of home schooling and choir and medee and e-mails and calling and stuff

• Too busy to stop and update on what's keeping me so busy.
  
  
• Two days into home schooling, I'm having a great time. So is Daniel. There hasn't been a lot of actual schooling going on, mind you, as we're just sort of organizing ourselves, much the same as the regular school folks. We went to the home schooling picnic, picked up some curriculum, organized our schedules, worked out tentative rewards/incentives (Daniel's idea, actually), and tested some of Daniel's pre-existing knowledge. I think it's pretty safe to say at this point in time that Daniel's days in Grade 3 Math and English will be short. Like, probably over by the end of next week. Grade 4, here we come.
  
  On the agenda for tomorrow: library trip! Oh! And! HBLN (local home schooling association) is holding book clubs for kids Daniel's age. Right at the branch we usually go to! How cool is that!
  
  
• First choir rehearsal tonight. ::happy sigh:: We've plunged right into our November 11 concert music, which, for the most part, is absolutely lovely. We're doing Abide With Me, a hymn which I first heard performed a capella by the Drums of the Fort Henry Guard, and fell in love with immediately. So, yay!! We're also doing a piece written by our tenor section. Woo-hoo! It's beautiful. The song, that is. Although the fact that it was written by just one guy is a little troubling. Because like I said, it was written by our tenor section. Or rather, our tenor. ::gulp::
  
  We're also doing Will Ye No Come Back Again?, which is gorgeous and fun to sing and gives me a little twinge, as I've been re-reading the Outlander book series, set in Scotland around the Rising, and it paints a less than flattering picture of Bonnie Prince Charlie.
  
  Then there's The Maple Leaf Forever, our old national anthem, which got a facelift a few years ago, when "CBC Radio's Metro Morning show in Toronto [ran] a contest to replace the old lyrics, which were distasteful to some ears and merely comical to others."
  
  You can see both at
  
  http://www.craigmarlatt.com/canada/symbols_facts&lists/anthems.html#mapleleaf
  
  And we've got a very nice version of "In Flander's Fields", by Stephen Chatman, and a really, really, really neat song called "All Too Soon", by Stephen Hatfield. About the Maritimes, its history, and its lament for its young people who are moving away.
  
  
• medee6040, hope you're doing well. I have what's quickly becoming a crippling aversion to using the telephone for any purpose whatsoever, but I will really, really try to call and at least say hi.
  
  
• I know I owe some people (on lj) various e-mails and e-pictures. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get a bit of spare time to send them on their way. The problem is our *&%$#$% network connection is still very dead, so I can't transfer files from the computer that has them to the computer that allows me to send them.
  
  
• Tomorrow: must call (GAH!!) H&R Block re. my mom's last taxes, Dr. re. Daniel's nose, computer lady re. fixing the network, blah blah blah. And go to the library to sign up for stuff and pick up books, and open up an account for Daniel and Justin with the rolled-up coins, and go to the Humane Society with the guinea pig, which is still at our home (long story - our neighbours left it behind, despite the fact that we'd told them we couldn't take it, leaving a message that if we really didn't want it we could just let it go free), and call ninjakat and see if it's OK for me to visit, and call Guy to see how he's doing and try to drop off food/invite him to dinner, and... I know I'm forgetting something here.
  
  
• Oh well. It'll come to me. Probably in the middle of the night.