Making plans...

Backyard Farming Project Plans
 I wrote in this post about my garden planning, and then started research on building beds without going broke. I ended up finding this awesome tutorial on building raised beds with cedar fence boards, as cedar is naturally rot-resistant, rarely "treated", and fence boards are quite inexpensive overall. They still won't be $10 beds...more like $25 apiece, but that's far, far cheaper than getting them pre-made, with prices starting at $46 for something of comparable size. I'm hoping to put in 4-6 beds (leaning toward six...we have the space!), and a couple of potato towers. I know we want to grow tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, cucumbers, squash, beans, peas, lettuces, chard, maybe broccoli, etc., and I just learned about tree collards, so am fascinated with them!

I also really need to rebuild for the chickens. We want to relocate the chicken run, to free up our mini orchard space, and so I want to take my time to do it properly. Our chickens are sadly down to two in number, and have aged out of laying entirely, so I am seriously considering investing in 6-8 lovely ladies in the spring. I've been perusing Backyard Chickens for ideas in the process of designing my own new coop and run, which will all be made from reclaimed lumber, chicken wire, etc., much the way this blogger built one.

Cooking Project Plans
I've decided I need to learn how to can things. My mom does it all the time, so next time she has a canning project planned, I'll be watching and helping! I'd also like to try making cheese -- I understand both ricotta and mozzarella are pretty easy, so I think I would tackle those first. I also want a dehydrator at some point....

Household Project Plans
More decluttering really. I find more and more that we need far less stuff than we have. I'd also like to sew new curtains later this winter, as curtains are an easy way to really change up a room's appearance. So everyone will need to choose curtain fabrics for their rooms, and then I get to choose for the main rooms! Another deep cleaning is needed soon too. We have other plans for next summer, including a roof overhaul (just the addition, thankfully), and a shower wall and plumbing overhaul. I'm just glad those jobs are a ways off!

Finishing Grad School Plans
This one will take a while. I need to get the required foreign language out of the way (yes, a foreign language for an MA in English). I also need to take my GRE and write my thesis. So this is a 1.8 year plan (I'd say two, but this semester is almost over). I will continue with the jobs I have now if given the opportunity in the 2017-2018 academic year, and then graduate in summer, 2018. To keep me busy in the meantime, I have essays to assign and grade, and a 15-20 page seminar paper of my own to write by mid December.

Homeschooling Plans
We're doing much better with math these days, and have kept up nicely with history (Victorian times) and literature. Getting writing done though has been like pulling teeth, so that is the next area to tackle. I think both kids will be taking sculpture at the junior college in the spring, and I'd really love to incorporate a thorough study of biology into our next semester.

And there you have it... my current plans! Plenty to keep me busy!

What We're Doing These Days...

  ...It's a beautiful fall so far... 
lots of rain, followed by the leaves changing, and morning fog...

...We enjoyed Halloween... 
(costume pictures still to come)
We spent the afternoon with friends, then the evening Trick or Treating my mom's neighborhood

This is how you pick pumpkins from the pumpkin bin

The Girl's handiwork

And The Boy's

...We've Been Reading...

 We really enjoyed this book, and it led to so many interesting conversations about human rights versus a seemingly utopian society, memories, emotions, and much, much more. The movie, on the other hand? Ummm, no thanks. We did not care for it.

  But we did move on to the second book in the quartet, and although it seems very different in someways, it is just as gripping so far.

We're delving into Victorian Times after watching Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 

And we're reading about universal matters...

...And There Has Also Been...

Math (going well, but not nearly often enough)

Language arts games here and there, and now we're diving headfirst in to writing projects for both kids

Lazy afternoons either at the park with friends, or watching movies (we watched a lot of pre-Halloween films!)

Many rounds of Clue and Chess

The Boy loves, loves, loves his astronomy class, and is planning on taking sculpture in the spring

And cooking... soups, chili, casseroles, and, courtesy of The Girl, a lovely pear and chocolate upside-down cake...

Happy Earth Day!

Wishing you all a Happy Earth Day! 

image courtesy of plasticstoday.com

Even my apple tree is celebrating!

...Some ideas for the day...

Go for a walk out in nature

Collect some wildflowers for pressing

Make a nesting mobile

Plant something

Read a good [picture] book -- some of our old favorites include:

The Lorax

The Great Kapok Tree

The Giving Tree

The Curious Garden

The Tree Lady

On Meadowview Street

Miss Rumphius

And, not a picture book, but a handy one all the same: The New 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth

Make some pine cone bird feeders

Write a letter to your representatives about an environmental issue that concerns you

Have a picnic at the park, or by candlelight at home

Ride a bike instead of driving

Tidying Up the Blog...

