Homegrown Thoughts

My husband took Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off from work. Usually we make plans for these times and then get very little, if anything, done. Well, not this time! I don’t think I’ve had such a continuous stretch of manual labor…ever. Here is what we’ve accomplished over the last few days, in no particular order:

1. Shopped at multiple home improvement stores.  Bought from one, ordered online from another.
2. Replaced the 3 yard lights on the front of our house.
3. Got part of our online order picked up from Lowe’s - the rest is coming later.
4. Replaced non-working  disposal.
5. Put our gazebo up on the deck.
6. Assembled (and used) new grill.
7. Assembled new lawn mower.
8. Used said mower on front and back yard on 2 different days.
9. Manually de-thatched front yard.
10. Declared war on sweet ants who decided to invade our kitchen - their occupation was short-lived.
11. Bagged up yard waste.
12. Hauled several large and small items to the curb for ‘pick up anything’ trash day.
13. Removed front storm door and took to the curb.
14. Gave my older son a haircut.
15. Put down grass patch in several spots in the yard, watered, etc.
16. Weeded, cultivated and seeded 2 flower beds.
17. Trimmed the raspberry bushes.
18. Cleaned out the shed.
19. Got a Razor scooter and helmet for the kids.
20. Got a new bike for older son since we discovered he is now too tall for the existing bike.
21. Raked leftover debris out from the other 2 beds (which should have been done in the fall) and put into yard waste bags.
22. Removed one side of our deck bench after realizing that it was not a good idea to actually light the grill under the gazebo because it could catch on fire and our deck didn’t leave enough room for the grill AND the gazebo.  Decided to do this on the spur of the moment so we could get the wood out to the curb for pick up.  This is a typically impulsive move on my part especially since we didn’t measure to make sure it would fit even after moving the gazebo over!
23. Installed new curved shower curtain rod in the master bath.

I might be forgetting something, but that’s probably about it.  You’ll notice there is no mention of laundry, washing dishes or any other regular housework on that list.  That’s because I didn’t do any of that!  So guess what I’m doing today.  :-)  It works out well, anyway.  Hubby is back at work at least for most of the day and it’s rainy and cloudy outside.  My body needs the rest - I literally hurt from the tips of my fingers (from raking and I got a splinter, even!) to my toes (tons of standing and walking and crouching…).  So I’ll hobble around the house today and try to get the inside of our house looking like a family did not run rampant through it without cleaning anything for nearly a week.

Whew!  Vacations can really wear a person out!

Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before…either into a creature that is in harmony  with God, …or into one that is in a state of war with God. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.   — C.S. Lewis,  Mere Christianity

Is that title random enough?

We have ‘officially’ finished the legally required number of school days for this year.  Since we school year-round, this isn’t really that big of a deal, but for some reason I’m feeling a sense of accomplishment.  We’ve also just finished my older son’s grammar book, the math book we were working on (taking time from Math-U-See to establish a bit more mastery in a tricky area before moving on) and the Capitalization & Punctuation workbook we were also using for Language Arts.  Things seem to be wrapping up all at the same time here without me planning it that way.  Funny how that happens.

We’re going back to Math-U-See now.  I back-tracked a few lessons to make sure we get a running start at it, and so far things are going much more smoothly than they did the last time we were here.  I’m glad I seem to have made the right decision to step back and work on the tough stuff more before moving on to new skills.

We’ll also be diving back in to The Mystery of History and our timeline notebook.  We’re learning about Africa in general and Tanzania in particular since we started sponsoring Selina.  I haven’t yet decided what will go into our Selina notebook and what will be made into a lapbook.  We’ll be continuing our Language Arts by using the Total Language Plus guide for Charlotte’s Web.  Just a small problem there.  I can’t find our copy of the book!  I’ve been almost literally tripping over the thing since I bought it last year and of course now that I need it, I can’t find it anywhere.  ARGH!  Good thing I’m in spring cleaning mode.  I’ll find that thing one way or another.  Or buy a new one, LOL.

My younger son has a new pet - a ladybug.  I got him a bug pod for Christmas and he’s had to wait all this time for a bug to put in it.  Poor child.  I suppose it was a little mean to give it to him so far ahead of time, but he managed to play with it in the meantime - treating it like Tinker Toys, mostly.  My older son found the first ladybug of the season (or a ‘leftover’ from last year) in the kitchen yesterday, so we now have it imprisoned comfortable in its new home.  Which my younger son is carrying around the house like it’s a pet carrier.  I’m just waiting for one of the tubes to fall off and the ladybug escape.  We’ve warned him but he doesn’t care.  He wants his ladybug with him so he can keep an eye on it. I’ve armed him with a magnifying glass in the hopes he’ll be happy watching it that way and not decide to take it out and ‘play’ with it.  We’ve given it water and some raisins so it should be good for now.  It’s currently napping on top of one of the raisins. :-)

So, that about does it for the excitement around here today.  Our heavy rainfall of earlier today has now turned into snow of the very fat and fluffy piling up quickly kind.  It should melt by tomorrow, though.  I’m so sick of snow, but at least we’re getting to the time of year when any snow we get can’t stay long.  Hopefully this will be the last of it for this season!

Sometimes our prayers are for deliverance from conditions which are morally indispensable — that is, conditions which are absolutely necessary to our redemption. God does not grant us these requests. He will not because He loves us with a pure and implacable purpose: that Christ be formed in us. If Christ is to live in my heart, if His life is to be lived in me, I will not be able to contain Him. The self, small and hard and resisting as a nut, will have to be ruptured. My own purposes and desires and hopes will have to at times be exploded. The rupture of the self is death, but out of death comes life. The acorn must rupture if an oak tree is to grow. — Elisabeth Elliott

We no longer hold the title of “Last Christian Homeschooling Family With Children Over the Age of Six Who Have Not Read or Seen The Chronicles of Narnia.” That’s LCHFWCOASWHNRSTCON, for short. Please, hold your applause and do not faint. It is true.

We have owned the movie probably since it first came out on DVD and never watched it. I also have the entire set of Chronicles of Narnia and it had not been cracked open. Well, we watched the movie tonight (even the 7 year old who claimed he did not want to watch it, but couldn’t stay away!) and said 7 year old has now requested that I read him part of the book, starting with the Magician’s Nephew, every day. Oh, yes he did!

Part of my hesitation was that I thought it might be too deep or that the boys (or me) wouldn’t like it, but we were all glued to it. That was a fast 2 hours! Tomorrow, I think my older son will be watching EVERY bonus feature on the DVD. I think the boys are officially hooked. Whew! :-)

So, I can now stop cringing in fear whenever the topic of Narnia comes up lest my total ignorance be revealed to the world. And yes, I did cry. A couple of times.

I must go now. He who wants to be read to is insisting we start NOW because he just can’t wait until tomorrow.