I just realized that I am way behind on reading blogs again.  They are still not appearing regularly in my inbox, so the only ones I hit are the ones I have on Bloglines.  Still, I can't believe how busy life is these days!

Where does one start?  We've (mostly my DH) been working on the lawn the last two days.  When our roof got done in the fall our grass suffered greatly ( a very small price to pay).  So the weeds took over and the grass succumbed.  That has taken up much of any "spare" time around here.  Now I just hope the seeds take root and the grass grows before the weeds take over again.

Last week was another migraine week--five days in a row.  I finally gave in on Sunday and went to bed instead of to church.  I still had a headache Sunday evening, but by Monday morning it was finally gone.  I do tend to push myself through most of them--still have to eat, do laundry, and maintain some semblance of order to life. 

Really struggling with our schoolwork these days.  I feel ready for a break. But the children are doing so well now that I dislike the thought of stopping when we can still get stuff done.  We have a lot of stuff coming up in June though, so if I can keep things going this month, we will do much less next month.  I tried an upside-down day today, with our afternoon subjects in the morning, and our morning subjects (the most important ones) in the afternoon.  The benefit to that was that we actually got the afternoon subjects done--better than we've been doing a lot of the time lately.  We didn't get to many of the morning subjects though.  I do think I may keep doing that at least a couple of days a week, in hopes that we can make a bit more progress in history and reading before stopping for our summer break.

I've been feeling convicted about spending too much time on the computer and not enough time doing other things.  Unfortunately this conviction seems to have come at a time when I've had to be on the computer more than usual.  I use the computer to pay bills, plan lessons, do our budget, communicate with family, and last week I was listening to the Homeschool Expo online--at least the sessions that didn't conflict with other things.  Now I am busy downloading the audios I didn't get to hear.  Maybe next week I will be able to cut back. 

I had a wonderfully productive week last week, with a field-trip, several trips to town to drop off and pick up my husband at the bus (he had two trips last week), much cleaning and organizing around the house--doing things that don't have to be done every day, as well as doing our lessons. I even had a migraine one day and finished up morning school while lying on the couch.  It was a great week for getting things done.

This week has not started out the same at all.  In fact I think my brain is mush.  I can't think straight and can't seem to accomplish anything.  I don't feel like cooking tonight (a common complaint, unfortunately), so we are having frozen Scottish meat pies and beans--on the menu for this week, just not for tonight.  We've done lessons both Monday and today, and I did do all the laundry yesterday, so I must be getting something done.  It just doesn't feel like much, and my energy level has bottomed out. 

Since tonight's dinner is now on the menu for tomorrow at noon, I am contemplating letting the children have an easy morning, and trying to use the time to recharge my own batteries.  Then Belle can help me make lunch--for Home Ec.

I just answered the timer in the kitchen and was confronted with an open dishwasher partially filled with dirty dishes--evidence of today's distraction.  I started to fill it and then ended up doing something else--rabbit trails.  I know I'm not the only one who ever does this.  `Fess up folks!

Tuesday we went on a field trip to a nearby museum.  They are hoping to attract folks by hosting Home School Tuesdays periodically.  The name of this event was Pioneer Days.  The museum is in the process of building a pioneer village, and if they do everything they plan to do in the next ten years, it will be quite an impressive place.  They have a few buildings all ready, and we toured those after watching a short film about early settlers in this part of Canada.

The children had a great time, and so did I.  I think Boo's favorite part was the Blacksmith shop, and Belle's was getting to see the log cabin and log house.



     


After the tour we went to a local park with another family from church.  There we enjoyed a picnic lunch and a walk on some of the trails.  They also have some interesting birds to see.  We saw a peacock displaying his fan.  It was beautiful!  My photos don't do justice because of the bars of the cage.



An interesting note is that the Home School Tuesdays thing was so popular that they had to do two tours, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, and they were both full!

I want to ditch afternoon lessons and do some project like cleaning, or washing windows, or sorting out a file cabinet.   I don't want to do lessons....but I really want to finish the SL week that we have been trying to finish for ages.  It will feel so good to get that done.

