Friday bullets, Aug. 10, 2017

It feels as though it's been a busier week around here than we've had in a while.

  • The cauliflower curry dish that we had last night was... underwhelming. And one of those dishes that ends up taking far more time than the recipe would seem to indicate. It was one of those post-8pm, European-style dinners. I'll have to try some more recipes from the book before I decide to buy it.
  • We had two park dates to meet new friends this week, and two more park dates planned for next week. They were very nice, and I'm starting to feel as though I am beginning to meet people.
  • The other day, it was that dreaded late in the day, I was making dinner time, and the younger people wanted to watch something. Somehow they ended up watching the beginning of a 3-disk documentary call A History of US. (I had kind of forgotten we even owned it.) You wouldn't think that a history documentary, done in a very documentary style would hold the attention of the 8-11 year old group, but it did. They clamored for it today as well. G. has told me several times how much she LOVES American history. 
  • Sometimes I feel as though I live in our very own little mash-up of a comic convention and a Ren. Fair. It is rare that every person in the house is actually who they are, more often they are pretending to be someone or something else. This has been particularly true since I unpacked the costumes. This morning for instance, no doubt due to the heavy dose of American history yesterday, L. was dressed as a civil war soldier, G. was a Native American, and more baffling still, K. was some sort of Star Wars/Alien/soldier combination. Which did look rather funny to next to the more historical characters to my not-yet-caffeine-infused brain.
  • Olive continues to grow and thrive. She is really a pretty mellow puppy. Here is a new picture so you can see how much bigger she is.

A. is realizing it won't be too much longer before it will be difficult to hold Olive in her arms.
  • Also in that picture, you can see that we are still in desperate need of bookshelves. I don't want to put anything on the walls over in that corner until I see how the bookshelves (still to be acquired) will look.
  • In other household decorating news, the first two days of the week were filled with having the drywall on the wall that was cut back repaired, and the baseboard molding that needed to be installed above all the new flooring put in. There were also some pretty big gaping holes in the drywall in TM's room which we inherited, and those are now repaired as well. 
  • The homeschooling culture here in the far western suburbs of Chicago is so different from in and near the city. A friend, who has also made the same move we did were talking about this today. In the city, there seems to be more of an emphasis on parent groups which meet regularly, and then activities which are an outgrowth of those groups. You get to know the mothers first. Out here, there are not really groups. There are large Meet-Up lists, there are large co-ops, there are a lot of homeschoolers, but you really have to network to find them all. In the city, everything is easy to find online. Here? I've searched for hours, and only after meeting and talking to some real people, am I starting to figure things out. It's just interesting how different things are, just 50 miles apart.
  • I'm starting to come to the realization that at some point soon, I will have to do something about planning for school.
  • My new stove is wonderful! I cannot tell you what a wonderful sound it was the other night to heat some oil in a pan, throw in some onions, and actually hear them sizzle. I cooked rice last night, and did not ruin it! Not bad for an appliance I spent a whole five minutes picking out of a line of second hand appliances. Based on some questionable water around the base of the dishwasher, it may be next in line to be replaced.
  • Life has calmed down enough that I am back on the writing rotation for my freelance job. It will be nice to start getting those little paychecks again. This also means that your respite from me hounding you to click on articles is quickly coming to an end.
Enjoy your Friday!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Making bias tape... otherwise known as the Sew, Mama, Sew! Giveaway

Kenzie on the beach

Apple picking in the rain