Where'd That Week Go?

Good golly! They've been zipping by!

And, speaking of things I'd like to zip, I hope Amazon doesn't send our new badminton shuttlecocks by way of California (they like to send me taunting notices about how my items are sunning themselves on the beaches of the west coast, but how they will still arrive within the allowable time period. Amazon is lucky I have a forgiving disposition.).

Our last birdie is living on borrowed time!

Another busy week here. The usual. I think the Allies are going to win WWI next week, which will be a relief. I finished The Guns of August. Very good, but... well, war is so depressing! Plus, I just don't find military strategy to be wonderfully interesting. I've decided that when we get to WWII I'm just going to read Steinbeck's Once There Was a War and Bonhoeffer, by Eric Metaxas (I got it on sale as a Kindle book about a year ago and just haven't gotten to it). We'll study the 20th century again in four years, when Travis will be a senior (oh horrors! I can't even bear to look at that!), and I'll read more of those important, depressing war books then. For now, though, I've started on The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (excellent! almost makes up for having no more sweet Silas Marner to read!) and Henrietta Sees It Through. Also The Call of the Wild, which seems to have a little bit more to it than I remember. Themes, motifs, symbolism. Sigh.  And I'm skimming through Fahrenheit 451, which I read in early summer and seem to have forgotten a lot of. The boys will be discussing that last on Tuesday (co-op rescheduled due to Labor Day), so I'm trying to brush up on the themes and all for that one too!  (I find it wonderfully ironic that Amazon also sells an adaptation of Fahrenheit 451. You know. Because it is such a long, difficult book! Apparently Bradbury wasn't so far off on the effects of constant electronic entertainment after all.)

In other important news, Ed finally got trapped in the bathroom today! He's been taking our complaints about that treacherous door handle pretty lightly, reminding us that All You Have to Do is turn the handle correctly. Well, today he turned and turned, but the latch stayed stuck! He finally had to call for help, and I might have teased him just a bit (okay, a whole Lot) while I jiggled the blade of the pocket knife around, trying to get the latch to move. He's forgiven me (he's good like that) and now the bathroom door is latch-less. A definite improvement!

But tomorrow is Labor Day! Not actually a day off school (there hasn't been enough labor on the part of my students to justify that!), but a lighter than usual schedule, anyway. But we treated ourselves to some festive type goodies: a bag of chips and a jar of salsa and a lovely bottle of Diet Dr. Thunder! Life doesn't get much better than that, eh? Happy Labor Day!