A Mother's Journal ~ A Bit of Birdsong

I just want you to know, so you won’t worry that I am moping and with nothing to do, there is no lack…NO LACK, folks, of entertainment here.

Annie is learning to play chopsticks and other fashionable duets on the keyboard.  It’s fun.  Yes.  All fun and games.  Until Annie gets scared and turns the keyboard upward towards the wall and runs off howling.  Annie’s a good sport, though, and allows us to drag her right back to start piano practice all over again.  (After a treat, of course.)

Once Annie finishes with her piano lesson, she is really and truly pooped.  She gets in the purple chair and spreads out like royalty.  The only thing that moves would be Annie’s eyes.  Don’t enter a staring contest with her!  No!  You’ll lose.  Unless someone has food close by, and then you’ll win.   Well, actually, it’s really no contest if someone has food close by.  Actually you need to be careful and move out of the way if someone has food close by.   (Did I mention that a beagle lives for food?)

On a more homey, crafty note, I’ve been working on Michaela’s school notebooks.  I have 4th grade yet to put together, as well as 1st grade, and of course will tie up what she did from 7th grade here at home. 

The apartment is coming together.  It’s fun shopping for things we need, but boy howdy do I have to stay on a budget!  LOL.  That part is actually a nice challenge for me and I am trying really hard to be patient and wait for just the right thing at just the right price!  Coupons help!  This working 40 hours thing helps out too!   

Michaela is doing very well in school, by the way.  She’s getting settled in, even if she is tired physically from the new schedule.   I believe this was the perfect choice for us, even if it was a somewhat hard choice to make.   I took her notebooks in for her teachers to see.  Oh how gracious they were in looking at all my stuff!  And acknowledging with great kindess that homeschooling is a different culture.  Homeschooling is a marathon, not a sprint.  You look always at the whole child, whole education, whole life, whole character all the time.  Not that teachers in public school don’t do that, but they obviously only have a child for a year and they obviously have end-of-grade testing which must bear on their decisions.  Anyway, I was very comforted by the gracious attitudes of Michaela’s teachers.

I’m still busy cleaning out.  I’ve been happy to be able to donate some of our books to the school.  You know how I love my books!  But what better place for them than a sweet little school?  I have donated more things to Goodwill.  I have thrown more stuff out.  S-T-U-F-F.  I had a lot of it.  Still have a lot of it.  What a distraction stuff can be.  What a comfort stuff can be! 

Gotta run.  Work calls!  Life calls!

Enjoy this day.

First, before I say anything else, thank you so very, very much for visiting my little Etsy shop and helping me out!  I promise, dear friends, that I won’t be inviting you to 50% off sales every month.    This move was unexpected.  That’s all I can say about the move itself, but with the abruptness of it all, I was working from a pay period that was based on part time hours.  What will I do for future months?  As fate would have it, there was another part time position open where I work, so I took that, making me a full-timer.  From here on out…well, I won’t say it will be smooth sailing, but I am looking to make more things for the shop and allow people to visit when they want to.  For now, though, thank you, thank you, thank you. 

Getting settled is what I am working on.  It’s amazing how many things we take for granted in our day-to-day lives.  Even little, material things.  I think of cookie dough and warm cookies.  Oh, but yeah, we need a baking sheet and a spatula.  I offer a can of soup as an easy meal while I am unpacking.  But, oh yeah, we need a can opener.  You get the picture.  John and Michaela and I are getting settled at this  juncture.  We are creating routines with Annie.  (I still cannot believe that she instantly house-trained.  If ever I needed that, it’s right now.)   We are creating routines with each other.   My sweet, oldest boy stopped by yesterday to see how we are making it.  I got a hug yesterday from Big Joe and invited him over.  We are working, working, working on getting settled with this new life we have found ourselves in.

Last night I finished up some hand-held fans for the farmer’s market.  Aren’t they just beautiful!  I love Jessie Wilcox-Smith (you already knew that) and these illustrations were some that I unearthed while moving my craft things.

The gold paper is a heavy gold wall paper that I found at The Scrap Exchange a few months back.  Boy, will I not be going over there as much!  I would have to put a big red X on that clutter free picture from a few days ago.

I know I told you about a bunny find.  Well, Michaela has her own little school/typewriter desk.  It’s built right into the wall, but she needed a bar stool for it.   A regular chair is not tall enough.  The very day that that was written on my list of things to look for, we walked into Goodwill (I promise I was making a donation) and there was this…

Had this been just a frivolous purchase, I would have said, no, no, no.  But this was something we would need and use for a long time, and there was the little bunny, telling me that all is okay and I can still have bunnies, even if they don’t hop and twitch their ears when I refer to them as bun-buns.

I love the green color, and the top of this stool is just too sweet! 

Annie has taken over my nearly worn-out purple chair.  Not sure what she’ll do when Oreo arrives.  Yes, Oreo is coming to live with us, but cats don’t really do what you tell them to, so Oreo had to wait until the  bulk of our furniture was moved.  Poor Oreo.  But I digress.  Oreo considers this to be her chair.  We’ll see what happens when she gets here. 

One last shot of the bunny.  Ohhhh, in the background, look at little newborn baby, fatso Annie beagle.  Isn’t she just a dumpling? 

I talk to her like that.  Yeah, it’s true. 

Michaela says, “MAMA!  You are spoiling that dog rotten!”  But I think that’s good for me and Annie both right now.

I gotta run.  Yesterday was my first real day as a full-timer.  (Sounds sort of like old-timer in my mind.)  I have some things to do this morning before I jump in and tackle another 8 full hours today.  More posts to come. 

Again, thank you.

(This is where my new signature image will go.  When I get it made.)

Lynn