Busy, Busy Week

In School this week
We started Tutoring Center and Co-op last week. It was a lot to handle with the house in dissarray from working on the floors- we had to move our office down to the front porch and cram all the stuff we'd store'd on the 2nd fllor onto the porch and other small places. Anyhoo, besides the lack of organization and 2much2do we started.
Good stuff: Lego League, during which I'm teaching writing (IEW's Fables, Myths and Fairy Tales) to the younger siblings. Very fun. Other definite wins: First Form Latin, History (of course), Literature, and pre-Chem. I'm also teaching Creative Writing to high schoolers.
We tried to get math, thinking skills, read-alouds and poetry in during the rest of the week but it was a stretch. We had a freeze warning and ended up clean picking a lot of the garden with lots of produce to figure out what to do with. It wasn't the best year for gardening, that's for certain, but it wasn't a complete wash either.

Things we're working on
Floors. The 4th coat of polyurethane was weird. It came out high gloss in some areas and no gloss in others, even though the 2 gallons we used were from the same shipment. We are going to have to sand, again, and put another coat on. I played slip-n-slide last week during our 4th coat and ended up kissing the floor. How does one explain floor induced whip-lash?  Needless to say, this project is getting a little old.

Things we're thinking about
The too early freeze warnings. We clean picked most of the garden and covered the rest.
In retaliation to cold weather we made this:

Pumpkin Spice Latte  

2 cups milk

1 cup very strong coffee (4 tablespoons coffee grounds to 1 cup of hot water)

2 teaspoons vanilla

2-4 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon (plus extra for dusting)

2 heaping spoonfuls of pumpkin

Pour all of the ingredients into a pot and heat over medium-high heat until the coffee is steaming hot. Pour into mugs and top with whipped cream & cinnamon. Enjoy!

Prep Time: 5 minutes, serving Size: 2

We used the rest of the can of pumpkin to make pumpkin muffins, topped with walnuts. Very yummy.

We've also made some great garden stir-frys and soups.

Move over horse whisperer

Cub always trains our current crop of kittens to ride on his shoulders. It is tres endearing (or else heart stopping if you are weeding, lost in thought and they jump on your shoulders). This year he took it a step farther. Penelope is his "Attack cat." (we name our kittens by theme every year. This year we went with a Muppets theme- you know, Penelope, Rizzo's chicken girlfriend?).
Places we're going
KB is counting the days till her program is over and she can move on to other things. She is loving the actual cosmetology part of the program. The social aspect, not so much. In the mean-time she is doing lots of very cool art work and planning what's next.

"We live at home, quiet, confined with nothing but our feelings to prey upon us."

Feeche is field tripping in D.C. this week. So far he's been to Arlington Cemetery and Capital Mall. He's heard great speakers and is getting worn out already. I'm praying that he doesn't get too tired cause it's just day #3 of the 10 day adventure. Shipping his soldier of fortune gear today for part 2. 

A picture to share

Just cause I thought it was so darn cute