Hello, Sun

Last week, I was cursing snow. It just wouldn't stop coming.

I was doing mental math figuring out the amount of time that I had invested just digging my van out of places, or having other people do it for me. (At least 200 minutes.)

I was grumbling about having to stay home because I was snowed in (okay, not really), then I was grumbling at the amount of physical effort it took to finally leave my yard.

It's hard to find a silver lining when the whole world is a monotone gray.

But today...

Today, the sun is pouring over me, wrapping me in a golden hug even as I type. It makes me want to hug it back.

My tangled mess of a basil plant is echoing my sentiments. The sun makes me think of planting seeds, planning gardens...

Even the chickens enjoyed the sun--since the temperatures are above zero, we left the coop door open for a few hours. Which reminds me... the sun has me thinking of buying and hatching chicks. (I've never hatched my own... could be interesting.)

The sun also reveals the dust on the dresser top, and I have this uncontrollable desire to start Spring Cleaning. And planning summer projects. And trips.

The sun makes me forget that it is only January 24.


The sun is a like a drug that completely erases my memory of winter. And I want more.

Great Website for Kids

My friend Aakanksha (who happens to be having a birthday today! Happy Birthday, Ace!) sent me the link to this website a long, long time ago. It's great. No wonder she sent it to me.

Go check it out.

DadCanDo

Scrapbook Saturday at last

Well, I got in some scrapping on Saturday, albeit digitally, for the first time in a good nine or ten months. I actually had the kids help me with making a page about themselves--a little bit of "art class" on the computer. Noah still has to do his with me, but here are the two the other boys helped with:

I scrapped the story I posted about here in these two layouts:

And captured part of a summer day that never made it onto the blog. Yes, I used pink and red flowers on a layout with my boys--it matches the wild rose. Sue me. I need to use every excuse I can find to use flowers, 'cause I don't often have one!

 

In other news, I finished orchestrating another song for the musical last night. It is only the third one I have completed, but it was a biggie--almost eight minutes of music, a big production number that covers two scenes and is part of the opening sequence. Not including the "time off" I took in December, I think it still consumed 3-4 weeks of my life. I feel like it was quite an accomplishment to finish it! (Plus! I wrote a tango for part of it! That's a big deal... to me, at least!)

Happy Monday, friends!

Where the Wild Things Are

This fall, I saw (and captured on pixels) quite a lot of wildlife. Besides the foxes mentioned in August, there was also this bear, not a half-mile away from my house across the field.

Also, this moose, who looked like he was hoping for a quiet morning basking in the sun's rays in our sheltered yard, and got a little more excitement than he bargained for in Koda!



However, I'm not sure which is "wilder"--the four-legged critters, or these three monkeys on any given day!

Uh... make that four monkeys! (Photos taken November 2009.)

Holiday Highlights

I can hardly believe that our month off of home schooling is over already, but here we are, day 3 "back to the grind", and December is but a blurry memory. Before it becomes much blurrier, I'm going to give you the bullet-list of what happened last month.

• Kids began holidays on Dec. 3. Mommy sighed as she looked forward to a month of paperwork and school planning. (Remember how I finished 2009's books and taxes in June? I hadn't even started 2010's until December 5 of this year--but at least I was in the same calendar year! That is step up. I have been playing "catch-up" ever since March of '08 when I left Arkansas.)
• Kids get to watch movies, play outside, play Wii. Mommy gets to do paperwork and play taxi, as there was still Swim Club and Squirt's kindergarten until Dec. 17.
• All other activities finished, Mommy takes a small break from the books to clean house thoroughly and attack a few projects--company is showing up on the 25th.
• Got to spend a couple of Saturdays at D&A's playing board games and visiting. Been missing that.
• Started watching the Season 1 DVDs of "Battlestar Galactica" that my brother Logan gave us (in September!) on Dec. 23. 
• Finished a few knitting projects. Started a couple more.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Had lots of fun with the Xbox 360 and Kinect that my brother brought up on the 25th to totally spoil his nephews with. There were plenty of sore gluteus maximus' (among other things) from the bowling, jumping, and lunging, I tell ya!
• Played numerous board games with family, including my dad and brother. The obligatory Scrabble game was included, as well as "Apples to Apples" (so fun for groups) and "Pandemic" (a co-operative game that is surprisingly a lot harder than it looks.)
• Started Season 2 of Battlestar Galactica on Dec. 31.
• Spent New Year's Day at a sledding party. The kids did "Extreme Tobogganing"; well, not Jabin--I took him to a tamer hill and he slid up and down for a while. This was followed by a delicious potluck supper. One of my best New Year's parties in years.
• And, to sum up, I finished my 2010 books at about 11 p.m. last night! Yippee!

I have to say, though, it didn't really feel like a holiday--and I still have school units to plan. Phooey. No sewing, like I'd hoped. Very little work completed on the musical, on which I had hoped to gain some extra ground. And no chickens butchered--my girls would appreciate a couple less boys in their midst, but although I bought a nice new sharp axe for the purpose, the cold weather (and full list) deterred me.

Still, it was a good month, albeit a busy one. And currently, we are enjoying unseasonably warm temperatures of around -4C in the day (which showed up just in time for the sledding party on Saturday), so who can complain about that in January?

Happy New Year, friends!