* Stitches came out today. Into a little plastic jar that is now rolling around some sofa here.

* We bought a new washing machine...and then returned it 8 hours later. T-minus one day and counting until I leave for the tennis tournament and four days until Ollie leaves for camp, and our washing machine had some problem with the hose not draining. Clothes were piling into, if not Everest, at least a K2. After wasting a few hours waiting for phonecalls from service providers who ended up not working on our brand of washer or who would have to wait a week for parts, we weighed the hundreds for a service call against the thousand for a new machine and went for the latter. And then, like a charm, our old washing started working. Yeah, our clothes don't always come out all that clean, and they don't always smell great, but we're $1500 richer for the return.

* Ollie made Champs for the summer dive team. We thought about switching his camp week to week after next, but then realized that he'll be back in time for Champs and he'll have the time open for All-Stars if he makes it that far. Not bad for someone's first year diving. And both Ollie and Frances learned new dives today. Ollie's Reverse is going to premiere at tomorrow night's meet, and Frances is still working on her inward.

* It finally rained. Many times today. Hard at times.

* Ollie and I finished _I Am a Star_ about the Holocaust and Terezin holding camp, and yesterday we finished _Sign of the Beaver_, which is such a great book. We started _Island of the Blue Dolphins_ today. Unfortunately, with me leaving tomorrow and Ollie leaving Sunday, we're not likely to finish it for another 12 days.

Loss tonight. Carol Beth and I had our combo match a few days early because many of us will be at the beach this weekend, and we lost badly in the first set and then lost the second set, a big comeback, in a 8-6 tie-break. Call it heartbreak, if you will. I was playing slowly and languidly, taking my cues from the weather. It was sticky when we arrived, then overcast with menacing black clouds overhead, then solidly windy, then an owl flew by, and finally it cooled, with some wetness to the air. When we arrived back in Woodlake, it was raining. Better luck next time.

Hilary and her gang we back. We got on the subject of how homeschoolers always talk shop. It's true. It's our life. Or maybe no one else wants to hear that part of our life, so we have no choice but to chatter to each other about it. Heather was there as well, and we were talking about how much work it is--the constant reassessing, second-guessing, the processing of new information every time we bump into someone else we know who starts talking shop. Are we doing enough? Should we be doing what they are doing? Like tennis, it's largely a confidence game. You can't do it all. You just can't. You just need to keep your eyes on your own ball and determine that maybe it'll be a short match and maybe it will go on into three sets sometimes, but you're going to come out of this where you want to be.

So today I was, in this vein, looking through someone's blog and found myself spending too much time on a website with language arts curricula for "gifted elementary students." I'm wondering if this would be interesting to Walter. Ollie would likely find it rather cheesy, but I do like the grammar and the poetry books, which seem to be manageable but at the same time substantive. That's kind of the benchmark for what I seek now: easy to engage with and not too time-consuming, cuts to the chase, covers the material I need covered without a lot of excess. Now how to come up with $100 or so. Good thing Kerry has that contract renewal for his second job.

I'm actually feeling really good about the fall, at least for the twins. I have picked up a lot of material at the used curriculum fairs so far, and I think we'll make real progress. Here's what I have:

Math: Saxon 6/5, and I'm still waiting to find a Math-U-See Delta or Epsilon
Language arts: Easy Grammar Systems, both the full deal and Daily Grams; a Classical roots program;
Latin: Latina Christiana through a class we're taking at RES
History/Reading: Sonlight Alt-4, which is the combined 3-4 American history list
Critical Thinking: Building Thinking Skills from The Critical Thinking Company. This should be a nice fun diversion.
Science: LifePak science books. I need a second set.

Great news. CAT scores came back this week, and Frances only missed two on the entire test (should have been none, but couldn't get to her slow down or review what she marked). She was in the 98th percentile for reading and similar for math (don't have it right on hand). The twins both were in the 99th percentile in their overall composite score for the test. Yahoo! Now I'm waiting on the IOWA scores and the CogAt to come back. I'm wondering if Bob Jones is withholding things until I pay for the test books I got mustard and water on.

I'm so bad about actually posting what I write. Much of it ends up transferred elsewhere more private because it's unfinished.

Summer is fleeting right by. Here's what I'm doing:

* Outrageous numbers of crosswords. My friend Kate took the twins home from the tennis courts one day while I was playing an important tournament match, and when I went to pick them up I noticed a half-finished crossword puzzle on her breakfast bar. I could barely resist the temptation to fill in the blanks, so I went home and printed one out for myself, and I've been addicted ever since. I haven't done a crossword since I was lying in bed for who knows how many weeks, pregnant with the twins. It was an addiction then, too.

