With pictures from the garden

while I run away out of town with a couple of the children

and test for my yellow belt.

Wish me luck!

Spinach Quiche

Prepared deep-dish 9-inch pie shell
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons grated cheddar or Romano cheese
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
1 cup crumbled feta cheese

Combine eggs and the next 6 ingredients and blend well. Stir in spinach and feta cheese and pour into pastry shell. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes (or until set).

Venison Sausage Quiche

Prepared deep-dish 9-inch pie shell
1 pound ground venison sausage, browned
8 ounces grated cheddar cheese
3 tablespoons minced onion
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1-1/2 cups milk
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Layer alternately into pie shell the browned ground sausage and cheese.  Top with minced onion.  Combine the eggs with the next three ingredients and mix well.  Pour over meat and cheese in pie shell.  Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until set. 

Be Happy This Day,

Lynn

On Drawing

When hubby got home yesterday I showed him my latest drawing.

I never really have a long time to sit and draw, but I find it so very soothing to just get in my little living room once in awhile, put on something like Verdi: Choirs and Overtures and draw for a half hour or so. 

I asked hubby, “Do you know what kind of bird this is?”  (This was before I labeled it.)

“House finch,” he said. 

I was happy.

On School

School here goes well, except that I wish we could shake this virus that wants to visit us all.  Now one of my boys has the same cold that Miss Priss had.  He’s home from school today.  Sigh.  It could be so much worse, so I won’t  complain. 

Hamlet continues to be such a worthwhile project.  I’ll be honest, Princess of the Universe is a bit bored (overwhelmed?  attention span?) with it, but since she started the project with us I am going to continue to include her in it until the end.  If I felt she was truly suffering, I would release her from the project, but her interest waxes and wanes and I think the oral reading alone from this project is good for all of us.  We are taking it slow for several reaons, one being the aforementioned short attention span, but mostly because you just cannot read Shakespeare fast. 

(Yes, I know that now. )

I figured the reason it took so long in public school was because there were so many clowns in the class, but that was probably the reason that all of us didn’t really enjoy it back then like we should have.  No matter what setting you’re in, however, I think to really savor the language and the comedy in Hamlet, it’s simply a slow process. 

We continue to be amazed at all the modern sayings that came from Shakespeare.  Polonius rocks on with stuff like “brevity is the soul of wit” and referring to Hamlet’s affection for Ophelia as “hot love on the wing.”

You know we’ve GOT to take time to stop and laugh over stuff like that.  Right?

On Working

Today and tomorrow are work days for me.  Not the usual around here, but I have to be off this Friday and Saturday because Joseph, Princess of the Universe and I will test for our yellow belts in Karate.  Yes!  We are practicing every day and I’m trying to get my cat stance and knife hand block just right.  Who knew a person got so rusty in their 40s?  This class has been good for me.

Enjoy this day,

Lynn

This week we’ve got some inspiring copywork going on. 

Monday: (Yesterday)

Go Forth to Life
by Samuel Longfellow

Go forth to life, oh! child of Earth.
Still mindful of thy heavenly birth;
Thou are not here for ease or sin,
But manhood’s noble crown to win.

Though passion’s fires are in thy soul,
Thy spirit can their flames control;
Though tempters strong beset thy way,
Thy spirit is more strong than they.

Go on from innocence of youth
To manly pureness, manly truth;
God’s angels still are near to save,
And God himself doth help the brave.

Then forth to life, oh! child of Earth,
Be worthy of thy heavenly birth,
For noble service thou art here;
Thy brothers help, thy God revere!

Nature Study/art work for Princess of the Universe yesterday was to pick the bird of her choice from one of our many science/nature books and draw it.

I went to AtoZTeacherStuff and made up a nice work find puzzle to hopefully help us retain information gleaned from reading about Augustus Caesar recently.

Copywork on tap for the rest of the week:
Tuesday:

Kindness to Animals

Little children, never give
Pain to things that feel and live;
Let the gentle robin come
For the crumbs you save at home;

As his meat you throw along
He’ll repay you with a song.
Never hurt the timid hare
Peeping from her green grass lair,

Let her come and sport and play
On the lawn at close of day.
The little lark goes soaring high
To the bright windows of the sky,

Singing as if ’twere always spring,
And fluttering on an untired wing–
Oh! let him sing his happy song,
Nor do these gentle creatures wrong.

Wednesday:

A Child’s Prayer
by M. Bentham-Edwards

God make my life a little light,
Within the world to glow;
A tiny flame that burneth bright
Wherever I may go.

God make my life a little flower,
That giveth joy to all,
Content to bloom in native bower,
Although its place be small.

God make my life a little song,
That comforteth the sad;
That helpeth others to be strong,
And makes the singer glad.

God make my life a little staff,
Whereon the weak may rest,
That so what health and strangth I have
May serve my neighbors best.

Thursday:

Beautiful
From McGuffey’s Second Reader

Beautiful faces are they that wear
The light of a pleasant spirit there;
Beautiful hands are they that do
Deeds that are noble, good and true;
Beautiful feet are they that go
Swiftly to lighten another’s woe.