I am having trouble being interested in our history lessons lately.  I don't know if it is just me, or the time of year when I feel uninspired about school, but I'm about ready to shelve history until Fall.  But then the other part of me wants to get through what we're doing now into a time that I am more interested in.

Morning lessons have gone really well this week.  Boo has started Vocabulary lessons formally (he had been following along with us), and he is doing them mostly independently.  He also started a new handwriting book---in the middle--as that seems to be where he is at with his fine motor skills.  He is nearly ready to try cursive Italic.

Belle is excited about her new math level.  The kids even did two pages of math one day this week.  Her reading is coming along very well too.

I have been working on my own attitude lately.  I am not there yet, by any means, but I've been learning that I must give the control over our schedule and days to the Lord, and not to stress about what doesn't get done.  It is a constant fight when the house is messy but I don't have time to clean because I'm doing school. (Cleaning is a Saturday job around here.)  Or when I would much rather do something else than cook.  I need to have a more thankful heart--first that I am able to do it, and secondly that I have a family to do it for!  And complaining about it is not setting a good example for my daughter, who is rapidly growing up.

We went to Iowa last week.  Left home on Monday, and got back on Saturday.  For a couple of days I had no computer access.  The rest of the time, I was either too tired from driving, or too busy visiting to blog.  We had a great time with friends!  One of the highlights of the trip was getting to see my friend, MishinIA, who was so sick in December.  She looks great!--even better because I was afraid (back in December) that I might never get to see her again.

We spent most of a day together.  I really enjoyed getting to know her kids, and so did our kids.  The children played really well together.

Other highlights were going to the Science Center in Des Moines--counts as a field trip for the children, and getting together with the minister and his wife from the church there.  And of course, spending time with the friends we stayed with.

On Friday, on the trip home, Belle came down with a bug.  Fortunately her throwing up was done in the hotel bathroom and not the van.  She is better from that now, but seems to have a cold.  She wasn't feeling well again tonight.  The rest of us seemed to have mild versions of the same bug, but none of us are really sick.

Today was spent mostly catching up on laundry and on a trip to the dentist.  (As if we hadn't already spent enough in the past week!)  My husband and I both needed fillings replaced.  I had a slight problem in that the anesthetic wasn't adequate at first.  Ow!  The drilling sure hurt.  Fortunately I could communicate that, and he gave me some more anesthetic.  Now my jaw is just a bit sore.  Hopefully that will go away soon.   I've only had two cavities so far in my entire life, and interestingly enough, they were found when I had dental insurance....  I've since had to have both of them re-filled--when I didn't have insurance.

The other interesting thing was that I didn't miss the computer much at all.  Now I'm home, and swamped in email (I really am going to take myself off some lists very soon).  I like to keep up with blogs, but I just don't have time to read everything. 

Now I really need to try and figure out how much of our lessons we will attempt tomorrow.  I still have laundry to finish and other things to catch up on.  Trying not to be overwhelmed....

Wow!  Life has been busy!

We had a wonderful visit with my sister-in-law last week.  She arrived Monday evening and left on Friday morning.  Needless to say, I was too busy having fun to blog.  We went for walks, played with the children, ate, watched a DVD that my dear husband bought me, and talked, and talked.  We had a couple of years to catch up on, as they work in another country.

Saturday was the homeschool conference in our area.  A group of five of us ladies went down in our van, from our church congregation, and we met two others from our congregation there.  That was so much fun!  We had company on the drive and a chance to visit without interruptions from our children.  I found the conference very encouraging.  It was great to meet up with folk, and even a fellow blogger--Author Donna!  (So sorry I don't have a link just now.  Maybe I can edit later to add.)

On the way home we ladies stopped to have supper together.  What a nice ending to a wonderful day.

It isn't that anything earthshaking has happened.  For some reason I either haven't spent much time on the computer lately, or when I have, I've been trying to keep up with email.  I haven't been near my blog since just after I blogged the last time.

Life just seems crazy these days.  If I keep up with housework (and I'm having enough trouble doing that!), I get behind on the computer, and vice versa.

I'll just hit the main events since I've got only about five minutes until we should be tackling our afternoon lessons. 

