Cecilia's home school day with daughter, son, and exchange student.

For you I will share our very different day - and today was not typical. I was up at 5:15, dressed quickly and sat at my desk to read Proverbs while I waited for dh, Ken, to get ready for his day. It's his day off but he's attending a first aid class. We were out the door by 5:45. We have one pick-up and I need it today. I use it twice a week but I don't always have to get up this early.

It's 6:15 when I get back and Seva, our exchange student, is dressed and getting ready to catch her school bus at 6:45. Morgan, our 12yo daughter, is just up and headed for the bathroom. David, our 21yo son, is not up yet. I'm not hungry yet and too sleepy to shower so I go back to bed, fully dressed, to wait for Morgan to call me when she's ready to pick up our horse at a neighbor's born down the road. Meanwhile I hear David commanding Morgan to get out of the bathroom because he has to get ready for work. (He's a carpenter's apprentrice).

I oversleep till 8:00 and get up to find Morgan doing her Latin assignment. She didn't want to wake me. We go get the horse whose has been neighing and impatiently pacing in circles in the paddock because all the other horses have been let out for hours where he could see them. Morgan does her barn chores, while I get the next days feed ready. When she's done we walk the horse back to our field. She fills his water trough and cleans the dog's water dish. I feed our two dogs who are still locked up in the back screened back and also very impatient and noisy this morning. We go in and I'm still not hungry so I go over Morgan's Latin lesson with her. She's doing a worksheet from Latin Road to English Grammar. While she's working on it the parakeet in a hanging cage, near the diningroom table where Morgan is working, begins to sing and chirp loudly. She's singing the cute, few phrases that Morgan trained her to say. Morgan can't resist so she answers and starts whistling, and they have a "conversation" for several minutes, it continues at intervals. Then the dogs start barking furiously. An Airborne Express truck has pulled up our lawn - we don't have driveway. He's delivering a package from Istanbul, a birthday present for Seva from her family.

Morgan continues busily finishing with her Latin worksheet while I look over today's Math U See lesson. I then check the day's schedule. I think about reworking a few things before we go to piano lesson. I go take a shower. Afterwards we go over the math lesson. She works on that. Meanwhile I go over my Wheelock's Latin lesson.

Nearer lunch time I put a frozen macaroni and cheese dinner in the microwave for her and fix myself a cup of coffee-flavored milk (cafe con leche) and a butter some toast. We have lunch together. Because she didn't want to practice piano while I slepted in this morning she does it after lunch and then works on her theory. After piano practice we start history. I'm trying to implement some of TWTM's notebook ideas so I go over a few things with her. Filling in a notebook a little differently than we used to when we used Greenleaf is taking some getting used to but Morgan is excited about this "new" way. She goes straight to it, writing about Ancient Egypt, familiar stuff, but filling in the notebook sections has added a fresh appeal. We discuss beginnng the reading of the "Epic of Gilgamesh."

We have to leave for piano at 3. We make plans to stop at the library after piano lesson. From there we have to pick up Seva after school by 5 pm. At the library we pick up a few books that are for sale and checked out a book on Western architecture to read about Greek architecture. One of the books we bought, "The Joy of pi" has Morgan very curious about it so she begins to read it to me while I drive to the high school. We pick up Seva, and Morgan hands her "The Joy of pi" we sit quietly while Seva reads silently then Morgan continues where she left off.

We get home at 5:30 and Ken is home. He just got up from a nap. Seva opens her package and shows us two music CD's by Azerbaijani artists. It's a birthday present from her folks. She puts one in the CD player, it sounds like folk music. She switches it and the other sounds like rock/pop music. She wants to listen to it and turns it up. We ask her to turn it down and to continue listening to it in private. The house rules are that we don't play rock/pop in the house where we all have to hear so she quickly obliges. I put two family sized chicken pot pies in the oven and Morgan goes out to tend to the horse. Seva follows. Ken is on the computer working on a website. I feed the dogs and do the dishes. While dinner cooks, Morgan reads her art history, Seva goes back to listening to music having done her homework. We sit down for dinner without David whose gone fishing this evening after work.

After dinner Ken and I discuss a movie that Morgan and Seva are going to watch, "Revolution," a film about the Revolutionary war. Normally we spend our evenings reading, or working on projects, but Seva has a very hard time entertaining herself in this way and since we don't permit TV watching occasionally we're treating her to films.

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