What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow. ~ Martin Luther

Friday, January 13, 2006

All is Well-except for the blasted dishes.

Good Morning!

I am feeling much better today which is cause for writing, I suppose! Yesterday morning Corynn and I read EVERY SINGLE library book story she had. She sat with me and read about 13 story books in a row. And they were STORY books-not baby books. She has such a great attention span for reading! Reading whittled away most of the morning-and at nap time we BOTH slept for three hours. (That is the first nap I have taken in a VERY long time. I NEVER nap. Ever!) I am really glad I did, though, because that is what I needed. I woke up in a much better frame of mind and felt much less 'SICKLY'. Or maybe it wasn't the nap at all but rather, because we got a very special package in the mail AFTER nap from Mandie-with pictures and presents! She sent me an indoor growing hyacinth kit (which are one of my favorite flowers!), some notecards, and some spring kitchen towels and oven mitt! And Corynn received the sweetest book ever called "God Gave Us Two", about a polar bear family who is expecting their second baby. The older sister asks her Mama and Papa all sorts of questions about the coming baby and all their replies are godly and sweet. I loved it as much as Corynn did! Corynn even had Papa read it to her AGAIN at bedtime! (Thank you so much Mandie-for making my day!) We even went outside to play, take care of FooFoo-and when Papa came home, we all went for a walk. Corynn in her pink muckboots, pushing her baby in a stroller, made sure to splash in EVERY puddle and even found a yellow tennis ball treasure! Not pushing a stroller myself allowed for Matt and I to walk hand in hand. It was so nice. I have to snatch opportunities like THAT while I can get them!

Today, despite my growing displeasure in doing the dishes every night (last night I didn't feel like it so they are all there this morning...I end up doing the dishes two or three times a day on days that I DON'T do baking-those days I do even more!- and it is driving me crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), I am feeling perfectly fine.

We are heading out to G&L's tonight and Corynn has already packed what she wants to take. She has her purse filled with a dolly, two horses, a phone, a book, and some tissues flung on her one shoulder. In her other hand is a magic wand, her horse stable, and some random PIECE to another toy. And then hanging on for dear life are her THREE dolls which are at this moment suffocating in her chest. Maybe I won't tell her she can't take all that stuff just YET. I hope that this weekend will be a perfect opportunity for Matt to start on the changing table he is building for baby Peanut. I may even work on sanding down an old dresser he got at auction for $5.00 since Peanut will be needing that also. I plan to take a portion of my mending pile along with me too-and MAYBE, just maybe, I will get that under control!

Today is high of 58 degrees! Corynn and I will walk to the post office so I can mail some bills before we head out to G&L's tonight. Since the weather is so nice, I am also going to take down our outdoor Christmas lights. I wanted Matt to do that-but since that isn't happening, I will do it myself while it is WARM and not have to freeze my patutti off when the weather turns cold again. Now off to conquer those pesky, offending mounds of crusty food that drown out my nice clean counter. Again. Just to clean off my counter for MORE stupid dirty dishes. grrrrrrrrrrr.

2 comments:

Abigail said...

Glad you're feeling better. Three cheers for naps, sunshine, friendly packages, and hands clasped!

Read like there's no tomorrow!
I've been trying to read each of the girls more books each day, but I don't read them as many as I should. I used to daily read Millie a zillion books, but Annie's not had my undivided time as much. (Something to work on...)

When we lived at the mansion and also at the professor's, I used to vacuum and do dishes three times a day. No longer! I vacuum at least once a day, but the daily dishes usually don't get done until after supper (unless, like you, I'm baking, THEN I've got to wash them as I use them to have room to bake) or, if we've stayed up until four in the morning with guests like we did last night, I don't do them until after breakfast, or, if my husband is abundantly kind, like he has been twice this past week, I don't do them at all! I still understand the urge, but it's more a whisper now than a shout. :)

It's cool that Matt's making a changing table for Peanut. If it's anything like the cradle, it will be stunning as well as servicable!

Enjoy your time at G+L's, and tell Corynn I don't think she's packed nearly enough yet.

Anonymous said...

In answer to your questions from the other day:

Crafts supplies for kids: I have markers, crayons, elmers glue, pipe cleaners, pom poms, scraps of fabric, sequins, all sort of paper (construction, colored printer type paper, card stock, etc...), I have some of those foam letters and shapes that I've picked up at JoAnn Fabrics on clearance, ribbon, pieces of leftover wrapping paper, old Christmas cards we receieved, etc... Oh colored pencils, watercolor paints, finger paints, tempera paints... I am sure there is more I am missing but that's what I can think of off the top of my head w/out going to look!

On the menu planning: I've done alot of different types of plans but lately I've really fallen off the wagon, so to speak, when it comes to planning and then I am rushing at 3:30 to decide what's for supper. In the past I've done two weeks menus and month menus. I've also done rotating menus (like menus for a couple of weeks that repeat). A great menu site w/ recipes is http:/www.stephskitchen.com
I will post my menus when I get them completed this time. I MUST do them this weekend (keep repeating that to myself! LOL!)

On the lesson planning.......I like to plan at least three weeks worth of lessons ahead so I can know if I need to order something special or if I need to find a book or whatever. Now just because I write it down for Monday doesn't mean we will get to it on Monday. I keep a plan book for myself and then once we do it I put everything that we ACTUALLY do into my homeschooltracker software (free basic edition available at: http://www.homeschooltracker.com). Then I can simply print it off and put it in my binder for when we do our bi-yearly review w/ our umbrella group. It's not hard to plan the Abeka stuff we do because it's pretty straightforward in the daily stuff but I am more fluid and flexible with our other afternoon type studies and we may either slow down if interest warrants it or speed up if there is not much interest past the "what I want them to know stage". Right now we are doing a grow a frog kit and we are watching a tadpole metamorphis into a frog and that's been really popular so I've been looking for extra resources to study more about frogs that I may have originally intended.

Hope this answers your questions. I don't mind at all that you ask them. I can hardly wait to get my school room done so I can take pics to show you!
I hope you have a wonderful weekend! ~Jen