I've been to the doctor twice in the past week--both times for minor infections.  Fortunately I haven't had to be on oral antibiotics at all.  The topical stuff seems to be working.  Both times I saw an on-call doctor, as it was over the holiday weekend.  Both doctors were good, and explained things well--the way I like it.  Today my regular doctor phoned to tell me she has samples of a migraine medicine for me--with the idea of not prescribing an expensive medicine unless we know it works for me.

Belle has finished a Math U See level!  This is a big accomplishment for her, and she is very excited about starting the next level, which we began this morning.

In general, we are struggling a bit with lessons.  Or rather, I am.  I am having a hard time being motivated in the afternoons.  We are getting something done every day, but not every subject every day.  I think I have Spring fever.  At least the most important subjects get covered in the morning.  And I hope the homeschool conference gives me a shot of encouragement.  It isn't that the children are struggling.  They seem to mostly enjoy the work they do.  The problem seems to be with me.

We have had more snow lately.  Winter is not over yet here.  But the blessing has been a greater frequency of bright and sunny days.  I like the longer days too.  And I like the fact that I can get out for walks in the morning again.  I went today, and slipped and slid on icy roads, but still managed to enjoy the outing.  I plan to post some pictures of the past few days and this morning.

It has been more than five minutes and I still want to upload some pictures...

 
 

She threw up only once last night and then slept for most of the night.

I, on the other hand, didn't.  Somewhere around 2 a.m. I woke up with a migraine.  With the fogginess of one just awakened, I thought it might "go away" if I just lay still.  An hour or so later it was much much worse.  I think it was one of the worst I have had recently.  I dragged myself out of bed and downstairs so I could eat a piece of bread and take some medicine.  Some time after that I found sleep.

This morning I woke up feeling wiped out.  Post-migraine fatigue, I guess.  I made it through breakfast and morning lessons, and gave up after lunch, choosing a nap over afternoon lessons.  I still don't feel totally myself, but hope that will improve after a walk in the rain tonight.  (Hopefully it won't pour while we are out.)

Tomorrow we all get to go to the dentist.  I predict pain in the pocketbook.  Some time after that I hope life will return to some semblance of normal--the normal that gives me nothing to blog about.

Three to go.  But I sure hope not!  Belle had a great day of lessons (we all did) and seemed fine all day.  After supper I noticed she didn't look herself at all.  She was a bit green around the gills and had a bit of a tummy ache.  No fever.  Sure enough, after lying down for a bit, she started throwing up.  Very sour tummy.  I can still hear rumbles.  I hope this isn't the beginning of a night of it.  Belle has always had trouble stopping once the vomiting starts.  Fortunately I have medicine on hand, and will give it to her if the throwing up persists.

I'd been looking forward all day to my walk with a friend.  Now I can look forward to it tomorrow. Lol.  Oh and I am hoping that no one else succumbs.  Dear husband has nursing home duty tomorrow and we all have dental appointments on Wednesday.  This could be an interesting week.

Gotta keep a sense of humour....

I had a legitimate reason for not blogging this week.  We went away for almost three days.  The previous two were busy with dinner guests one night and getting ready to leave the next day.

We had a lovely time with the Grandparents, and with the dear Auntie whom the children had not seen for something like 2 1/2 years.  Auntie I and Uncle N work overseas.  Auntie has come home a bit ahead of Uncle, who has stayed to finish up some work, and will be following in a month.  We look forward to seeing him also.

We went down on Wednesday morning and spent the afternoon (it is a three hour drive) with Grandma and Grandpa.  When we go down, we stay with them.  On Thursday we went to the home of Auntie's parents and had a lovely lunch and visit with them. 

Auntie I. brought lots of presents.  I will soon have some photos to post of the beautiful bedspread she brought us and the lovely Pashmina scarf/shawl she gave to me.  She brought Belle a beautiful outfit complete with shoes in the style worn in the country in which she works.  I've discovered that Belle is very photogenic, but as I don't post photos of the children, you will not be able to see her on my blog.  She had a great time dressing up in her new outfit.  Auntie also dressed her in clothes that she wears when she is there.

