Week in Review

This wasn't a particularly productive week of school ~ sometimes it just is like that. I took Jason to the doctor Monday morning to get his cast put on, and when we got home Amanda started throwing up and was sick for next 24 hours. The next day I was under the weather (no stomach bug, but headache and lightheaded), so I slept a lot. Wednesday was Eric's 18th birthday! He was at community college most of the day, but I made him a carrot cake that morning. In the afternoon, it was my week to drive carpool to Homeschool Girls Choir ~ there are 6 girls who carpool together over to Bayleaf Baptist for rehearsal each week. Friday was TOG Co-op, and right afterwards Amanda and I headed down to Fayetteville for her volleyball game against the homeschool team there. It was a very close match again, and Amanda's team won! We got back to WF at around 7:30 PM, and I dropped Amanda off at her friend Emalee's house for a birthday party. Mark, Eric, Jason, and I then went out to Carolina Ale House for dinner. This morning was Lighthouse Basketball tryouts. Amanda and I manned the registration table and Mark ran the tryouts for all 6 teams ~ middle school boys and girls, jv boys and girls, varsity boys and girls. So we were at the gym from 7:45 AM - 1:00 PM.
Tomorrow afternoon is the baby shower for my friend Eileen, who will be travelling to Ethiopia in just a few weeks to bring home the 3 newest members of her family ~ visit her blog at http://www.jobsdaughters.blogspot.com/ to read about them!
Right now I need to catch up on laundry and cleaning that didn't get done this week, as well as make a grocery list since the shelves are looking pretty bare.

Here is the carrot cake recipe I made for Eric's birthday. Store it in the fridge ~ it tastes even better the 2nd day!

CARROT CAKE

4 cups grated carrots
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup golden raisins
3 eggs
1 cup white sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup ( 14 oz can ) crushed pineapple in juice, drained very well
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
4 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. allspice
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. dried orange peel
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

In medium mixing bowl, combine grated carrots and brown sugar. Set aside for 30 minutes. Plump raisins in 1/2 cup orange juice; drain. Add to the carrots. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2 9" cake pans.
In a large bowl, beat eggs until light. Gradually beat in the white sugar, oil, applesauce, and vanilla. Stir in the drained pineapple (squeeze out any remaining juice first). Combine the flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, and orange peel. Add half the flour mixture to the egg mixture in the bowl and stir; add half the carrot mixture and stir; add the remaining flour mixture and stir; add the remaining carrot mixture and the nuts. Stir until blended.
Pour into prepared pans. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until cake tests done in the center. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan, then remove to wire racks. When completely cool, fill and frost with cream cheese frosting. Store in the refrigerator.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1/4 lb. butter, softened
8-oz cream cheese
1 lb. sifted confectioners sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Beat together the cream cheese and butter; add vanilla; then beat in sugar a little at a time, until thick and creamy.

Stamping Cards

Amanda and I spent an hour or two stamping greeting cards yesterday afternoon with some of the new supplies we just got from our Stampin' Up! party. Here's what we made:

A Family First

Well, Jason made family history today, as the first Herbert child to require a cast! He fell during his soccer game this morning and fractured the radius in his left arm. I saw him fall, and when he got up he immediately ran off the field holding onto his arm. That was unusual ~ he's a tough little kid and usually bounces back up. Mark, as usual, hollered, "You're okay! Shake it off!" Isn't that what you tell your kids when they fall and get banged up playing sports? Well, Jason had woken up "on the wrong side of the bed" this morning, unusually tired and grumpy, and played over an hour of pick-up basketball with the Lighthouse ( homeschool group ) boys before his game, and was now crying and grimacing in pain. Mark and I looked at each other and thought, "Boy, is he tired!" We got ice from the concession stand and then decided to take him home, get him some lunch, and put him to bed to see if that helped. Well, when he got out of bed after about an hour, he was still in pain, and seemed to especially have pain if he moved his arm a certain way. So I decided it was time for an x-ray. My husband wasn't so sure.... but this time Mom overruled. So Mark took him to the local Urgent Care office, where they did an x-ray that clearly showed a fracture about 2 inches above the wrist. They put a temporary cast on it, and Monday we have to take him to a hand specialist to have a real cast put on. He's deciding on what color he wants ~ apparently casts today come in a variety of different colors!

