Extra Crunchy Peanut-Butter & The 5 Missing Somethings

Algebra.

The very word sends horror and dread seeping through my body. Just begin to speak of factoring binomials or adding variables in fraction form using the distributive property and watch my eyes glaze over and my body begin to sag with boredom.

Today... we had to go over algebra. Meaning, we must grade the papers. And I will admit I have a insy-winsy, teeny-tiny issue asking for... well, help. If I don't completely undertstand a concept I just... well... skip the problem. I'm working on it!! But anyway yeah. It was absolute horror. Torture. Agony.

But there is a strange thing with Mama and I when we sit down for one, two sometimes three hours to grade algebra. I don't what it is, but we get into giggling fits and we say the most ridiculous things that just... well they simply don't make sense. Now we often say things that dont make sense at all... But I mean really it gets quite ridiculous. And we seem to lose quite a few brain cells over the ordeal, which is quite a terrifying ordeal seeing as we don't have enough to start with!

Take for instance, the "negative one" situation. There was a problem that was -1, with -1 as an exponent. So I asked her if it would be negative one (because at this point I just couldn't do math as simple as this) and her reply went like... "Well it's negative one... multiplied by negative one... with a negative one... which would make it a negative one."

Did I mention multiplying? No! It was terrible really. And there was a word problem that went something like...

Travis peeked around the corner and saw 140.This was 65% more than Eric saw- how many did Eric see?

Now that is not the exact problem but I don't feel like getting out the book and copying it out. Anyway the answer was 275. Well I came up with 270. "Well where did the other 5 go?" I asked, scanning my work for a mistake, searching for the missing numbers.

I mean honestly. We can't have 5 missing... somethings. It didn't say what they were it was just... somethings. but they were missing.

While I searched vigorously for the 5 missing somethings, Mama said... "Well the other 5 must be around the other corner."

Oh dear.

So at the end of our grading session I was quite certain I could not stand for my mother to be my teacher another semester. It's just not a healthy relationship between woman and child, especially in the teenage years. These are very delicate years of my life, you see.

So we went online where we are seriously considering enrolling me in Texas Tech. They have online classes for highschoolers and that may be a good option for me. I'm gonna be praying about it I think it would be pretty cool. And alot less stressful on both me and Mama!!

So yes. Anyway. While we were struggling through problem after problem of arithmetic, I was becoming quite agitated and when I become distressed so, I... well I eat. So with a spoon and a jar of extra crunchy peanut-butter, we fought our way through four lessons. There are 18 more waiting to be graded, not including tests. Oh my.

Peanut butter is my main comfort food. There is also chocolate, homemade tortillas, and others. But peanut butter is my best friend of the food category. I love it on peanut-butter banana sandwiches, plain bananas, apples, tortillas, cheerios, it's really delicious with a variety of foods. Peanut butter cookies are utterly tasty, and chocolate chips added to the dough makes them even more irresistable.

Okay. Enough of algebra and peanut butter. I must now go and... well I don't know. I would like to continue my research on laptops (just looking Mama) but I have been told my computer time has passed. So away I go. Have a fantastic evening!!

In His Grip,
Ranch Kiddo