Taking one day at a time.  I think I always need help with this.  Why is it so easy to drag around the past, like a ball and chain?  Or to live in fear over the future?  I don’t know, but I want to just take one day at a time and be content. 

Saturday and Sunday were beautiful days here!  Temps in the 50s and 60s, bright sun.  The birds were singing a come-on-spring chorus and I loved it!  I stole outside for a few minutes on Saturday morning to sit in the sun and read.  The steps get so warm, it’s a favorite spot. 

I’m realizing more and more, when you get a sunny moment you must take it!

Yesterday was rainy, rainy, and gray.  Today, while there is no rain falling, it is gray outside again.  I am trying really hard to be of the optimistic opinion, however, that this only means more flowers come spring.

My day today is full, for 19 years ago today I was giving birth to that little fella you see sitting in the sink.

Joseph was our second son, and today he turns 19!  Where did the years go?  Anyway, I asked him what he wanted to eat tonight, and I’m talkin’ a meal and dessert. 

“Pizza?  Homemade?  But can you make about six of them so I can eat all I want? 

Of course.

“And cheese cake?”

Why sure.

“Uhhhh.  Fudge?”

At this point The Carpenter got into a huddle with Joseph and noted that mom could make a perfectly-chocolate chocolate cake, so Joseph compromised. 

I suppose I’ll be grocery shopping this morning and cooking this afternoon. 

I hope you have a wonderful Tuesday.

A few thoughts from my home today, a very rainy day with wind blowing gusts of rain drops into the window panes.   It’s a wonderful day to be inside with my children.  It’s a perfect sort of day for reading picture books and journal writing.  It’s a perfect day for Lemon Zinger tea with honey. 

Last night before bed, I straightened the house up so I could wake up to a nice clean house today and hopefully just enjoy a quiet day at home.  One of the things I did was to change out a curtain that covers a huge shelf in my old kitchen.  There’s not a lot of cabinet space in an old house, but this shelf I found a couple of years ago at the thrift store has been a lifesaver as far as space is concerned.  Thomas mounted it to the wall with brackets and we have enjoyed its expansive shelves immensely. 

The reason I am sharing this particular project is that the curtain is actually a king size duvet cover that tied at the open end.  It came from Goodwill for 5 dollars.  I took one look and said to myself that the ties would make it a perfect curtain. 

I love unusual things like this.  The pattern on the fabric makes me so happy!

On a Veteran’s Day note, we are thinking about my dad today, my children’s grandfather, who served in the Air Force in air traffic control, as a drill instructor, and in Vietnam as a combat controller. 

He was a handsome man with a kind, service-oriented way about him.  I miss him and think of him often.  I appreciate all of our veterans and active duty service men and women.  Thank you.

I hope you enjoy, as Pooh would say, this Winds-day, for around here it really is a “winds-day”

Lynn

Eleven years ago today I was walking up and down our street, trying to make the contractions get even stronger. I was so anxious to welcome into our home full of GI Joes and Batman capes a little bundle of pink.

It worked.  And I tell her frequently, “You are exactly what this family needed.” 

Happy Birthday to my little Michaela.

It’s been a fun day for her.  She received a very neat gift this morning from two special friends.  I received the gift of getting the chance to visit with their mom for awhile over tea and bread with butter or olive oil — take your pick.  It was a lovely start to our day!  The girls brought Michaela a bamboo rain stick made in Indonesia.  I’ll try to post a picture soon. I can’t take one now because she is showing it off to our neighbors. 

Later on in the day some other friends — who usually don’t get to visit — came over and played for a few hours.  We had cupcakes and chips and salsa and a delightful time.

After preparing supper and sitting down to eat as a family, I am about to put my feet up and read some more in my Charlotte Mason notebook. 

Happy Tuesday!

Lynn

It was a remarkable coincidence.  On July 4, 1826, 50 years to the day after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two of the signers of the declaration, and both former Presidents of the United States, took their dying breaths.

It is recorded that during the night before his death at Monticello, Jefferson asked, “Is it the fourth?”  He was assured that it was indeed the fourth, to which he murmured, “Ah.”  He died at 12:50 the next afternoon, July 4th, 1826.

Many miles away, in Quincy, Massachusetts, John Adams was dying.  Though Adams and Jefferson had many a lively argument over their fledgling country, their friendship endured and grew.  John Adams’ dying words:  “Thomas Jefferson still survives.”  Adams died at 5:30, July 4th, 1826.

I like to think that our democratic republic will survive, and in that Thomas Jefferson and all the signers of the Declaration will survive.

Our July 4th learning table is set up to be on display for the coming week or so. 

We gathered up many things revolutionary:  biographies of Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, and others; we have a large flag, books about life in the 1700s, a small flag, reproductions of colonial and revolutionary currency, and more.

We’ll keep our table up for at least a week and hopefully learn a little more about our nation’s birth.

I thought these recent pictures from our Yorktown trip would be fitting today.

One Country

One Constitution

One Destiny

Happy Fourth of July!

Lynn

I heard a definite mewing sound outside in my front garden this afternoon.  I stepped in its direction.  It stopped.

I waited.  I heard it again and took another step. 

It stopped.  I waited.

I heard it again.  I got closer.  I pulled back a mass of foliage and there underneath…

was a brand-new, still-wet kitten, and another one being born.  The picture above was taken after Cookie had had all her kittens and was up moving around and eating her first post-delivery meal.

