A recent storm.

The children are nearly finished with their two weeks of swimming lessons.  I confess to being on tenterhooks--waiting to know whether they pass their levels, and really wanting them to do well.  Belle did a first yesterday--swam across the pool on her own!  Today she swam across and most of the way back before she was simply too tired to go any further.  Boo is doing well, swimming with a noodle, and coming on with his floats.  He is still reluctant to put his face completely in the water.  I am not sure what all is required for him to pass his level.

We've had to travel to a nearby town for swimming, as our town pool developed a leak.  I have quite enjoyed it, surprisingly.  It is nice to drive by the farms and see the corn growing, and the drive there and back gives us a chance to unwind.  It hasn't been very nice to the gas tank--driving there and back every day.  Our van can sit in the driveway for a week or more without being driven normally.  It is really nice when I can go a whole month and only fill up once.  Unfortunately that doesn't happen much in the summer.

When I haven't been at swimming, I've been doing things around the house, and starting to think about lessons again.  I usually try to have some sort of schedule for lessons, but this year I'm having a bit of trouble deciding how to do things.  I think I may try more of a flow schedule than an organized one.  I am thinking of rearranging our subjects and am not sure how much time I will need for each subject, and when to make a break in things so we don't have our noses to the books all day.  I am also trying to decide what subjects I need to do every day and which ones can go on alternate days.  I am still planning a four-day heavy on the academics, with Friday continuing to be our foreign language, lapbook and home economics day.

I'm also trying to come up with an organized plan for doing chores, keeping the house clean and tidy, and some time for me to plan menus, do budget, and other necessities of life.  The children can do so much now, and I am trying to figure out which things no longer need my constant help and immediate supervision.  I don't want to schedule everything down to the minute so that if something gets out of line I get stressed, but we need to have a general flow so the right stuff gets done.

Boo is ready to give up the Little Tykes desk that was in his room.  In its place we plan to put a folding table for an additional space to do school.  Right now, all the books are stored downstairs in the living room and dining room, but we do most of the actual work in Belle's room.  Her table isn't huge, and if I am actively teaching one of them it is too distracting for the other to be working on something else beside their sibling.  So having a table in Boo's room for them to work at independently will be very good.  A folding table is something that can be put away when we have to put an air mattress up for visitors.  The children's bedrooms are not very big so we have to make the best use of the space we have.  It will be really nice not to have to send a child downstairs to do their independent work.  (What we are going to do for a chair is something I haven't thought about yet.)

I'm sitting on the couch with my feet up because they hurt, and now my battery is running down, so guess I'd better get this posted.

I have been having trouble getting into a routine since we stopped our formal lessons for the month of July.  I seem to be forgetting things I usually do, and I feel generally disorganized.  I still use a list, but that doesn't help a whole lot when I forget to write things down.  One can only hope this problem will resolve itself once our lessons start back up....if it doesn't I'll really be in trouble!

It isn't that I'm getting nothing done.  I've worked on the basement--tidying up and getting rid of garbage that builds up over the winter--you know, those empty boxes that you have to take to recycle because they won't pick them up at the curb, and the overflowing garbage basket in the laundry area.  I've worked on the school area; and although it isn't quite done yet, it does look better.  I've worked on the computer--organizing and catching up with our finances.  I've worked on the file cabinet--and I've only got half a drawer left to do--and it looks TONS better!

It is the stuff I haven't done that seems to glare at me--the childrens' untidy bedrooms, the disorganized shopping list, the laundry (I'm out of routine because we were away), the meals (because my shopping list isn't organized, and because I would rather clean than cook most of the time), the weeds in the yard, the stuff in the garage and on the porch that needs to be gone through, and the general clutter in the house.

On the positive side, the children are helping a lot more!  Right now they are with their father, raking up the cut grass at the church.  Both help load and unload the dishwasher, Belle can put soap in and start it now, and they do help with the picking up of stuff.  Of course now they make more mess too because we aren't doing lessons every day.  But they do work hard.

Well, I'd best be off to do something--before I have to make dinner.  Anyone else suffer from increased fuzzy thinking in the summer?

We've had a squirrel climbing up our window screen to get at our window feeder.  I have tried several times to get to the camera before it spotted me, but haven't been really successful.  I am not sure how to discourage it, but thought a flash going off in its face might help.  I really have no desire to take the screen out, since the weather is supposed to give us a taste of summer, and I do not want the bugs inside.  Any suggestions will be welcome.

We are winding down our school year.  Boo finished phonics--at least as much as I plan to do this year.  All of the lessons we didn't finish (about 10) are repeated in next years phonics, so I am not worried.  He was a bit disappointed to not finish the book--wonder where he gets that from?  But I am not thrilled about picking it back up at the end of June to finish.  The children will both continue to work on math over the summer, taking a break here and there for visitors, trips and swimming lessons.

