I did one more box! Which is more than I thought I was going to do tonight, and means my desk is totally cleaned off and packed. I still have some more shredding to do, but my shredder is tired and needs the night off.

Thank you so much, msbelle and others! I still have a huge amount to do, but it feels much more manageable now.

(you should keep nudging me though, so I don't stall out)

... oh, my god. I finally got to the paintball episode of Community. Dear god, this show.

Of supernatural?

t facepalm

Perkins, have you done any of the kitchen yet?

I just got on goodreads and friended a bunch of you people.

Isn't it awesome!!!

Wait until you get to the zombie episode!

And there's more paintball, but I haven't seen that yet. And a claymation episode.

We do homework when we get home from school, but I have to admit that, at this point, when Isaac pulls dawdling for hours crap (Franny has outgrown it--yay!) I no longer tolerate it. When I sense it's become futile, I just put away homework and write a note to his teacher explaining whatever it was ("Isaac worked at this for two hours but refused to finish his math" etc). Usually his chagrin at having a note written to his teacher makes him buck up and finish up his work.

Since we're testing for G&T in two weeks, I've been getting Dylan into the habit of at least two workbook pages every day, so we don't get to test day and have him suddenly not be in the mood to hold a pencil or follow directions.

Dang, Franny is slated to be tested later this year and we haven't done any prep. Maybe that's a mistake? I don't know. I mean, I want her to test as gifted, but even more important to me is that, if she doesn't test as gifted, I don't want her to feel like she's a failure or she's not smart. Problem is I don't know how to motivate her without making her feel like there's an expectation she better test well.

Would telling Franny about the fun, creative projects and field trips that are part of G&T classes be a good motivator, by making the class itself seem like a reward for trying hard and doing well on the test? I know once I got into a gifted program in 5th grade it was the highlight of my week.

Perkins, have you done any of the kitchen yet?

Not really--I did the cookbooks, and got rid of some stuff, but not much else.

spice jars into plastic bowls with lids, utensils into any plastic pitchers with lids. nothing needs padding, just put into a box and it makes fast work of a few areas.