A Look At Today – 8/10/09

So what goes on here between blog posts?  Our life is full of whatever God plans for us, mostly everyday happenings with 11 people.

Here’s a snapshot of today – and this one is a little atypical.

Daddy worked a regular day today – leaving at 5am.  Normally he’d be home by 4pm, but he had a meeting tonight; so he stayed late to study (he’s in classes for nuclear reactor operator training) and is just now on his way home at 10:15 pm.  That alone made for a different day since the children don’t see Daddy in the morning, and eagerly rush out the door when he comes home in the afternoons.

An organic farming friend of ours stopped by to borrow our tractor and brush hog.  She brought about 12 dozen eggs!  (We’re temporarily out of the egg production business because in the recent showdown between Predators vs. Hens, the Predators won.)  The tractor starter switch stuck, resulting in lots of smoke and a partially fried battery cable.  So off she went to the parts store to get a new cable.  That did not solve the problem, so now the starter is at a battery and starter place awaiting inspection tomorrow.  Because the cable-frying incident left the tractor in the driveway, I helped steer the tractor while she towed it to a better location to await repair.

We homeschool year-round, and are in a light schedule, finishing up our last 3 weeks of lessons.  Play dough (homemade a few weeks ago) was the main event this morning after kitchen chores.  It was a little sticky so we used flour to harden it up again – which made it doubly fun! (and doubly messy…)

My oldest daughter has been almost totally managing the meals for almost two weeks, so she was efficiently busy with that.  Four loaves of regular bread and one loaf of Irish soda bread were made, and supper was chicken, potatoes, and broccoli AND dessert.  The children are learning to put Daddy’s lunch together and make sure the coffee is programmed for 4am.  Other children took care of chores, animals, and critters.  “Animals” are our milk goats – we also plan to get a new layer flock, plus get back to raising rabbits, chickens, ducks and geese for meat.  Critters are the children’s pets – snakes, mice, rabbits, lizards, skinks, and pond snails make up the current assortment.  Mrs. Tittlemouse, my oldest son’s mouse mama, is ready to give birth any day.

Naturally we had breakfast and lunch, then settled down afterward to read history for about an hour while the youngest 2 laid down for their naps on the couch.  While I read, the children crocheted, drew, played with pattern blocks, or sat quietly because they hadn’t BEEN doing those things quietly.

This afternoon I taught our 12-year-old son how to do the once-monthly pool filter cleaning.  This involved rinsing, TSP/hot water soak, rinsing, muriatic acid/cold water soak, rinsing – of three filters.  Glad that’s done!  Since the weather was great, I let all the children swim, after the house was picked up and dinner was in the oven.  (Note to self: I think all chores should be scheduled right before swimming – twice as much gets done in half the time!)  After everyone was out of the pool, we added the stabilizer and salt, setting the pump to run all night.

Other details that are making our life interesting lately: I found out Saturday that the used washing machine motor that runs our Country Living grain mill is apparently dead.  So tomorrow I plan to have the boys take apart the old washing machine we have and see if that motor will work.  They’re actually thrilled to take apart something so big!  Meanwhile, I have 5 bags of wheat sitting around that I can’t mill!  I could use the Vita-Mix, but it only does 2 cups at a time…

And our first digital camera that we bought back in 2003 finally died.  So I’m camera-less, which in our family is somewhat of a tragedy.  Now I have to pretend to take a picture with my brain when the children build a magnificent lego/knex/lincoln log/playdough structure.  I did learn how to use my phone camera and took a few blurry pictures – with sound!

The projects that are keeping me busy (on top of just day-to-day life): We converted one of our rooms from a guestroom/boys’ desk room into a dedicated weight room.  Still need to clean out the closet and find a place for the dresser that holds art and school supplies.  Next is the sewing room – it’s cluttered again – just because we still are decluttering/tweaking/adjusting from construction and remodeling a year ago.

After supper the children and I were singing along with Acappella on You Tube.  Then we took a friend’s recommendation and looked up the group Celtic Thunder – wow! Next thing we know, it was 9pm (the children’s latest “lights out” time is usually 8pm).  Time for bed!

Because I’m just too tired to add all sorts of fancy links to this post, you’ll just have to peruse my categories if you want to read about any more of our adventures.