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1. A friend of mine had the  Lyceum Reading list on her facebook page and I decided to look at it to see how we were doing with the books we have covered in our homeschool high school. On the American Literature front we are doing pretty well.

  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn & Tom Sawyer – Twain We’ve read both!
  • The Bible

    • Not really “American” Literature but the kids are familiar with the main stories and themes – enough to be critical of the new Bible Series on the History Channel.

  • Billy Budd – Melville  

    • My kids read Moby Dick instead; I think it is better known.

  • The Call of the Wild – London

    • The next two aren’t American Literature but we have covered them!

  • A Christmas Carol Dickens

  • The Hobbit Tolkien

  • Red Badge of Courage – Crane
  • Rip Van Winkle – Irving
  • The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne

  • Up From Slavery – Booker T. Washington  

    • We did Autobiography of Frederick Douglas instead.

    2.  I have looked at a number of “rigorous” American Literature lists and “To Kill a Mockingbird” misses out on a lot of them. It’s not because of its relative youth (around 50 years) so I’m not sure why it misses inclusion sometimes.  We are currently reading it and Sam read it too when I was homeschooling him.  In my opinion it’s a “Must Read!”

    3.  Mr. Pete had this little teacher’s bag that one of his PSR student s gave him for Christmas some years back.   Every Sunday, Mr. Pete packs that poor little bag with two bibles, his Gather book, and some other things he needs to teach Sunday school and then sing with the music group.  About a month or so ago, one of the straps ripped out!
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    His birthday is next week, but when we were at the bookstore yesterday, I found this great satchel – it looks very manly and holds all of his stuff very well.  I’ve actually been looking for a book bag or satchel for him for quite a while online, but they were all too expensive.  So lucky me, found this at Walden books and gave it to him a week early!

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    4. The girls did a little craft for St. Patrick’s Day.  They took this craft and this craft and came up with these!

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    5.  A lot of my Facebook friends have been enamored with Downton Abbey.  I watched the first episode and wasn’t that impressed.  But after hearing more raves about this past season I decided to stick with it on Netflix and then Amazon Prime.  Now I am completely hooked.

    I’m still a Walking Dead fan though, and indeed there are some interesting parallels in both shows, about imprisonment and outside forces, and even death in childbirth!

    I was sharing this with Mr. Pete and he said I should write a short story about the seeds of the Zombie apocalyps starting in early 20th century England – we could call it Downton Dead.

    Interesting idea, but…
    I don’t think so!

    6.  Oh eBay, how do I hate thee – let me count the ways.  Turns out that a customer can buy your high priced item and then return it for “Not as described” simply because they don’t want it any more.  From what I have been reading, this seems to be the new thing on eBay – and indeed it has happened to us twice within the last six months.  As far as eBay is concerned, it’s “Seller Beware!” 

    7. Have I ever mentioned my “hip” high school math tutor?” Math teacher by day and comedian by night! and he even got a chance to compete on The View!  We’re so lucky to have him
        

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