Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real: Destination: The Academy (+ a bonus photo)

~Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life~ Every Thursday at Like Mother Like Daughter

Much as it happened when we journeyed through my loo and boudoir, I was standing in our classroom this morning, looking around, when all of a sudden, contentment crept in and wrapped itself around my legs like a purring cat. Ew, what a horrible simile; I'd have fur all over my pant legs! I hate cats! But you get the picture...

It has occurred to me that it would lovely if, at some point, I were to chronicle every destination in my home for a PHFR post. So let's visit our humble academy, shall we?

Now, I admit, this room is in transition right now so I am not brave enough to go too real on you. The room used to be "the library", now it's "the classroom" and we have plans to morph it yet again into a classroom/music room. Ish. Now that he's filling in as part-part-time worship leader at church, The Viking needs a place to put a keyboard and some recording equipment. He kind of took over the classroom already so I wised up and said, "Why don't we work together and make space for all of us?"

That's the plan for this weekend. But enough of that! On with the contentment!

Pretty and rather Happy as well

This is Calvin's desk.  I did stage it a bit as I can't exactly squeeze behind it where he sits and manage a photo.  So I turned the stuff around for better viewing.  I know, we really should put our books away when we're finished.  But I think they're just so beautiful.  And that is the actual quill and ink he likes to use for writing assignments.  Note the paper towel blotter and the ink stains on the desk.  All part of the beauty, in my opinion.

Happy

Nothing makes me feel more like a rock star than completing Latin and Shakespeare before lunch!  Yesterday, during our lesson on Henry V (just saying that makes me feel snooty), we were discussing Henry's use of the word, "we," when referring to himself.  I was about to say that I didn't know why he did it when Calvin piped up with, "Maybe he's referring to himself and his lucky pinkie toe, Alfred." O__O

I have since been informed (by Daria, knower of all things regal and historic) that Henry is making use of the royal pronoun or Majestic Plural because of his belief in his Divine Right as King.  So what he's saying is "God and I."  So Calvin wasn't far off!  I often get the feeling Daria should be teaching my boy instead of me...

Funny

This very dark and somewhat hard to see photo is of Calvin's "desk chair".  Yes, it's a yoga ball.  A purple yoga ball.  While he does not have ADD and isn't hyper, he does have a hard time remaining still while in school.  I let him doodle and play with Legos while I'm reading (both of which help him to concentrate) and I had read somewhere that a homeschooling mom had let her active and wriggly son use a yoga ball as a chair and so I decided to try it.

IT WORKS!  He bounces to his heart's content (or until it gives me a motion headache) while I read to him.  Sometimes he has to stop to see what I'm writing on the board or to read something himself, but most of the time, he's bouncing.  And when we're not in school, he brings the ball downstairs to bounce on it in front of the TV.  That's why the ball is on the dark living room carpet in the above photo.  He loves that thing and it was one of the best things we ever did for our school!

All Too Real

Do you have these horrid little beasts all over YOUR house?  I!  HATE!  THESE!  THINGS!  They're scary-looking, though harmless (at least if you have the species that don't bite), and they have the audacity to crawl absolutely wherever they darn well please!  Across your dining room table during dinner, up your shoulder at the computer desk, across your hand while you're sleeping, ACROSS YOUR FOREHEAD AND IN YOUR HAIR ALSO WHILE YOU ARE SLEEPING, and if you jump up to fling the invader out of your hair (GAG), it may very well fall DOWN YOUR PAJAMA TOP!  That was a fun morning...

I am desperate to find some funny in these stinkbug stories because if I can't I will just sink into despair.  The above lampshade photo was taken this morning, but that weary bug had been there since yesterday.  He walked around and around and around that lampshade all through school.  By the time our last class rolled around, we could hardly concentrate.  We kept getting distracted by trying to count how many laps he made.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm like that stinkbug: walking, walking, walking, plodding on bravely, not knowing I'm walking in circles on top of a lampshade while a higher being laughs at my foolishness.  Oooh isn't that broody and glum!

Real with a touch of Pretty

This is another stupid bug on one of the beautiful stained-glass windows The Viking installed in the classroom. We bought two windows on eBay when we finished our addition.  They're supposedly from a house in England.  Who knows if that's true, but we love them.  And I doubt that dumb bug appreciates it at all!

Intended as Real, but if you look there's some Funny lurking

I am having difficulty finding contentment in this, unless it's that stinkbugs don't bite, make you itch, eat your house or mean you're dirty?  At least we're not infested with scorpions, as a friend of mine, upon moving to Texas, discovered her house is--YIKES!

...and another stinkbug, this one dead.  GOOD!  But EW, right?  If it isn't live ones claiming my bangs for their motherland, it's dead ones that I'm constantly vacuuming up!  This one gave up the ghost on top of one of Calvin's writing assignments.  I call this photo Dead Bug On Assignment.  I intended this photo as another example of the stinkbug invasion we're dealing with, but then I read what Calvin had written.  And it's funny!

In case you don't feel like straining your eyes or taking the time, I'll mention that he notes that buffalo wings are one of his favorite foods, in part, because his family can't often afford them.  And that rock candy is a "dellacasye".  That is Calvin in a nutshell: he knows how to use big, impressive words, but can't necessarily spell them.  He'll get there, I'm not worried!

And, finally, the bonus photo.  I wanted to include it because I think it's pretty and adorable, but it has nothing to do with The Academy.  I give you:  Redheaded Snippet after a run in the rain...

She has a certain university in mind as her first choice of schools to attend.  And she is determined to do what it takes to impress both its field hockey coach and its admission board.  To that end she is studying for the SAT, knuckling down on her grades (although her GPA is already 3.9), signing up for more challenging classes, plunging into off-season hockey training and running to stay in shape.  She doesn't let a little thing like rain keep her from her goals.  She is so much like her father (not me)!  She is so pretty, happy, funny and real!

Where has your contentment been found today?  In stinkbugs not being scorpions?  In ink-stained desks and bouncy balls?  Look around, get out your camera and join in!