Not Quite Ordinary Observations

For Today...Monday, February 29, 2016

In the great outdoors...beautiful sunshine and spring temperatures. February has been a lovely month of April weather. Ha! We are expecting a stormy intro to March, though, so we’re soaking up the sunshine today. Our hope is that any late snow or ice storm hits sooner rather than later this year so we can get our fruit trees and grape vines going.

Within our four walls...we all want naps. So, we’re diving into the day with joyful attitudes instead.

A heart of thanksgiving...I just feel like I can’t be thankful enough for my amazing hubby, the delight of my children, and the incredible blessing of friends. There are so many other things to be thankful for, but today my heart overflows with those blessings.

A heart of prayer...for several people making tough decision this week; for Julie (the one who had the liver transplant – she got to go home over the weekend) as she and her family are growing accustomed to the changes in life; for little Elijah as he recovers from his second surgery (doing well and should get to go home soon); for health and rest for my family.

Random observations...pondering and praying over how to help my family truly catch up on rest.

Meanwhile, I just realized a child is a behind me. When did she sneak in?

My silly children...make me laugh every, single day. Some days they also make me want to run and hide, but that’s just life. This morning, the laughter came when a school bus drove down our street. We live on a cove and are the only house with kids in permanent residence (the others are all grandkids). So, we’re not sure why the bus drove down our street today. Must be grandkids visiting.

Of course, my kids had to respond to the anomaly. They ran around saying, “They’re coming to get us! Hide! Don’t go near the windows! Pretend we’re not here!” All while laughing, of course.

It’s Monday. We needed that silliness and laughter!

Thoughts from the kitchen...pulling away from soup for the most part this month since it’s so warm, but today we have one last crock pot of lentil soup on for Steven. There are a couple of soups that will live on even through the spring and summer, but that’s probably not one of them.

On my bookshelf...Olivia came in this morning with a bookshelf dilemma. She informed me that the Tricia Goyer bookshelf is only about three-fourths full! I rearranged some shelves a week or so ago to make room for growing series, and I was able to pull everything NOT by Tricia off that shelf. When I informed my sweet girl that I have one additional book on my desk, Tricia just finished her portion of two that she’s co-authoring, and she has a new WWII book in progress, Olivia realized that it won’t be long before we have a new problem – we’ll be out of space for Tricia Goyer books!

Hmmm…think we’re fans?

Projects...my number one focus this week is writing. I’ve got to get the missions stuff going, and I really, really, really want to get back to regular posting on Joy of Writing. Both of my blogs offer different outlets for me, and I miss when I’m not keeping up with one or the other. I also have other writing projects tossing around in my head that I want to get started. One of these days!

Sounds of the moment...the washer and dust vac are competing in pitch and volume right now.

From Hibbard Academy...everyone has officially switched completely over to science by Dr. Jay Wile. I cannot describe how much of a difference that’s making! My kids have always enjoyed science, despite my weakness in the area. But, now they absolutely love it! They all enjoy each other’s experiments and are really grasping the content. And I’m learning so much, too, from working through Steven’s with him (the girls are both independent, for the most part). The other day, we not only learned about osmosis, but we learned WHY it happens. Even in high school and college, that was never explained in a way that made sense. If I can keep up with the reading at some point while one of the kids processes through high school science, I just might figure out chemistry and physics for the first time ever!

A favorite thing from last week...I honestly don’t know. Last week was a little nutsy because we just didn’t feel well. Migraines. Ugh. Oh, but we did have to go for our monthly grocery shopping last week, and that was actually encouraging! The previous month’s grocery total was HUGE because we needed so much. But, since we buy a good portion of what we need in bulk at Sam’s, this month we benefitted from the overstock and needed very little. It made grocery shopping quite delightful!

The planner...a couple of meetings, taking a meal to a family, just little stuff like that. Still busy, but not a lot of normal busyness plus every night full. That helps. We need a few weeks of available evenings to get caught up on a few things – rest included!

Because visuals are fun...I saw this today – and now Angela has a perfect understanding of the meaning of emoticons: