Wordless Wednesday: What Snow?

I don't know whether to rejoice or complain.  All the hype!  All the talk!  Perhaps I should be wise to all of that now, but I fell for it.  I am glad that the snow went north of us for many reasons, but I am sad for my kids who were all dressed up this morning with no snow to play in. 

First Snow Is Coming

The little red weather radio announced to us this morning that we are in for a little snow, only 2 to 4 inches, but still the same, it does cause worries.  It will hit this evening during rush hour, which means, a super long, anxious trip home for my dear husband.  If only the world would stop when it snowed! 

At least my world stops when it snows.  I have no place to be today.  I have enough in the pantry to make a nice dinner.  I have plenty of hot cocoa, too.  We can watch the snow through the newly caulked front window.  No more breezes coming through now! 

I have a bit of a cold, so staying home today makes the most sense, anyway.  I had to run a bit yesterday with homeschool gym and a DVD due back at the library.  While I was there, I picked up another DVD, a favorite musical.  We'll pop that in this afternoon and snuggle in the warm blankets as we watch. Such coziness! 

We truly are blessed to be warm and snug today.  I'm sure my kids will want to be out in it tomorrow when the storm reaches it's peak.  So today is a good day to stay inside and get lessons done. 

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