Friday Co-op and Volleyball

Yesterday was a full day, starting with TOG Co-op in the morning. This week we learned about early Mesopotamia - from Babel to Ur, so we did our Jeopardy review, then discussed the history reading and the literature, which was a book called Gilgamesh, the Hero. Emily and Leigh read the Pageant of Philosophy dialogue between Simplicio and Job ( this is a short dialogue, included in the curriculum most weeks, between a fictional character named Simplicio, who is searching for wisdom, and various philosophers and thinkers throughout history ).
Then we made cylinder seals out of Sculpey polymer clay.

After co-op, we went to Amanda's volleyball game against a local charter school, Franklin Academy. They are somewhat of a rival, and we always have great games against them! On this occasion, both our Middle School team and our Varsity team played extremely well and won!

After Amanda's game, several of the girls and their families went out to Cici's Pizza for dinner, and then we all drove to Raleigh to watch the NC State Women's Volleyball team play Clemson. College volleyball is at such a higher level, and I think the girls were impressed with how high those ladies could jump and how hard they could hit that ball, and also how fast they reacted in order to keep those hard hits from hitting the floor! Alex ( NC State student!) met us at the game and hung out with us. He was pretty happy, because yesterday he was officially notified that he was assigned to active duty in the Army after graduation, instead of the reserves.

School This Week

School is going pretty well. We are really enjoying the history reading for Tapestry of Grace. This week it was the three books, Gilgamesh the King, The Revenge of Ishtar, and The Last Quest of Gilgamesh, all by Ludmila Zelman. Jason was fascinated by the story, and the illustrations are gorgeous. Although Jason is 9, I am still reading most of his books aloud. Occasionally, we read together, with him reading one page, me reading the next, and so on. His reading skills are progressing, but just not at the speed that allow him to read independently at the level that his other learning is taking place. That's okay. Eventually, it will all catch up. We did maps this week that show where the descendents of Noah settled, and also the main cities in ancient Mesopotamia. We use blank outline maps and color and label them with colored pencils or markers. I bought clear return address labels, and write on them with fine line Sharpie for Jason to use to label his maps ~ the point is for him to learn the geography, not agonize over printing neatly or small enough to fit the map. I am still having Jason work on the Time4Learning site every day. I was going to cancel the subscription at the end of the summer, but I think it is helping provide some needed skill practice in his weak areas right now, and he really likes it, so I'll keep it a while longer.

We haven't had time to do any hands-on projects this week. Volleyball practices/games take up afternoon time, and Jason goes to a friend's house 2 afternoons a week for an hour of science and another hour of play time! And today we are having other friends over for lunch, because they are moving to another state in just a few days. Time with them takes precedence over school work, which will still be here when they leave.

So school with Jason is fun this year, Amanda is doing really well keeping up with all her work. I am still struggling with the almost-18-yr-old on managing his time and setting priorities. He has been asking me to help edit papers an hour before class ( for an outside literature class) and is not keeping up with the work that is for me, as opposed to his outside classes. And talking to his friends on the phone is apparently a higher priority than catching up on that work. You can add that to your prayer list, if you think of it. Can you tell I'm frustrated?

Anyway, the weather has shifted dramatically to nice, comfortable FALL temps this past week. What a relief, after the extreme heat we were having just a short time ago. Time to go buy a couple of pumpkins for the front steps!

Builders

This is one of those inspirational pieces that makes the rounds on the internet. I have no idea who wrote it, but it touches my heart.

I'm invisible.....

It all began to make sense ~ the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?' Obviously not. No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all.

I'm invisible.

Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?

Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Pick me up right around 5:30, please.'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude ---but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going .. she's going ... she's gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a banana clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'

In the days ahead I would read -- no, devour -- the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:

• No one can say who built the great cathedrals -- we have no record of their names. These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.


• The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything. A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man , 'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.' And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.' I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day,even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.'


• At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder ~ as one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.


• The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand-bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, 'You're gonna love it there.'
  

