So. Yesterday in my tiny moment of impressedness with myself for a change, I had a fantastic fail – caught by the first commenter (and then everyone else all day long.) I snickered about it over and over. Did you catch it?

Yeah. It’s 2016-2017, Rachel.

Clearly I’m qualified to teach children.

So on that note, shall we talk about what Kindergarten and Fourth Grade will look like this year?

Noah’s Curriculum:

For Kindergarten, let’s admit that unless you’re either super Classical, super hands-on, or super crunchy, all books are pretty much the same. And, since I’m none of those and very much a workbook kind of mom, I set out to find ones he would be interested in. And oh, boy, did I succeed in my endeavors.

LOOK AT THESE BRILLIANT BOOKS.

My little Darth Vader (he wears his Darth costume at least five times a day, and I do mean five times a day because he has to take it off every time he has to pee – thanks, Party City costume engineers) could NOT have been happier about his Star Wars Curriculum. He literally squealed when he saw his workbooks.

They’re made by the BrainQuest people, and I love their work. They currently make preschool through second grade (maybe they’ll have high school books by the time we get there), and they’re the best thing that’s ever happened to motivate stubborn little boys.

On his first day, Noah happily did several pages, then stopped abruptly and said, “OH – I need to stretch!”

I always encourage good stretching habits. Even in the middle of Phonics.

I also found a bunch of free printable math worksheets in his other interests, Lego and Minecraft, and he was a pretty big fan of these, too – especially the Lego ones.

There were only a couple of these printables, so we quickly moved on to making our own.

He liked this better, because after he finished, he could make something out of the Lego.

For instance, the above math sheet, once finished, was built into a duck…

In the middle of the act of pooping. Beige Lego-Brick Turds.

EDUCATION, PEOPLE. It isn’t always pretty.

Since he enjoyed the Lego format of math so much, I bought him a storage clipboard to keep a special reserve of math Lego in.

I put some in the pencil holder and more in the body of the clipboard. He was so excited about this new asset that he made himself a math sheet first thing Saturday morning.

Another thing I’m doing with him is finally trying to teach him his states in the same manner that I taught Ali when she was two:

This is my most viewed YouTube Video, and although Ali is ADORABLE and totally deserves the views, I feel ever-so-slightly guilty about it since I now know that her level of focus and memorization is not attainable by every kid at the age of two – including the subject’s own brother (we tried. Really.)

So, for any mothers out there that felt less-than when they couldn’t produce the same results, please know that Noah is five and a half and didn’t know the state of Alabama when we looked at this map last week. So yeah. Sorry about that.

But even so, he enjoyed learning, and enjoyed the marshmallows even more, so maybe by the time he’s six, he’ll be up to speed with his sister when she was two.

For handwriting, we’ll be using the Star Wars Writing Book along with Handwriting Without Tears. He especially likes their chalkboard – who cares if he’s using the lines all wrong? It’s without tears – that’s the important part.

And for reading, I’ve got half a dozen different curriculums. I’m going to try them all until one sticks – because I don’t know what will motivate him – yet.

Ali’s Curriculum:

Ali is using several new books this year, and a few continued publishers from prior years. We’re still doing BJU English and Reading, but dropped BJU Math and will be attempting to transition to Saxon Math.

We used Apologia for science last year (Astronomy) and she really enjoyed it, so we’re using their Botany series this year. Ali loves our hikes and adventures, so Botany should be a really fun study for her.

(After our first lesson we were inspired to make our Sam’s shopping list using taxonomy and binomial nomenclature, so I am giving it an early A+.)

I’m also trying Apologia Bible. I’ve failed in the past at actually using a curriculum for Bible, so we’ll see how I do this year.

(The coloring book is Noah’s – coloring books always help with attention span.)

We’re nearly through book one of Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga for read-aloud (continued from last year), and it is so fantastic.

And our super all-encompassing subject this year is Alabama History – but since I’m creating it from scratch, it’ll be another post on its own (or series of posts.)

You are invited to follow along with us this year, or if you want to wait until after we actually complete it, I hope to be able to share an organized and easy-to-follow hands-on curriculum. But more about that in my next post…and then I swear, I’ll stop it with the homeschool posts for a minute.

This Giant Tabby Cat is the only photo I have from that rental house. It was the only photo I dared take.

But I do have the memories.

It was a Girl’s Trip last year – myself and three other moms.

