdown day. Surprisingly, though, the meltdown was mine.

Allison has been learning about money and I was putting various coins down, asking their name and worth. She couldn't remember over and over and I got more and more insistent. I just kept answering for her and finally she said "Mom, you're talking like you're mad at me or something." I AM MAD, I thought, I just said this is a penny a second ago and you can't remember it!

I proposed we set the timer for a 15 minute break.

I retreated for some "space" in my room. Allison found me and said "Mom, you're not SCHOOL. You're my MOM. I said we should take a break from SCHOOL, not from YOU. I don't ever want to take a break from you". (yes, she is only 5) Then she brought me a plate of carrots and watermelon.

After that, we decided to move our school attempt to Starbucks. Every brain works better with a grande mocha frappachino or some organic chocolate milk in a box. We had a fabulous school day at Starbucks, including learning about a bank vault. The Starbucks used to be a bank, and they left the vault door and turned the vault into a quiet nook for hanging out. I counted it as an extension of our lesson on money. They just kept spinning the vault handle and pretending they were steering a boat.

Today I learned in school that my daughter doesn't see me as just her teacher. I'm her MOM.