I might start school today. I've been thinking I would every week for the last four weeks, but then…well…there have been all kinds of big tasks that needed doing. Things that I didn't expect. None of them, on their own, enough to derail my plans, but taken altogether, they would have made adding school into the mix a real stress. And weirdly, and please don't judge me, I sort of enjoy the school part. When I'm not doing anything else,... Read more
Just after I posted yesterday the summer cold struck Elphine and left her curled uncomfortably on the couch, too listless even to draw or do anything. So instead of packing her and everyone into the car for a fun outing, I spent the rest of the day making Meat Pies and Cobbler. She is snoaring loudly next to me now, and it looks like I will make her stay here for another whole day, flat, with small children patting her... Read more
The festivities are still carrying on. Having a child turn twelve is not like having a child turn one. You plunk their chubby little cheeks into a highchair, you sing them happy birthday, you take a bunch of pictures, you go to bed. With twelve, you enter the Land of Negotiation and Expectation. “I like Sunday,” Elphine moaned, “but it turned out to be just a regular Sunday.” “I know, I’m sorry,” I said limply. “It’s a work day. The... Read more
Day Twenty-Nine I Kings 6:37-38 In the fourth year the foundation of the house of The Lord was laid, in the month of Ziv. And in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its parts, and according to all its specifications. He was seven years in building it. Solomon did what his father, David, longed to do. To build a house for The Lord, to make a physical... Read more
I love Cole Park. It's so restful and pretty. Even with tons of kids screaming and splashing in the water. That was yesterday. Today we have to run around and clean and make some kind of nice lunch for tomorrow after church. And maybe Matt will mow the lawn. I will kill more beetles. I was going to try and assemble a lot of links of interesting things I read this week, but I didn't read anything. So no links.... Read more
One I think I've finally redeemed myself from the Bitter Flesh Soup of Satan. I don't even know where that post is and I'm not going to look it up. But I'm sure you all remember. I've made some decent soups for Shepherd's Bowl in the intervening months, but last night seemed better, even though I did the same thing I always do. Onion, garlic, green pepper, cabbage, broccoli, carrot (skipped the sweet potato–too hot, too lazy), big cans of... Read more
I've got a busy day ahead of me. Elphine is turning 12 on Sunday and so I've got to go out and consider what kinds of things she can be given on that occassion, and I've got to haul in massive quantities of food so that I can spend the afternoon cooking for Shepherd's Bowl. I feel a kind of crisis, with Elphine on the edge of being so old. First of all, in the muck and exhaustion of the... Read more
Baby Elspeth has a loud summer cold. She has been wandering around banging into things and weeping and then rising up to play and then hurting herself and then shouting, “My Nose Are Yucky!” If you don't immediately stop and produce a Kleenex she comes all the way apart at the seams. The others seem unaffected, for now. Elphine is fussing and plotting over her birthday and her future. She came to me last night and listed the things she... Read more
Tuesdays are the best thing ever right now. Why, you ask. Tuesdays are an ordinary day in which many bad things could possibly happen. But you have probably not managed to persuade a really sensible, no nonesense, interesting and clever young woman to come ride herd on your children from noon to four, for a way small amount of money. She breezes in, cool as a summer breeze, precisely at noon, and then Matt and I fling ourselves into a... Read more
I recently came across a really lovely blog. It has a lovely name, with the word lovely in it, and it is very pretty and the writing is lovely, and so I check it every day now. It is part of the whole pantheon of Homeschool Blogs that you can spend all your alotted homeschool time reading and browsing and accumulating helpful tips, advice, curricula, chore charts, printables, lap book helps, unit studies, ways to get stains out of your... Read more
Preventing Grace
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