Gathering Up Sunshine

Happy day after Thanksgiving! 

The new banner that Grace and I made.

It's just been such a beautiful day here, weather wise.  Jeff and I took a brisk walk around a favorite park.  Made me think about Ma from The Long Winter, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, when she said,"Get yourselves full of sunshine while you can.  It will soon be winter and you'll have to stay indoors."  The book goes on to say,"Out in the bright soft weather they were storing up sunshine and fresh air, in themselves, for the winter when they could not have any."  That is what today was about, storing up sunshine, because the long winter is just around the corner.  I hope you were able to store up sunshine, too. 
~Jenn

Wordless Wednesday: Walking Up Boulders

Grace and I took a vigorous walk this morning.  (Sorry about the quality of the photo.  I had to use my cell phone.)

Too Busy or Blessed!

Merriam Webster defines busy as :

a : engaged in action : occupied b : being in use busy>

2

: full of activity : bustling busy seaport>

3

: foolishly or intrusively active : meddling

4

: full of distracting detail busy design>

Thankfully, I can eliminate the "foolishly or intrusively active" definition from my life, but the others fit, especially this week before a major holiday.  It is time to take a deep breath and get to work.  Another praise is that I have been faithfully cleaning my house the last several weeks, so this is not going to be as hard as it could have been.  And I am not doing ALL the cooking.  (Praise God!)

This is my plan inspired by Like Mother, Like Daughter's recent post on how to get ready for Thanksgiving.

Monday...

We still have gym,dance, and a full day of lessons.  In between all this, I am going to get the laundry all caught up and put upstairs to be put away before bed.  Then, I am going to work on the non-public areas.  They are mostly tidy, I will just vacuum, dust and swipe down the two upstairs bathrooms. 

Tuesday...

No school today or for the rest of the week!  After a walk at the park with my walking buddy, I will make a grocery run for last minute items.  I'll keep the kids busy with making a banner to hang in the dining room, name cards, and things like vacuuming the stairs, getting cobwebs down, and sweeping the front porch area.  They may decide they would rather do school.  *grins*  

Wednesday...

Today I will make ahead as much of the food as possible.  I will also clean the guest areas of our home.  We have church tonight, too.  

Here are the foods I am responsible for:  gravy, rolls, macaroni (homemade), sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn pudding, fruit, a cake for an uncle's birthday which is Thanksgiving, whipped cream, and drinks/ice.

Thursday...

My biggest concern will be for my attitude!  I must remain thankful for a house full of loving family and not resentful of the work.  Many, many years I went to someone else's home and now it is my turn to rise to the occasion.  Am I really too busy or just blessed? 

So, how are you getting ready for the big  day?  

~Jenn 

This song says it well... 
 

This Week At Home, Week No. 44

Monday:
A normal day for us.  I got to walk with my friend again at the gym while the kids had their class.  They really enjoy this class. 

We started a new book, Beyond the Desert Gate, by Mary Ray.  I can already tell that the kids are very interested in this story set in Palistine 69 AD.  I am getting used to the sad, hard luck stories that I used to avoid.  My reading tends to be of the happy, inspiring nature, if left to myself.  I always look ahead in a book so that I can prepare myself for the worst!  This book is no exception.  The father dies in chapter 5!  Ugh. 

Tuesday:
Home today except for a quick trip to Star Bucks with Grace for a mommy-daughter date.  (I got a tall skinny peppermint mocha, 100 calories.)  We brought Bibles and worked on her AWANA.  Sweet moments! 

I felt the tug of being lazy big time today.  I don't want to rebel against my cleaning routine.  I must fight this urge to skip cleaning this afternoon. When will I ever just learn to do my work and move on? Lots of you will not understand this struggle.  You make a list and do it EVERY SINGLE WEEK.  I look for ways out of the list.  But not today!  I made myself a big bucket of soapy stuff and went to work on the bathrooms.  Turned out to take so much less time than I worry about it.  Especially because it is getting done every week.  Momentum is on my side!


Wednesday:
Grace had another new friend over to play in the afternoon after lessons. I got to chat with her mama.  They are a homeschooling family with 7 kids, only 5 in the home still.  The youngest is not yet one.

My list said that I needed to detail the kitchen from top to bottom for its weekly washing, so I got that done right before lunch.  The laundry was brought up and put away, too.