I drove up first, along with one of my friends, who was quite pregnant at the time. The directions to get to the house, which happened to be way too near a town named Bugtussle for comfort, included many county roads, unmarked roads, strange landmarks, and an all caps “CALL ME” when you reach a certain point.

We made the call, rather unsure as to why, in fact, we needed to make this call. But he told us, in an Irish accent, that he would meet us <somewhere that I couldn’t understand due to his thick tongue.>

Wait. There are Irish people in Bugtussle?

Or was that a fake accent?

(I tend to assume all Irish accents are fake because I once worked with a fake Irishman who turned out to be a con man.)

Due to my inability to dissect what he said, I waited at the wrong place. He called back. “Where are ye?? I’m here waitin’ on ya!!”

Finally, we found him – in a beat-up Gator (think golf cart on rural Alabama steroids), wearing cut-off shorts and exceptionally muddy knee-high rubber boots, sporting a bit of a mullet and an arm around the massive dog in the passenger seat.

It was the least Irish ensemble I’d ever seen.

He saw us and waved for us to follow.

There was an extremely long tree-trimmer blade hanging out of the back of the gator, bouncing along and creating sparks as he drove on the gravel road. We looked at each other, wondering if this was intentional, praying that it didn’t fly off and smash my windshield.

He drove us to the rental house, hopped out of the cart, noticed the now beat-up blade, cursed at it, then shook our hands and said, “Let me give ye a tour of the house.”

This is not common. I have actually never met a VRBO owner. And the fact that we were down more no-name roads than I could count at a tiny lake inlet where there were no witnesses made it all the more Murder Mysteryesque.

But what were we to do except follow him, and his muddy waders, AND HIS BARKING DOGS (massive dog had now been joined by yipping tiny dog), into the house.

He felt the need to point out every appliance. And ceiling fan. And tell us that he installed them himself. He was also compelled to point out every dent and non-working appliance that “redneck guests” had added to his house. He continued to rail against rednecks, as he raked his hands through his mullet, stomped his knee-high muddy boots (which looked AWESOME with the cut-off shorts), and let his dogs bound through the rental house.

When we made it to the master bedroom, he caught a glimpse of my friend’s pregnant belly and decided it needed to be rubbed. Vigorously. While saying “eh, that’s a big boy in there!!”

After the excruciating tour, we made it back to the kitchen. I said, “Oh – you didn’t give us the keys?”

He looked confused. “Keys? We don’t use keys out here. Ye won’t need one.”

“But…if we go out to dinner?”

“Eh, just leave it unlocked. No one will mess with ye.”

My friend and I very conscientiously locked ourselves into the house and retreated to the upstairs living room, a bit wide-eyed and worried about our future.

Until ten minutes later, when we heard a knock.

I went back down the stairs, and there he was again.

“Did ye bring a lot of booze this weekend?”

I stared.  ….is he asking to party with us? Or is this some sort of weird trap to see if we’re going to further “redneck” up his house?

He finished the thought.

“There’s ice in the shed back there if ye need it for your beer.”

“Um, no – we didn’t bring any alcohol. Thanks…”

“WHAT?! Ye didn’t bring any alcohol?!”

“Well, you saw my friend is pregnant…”

“YEAH! But YEER not!” He jabbed toward my belly.

“I’m good, thanks…”

“Okay, well there’s ice in the shed if ye need it.”

And, I know that this comes as a shock, but we did not get murdered that weekend.

After having loved and lost my perfect running shoe when it was discontinued, the experimental replacements I have attempted have slowly damaged me in different ways, much like that new friend that you thought was normal but then turned out to be just a tiny bit psycho.

One gave me blood blisters on the bottom of my feet. Another made my pinky toes swell up with water blisters. The other added a nice donut of water blister around the blood blister from shoe number one. And, if I ran long distances in any of them, they hurt me. Badly.

For the record, this is from the girl who didn’t realize she broke her finger – and walked around with a broken elbow for three weeks before discovering it. So I take my feet complaints somewhat seriously, not giving myself the “Oh, running hurts! Get used to it, noob” treatment.

Finally, all three pairs got so bad that it felt very much like what it would feel like if you took all of my Facebook Friend’s opinions about the 2016 Election Season, threw ’em in a bag, and shook it real hard: there is no choice that won’t end in tyranny, a torturous death, and the end of the world as we know it.

I had Pair Trump,

My Hoka Mafate Speeds were gigantic and brash. They came with many promises to make running great again. And at first, they were cozy and bouncy and felt like running on springs. But ultimately they were too handsy and cut into the sides of my toe like a narcissist with executive power.

