Hello sunshine, goodbye chicks.

The trunks of the trees in my yard are all slathered with gold down the sides, the sunrise clear and golden-bright. It looks to be a glorious day, and when I'm not stuck getting the kids thorugh their math/history/writing, I'll be out happily grubbing about in the dirt.

The chickweed is coming up so fast and thick it looks like green mounding carpet, almost too pretty to kill. Alas, beauty will not save them! It is supposed to be in the mid-to-upper 60s today, close enough to that magical 70 at which weed-killers are optimum that I'm loading up my 3-gallon old friend, the backpack sprayer, to deal death and justice throughout the green kingdom over which I am stewardess.

Yes, chickweed is easy to pull up. Why spray it? Because I have what must be over half an acre of the pretty litte invasive seed-splattering darlings. Add to it their sneaky cohorts, more low and spiny than themselves who hide beneath their lovely yet deceptive fronds until they suddenly spring up and scatter doom to the wind, or creep along the ground slowly strangling the innocent flowers and you have a plant version of the underbelly of upper-class society.

To the garden-shed! *action movie music*

Greekity greek greek

Dang. Really struggling here with Greek.

My kids new school is a marvelous thing, and we have really enjoyed doing this half-home-school routine, but the one thorn in the proverbial side is they have to have Greek. I understand the idea, that the kids would eventually be able to read the New Testament in the language in which it was originally written, a very noble cause - but shoot, it's in another *alphabet* for pity's sake... My kids now have Greek homework and I am completely helpless, I can't even understand what I am looking at much less what to do with it if they need aid. They are having a really difficult time with it too, the only point of real stress we've had raise its ugly head.

Grrr.

I miss Latin! At least it used the same alphabet and I could puzzle things out and help them.

Sigh...just venting.... mutter.