books...and stuff

Just finished this book this morning, it is actually very good, though I'm not sure of the ending. But lately, no matter what book I read...I'm a little 'eh' at the ending. (its at Barnes & Nobles for $3.98, if you are interested) This book only took me 2 days to read. Okay, one night and one morning.

I've got a whole pile of books to read...I'm so bad, its kinda like the scrap habit, buy a lot...but don't necessarily use up. Guess I'm a book hoarder as well as scrap supply hoarder. In this area, I am my daddy's girl. One day, my senior year of high school, Michele and I counted the number of books in my dad's collection. He had several shelves in the front room...we stopped around 1000. We got tired.

So guess who inherited those shelves and most of the books...and has been adding to it. Now, my sisters and I took most of the technical books to 2nd hand stores...anyways...I love books. I still have his 1976 Encyclopedia Brittanica set, you know the red/white/and blue bindings...with the micro, macro pedias? Can you imagine any of our kids looking something up in one of those? Now days 'encyclopedia' is spelled 'google'!!

Okay, Karen, don't go there...but do you remember we actually had to do our algebra and geometry in our heads...without calculators!! I was such a mean homeschooling mom, I made my son do his math without calculators. (I homeschooled my son from 4th grade till 9th)(after that he went to Turlock Christian) Interesting, when I got him in the 4th grade, he was still using his fingers to add...and tested at @30 percentile, by the 8th grade he was testing at 80 percentile (the C.A.T) LOVE Saxon Math!!! He used the calculator only in the upper algebra classes, but he had to write out each step. But he had to have those basics down first.

AND (uh oh, here come's the brag) maybe that is why he graduated 1st in his calibrations class in Biloxi for the Marine Corps, even though he went into the class with the least amount of highschool math. He was against kids who had the fancy maths...and graduated #1!!! He said even his superiors were surprised and asked "Are you sure you're from California?" Sad, the reputation CA public schools have...truly, sad.

That is one thing, if dd and dsil decide to stay in Texas...the schools there are supposed to be very good..at the top of the nation, right?
Plus my grandkids will learn to talk right and have that incredible, perfect accent...I used to tease my husband, that I was going to send the kids to Texas so they'd learn how to talk right, not like Californian's. I mean, really, "dude and you guys"? geeeeeeeeeeeee, at least dd picked up "ya'll" from me.