Blogging the day 8/24

12:25 p.m. Writing this while waiting for Hannah and Becky to bring home some food from the grocery store.


Woke a little late 7:45 or so. Didn't make it on a walk. Did a lot of internet stuff, answering e-mails and such.


Will was up early again. He won Halo and is now working on Halo II.


Hannah got up early and showered. She and Will went to 9:15 Mass.


Have no food in the house to speak of. Scraped together some breakfast of cinnamon toast and yogurt for some kids (I don't think Sean ate anything). Both Sean and Josh showered this a.m.


Becky helped with some laundry. She loves to clean the dryer vent and push the buttons!


We've been taking it very easy otherwise. First the pest control guy showed up and tried to kill some more of the yellow jackets inhabiting our front garden. Then Dave my nephew who is also a landscaper came by and we had a nice talk about plans for the yard. I am excited now! I really like my nephew, a great guy, and I felt totally on the same wave length. He's really into native plants and being organic and stuff. It's going to be fun planning this out. So that took up most of the morning. The kids mostly played on games and watched tv.


After lunch I plan to read Sun Slower, Sun Faster some more and then watch some more of our Thomas Aquinas dvd with Hannah and Will. Then Hannah will do some more Church history work and Will will mow the back yard which is like a jungle right now. I plan to do some housekeeping. Hannah and Becky are home! Time for lunch!


6:07 Well I did read aloud and we did watch our Aquinas dvd. Spent way too much time on the laptop. Hannah worked a bit on history but Will has not mowed the lawn. I did clean the kitchen for about 10 minutes that's all the motivation I could muster up. In a vain attempt to get myself some energy I drank a cup of decaf and listened to Natalie McMaster, she usually gets me going, but to no avail. I did manage to call a park to try to set up something for the teen group and I sent out an e-mail about a monthly movie night for the teen group as well.


Hmm. I managed to put on a load of laundry. Oh and I talked to someone about setting up horseback riding lessons. Becky is right at this minute swimming around in our tub taking a bath. She needed one! She also played a bit on Noggin which was vaguely educational. Sean composed another song at the CN games website. He loves that 'game'! He's been fooling around on the piano too. But I think most of the day has been spent watching tv or playing video games. The sun has finally come out but everybody is too lethargic to notice! I ordered Jerry's for dinner and must go get it. Maybe we'll eat out on the porch. Becky tried to wash the porch floor for me too this afternoon. She did a tiny corner of the porch.


Hannah just volunteered to go get Jerry's food. Yeah!


Let's see what else vaguely educational has been going on. Will is reading a Dave Barry book as well as the Vision book on Thomas Aquinas. Now that's an unusual combo! I gave him the Aquinas book because he's having hard time getting into the Aquinas dvd we are watching. Josh read The Fairy Rebel by Lynn Reid Banks in one sitting last night. I think he stayed up past midnight.


Well, the sky was blue but we just went out and it is overcast and the air is very heavy. Not pleasant. Becky's out of her bath. I forgot to mention that I also sat down with Hannah and we went through our respective planners and saw what our schedules were going to be like in September. Very, VERY busy. But I think I am looking forward to it. I just don't like a lot of down time. It gets very old after a while. Friday afternoons are always hard for me. I often feel a profound sense of boredom and laziness. But looking back I did more than I felt like I did.


Tomorrow I am going to a Waldorf Homschool Conference. I won't know anybody. I am going to be gone all day practically. Rick hates it when I do that on weekends. But I really want to learn more about Waldorf.

10:50 p.m. After dinner Becky wanted to watch the level 2 dvd of Christian Art Heritage. So we watched some of that. I found it interesting but she lost interest after a bit. Rick came home very tired. We said prayers. Becky wanted me to read her a chapter book she picked out at the library. It's entitled Phantom Horse and seems to be a series about a girl who lives out west and rides horses. Anyway, it was a little too old for Becky and she lost interest in that. So I left her in her bed with a coloring book, crayons and listening to an audio cd we got out of the library, one of those Rabbit Ears productions that tells folk tales.

Sean wanted Rick to play Suduko with him on the computer but I don't thing they got it to work. I think Rick read to Sean or maybe they were just talking. Anyway, Sean went to bed and was sitting up looking at an old Guiness Book of World Records. Josh wanted me to play Family Feud on the computer with him, so we played a couple of rounds of that. Hannah and Will had gone to a friend's house. Hannah wound up staying the night and I went to pick up Will. Now I'm home again. Rick's in bed as is everybody except Will and I am about to shoo him off to bed and go myself. Hopefully I'll read a couple of pages of my new King Arthur book before I fall asleep.