One may wonder, why is Lynn allowing more kittens?  Well, who knew Cookie would get this way so fast?  We just did not get her to the vet in time, but I have learned my lesson.  If we can just get through this…

Not that brand-new kitties are that hard a thing to get through, but

if we can just get them all safely raised a bit, find homes for some of them, maybe adopt one.  Maybe.  Just ONE.  We will make a most-certain, very important, should-have-happened-sooner trip to the vet.

In other news, this child

was born 21 years ago today.  So we sang a joyful Happy Birthday to him today.

We have a rash of children’s birthdays this time of year.  Three down.  One to go.  Not that I mind.  It’s just that there’s a flurry of activity this time of year anyway, but it’s a joyous thing, so I’m not complaining.  I love the sounds of my children and their happy voices. 

Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate Cake.  Yum.

My oldest son’s 21st birthday, new kittens that seem like they were just for him on his birthday.  It’s been a pretty swell afternoon.

Lynn

Just today, April 1st, The Old Schoolhouse has a great special.  Only $14.09 for a new one-year subscritpion plus one-year digital sub!

Read about it here!

Remember, it’s today only!
Lynn

Turning 46 yesterday was so wonderful, I think I’ll do it again next year.  

First of all, Princess of the Universe made me a cake that had so much icing the layers were sliding apart. 

Yes, all that white stuff floating around the bottom layer is icing.  Homemade icing.  Yum.

Then she drew me a beautiful picture of us and wrote me the sweetest little note.  Princess of the Universe = Michaela = Mike (because that’s what you do when you have three big brothers, so I have Daniel, Joe, John and Mike).

I think my birthday dress, above, is lovely, don’t you?  Would you look at my waist!!!  I can eat all the cake I want. 

I received a package from my sister with many cute things to make me happy.  Best of all was the book, A Brighter Garden, containing poetry by Emily Dickinson and illustrations by Tasha Tudor.  There was also a sweet picture from my 40th birthday a few years back. My, how time flies.

Princess of the Universe gave me this little elephant.  We named her Renee Gray.  I love the name Renee for a couple of very, very special people in my life.  Renee Gray sits on my work desk to help me remember words.  Elephants are good for that, you know.

Candles placed in the shape of 4 6 .  I made a wish and blew them all out.  I’ll let you know if I get my wish.

It was a wonderful day.  I also received cards from best friends and relatives.  Thank you so much.  You made my day.

Lynn

Hope.  What a name.  And fitting.  I listened to Dick Gordon’s The Story yesterday, an interview with John Hope Franklin.  Dr. Franklin had some serious, important stories to tell.   Look and listen here. 

Dr. Franklin died two days ago, March 25, 2009.

Some of the stories Dr. Franklin told involve racial hatred, Dr. Franklin having been a victim of that even as a child.  My children will be listening to The Story, but you might want to pre-listen for much younger children. 

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.

Let me share a beautiful old Valentine’s Day postcard that I have in my collection of old postcards.

Little gold hearts, big red and pink hearts, Cupid’s arrows, and forget-me-nots.  What speaks more of love? 

Did everyone read something about Cupid this week?  We’ll be talking about Cupid tonight and reading more about Cupid in mythology.  We studied Cupid recently as he was right-smack-dab in the middle of the story of Apollo and Daphne.  In fact, I totally blame Cupid for Daphne getting turned into a laurel tree.  If I didn’t love gardening so much, I’d probably be mad.

Need more Valentine’s Day red? 

This is the view from my window yesterday as I sat at my desk and typed.  I love the bright red cardinals that hang out in our garden.   A few years back I even wrote an article about them for The Healthy Homeschool website. 

I know it’s not super clear because I’m cropping this out of a picture taken from quite a distance, but you can see that the real-life cardinal is enjoying the mosaic birdbath I made along with two ceramic birds incorporated into the design.

Hey, guess what?  Today is not only Valentine’s Day, but for us it is Big Furry Man’s birthday.  Yes it is!  He is 46 today.  Uh, he always picks on me for one month out of the year that he loves being married to a “younger woman” and now here we are at that month.

Okay, so I’ll be 46 next month and then we’ll be the same age again.  I guess I should just enjoy that one month that I get to be a “younger woman.”

As far as school this past week, I feel like we accomplished a few major things, in spite of my running around so much.  We finished Act I of Hamlet and are really enjoying it.  Joseph has said now that he’s very glad he’s reading it and that he was mistaken in saying he didn’t want to.  Michaela will still say that it’s boring and yet everytime I pull our copies of Hamlet off the bookshelf she yells, “I get to be Hamlet” or “I get to be the king.”  She wants the big parts. 

I am also pushing Joseph really hard in the spelling department.  I can tell the lightbulb has come on for spelling, just like it did for reading the year that he finally took off with reading.  We will have end-of-year testing in May and I want him to have really jumped up there in spelling. 

Michaela and I reviewed places she should know from her Five In A Row studies.  We pulled out our pretty little storage box of story disks and she began to place them on the world map:  Sri Lanka, Atlantic Ocean, Vermont, Australia, Arctic Ocean, Ungava Bay…

All I’ve got to say is who needs a chiropractor when you’ve got a child who can wrench your head around like this to look at the camera?  I’ve been aligned.  Also, I’m obviously on my lunch break in this picture, because I’ve got my typing gloves on.

Well, it’s off to the work desk this morning.  Enjoy your Saturday!

Lynn