Can't Leave Well enough Alone

This is the brick side-walk we finally finished 2 week-ends ago.

Dr. Dh has been wanting to mess with it since.

(Actually he's had this in mind for about 7 years. Finally got around to it. I keep telling him if he would just manage his time better he could get more done. Brouhaha. Seriously, if he dies first his epitaph will read, "I didn't get as much done as I wanted to.").

We'll be re-doing the middle garden bed in the spring (the one in the lower right of picture with the garden edging all torn up- we had to move it to dig the side-walk and wanted to cover yet another cistern 'cause the grass will not grow over it)..It will still there but re-configured.

 It defines a great little outside space for our front yard fire pit. In non-drought years you can find us outside on most spring/summer/fall evenings, going back and forth from the swimming pool, garden, roasting S'moes ("they're S'Mores, Buzz") and pushing cats off of our laps.

A small retaining wall for the front garden bed.

(please disregard dead stuff. Lots of trees, shrubs and perennials were dessicated by the drought).

LOVE it.

There's a small area between the side-walk and the wall that we've transplanted mini-carnations in to. When not in bloom it's a interesting grass like plant. See...

Join the fun at Oregon Cottage's Garden Party and TALU
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When Faith Costs

Bible Study got interesting today...

"These things [the Uprising and consequent destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans] happened to the Jews in requital for James the Righteous, who was a brother of Jesus known as Christ, for though he was the most Righteous of men, the Jews put him to death." (Eusebius)

James was put to death because he would not renounce Jesus as Messiah. The Pharisees sought to appeal to old camel kneed James' sense of decency and respectability. But James had seen the light after a little post resurrection chat with his brother, once simply Jesus, now Messiah.

When getting thrown from the temple didn't quell his life, the Jews rocked James. That attempt at murder didn't take either. A fullers club did the trick and sent Yeshua's bro to the Promised Land. His death set in motion the very events that could not would not happen, though Jesus had foretold they would. They happened. The temple fell. The prophecy completed in response to the death of the earthly brother of Jesus.

Students in Nigeria faced the same fate last week. 20-somethings who refused to renounce Jesus Christ as Messiah were either shot or had their throats cut. 46 of them. Young brothers and sister in the Lord, martyred because they would not renounce the Lordship of Messiah.

I imagine they had a pretty awesome reception in the heavenly places when they arrived at their heavenly HOME.

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,  knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. James 1:2-4

The Dangers Of Homeschooling

*1*

The Dangers of Homechooling. It's not as safe as you think!
(I've tried and tried to upload the YouTube but it won't stick. Don't miss it, though. VERY funny).

*2*

Lego League is challenging us to learn programming, power point, hone our research skills, practice Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition, work on our team building (see the bridge they cooperatively built from sheets of paper?), problem solving and develop critical thinking skills.
Open house for a couple hundred coming up. Coming up way too fast, that is!
Then Qualifying Rounds. Oy vey. We have a lot of work to do!

*3*

Horatius at the Bridge. I finally found my copy of MP’s study guide. The kids and I spent an hour or so looking up places on the maps, meanings in the notes and generally oohing and ahhing over the whole thing (o.k., maybe that was me, but still). Cub is on verse 12 and Flower is on 9. First section almost complete. Love the rhyme and vocab and geography. It is so great. Love how lit can be a segue way into so much more learning.

Also, MP's World and State Geography, tons of math (gotta go get more Perplexors), Famous Men of Greece, Christian Studies. A good week.
Seemed like it would have been less hectic with Feeche and KB gone. Actually it was.
Less enough to be do-able.

*4*

Flower started clay lessons with our irl artist friend, Miss. Z. The best hour and a half of her week!! She chirped and chatted all the way home about how much she loves Miss. Z (cause who doesn’t?) and clay, and the class.

So, her artistic tastes are heavily influenced by the comic books and movies she and Cub have inhaled the past 2 years.
Guess who?

