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Is it possible that this sweet little baby here…
who sat in my lap and listened to my many long stories and drove his metal Tonka trucks around in the backyard, is big enough now to drive trucks that are this big…
Not only possible, but true. My biggest boy is working today and thinking of going to college in the fall. He’s one of his mother’s joys. Just wanted to share… Lynn Being back home is wonderful. If you’ve ever worked outside of your home while your heart was at home, then you would understand my joy at this first thought upon waking: Oh, I don’t have to go anywhere today… ~~
~~ It’s not a matter of not wanting to work, mind you. It’s a matter of wanting to care for the home. ~~
~~ I’m working on schedules — “ordering my days” — making sure that priorities are attended to, meals are on the table and the house is clean by a certain time each day. My sweet husband has done way too much cooking since I’ve been working at nights. Today I will finish up a lot of cleaning that I wanted to get done. ~~
~~ I am also enjoying planning menus and working on my grocery shopping schedule. The plan is for one trip per month to Aldi’s, one trip per month to Sam’s Club, a weekly trip to one, two, or three of our very local grocery stores. Then there’s a co-op grocery store about one mile from my home. I can ride my bike to pick up fresh produce daily if I need it. (I love saving money on gas and getting exercise at the same time.) ~~
~~ Menus: Tuesday 4/22: Homemade pizza, fresh salad Wednesday, 4/23: Chicken and dumplings, fresh salad Thursday, 4/24: Lasagne and fresh salad Friday, 4/25: Roast and gravy, small red potatoes, broccoli, fresh salad Saturday, 4/26: Left over roast, macaroni and cheese, green beans, fresh salad Lynn
Note: See if you can find all five of my office birds… Today — again — has been a day of cleaning around the house and continuing to work in the office. I also took a break to stock up on some groceries. While out, I stopped by Goodwill in search of a rug. I did not find one, but I did find two gorgeous plates to hang on the wall in my office.
The plates are Rose Chintz by Johnson Brothers (Made in England) and they fit in nicely with my theme of vintage, birds and roses. The colors are a perfect match when you look at the office over all, even if the above picture doesn’t give you that view…
The plates pretty much round out the collection of what I intend to have on the walls. And it’s all so versatile! These plates can be easily exchanged for two other plates should I change themes or colors. The same goes for the poster above my work station — easily changed.
I did go ahead and paint the baskets that sit in the white hutch. The hutch was a thrift store find for about 14 dollars a few years ago. It has come in very handy for storing electronic things, CDs, cords, etc.
I contemplated adding a few more silk flowers to the vase, but I haven’t bought any yet. Isn’t it fun hunting for just the right things? I did go ahead and spray paint the old wooden box I mentioned yesterday (or was that the day before?). It holds my books of quotations, which I refer to so often, and the plant looks great on it.
Finally, here are the final (well just about) before and after pictures. There is still one more computer to bring in, but you already know what a computer looks like. BEFORE
AFTER
(I am not in love with the big black chair, but hubby is. We’ll see…)
Tonight was a night for homemade pizza and a salad. Not all of the salad came from the garden. Some of the lettuce did and the parsley and radishes did. I did buy the pizza crusts, though I want to take care to start making them to save money now that I’m home.
I mixed mozarella and cheddar cheese for those. Year of the Doll House Yesterday I mentioned a doll house treasure. While I was in A.C. Moore the other day, I could not resist these fresh eggs and milks for the doll house.
There’s gotta be a lesson in these. I’ll let you know. Lynn My office is coming right along and I am totally loving the results! I may just stay in here all the time…
The hard work is done – painting, carpet stretching (yes), setting up furniture, and cleaning, and now remains the fun task of shopping and decorating. I wanted a print above my work station that would allow my mind something to think on, but not something to make me wander so far away in thought that I don’t do a good job. I think this print Windows of Burano by Catherine Archuleta is perfect. The print’s windowbox theme ties in perfectly with the roses on the curtains and the plants in and just outside of my large office window.
