This Week at Home

In which, we continue to make progress.

On the Heart and Mind:

I am so thankful for how things went this week.  Ryan had a low grade fever Sunday evening, so I was not sure how things would go.  He remains congested, but is functioning.  I've let him have extra sleep each morning.  And I let him skip gym class.  It seems to be working.  Of course, I hope no one else comes down with this.  

I got some really good news from a close family member.  I can't say exactly what it is, but it going to be nice seeing them more often very soon.  

Only 5 more working Saturdays of tax season remain.  We are doing very well this season.  We get to see Jeff for an hour or two each night, so that is nice.  I am sure this will dwindle down in the next several weeks.  I am not allowing myself to have any pitty parties this year.  There are too many people with harder situations than mine for that. 

Goatee?

Life and Learning:

We finished Teresa of Calcutta and Shadow Spinner, both, very good books.  We will start two new books next week.  I think we are moving on to Africa from India.

The older two students wrote persuasive essays this week.  Grace chose to persuade me that it would be better to have cookies for her birthday rather than a cake, as we will be camping that week.  Ryan wrote about why Linux is better than Windows.  (I agree, by the way.) 

I've started gathering books for next year.  I bought two years of Teaching Textbook's math from a dear online friend.  We're getting ready to place our Sonlight order, too.   I need to place an order for Apologia during CBD's sale this month.  I love curriculum sales! 

Look familiar?

Around the House:

Just keeping up with the basics, which I have decided is good enough during the school year.  I mean, really, it is not going to change, so I need to get over it!  :-)

Camping out in the family room.

In the Kitchen:

I splurged and made a huge pan of lasagna this week.  It's a splurge when cheese and meat are so dear.  I used the leftover marinara that I made last week.  I will end up freezing lunch sized portions for my husband's lunches, so it ends up going a long way. 

Saturday, we'll make some treats to take to my Grandma on Sunday. 

On the Nook:

Oscar Wilde's play, An Ideal Husband is what I am reading for fun this week.  It's a tale of what happens when you lie.  I'll be looking for another book soon, as it is a very short story.  Any suggestions?  Remember, it must be in the public domain.  I am thinking about Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.  It's been a long time since I read that book. 

Scripture Memory:

Going to have a review week, going back to the beginning. 

Picture of the Week:

Quote of the Week:

"We all have our short comings," Teresa said, "but the marvelous thing is that God uses us for His work, even with our weaknesses.  God writes through us, and however imperfect pencils we may be he writes beautifully."  

from Teresa of Calcutta, by D. Jeanene Watson, p. 120.

One last thing.  My friend Keri of Sunny Keri has made a short video that I think you just have to go see.  She adds her gorgeous photos to Wyane Watson's singing of I am His and He is Mine.  Just beautiful.  Thank you, Keri.


I hope you've had a great week, too!
~Jenn









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The Lasagna Garden

Several years ago, a friend of mine kept talking about starting a lasagna garden.  Images of tomatoes, basil, and oregano filled my head.  Was she going to grow wheat to make pasta too? 

Skip forward some years and I finally figured out what she was talking about.  I was instantly enchanted.  But I was afraid of failure, so I went with a more trusted method, The Square Foot Garden.  We had very good success with our boxes, too.  Only trouble was that we had to leave them behind, two houses ago. 

Presently, we have a backyard that is wooded, which is not good for a garden.  There is a very small, gated area off the deck,that is in the sun, mostly.  We've decided that this is where we want to grow our small garden.  And we have decided that we can best do this most economically with the Lasagna method. 

So what is this method?  What does it have to do with lasagna?  It's all about layers.  The beauty is that the layers are on top of the ground that does not need to be tilled.  You build up.  You use nutrient rich materials to make these layers.  There is cardboard on the bottom to discourage weeds.  I am all about discouraging weeds!

If you want to know the details let me suggest two really great resources to check out , Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding! by Patricia Lanza  and Homestead Blessings, their gardening DVD.  


I'll let you know how it goes.  Has anyone else given this a try? 
~Jenn

Having Thoughts of Spring

Don't you just love this tree?  

