Hectic

I live a very quiet little life, for the most part. We are homeschoolers - we have no real schedule. We do what we want, when we want to. I have few obligations, generally, which means I can usually take life pretty easy.

So when weeks like this come along, I don't know quite how to deal with them, and I get overwhelmed a little too easily. My little brother's graduation is today, with a dinner for him tonight. Tomorrow, the first of Andrew's family begins arriving for his sister's wedding on Sunday. Thursday, our five house guests will arrive. I still have table runners to make for the reception (she just gave me the fabric a couple of days ago, I'm not a slacker, I swear!) and I need to get this house clean enough to present to family members I've never met.

The idea of meeting more of his family, and other friends and such, is terrifying to me. I mean, people in general scare me, but these ones are related. I just hope they don't hate me.

So yeah, I'm a little stressed out. PMS doesn't help, of course. :o) I'll survive though, I'm sure of it!

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Mother's Day weekend was spent camping with some friends. Andrew was hunting in the mornings and our friends left a day early, so I spent Mother's Day morning making a yummy breakfast for the girls and I and watching them play outside. They didn't wake up until about 9:00, so I sat for an hour watching the sun come up over the mountains, reading, and enjoying the peace and quiet. It was lovely.

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I read a book called "Outlasting the Trail" this past week, by Mary O'Brien. Historical fiction based on the accounts of a real woman. Fascinating book. The whole thing talks about all of these horrible things that occur throughout their trip from the East to California in a covered wagon. This poor woman had it far worse than most - between a maniacal husband, illness, death of their horses, etc. it was a horrid journey and a miracle they made it alive to California. Then at the end of the book, everything is all happy and she's set up her home and they're all doing well... and after the end of the book, the author tells you the rest of the story as well as they can be interpreted from letters and journals. The woman dies shortly after finally getting settled, and all but one of her five children die too.

All of that... all that work, fear, and the elation of having finally made it.... and she dies.

It sparks an interesting string of thoughts in my head, the concept of life and death so blatant in her story - nothing I could ever put words to. I love, and will always love the stories of the pioneer women... each woman alone quite insignificant but as a whole, truly shaping our world today. It's an interesting perspective on the meaning of life for me... but I'm weird like that. :o)

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I better end here - I have floors to clean. Sorry for lack of anything of much interest to talk about!

Cute little bits

Chloe's learning about the Revolutionary War and the events leading up to it: the Boston Tea Party, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, etc. I'm surprised at her level of interest and understanding, so we're just kind of running with it as long as she stays interested. Teaching a six year old some of these more grown-up concepts inevitably will result in little bits of humor occasionally.

The Revolutionary War, of course, centers around the idea of freedom. While lying in bed the other night pondering the concept of a free country, she says "Mom, this might be a free country, but this is definitely not a free house." I looked at her quizzically. "I have to clean my room, I have to eat yucky foods, I have to go to bed. It's not freedom." Thankfully, I have the freedom to parent her as I see fit, and that means making her eat her veggies.

Then last night she asked, "Mom, what's "boycott" mean?" Oh squee. I love the opportunity to teach her about extra cool concepts like boycotting. I also love when my six year old makes references to such things in public. ;o) I explained boycott. We talked about things we might boycott - paper towels, chemical cleaners, plastic grocery bags. We talked about what might happen if a bunch of people boycotted a company (that it might go out of business, etc.) I feel certain she understood the idea of boycott. So much so that she said "I think I'm going to boycott cleaning my room."

Sweet.

Be careful what you teach your children... they just might use that knowledge against you.

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Cora the other day brought me my knitting. She handed me the ball of yarn and needles (they were where she wanted to sit on the recliner) and she said "Shoot."

It took me a bit, but I figured it out. She thinks knitting is called "shoot"; that's what I say all the time while I'm knitting.

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We were on a drive the other day and Chloe was bored and ready to go home. She knew home was North-East so she kept asking what direction we were going. I mean like, over and over to the point of being annoying. So I had the ingenious idea to show her the digital compass in the truck. "N means North. E means East," I told her. Ha. Now she could do it herself and didn't have to keep asking.

So we're driving along and she informs us of the direction of our travel... about every 20 seconds. "North. East. Northeast. North. Northwest. North. East." So much for not being annoying. It had us laughing though. Especially when Cora started saying "Nor. Ee. Nor."

Misc. with pics

The other day, it hailed. The little balls of ice were an inch in diameter sometimes, tearing down from the sky with the sole intent of murdering my spinach and peas.

Thankfully, it was unsuccessful in it's attempt. The spinach is battered but nothing it won't recover from. Amazingly, the peas escaped with nary a torn leaf to be seen. If there is a God, he must hate spinach.

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I harvested the first of the lettuce and a few remaining un-torn spinach leaves last night. Actually, it's no harvest at all, I just thinned the plants so they'll grow a little bigger.

There's enough there in the form of what I'm calling "baby greens" to make salad for the family tonight. I figure I could say "here are some garden thinnings" as I serve it, but "baby greens" sounds much more... gourmet, doesn't it?

In other garden news: Nearly everything is planted. Spinach, lettuce, peas, beets, carrots, garlic, beans, cukes, radishes, basil, broccoli... I think that's it. I have my bell pepper and tomato plants, bought them Saturday. I'm giving them till Wednesday to harden off. (I'm rushing them. I never claimed to be a patient person.) I bought some zucchini seeds and will plant a few plants in one corner of the garden as well.

Oh, and Chloe planted some sugar pumpkins and sunflowers in pots, to be transplanted in a few weeks.





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Yesterday was the Gene Taylor's Fishing Derby. The girls didn't catch anything... not many people did. I have a feeling they didn't stock the pond like they normally do. They had fun enough though.

Cora has turned into a Grandpa's Girl. Chloe always gravitated to her Grammy, but not Cora. It's always "Ba-pa? Ba-pa?" She adores him, and vice versa. It's a beautiful thing they've got going on there.




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My amazing, loving, generous husband let me buy a sewing machine for my Mother's Day gift. My world is bright and happy again. :o) It's a Brother 50-stitch model, Project Runway special edition. Nothing overly fancy, but definitely nicer than the 30-year old Kenmore I've worked on for the past 6 years. It has some neat decorative stitches, and it even has all the parts and accessories that are supposed to come with a sewing machine! (My last one lacked any of that. I had the basic zig zag foot, but nothing else.) I sewed late into the night, and woke up to sew again this morning. I'm thrilled. :o)