Above the plant stand is an old print that I’ve had put up for several years now. I bought a mat today which I cut down to fit this old frame with some peeling paint. This pretty and prim gardener is perfect above the plant stand.
While in Tuesday Morning today, I spotted this little cast robin (so heavy!) for just 4.99. What a steal! She’s guarding the mail tray.
I also picked up a new blue planter at Tuesday Morning. It picks up the blue in the Windows print, the blue in the curtains, and the blue in this little gem by Marjolein Bastin…
It says:
So appropriate, don’t you think? I did make a new cover for the pillow in the chair.
The stripes look a bit wavy in the picture, but I promise they are just straight and cute little pinkish-red stripes. The office has a vintage feel and the theme has certainly taken a turn towards roses and birds. I am still not completely done. I am haunting the thrift stores for the perfect cheap rug and I still have an antique wooden box to spray paint and set up to hold some of my reference books. I’ll also be moving around and adding some computer equipement. Sigh. I did remember to slow down this evening and spend some time with Princess of the Universe. I bought her some new crayons (what’s more better than new crayons???) and five new coloring books. So we colored and drank hot chocolate, and tomorrow I have a doll house treasure to share.
My daughter’s hair is twisted up in the cutest little top-knot. Mine won’t all go, so part of it is twisted up and part of it is hanging down. Hubby smiled and said I looked like the queen of some ancient tribe. Thanks. Lynn I woke up this morning realizing that life has changed — again. Yesterday was my last day at Whole Foods. I have the next couple of weeks to do some old-fashioned spring cleaning and to finish up the office and then I will start my new job at home. It’s a wonderful feeling and it feels like the timing is right. I will miss my coworkers at WF, especially the beautiful friend who bestowed upon me this delectable cake!
She and I were the “dream team” and I was told again last night how much we were appreciated there together as “the dream team.” (It’s a long story.) I wanted to share something we are doing for school right now. Anyone who reads my blog or knows me at all knows that I am a very eclectic homeschooler, and I do see benefits of all the various homeschooling philosophies: unschooling, classical, unit study, boxed curriculum, Charlotte Mason… We have never chosen to fully adhere to a classical education, but I love the depth of history that’s taught with a classical education. The last time I was at The Homeschool Gathering Place, I purchased this:
It flows. Jim Weiss has a voice like silk — though it’s a deep voice, it’s smooth, clear and engaging. I love the way he reads. We’ve been listening to this as a family while we drive. I can tell you that it’s engaging enough that my youngest remembers it’s in the van and says “put in The Story of the World.” That’s saying something. And it’s not just Jim Weiss’s voice. It’s Susan Wise Bauer’s writing — how she has taken history and created characters that my children can relate to, even though they lived 5000 years ago. We plan to listen to all the volumes in this fashion, at least once, if not several times. I will be providing cut-outs for our timeline notebook to paste in as we hear the story of historical events. On a gardening note, I pulled the first radish from my little container garden on the front porch.
It was very good. Yes ma’am. Lynn Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly.
Heed the still, small voice that so seldom leads us wrong, and never into folly.
I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.
The million little things that drop into your hands
You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die. Or when. You can decide how you’re going to live now.
The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it. Here’s to new beginnings. Whether we are at the door or moving toward it. I heard someone say yesterday that we should be content in the experience we are in, but never content to stay in the experience we are in. If we desire change, that is. I like that and I’ve been there. Happy Sunday, I love taking a morning stroll through my little gardens with my green tea.
The Queen Elizabeth rose is covered in buds. They will open into lovely pink roses.
There’s one last clump of narcissus blooming in the garden. These are delicate and I like them a lot.
A very expectant Fluffy will hardly let me walk through the garden for her weaving around in front of me and wanting attention.
I love the way the plants grow up and bloom around the stepping stones, but I have to give in and cut back sometimes when the plants become too friendly with the stepping stones.
I also love the way little plants poke through the stonework that outlines the beds. They bloom in hard places. Can I bloom where ever I’m planted?
