around town

We had an exciting field trip last night into the city for a book signing. Neal Boortz, talk radio personality, was in Washington, DC, signing books. We schlepped the kids ... can't believe I spelled that correctly and blogger isn't highlighting it as a unknown/misspelling... any we took the kids into the city on the train on a weekday afternoon. It was quite a different experience from Saturday mornings on the metro. Around six o'clock, Mr. Boortz wanders up the escalator with his latte in hand, and says 'hey people'. I think he was surprised to see any people, since he isn't on-the-air here in DC. It was a rather light crowd - my estimate was about 50, Tim thinks it was less. It's hard to say because people were arriving after he had finished his bit of talking and was signing books. The kids behaved well (on the back row) and waited patiently with Tim and I until it was our turn (last... because they went from the front to the back row by row.) He was quite friendly, said Mia was a cutie, and even asked her name. Then he told her to tell her daddy "homeschool me"! (another interesting editing note, blogger insists that homeschool is two words.)

It was a great experience overall, and this is just the short version. I'll try to post more later about another book I am reading by John Stossel, Give Me a Break.

The boys wanted to learn about rocks and minerals this week. They are also looking at geology as it pertains to earthquakes, volcanoes, and plate tectonics. They made a puzzle out of the modern map of the seven continents, working together to fit the pieces into what Pangeae may have looked like. We are using a book called Geology Rocks, an hands-on activity book with lots of experiments. In this picture above, we were making sugar glass (quickly cooling melted sugar in the deep freezer) to compare with our sugar crystals (simple syrup forming larger crystals over the next few days as the water evaporates). Check out the boys' blog to see the seismograph they made. Also, Simon posted about a sewing project we completed last week. Chas' nature book cover/pouch is still in progress, as he chose to quilt his by hand instead of by machine and it's taking a bit longer. Chas likes to get things just right. We try to encourage pacing himself and not rushing, but setting goals and keeping in mind what he wants his finished product to look like. Chas is also practicing his cursive writing, working hard and enjoying the results.



Other than schooling, I have been busy with a new business, selling used books on half.com. Tim has been collecting used books for me which he finds for free on craigslist. I estimate that we have about 400 books here at a total cost of *nothing*, about half have been entered in as listings, average price I am guessing around $5 each. And we have sold (and shipped) four so far. I don't expect to get rich doing this. Mainly, I expect to use the experience to teach the boys (and Mia, eventually) about running a business, about profit, cost and revenue, etc. and the math involved with keeping track of all of that (we made an excel spreadsheet) and we are keeping some of the books for ourselves as resources for homeschooling. We made a blog with the business name - HappyJax - as a redirect to the half.com inventory page, and we have made bookmarks to include in every order that direct customers to the blog, and hence to the inventory. If I see a book come in that I think a friend or family member might be interested in, I might mail it to them as a surprise. So keep your eyes open for a book from HappyJax Books of Alexandria Va!

our new project

We wanted to teach the boys some computer skills (beyond www.transformers.com). So we helped them start their own blog. You can read it at vabrothers.blogspot.com - and comment if you can, they really enjoy checking for new messages. Be sure to scroll down whenever you visit,
they both post on the same day so it would be easy to miss something.
So far they can scan in a document, save it to a file folder, and upload to blogger. They can also take pictures with our digital camera, remove the memory card, upload, transfer the files by batch to their file folder, and upload those to blogger as well. As their typing skills improve, they'll write more I am sure. They are learning a few short cuts, like cut/copy/paste and when to use double click and when to single click with the mouse. Be sure to bookmark their site, I'll add a link to my sidebar soon.