My list of summer to-do's feels about a mile long, especially considering that most of this month will be taken up with visitors and a trip.  My back still gets tired easily, and I find I can't lift boxes around without feeling some discomfort.  That has limited my ability to do some things.  I have sorted most of two file cabinet drawers (out of four). I would like to say that job is done, but I have half a drawer left to finish.  The other two drawers are full of office supplies, and my husband's files--which I don't touch if I can help it.   I have packed a box of curriculum to post to a friend to sell.  Today I rearranged my closet ( a triangular space under the eaves), and was able to get some additional file boxes into it.  And for the first time in two years-I can close the door!  I also put the piles of study books that have built up in the bedroom into a box where my husband can get at them, but where they are semi-contained for the sake of our visitors next week.  Unfortunately the box is presently sitting in the middle of the room for lack of a place to put it.  And the middle of the room will be holding a playpen next week.

I'm really trying to focus more on what I have done than what I have to do--because when I look at the list, I get discouraged.  Gotta remember that my family is more important than living in a perfectly organized house--and while I don't think I am a perfectionist, I do like to be able to find things easily.  Some days I think I should just forget about cleaning, and hug the kids.  They grow up so fast.

Now I'm really rambling...If I catch the squirrel in the act, I will post pictures.

Sorry I couldn't make the M & M's start with a B.  But I sit here munching as I type.  For some reason I have been craving them like anything lately--like for a couple of months.  Not chocolate in general, but M & M's in particular--and the most frustrating thing is that you can't find big bags of them up here.  It is just too easy to eat an entire 150 g. bag in two days!  In a few minutes the children will be down, begging the rest of them from me.  I like chocolate, but I don't eat it like my dear husband does, and not in the same quantities--until maybe lately.  Oh well, pretty soon it will be too warm and they will melt in my hands and on my desk.  Maybe they won't hold the same appeal then.

I finally got out for an early morning walk.  I took my binoculars, and was delighted to see both the Common Yellowthroat and the Yellow Warbler.  I had seen and identified both of these in the same area last year, and was waiting for their return.  I rarely carry both my camera and the binoculars, and I don't think my camera is good enough to take photos as far away as these birds were.

On another note, my back has been acting up again the last few days.  It is a good excuse to give the children some additional training on loading and unloading the dishwasher, as I am supposed to bend as little as possible.  I do hope that my housecleaning restrictions will be lifted by the weekend, as I prefer my method of vacuuming to anyone else's.

On the bright side, however, I have not had any headaches like my regular migraines since I started the new med!  If we have finally found a solution, I will be very happy.

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!

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...

 
 

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 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.

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.

The weather has been the most exciting thing that happened last night and today.  At around 3 AM Boo woke up and was afraid of the wind, which at that point was roaring ferociously around the house.  I tried putting him back to bed, and two minutes later he was back again.  Then Belle woke up, and then the power went out.

As I was tucking her back in, I had a peek out her window.  As I watched the huge spruce (I think) tree in our yard swaying in the wind, I had second thoughts about putting her back in her bed.  We've had melting snow, and rain, and now wind, and I just didn't know how wet the ground was or how strong the roots of that tree are.  So I mentioned to my dear husband that we might just want to camp downstairs for a while.  He was in agreement, as the wind at that point seemed to be coming from the South, right into the big window of our bedroom.

We took the kids, pillows, miscellaneous stuffed animals and blankets downstairs and parked the kids on the couch.  Husband took his chair and I picked the floor by the children.  I sat and lay there for about an hour before giving up on the wood floor and going to sit between the kids.  We were there until around 5:30 AM when the power came back on.  No one went to sleep.

Needless to say that after the loss of sleep, I canceled lessons for the day.  The wind blew snow around all day, and we mostly stayed in where it was warm.  Unfortunately I was too tired to accomplish much of what I would like to accomplish on a day off.

At this point ALL the roads in our county and two other counties around us are closed, and have been for most of the day! 

If I can muster up the energy, I will post what may be becoming my annual photo of frost on the inside of the old-fashioned single-paned dining room windows.  I have to get up, and get the camera to load the pictures on the computer before I do it, and am not sure if I can get out of this chair yet.

I can hardly believe another week is nearly over!  Where does the time go?

It hasn't been a terribly productive week as far as our lessons go--with interruptions for haircuts on Tuesday, and eye appointments today.  We got only two full days done, but we did do at least partial days every other day--even today!  Although we had to go to town this morning, we still managed math and a bit of history.

Eye appointments revealed that I need new glasses--first time in 4 or 5 years.  It was getting harder to see close-up things like small print and my cross-stitch charts.  It was kind of fun to pick out new frames.  Much as I like the ones I have, I have had two sets of lenses in them, and I'm a bit tired of the style.  So once I get over the cost of them, I think I will be happy to have them.  Really nice thing is that I get the magnetic sunglasses to go with them.  As I need sunglasses for driving, this will be really nice.