As you can see, the Lit Study/Narnia tab/page is gone! Don't worry though... I simply moved it to a post format, and have a new gadget in my sidebar called "My Book Lists", with some of my favorites directly linked. Check them out!

And I'm adding new page content! Exciting, huh? Probably more so for me than you! I will admit, I am still, deep down inside, totally torn between a more "classical" education mode (with planned history, science, etc.) and this. Grrrrr.....

So, besides all the planning, what have we been up to?

Reading Christmas stories - we read about the legend of Saint Nicholas, and another fun St. Nicholas story to go with it, we read gingerbread stories (like Gingerbread Baby), The Quiltmaker's Gift (not technically about Christmas, but definitely about giving!), and a few others that escape my mind at the moment. I have more lined up too. Funny side note: last year we read The Twenty Four Days Before Christmas for the first, and so far only, time. This morning, on our way out the door, The Girl spied it, and excitedly gave her brother an entire run-down of the book! Ah, the powers of narration! And we're really enjoying A Christmas Carol as an audio book narrated by Jim Dale--good stuff!

Watching Christmas movies - So far we've watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and Scrooged. Still to come: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the old cartoon version with Boris Karloff, thank you very much); various versions of A Christmas Carol (kids like the Jim Carrey one, I like Alistair Sim and/or Patrick Stewart); A Christmas Story; The Santa Clause; A Miracle on 34th Street (again, the old version); and so forth and so on.

And the kids decorated gingerbread houses (kits from Trader Joe's--sorry the pictures are a little dark... I'm still learning to use my iPhone!)....

Hard at work...

Waiting for the frosting "glue" to dry a little

The Girl's completed masterpiece!

And here is The Boy's work!

Which has a sad and gruesome tale behind it... hard to see in these pictures, but unfortunately, the sugar-paste daughter met with a tragic accident, when a sheet of (sugar) ice sliced her head off. She's just behind the tree here, and you can mainly see the yellowish slab of ice that led to her demise. Her head is lying at her feet. What a terrible start to the holiday season for this family!

Tonight is my last class for the semester. I have to present my final paper, and then I am done! I'm down to my last half stack of papers to grade as well, and will be taking a two and a half week vacation from work, starting next week. I am so ready and looking forward to the time off! Don't worry though, I have plenty to keep me busy...

More house cleaning (M says "It's fine for company" but I'm not satisfied with "fine")
Drying persimmon slices (so yummy dried!), and poaching the last load of quince
Making various flavors of fudge
Finishing the calendars we're gifting to everyone
Gingerbread cookie baking and decorating!
Christmas stories and movies
Going to see The Hobbit!!!

And I will be hitting the big

Although this is supposed to be one of the milestones that I'd rather not hit, I'm actually fine with it. I hit that middle-aged panic point at 35, a number that really bothered me for some reason. I guess I'm so much happier overall at 39, that 40 doesn't seem like it'll be too bad!

Have a good week!

It's Friday!!!

Photo courtesy of inspiredbycharm.com

I am glad the weekend is almost here, although it promises to be a busy one--I have papers to grade and a three-four page paper to finish writing. Add that to housework, cooking, grocery shopping, etc., and yes, I will be well occupied over the next few days.

So lately M has been feeding an addiction, literally. He cannot stop eating Bush's Baked Beans, which I swear must be some of the priciest beans out there. In interest of keeping on budget, I am attempting to replicate (or better) those beans in the crockpot today. I googled recipes, and found a couple that claimed to be "better than Bush's", amalgamated those recipes, and now they are simmering away. Wish me luck! If this turns out well, I can get an entire big pot of beans cooked up for nearly the same price as one 28-ounce can. And mine are organic! With M unemployed, we are having to be careful with our grocery dollars. I am finding that it is true - the more you cook from scratch, the more you can save, and the better your food can be. For example, I bought a 4 pound chicken last week. We had roasted chicken and veggies one night, then pesto-drenched pasta with chicken and veggies (I made mine with spaghetti squash and it was delicious!), and finally I made a big pot of chicken-barley-veggie soup that lasted through one dinner, and several lunches. Not bad!

A Few Homeschooling Highlights From the Week

Zaccaro Primary Challenge Math is fantastic! You can read more about this week's experience with it here.

We had fun watching Fantasia and talking about music... I was [pleasantly] surprised that The Girl could identify which Nutcracker Suite pieces were used in the film! We also discussed animation methods, as that greatly interests The Boy. He was impressed at the quality of animation pre-digital age, and we talked about inks, paints, transparent layering, and more. He then spent a lot of time drawing this week.