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we 're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

Blessed By Friends

I am so thankful for the wonderful friends that God has blessed me with. I can remember times in my life, mostly when my children were little and I didn't have much fellowship with other women, when I really didn't have any friends. I had my "old" friends, from high school and college, whom I sent Christmas cards to and saw maybe once every year or two or three. I had acquaintances from church and the neighborhood and my husband's job, and a few people who had the potential to become friends ~ but inevitably one of us moved away or had some other big life change which interfered with that developing relationship. My husband has always been my friend, but honestly we don't always speak the same "language" and his impatient urging to " just give the me guy's version" doesn't exactly promote deep discussions about life or faith or family or anything else. [ love ya, hon! ] But at this stage of my life I can honestly say that I have dear women friends who are as close as sisters, and they are a huge blessing to me. We pray for one another, we encourage one another, we inspire one another ~ sometimes we hold one another accountable. Some are older than me, some are younger than me ~ but we are knitted together by a love of family and a heart for the Lord. I know I can count on these ladies if I need a good laugh or a shoulder to cry on or a cup of sugar or a sitter for my kids.
We can talk for hours and solve all the world's problems, or maybe just one of our own. I praise God for you, my friends.

Saturday Brunch

Amanda and I hosted a Stampin'Up Party and Brunch this morning for 18 friends. Stampin' Up is a company that sells rubber stamps, papers, inks, embellishments, and tools for making wonderfully creative greeting cards, scrapbook pages, and other nifty projects. Hosting a party at our house always involves days of cleaning to make our generally cluttered and chaotic home "company presentable" ~ which in my mind, should be the normal state of things, but that is another blog. And since we were out of the house yesterday from 9:00 AM - 7:00 PM, we stayed up late last night cooking for our brunch. I really do enjoy entertaining, so this was actually enjoyable work...fitting it in around the rest of "life" is what makes it a wee bit stressful. But I'm not complaining because the morning was a lot of fun, and everyone enjoyed themselves.
Our brunch spread consisted of a bowl of cut up cantaloupe and strawberries, banana nut bread, apple muffins, creamy strawberry crepes, ham & swiss quiche, broccoli cheddar quiche, and apple crisp, along with juices, tea, and coffee.
Here are some of the recipes:

CREAMY STRAWBERRY CREPES
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
3 Tbl. melted butter
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt

1 (8 oz) pkg lite cream cheese
1 1/4 cup sifted confectioners sugar
1 Tbl.lemon juice
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup heavy cream, whipped

4 cups sliced strawberries, lightly sweetened

Place eggs, milk, water, melted butter, flour, and salt in blender; blend until smooth.
Heat a lightly oiled non-stick skillet over medium heat. Pour in about 3 Tbls. of batter all at once ( I used a 1/4 cup measure, and filled it about 3/4 full ). Immediately tip and rotate the pan to spread the batter into a circle, as thin as possible. Don't worry if it isn't exactly round! Flip the crepe with a spatula when the edges begin to brown and the batter looks set. Cook the other side about 30 seconds. Stack finished crepes on a plate with wax paper in between.

Blend the cream cheese, confectioners sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth. Gently fold in the whipped cream.

To serve, fill each crepe with a large spoonful ( about 1/3 cup ) of cream cheese filling and a scoop of strawberries. Roll up and top some more strawberries and a swirl of sweetened whipped cream. YUM!!!!!!

BROCCOLI CHEDDAR QUICHE
2 Tbl. butter
1 onion, minced
1 tsp minced garlic
2 cups chopped fresh broccoli
1 9-inch unbaked pie crust
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
4 eggs, well beaten
1 cup milk
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 Tbl. butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Melt butter in large skillet; add onion, garlic, and chopped broccoli. Cook slowly, stirring often, until vegetables are soft. Spoon into unbaked pie shell. Cover with shredded cheddar. Set aside. Combine eggs and milk in a mixing bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in melted butter. Pour egg mixture over broccoli and cheese mixture. Bake for 45 minutes or until center has set.


APPLE CRISP
10 cups peeled and sliced Granny Smith apples
1 cup white sugar
1 Tbl. all purpose flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 cup apple juice

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In large mixing bowl, toss apples with the sugar, 1 Tbl. flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Pour into a 13x9 baking dish. Pour apple juice over all.
In another bowl, combine the oats, 1 cup flour, brown sugar & cinnamon. Stir in the melted butter. Crumble evenly over the top of the apple mixture.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Ramblings...