When we were in Scotland we bought Belle the Mallory Towers series of books by Enid Blyton, on CD.  She has been listening to them and loving them!  They were some of my favorite books as a child, so I have been listening to them too--in the evenings while I cross-stitch.  They are reprinting most if not all of Enid Blyton's books.  I just wish we had them all.  And Belle has been saying, that if she had the books, she would be reading them!

Tomorrow will be another busy day.  I'm going to try to do some work on our science project, and Belle's sewing, but I also want to clean the house, and I have to clean the church.  Saturday is Boo's Birthday, and my parents are coming, and I really don't want to spend the day cleaning.

Boo is working his way through "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", reading it to himself.  He got most of two chapters done while we were in town and at the eye clinic.  He looks so cute with a book, and I am afraid that he will be one that you have to speak to more than once to get his attention while he is reading.  That was a problem common to my family when we were growing up.

And Thursday is nearly over!  I don't know where the week has gone.  We've only gotten two full days of lessons in because of visits and other interruptions, but that was okay.  Those two full days were very good ones, and the other partial days weren't bad either.

All our snow melted, and we've had some unseasonably warm weather.  However all that is supposed to change again....

The Grandparents changed the dates of their visit, because if they come later, they can stay longer.  That is all right with me.  Hope the weather doesn't interfere.

Not much to blog about, because not too much is happening.  That is okay with me too.

Lunch is over and the children are in their rooms, being quiet.  My body wants a nap, but my mind wants to keep on going, so here I am, the mind winning at the moment (if you can call it that).

It is another gray and white winter day up here.  Temperatures are just below freezing, so it isn't absolutely miserable.  I expect that the snow we have on the ground probably won't go away now until around March or April.  I am looking forward to lengthening days already, and we haven't even gotten to the shortest one yet!

Boo keeps on going in spite of the rash, which was confirmed as shingles when I took him to the hospital in the middle of the night the other night.  He woke up with a terrible headache and started throwing up.  I called the nurse, and she told me to bring him in.  Fortunately, the problem did pass, and wasn't anything scary.  He threw up for most of the night, but seemed fine in the morning.  Now he is back to complaining about the rash itching, and he is still looking peaked, and not his usual self, but he is not sick.

Yesterday morning I was toast, after our rough night, so we passed on doing lessons.  In the afternoon I felt better, so we finished week 34 in Sonlight.  Only two weeks to go and we will have a break--followed by the beginning of a new Core.  I am getting excited.

The first night of cooking dinner in the evening went really well.  I had even had some time to cross-stitch in the afternoon.  Last night ended up being stir-fry out of a freezer package.  I was just too tired to cook.  I feel much better today, so plan to cook what I was supposed to make last night.  My dear husband was willing to do the grocery shopping for me today.  What a load that takes off!  I do like the light lunches because I am not rushing around to fix dinner after we do lessons in the morning.

Most of the week's laundry is done. It feels good to do it earlier in the week since I am now cleaning the church on Fridays.  I can usually do all the laundry in two days, with an extra load of towels later in the week.

Well it is nearly time to hit the books for the afternoon, so I will post this and be off.

After what seemed like days and days of snow, we finally made it to town yesterday.  It isn't that we can't shop here: the local grocery store is a short walk away.  But I was needing things that I don't usually purchase here in town, and my list was steadily getting longer as the pantry shelves were being depleted.

The weather cooperated, and we went. And we bought.  And then we came home, and I am feeling that more snow would be a good thing....as I have been keeping track of our expenses, I am discovering how expensive stuff is.  The bank account is healthier if we can't go anywhere.  Hmmm....But we have food, and other necessities, and we haven't broken the budget for the month yet.

Today, our "fun" day of lapbooking, French, and sewing was probably the best day of lessons that we had all week.  Many things interfered with the schedule this week, and we didn't accomplish a lot.  Next week I will probably modify the schedule so we can work on getting that history core completed.

Tonight was the town Christmas parade.  We went for the first time.  It seemed to be well-attended, and lasted about 20-30 minutes (a VERY slow drive up Main St.).  That isn't too bad for our town of 1800.  The children enjoyed themselves too.

Not too much else has been going on.  I've been cleaning the church for the past month, and probably will do it for most of the winter.  It takes me out on a Friday afternoon usually, and I quite enjoy it.  Today I spent a good deal of time wiping up salty water marks from the floors--tracked in by everyone's boots and shoes on Sunday.  The whole job takes me just over an hour (if I have to do that), and just under if I don't.  It is not a large building--no Sunday School rooms and only one bathroom, but it does well for being over 100 years old.