It won't be too much longer and the trees in my yard will be just as green and full of life.  Soon we will have to mow the grass.  Probably not until late April, but soon enough.  Then it will  be rainy and growing like mad and we will not be able to mow it because of the rain.  And we will start to complain about spring. 

We hope to plant a very simple garden this year.  We will be using the popular "Lasagna" method.   We have purchased Homestead Blessings DVD about gardening.  Even though we've had good gardens before, we always feel like we could learn more.  This reminds me that I should be ordering some seeds soon.  Grace already worked in the garden, picking out rocks.  Our frost free date is not until around Mother's Day.  It is sooooooo hard to wait.

My husband, always thinking about spring, has been busy making camping reservations.  We even had the camper popped up on Sunday.  Talk about anticipation!  Oh my!  The next time we pop it up, we'll be cleaning it and filling it with supplies.  It's getting so easy to pop it up and down.  This last time we did it so quickly that we thought at first that we must have forgotten something. 

This morning, I heard more birds singing than ever.  Even they know spring is coming and they cannot contain their joyful song.   I have not seen my snow bird friends in a couple days, too.  I wonder where they flew off to.

With spring comes the natural urge to clean.  To spring clean or not?  I'd probably need to take a full week off of school to do it well.  Who wants to do that?  The house could use it though. 

I read about an idea to make a list of jobs I want done and then offer 50 cents per job, if it is done to my requirements and done before I get to it.  If we take the week off, we could work on this list in the mornings and then go do something fun in the afternoons, assuming we have the energy.  Anyway, that is just an idea I am tossing around, not sure it will happen.  It might be nice to just keep going and get done with the school year earlier.  Then I can clean.  It will be late instead of early spring and does it really matter?

One other thing I am looking forward to is opening up the windows to air out the house.  Perhaps the germs will go away.  There is nothing like an open window  on a warm spring day!


These are just some of my thoughts of spring at the moment.  I cannot believe that winter is almost over and we made it.  I purposed to get through this winter with a happy heart.  I did not want to grumble.  I wanted to celebrate life, all of it.  Praise be to God. 

Now, onward to spring!
~Jenn

A 13th Birthday in Pictures

It was a fun birthday weekend.  I can't think of anything lacking in the birthday boy's experience.

It was great celebrating our first born.  I feel as if he was such a special blessing to our family. He broke us in and still is paving the way for the others.

Both my husband and I were first borns.  It comes with its advantages and disadvantages.  As first time parents we made our share of mistakes, not in his favor.  However, he is the first to get a cell phone, to be able to babysit his sibblings, and has his own laptop. 

Ryan has been his own little person since day one.  God knew we needed him to begin our lives as parents. And now that he is 13, he is making his way in this world of ours.  He has such potential.  He has a brilliant mind for computers.  He loves to read and he can remember almost everything he reads.  He is a good writer.  He loves to tell others about everything he is learning.  He is serious about martial arts. His ambition in life is to be the biggest geek ever.  *smile*

 And now, we get to guide him through his final years at home.  I am confident we will make mistakes along the way.  I am also confident that he will continue to thrive despite them.  He is a creative guy, who has a lot going for him.  It is going to be a pleasure watching him grow into the man that God wants him to be. 

Icebergs in Lake Michigan?

Someone who knows my love for Lake MIchigan sent me these amazing photos of icebergs reportedly in Lake Michigan.  I say reportedly, because you cannot always believe every thing you are sent in an email.  Even if they turned out not to be in Lake Michigan, they are amazing and worth a post here.  The following text accompanied the pictures.  If I knew who to give credit, I would.  Despite that, enjoy these awesome works of art from the hand of our Creator. 


"Icebergs in Lake Michigan sometimes have stripes, formed by
layers of snow that react to different conditions.

Blue stripes are often created when a crevice in the ice sheet
fills up with melt water and freezes so quickly that no bubbles form.

When an iceberg falls into the lake, a layer of water can
freeze to the underside. If this is rich in algae, it can form a
green stripe.

