Radium Girls

I just got through reading Radium Girls based the the true story of the girls and women employed to paint watch dials in the early twentieth century with an exciting and new product, radium. Radium sparkled, glowed, and was thought to be good for your health. It was heralded as the worlds newest wonder!! One of the uses was to make watches and clocks easier to see because the radium made the dial light up in the dark. Girls as young as 14 were recruited to join in on the exciting new job opportunity. Girls and young women sat in rows with trays of watch dials with a crucible of radium. They were taught to moisten thin brushes in their mouthes before they dipped them into the paint. They even ate at their work benches. The radium dust would cover the workers and as they walked home at night the girls would actually GLOW. Every girl wanted in on the work as it was good pay and radium was said to be good for your health. Little did they know that the work they were doing was eventually going to lead to their own demise.

This book is excellent and gives amazing historical background pertaining to the inauguration of workers compensation, liability, and medical advancements. It is definitely a very emotional charged book. I would highly recommend this book.



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Two-Point Perspective

Wordless Wednesday ~ Patterns

Pachinko

I found myself drawn into the world of Sunja in Korea in the early 1900's. The book follows four generations Sunja's family. The book starts out with an aging fisherman and his wife who live in Yeongdo, Busan, Korea. Only one of their children survived, Hoonie, a cripple with a cleft palate. The local matchmaker found favor in the hardworking family and found a wife for Hoonie. Hoonie and Yangjin were married. Sunja was their their only child. Thus unravels an amazing story of heartache, trial, love, deception, hope, and many twists and turns.

I really enjoyed the book. It was hard to put down. BEWARE, this book is not appropriate for children or teenagers as their is graphic sexual interaction descriptions. I so wish that the sexual content would have been left out because this book would be excellent for older children or teenagers to read if not for the sexual content. The book contains such good written description of life over a generational timeframe and a sense of what life was like in Korea and Japan in the early 1900's til about 1990. The author does an amazing job at pulling the reader in. A great read.
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Free or Reasonably Priced Homeschool Curriculum

Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool

SchoolhouseTeachers.com

Virtual Homeschool Group

Khan Academy

Kindred ~ by Octavia E. Butler

I just finished reading Kindred, a book about 26-year-old Dana who lives in 1976 but upon her birthday finds herself suddenly transported back to the antebellum South, 1815. Whenever, Rufus, her white ancestor, is in trouble about to die she is suddenly transported back in time. When her own life is in peril she returns home to 1976. While in antebellum South time moves at a normal pace but upon returning home it is as if time has barely moved. For example, when transported back in time days, weeks, and months can go by but when returned back to 1976 only seconds, minutes or days have passed. Dana, is black, and Kevin, her husband, is white. The first couple of times she gets dizzy and is transported back in time she endures firsthand the fear and life of a slave in antebellum South during that time. She has a hard time "playing the part" and still holding onto her modern day identity. The antebellum slaves see Dana as a "white nigger" and not like them. She does make close friends with some on the Weylin plantation. 

I would love to go more into the details of this amazing book but then it would give away too much. This book is definitely worth the read.  

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American Wolf

My 11-year-old daughter who loves animals read this book and said, 

"Rick, a Park Ranger, at Yellowstone National Park studies wolves. At one point they took wolves out of Yellowstone National Park because elk were one of the main attractions. The wolves were eating the elk and it was very disturbing to visitors who witnessed this in action. The decision was made to kill off the wolves in the park. Eventually, this decision backfired and the elk population exploded out of control. They had meeting to decide whether wolves should be brought back into the park. The wolf watchers won. Wolves were to be brought back into the park. Eventually they were reintroduced back into the park. 

There are different wolf pack stories within the book. The wolves are micro chipped. The most mentioned pack is DRUID. Another pack name is LAMAR. The packs are named according to where they live. O-Six, 21, 42, 754, and 755.

Long court cases have taken place. 

The book contains lots of stories."

Disclaimer-"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

Best Ever Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am always on the hunt for good gluten free recipes. Whether it be for bread, biscuits, cookies, or meals the search is a continual process of trial and error. When I find a recipe that is a winner I make sure that I share the heck out of the recipe because I know how hard it is to find GOOD gluten free recipes. We all know that cooking gluten free isn't cheap and when a recipe doesn't turn out it is so very frustrating. I am steadily building my personal file of MUST KEEP RECIPES and this is one of them!  

The recipe can be found here. I used Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips. Also, I used Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 Baking Flour. I did not chill my batter before baking and my cookies turned out fine as you can see from the above picture. I did use cold butter straight from the fridge. 

Emily's Paintings

I love to share my 17-year-old's paintings. She is a self taught artist. I am so very proud of her talent and skill level. I am completely in awe at her ability to draw, paint, sculpt, and work with so many other art mediums. I cannot even draw a stick figure, lol.

Plus-Plus

So I recently discovered a new building block set called Plus-Plus. Wow, how I hadn't already discovered Plus-Plus sooner with 6 kids, I don't know! Anyways, I scored an amazing deal at our local Target on this 3600 Piece Basic Colors in Tub Set. The normal retail is $159.99 and I got it for $78.99!! It was an online item that was returned to the store. I just happened to find it and snatch it up not realizing what I was getting. Come to find out my teenager daughter knew about them. Some of the kiddos she babysits have them. She said she loves building with them, lol. Since bringing them home my 17-year-old, 15-year-old, and 9-year-old have been building non-stop. 

I have always engaged my children with building sets, puzzles, and imaginative play. We own a large collection of Legos, Lincoln Logs, K'NEX, ZOOB, Nanoblock, TinkerToys, Gears, Magnetix, EMIDO, Wooden Block, and Click-A-Brick, to name just a few.