Day 84

Everyone was sitting at the table doing math at the same time today. I guess I'll never stop having them do that, even though it makes my brain have to go in three directions at once. Maybe that's how I keep a few brain cells alive. Sam and Sarah were working on the Pythagorean Theorem that I introduced last week, and Sarah pointed out that Sam didn't know exactly how to solve for X (or H squared in this case). So I was talking to him about that and I gave him several simple problems. But they were too simple. He says he never knows if he's just getting the answer because he knows how to get the answer or just because he knows it by logic because of the easy numbers.

He wanted us to tell him what the point was in doing it, so I said you use it in life all the time. But he wanted to know exactly how. So I gave him this giant problem where you have $3000 to remodel the kitchen and you spend all these amounts for different things, and how much would you have left? Of course, he got that. The problem is that Algebra is logical. How will I ever get him motivated to learn the procedures when it makes so much sense if you just think about it? Because I'm sure it won't be that long until we come across something that doesn't seem logical.

As we were giving Sam the kitchen remodel problem, Rachel said, "Algebra might be useless. My next lesson is about imaginary numbers!" Ha! So she was working on fractional exponents, and I had no idea what that was about. I don't remember doing that ever, but I hate exponents. That was the part that fried my brain in College Algebra--just last year. Rachel can never remember what to do with complicated exponents from one time to the next either. We decided we have a genetic exponent block.

We traded places with a couple bookshelves today. Actually we call one of them the school shelf. My dad makes all our bookshelves for us, and they're always just the size I request. So most of my shelves are big enough for binders and tall books and the tops have sides that go up about 4 inches, so I can put a row of books up there too--no whatnots on our bookshelves, which Rachel calls wantnots. She actually used to think they were called that, and she wondered why you have them if you don't want them. She's so cute.

So our school shelf is close to 4 times bigger than the normal bookshelves, and we usually have supplies on it. But since we moved last year, our supplies have been upstairs on another shelf and we never use them. So we moved the shelf and I'm going to bring the supplies down so we can have some fun with them again. I'm not sure you can see how huge it is in the picture, but most of the stuff on the table came out of it. It holds an endless amount of stuff. I love it!

Our church is encouraging everyone to do small acts of service each day of December leading up to Christmas, so we've been trying to think of that. I'm imagine that part of what we're getting out of it is that we're thinking differently. We're doing things for people outside our family too; but even if we just do something small and ordinary at home, we're recognizing that it's a service and it makes a difference. Last night, I cut Jeff's hair before bed. I've been cutting his hair ever since we got married, but it's still a service to him. He loves it; he wishes I'd shave it, which is not going to happen. So when we're doing things for each other, we can enjoy it more if we think of how the other person will feel. Even just coming upstairs and finding that the kids made our bed makes us feel good. I'm going to like this. I have found that I've been thinking of myself too much lately because of my health, so I maybe this will help me get some of my old self back.

See you tomorrow!