*5*

Read The Rich are Different this week by Howatch. Loved it.  An analogy of Cesar's life set in America between the wars, before the crash. Teaching WWS, Week 29, kids are taking notes on Ceser to do their first annotated paper. Good thing I was read up on him. 600 pages of intrigue and political maneuvering, but tons to think about.

 Also, The Single Shard as a read-aloud. Lovely story set in 12^th c. Korea about a master potter who, by the dedication and perseverance of his homeless assistant, wins a royal commission.

And I'm at 52. KaBam.

*6*
The big girlies hanging out together in Kaintuk. Miss R thinks she snuck up on KB with the camera but that is KB's classic "Your very own Greek Statue" pose.

*7*

CHALLENGE

Courage

Strength

Faith.
Man-hood training.


Linking up with
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Celebrating the Festival of Sukkot

We've celebrated Sukkot for a couple of years now. For more about why and how read my article here.

First up, build the Sukka. It was pretty cold and windy on Saturday so we didn't spend a lot of time hanging out in it. You can get a good idea of what it looked like here.

Music provided by Sean,

whose Brit accent and ability to make a guitar sing got every body ready to celebrate!

Teaching about the meaning and importance of Sukkot; Hebrew studies,history, N.T., it's relevance to us today.

Gorgeous weather for the kids to play in. It finally warmed up. A bit.

Tether ball, tramp jumping, tag and hanging out at the beautiful pond built by our generous hosts Don and Ricki.

Great food:

 turkey, kreplach, squash and tomato parmigiana, beets and sweets, pumpkin soup, challah bread, dates, garlic stuffed olives, peach cobbler, cookies and whatever I forgot.

More music. Got some dance fever going on.

The brave among us learned a couple of dances.

...and actually looked dance-like at one point.

Torah Study. Study as worship.

A Sukkot blessing.

Blessed are you, LORD our God, King of the universe,

who sanctifies us with His commandments,

and commanded us to dwell in the sukkah! 

Getting Aquainted, Part I

Art's Chili Pepper has a great series on "Getting Acquainted that I love. One of the first things I do when I visit a blog is to head over to the "About Me" section. So, I'm doing a series, too. Wanna join in?

My life is comprised of many things, people and happenings. I am a Christian and fairly conservative, but I've been known to swear a blue streak  on rare occasion. I figure I'm in good company with Patton. I have been married for 27 incredibly long, incredibly short fly-by years to Dr. Dh who is witty, wise and a bit compulsive. He drives me crazy by punning and practical joking but makes up for it by telling me with regularity how beautiful I am (gotta love that in a husband!). He word-perfectly croons 70's and 80's songs to me and tells me nerdy fun facts about astronomy, archeology, Hebrew, the Bible, psychology, and whatever other nerd phenomenon he is currently in to. Nominal nerd that I am I listen wtih rapt attention.

Together we have 5 children, ranging in age from 9 to 25 years old; 3 daughters and 2 sons. The oldest is a college grad, working her first post-college job and living in KY, after spending lots of time abroad. Our second daughter is a Cosmetologist who reads The Universe Next Door for fun, in between making my toe-nails look like works of art. Our youngest daughter is 9; she loves math and music, kittens and art and is not too old to snuggle with her Momma. Love that.

Our oldest son is 18 and a senior in high school this year. He loves theater, literature, science, working out and ballroom dancing. Our 12 year old consumes books and loves building and battles.
All of our kids are creative, faithful, fun people who drive me a little close to the edge with regularity. Funny how people are all like that, eh?

We've homeschooled for 22 years in CA, OH, NM and SD and traveled most of the rest of the states along the way. We have gone from a literature based approach to a neo-classical approach with an firm undergirding of classical unshcooling. We do tons of reading, memory work, and lit studies, with a good dose of math, science and STEM studies thrown in. I am a findcoolstuff4mykids2dofool and they have done some pretty cool things over the years. I'm not above creating and starting stuff if it doesn't already exist and in  my own special way I drive my dh and kids a bit close to the edge about as regularly as they drive me there.

