Yarn Along

Yarn Along with Ginny @ small things

I'm working on a blanket for the new baby.  It's organic cotton and I quite like how it's turning out so far.  I really hope I'll be able to finish it before the new baby arrives.  I'm (re-)reading A Mother's Rule of Life and Sidetracked Home Executives in a sort of desperate attempt to bring complete order and peace to our home before we have to adjust to life with an infant again.  I've read A Mother's Rule of Life many times.  My copy is all marked up and highlighted.  I like the author's philosophy and her emphasis on having the proper priorities and motivations in life.  I just don't know if her "system" for getting there works for me.  I've tried it several times and failed.  So, on the recommendation of a friend, I'm trying out the Sidetracked Home Executive way.  This book is very goofy and not spiritual at all.  But it does offer another system for organization and staying on track that might work for me.  I'm hoping I can take the best from both books and  figure this homemaking thing out once and for all.

Eight Weeks

Eight weeks to go.  It sounds like such a short time, yet it feels like forever.  Sigh.

I mentioned that I finished the summer tops for the girls not too long ago.  (Ravelry link here.)  Here are a couple of pictures, as promised:

And I finished the Baby Surprise Jacket (all except the buttons.)

That tiny foot you can just see in the background belongs to J.  She's sewing another doll for herself.  I can't seem to interest her in knitting right now.  But she loves to sew.

Homeschooling and other things

Last week was all about finishing up our homeschool year.  I had my county review on Friday so I spent the week getting the kids' portfolios ready and making sure I had all my ducks in a row.  The last two years I only had to do a phone interview for my end-of-year review so I was a little extra nervous this time.  I needn't have been.  The reviewer was very easy going and said everything looked great.  Yay!  Now we can "officially" move into our summer schedule of light school work in the morning and playtime and pool time in the afternoon. 

On Saturday I went to the IHM Homeschool Conference in DC.  It was a nice day out for me without the kids.  I really didn't need to go.  I know what we are planning on doing for school in the Fall.  I've already purchased most of our books.  I guess I've been doing this long enough now that I feel like I know what works for our family.  And not quite so long that I feel burnt out and need to make changes.  So we are in a pretty good spot right now.  Although there is that slight worry in the back of my mind that everything is going to change in a couple of months with the arrival of the new baby.  But we just wont dwell on that now.

In other news... we checked on the nest by the front door today after several days of leaving it be and we found this:

I think there are three little baby birds there, but the kids are convinced that one didn't make it.  It's hard to be sure.  We will keep checking on them and hopefully will be able to tell for certain soon.  It's amazing to think that just a few days ago they were curled up in those tiny blue eggs!

Front yard nature

Yesterday evening we discovered that a robin has chosen the bush right next to our front door as the place to raise her babies.  For a couple of days I've noticed her flying away as soon as we open the front door.  Yesterday, the kids and I finally took a little time to investigate the bush.  And sure enough, this is what we found:

I hope we haven't scared the mother robin away permanently.  The kids were so excited to find this so close to our house.

I often lament the fact that we live in a "sterile" sub-urban neighborhood instead of further out in the country where nature is all around.  This is a good reminder that if we just take a little time and are quiet and observant, then we can find nature here, too.

Summer is here

I'm not participating in Ginny's Yarn Along this week.  Mainly because I have nothing new to report.  My Baby Surprise Jacket is on hold until someone can explain to me how to pick up stitches.  And I haven't even made much progress on any of my other little projects.  I have started reading a new book.  I borrowed Sidetracked Home Executives from a friend.  It describes me to a "tee."  But I'm leery of trying their solution which involves writing everything (and I mean everything!) that you have to do to keep your home running smoothly on individual 3x5 index cards.  Then you somehow organize these cards in a way that you pull a stack for each day and do what the cards say.  And then your house will be neat, clean, and organized.   I'm tempted to try it.  I just have this feeling that after the initial excitement of trying a new system I will be right back to where I am now.  Only with the added disappointment that yet another system failed to help me figure out how to get my house neat, clean, and organized (and keep it that way.)  I did swing by the office supply store yesterday while we were out and I picked up a card file and a bunch of index cards...just in case I decide to try it.

This weekend summer really arrived here in Southern Maryland.  We are still in the middle of a heat advisory.  We didn't let that stop us from spending Memorial Day at our favorite park.  The kids really wanted to take the canoes out on the lake and have a cook out.

Ray is not the type of guy that enjoys cooking out.  As he says, "We have a whole room in our house dedicated to preparing and consuming food.  Why would we want to pack everything up, haul it to the park, cook and eat in inconvenience, and then haul it all home again?"  Once a year, though, he does just this because the kids love it.

When we got home from our Memorial Day activities we discovered that our A/C wasn't working.  It was 93 degrees upstairs in our bedrooms!  The main floor was 89 degrees.  Thank goodness the basement was still cool.  We had to sleep down there for two days.  I am happy to report that we were able to get the A/C repaired fairly quickly and inexpensively.  And now I am planning on spending a day indoors enjoying the cool and possibly trying to get caught up on some knitting and reading so that next Wednesday I will have something to share with the Yarn Along.  (Although, you may notice that my girls are all wearing the summer knitted tops that I finally finished.  Yay!)