How can I continually suck so badly at tennis?! I'll never become a 3.5 at the rate I'm going. I should have self-rated higher last year if I aspired to be there. I can't even climb to the top of my 3.0 team at this point. This morning I felt like I was about 1 second off of where I wanted to be...at all times. I definitely need more sleep.

I don't know what is making me so unable to sleep at night. It's a rare night this week that I haven't had trouble getting to sleep before 2 a.m. It's not the thrill of having the National Geographic Channel on our new Verizon Fios TV, though at the moment we're enjoying a show about cyanobacteria on the early Earth. Naked Earth. After watching the commercials on this network, I'd really like to start keeping track of how much CO2 we're responsible for releasing in a typical day and in looking at how we can reduce our emissions, if you will. I've been reading about this here and there lately and am realizing how wasteful we are. And yet I keep consuming. Damn American!

What we're doing this week:

* Today was all about the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. One if by land, two if by sea. The geography of Boston, with its narrow neck of land and water on three sides. Where we stayed when we were there last fall in Charlestown. Lexington and Concord. How close they are to Charlestown when we estimated the distance using the map.

* The Ingalls family is collecting beads from an old Indian camp and getting kicked around by their new cow after Pa tried his hand at being a cowboy.

* Frances is challenging me with big numbers she has created with a wooden place value set.

* Review of third grade math that we might see on the Iowa test in a few weeks. Focus on not making careless mistakes on problems that aren't as challenging as what we are doing now.

* Diagramming sentences with direct objects.

* Writing about the fastest cars in the world and the most valuable trading cards.

* Listening to the final parts of the Shakespeare Stealer