Weekly Wrap Up: A Mini-Flood and Fatigue

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In our life this week…

We struggled with a cold, some of us successfully, some of us not.  But all of us were tired.  I am so glad the girls can sleep in a bit after an unavoidable late evening and don’t have to catch a school bus!

We had a small flood in our basement, and I’m so thankful for our shop vac.  We were able to vacuum up a huge amount of water and suck a lot of it out of the carpets too.  Although I had been planning to fall clean thoroughly later on this month, some parts of the basement are well under way now.  We also dropped some things off at the Salvation Army, another part of this month’s goals.

In our homeschool …

Between the sniffles and vacuuming up water, we did need to take some time off, but mostly we were very busy learning.  Some of it was routine, the kind that allows me to make checkmarks on our school plans, but much of it was not.  I did insist on French most days, and math.

Miss 11 took a break from writing her NaNo novel to make a Remembrance Day poster.  This was an enormous project, first to design, and then to carry out.  She learned a lot about perspective, shading, and the different kinds of pencils as well as about determination and perseverance.   And we fit in other schoolwork whenever we could.

Miss 13 did a lot of regular schoolwork and then spent a lot of time researching for a Remembrance Day project as well. That led to hours of reading the encyclopedia, and I had to resist the urge to tell her to get back to her schoolwork.  After all she was learning, and learning what you want to is much more efficient than learning something you’re not interested in at the moment.  Later on in the week we had the same problem with Chris Hadfield’s new book, which seems to be a good one for kids to read, inspiring and informative, although not from a Christian point of view.

Miss 15 discovered that her Arthur reading is available free from Librivox, so she listened to Malory and Tennyson while doing her Remembrance Day project, a beautiful poster.  Next in Omnibus 5 is A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court—three Arthur books in a row but she’s just reading this last one, not studying it.  When I wondered if it was worth spending such a long time on Arthur, she said it definitely was, and that Tennyson is much easier to read than Malory.

In our garden…

We ate the last of the carrots and pulled the last of the beets.  All that’s left is the kale and the high bush cranberries…and some parsley and Jerusalem artichokes, which we just eat when we want to but don’t plan to harvest.

In our gluten free kitchen… The sauerkraut is starting to taste as it should, but it is still a bit crunchy.  We also had applesauce bread and raspberry explosion muffins, as well as lots of chocolate-dipped shortbread cookies thanks to Miss 11. And we ate much other good food as well.  Teriyaki chicken. Sweet and sour chicken. Lots of different squashes.  Pork picnic shoulder.  Pea soup.   Rice pudding.  Turnips, carrots, and beets, straight from the garden.  Chard.  Sausage omelets.  Crispy fried potatoes.  Crepes.  Coleslaw.

Some of my favorite things were…

• Encouraging the girls to be creative in their Remembrance Day projects.
• Yummy food.
• Reading Canadian history books.
• Being strong enough to do groceries after feeling very tired all week.

Questions/thoughts I have…It’s sometimes hard to find a good balance between self-directed learning (like reading the encyclopedia) and structured learning.

Fitness… It took me a few days to get over last week’s busy work of moving books around and harvesting those potatoes and leeks.  Probably my doctors are right in suspecting my problem isn’t only celiac disease, but something else as well.  Needing days to recover after moderate exercise that makes you feel good while you do it is not normal. Sigh.  Whatever.  So I read a bit more and have a few lazy days and spread out my physical work a bit more carefully in the future.  That’s OK.  I was told I was dying 5 years ago, and I’m so grateful to be alive even if I can’t do all I want to and need to move slowly.

I was unable to walk 10,000 steps any day this week and I only did my knee exercises once. I should be able to do the knee exercises today and perhaps go for a slow walk outside.

Some of the things I’ve been working on…

• Resting and reading.
• Supervising the basement flood cleanup; I did manage to vacuum up some of the water but left the lifting to the children.
• Catching up on reviews.
• Finding Christian information on the history of physics and chemistry.

We’re watching…  The older kids watched the extended version of The Hobbit.  Together we watched part of The Queen’s Palaces (only needed to skip a bit), tried Queen of the East (after not finding it on IMDB and misreading the back cover—bad move!), and then enjoyed Anne of Green Gables.  I watched Julie and Julia while cleaning my desk, and it left me thinking.

I’m reading… Almost finished Isaiah.   While resting, I finished The Story of Canada, Canal Boy, and The Boy in the Picture, and am reading The Soul of Science and Chris Hadfield’s  An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth as well as Awakening Faith.

Reading Aloud… We’re still reading Psalms, William of Orange, the Silent Prince and In de Zoete Suikerbol.

When my husband is home for meals we read 1 Corinthians.

I’m grateful for …. Books.  Our shop vac.  No longer having tents and such things drying in front of the fire place.  Good food.  My dear family who encourage me to take it easy when I am very tired.

Quote or link to share…. Here’s something beautiful that will bring tears to your eyes:  A little Dutch girl sings (English subtitles).    

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