Besides a day job Dr. Dh and his able assistants (me, the kids and whatever helpful souls volunteer) are restoring our 1920's something craftsman style 4 x 4 farmhouse that we were burned out of 3 years ago. Within days and months of the house burning both my Sister and Dad died. It was one of the saddest, hardest years of my life and my husband and children spoke words of faith and love and solace to me and brought me tea and smiles and hugs and hope in ways that I will be forever grateful for.

Along with major house re-model projects we garden excessively, read voraciously and follow some  crazy faith inspired tangents. Our live has been full of joy, pain, challenges and successes and God has shown up at some odd and inspiring times to lift our heads, encourage our hearts and call us to a life that is ever more intentionally following after Him.

Oh yeah. I craft and create, write and blog. Gotta have art, right?
Stop back later for Part II.  What about you?

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Fall Happenings

High School Homeschool this week:

IQ2 Debates coupled with The 4th Turning made for some interesting and passionate discussion,

followed by a Band of Brothers chaser. "3 miles up, 3 miles back. Heigh Ho Silver" -20th century history

Pre-calc graphing yet again. Getting the hang of it, yessireeBob.

The Divine Comedy.Total word nerd love. Memoria Press's study guide rocks.

RS German. Ya Gut.

The Prez Debate.  Ya Gut.

Pack, get on plane at O'dark:30, fly the friendly skies, land in the south.

Challenge accepted.  

BDU's, bug spray, sun screen and glasses in hand.

Camo class and devo notes ready to go.

Heigh Ho Silver. 

*2*

Eled school this week:

Math
Perplexors

Writing

Horatius at the Bridge

Geography

Pre-physics

Read-aloud: A Single Shard.

Tons of comic books

Drawing

MP Famous Men of Greece

Christian Studies IV

Lego League on-line learning programming and research.

*3*

Tuesday afternoon the weather was divine and we spent a couple of hours walking nature trails at the park

and snapping pictures.

Were within feet of a fawn and yearling and a squirrel was within feet of Cub scolding him for climbing his tree.

A glorious fall day.

*4*

Spent Thursday afternoon cooking for Sukkot with Gayla and Beth.

Challah bread, pumpkin soup, peach cake, corn souffle.

Saturday will find the chicken and rice in the crock-pot,

friends gathered, music played, and time spent

laughing, singing, eating and thanking God for the abundance of our lives.

*5*

Started reading The Rich are Different by Susan Howatch.

Dawn sent it to me after reading about how much I didn't like Howatch's High Flyer

 on a 52 books in a year thread over at the Hive.

A couple hundred pages in and Dawn has a point.

Fascinating read.

*6*

KB has worked 7 days straight, has tomorrow off and will be the reason for our 2nd airport trek in a  matter of days. She's off to see her sistah in KY.

Our children are migrating.

Meanwhile, fall has hit with a vengence and we've had 45-50 mph winds here. Chilling and harsh.

*7*

Don't forget it!  

Project Report 2011-2012

I needed a boost. In the interests of mental self-preservation I've decided to catalog all that we've gotten done on the house re-build since last Labor Day.

(click the links for the full story behind each entry)

*1*

The side-walk project. I love it.

I go out in the morning and walk the path just for fun, listening to the morning gossip of the Guinea Fowl.

I'm simple that way.

*2*

Brass doorknobs and plates. Who knew? Well, Dr. Dh did- one of the benefits of marrying a geek. 

 Brasso and elbow grease and KB's attention to detail.

Total love.

 (except for the guaranteed Brasso-chemical induced headache. Every time.)

*3*

The kiddos play-table, and copies of the covers from my Mommas Mother West Wind books, given to her as incentive to learn to read by my beloved Gram.

Flower read Mother West Wind this summer and loved them, just like I did when I was little.

Makes me happy every time I look at it.

*4*

The 2nd floor bathroom. A total work-of art.

Who says total geek and true artist can't reside in the same man?
Dr. Dh (a.k.a Renaissance Man) rocks my world.

