Friday bullets, Sept. 1, 2017

I think we'll call this the week of the trailers.

  • On Wednesday, J. went with M. in the van to haul the RV M. bought to our property... from Wisconsin. M. has always loved tiny houses, and figures that gutting and renovating an RV trailer is the easiest way to get one. 
This now sits behind our house, tactfully screened from view by those big evergreens.
  • But I said, "trailers," plural, didn't I? That's because last night J. and I went out once again in the van to take a look at a horse trailer that seemed to be a very good deal. It turned out to be as good a deal as it seemed, and we brought it home. This is our own personal example of putting the cart before the horse, but if you know you will need one in the future, it seemed silly to pass it up. Now we're really committed to getting horses, right? 
For those who will ask... straight load, and tall enough for a horse over 16 hands.
  • Yesterday, the six youngest and I went to our first 'meet-up' for homeschoolers in the area. It was a nice park we were at, but I'm still not convinced that this whole meet-up-thing is the best or most efficient way to actually get to know one another. There are too many distractions to actually get to talk to the other parents. We did come home with two monarch caterpillars, so in the children's minds, it was a roaring success.
  • It's only the very beginning of September, and already I have started and put aside more books this year as I did the entire year last year. I can't decide if this means I'm finding it difficult to concentrate on reading, or if I'm just not choosing adequately interesting books. 
  • I think I have a handle of what school is going to look like this year. I have sketchy hand-written notes outlining our two unit studies (a trip around the world, interspersed with microbiology), a plan for how to squeeze everything in, and have made outlines for the high schoolers for what they are doing. Now I just have to fine tune things, type them out, print, and distribute. At least we can begin next week, which is a far cry from where I was two weeks ago.
  • Olive's legs are almost as long as Kenzie's are. 
  • The two dogs have also decided that they are best friends. This means that they play all the time. This playing involves jumping on each other and grabbing limbs and legs and necks with mouths wide open, usually in the middle of the kitchen. I am trying not to picture what this will look like when Olive has another 80 pounds on her.
  • For those who have been wondering about my mother's puppy, after a couple of weeks with IV antibiotics, it looks as though the puppy will be coming home today. Everyone is very relieved.
  • J. and I have had a Netflix movie (Hidden Figures) sitting here for weeks. By the time everyone is in bed and we would have a chance to watch it, we are too tired ourselves and just want to sleep. I really want to see it, but I really want to see it with my eyes open and not through my eyelids.
  • The church we have been going to has really impressed me with their willingness to accommodate our more challenging children. One of the reasons we visited in the first place was because their website had a whole section devoted to their special needs ministry. Now, I've been around churches long enough to take church websites with a grain of salt. What you see is not always... um... up-to-date, shall we say? So we were optimistically hopeful. That optimism was not ill-place. Last Sunday, the first day people attended Sunday School, the director had a special buddy for R. Not only that, the buddy met us at the door and I had a chance to do my brief R.-education lecture. Everyone had a good time, and is looking forward to going back. But wait, it gets better. On Tuesday, I had a 20 minute phone conversation with the director of the special needs ministry, asking how things went on Sunday, if I had any concerns or questions, and wanted to know what else they could do to help us a family. They will be working to find a peer student buddy for H., as she starts attending the middle school youth group. How cool is all that? 
  • I got to see both M. and B. this week. I really miss the two of them being able to easily drop by. 
  • Since today is the first of September, August is done, and so is the special vegetable month extravaganza. I'll post the final totals tomorrow.
  • With life starting to feel a bit more normal, I'm also back to my writing gig. This means that I will be flogging my articles in the hopes of raising the number of clicks and shares they receive, and thus increased my paycheck from tiny to moderately small. 
  • To that end, I've had two published recently. This one you might have missed. 4 Times I Wasn't a Perfect Parent and What You Can Learn
  • And this one just came out the other day: 8 Things You MUST Know Before Adopting Internationally
  • Finally, today is the designated day to finish up what we didn't get to in the spring. That would be our Bird Lapbooks. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to put those together, huh? I laid in supplies yesterday. That would be lots and lots of tape. I also finally printed out pictures of Q. for everyone to include. It's why he's even around after all. 




Comments

Donna said…
I love the 8 things article! I will be sharing that one widely. Thanks for writing so insightfully and also concisely.

And ...I thought Q was around to attack unsuspection houseguests. lol
9/01/2017 7:33 AM
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