Grace and Trevor had baptism class while AWANA is going on.  They are going to be baptized in two weeks.  I am so excited!  I joined them for the class while my AWANA girls are in game time. I got to hear their testimonies.  Very precious! 

Thursday:
Another social opportunity today.  Grace is going to her friends' home and their brother is coming here to hang out with my boys.  Plus there is choir for Trevor, karate for the other two, and I have bunco this evening. Oh my!  Thankfully, I got  groceries in the morning before lessons.  Not all lessons got done, either.  I'll do read alouds tomorrow.  The past few weeks I have been splitting our work between Thursday and Friday.  It helps me get my groceries done and cleaning gets done a lot better, too.

I am struggling with my attitude about buying groceries again.  I always feel so poor after I go.  Is it my imagination or is everything going up in price again?  My anxiety level goes up when I think about Thanksgiving here and all that means we will have to buy even with some people bringing things. 

I decided to pick myself up and read again this great post at The Legacy of Home, called Despairing Over the Household Allowance.  Mrs. White always has some encouraging words and good advice. 

Friday:  Finish strong! This is my motto day.  We must finish all that we did not get to yesterday.  Some neighbor kids may come to play after school.  And we get to be home tonight and relax.

This weekend:
Jeff's dad and step-mom are coming for lunch on Saturday.  It will be good to see them.  Sunday is a usual Sunday for us and Trevor has choir practice.

With next week being a holiday week, I think we will only have lessons on Monday and Tuesday.  That will help with getting ready for Thursday's hoopla.

Thanks for dropping by!
Jenn

This Week At Home, Number 43

Monday: 
Back to our busy Mondays!  This morning, while the kids were at gym class, I walked for half an hour with a friend on the track around the gym.  After gym, we dropped some books off at the library, wishing we could stay, but knowing we needed to get home and get busy.  Thankfully, before gym, we had read our Bible lesson and another book.  That just left reading aloud from Augustus Caesar's World, math, science, and language arts.  We also squeezed in lunch, did a ton of laundry, and worked on our AWANA verses.  Whew!

Today, I found a fun blog that I want to share called, A Slob Comes Clean.  Nony is great. She has a funny way of motivating us to keep trying.

So, I made another weekly cleaning schedule.  I hope this time I can make it stick.

Monday:  subdue laundry and do normal daily chores

Tuesday:  linens, laundry, bathrooms

Wednesday:  entry way and kitchen
(a good detailed cleaning from top to bottom)

Thursday:  groceries and take out trash

Friday:  dust, vacuum, put away school books

Tuesday: 
A day at home is always a good day!  It was 70 degrees today, so I opened the windows, maybe for the last time until spring.  After lessons, I tackled the bathrooms. Trevor vacuumed the learning/dining areas.  We all stripped our beds.  I washed, dried, and folded a bunch of laundry. I also vacuumed my bedroom and managed to make a very yummy new chicken recipe in the crock pot.  Grace and I peeled potatoes to make mashed potatoes, too.  (I LOVE mashed potatoes.  Probably  my most favorite food, actually.  Weird, I know.)

Wednesday:
Home again all this blustery day!  The wind was strong, but the temperatures hung in the 60's most of the day, dropping into the 40's in the early evening with sprinkles.  Thankfully the trees have almost lost all their leaves and so the yard is not totally recovered with those pesky critters! 

It's day 4 of our return to standard time.  Boy, it is dark early these days.  I am not a huge fan of daylight savings.  I miss the sun in the evening.  I guess I get to see it earlier in the morning, so that is a benefit.

And it is waking up the kids earlier and so we are getting more done in our day.  They are so funny, waking up an hour early on their own.  That will probably change once they adjust to the time change.  I wish it would not, though.  I like getting an earlier start. 

Thursday: 
We did our weekly grocery shopping before lessons to beat the rainy weather coming later.  I am so glad that we did, because it actually snowed a little. Nothing stuck, but it was coming down pretty fast for awhile.  Grace hurried outside and was able to play in it. 

It's been a good week.  Lessons are going well and the house is getting in shape.  Tonight, Jeff and I went to get my camera back while the kids were at karate.  Seems this time they found an internal board of some sort that needed to be replaced.  However, the picture quality was still blurry.  The poor guy there did not have authority to call the camera a loss, so we are waiting to hear from someone soon. Really. 


Friday:
Today we finish up our lessons for the week, put away our books and then get the house ready to host our first small group this evening.  I've worked on the house little by little this week, so the job will not be too hard, especially with the kids pitching in.  They are excited to host small group.  Their friends will be coming to watch a movie and then play. 