If only my feet had been a little narrower…these would have been the perfect shoe.

Pair Hillary,

My Saucony Zealots, seemed like a safe choice. After all, I’ve been running in Sauconys for years. And they’ve been around for decades – they should be qualified for the job, right? The Saucony rep himself lobbied for me to buy this pair to replace my sadly discontinued Sauconys. And for a while, they acted like they were for my best interest and cared about Feet’s Rights, but eventually attacked them anytime I ran over 3 miles, numbing my feet and providing them with water blisters – the gift that keeps on giving.

If only my feet had been a little stronger…these would have been the perfect shoe.

And Pair Johnson.

My Altra Intuition 3s, the least well-known of all the shoes, seemed like the best solution. Altras believe in trimming down the shoe experience to just the minimal government of the foot, giving wide berths for forefeet to make their own decisions for their life, and basically staying out of your business. I liked the sound of that.  And for the first couple hundred miles, I thought I’d found the shoe for me. But they slowly ripped off the ball of my foot when I wasn’t looking.

If only my feet had provided their own cushioning…these would have been the perfect shoe.

For a long while, I would just rotate the three candidates so that I didn’t re-injure my last injury before it healed. But this became quite wearisome to my poor feet.

So it was time to find a new solution.

I went to a local shoe store that was known for their expertise in matchmaking runners with shoes that don’t hate them. I explained my feet’s specific needs (as in they would really like some shoes that don’t feel like razorblades – oh, and also, one of them has had two surgeries which creates all sorts of scar tissue issues), and the salesperson looked at me blankly and was like “Uh…well I could grab some shoes out of the back for you to try on…”

This was not what I had in mind.

I went back another day, after doing some research and having a particular shoe in mind. I thought maybe if I walked in with a mission, I could walk out with a shoe. “Do y’all have this shoe?”

“No…we don’t carry it. But why don’t you try lacing your shoes differently? Like this?”

I relaced Pair Hillary and Pair Johnson according to her suggestions (Pair Trump has eternity laces that don’t allow relacing because obviously they know how to make my feet great again without me second guessing their methods), and I felt optimistic, thinking that perhaps she’d just saved me $100 with great advice.

Nope, it was about as helpful as swapping the candidates first and last names: now it was Pair Clinton Hillary and Pair Johnson Gary.

I had another shoe that I’d found on the internet – perhaps it would be The One. I went back, a third time, to the same shoe store. “Do y’all have this shoe?”

“No…not anywhere near your size. We might get them in a couple months from now, though.”

I took this third visit as a clear sign from God – a moist sheepskin, if you will – that perhaps I needed to try another shoe store. So I marched myself right over to the other expert running store in town.

“Do y’all carry either this or this shoe?”

Looking at me as if the shoes I’d suggested were the worst two shoe choices in the entire world, she said “Nope.”, while clearly implying “(Why WOULD we?!)”

She brought me four shoes to try on. All hurt. I had just run 10 miles in Pair Trump, though, so my toes were screaming “Get away from me you immigrant shoe or I’m going to build a wall!!” to every pair that got within six feet of them.

I came home, panicked and empty handed. I laid on the couch in a stupor, partly from dehydration and partly from my existential shoe crisis.

What was I to do?

Were my feet this messed up that no normal shoe would work?

I must find a solution before my next run! I cannot go on like this!

And so I did what everyone says to never do: I hopped online and ordered both pairs of shoes that I had internet researched: The Hoka Constant, hoping that it would be the dreamy springiness of my other pair of Hokas but with a wider toe box, and the Saucony Echelon 5, hoping (even though one store clerk sneered at it) that it would be the triumphal return to the perfect Saucony.

The Hokas delivered first, and I opened the box, felt the shoe, and never even put it on my foot – the soles felt to be made of cement and would not, did not, refused to have a single smidge of movement. It was Pair Trump plus his wall as the sole.

Then the Sauconys came. And they were everything I could have wanted. Cushioned, miles of toebox room without causing any too-loose problems, and as if they’d been built for my complicated feet. I was hesitant to believe in them at first, seeing as how all my other shoes acted nice but then betrayed me, but a couple hundred miles in, and we’re still happily in love.

So the moral of this story is, your perfect shoe is out there, but I don’t know if the same is true about a presidential candidate. (Maybe try ordering one off the internet.)