Speaking of The Boy, my once-scared-of-writing boy asked if he could have a prompt from Unjournaling this week! I think by next year he'll be ready for NaNoWriMo!

Other highlights include: The Girl's work on long vowels; plenty of good reading from A Picture Perfect Childhood and The Graveyard Book; playing with Emily (The Girl's mouse) and Athena (The Boy's water dragon); and The Boy's as always silly sentences in Writing Skills.

And of course there was plenty of political talk--we discussed previous presidents and the current candidates (please note that while I did not care for one of the candidates, I was very careful to not speak negatively of him in front of the kids). We also talked about the electoral college, the popular vote, amendments, and propositions.

We also "traveled", through the words of travel writer Richard Halliburton, to Fort Jefferson, reading the unfortunate story of Dr. Samuel Mudd.Was he innocent or guilty of conspiring with John Wlkes Booth? I suppose we'll never really know. Anyhow, we enjoyed reading about the fort, and as always the plethora of [black and white] photographs really added to the story, as did the letter published in the book. It was written to Mr. Halliburton by an elderly woman who as a child had actually lived at the fort with her soldier father!

Where We Could Improve for Next Week

Getting around to schoolwork! I had plans aplenty for this week, which didn't happen. One afternoon it was because I spent a lot of time dealing with car repairs... again. Another afternoon my mother-in-law showed up four hours early for dinner. Yes, FOUR hours. All of the time I had planned for homeschooling.

I was re-reading Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding. I think if I rearrange my flow charts a little, I could totally make this work for us in conjunction with the fabulous Reader's Digest How _____ Works books and Janice VanCleave's _______ For Every Kid series. Add in some Bill Nye videos, and I'll have two happy science-y kids! I do really want this program to work for us, as with all three volumes it is one of the most thorough science programs I have ever come across.

Plans For Upcoming Bits and Pieces

I plan to read about Veteran's Day to the kids this weekend. I'll be picking up this library book on the way home from work today...

This weekend, I also hope to tackle art with The National Gallery of Art: Activity Book. And we'll finish watching NOVA's Becoming Human. The Boy has expressed interest in watching documentaries related to the universe/astronomy, so we'll watch one of those too.

Other homeschooling goals for the upcoming week:
~ get through chapter two in The Magic of Reality
~ read a few chapters in The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe
~ read another 2-4 chapters in The Early Human World and add to the Books of Centuries we're working on
~ finish listening to The Lightning Thief and start book 2 in the Percy Jackson series
~ 2 lessons from each Life of Fred and Primary Challenge Math
~ A couple of lessons each from Primary and Intermediate Language Lessons
~ Getting around to the science project that M gathered all the supplies for, and that we didn't do (thank you MIL!)

Finally, personal goals for the upcoming week:
~ more exercise!
~ planning next week's menu and shopping appropriately
~ getting through at least a few chapters from one of the book's I am writing my long (seminar) paper on this semester
~ getting caught up, again, on laundry!

Hope you all have a good weekend!

Monday Musings... Blogging Blues...

I was just reading a post by a friend, and it got me thinking. Am I a total flake? I know we jump all over the place with what we're using/studying/learning about. And looking over my own blog for the year, yes, I feel flaky.

I think I need to change things up a bit here... no more "I think we're going to try this, or use that" posts. And for a while, I don't think I'll bother with end of the week reports, which have been a drag to write lately anyhow, since they seem so mundane and somewhat repetitive. Instead I think I'll focus on what we are doing, what we are accomplishing... the things we're having fun with, and of course, the occasional struggle.

So, that said, here are some highlights from yesterday's homeschooling!

I bumped The Girl up another book in the Explode the Code series, even though we are nowhere near done with the last one. Why? Because at this point, it was all review, and she needs to keep moving forward. More than that, she is ready to move forward, so we are, at long, looooong last, tackling long vowel sounds. Phew!

Image courtesy of City Talk morning paper

We loved reading about the similarities in chimpanzees and humans in The Early Human World. The Girl says this is her "favorite history book ever!" and The Boy loves many things about it: it explains the roots of words like anthropology, paleontology, and much more; the sidebar bits about people like Jane Goodall and Charles Darwin; and he says he is "learning a lot!"


We also had fun with Life of Fred, both Apples and Fractions. The Boy only missed 4 out of 16 words in his spelling pre-test, and then he wrote some very silly sentences for nouns in Writing Skills.

