Monday Musings...

Outside My Window...
It is still hot here. Most days are in the upper 80s/low 90s by afternoon, though the nights are getting chilly enough that I need to get extra blankets out of the closet soon for everyone's beds. It has been clear, and dry -- all the hills and open spaces I see are a dried-out, crispy brown. However., there is some rain in the forecast! And cooler daytime temperatures too!

In the Kitchen...
The Girl made blondies yesterday from scratch, and they are good! She wants to make her cake soon too. Her baking serves two purposes--one, I always have something on hand for the kids for dessert, and two, it is a fun way to work on fractions. Dinner plans this week include a potato-gruyere frittata; roast chicken; chicken soft tacos (leftover repurposing); and Ful Medames, the last as part of our geographical studies (currently Africa).

Around the House...
Still purging stuff. I'm taking a box of books to the library every week for donation, and need to drop some more clothes off. The Girl and The Boy both need to go through their clothes too, and see what fits and doesn't fit.

I rearranged the living room last week, and really like the new flow! I'd like to redo the curtains at some point, and finish taking the carpet up, then maybe get a rug like this one, or this one. I haven't decided which I like better! The room itself in a light sand color, with one deep red accent wall.

In the Garden...
We spent part of Saturday trimming back rosemary bushes in the front yard, and puling out a bunch of wild-seeded red valerian and California poppies that had both seen better days. We also took out the gates, since they are never used. I still want to do some rearranging during the winter months, and put gravel in. I'm thinking of edging the gravel area with larger river rocks (sort of a wide border, maybe varying from 12"-18"), then using something like this gravel to fill it in. We're still trying to decide exactly what to do with the backyard.

Olive harvesting is coming up soon, and it looks like we have a bumper crop!

In Our Homeschooling...
We're cutting the Afternoon Basket out this week, for the most part. We have too many books going, and would rather just focus on a couple of good ones than spread ourselves so thin. We'll keep going with our history read aloud, but are dropping the science/nature and mathematics titles. And with the kids each studying science of their choice, the science read aloud seems a bit redundant.

Saving the below for the following week!
The Boy plans to finish his essay this week (we're doing one good writing project per month, a la Brave Writer), work through chapter four in Conceptual Physics, and finish up chapter one in his prealgebra book. Yes, you read that correctly... chapter one. AoPS is pretty dense going, but he's hanging in there! We've heard chapter two is the toughest in the book, so it's a little nerve wracking to be almost there. He's also decided to review all the German he has studied so far over the next two-three weeks, before moving any further in the lessons.

The Girl will be completing two more lessons in Reading Horizons doing the main lesson one day, and the vocabulary work the next. She's writing another story, and will copy out the "corrected" version later in the week. Still loving her Math Mammoth!

What We're Reading & Watching...
Our family movie over the weekend was The Mighty Ducks. Cassia and I are starting season 3 of Call the Midwife tonight, and she and The Boy are back to watching Sliders. I need to find more (good) ocean documentary material for The Girl, while we finish up our study of sponges, jellyfish, cnidarians, etc., and The Boy has decided to re-watch Cosmos, one episode per week.

Reading-wise, we're halfway through Poop Happened, and still enjoying our time in The Marvelous Land of the Snergs. We'll likely keep reading a story a day from The Girl Who Married a Lion, as the stories are quite short and a nice way to get the learning session going. I need to read more of The Girl Who Could Fly to The Girl, and she's still reading Charlotte's Web quite happily. The Maze Runner came in at the library, so I am going to offer The Boy the chance to set aside Lord of the Flies for a few weeks, while he reads this book. He is enjoying Lord of the Flies though, so I may have to get The Maze Runner at another time... we'll see. And he's almost done with Dandelion Fire, so he'll be starting the third book in that trilogy soon. See what I mean about too many books?

Everything Else...
M is working evenings this week, which is different. I can't say I am looking forward to picking him up between 11 pm and midnight... the joys of having only one car. The kids and I are going to a catapult building workshop at the library later in the week, and they have fencing and derby practice as always. I am hoping that at Thursday's derby practice, I will find my bag of knitting in the office! I left it behind last week, and it has two half-finished projects in it.

 I'll leave you with some pictures from the VikingFest, which, truth be told, was not very exciting. We did learn that the helmets are quite heavy, and we did have a good talk with one of the re-enactors, so it wasn't a total loss.

Have a good week!