Tag: homeschooling

Carol the Van

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Since every other part of Carol is practically new……

We’ve got quotes on replacing her transmission.

It will cost $3500 or more for her to get a rebuilt transmission. I’ve been calling around looking for a transmission to buy and get quotes from my favorite HondaWorks to put it in. So it would be a better conditioned transmission.  If I had not put so much money into Carol already ……, her new engine has only 80,000 miles on it. Everything in her is practically new. Now all she needs is a transmission and maybe I have a great van for about 10 or more years???     Her replaced parts have warranties.

Sitting around stranded at home with all these boys and Anna has been challenging. We can not all fit into hubby’s work car. So NO library trips, no park trips, no field trips, etc.

Reworking my schedule and appointments. I can not take the children, I have 2 in car seats so logistically it simply does not work.

Carol the Van… despite her issues and the short time I have driven her, has been such a blessing to us.

I was able to bring home a gifted book shelf in her, Costco trips, I could fit all of my kiddos and groceries too. We could take library trips, Walmart trips, ride to grandparents, yard sale or estate sales, anything. Carol represents freedoms for our large family and She represents living life and having fun.

 

Wednesday’s Rambled Musings

Today was a productive day.

The Greg Ott Center for physical therapy and sports performance

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had the opportunity to chat with some really nice people while waiting on D during his long physical therapy rehab sessions.  The ladies, whom I chatted with, were an elderly mother and her daughters. The mom and a daughter were in for rehab also. We sat and chat about life, children, food, and television shows. I am always enthused to meet school teachers who are not the least bit offended that I homeschool. This sweet lady even commended me and offered encouragement that I am doing the right thing for my children. She even called my children blessings after finding out I had so many. She grew up as one of five. It was an encouraging couple of hours we sat and talked and made the time go by faster.

I was also able to go through a few of the little boy items and box up some give away items. I have them stacked in the hallway so there is visual clutter. DH and I will take the items to a donation site on a day when we have plans to pass that way in a few days.

We are really enjoying studying Georgia O’Keeffe! She was a great artist. I love her paintings. We are enjoying her paintings and working on our own mini replicas.

I am constantly hungry and constantly nauseous. The two are diametrically opposed!

I have 2 cameras. One is an old Canon Powershot S50 and the other is newer Nikon Coolpix S220. At any given time neither camera works. I think I have both working now. D has a basketball game tomorrow against CSCL in South Charlotte. I am praying one of the cameras will work for me. I like the Canon. It is older but the pictures are of better quality. The 10 megapixels on the Nikon doesn’t do much for us because the picture quality is poorer.

Busy Tuesdays

Tuesdays are our Classical Conversation meeting days. They are full and fun and exhausting!

We start the day with baths and breakfast. Today the boys ate beef sausage and blueberry DeWafflebaker’s pancakes. There was a buy one get one free sale at Bi-Lo and I printed a couple of coupons online making them less than a dollar per pack!

We drop sisters off at the local CC and off we go to our meeting day.

We meet together the entire group for announcements, Pledge of Allegiance, Pledge to the bible, prayer and dismissal to class.

Then we go to our separate classes. I sit in Foundations with my little boys. There or 8 children in each classroom for the tutors to work with.

The littles are thoroughly enjoying their renditions of Famous artist painting. Even Jesse is working really hard on painting.

Science experiments have been really fun too. Getting the children physically involved to understand concepts.

Learning is FUN!

We leave, pick up the girls and go home. Give dad the van to take D to basketball practice. I try to stay awake and get dinner started. Sometimes I fall asleep at the kitchen table waiting on the oven to pre-heat. So I frequently set the timer to wake me in 20 minutes.

Today was a good day. Good night!

Back to Blogging:

In my absence a lot has transpired. I won’t go into details unless asked or requested. Long and short of it… I have been on strict bedrest, now I am on light duty off feet every two hours on left side. So I have spent most of my time trying to bring my home back to order. The laundry in the laundry room had taken over in mass proportions. I now can see the bottom of empty hampers. YEAH! I cleaned out my refrigerator and either fed dogs or compost with the few science experiments found. The Frugal Girl would be proud of me. There was only a couple of stray items in my refrigerator. (No Pictures, I failed to stop and capture the moment once I got started.)

I am currently in the process of rearranging my kitchen cabinets,with the assistance of Daniel of course! My goal is to focus on the small one step at a time and hopefully have this house back in order in a few weeks or so.

I am trying to organize the boys school work. I’d like to have a week ready at a time but I am not there yet. I have a few days ready. I am trying to regain strength after being sedentary for a little while. I moved their items to the kitchen where we tend to do our most productive work.  They can grab their stuff on their own. It is more accessible now.

I went grocery shopping and made my menu plan today.

MENU PLAN:

If the dinner plan contains gluten items, I usually make myself something different.

Saturday: leftovers galore to prevent food waste. Mostly hotdogs and whatever we had lurking that was less than 3 days old.

Sunday: Cabbage, Beef Kielbasa and rice

Monday: chili beans, homemade sweet corn muffins and asparagus

Tuesday: homemade vegetable and beef soup and corn muffins

Wednesday: baked chicken, baked potatoes, and peas

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: Lasagna, garlic bread, dessert, and spinach

I need to make this week: pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, gluten-free chocolate chip pumpkin muffins, homemade yogurt, and french bread

I am going to try the crockpot method for making the yogurt. Also I only make 1/2 gallon at a time since I have been on bedrest and weight lifting restrictions.