And some other highlights from the day:

image courtesy of cookinggodsway.com

The Girl helped me make some delicious whole-grain blueberry-banana muffins for today's breakfast. She is getting very confident with measuring! M said they are so good that they don't even need butter, and from him, that's a huge compliment, considering he would butter everything if he could... which reminds me of a Simpsons clip...

image courtesy of google images

  "You butter that bacon, boy!" (as ordered by Homer Simpson)

We also spent a good hour or so working out in the front yard, deadheading all the plants now that fall is really here, prepping for the winter. We need to start picking our olives soon too - there are many ripe ones already! We're going to use a regular Greek brining technique for half, and do a dry salt cure with the rest. The Girl picked all the last of the French lavender for sachets, and The Boy hauled the wheelbarrow full of chopped-down plants back and forth to the compost heap.

I also made roasted eggplant for soup (and plan to finish making the soup today), and got a chicken bone broth going in the crockpot for tonight's chicken-barley-veggie soup. Definitely soup/stew/chili season here!

image courtesy of allseasoncyclists

The Boy is designing a scooter for himself, with a little input from M. They have plans afoot to head off to the recycle station at the county dump for parts. They're also working on rebuilding a bike that someone gave us, as The Boy (now 5' 3 1/2"!!!) has outgrown his old bicycle.

So all in all, it was a good and productive day. Hoping for a few more of those this week!

Cruisin' Along...

Feeling more settled today, after Thursday's news. After posting, I went and took a long, hot, and UNinterrupted bath (thank you so much to M and the kids for leaving me alone). Friday, I called in sick to work, taking a "personal necessity" day, and we spent the afternoon at park day, surrounded by friends. And thanks for the kind comments on that post!

M is encouraging me to go ahead and file for unemployment, something I have never done in the 26-27 years I've been working (really... I'll be 40 this year, and have been working since the age of 13). To take some time off between jobs, and just be a mom. We know that this would make finances even tighter, but M said he would see if he could pick up some extra hours and/or find some supplemental work. And yes, even with unemployment, I would continue looking for work... I'll admit in part because one has to. I guess I could look into other aid as well, if needed. The kids are already insured through Healthy Families, so we'll keep them on that.

In the meantime, since my raise is in place, and all that, I am going to stretch every dollar to its breaking point, and pinch every penny until it screams so that we can start July off in the best financial shape possible, whether I decide to immediately find work or not. No, I still am not going to clip coupons, or buy those weird big log-tube things of ground beef. The vegetable garden is increasing in size though! Thanks to Jessica, I have recipes for household cleaners. Thanks to my mom, I know how to cook from scratch, to mend, alter a little, and so forth.

I haven't decided what to do at this point. But, I do have two and a half months left to figure it out... well, maybe a month and a half, because I'd like to know before the end of June what I'll be doing next!

Jumping on the Menu Monday bandwagon... and more...

Menu Plan Monday

Now that I don't work at a grocery store, I try to shop only once a week, so menu planning is key! This week we'll be lucky enough to have two Thanksgivings, one at my mom's house, and one at home. Here's what we'll be having this week...

Monday
Beef & 2-bean chili with salsa, tomatoes, avocado, cilantro, and tortilla chips

Tuesday
Pasta with a good marinara sauce; garlic bread; salad

Wednesday
Thanksgiving #1 at my mom's

Thursday
Thanksgiving at home - turkey; cornbread stuffing; homemade cranberry sauce; mashed potatoes & gravy; green beans with brown butter and chopped hazelnuts; succotash; a big green salad; pumpkin pie; apple-quince-mince pie

Friday
Leftovers cleverly disguised as open face hot turkey sandwiches with gravy; salad of some sort

Saturday
I am thinking we'll need a break from turkey, so Cricket and I will be cooking a dinner to reflect our country of the week - Poland. We're making perogi to be served with chives, sour cream, and bacon. The side dish will be beets and cucumbers with vinegar (almost pickled!)

Sunday
I have some leftover wild rice, so I thought I would make roasted squash/veg and wild rice, and serve it with some homemade bread, probably rye since we all like that one. I had found a recipe for the soup on a blog recently, but now I can't for the life of me figure out whose blog it was!

On another note, we're looking at making some fun ornaments in early December for our Christmas tree/home. We do have store-bought ornaments, but homemade ones are special, and fun. Some options...

Glittered, Wax-dipped Pinecones
I really like these toadstool ornaments
Trying to think of an icing lid substitute for these lovely felted ornaments
Felt Shooting Stars
And I have a book with instructions for straw star ornaments like these
And cinnamon dough bird ornaments

Most of these don't look that difficult, though some might be time consuming. I don't know that we'll get a chance to make them all, but even a few homemade ornaments would be nice!