The highlight for me was seeing Belle's actions and face when she read the title of the book that Auntie brought her.  Belle has never been enthusiastic about books because she has had so much trouble learning to read.  However, when we were in Scotland we bought her a set of books on CD by one of my favorite childhood authors--Enid Blyton.  She loves them.  Auntie brought her the books.  Once she figured out the title she suddenly held the book to her chest with a look of pure joy!  And she is highly motivated to read it, on her own!  She was so proud when we got home that she had read the first page to herself in the car, that she told her grandparents when we called them.

Boo's favorite gift was the clay elephant "piggy" bank.  He has named it "Tembo".  Of course no one could let him take it home empty, so it has a few coins in it already.  It has pride of place on our mantel in the living room, since he has no shelf big enough to keep it safely in his room.

As all good times away come to an end, we left Friday morning to return home, via Costco of course.  The nearest Costco to us is inconveniently two hours away, so we make the most of our trips away.  I hadn't been to Costco since October.  We were out of everything we usually buy there.

Now it is back to reality--cleaning house today, church with dinner guests to follow tomorrow, and back to the books on Monday.  Oh well, spring is on the way, and so is our "local" homeschool conference.

Another gap between blogs.  I hardly know where to start.  I'm nearing the end of another day when I cleaned house (cleaned bathroom, vacuumed everywhere and dusted the obvious spots), toted in two wheelbarrows full of wood (husband's back is much better, but he still isn't ready to try the wheelbarrow), cleaned out the woodstove, washed towels--oops forgot to put them in the dryer.  Hmm.. do I pick up my weary body and do it now, or wait until Monday morning?  I also cut up vegetables for stew for tomorrow, and baked my second gingerbread cake in a week.  For some reason I seem to be hungry for molasses.

We had lunch out at our local cafe, as is the usual for Saturday, and leftovers for supper, so I didn't really have to cook today.

Our lessons went pretty well this week, and we plan on visitors Monday night, so Monday will be a lighter day than usual.

Oh, and I guess I should refer to the blog title.  We seem to have missed most of the last several storms this winter.  Instead, my parents (who think our area is very snowy) are getting the brunt of them.  However today we had a Blowing Snow Warning, and a forecast of 5 cm.  Well, we have way more than 5 cm now, and it is still coming down.  Nice to have a fresh covering of snow--even though I look forward to spring, I don't like dirty snow.  I just hope it clears up a bit by tomorrow.

I'll end this with a photo.  My Aunt made this table runner for me.  It is really pretty!

It has been another long time since I blogged.  I have been reading others blogs, and trying to keep up with a multitude of emails (I think I'm on too many lists).  That seems to be about all I've had time for lately.  I wish I could say I've been cutting down on computer time, but I'm afraid that isn't the case.

Lessons have gone well so far this week.  We've gotten almost everything done both days.  I've been pleased at how well the children have been working.  And I am so thankful that we can do this!  I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Now if I could just convince myself that getting the laundry done, the cooking done, the cleanup done was just as much fun as getting lessons done, I would be doing really well....but it has to be done, and no sooner done than it has to be done again.  I am reminded of Ecclesiastes at times.  Some days I would just rather be reading to the children than doing any housework!

My dear husband put his back out near the end of last week.  He is in quite a bit of pain.  A friend at church noticed his stance at church, and though she didn't know at the time, she wondered if his back was sore.  She has had back trouble herself recently.

I know I'm moaning, but I think I feel sorrier for him and hope he gets better REAL soon because I have had to add woodstove duty, and wood-toting duty to my other duties.  I brought in two wheelbarrows full yesterday, and didn't have to go to get any more today!  That was nice, but I still have to keep the fire going.  I did get a nice hot one going today though.  I'm quite proud of myself.

And to avoid ending this blog on a depressing note, the kids supplied me with two funnies today. This afternoon the kids were playing in the snow with shovels and buckets. I stuck my head out to find out if they were feeling cold, and Boo (age 6) said "We're hunting for gold, Mom!" He just finished reading The Secret Valley by Clyde Robert Bulla.  It is such fun to see them acting out the things they read.

Talking about the time change next week, Belle says "Mom the days will be getting longer. You'll be able to get more done."  I wish!  Guess we need to do some educating about Daylight Savings Time....

