Favorite history on You Tube? Crash Course, of course!

HORRIBLE HISTORIES - The Wives of Henry VIII (Terrible Tudors)

Horrible Histories

Let me just say, if you don't already love history, this series will change that.  Horrible Histories is a set of books and videos that teaches all about the grossest, nastiest, and meanest bits of history, but in the most entertaining way.  The videos and books are disturbing and hilarious at the same time.  My kids and I laugh out loud while watching the videos.  We use the books to supplement along with Story of the World.  It adds a whole new layer onto our lessons and really makes the people and places we're learning about come to life.  I highly recommend checking it out! 

The Story of the World

We're a home-schooling family of two kids, grades 4 and 5.  We don't use a set curriculum.  We're always trying out new ways to learn to see what works best.  But there are some learning tools that we continue to use year to year.  

History is our favorite subject, and the main curriculum we have used since the beginning is The Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer.  There are four books covering history from the time of Mesopotamia and works it's way through modern times.  You can also purchase activity books, quizzes, and audio CD's.  When my guys were little I bought the CD's.  We would listen to them together and then do the activity that went along with the lesson.  Now they read the books on their own and take the quiz after each chapter.  This is our forth year using it and we just love it. 

  

I'm reading Pillars of the Earth

 I'm a huge fan of historical fiction.  Just about any time period will do, although I do love me some Scottish Highlanders.  The book I'm currently reading is called The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet.  I'm only about 30 pages in so I don't have much of an opinion on it yet.  I did come highly rated by my husband, who's the biggest reader I know.  He's been wanting me to read this book for years.  I actually did start to read it about 12 years ago.  We were living in England back then, and the book is set in medieval England, so he thought I'd love it.  For some reason I didn't enjoy it at that time, and I stopped reading it.  I rarely ever stop reading a book once I've started.  It's been on the book shelf for years taunting me and I've decided to give it another chance.  It's a pretty long book, so here's hoping I can get through it this time.  I'll keep ya'll posted on what I think.
OK, I know it's been forever since I've posted about reading The Pillars of The Earth, but hey, life happens. Here's my thoughts on it. It took me two tries, but I finally finished this book. The beginning is incredibly slow and boring, but I was told it gets better so I trudged through. By midway I was angry most of the time while reading it. There are several characters who are so incredibly evil and constantly getting away with horrific acts. It was like watching train wrecks and not being able to do anything about it. It would have been better if there were even one character that I truly liked, but even the so called good characters made me nuts. You need to be on anti-depressants to read this book. It was so draining to read about their horrible lives day after day. I couldn't wait to finish it to to see if something good would finally happen. I was not happy about the ending. All in all, I'm still kinda angry about the whole thing. On a side note, for anyone who has watched Days of Our Lives, did Waleran totally remind you of Stefano DiMara?

Subscibe Link

Ha!  I did it!  I figured out how to put the subscribe by email link on my blog.  I know that probably seems like the silliest thing to get excited about, but I really had no idea how to do it, so it's a big deal to me. I'm quite impressed with myself:)  It really doesn't take much to make me happy.  Now to figure out what else to put on here. 

Meet my biggest brat:)

This is Sonya.  She's a 2 year old Doberman Pincher and she's my biggest baby.  A lot of my time is spent dealing with, I mean taking care of her.  She's pretty high maintenance.  She wants attention 24/7.  She never gets enough.   Sonya's the most annoying and most entertaining dog ever.   She's also very photogenic.  I love taking funny pics of her.  I'm always dressing her up in all sorts of costumes.  She hates it, and it shows in the pictures.  But she's always a good sport about it.  I'm sure she'll be popping up on here often.  I just can't help myself.

Snow day!

Work will just have to wait today.  We got 4 inches of snow yesterday and I just can't pass it up!  Although I did clean off the cars, so I guess that counts.

My first post!

http://stac2277.tumblr.com/
Hello world!  Wow, I don't know how to begin.  I'm new to blogging, and I'm just hoping this doesn't end up as a FAIL!  My purpose in doing this is to get myself figured out.  I feel like I'm just drifting through life, with no real direction.  I'm getting older and I'm watching the people around me accomplishing their goals and moving on to great things in life, and it occurs to me that I want to do something great too!  I've been happy so far to just sit back and let life happen around me.  But I'm not even sure what it is that I want to do.  I need to find my passion.  I'm sure I have one, doesn't everybody?  I do have some lofty dreams.  If I could have any job in the world, I would be a world traveling food taster, or maybe a genealogy researcher.  I love all things history, and I'm completely addicted to Ancestry.com.  But, I'm a homeschooling mom of two.  I have a husband and 3 dogs to take care of.  The only traveling I do is to the grocery store.  Not to exciting.