Gluten free baked chicken with oven-fried potatoes, zesty asparagus, Jerusalem artichoke slices, and tomato wedges.
In our life this week…
This week has been a merry whirl of homeschooling, gardening, going out, and basic home life. We were outside a lot, studied a bit, ate well, and slept well despite one very late night. The going out was fun, too: we went to a large mall nearby, which we almost never do, and we had a great visit with another homeschooling family. And the weather was lovely and warm. I went from wearing two pairs of socks to going barefoot, from shivering in undershirts and sweaters to just one simple shirt.
The National Right to Life News Today reprinted my post Defending Life: Let Us Not Become Weary in Doing Good. I am thankful that it reached many people.
In our homeschool …
Miss 13 is allowed to do schoolwork again for half an hour at a time, with hour-long breaks between sessions. Intense work still makes her head feel fuzzy, and she was unable to write the Gauss test. It is a pity, but over and over we’ve heard how important it is to rest after a concussion, so we’re making sure that happens.
Miss 16 and Miss 11 did a fair amount of schoolwork but, of course, once you start going out everyone accomplishes less. However, after staying up late it makes more sense to have a good time going out than to stay at home and make mistakes or stare dully at a book.
Miss 16 completed Artistic Pursuits’ Elements of Art and Composition. It has been a great course for her, with lots of detailed teaching and many quality assignments. I’ll be writing about it in the future.
In our gluten free kitchen… Soup. Raspberry smoothies. Scrambled, boiled, fried, and deviled eggs. Oatmeal cookies, Mr. 19’s favorite. Chocolate chip muffins. Oven-fried chicken. Porridge. Over-fried potatoes. Raspberry cobbler. Strawberries. Asparagus. Jerusalem artichokes. Tuna pasta slaw. And, on the warm days, lots of sparkling water from our Soda Stream machine and lots of iced tea.
In our garden
Mr. 19 moved some roses (Rosa Rugosa) that were taking over a flower bed, and he edged one side of our large vegetable garden. We weeded, planted spinach and chard, weeded some more, and started preparing the large garden for planting. I decided what to do about the herb garden, but have not yet started the actual work. It is time to start hardening off the leeks, and next week we’ll be introducing the tomatoes and peppers to the outdoors.
The yard is beautiful! We have wild violets and Johnny jump ups growing everywhere, and the pear and plum trees are flowering. So are our Nanking cherries.
One of our honeyberry bushes died so I will need to buy a few more since they are not self-fertile.
Some of my favorite things were…
- Warm weather.
- Great phone chats with our parents.
- Feeling energetic again.
- Friends.
Questions/thoughts I have… Sleep is such a blessing!
Fitness… So, with more attention to sleeping and fewer stressful outings, I felt a whole lot better this week. I was able to walk about 10,000 steps every day, do my physio exercises once, and garden. Usually I weed by hand, but I’m experimenting with 5-10 minutes of hoeing a day. It’s much more efficient, and so far it has not been too intense for me. As a bonus, it is an excellent abdominal exercise.
Some of the things I’ve been working on…
- Homeschooling.
- Gardening.
- Homemaking work like decluttering, planning, cleaning, organizing clothing, and shopping. Ideally I should be washing windows and scrubbing walls too, but in the spring I save my energy for garden work.
- Homeschool records.
I’m reading… Luke. Bible reading has been going very slowly. I normally read just before my nap, but some days I’ve been too sleepy to focus on more than a few verses. I finished the Candle Bible Handbook, which is excellent, and Daisies are Forever, a unique and intense World War 2 novel. While waiting at Miss 13’s physiotherapist and while on the treadmill, I read more of Truth Matters. The 40 Most Influential Christians and The Death of Adam are waiting for a less busy time.
Reading Aloud… We’re still reading Jeremiah and the Kids Can Press French and English Word Book. We started Volume 2 of Young People’s History of the Church, and are still enjoying Albrecht Durer by Joyce McPherson.
When my husband is home for meals, we read 1 John.
I’m grateful for …. Warmth, green grass and trees, rain, my dear family.
Quote or link to share…. Our favorite experiment: measuring the speed of light with chocolate.
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This post is linked to Kris’s Weekly Wrap Up .
Sounds like a great week. And that picture looks like a very yummy meal. I’m glad Miss 13 is slowly feeling better.
I would love to know how you first got your children involved in your gardening projects. My kids are younger than yours, but they are old enough to help. I just don’t know where to start. They do a lot of inside chores very well for their ages. How can I transfer those skills to outside work?
You know what we did? I just went outside and gardened, and they came along. I taught them what weeds were, and we pulled them together. I showed them how to plant seeds, and we did that together. We also mulched, watered, and harvested together.
And then by the time they were between 7 and 10 years old they became able to work independently on some of these jobs. That age depends heavily on the child and the job.
I hope you and your children will enjoy your time in the garden!