Day 141

Earlier today, I posted a quick tip on the MyWritingCheck instragram account that said to look up a word in the dictionary that you think you know, and see what else you can find out about it. I love doing this. I've done it with lots of words. You can get so much more meaning from what you read, write or say when you know more about the words you're using. So later I found Rachel looking up the word hand. Really, hand.

I guess Jeff had asked why Sam was carrying a glass of milk in some awkward way, and Sarah said something about "that's why they call them hands." I don't know, but when Rachel looked up the word, she actually found out something new. About the word hand. It actually has a lot of ways to use it, which we know; but did you know that a bunch of bananas is called a hand? You should pick a word and go look it up. But I like to use my big, 6 inch thick dictionary--not the internet.

We started reviewing the Pre-Algebra book today so Sam and Sarah don't forget what they've done this year. I need to order our standardized tests soon, and we need to make sure they have everything down before they take them. Although I don't time the tests, so they can think about what they're doing. So that makes it a lot less stressful.

We had to do a bunch of cleaning today, because the owner's mom came to check on the house. The owners live too far away to check on things, so their mom comes every once in awhile to look around. They're all so nice. We finally sent the signed lease renewal tonight. Jeff's going to try driving from here for his new job--it's an hour away. We've had so much stress lately that we thought we wouldn't add to it by having to find a house and move right away too. We didn't have long on our lease, so it would have been a time crunch to move.

Rachel started working on the cover for her second book, so we can put a picture of it and a summary at the back of the first one when we have it printed. It's hard to find pictures that look good with the colors they have to pick from on the Amazon book creator thing. I wish you could make up your own colors; but it's pretty easy to just plug things in, so I shouldn't complain. She's finished typing the sequel, so now she's gone back to working on another book she had started last year. I think it's set in the 1840's. How fun would it be if she could make a living writing books?! Of course, I would be totally jealous. I should have started that at 18! Here I am at 46 just now working on getting my first one published this year.

See you next week!