Well, I've about gotten over this cold. I think the Echinacea & C capsules as well as the Zinc lozenges and orange juice I pounded all helped shorten the duration... I still have a lingering cough and sometimes drippy nose, but feel MUCH better than last week.

Alex had his 4 wisdom teeth removed on Friday. He had cavities in 2 of them, one upper and one lower, and decided he should take care of it now and not wait for the Army to yank them later. Wise, I think. Anyway, he stayed here for the weekend and ate jello and pudding and yogurt, progressing to macaroni and cheese and chicken noodle soup, and went back to college on Sunday with his bottle of pain killers, but his face looking pretty much back to normal. I cut his hair for him while he was home too ~ an "Army" cut, buzzed with no guard... didn't start off quite that way, but let's just say that my attempts at blending short to longer on top didn't quite work out.
He called this afternoon, quite excited ( for Alex ) over his first Spanish grade for this semester ~ a 93. Woo hoo! Foreign languages are like.... well, foreign languages to him! Doesn't come too easily. This Spanish 3 class is required for his major, so that grade is a great way to start the semester.

School is going well so far. We haven't actually gotten through a whole week as planned yet, but that is pretty typical. Between Labor Day holiday, birthdays, sickness, field trip, volleyball, wisdom teeth .... life happens. My weekly schedules are my starting point and compass, pointing to where we want to go each week. We may digress from the plan, but the compass points us back to where we should be. So if we don't get it all done.... so what? Learning does not just happen in the few things I write down on my piece of paper.

Our Co-op on Fridays is great fun. This was a great addition to our school. Thank you, Eve, for getting all of us pulled together. I think we have a great group of families, and I'm looking forward to each week. I just have to get my Jeopardy cards made before late Thursday night!

Jason starts soccer this week. He is excited! Really, he loves any and all sports. I'll miss his game this week because Amanda and I are hosting a Stampin' Up party and brunch here. I need a few more supplies to get going, but we are wanting to make greeting cards for our family and friends, and maybe some to put in Aunt Chris's new gift shop in CT?????

Mark is studying plumbing manuals this week, trying to figure out how to repair our bathroom shower. It is always something..... we have been down to one shower for the past 2 weeks.


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TV-Free Update

You may have wondered how our TV-Free month of August went? Let me just sum it up in one word ~ sublime! Really, it was virtually painless! We did allow the younger kids to watch movies on 2 nights that daddy and I went out for a date night. The college guy cooperated during the day, but did sneak into the den/TV room and shut the door after 11 PM for some tv and video game time. I think the almost 18-yr-old joined him a time or two. Still, I consider the venture a rousing success. Jason, age 9, rediscovered Legos, and spent many hours building space ships and forts. He colored designs in the Mindware coloring books , listened to a lot of Adventures in Odyssey stories on CD, rode his bike and new scooter ( when it wasn't 100+ degrees outside ), played board games with his sister, and sorted baseball cards. Really, nobody missed it. So, we are planning to continue the practice, with some adjustments, indefinitely. I really like the overall atmosphere of the house without that distraction playing in the background, vying for attention, and filling young ( and old ) minds with mush...

Amazing Video! - Lifehouse "Everything"

Watch this with your teens!!!!!!!!



http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ee73e63418003b47d7d5

Yucky Summer Cold

I woke up Monday morning with a cold, and it has smacked me hard! Stuffy head, sniffles, scratchy throat, achy, tired....ugh. I carried on yesterday through scorekeeping for Amanda's volleyball game and speaking at the Lighthouse meeting last night, but was really dragging by the time I got home. I took some Nyquil, which helped me sleep better than I did the night before. Fortunately this was a "stay at home" day, so I slept a little later than normal and took a nap this afternoon. I've been taking extra Vitamin C and drinking orange juice, taking Echinacea and Zinc, drinking hot tea, and even doctored some canned chicken noodle soup with garlic, ginger, and cayenne! That opens up those sinus passages! Thankfully, I don't get sick too often.

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Football Fever?

