Uranus was discovered today

Did you know that Uranus was discovered today? It's a wonderful day, because Uranus is my ruling planet and its name makes for many jokes. Here are "Images of Uranus and Its Moons." You can't make this stuff up. We celebrated today by going to OMSI's Kendall Planetarium and watching "Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity." It's not about Uranus, but it's the best I could do. We were going to watch "Pacific Northwest Skies" but we didn't make it in time.

So, I haven't written for over a week, because I've been trying to get over my sadness about not going down to Eugene or the vineyard. Tania went and had a lot of fun, but Lu and I stayed home with Joey. Joey and I had some nice quality time together, but then I'd see stuff like this around the house and miss Tania:


Lu had to make due with other friends while Tania was gone:


She had some yogurt fun:


We had soccer today, and I found out that two of the kids in her class are homeschoolers! So we all have a playdate on Thursday! It's so absurd that I've never talked about it with these mothers before, but when you homeschool, sometimes avoiding conversation about it is preferable to hearing, "But what about socializaaaaationnnnn???"

Tomorrow, I think we may hit up OMSI again for the physics lab, and perhaps that other Planetarium show. It's Albert Einstein's birthday tomorrow, so we'll need to find some acceptable form of celebration.

Tania came home from the vineyard with a crapload of books. It's really weird, but some of them are based on the show Full House (you know, with Deej and Uncle Jesse) that I used to watch when I was a kid. I have been reading Anne of Green Gables as part of my Classics study. The Classics study is based on A Thomas Jefferson Education, which I've been meaning to write about here. I enjoyed the book, and I enjoyed that the author thinks children should largely be left alone until around age nine or ten. But it still doesn't sit entirely well with me. For one thing, it seemed like all educational value was placed on reading and writing, with no room for someone who wants to be a photographer or fashion designer or carpenter. It all seemed very, well, true to the Thomas Jefferson era of the rich white protestant landowner. It was very Christian too. Then I read A Thomas Jefferson Home Companion, and it was wayyy worse. Wayyy too Jesus-y for me. BUT. I did start to think about how I wanted to read all the Classics, and how I want the kids to have a rich environment where they are exposed to the Classics. I don't believe they are the only thing of value, and I will add some Classics of my own to the list, such as the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Vedas. But I do believe the two keys to learning are opportunity and interest. The books made me think about that and hold to that belief more firmly.