Weekly Wrap Up: Politics, Health, and a Broken Freezer

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In our life this week…

This week has been all about politics. We learned about restorative justice, met some political influencers, attended a prolife prayer service, and participated in the March for Life.  Homeschooling is so flexible that way!  And we all learned a lot.

It was good to be involved in all these things, but also very tiring.  I keep on forgetting that I don’t have that much extra energy and really need to put limits on my activities.  Oh well, after barely being able to finish the rather short March for Life, I relaxed by writing about both the pro-life march and the prayer service.

We had a freezer failure this week and ended up throwing quite a bit of food onto the compost pile.  Sigh!  I suppose we’ll eat it next time around, when it has grown into new vegetables.  Miss 16, rejoicing in the beautiful colors of pumpkin, raspberry, applesauce, and asparagus, all mixed together in the wheelbarrow, keep me positive.  So did our happy and grateful dog.  I gave him so many freezer treats that when he saw me walk by he would start licking his chops!

Usually we are creatures of routine but last Sunday afternoon, after a busy week and a tiring day, we did nothing.  We did not cook supper, but ate chips and chocolate and bits of sausage, reading and playing games until it was almost Miss 11’s bedtime.  Then we heated up the lunchtime soup and kept on relaxing.  It felt like a real holiday.

In our homeschool …

On our third try, we finally successfully measured the speed of light in a microwave using chocolate.  I hope to write about that soon.

The whole family has rallied round Miss 13 who is still resting her poor concussed head and is not allowed to do much of anything.   She seems to be improving so we tried 15 minutes of intense math, but it was still too much.  The outings did not seem to cause her any trouble, though, perhaps because they did not involve screens, reading, or focused mental effort.  In any case, we are playing a lot of games:  cribbage, Rummikub, Racko, Othello, and more.

Of course, that means that the other girls also did less schoolwork, but perhaps we all needed a break.

In our gluten free kitchen… Soup.  Raspberry smoothies.  Corn pancakes.  Banana raspberry muffins.  Ham, bacon, sausage, eggs.  Yoghurt and ice cream.  Oatmeal cookies.  Chili skillet with ground beef, leftover ham, kidney beans, and potatoes.  Kale stamppot.  Leftover kale stamppot mixed with ham.  (Yes, it was a large ham!)  Porridge.  Lots of vegetables. Raspberry cobbler.  Lemon elderberry bread. Oatmeal cookies.  Baked potatoes with freshly-picked chives.  Cantaloupe.

In our garden

We finished edging and preparing the garden, and then we planted the early vegetables:  onions, four varieties of lettuce, New Zealand spinach, carrots, and beets.  We also planted more cabbage and flowers indoors, and they are all doing well.

Some of my favorite things were…

• A friend’s 50^th birthday celebration, complete with fireworks.
• Watching my husband enjoy chopping wood. It’s a great stress-reliever for him, and after days of mind-work, splitting logs into firewood is so satisfyingly real.
• Time with friends.

Questions/thoughts I have…  In heaven, everyone will be well.

Fitness… Hah!  Once again I have discovered that, without adequate sleep and strict limits on my activities, I go downhill very quickly.   Early in the week I spent two days largely on the couch or in bed, something I have not needed to do for over a year.  It almost felt like a gluten episode, but we have no gluten in the house.  In any case, things have improved, although I did need to rest during the March for Life and was both heartened and embarrassed by the concern of other marchers.

Some of the things I’ve been working on…

• Homeschooling.
• Gardening.
• The March for Life, the prayer service, writing about it, preparing lunches for marchers.
• Dealing with the broken freezer.

I’m reading… Luke. I read The 4-Hour Workweek, a zany but optimistic book perfectly suited to being too tired to function.  I’m also reading Truth Matters, The 40 Most Influential Christians, The Death of Adam, and the Candle Bible Handbook.

Reading Aloud… We’re still reading Jeremiah and the Kids Can Press French and English Word Book.  We finished Volume 5 of In de Zoete Suikerbol and Volume 1 of Young People’s History of the Church, and are beginning the next volumes in both series.   We are also still enjoying Albrecht Durer by Joyce McPherson. 

When my husband is home for meals, we read 1 Peter.

I’m grateful for …. Warm sunshine, a happy family, good food, loud laughter, friends.

Quote or link to share….   As we near our 25^th wedding anniversary, I would like to recommend Ann Voskamp’s post “The Daily Vow of a 10 Second Kiss for Wedded Bliss.” Of course, the purpose is to inspire, not to set up yet another must-do checklist for anyone.

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