Saturday, January 31, 2009

Touching Spirit Bear

Touching Spirit BearBenjamin and I have been participating, to some degree, in his school's family book club. This time around, we read Ben Michaelson's book Touching Spirit Bear which is about a troubled teenager, Cole Mathews, who after throttling and permanently impairing a fellow student, Peter Driscal, is sentenced to live in isolation on an Alaskan island. Cole is left to fend for himself on the island and to come to grips with his anger, resentment and learning to forgive himself. It's a tough time to begin with, especially since his greatest enemy is himself. It isn't until he lets go of fighting against society and everyone around him that he begins to grasp at hope. It's a lesson all of us have to learn at one time or another. Fortunately, we don't normally have to go through such trying times as Cole in order to learn to it.

It was a lot of fun to read a book together as a family and to be able to discuss the book. We are all avid readers and will get caught up in a book and let the world go by. A great escape.

At the book club meeting, Benjamin was given a free book for having a birthday this month. It was actually this past Wednesday, January 28th. Martha stayed up late Thursday night reading the book—Book One of The Mistmantle Chronicles, Urchin of the Riding Stars by M.I. McCallister—in one fell swoop. She's a very fast reader but also missed out on some sleep that night. Benjamin and I look forward to reading the book ourselves. It's fun to share books in the family. At this point, a book will often pass through Martha, myself, Benjamin and now Joshua before returning to the library.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

A Brand New Year

Ok, so we're a month into the new year. It's been quite a ride already with the kids back in school. Martha taking her second semester of Anatomy & Physiology at AB-Tech. Now I'm driving back and forth to Greensboro each Saturday for a CPA review class.

I leave at 5:30am Saturday morning. (And I am really not a morning person.) I've been getting to the class at least a few minutes late each week. The first week I was more than an hour late because we set the alarm for 5:00PM instead of 5:00AM. Last week wasn't bad. Yesterday, I got up even before the alarm went off but couldn't get myself to get out of bed (bad!) so I ended up being half an hour late. It all works out because it takes a while for the class to get under way.

Yesterday was the last class on auditing. Now just to bone up on the material and take the test. Assuming I get the Notice to Schedule which is necessary for me to schedule the exam at Prometric. It seems like they're being really slow. Keeping my fingers crossed I'll get something this week.

The kids had an extra long break from school this week. It all started with a teacher work day last Friday. Then they, and Martha, had Monday off for Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday. Then it started snowing Monday night and it has been really cold--about 7°F as a high over the weekend and the first part of the week. So they ended up getting Tuesday and Wednesday off. Benjamin was actually a little disappointed and frustrated as he knew that what they lost due to the weather would reduce the amount of time they'd get off at the end of the year. Joshua also expressed that he really liked school and would rather not miss a day. (I would have been OK if I had a day or two off from work due to the snow. ;-)

All the kids were able to go sledding at Grandma and Grandpa Colliers. Interestingly, Carolyn had her inaugural sledding run on Inauguration Day.