They said we could get 40cm (about 15 inches) of snow in less than 24 hours.  I believe it.  It has been whiteout conditions for most of the day in town!  I shudder to think what it must have been like out of town--driving past open fields with the wind blowing the snow all around.  Just so glad that we didn't have to go out.  And so glad for our doctor's office and small hospital in town!  Our neighbour slipped on the ice, and I took her to the doctor for a visit, and to the hospital for x-rays.  It was so hard to see through the snow.  Fortunately for the neighbour, nothing is broken, but she will likely be sore for a while.

We had a shortened day of lessons (first snow day for public schools) because I had to go out.  The kids loved it.  I celebrated when I got home by straightening up our hall closet.  Some of our towels (wedding gifts) are looking the worse for wear, and I wanted to find out what I still had that has not been relegated to "Old Towel" status.  There wasn't much.  We are now using our "guest towels", and the only ones we haven't used are very pretty, but not very useful small towels.  I think of them as ones to put into "guest" bathrooms (which we don't have).  I still have towels (old towels now) that I used in boarding school and college, twenty years or more ago.  That is depressing!  Funny to find towels with nametags still on them.  How many Old Towels can a person have?

If the weather ever clears up, I'll try to get some photos to post.  We can have some glorious winter days around here!  Winter, however, seems to have arrived about a month early this year.  I think it could be a long one.  I'm already tired of wearing long underwear and fleece trousers.  And the snow is already over the tops of my winter walking/hiking boots/shoes.  It will be into real boots tomorrow if I go out.  And the first really nice day, we are going to town--as in a place with a big grocery store and a Stuff- Mart!  Our budget looks great--we haven't been able to go anywhere to spend money.

Update on the nose:  It didn't amount to much.  I felt a bit under the weather on Sunday, but seem to be fine today.  I am so glad!

What to blog about today?  Boo's sore throat turned into the drippy nose thing today.  He was however, in a fairly good mood, and happily listened to history while playing with Lego.  Belle was in slightly better shape during the day, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if she has the runny nose tomorrow.

We did a light day of school with her--a math test, and two days of Sonlight again.  At the rate we're going, we should finish in about 3 weeks.  Then on to Core 3! 

I did several loads of laundry, and spent ages trying to figure out (again!) how to back up my Homeschool Tracker files.  I realized I hadn't done it since July.  It really isn't hard, and would be even easier if I just did it regularly--something else to put on the calendar.  I am really trying to cut back on the length of my To Do list.  I get discouraged when there is always so much to do--and so much of that repeats.  Because we aren't feeling 100% it felt good to have a day when I wasn't trying to do everything.

I also got a chance to do a bit of knitting.  I might actually get a project done some day!

Snow!  Seems that winter may have come early this year.  It is very cold and windy with gusts up to 60 km/hr or more.  A couple of times it got really dark with a lot of wind and blowing snow.  We've probably got 2-3 inches on the ground again, and more coming down.  I had a hard time keeping warm--in spite of several layers of clothing and wool socks--I decided about supper time that maybe the reason my feet were cold was because I was wearing clogs instead of tennis shoes.  Once I put my shoes on, my feet warmed up.  And I didn't even go outside today!  My husband said that the streets were a sheet of ice when he went to get the mail today.

I did get my walk last night.  It was a fun time, and it wasn't nearly as cold as it is tonight.  I am so glad I went.  I needed to get out--especially since today wasn't a day for going out.

Here are some more Scotland photos.  It was a gorgeous day!  These are of Bothwell Castle--a few minutes drive from my sister-in-law's house.  It is a VERY old castle.  We didn't get in it that day because they had just switched to winter hours, and it was closed, but we were able to walk all the way around it.

Both Belle and Boo have sore throats.  Belle was the worst off today--swollen tonsils, swollen glands and stuffy nose, but no fever so far.  I think Boo has the beginnings of it too.  Tonight I don't feel so good myself--with a bit of a sore throat and the feeling of a cold coming on.  I am the wearer of many layers today (with temperatures in the low 20's), and still feel chilled.  In fact, I think I may move to a seat closer to the wood stove.  (Aaah that is better.)

We've been having a good time with our friend.  I just hope we don't gift him with a virus.  Tomorrow is our turkey day--and I am fortunate in that I don't have to be the one to fuss with the bird.  Right now I am hoping I don't have to do anything--just getting breakfast on the table seems a formidable task by itself.  But hopefully a good night's rest will help.

I made apple pie today--after taking a walk in blowing snow to the grocery store to buy more chocolate.  The chocolate melted REALLY well in the double boiler, and I think I can say that my Caramel shortbread was an eventual success.  I hope the pie will be good too.  I like pumpkin pie, but I have never made one.  Apple pie seems to be my specialty.

I hope that all my American friends are having a good Thanksgiving Day.  I am thankful for you!