Beautiful is something we’ll be reading every day this week for memory work.  I think it was a very useful thing for me to memorize passages when I was young.   This week while visiting some of the blogs in my blogroll, I dropped by The Pleasant Land of Counterpane where I was directed to an interview with Andrew Campbell.   

Boy did these sentences jump out at me.

We can’t express what we don’t have words for. By stocking our minds with “the best that has been thought and said,” we have a storehouse of phrases to express, succinctly and beautifully, what we want to say
 

I am entirely convicted to incorporate weekly memory work into our schedule for Princess of the Universe. On Friday, she should be able to recite Beautiful from memory.

Our reading about Roman history has tied in nicely with our study of Angelo using Five In A Row for lesson plans.

Happy Tuesday,
Lynn

So 18 years ago today I was holding this brand new little fella right here.

He was a Saturday lunchtime baby and it snowed throughout my labor.  My sister was with me.  I asked her if it made her never want to have a baby.  She said it only made her want one more.

Even though he had a lateral lisp and basically no one could understand a word he said until he was about 5 years old, he had much to say and many tasks to accomplish.  He was the toddler voted hardest to watch. 

He would slip away in the blink of an eye, gravitated to coffee and adults and seemed to be a very impatient grown man trapped in an 18-month-old’s body.

A little mystery man?  Yeah.  And constantly dressing in who-knew-what-would-be-next.  We often wondered if he was secretly in the CIA because of his various clothing demands and his obvious agenda to do things his way.

After being such a hard-to-keep-up-with toddler, Big Joe only grew more and more pleasant to be around through the years.  Not that he wasn’t deliciously pleasant as a baby and toddler, it’s just that sometimes I felt my sciatic nerve was pinched completely in two from chasing him and retrieving him from dangerous places.

Dyslexia didn’t go over so well at the public school he was in, so in second grade he came home for school and we have never looked back.

Making pizza, probably rowing Little Nino’s Pizzeria, way back then.

This boy Joseph had a slew of pound puppies that had to travel with us everywhere we went.  Here we are — well here’s Papa Bear anyway, in a hotel room, his head and chest being overrun by pound puppies.  The pound puppies did have one kitten friend, but that’s just the way Joseph was.

Big Joe is the commander in chief standing on the building.  These boys were like little monkeys, swinging from tree to toy to tree with a dozen strategically placed ropes.  It wasn’t so many years after this that Joseph began to grow around his bigger brother, earning the name “Big Joe.”

I stayed up last night and made two homemade sour cream cheesecakes for Big Joe.  I wanted him to wake up this morning to his favorite “cake” in the world.  In fact, I wanted him to have cheesecake for breakfast if he wanted to, and that’s just what he did.

Big Joe today. 

18.

Happy 18th to a really, really, really good boy.

Ha ha ha.  It was moved again.  But you knew that already. 

I am SO happy.  It’s finally where it belongs.   Hubby may just cry tears of joy.

As you can see, Princess of the Universe now has TWO desks in her room.  And the tall cabinet that I purchased awhile back.  All three of these pieces are used — the cabinet from an antique store and the desks from thrift stores.  In fact one of the desks was less than 10 dollars. 

Maybe you’re thinking that her room is a different color?  You are right!  It’s Behr Japanese Fern, 400B-6.   And we love it.

Princess of the Universe wanted her room to be green from the start, but when we remodeled her bedroom we used up some expensive-but-never-used paint we had put up.  Maybe we saved some money, but it never was what she wanted.  So today when my work computer went on the blink and IT couldn’t do anything about it over the phone, my work day was suddenly cut short.  What did we do?  We painted!

Did I say already that we love it? 

Oh.  Yeah.  Okay.

Japanese Fern.  Two craft desks.  All the art supplies.  Doll house rooms galore.  We may never come out of this room now.

Have a lovely evening,

Lynn

Four very pretty thrifted dresses.  Springy.  Bright.  Feminine.

Inspiration!

To…

• drink plenty of water
• eat your greens
• do your Pilates
• lift some weights
• walk
• say no to that second piece of cake
• wear a pretty hat
• shop for pretty pink leggings
• and soft little T-shirts to match
• take your vitamins
• get your calcium
• fall in love with fruits with vegetables
• play in the garden
• polish up your flip-flops
• moisturize your legs
• enjoy each day

Happy Friday,

Lynn

The warm sun makes even a girl with a cold feel better.

This kitty gets lots of attention.

And she likes to show off the soft fur on her neck.

Coming soon!  Beautiful purple blooms!

Drops of water on emerging foliage.

I can’t wait to see these bloom.

Tulips.  Won’t be long!

Look below for creatures!  They’re out!

And more.

Jump!

Have a wonderful night,

Lynn

Good morning!  My camera is charging even as I type, and hopefully I’ll be able to get out in the garden today and get some pictures.  We had rain, rain, rain yesterday and the garden looks like it’s strung with diamonds this morning.  Every plant is glistening with bright, shining drops of water.

