I Know Funny, I'm A Clown Fish!

You can tell that it's mid fall: the weather is getting colder, the leaves are falling, and the clocks have all been switched. One sure way to know that it is mid fall, is that the Homeschool Blog Award nominations have been announced. The great people at the HSBA each year sponsor awards for homeschoolers in a number of categories (20 this year).

I became aware of the HSBA last year, when I found out I was nominated in the best home school dad blog. Since the name of my blog is Home School Dad, I thought I would be a shoe-in. A very good blog called Families Again won the award instead.

The award I really wanted to win was funniest home school blog. Win, I wasn't even nominated. It was very disappointing, becasuse in the words of Marlin in the epic movie, Finding Nemo: I'm a clown fish, I know funny. Now, technically speaking, I am only an honorary clown fish.

Yesterday they announced the 2010 ballot. Not only was I renominated in the home school dad category, I also was nominated in the funniest category! Some days it really pays to be an honorary clownfish!

To vote for me in the home school dad category click here. To vote for me in the funniest blog category click here. To vote for all the categories click here. Even though I live near Chicago, the HSBA does not follow the vote early vote often method. They ask that you only vote one time per person in your household. The exact rules are at their site.

As glad as I am to be nominated, I am also looking forward to looking at all the other fine blogs that have been nominated. In a future post I will share my ballot.

Keith Time: A Quick Keith and Dave Joke

The Dirt on Homeschooling.

My wife had a cool idea for a meme. She called it bloggers' remorse. The basic idea instead of talking the pretty stuff, the cool stuff, the things that WORK for their families. You talk about what doesn't work. For example,what really stinks about home schooling? What are the horror stories too awful to mention for the world to see?

This can be a challenge. It's so easy to post about the good stuff, the funny stuff, the cute stuff, the really cool stuff. Today, I want to talk about the not so pretty side of homeschooling.

Like having a 4 year old, outread your 9 year old. (More on that later.) Or, something our family is struggling with lately is a clean vs. dirty house. I'm not talking about piles of books, piles of clothes, piles of papers, etc. I'm talking about DIRT! When my wife was homeschooling, she was in the process of training the children to follow routines for cleaning, schoolwork, cooking, etc. (Read my lips B O R I NG!!) When I started homeschooling, I tried to do what she did. But one problem. I'm not her. I wanted to have fun, teach the children cool stuff, enjoy being with them 24-7. And I do enjoy all those things. But there's still a lot of dirt. Now, left to my own devices, I wouldn't mind a little dirt here and there. Neither would the kids. However, funny thing happens every day between 3:30 and 4:00 pm. My wife comes home from work. When she walks in the door, the first thing she sees is...you guessed it...DIRT. So I've tried to cut down on the school work and attack the dirt before she gets here, which frustrates me because, I didn't get as much "school" done as I wanted to. So either way, I am frustrated when she walks in the door, and sometimes I bark at her. And she barks back, and starts ordering the kids around. Clear off the table! Sweep the floor! Scrub the bathroom! Clean up after the bunny. So, at times in our dogless home, there is barking going on. We need to work on this. My first thought is, anyone selling a dog? If that doesn't work, we will need a magical homeschool genie to swoop down and show us the three easy steps to obtaining a clean home while homeschooling three active, creative, children. Until that happens, we're going to work on speaking to each other with kindness and love. And maybe, sweeping a little of that dirt, under the rug.

Keith Time: Amy Remembers Keith Part I

Of Games and Legos

This week we had a game day. Spider Droid made a board game out of legos. Here he is explaining how ro play.

Keith Time: Star Wars, Legos and Kids

Some Puppy and Turkeyisms

It has been over a year but I have decided to contribute some fragments at the Half Past Kissing Time blog feature called Friday Fragments.



Last week I was doing puppy's reading program with her. She was reading a story about a tiger and I notices she was covering her ears. I asked her why she was covering her ears, and she said, "The scary part of the story is coming up and I don't want to hear it."

The other day she told me a joke she made up. It is actually a variation of a joke most of you should already know. She gave it a nice twist, and really stuck the dismount. So when our co-op newsletter was looking for submissions, I entered it for her.

Here is what my published puppy's joke looks like:

Knock Knock.
Who's There?
Nobody.
Nobody who?
Knock Knock.
Who's There?
Nobody.
Nobody who?
Knock Knock.
Who's There?
Nobody.
Nobody who?
Knock Knock.
Who's There?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad nobody said banana?

The very same newsletter is having a writing contest. They are giving away a turkey to the writer of the winning paragraph written from the POV of a turkey explaining why or why not the Turkey should be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner.

Bunny's response:

Hello. I'm Tom the Turkey. I want to be eaten because I am very plump and juicy, My feathers are able to be plucked out real fast. I bet I'd be real yummy! If you eat me for Thanksgiving, I wont bother you anymore.

Spider Droid's entry:

Pardon Me!

Dear Mr. President,

Hi. My name is Bill. How are you? You should be fine. Nobody is going to eat you at the end of the month. I am a turkey. Turkeys are not thankful for Thanksgiving. I need your help. Please pardon me!!!!!!! Mr. President you are my only hope of not facing my greatest fear, having my wishbone broken.

Puppy's two cents:

Hello. My name is turkey L3000. The first robot turkey. I do not want to be eaten because I have too many feathers around my robot body.

Those are all the fractured fragments I have for you today. This is a blog hop so hop on over to the other participating blogs.

Keith Time: The Humor of Keith, Ham on Wry.