Weekly update - May 24, 2024

Life has felt significantly calmer this week, which is good, if only because I might have a chance to get caught up with the laundry. And maybe read a book.

• When I was planning menus this week, G. really wanted me to schedule enchiladas. I like enchiladas, but am not a huge fan of spending the time to make them. G. volunteered to do the cooking, so on the list they went. With only marginal instructions, G. made some very respectable enchiladas. 

• K. liked to take pictures while he is biking to work and sometimes gets some really good ones.

• We have a large groundhog who lived under our front porch. Every so often, one of us catches a glimpse of him. The other day I was sitting in the living room and caught movement out of the corner of my eye near one of the sliding glass doors. I looked, expecting to see a cat looking out the window. Instead I saw a very large groundhog on the outside looking in with great interest. He scampered off when he saw I was looking at him. 
• A.'s cats love to hide under our bed, but Basil doesn't always get himself completely hidden. 

• We are slowly crossing things off our list in order to be done with the school year. We have been learning about various European explorers, so this week we spent some time on mapmaking and Renaissance maps. Everyone's assignment was to create a Renaissance style map of whatever they wanted to illustrate, imaginary or actual. Here are the ones that are finished.

(You may have to enlarge the photo if you really care about seeing them.)

L. took the margin pictures and comments to heart. Here are some close-ups of some of them.

• No one had significant reactions to the typhoid vaccine.
• Y. has been crocheting all the cats bowties. Pictures will need to come later.
• We are only two hundred pages to go in finishing Lonesome Dove. The librarians had renewed it for me until July and I really hope I don't have to renew it again. But we do loose that week to Guatemala...
• I'm now reading Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde, which is a sequel to his book, Shades of Grey that I read years ago. So many years ago, in fact, that after reading two pages of the sequel, I knew I had to go back and reread the first one. I finished it yesterday and there was so much I didn't remember. Having now started the sequel... again... it all is making much more sense. Well, as much sense as Jasper Fforde's books ever make.

And speaking of books, that is what I'm going to go do now.