This weekend we are hoping to put up our Christmas lights outside, clean the gutters,and visit an apple orchard, if they have apples left and if it warms up enough to want to be outside. I hope you have a great weekend!  
~Jenn 

This Week At Home, Number 42

She could never be a frumpy housewife. 

Monday:
All was going well until Trevor got stung by a wasp.  He just went out to get the mail.  A wasp must have come inside with him where it proceeded to sting him on the neck.  This was his first ever sting, so I had to keep a close eye on him.  Poor guy.  He did not want to go outside again.  Only the lure of free candy could entice him.

We did get our lessons done.  Thankfully, they were done before the drama.  Lessons this week should be good.  We have fewer distractions.  Gym and dance are off this week.  I am glad for the little break.

Star Trek meets Army guy.

Tuesday:
Today's weather was amazing!  We made a lot of progress in our lessons, especially math with Grace.  We hit a wall with long division.  There were tears.  Sobs to be exact.  Thankfully, I knew to be patient.  Grace said she is not going to have kids, just cats, so that she doesn't have to teach them math!  Perhaps that is a good plan for her, however, she still needs to learn math, so we worked on it until the tears stopped and in the end she was getting it done!  Not to brag, but Trevor says I am a good math teacher.  I do know I did not hate math in school, but it did not come easy.  I am so glad that I get this chance to learn math again.  It's scary how much I've forgotten, but seems to be coming back, just in time!

Reporting for candy duty! 

Wednesday:
We are home again today.  I love "home" days.  So, I decided to work on the leaves after lessons before some forecasted rain arrives, making the job impossible for a few days.

The maple tree in the front is finally letting go of its leaves, but if we don't stay on top of it, we will have to rake, instead of mulch the leaves with the mower.  I'm not a fan of rakes.

Anyway, I determined to get the front done today, at least.  Unfortunately, I could not start the riding mower, which is nothing new.  I should have never tried, because I ended up straining my left wrist pretty bad in the process.  Last time I got a bruise on the meaty side of that hand.  Ouch!

Ryan ended up using the push mower while Grace and Trevor raked around the tree.  I love this house, but I could live without the trees in the fall.

He's real!  He comes to eat all the suet in one sitting!

Thursday:
Our agenda today is a full one!  After a morning bike ride, I went shopping for our weekly groceries.  I got back and ate lunch before starting the dinner that we are bringing to a family from church this evening.  We also did math, reading, and Bible lessons. 

After our quick dinner, we went to see Beauty and the Beast, put on by the local Christian high school. A dear friend's son has a part in the musical.  It was just wonderful!  I had forgotten how much fun going to a play can be.  Musicals are even more fun with the singing and dancing. 

He is ten! 

Friday:
Today we will finish our lessons as yesterday was too busy to get to all of them.  Ryan has Ultimate Dodgeball tonight for 5 hours.  They'll play, eat, and pray during those hours.  He is excited.  The rest of us will hang out at home in front of the fireplace no doubt.  I need some down time!

Saturday:
We have plans to go visit my father's new homestead.  He has rabbits now.  I am going to get some good apples, too, from a little orchard near by.  Ryan is going to rescue another laptop.  There will be cousins to play with, too.  Should be a nice day. We will also be taking our camper.  It is going to spend the winter in one of his extra garage bays.  (Thank you, Dad!) 

Sunday: 
After church, I hope to take a LONG bike ride with Jeff and whoever else wants to come.  There are no other activities planned.  Yippee!

Have a great weekend!
Jenn

Note:  camera is still in the shop.  These are from either Momś iphone, Jeffś cell, or my cousinś camera!  

Creation Museum

This past weekend, we had the pleasure and good fortune to visit The Creation Museum.

I have to say that I was impressed.  The cost was dear for us, however, we counted it a good use of our dollars, supporting a museum that is a Bible based ministry over one that is all about the religion of evolution. 

The museum itself is well done.  The exhibits take visitors through the 7 C's of History:  Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, Cross, and Consummation.  We got to see a neat planetarium movie.  I have never felt so small!  I mean, this universe is unimaginably huge!!!  And so is our God.  And yet, He wants a relationship with us.  Blows me away.

I am thankful that we live only 2 hours from this awesome museum.  We have plans to return in the spring, after tax season.  We might even go camping near-by and make it a weekend.