Weekly Wrap Up

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Le Premier RendezVous by Raymond Caouette, available at Art Mode (see link below)

In our life this week…

Schoolwork, rain, housework, cold, reading, a massive book sale, and lots of food.  That about sums up our quiet but productive week.

And I got an unexpected and heart-warming gift that I’ll write about next week.

In our homeschool …

We did a lot of learning of all sorts.  Nothing dramatic or unusual, just more of everything we always do.

Miss 15 is getting tired of Mallory’s King Arthur, and after this she faces Tennyson’s Arthur in her Omnibus studies.  Once she’s done, she’ll be done, though, and it will have been a major accomplishment.  And at the book sale this week she picked up Dorothy Sayer’s translation of Dante in anticipation of another massive read.

Miss 11 read two Edison biographies this week, the beginning of her journey through our many biographies.  As a rule she prefers autobiographies, though, because main character never dies in an autobiography.

The children have two books from the library about bridge, one for dummies and one for clever beginners.  Miss 13 says they use the one for clever beginners because the one for dummies is too hard!  When she’s supposed to be doing schoolwork, I occasionally find her intently studying an arrangement of playing cards laid neatly out on the carpet.  My husband says it’s OK because bridge is a game that trains the mind.

In our garden…

We pulled up some of the frozen flowers, ate some food from the garden, and are still waiting for freezer space to put away the leeks and kale.  The kids have been helping out by eating ice cream.  Perhaps we’ll turn freezer number 4 on, for just a little while.  Sigh.  It was supposed to be our emergency back up, not a regular-use freezer.

And because we forgot to hill up the turnips, carrots, and beets, I think we may have allowed their tops to freeze during the -10C night we had.  Another sigh.

In the kitchen… Stamppot kale—an ethnic Dutch dish of potatoes, onions, and kale mashed together.  This is scrumptious with sausages, ham, or bacon…and gravy, of course.  (Here’s a recipe similar to the one we use, but we don’t add milk or butter, we mash it better than in the picture, and we use more kale.) We used up the last of our tomatoes in a huge pot of tomato soup which Miss 15 used as a base for a delicious chili.  Crepes with ham and cheese, surprisingly good.  Chocolate-coconut haystacks. Apples, carrot sticks, turnip sticks.  Harvest pudding (pumpkins, applesauce, gluten free oats).  Apple crumble.  Turnip mash.  Left-over ham.

Some of my favorite things were…

• Schoolwork.
• Food.
• Sitting around a warm fire.
• Attending the Rockcliffe Park book sale.  I’ll tell you all about our amazing finds next week.
• My surprise gift…more about that next week, too.

Questions/thoughts I have…    I had waited in the library holds queue for Nutrition and Physical Degeneration for what seemed like years and was determined to finish it…but it’s such a slow read, so full of information!  I spent hours early this week, reading and taking notes, trying madly to finish it.  Then we discovered it’s available on Kindle for a song.  Yes!  So much is available on Gutenberg and Kindle but I keep on forgetting about them because I’m still used to the old ways.

Fitness… This was a crazy fitness week.  Although I walked over 10,000 steps most days, they were inside because of the weather.  And, rather than using the treadmill, I ran up and down the stairs, reorganizing things.  That’s like climbing a small mountain, so one night I was on the couch, exhausted. Duh!  But what was worse is that my knee twinges became so intense that I actually considered scooting down the stairs on my bottom, and I thought dismally of my relatives’ joint replacement operations.

So my good husband sent me to the physiotherapist who moved my kneecap back into place (!!), gave me exercises to strengthen the nonexistent muscles that are supposed to do that, and massaged the tight muscles that were pulling the kneecap out of alignment.

Yes, it’s exercise time again, and that is a good thing, and it’s good that simple exercises can reduce the wear on the joints.  But I just feel as though one more thing has been added to my plate.

Some of the things I’ve been working on…

• Still working with Miss 11 to achieve a minimum level of neatness.
• Schoolwork.
• Making space and for a new cupboard I was given, and filling it up.
• Reading Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston Price.
• Going through the winter boots and other  stored items.
• Buying and dejunking books.
• Making space in our freezers.

We’re watching:  The Disney Little House on the Prairie movies which are much, much, much nicer that the TV programs everyone knows about.  We watched them on YouTube.  And Jeeves and Wooster.  And O Canada which was surprisingly humorous for a documentary.

I’m reading… Isaiah.   I finished A Big Year for Lily while lying on the couch that tired evening.  I worked on Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret, ignored Your Body’s Many Cries for Water and The Story of Canada, and reread the last few stirring chapters of Sign of the Beaver.  (Highly recommended for kids around 8-12.)

Reading Aloud… We read Psalms at the table.  We finished Carry On, Mr. Bowditch and started Luther the Leader and William of Orange, the Silent Prince. We are also still reading the second volume of In de Zoete Suikerbol.

When my husband is home for meals we read Romans.

I’m grateful for …. Family.  Wind.  Our cozy home.

Quote or link to share….  Raymond Caouette’s latest paintings make me smile.  If you’re in Ottawa, you can watch him paint this weekend at Art Mode.  Click on ‘Artist Quick Find’ right hand site near the top to see more of Caouette’s work.

This post is linked to Kris’s Weekly Wrap Up . and Hammock Track’s Homeschool Review and Resources Link-Up.