Brown, black and yellow lines are caused by sediment, picked up
when the ice sheet grinds downhill towards the lake.

Frozen Wave Pixs - Nature is amazing!

 

The water froze the instant the wave broke through the
ice.  That's what it is like in     Lake Michigan   where it is the
coldest weather in decades.  Water freezes the instant
it comes in contact with the air.  The temperature of the
water is already some degrees below freezing. 

Just look at how the wave froze in mid-air!!!  

 





Jenn here, again.  These pictures confirm my long standing belief that there are icebergs in Lake Michigan that never thaw, thus making the lake so cold all summer long! (lol) The main reason I cannot usually get much more than a toe into the water until Labor Day.  But it sure is a pretty lake!  

And alas, these photos have been confirmed to not be of Lake Michigan origins, just as I suspected.  You can read more about it here on Snoopes.com.


A good reminder to always check first if you get an amazing forwarded email! 
 

This Week At Home

In which we have a normal week.

On the Heart and Mind:
 
Thankfulness comes to mind.  I am thankful for this quiet week.  Trevor is all better.  We lost a little sleep this week from violent storms, but it could have been much worse.  It was for some not too far from us.  Roofs were lost during the night.  I am grateful for safety, even if we were robbed of our sleep one night.

Life and Learning:

We have had a great week of lessons.  The biography of Mother Teresa is a fantastic read.  It has made me very sorry that I did not pay much attention to her when she was alive.  I find it fascinating that she was in India for 15 years before she saw the poverty around her as a problem.  Once she started to see others as "Jesus in disguise", she totally changed her focus.  The book is graphic about the poor dying destitute people of India.  And the daily finding of babies in garbage cans just breaks my heart!  I am so glad we are reading this book.

We are also very much enjoying the book, Shadow Spinner, by Susan Fletcher.  I am not usually a fan of middle eastern themes.  I do not enjoy reading about how people are ill-treated, especially the women.  This book is no different in that respect, however, the story is interesting and we are kept in suspense.  We can't wait to see what happens next.

I  added another book a few weeks ago that I forgot to mention, Wisdom and the Millers by Mildred A. Martin.  We read this book before when the kids were very young.  Each chapter is based on a verse or more of Proverbs.  There is a simple story that goes along with the verse.  We are using this as our devotional at this time.

In the Kitchen:

We made peanutbutter cookies for our AWANA leaders this week.  Other than that, it has been more of the usual.  This weekend is a big birthday for my oldest, he will be making his cake with my mom, a much loved tradition.  I will post pictures next week.  I almost forgot, Grace did make a cake all on her own last week.

On the Nook:

I've had too much fun this week reading more books from Louisa May Alcott. I read An Old Fashioned Girl, which was a total delight.  I am an old fashioned girl!

I also read Behind a Mask, or a Woman's Power.  Now this is a bit of a different book from what I've read from her.  The story was good.  It was just different.  The main character, instead of being a goody-goody as usual in her books,is a big stinker!  She is after money and prestige.

Scripture Memory Work: 

This is my last week spent on these verses.  I drew a picture last week so that I could visualize the verses.  I am a visual learner, after all.

Quote of the Week:

"When you feel out of sorts, try to make someone else happy, and you will soon be so yourself."
An Old Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott

 

Thank you for taking the time to read about our week.
~Jenn

Lake Michigan in February

Just a few notes taken down recently at my favorite spot on this great earth!  

The shelf ice, dangerous as it is beautiful, was spectacular.  It hides the lake until you climb a little higher onto the dunes, exposing the bright, clear blue water.  I love to see the waves crashing behind the shelf ice, producing a clap of spray.  It was hard to capture on film, but you can kind of see it in this next photo. 

Here is a good shot of Dune Creek, which empties into the lake.  I love how it snakes through the beach. 

I love to hear the reaction of locals (my husband's family) when we tell them that we went to the lake.  They think we are crazy.  I think it is they who are missing out.  I cannot imagine living 3 miles from this awesome place and only going to the beach during the summer.