Not Quite Ordinary Observations

For Today...Monday, February 11, 2013

In the great outdoors...beautiful sunshine and mild temperatures. The kids have found little flowers all over the yard recently. I’m hoping the trees don’t start blooming yet because I have this feeling that another cold snap is coming.

Within our four walls...peace today. It brings much delight after last week’s struggles.

A heart of thanksgiving...for God’s wisdom, generously given.

A heart of prayer...for the spiritual growth of our family.

Random observations...I accomplished something this weekend. I gave myself a knitting lesson and learned the cast on stitch. I know it’s a little thing, and I’m honestly not sharing that to boast. It’s just that I have wanted to learn to knit for a while. When I first started looking at the diagrams and instructions, I was so utterly confused I just knew I’d never get it. But then somehow that first stitch just clicked. It felt really, really good.

My silly children...have secure email addresses that allow them to send emails only to the people I approve (www.kidsemail.org – they’re running a special right now, just in case anyone’s interested!). Today it appears that they are sending emails back and forth to each other discussing what they would like to play this afternoon. I need to remind them to use their email time to send messages to people OUTSIDE the house!

Thoughts from the kitchen...I make a dish we call All-American Skillet with ground meat, corn or peas, tri-colored or egg noodles, tomato sauce, and cheese. I typically make it in an iron skillet, so Steven calls it Iron Skillet. Took me a while to figure out what he wanted when he requested that one!

On my bookshelf...still working on Against the Tide. It’s a good one. I also have a couple of short reads coming up this week including a kids’ biography and a book Steven thoroughly enjoyed. We’re working through some fun school books as well. Olivia and I are reading Around the World in Eighty Days (reader), Shadow Spinner (read-aloud), and Teresa of Calcutta (history). Angie and I are enjoying Florence Young (reader – her second time, my first), while Steven is joining us for George Mueller (history), and Little Pear (read-aloud). His current reader is A Question of Yams. We’re enjoying them all!

Projects...same as usual – I need to get some work done on setting up a group blog, I want to practice knitting some more, and there are always writing projects going these days. Hopefully sewing will be back on the docket soon as well.

Sounds of the moment...the children enjoying a game on the Wii.

Last week we learned...just how skewed certain books can be. Okay, so that’s not really news, but it was still a bit shocking. Olivia and I are learning about India, and two of the books we are reading talk about India as this wonderful, peaceful melting pot of cultures and religions. How the people all get along and live full, beautiful lives. It gave the two of us the chance to talk about how anyone can paint a pretty picture of just about anything. We need to be open to truth.

A favorite thing from last week...all of my children excitedly asking what new books we would be starting this week, whether read-aloud or reader. That makes me smile.

The planner...mostly normal this week. Still full with art class and school, but normal full. I like that.

Because visuals are fun...I need to get back to actually taking pictures!