Used Curriculum Sale

Went to my first ever used curriculum sale yesterday. It was quite the experience. I have learned some lessons to take with me next time. Mainly that I need to bring SOMETHING to carry the books in. A rolling cart, bag, laundry basket or even garbage can!! I am sure I would have found more to buy if I had something to carry them in. But I saw it as a blessing in disguise that I had to carry it all. I spent less this way because I didn't want to keep putting stuff down to look!

Here is what I bought:

• Monopoly Junior
• Scrabble Junior
• Set of 19 ABeka Readers (these are at a perfect level for Bug right now!)
• Saxon Math 1 (missing the first few pages of the first workbook, but it was only $10!)
• Set of 5 DK Eyewitness Animal VHS Tapes
• Games for Math by Peggy Kaye
• DK Eyewitness Reader - Days of the Knights
• Seymore Simon - Pyramids & Mummies
• Snail
• Dover Flash Cards: Sea Animals
• Do Tarantualas Have Teeth? Questions and Answers About Poisonous Creatures
• Wild Cats and Other Dangerous Predators

I thought I did pretty good. I'm not sure I'm going to use Saxon for math, it wasn't really one I was considering. But I thought for price I could look through it, try it out, and can always re-sell and make my money back (and then some if I wanted!). I'm excited about Games For Math as I've checked out from the library and know I really like it.

I didn't get a chance to go through the fiction books very well, as my hands were very full by the time I got there and there were too many people in that area to put what it all down. There was definitely more I could have gotten, but I really wanted to try and keep it to stuff I would use this next year. Next sale I will do much better because I'll know what I am doing!

Nuts! Soap Nuts!

I was introduced to soap nuts by Tristan and have been planning on trying them once we run out of laundry soap here. (I've stocked up, so this may be a while.)

Soap nuts are not really nuts. They are the dried fruit from the Chinese Soapberry Tree. They work as both cleanser and softner. You throw about 5 'nuts' in with your wash. The nuts can be used for 5 or more loads before they need to be thrown out. NaturOil has good quality soap nuts available. Over at Passionate Homemaking, she's giving away 20 sample packs! Head on over and enter if you want to give Soap Nuts a try!

Rose Festival & Eric Herman

Yesterday, we had a crazy busy day. We started out watching the kids in the morning. Then we headed downtown to go to the Rose Festival. It was a rainy, icky day. But that didn't stop us. Our first stop was at the ships. We had watched the Coast Guard & Navy ships come into town, and now we really wanted to go on them. Bug was VERY excited when we learned we could tour both the Navy ship, the USS Shoup and the Canadian ship, the HMCS Alagonquin.

We had a good time going through them, even though it wore me out! It was a lot of up and down stairs and ladders. Mostly ladders! I'm not sure how the men and women that serve on these ships do it on a regular basis!

After we got done with the ships, we headed over to the Rose Festival Waterfront Village. This is your typical carnival. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on rides, so we skipped those and checked out some of the other stuff. We saw a magic show, petting zoo, and exotic animal exhibit. The exotic animals were quite fun, they had a lion, tiger, and wallaby just to name a few.

We then took one ride - the Ferris Wheel. What a view!

After that, we met up with my mom at her work. Then we headed over to the AirPlay Cafe to see Eric Herman. If you haven't heard of this guy, you really must. His video of The Elephant Song really started our obsession. Sebastian had a BLAST. Eric is a great entertainer and I would recommended seeing him if you have the chance. Bug even won Eric's new CD by in a 'dance contest'. He was thrilled. My mom and I bought him a couple more CDs, and he got them all signed.

After all that, we were ready to go home and hit the hay. It was a long, but wonderful day. To see the rest of the pictures from yesterday, go here.

New Site = New Motivation?

I've switched to here. I'm hoping that the ease of using blogger will get me blogging more. Time will tell I guess. I love the idea of blogging, but actually following through is a whole other thing. I really want to be better about using this as a memory post of what we do in our lives. We are busy busy busy (hence the title of the blog!) but it's not always homeschooling that keeps us busy. But that's one of the joys of homeschooling. We can just live life and learn as we go! We get some 'school time' in occasionally, and I'm trying to be more consistent with it. But if we don't get to school because life gets in the way, I'm not going to complain! Life is school.

So with a new start, and a new focus, maybe this blog will become more than the occasional ramblings of when we actually do 'school'.