I have a somewhat “wild”rose the is covered in buds too. Perhaps you can see some of the many buds mixed in with the moneyplant. I call it wild because it started out as a tea rose that did horribly. So I dug it out, or so I thought. The tea rose must have been grafted onto another, stronger rose root, because what grew back was nothing like the tea rose. It has flatter, red blooms and has flourished every year, save a little black spot that I want to learn to deal with organically.
The planting of oregano beyond the pictured planter is doing great. I plan to use a lot of fresh herbs this year.
Can you see the deep reddish-colored blooms of Jupiter’s beard just beyond our statue. (She was named Sarah Elizabeth Gramble by Joseph when he was very young. He’s quite good with names, don’t you think?)
The Knock-Out roses are covered with blooms. This bed desperately needs weeding, but this is a bed from which I get a lot of “weeds” for my infusions.
The very large spirea shrub is blooming and hanging over the stones that contain the bed its in. I love spirea. So old fashioned!
One of the first things I do is net the leaves that are floating on the water in the goldfish pond and then I feed the goldfish.
The potted diascia is doing great. I’m in such a spray-painting mood lately, I’m tempted to spray paint this basket a pretty antique white. Well, that’s all for now, except a little quote that can certainly be applied to our lives.
Have a lovely Saturday! Lynn I have been VERY busy the past several days. I have wanted to get on here and post more, but it’s been all I could do to keep my house livable while so many projects are going on. As my friend says, I am in a transition phase. That’s so true.
Above is the color scheme for the office accents. I want a lot of antique white in the office with touches of this red, pink, blue and green everywhere. The walls have been repainted white and the trim is already a 1920s green. I love it!
The office is not nearly done, but I wanted to share some things I’ve done so far. I decided to have a go at using a hot glue gun – my first time ever — and I am hooked. Now I know why you crafty girls love your hot glue guns! I attached the faux crystals to the lampshade above. I want to give the cabinet above a touch-up paint job.
I put pink labels in the file cabinet. Cute! Also, I’ve spray painted some of my baskets the same pretty pink that’s in my curtains.
Another pink basket above, and I want to take the brown baskets and spray paint them an antique white to unify the look of the storage cabinet they are in.
Ready for my breaktimes, an old wooden tool box has been spray painted and is holding all my recently thrifted Our State magazines.
I found an old enamel-top farm table for the laptop. The wooden part of the table has at least a couple of layers of paint. I am contemplating painting it again, but I sort of like the buttery color. I am definitely planning to cover the pillow in the chair in some new fabric to match the color scheme.
I need to clean the carpet and then (hopefully) a large rug to match my colors will go down. I am looking for some wall art to brighten up the newly painted walls. There’s still quite a bit to do and I can’t wait to see the finished office! I just wanted to show you a little of what’s been done so far. Lynn Oh did we have a great field trip today! Princess of the Universe got together with the Best Cousin in the Universe and they had a great day together at Hill Ridge Farm. Actually, we all had a very good time. If you’re a North Carolina resident, Hill Ridge Farm is a great place to spend a day just letting the children play.
Upon seeing each other today, the cousins threw their arms around each and swung around and around, lifting each other off of the ground.
One of the main attractions at Hill Ridge Farm is the 80-foot slide! It was most fun. Of course my sister and I both slid down. I don’t think my mom ever did slide! She said she was thinking about it.
It was so much fun to get on a burlap sack and slide down, down, down — going fast, fast, fast! The kids would come flying out, one after another, and jump up before they got run over by the next one out! Sometimes they all came out in a clump!
I especially loved all the animals. There were plenty of goats and chickens.
And a turkey. We saw many ducks, and also turtles at the water’s edge.
I think the children enjoyed just being out on such a beautiful day. The sun was bright and warm, but it was pretty breezy so we never got overheated. In fact, it was chilly a few times, but over all it was a great day to be out having fun.
Hill Ridge Farm offered a very relaxing hay ride. I know the children enjoyed it, but they really wanted to get back to the big slide!
And you know that everyone just loves to eat when they are out at a place like this! We had a great picnic lunch together.