* My 3.0 USTA women's team is going to the State Tournament in Newport News, VA this coming weekend. We rock! And it looks likely that I'll be bumped up to a 3.5. In preparation for both that and for the tourney, I have been playing with a bunch of the 3.5 ladies, and with the exception of today, when I got eaten for lunch by an about-to-be-bumped to 4.0 singles player, I've been holding my own fairly decently. Carol Beth and I are teaming for doubles tomorrow night at our combo (6.5) match at Raintree, and if our practice yesterday was an indication, we're going to be just fine.

* I finally earned my A in Big Brain Academy. Kerry says that A is for Loser, but I think I'm immensely smarter for all my hard work. Now I'm obsessed with the Crosswords game he brought home for me last night, partly because it has a word search component, which is very like the identification game on BBA.

* The twins have new friends. Grayson, who lives around the corner, spent the night here last night. There was nasty fallout for all children of ours this morning after a late night, but overall it was a smooth event. My wish for the summer was that swim team and the pool would introduce them to some kids in the neighborhood. This is our 5th summer here, and it hasn't happened before now, but swim team forces a camaraderie that chance encounters can't quite match. Success. Yesterday we spent most of the afternoon and evening with 3 extra boys in the house who live right here in Fiddlers Ridge. And then there are the ones who call Walter "Wal-Turd" at dive practice and the Runescape junkies who congregate after swim team is over. Can you believe that sometimes other families actually take my children to the pool?

* Ollie demoed a new dive team this afternoon. It's a year-round practice (sigh...another nearly $200 a month and mega-commitment of nearly 8 hours a week, I think), but the good news is that it's right here at our own indoor pool. Though he came in with rather rudimentary skills--his hurdle approach is choppy and not up to Mr. Bill's standards--he learned a stunning amount in just 2.5 hours today. Now he's smoothly approaching the end of the board and he also has a pretty good tuck now on his front, back, and somersault dives. I think his scores will go up quite a bit at this weeks' meet. The Clendenons had a pretty good sweep last week at the meet: Ollie won 1st place in Boys' Mites, Walter won 3rd place in Boy's Mites, and Frances won 2nd place in Girls' Mini-Mites. Coach Bill wants all three of them, but we're not totally made of money ;) His program has produced a lot of successful divers, and he claims that all of the divers who have worked with him have gone to "to the college of their choice, without exception." Now with Title IX, there aren't really going to be scholarships for male divers, but admission is still a pretty attractive perk. I'm not ready to count my chickens before they hatch--he's only been to one practice, but he seems to have some real talent, and the coach was begging for him to return in the fall and is eager to work with him.

* Rutledge got a pile of stitches in his head on Wednesday. We're not quite sure what happened, but he claims that he fell out of Christi's van in front of our house. Walter did a serious job of CSI, but couldn't find any clues or extra blood, so we'll probably never know. Just as Christi and the kids were getting ready to leave, Walter came dashing into the house saying that Rutledge was bleeding. Someone is always bleeding at my house. But he was really, really bleeding (it was "weeely, weely scawee," in Rutledge-speak). There was blood cascading down his face, all over his arms, hands, shirt, the doorknob, across the floor, and there was a gaping hole that looked like a musket ball had hit him over his left eye. We took him to Dr. Clark right away, and he got 3 internal stitches, about 6 external ones (he's pulled a few out, so I'm not sure what the original count was), and a popsicle. I swear we weren't home 10 minutes before I heard someone yelling, "Mom! Rutledge is rollerblading down the steps!" Sigh. And not only that, but this all happened two hours before we were supposed to go to an open casting call for models for a stock photographer. Needless to say, no callbacks.

* We've been reading a lot of books. Okay, Ollie and I have. Rutledge has been really into Madeline. Ollie and I are reading Sign of the Beaver right now, and we just finished The Apprentice. Before that was The Penderwicks, Fever 1793, and a selection of Clyde Robert Bulla books. Holes is our next book club book; only Walter is making any progress at all through it. I'm going to have to crack the whip.

* Ollie is getting ready to go to sleepaway camp next weekend. He's leaving while I'm probably still playing tennis. Frances does dance camp at Woodlake in the afternoons that week. And Walter goes to Slippery, Slimy, Odd Pets and Electric Gadgets camp the week after