*5*

The porch. Painted last summer but finally put together.

Every hour we spend out here is sweet.

*6*

Miss. R and KB painted and magnetized and chalked the area around the back door.

Total fun.

*7*

Priming and painting the basement and entire 2nd floor over the course of 2 days (thank-you Feeche, KB and Gayla!!)

*8*

Texturizing the walls and ceilings on the second floor and basement- 1600 square feet, done over a 2-day period. Dr. Dh's buff bi-ceps were beat at the end of the week-end. Mike, we owe you BIG.

*9*

Mudding and taping the new drywall that abuts the plaster board in several areas of the 2nd floor in all of the places that we added and subtracted closets and plumbing, etc.

*10*

Polyurethaning the 2nd floor floors.

5 coats with a light sanding between each one.

Total beauty. 

*11*

Sanding 80+ years of grit and grime off of the 2nd floor floors and stairs. 2nd floor floors. Deserves a whole separate acknowledgement 'cause it took hours of break-backing, saw dust choking labor,  over a year and we missed Family Camp because of it.

And special mention to moving our bed OUT of the living room and 2' from the front door and into a bedroom! Unless you've lived it you have no ideas what a WooT! that is!

( And just to put it in perspective, here  and here are some pics of what it areas of the house looked like after the fire).
It's been a full year and we've made tons of progress on our re-build project. Sometimes I forget just how far we've come - especially when our make shift closet disgorges it's contents on the floor once again. And frankly, I'm tired. I can't figure out if I'm tired because I'm old or if I'm tired 'cause the breaks seem so few and far between and the demands insistent or just 'cause I'm old. Either way, we are moving forward. Inch by inch, baby.

Getting Down and Dirty

O.k., so the brick path. The one I've been mentioning for a couple of months that I started on 'cause there wasn't anything I could do on inside projects without Dr. Dh, and it was summer so I dug in.

Dh decided THIS was the week-end it was getting finished. Two reasons. First up; winter is a' coming and we needed the strings and stakes out of the front yard so that if we get snow and ice and wind and, you know, a Territories winter, we won't kill ourselves on our walk works. Reason #2: Feeche is leaving this week for 2 weeks (and he can't wait! Challenge here he comes!- there's still time to sign up, btw- check out the button on my right hand side bar) and we needed his help and expertise to get the job done.

Dh laid out the walk, the kids and I dug and hauled sand, Feeche smoothed and leveled brick.

Building a landing spot for the park bench. Growing trees out here is, well, difficult to say the least.  Our only real shade in the summer is between the big ash and the smaller ash next to the driveway so that's where the park bench goes.

It was a mess. Sticks, strings, levels, trowels, black weed cloth, sand, gravel, shovels, drywall buckets, wheelbarrows. Oh yeah, and bricks. Lots and lots of bricks.

Sanding it in.

This was dirty work. Our feet were filthy at the end of the day1

Here's looking at the path from the front side-walk (the brick path Dr. Dh built 6 years ago) looking at, and to the west of the house). You can see the beginnings of the retaining wall we'll build around this bed.

The yard isn't this dead from the path. The yard is this dead from the drought. We lost several trees and finally gave up on garden beds. Hopefully, we'll still have stuff come up next spring!

From the front porch. We still need to put in edging, build a retaining wall for the front garden and finish the short little path going along the side of the house, but it's about 80% finished.

(please disregard the plastic cup in the yard. We drank gallons of water doing this project so think of it as a symbolic representation of hydration cause I'm not taking the picture again!)

And here it is. 30 ft. of brick beauty, step up from drive-way to park bench sitting area.

If you're in the area, come on over and sit a spell!

Fresh water served up in plastic cups or mason jars+ and good company +our peaceful valley ; )!

When Cub, Flower and I ran out of stuff to do for the path, we cooked and fed people, worked on cleaning and finished the 2nd floor door hinges and continued to polish brass (check back on Wednesday for more pics). We are almost ready to put doors on 2nd floor rooms.

Another project almost done. Done enough to count.