We are a basketball family. ACC basketball rules in this house, my husband coaches my son's varsity homeschool basketball team, my kids all play basketball, we watch college basketball on TV (but no NBA!) None of us has ever cared much for football , although my oldest son has become a Carolina Panthers fan since he's been away at college. So what was all that noise going on in the TV Room Saturday afternoon ~ screams and groans and excited shouts coming from my 19-year-old daughter as she sat watching football scores scroll across the bottom of the TV screen? Well, it seems that a certain football team from little ole' Appalachian State University was pulling off the biggest upset in NCAA football history by beating the Michigan ( BIG TEN!) Wolverines! We don't get the channel that carried the game, so she had to follow what was happening by the scrolling scores and the astonished discussion of the ESPN commentators!
Way to go, Mountaineers!

Third Week of School

This was our 3rd week of school. We had to squeeze work into 3 days, since Thursday was our field trip and Friday was TOG Co-op. But things went pretty well. We started working on a papier mache mummy case, and it is coming out great. I'll have pictures once we finish. We read more about ancient Egypt and the pharaohs and pyramids this week, labeled maps of ancient Egypt with the names of cities, and watched a video from National Geographic. To review the vocabulary words from TOG this week, I typed out the list of words with definitions to read over together. Then I made a Word Search and Crossword puzzle, using http://www.puzzlemaker.com/. Next week I'll probably make a BINGO game to review all 3 weeks of our Ancient Egypt study.

Co-op was a lot of fun again yesterday. Both Amanda's 8th/9th grade group (which I co-teach) and Jason's 4th/5th grade group do a Jeopardy game as review each week, and the kids are loving that! My group did presentations this week ( just to our small group) on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and I was so pleased at the great job they all did! Then we discussed the history and literature reading for the week, read the Pageant of Philosophy dialogue that is included in the Tapestry of Grace curriculum, and started work on our tomb paintings ~ Ancient Egyptian designs from a coloring book, which we traced onto newsprint using an overhead projector, and will then paint and display at our Unit Celebration in October.

Next week we'll be adding a couple of more things to our weekly schedule. Amanda's Biology class starts Tuesday morning. It is held once a week and is taught by a homeschool dad who is a professor in the Botany dept. at NC State. The are using Apologia's Exploring Creation With Biology , which is the same book my older kids all used. The Apologia books are great for high school science ~ they are written for homeschoolers and come from a Biblical worldview. Tuesday is also the first day of Eric's American Literature class, which is being taught by a former homeschool mom who used to teach English at a local Christian school. She and her husband also happen to be Eric's Sunday School teachers this year, so that should be interesting! Jason will be starting his science class this week as well. Last year, he met with his best friend, Nathan, and Nathan's mom, Tammy, for science two afternoons a week, and they worked through Considering God's Creation. This year they are using Jeannie Fulbright's Exploring Creation With Botany , part of Apologia's Young Learner's Series.

We still haven't started Latin or Write Shop, but it is coming. Easing in is the way to go, at least for me.

Amanda's volleyball team had 2 games this week. We played against Cary Christian's lower middle school team on Tuesday, and won very easily. It was not a good match-up, as the Cary girls were apparently all first-year players with barely a week or two of practice under their belts. Our coach and girls on the bench all started cheering for them to hit the ball! Yesterday we played against Franklin Academy, and it was an excellent contest!! Our teams are very evenly matched, and both teams played hard, with our girls pulling out the win! Hooray for the Eagles!

Another Birthday

This week was very full! Tuesday was my birthday and our wedding anniversary, and yesterday was Mark's birthday! ( we were born in the same year, so I am 3 days older! ) Sarah got a ride back to Raleigh from Boone yesterday, so she is home for the long weekend. Last night, she and Amanda treated the family to dinner out at Red Robin, to celebrate not only Mark's and my birthdays, but Jason's on 8/20 and Eric's coming up on 9/26. WOW.
Mark and Eric and I decided to combine our birthday gifts this year and buy ................dun du du dah!..............high speed internet service!!!!! Woo hoo! I know my friends out there are jumping up and down at the idea of actually being able to reach this household by telephone ~ a frustration that MANY of you have shared with me. :-) And it will be so much better for Mark when he needs to work from home. Now he won't have to go hang out at The Factory or The Well or other local place with wireless! And I can actually consider signing the kids up for online classes, such as those offered by the Lukeion Project or Potters School. Even Time4Learning will work so much better, not having to wait 10 minutes for new material to load! High speed has been ordered but not actually turned on yet, but should be any day now!