Weekly Wrap Up

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In our life this week…

We sold a few books at the homeschool book sale last week, and we bought a few.  Both financially and space-wise, we came out ahead, so that is good.

The youngest girls each got a medal in a judo tournament.  We have very few tournaments nearby, so participating was a special treat for them.

On Monday we had summery weather and went for a muddy walk, frightening an enormous flock of geese.  On the way to ‘our’ rapids, Miss 11 almost bumped into a porcupine!  Fortunately the dog did not notice it.

Our teens’ weekly catechism classes have ended for the year, and they will miss them.  They always look forward to Tuesday evenings.

In our homeschool …

Miss 16 had a successful week with steady progress.

Miss 13, with a sore neck from the judo tournament and a sore head from soccer, was not able to concentrate on her schoolwork very well.  Even so, she did manage to move ahead.

Miss 11 worked hard but was tempted by two things:  the outdoors and the guitar.  Although her hands are too small to play chords, she has taught herself to play many songs using individual notes.  This week she often played until her fingers were too sore to continue.

And Mr. 18 was home all week, studying for his university exams.

In our gluten free kitchen… Sausages. Crepes. Salads. Strawberries. Ham pasta.  Eggs.  Apple crisp.  Hot cross buns.  Oatmeal scones.  Lots of vegetables.  Breaded chicken.  Chocolate cake with whipped cream and cherry pie filling.  Potato-ham soup.  And, for Easter, corn bread, cheese cake and pear pie.

In our garden

The first planting of the season was creeping thyme on our dry, sandy septic hill.  Thyme can deal with drought much better than grass can, and it smells delightful.  I spread 30,000 seeds and hope that 10% of them germinate.

Miss 11 and I started tomatoes, peppers, leeks, basil, cosmos, marigolds, and zinnias inside, and the flowers began to come up within just a few days.

The crocuses have almost finished blooming, and two weeks ago they were still under a foot of snow!

We’re beginning the spring garden clean up.  We had covered the garlic bed with asparagus plants, and now that the garlic is coming up I took the ‘asparagus blanket’ off.  We also removed dead flower stalks.  In the vegetable garden we discovered that some of the spinach overwintered successfully and is ready to eat!

Next week I hope to clean up the vegetable garden and start the early things like spinach, carrots, onions, and so on.

Some of my favorite things were…

• Phone calls with my husband who is away visiting his parents and siblings.
• A visit from Miss 21.
• Walking.
• Hanging out with the kids.

Questions/thoughts I have…  How on earth did/do the wives of ocean-going sailors manage? My husband has been away a lot in the last two weeks, and that just takes the shine out of life.

Fitness… This week was so busy that I forgot to record my steps.  They averaged to less than 10,000 a day, though, and I forgot about the physio exercises most days.  Oh well.  In other health news:  I no longer need to sleep more than 10 hours a day as I did this crazy busy winter, which is a real blessing, but sometimes it seems as though I still spend an awful lot of time in bed.

Some of the things I’ve been working on…

• Homeschooling.
• Starting the seedlings and cleaning up the gardens.
• Sprucing up the house by getting new pillow covers and making sunny tablecloths (with Miss 11’s help)
• Writing out reviews and articles.

I’m reading… Mark. I finished Pure Love, a series of sonnets based on the Song of Solomon, and We All Fall Down, a youth book about 9/11.  I’m still reading The 40 Most Influential Christians, and have begun to reread Whatever Happened to Penny Candy and The Death of Adam.  The latter is one of my favorite books.

Reading Aloud… We’re taking a break from Jeremiah to read about Christ’s death and resurrection from Luke.  We’re also still working on Volume 5 of In de Zoete Suikerbol, the Kids Can Press French and English Word Book, and Young People’s History of the Church. 

I’m grateful for …. Sleep, and not needing quite so much of it.

Quote or link to share….   From earlier this week: Easter Thoughts for Every Day.

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This post is linked to Kris’s Weekly Wrap Up .