I don't honestly know which one was funnier. What is your vote?

I don't really know why, except maybe that nothing major or exciting has happened (that is good), and I don't really have much to say.

The week is nearly gone.  School is happening, although still a bit patchy at times.  The children will be doing some math today since they didn't get it all done yesterday, as well as our usual Friday subjects.

I think I may have a mildly sprained ankle.  Funny thing is I don't know exactly how I did it.  Unless it happened when I was filling the window feeder and the chair nearly went over in the snow.  I don't remember feeling any pain then--just relief that I hadn't cracked my head on the window ledge.  And I can't even remember what day that was.  I have had some discomfort for at least three days and a bit of mild swelling.  It mostly hurts when I've walked on it all day, and at night when I took my shoes off.  I fixed the night problem by wrapping it lightly before bed.  I can't really see any bruising.

My major frustration of the week is that I've tried to download the BlogBridge Blog Reader, and I can't get it to work for me--at all.  As intrigued as I am by the idea, perhaps I should just stick with Bloglines.

I have just a few minutes before I leave for a walk.  Not looking forward to going out in the cold, when I seem to have had a hard time getting warm today, but I am looking forward to spending time with a good friend!

I think I may be fighting a bit of a cold.  I woke up sneezing in the night, and I don't usually do that with just allergies.  Funny thing is that my nose hasn't run that much, and my throat isn't sore at all.  The only symptoms I'm having is trouble keeping warm, and a bit of the achy joint thing.

Still managed to do school and hit the important things--or at least most of the major ones.  I am thinking that maybe my schedule is a bit too full of daily things and I need to switch around some subjects--maybe alternating days.  On good days we do get everything done, but not without my feeling a lot of pressure to keep going.  The main things we seem to miss are vocabulary and Boo's handwriting, and sometimes science (which we love, but we're trying to do more of the activities--so need more than 15-20 minutes on some days).  So this week, I plan to see how things go.  We missed a few things today, and I hope to drop another thing tomorrow, and get the things we missed today in--that is unless we manage to start early and so have time to do everything.  That is an unlikely prospect.

Well, time to bring in the coat and get it warmed up while I put on my walking shoes.  Hope it isn't too icy out there.

I seemed to have energy today!  What a change from earlier in the week!

I cleaned house, planned lessons, paid bills, worked on expenses, baked a cake with Belle, frosted it tonight, mixed dry ingredients for muffins in the morning, filled the bird feeders, bathed the children....and the list goes on, but it is much shorter now.

The cake was an interesting experience.  We will see how it turns out when we feed it to our visitors tomorrow.  It is supposed to be a chocolate cake, and we had to melt unsweetened chocolate and cool it before adding it to the batter.  The melting went fine (unlike my previous chocolate-melting experiences), as did the cooling.  What I didn't do was warm my metal mixing bowl.  Well, the chocolate hit the cold buttermilk and eggs, and the VERY cold bowl, and solidified into clumps, most of which were beat into smithereens by the beaters (at least what didn't solidify into cement on the inside of the bowl).  But the batter didn't look like chocolate cake batter when I poured it into the pan.  Instead it looked like white batter sprinkled with pepper.  It baked to a pretty golden brown color though, and I haven't yet cut into it to see what it looks like on the inside.

My frosting did turn out to a reasonable taste (I licked the spoon) and spreadable consistency.  I hope that isn't the only redeeming factor to the experience.

One can perhaps ascertain from my cooking disasters that I don't bake very much.  I don't.  And when I do, I usually bake pie.

Belle did a good job with her measuring of ingredients and reading the recipe.  It was fun to do it with her too.

Now I can just hope my energy carries over into school next week.

As I type this I will be hopping up and down to see a) if we can see the moon through or around the clouds, and b) if the eclipse is progressing enough to drag the children out of their beds to see it.  It is pretty cloudy, but the clouds are moving fast leaving tantalizing glimpses of a very bright full moon.  The children are supposed to be sitting on their beds quietly reading books whilst we wait.  I am safely downstairs where I can only occasionally hear the padding of feet not in their beds.

