On this Day... one of my favorite authors was born.

On this day in 1809, poet, author and literary critic Edgar Allan Poe is born in Boston, Massachusetts.

By the time he was three years old, both of Poe's parents had died, leaving him in the care of his godfather, John Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant. After attending school in England, Poe entered the University of Virginia (UVA) in 1826. After fighting with Allan over his heavy gambling debts, he was forced to leave UVA after only eight months. Poe then served two years in the U.S. Army and won an appointment to West Point. After another falling-out, Allan cut him off completely and he got himself dismissed from the academy for rules infractions.

Dark, handsome and brooding, Poe had published three works of poetry by that time, none of which had received much attention. In 1836, while working as an editor at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, Virginia, Poe married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. He also completed his first full-length work of fiction, Arthur Gordon Pym, published in 1838. Poe lost his job at the Messenger due to his heavy drinking, and the couple moved to Philadelphia, where Poe worked as an editor at Burton's Gentleman's Magazine and Graham's Magazine. He became known for his direct and incisive criticism, as well as for dark horror stories like "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Tell-Tale Heart." Also around this time, Poe began writing mystery stories, including "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter"--works that would earn him a reputation as the father of the modern detective story.

In 1844, the Poes moved to New York City. He scored a spectacular success the following year with his poem "The Raven." While Poe was working to launch The Broadway Journal--which soon failed--his wife Virginia fell ill and died of tuberculosis in early 1847. His wife's death drove Poe even deeper into alcoholism and drug abuse. After becoming involved with several women, Poe returned to Richmond in 1849 and got engaged to an old flame. Before the wedding, however, Poe died suddenly. Though circumstances are somewhat unclear, it appeared he began drinking at a party in Baltimore and disappeared, only to be found incoherent in a gutter three days later. Taken to the hospital, he died on October 7, 1849, at age 40

UPDATE on changes for the rest of the year

Well Monday we start back up and I am not excited sorry after homeschooling for 10 years I am very very tired for some reason. I know I will be fine but I am so sick of changing things up mid-year it is always at least one subject I have to change up, and this year it is no different we are changing history.

The kids are doing well the Queen to Be is doing farely well in math-I am seeing progress and Saxon is looking like it is doing its job. The chef is actually thriving in math and is working almost a year ahead. The prince is doing really well also with Saxon, I think for right now it was a great switch.

We have continued to be behind in Government, ugh much to both my disappoint and the Queen's. I think we really just want to be done with it and umm we are sadly very, very behind. UGH but I the queen will be done by February so we can start and Intro to Worldviews. I think my poor little queen has had a hard time shifting into having more expected from her, harder co-op classes, and umm having only one assigned time to talk with mom during the day.

The chef is needing some tweaking this semester some things I really need to work on with him but umm my time has been on settling others into what is expected of them. We are switching him to the History Odyssey program because I think the outlining that they do with Kingfisher will be helpful to him. He is tends to be "organizer" thinker... he likes to put everything in categories(geez I don't know where he gets that from). I think it will put a lot of the planning pressure off me.

Here is a couple of pictures from Christmas if anyone is interested.