We panned for gems while we were there, the first time I’d ever done that, and it was so much fun. I’ll show you our treasures later. Probably the most fun was riding on the Cool Bus. I laughed at my mother until my stomach hurt. She’s so funny, mostly because she doesn’t mean to be.
There is so much more to tell, but I am tired and a bit sunburned, something I do not like to let happen. I think part of it is windburn, which may simply mean that with a cool breeze blowing, you don’t realize how sunburned you are actually getting. Lynn I was just talking with my son about balancing algebraic equations. How about this equation: house disarray = brain disarray Is that balanced? I think so. The office redo is moving quickly here, but every room in the house, it seems, is in total disarray (and I can hardly think straight).
Don’t get me wrong. I am very pleased that my office is being touched up. And I am very thankful to be coming back home to work. I’ve really missed being home. The simple fact is that there’s more than just the office redo going on.
Suddenly today, as if someone had an electric prod goading him on, my oldest son decided it was time to clean up the upstairs bedroom he shares with my second oldest son. He seemed enveloped in a cloud of domestic drive. His exact words were, “there’s enough dust up there to choke out an entire family,” and this coming from a son who at the age of 14 said he would live in a trashcan if he had to.
What’s a mom to do? I mean, you spend the first 19 years of a boy’s life wondering if he’s hearing you at all when you’re trying to teach him things like, yes, houses still get condemned if they get bad enough. Or you’ll get body lice if you go three months without changing your sheets. Or that much stuff in your floor and under your bed is a fire hazard.
Do you think my big redecorating event encouraged this? No. That’s unlikely, I think, or it would have happened some time before now. Actually, my sons are just growing up, and all of a sudden they want to take ownership of their space and their lives in a new way. It’s really cool to watch. Instead of demanding a halt to all of the general tearing out of everything in the house, I’m celebrating that an old, worn-out bunk bed was dismantled and thrown away, being replaced by a newer futon that my oldest son bought with his own money.
I think I can stand the chaos for a few days. It helps to stay focused on the end result. I went and bought a couple of computer desks that were on clearance at a very good price: 39 dollars each. They will set up nicely side by side to make a work station across my office wall (pictured above). I’m planning to be out thrifting tomorrow with my mom and my sister, so hopefully I can find a vintage table to go in front of my office window for the laptop and as a writing desk.
I think I might already be having Whole Foods Market employee discount withdrawal. I am sure going to miss that discount after I leave. I went shopping today to pick up a few things. I’ll stock up on a few favorites before I leave and lose my discount. Whole Foods is a great place to work, by the way.
I talked with my friend “D” today and she is just the best friend to talk with about domestic things. I had no idea what to do tonight besides sandwiches. She told me she was having sandwiches and pasta and this great big lightbulb came on in my head and I copied her. D, you’re the best.
I cut some Italian parsley from one of my container gardens on the front steps. I chopped it and, along with the cut-up tomatoes above, added some fresh minced garlic and some olive oil and freshly grated parmesan cheese to some cooked pasta.
This made a fabulous pasta dish to serve with our turkey sandwiches tonight.
All of this redecorating has me in a decluttering mood. Uh-oh. Lynn |
I am the mother of four delightful children: a 23-year-old son, a 20-year-old son, a 17-year-old son, and a bright and bubbly 13-year-old daughter. I share an apartment home with my 17-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter. My little home on the internet is called Rose Cottage because of my love for gardening, roses, and all things romantic and Victorian. Welcome. I'm a North Carolina girl and I love sharing North Carolina links and information. I do medical transcription from home. My hobbies include making sweet little dolls from clay who are named and have their own stories to tell. I also make old-fashioned brooches. These are for sale in my Etsy shop. For 13 years continuously, I homeschooled some or all of our four children, but the time came that our homeschool had to be closed. It was the end of a beautiful chapter in my life. I will always be a strong supporter of homeschooling and I will continue to review books and maintain my homeschool website, The Healthy Homeschool.    
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.
I would
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for you to leave a comment, but you can also e-mail me at lynn AT thehealthyhomeschool.com
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