Now to the caffeine buzz.  The children were taken by their father out for hot chocolate at our local cafe (a reward for enduring the freezing of warts).  I had planned to meet them down there anyway, but I was summoned by a phone call from my husband from the cafe, and not from his cell phone.  "We are here.  I have no money, and the cell phone battery is dead."  So I hopped into my winter shoes (many many thanks to the neighbour who had blown a path in the snow out of our driveway!) and high-tailed it downtown.  He had a lovely looking Mochacchino in front of him and I thought "Oooh looks lovely!  I'll have one too."  I gave no thought to the fact that this yummy drink has a shot of espresso plus chocolate in it.  I enjoyed it thoroughly at the time, and then came home.  Not long after that I was treated to a not-so-lovely case of the jitters.  The feeling of ants crawling in my stomach is not a pleasant one at all.  I was so glad when after supper, the feeling wore off.

In my misery I was reminded of the reason why for a long time I would not drink caffeinated coffee at all.  I still remember going out with a friend for a large Starbucks Mocha one day.  After that experience when my heart raced and I had a funny feeling in my tummy for some time afterwards, I went off caffeinated coffee.  That was probably around 14 years ago.  It was only in the past two years that I have started drinking regular coffee at all, and when we make coffee at home we usually cut it with decaf.

On another note, lessons this week are muddling along.  We have missed something every day.  Today we took the afternoon off so I could try to catch up on some things.  I did do stuff, but I don't feel like I accomplished a great deal.  Much of my time seemed to be spent wandering around the internet trying to figure some things out.  Some days I just find the amount of time one can spend on the computer depressing.  I still have stuff to do, and I am running out of week.

The moon is currently a glow in the clouds.  You can't actually see the moon at all.  Only about eight minutes until the partial is supposed to be done, and I can't see it!

Oh, I was going to post pictures.

Here is the annual "Frost on the window" photo.  The orange glow is the light from the chandelier.



A female Cardinal sitting in the window feeder.


Our back yard this morning--taken through the screen door.  I can't get it open because of the snow on the deck.



Snow on the deck.

(Seems that snow is a common theme here these days.)

Last night I felt so good because for the first time in almost a week, I was ready for lessons today before I went to bed.  That was after having a very rough day yesterday.  It wasn't the kids.  It was me!  The kids were wonderful!  Oh those lovely hormones, and cabin fever--they do not make a good combination!

I was going to go for a walk this morning, but I woke up to snowsqualls and a migraine.  On a day without a headache, I might have tried it anyway, but as I look out the window right now, it was probably a good idea I didn't go.  In one night I think we got all the snow that melted in the rain this weekend.

It will be interesting to see how the day goes.  If my head lets me, I will try to do lessons.  I hope that we can.  Right now I am okay if I don't turn my head or move suddenly.  What fun!

Today when I woke up, it was....snowing.  So I put on my sweats and resigned (nearly) myself to another day at home.  But by breakfast time, the snow had stopped and the sky was BLUE!  After checking the forecast, I quickly determined that immediately after breakfast I needed to organize my two-page list into something easier to follow.  This took me about 15 minutes.  I ended up dividing the list by shop, and got it into some semblance of order--four stores.  (It wasn't all food--we needed some other things too.)

My husband was taking a bit longer to get ready so I decided that I would help by shoveling the driveway.  Now anyone who has lived with plows knows that when they plow, the stuff they push to the side rapidly becomes like concrete--a wall across the bottom of the driveway.  A lot of the time you can step on it, and not sink in.  We have a lovely huge scoop that you push into the snow and then tip up or turn over instead of throwing the snow with the shovel.  The only problem was that since our neighbour had kindly blown us out with his snow blower last week, I had to either push the scoop over vertical walls of snow, or push it all the way up the drive (long enough for two vehicles end to end with room to spare) to the area that hadn't been blown.  I estimate that I shoveled upwards of 35 scoops of snow.  It may have been more.  I wasn't counting at the time.  My estimate is based on a guess of how many scoops I pushed to a total of 6 locations--to the garage, up the steep bank on the far side of the driveway, up the short bank to the near side of the drive, to the front of the van on the far side, to the side of the steps at the front of the house (we have quite a wide side yard), and to the banks at the edge of the street beside the driveway.  (I am really going to have to find a photo of our side yard to give you an idea.)  It took me 30-40 minutes.  When I was done, I was hot, sweaty, and my face was beet red.  I went inside to change and cool off before we left for town.

