Monday Musings...

...Over the Weekend...

We headed to the coast for a sunset. One of my favorite things about living where we do is that the beach is only about 40 minutes away.

...Outside My Window...

It is really fall! We have bouts of rain, followed by days of clear, cold (for us) beauty. Sweaters, scarves, the occasional knit hat... all are coming out of storage at last. There is green poking up through the ground everywhere.

...In Our House & Kitchen...

I am really trying to be more on the ball with menu planning. And making good use of leftovers. For example, after our hike last week, we roasted up some turkey legs. The leftover meat went for turkey nachos after the beach visit, and then the bones will make a great stock for Friday's slow cooker soup, exact recipe to be determined.

And I'm having the kids do cleaning bursts every day. Even if they only spend 10-15 minutes at a time cleaning, it makes a huge difference. And while they're cleaning one area, I tackle another one. That reminds me, we need to clean out the rain gutters again while the sun is shining!

...In Our Homeschooling...

Yesterday we got off to a great start for the week. We read in our history book; read about the sun and seasons; and did math (The Boy got 96% on his first Teaching Textbooks test!). The Girl is making fantastic progress with Mastering Math Essentials (thank you Erin!)

The rest of this week, we plan to read another few chapters of history; start The Glorious Adventure; read some more of The Hobbit; do at least 3 more math lessons; and do some Brave Writer work. The Boy will be working on brainstorming for an essay/writing project, and he'll be crafting his thesis (I'll have him use Thinking In Threes for assistance with this); The Girl will do some copywork (probably poetry); and we'll do some freewriting. I also came across an old book in my bookshelves, called Practical Exercises in Basic English, that has some good exercises for The Girl.

...Art and Such...

Our artist this month is Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and here is what we have been looking at and/or will be looking at (as always, I just print these and hang them up on the fridge):

As far as art projects, I need to pull out a few of our instructional books, and choose something to do! I think we might make these Star Wars snowflakes to decorate the front windows for the Christmas season!

...Reading and Watching...
The Girl and I are just about finished with this lovely version of Cinderella. She's still reading The Marvelous Land of Oz, between nonfiction titles on various animals, and books of poetry. The Boy, in addition to reading his textbook for machine shop/tech, is still reading Dracula. As a family, we are reading The Hobbit, which I hope to finish in time to read Kringle before Christmas, then we'll tackle the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the new year.

We watched Dodgeball not long ago, when we all just needed something ridiculously funny. This week though, The Girl asked for the first installment of The Hobbit, "to compare and contrast it, Mom." And the kids discovered a new show on Amazon called The Olympians. Meanwhile, M and I are watching old reruns of The Practice... we do enjoy a good courtroom drama! And I am partway through season 4 of Parenthood. I only watch an episode or two a week, so it will take me a while to finish.

...Also on the Agenda...
Work, and work. No derby practice right now, so we're getting exercise other ways! The Boy is working on finishing an art project on his own for class, as well as a group project done on campus. The Girl is watching BBC videos (dinosaurs, I think) she found on YouTube (she was very proud and pleased that she found those!). I'm working on my seminar paper for the end of the semester. This week is we reach our twentieth wedding anniversary, so M and I will be heading to a dinner out!

Have a great week! And here's one last picture for you, from our hike last week...

Linked up over at the Coombe Mill blog