Yesterday turned into a major teacher workday, but it’s just as well.  Princess of the Universe didn’t feel well again and I actually kept John home from school as he didn’t feel well either.  It seems that everyone we know is fighting a cold, John said many in his class have been sick recently, and I feel like we are just keeping our heads above water here in regards to viruses.  Hubby came home from work with a sore throat.

I went to the store early yesterday to get a chicken and some extra large dumpling noodles and we had homemade chicken and dumplings for supper.  Hubby spiced it up just right when he got home and it was so good.  Garlic, black pepper, cajun spices.  It made everyone feel better.

The quilt above?  Isn’t is gorgeous?  While out yesterday, I went by Goodwill to drop off the things I had bagged up the days before.  I walked in and there was a king-sized Dockers quilt for 4 bucks.  Joy.  I brought it home and washed it and dried it and it looks wonderfully bright and cheerful in our bedroom.

As far as school yesterday, we didn’t do so much.  We did an algebra lesson.  We read a bit.  We did some drawing.  We played a killer game of Scrabble.  John won.  We just enjoyed being a family taking it easy yesterday.  I went to bed last night thankful that we had the privilege of even taking a day like that.

On my stack of old suitcases acting as an end table in the living room sit a few favorite things: an old thrifted lamp that I love and a pretty little thrifted mirror.  My green tea keeps me company.

With my school planners and my drawing/writing journal, I sat and enjoyed silence, a clean house, the smell of chicken and dumplings cooking, my hot tea, and thoughts of the mountain bluebird.

We, of course, have the Eastern Bluebird here.  There are three species of bluebirds:  the mountain bluebird, the Western bluebird and the Eastern bluebird.   They are cousins to the American robin, sharing a family, but not genus.  During mating season, the male mountain bluebird will look almost turquoise.  Sometimes the female mountain bluebird will have a rusty-colored breast, favoring the western or eastern bluebird, but the mountain bluebird is longer and slimmer.

The above information was gleaned from several sources:

Birds of Carolinas Field Guide (Field Guides)

Peterson Field Guide(R) to Eastern Birds: Fourth Edition (Peterson Field Guides)

Birding (Nature Company Guides)

and a great magazine with a really nice website: Better Homes and Gardens’ Nature’s Garden

Enjoy this day,

Lynn

I have continued to declutter the living room.  I think.  Maybe all I’m really doing is spending my life dragging furniture up and down the stairs while I trick myself into thinking I’ve made more room somewhere.

Poor Hubby went somewhere last evening and when he came home later there was a ladder, an antique suitcase, a desk, an end-table and various other items like photo albums and sewing scissors blocking the walkway through this room, which runs right behind the loveseat.   

In fact, this is the route he took to get where he needed to go.

It did not look like an easy task when he squeezed around the ladder and then sucked in his breath to make his way between the loveseat and the record player.  At this point we made eye contact, but I must have looked unstable or something because he didn’t say anything. 

I must have looked extremely unstable — or maybe it was the sharp sewing scissors and crochet hooks laying around where I had dismantled the craft desk for the 108th time in our marriage — because he offered to carry something upstairs.

I am pleased to say that there were no arguments and that the craft desk is now upstairs where we will set up shop again in Michaela’s room.  When I think of the work ahead — organizing all the craft things in her room — I think I’ve created a new word.  Recluttering.  Sometimes I declutter.  Sometimes I reclutter.  I suppose since I did carry three bags of stuff out to the van last night for Goodwill donations that I did do some DEcluttering, but putting that craft desk upstairs was a major REcluttering move.

Thank goodness my marriage is holding out. 

Really, though, I’ll tell you a secret.  Sometimes I get discouraged with my house.  The rooms ARE oddly shaped.  And I DO have places where the once-fashionable blown ceiling is peeling off and looking really ugly.  There have been times over the last century where the roof has leaked — think hurricanes (it’s stood through quite a few) — and there are dark spots either on a ceiling or wall.  Sigh.  And the closets?  Horrid.  The carpet?  Gross.  The bathrooms?  Outdated and tiny and totally in the wrong places.  Let’s don’t even talk about the coal dust that wafts down from the corners and in the closets OR the old dysfunctional windows.

Last night when hubby saw how distraught I was over this craft desk of mine, he put his arms around me and said, “I’m sorry.  You think you see a shooting star, but then when you get to it it’s just a broken piece of glass in the sand, and the sun’s not even shining on it right anymore. ”

Awwwwwwwwwww.  Either he’s got a heart of gold or he knows just exactly what to say to keep me from letting go of the tiny thread I’ve been hanging onto.

THEN he said, “But I look at you and our four babies and know I’ve got something better than ALL the stars.”

Where are the tissues????

And I know I really cannot complain.  I have more than I deserve and I like being content.  It’s just that sometimes I get tired.  And you all know that most of the time I love my old house. 

So this morning for school we’ll be spending a couple of hours organizing the craft area upstairs.  Then, inspired by Angelo, we have something in mind to make for the doll house.  I’ll try not to reclutter OR complain anymore, though you can probably expect another post like this later in the spring when I try to open up one of these ancient windows and rip a fingernail off doing so.

Lynn