This photo was taken last year, but it gives an idea of the distance from the van to the road and the van to the house.

We shopped and ate lunch, and shopped some more, and it was after 3:00 before we got home.  Then I had to put it all away.  The children helped a lot, and that was really nice.  Then the fatigue set in.  I was slightly revived by a cup of tea, but I am very tired tonight.  I am so glad that we got out, and my fridge is full, my freezer will be full (when I get the meat repackaged to freeze), and my shelves no longer look so bare.

Now I have to decide what to do tomorrow.  I sure hope I wake up with more energy than I have right now.   We have a friend coming over in the afternoon, so that will mean we only have school in the morning.  I have to decide whether to do a regular morning schedule, or revise it to get some afternoon stuff in.  I also need to get the meat in the freezer and figure out what to eat.  Right now I don't even know what I wrote on the menu.

Cabin Fever!

To follow up on Saturday's post, the weather did not cooperate on Sunday.  By 9:30 a.m., all the county and provincial roads in two counties (ours and the neighbour one) were CLOSED!  My husband had just made the decision to cancel services when we got that word.  The plows weren't even on the roads that day, my DH noticed as he walked down Main Street to turn off the heat in the church.

To add to the snow, we had wind chills near -30.  It was COLD.  It snowed heavily all day Sunday, and again all day Monday (although we didn't have the wind on Monday that we'd had on Sunday, and they did open most of the roads).  Today was a bit better with flurries early today, until about an hour ago when it started really snowing again.

We had a nice and restful day on Sunday.  Monday I had a Dr. appointment, so I put on the big boots and traipsed through the snow to the clinic.  We also did our lessons that day and today. 

But the cabin fever has set in for sure.  The children are noisy and "boppy", and I am as restless as a caged lioness.  We went out this afternoon to shovel off the van in hopes that the weather will be good enough tomorrow for me to do some shopping.  I am desperately hoping for that because I am afraid that being in the house for another day will be too much for me.  If we are stuck in again, I'm going to have to come up with something interesting to do.

Speaking of shopping--the list is long, the freezer is low, my menu for the week requires stuff I don't have.  If I can't get out tomorrow, I will have to do some shopping in town.  At least we have a local store.  We haven't been out of town to shop since before my parents came to visit.  That was three weeks ago.  I usually do my big shopping out of town.

So hoping.....

I am so ready for a Day of Rest tomorrow!  The last three days have felt incredibly busy, and full, and while they were good days, I am sore and tired now.

Thursday we worked on our Lapbooks, did a French lesson and then took the afternoon for baking.  I made a big batch of cookies, some of which I baked and the others are sitting in the fridge waiting to be scooped into balls and frozen.  Belle also made biscuits, so she did a lot of Home Ec. that day.

Friday we did everything we did on Thursday except that we did sewing instead of baking, and I cleaned the church, and ran errands and we went out in the evening with friends.

Today I cleaned house, and organized the "scary" drawer in the kitchen, and organized lessons for next week, and it doesn't seem like I did a lot more than that, but I am so tired tonight.

Part of the weariness may be due to the fact that I haven't been sleeping too well nearly all week.  I don't know what to attribute that to.

My PC stuff came this evening.  I don't know who was more excited, me or the rest of the family.  We sat on the living room floor and opened everything to look.  I washed it all tonight, and now I have to find a place to put it all.
My new muffin pan doesn't need a place until after tomorrow, because I plan to make muffins in it in the morning.  What fun!

On the weather front (pun intended), things are not looking good for tomorrow.  Another possible 30cm (foot) of snow predicted with a wind warning.  All that means, if it happens, is that no one will be able to see anything.  I am hoping for a clear answer as to whether my husband should cancel our services, early enough for our folk who come from out of town.  The wind is up right now, but I am not close enough to a window to see how hard it is snowing.  We've had a different winter every year we have been here, but this one seems to be a good one for white-out storms.  We just haven't had as much snow as we usually do by February with all the warming periods we have had.