For today...November 2, 2011
Outside my window--it's chilly and I love it. After a long, hot summer I'm thrilled to be able to sleep under thick covers and drink hot tea in the morning without sweating. I'm also enjoying the quiet without the whir of fans constantly in the background. It actually feels like fall.
From the kitchen...so far E-mealz has been a failure for me. I love the idea and I love the system and I want it to work, I really do. I am just undisciplined and busy. I made 2 of the meals last week and they were both really good. But then, it was Ollie's night to cook and then I got too lazy to make a full dinner and we just ate leftovers and then I went out of town for the weekend and then it was Halloween and we ate dinner at a friend's house and then I had too much black beans and rice and decided to build a dinner around it for last night and so I made the best pork chops ever, turned my bag of slaw that I didn't use from last week into fried cabbage, and served it with black beans and rice and then tonight was Ollie's night to cook again. I plan to make the 3rd meal (from last week's plan) that I had bought the stuff for tomorrow night. I only need to re-purchase one thing--a bell pepper b/c I used the one I bought last week. So, I am thinking that I will take the E-mealz menu plan and only buy ingredients for say 3 days of meals per week instead of 7. Thankfully nothing has gone to waste, we've incorporated all of the groceries I bought into the meals we've made.
What I'm reading...last week I was on a reading roll, I think I read 3 YA novels and enjoyed all of them. So far this week all I'm reading is the Reader's Digest. I got 5 or 6 books from the library last week and already took 3 back because they were too stressful. I am a little overbooked in my life now and already a little high strung so I decided that for now everything I read needs to be super mindless and sweet or just simple. I returned the new John Grisham book, the new Ted Dekker book, and another book by Diane Chamberlain that sounded like it might be too suspenseful. Time to break out some Philip Gulley or Jan Karon or maybe just stick to YA novels for the next month. :0)
In Hannah's world...she found out that she'll be auditioning for the movie on December 3. The same weekend that about 5 other things are going on. She's super excited and has now read the book and started memorizing the scene she is supposed to perform for her audition. I have really mixed feelings because I know this would be so fun for her but I can't imagine adding the filming of a movie to our already busy life. She got the part of the Opera singer and one of the gang members of Dandy Dan's gang in the upcoming show, "Bugsy Malone." We are going out of town the same weekend as the show so the kids will only be able to be in one of the two performances so they all got fairly small parts. She has also decided to start her own Youtube channel where she will post tutorials. She is in the process of editing and putting together two videos. One is a tutorial for making Squash Softies and the other is a tutorial for bee makeup. I'll post them here once she gets them done.
In Grace's world...she will be playing the part of Mary in our upcoming Christmas pageant at church. She'll be singing Francesca Batistelli's "You're Here," and it's just beautiful. I think I'll probably cry. In "Bugsy" she is a flapper girl which is just what she wanted. They get to wear cute flapper dresses and sing and dance in a lot of the show. She's doing great with her braces. She never eats anything she shouldn't and is so disciplined. Even with Halloween candy. She did discover though that she can suck on Laffy Taffy and still enjoy it.
In Joe's world...he's also going to be in the Christmas pageant--he'll be playing the angel Gabriel and a wise man. He'll also be dueting with another little girl singing "Dominic the Donkey." He is a gangster in Fat Sam's gang and the Dummy in a Ventriloquist's act for "Bugsy." He was trying on a gangster outfit today at theatre and it was so cute. Can't wait to see this show! He just started a new math program--Teaching Textbooks 3 and he loves it! He's completely independent with it and even did an extra lesson just for fun the other night.
From the homeschool room...the girls finally started IEW (a writing curriculum) today and I had forgotten how much I love it. They did a couple of lessons at the end of the school year last year and I had decided to use it this year. It's been such an unusual school year though, we are just now starting it. Grace has started Apologia's "Botany" and does it almost completely independently and really seems to be retaining what she is reading. The experiments so far have been super simple and she's been able to do that on her own as well. I haven't found a science program that I like for Joe so we are just reading books on various topics for now and reading Ranger Rick magazine. I'm not worried about him though. He probably knows more science than I do. We are keeping up pretty well with Sonlight and we're reading some really good books. We are just getting past the Revolutionary War and onto material that we haven't studied before. I'm looking forward to the rest of the year and all that we'll learn. I think I'm learning as much as they are.
On my iPod...I am loving a couple of songs by Jamie Grace. One is "Hold Me" and the other is "God's Girl."
To be Fit and Healthy...well, I made it to the gym twice this week so far. I'm also trying to cut back on sugar, I had a good day with that yesterday and a bad one today. :0(
In Other News...we moved out of our old church building that we were renting and into our new church building that we are buying on Sunday. This is the church that started with 3 couples in our living room and we just bought a huge, beautiful church with classrooms, 3 playgrounds, a commercial kitchen, a house, and on and on. It's amazing! God has truly blessed this body of believers.
I didn't mean to write so much but the house is quiet and I got a little chatty.... :0)
We went on a really fun field trip today to the Silver River State Park for Ocali Days. The first thing we did was make candles. The kids started with a wick and went through about a dozen stations where they dipped the wick into melted wax and then water and repeated that 2 more times then on to the next station to do the same thing. In the end they had a candle! Hannah and Grace loved this and later went back and made another candle. 
Next stop a one room schoolhouse built in 1930. All the kids got to sit in desks and a man talked to them about school back in 1930. 
This man was amazing. His job "back in the day" was a telegrapher and he was so good with showing the kids morse code and explaining how it works. Hard to believe he could so easily make sense of what sounded like just a bunch of tapping. Below is a man and his wife who talked about the Civil War and the role that black people played.
All of the kids got a chance to try out the various tasks that people were working on. In the picture above, the kids are turning a sugar cane press and actually expelling juice from sugar cane. And, below, Grace is grinding corn.
Joe and KK are doing a little laundry and then later Joe and Jake visited the 1890 schoolhouse.
The big kids spent a lot of time playing checkers and all of the kids especially loved the little shops. Joe tried on this coonskin cap and really wanted to buy it but he had already spent his money on a crossbow. 
Boys and their weapons....Joe is totally thrilled with this crossbow and arrows that he bought. I haven't seen him this happy over a toy in a long time. The man below used a magnifying glass and the sun to burn Joe's name into his crossbow. It was fascinating to watch. 
Joe especially enjoyed this field trip and said that it was the best field trip he had ever been on. :0)
