Learning Something New

Gabriel and Hannah were able to take a drama class this year. They both had a great time with it. I thought we were done until the fall after their performance last week and final class this past Monday. Yesterday morning I received a call from their drama teacher. She wanted to know if Gabriel would be willing and able to learn something new and help her out with the production she is currently doing. To make a long story short, (maybe) , the man who is doing the lights won't be able to make it to one of the performances and needs someone to take his place. Gabriel has never done anything with stage lighting before but he is fairly good with computers (everything's computerized these days) and he learns fast. He went to the dress rehearsal last night and really enjoyed learning this new skill. Tonight was another dress rehearsal and he was able to do everything by himself. Hooray! I am hoping to attend one of the performances. I will probably pay more attention to lighting than I ever have before!


I had to wonder if Gabriel was among the first of the teacher's students to be called or was he towards the end of a long list. After all, she has a lot of students and many of them have been doing drama for years. She told him tonight that he was the first one she called. She was really impressed with all that he had done over the year, especially for a first year student.


Thanks for listening to me shamelessly brag about my son. I am blessed with 3 amazing kids.

Learning About Taxes

Having lived in Romania most of her life, Holly was oblivious to the idea of taxes. She went shopping with us and purchased things from time to time. The price tag on the shelf already included the 19% sales tax. So if the price tag said *500,000 lei, that is what you paid at the register. Now that we are in the States, Holly is learning about sales tax.

"Mom, I have my own dollar. Can I buy this notebook for 99 cents?" she asks.
"Do you also have a nickel? You have to add the sales tax to the price." I tell her.

Yesterday, Holly took a math quiz and was trying her best to make a 100. She missed one which gave her a 97. I handed it to her and her response was, "Hmmm . . .97 . . . Plus tax! I got a 100!!" I guess now I need to explain what the taxes are for.

*For anyone who is curious - 500,000 lei was about $15-18 when we lived there. Before we moved, they decided to remove 4 digits from their bills and 500,000 lei became 50 lei. Today's exchange rate would equal about$20.

Learning Something New

Today I learned a new skill – how to cook using a pressure cooker. Although my mom used one when I was growing up, I never knew how. They scared me and I was always afraid they would blow up if I tried it. Tonight, I successfully prepared a delicious pot of beef stew and now my husband wants me to buy a pressure cooker twice the size of my mom’s. I guess I will be learning some more pressure cooker recipes!

I accumulated another new piece of information while visiting Dana’s blog, Principled Discovery. There’s a new social bookingmarking site called Blogg-Buzz. I haven’t gotten it all figured out yet but basically I think it’s about attracting traffic to your blog. I submitted a post under the religion section entitled “Believing God”. You can sign up and vote for me there. I think it would be great to have a lot of homeschoolers there!