Domestic Happiness

We have some of happiest moments while working together. We work together a lot. Every morning, we do chores together. Every evening, we clean up after dinner. On Saturday, we were all working, one doing laundry, one doing dishes, one cooking, two cleaning elsewhere... We were listening to worship music and chatting. I snapped a pic, because I was so thankful. Some of my happiest moments are quite mundane at this point. We're part Ox Cart Man, part Little House, and this routine, domestic happiness is precious to me. 

An Uncommonly Common Saturday

Dwayne made us all bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches Saturday morning. The smell of bacon has the most profound effect on pre-teens and teens who are usually happy to stay in bed reading until noon. 

With Norah home for the summer, the girls had the idea of going to the thrift store together, something they all truly enjoy and enjoy even more when they can go together. 

I made them do all their chores first, and shower, I did my chores first and showered, too. 

But I was happy to take them, happy to be free to so. Most days, there are a few things on the calendar, but I actually had a full day off for once. 

My kids have none of the prejudice against old, used, or even dusty and broken things that I would expect them to have. So to them, entering a thrift store is the start of a treasure hunt. 

And the prices there make shopping much less of a liability and much more fun. 

And the girls always do well to find the good things hidden in any thrift store. 

Adele found a new, adorable, stuffed narwhale. 

Norah found a mint-condition Sound of Music record. 

Avril found a vintage skirt she's wearing to church today.

I found a copy of Education, Christianity, and The State by Machen. The title rang some bell in the depths of my memory, but this is basically a book and a person I knew nothing about until I Googled him when I got home. I'm devouring the book, highlighting much. 

The girls also helped me find six, different cup and saucer sets for a class that I'm going to teach at one of our homeschool co-ops called "Tea Time." We'll be brewing and drinking a pot of tea each class and talking about tea-related topics. 

After thrifting, we had a pizza lunch at a little Italian place we all love. 

The girls also had gift-certificates to the big, box, bookstore gifted to them by our generous neighbors at Easter, so we went there and bought brand new books, too.  

After crashing on the couches or beds and silently reading for an hour or two once home, we made dinner and to finish the meal, I made a pot of hot tea and we all drank out of our new (and freshly washed) tea cups. 

We read from The Two Towers, our current read-aloud, and then headed to bed. 

I'm wise enough to know I'm blessed to have such an uncommonly common Saturday with my family. 

Pictures of This Busy Season

I've included a collection of random pictures taken in this busy season. 

The girls were invited to a friend's music recital. It was a lovely Sunday afternoon event with the most outstanding musicians. 

I make dinner often and with Norah home from college, it's a cherished time together in conversation. With three, well-disciplined daughters, I don't often have to clean up. There's a picture of Avril washing pot and pans, showing mock rage because everyone keeps piling dirty dishes into the sink. 

I've hosted two Classical Conversations events this past week alone. (I have another event early next week.) One was a Scribbler's Playdate at the park with more than thirty people. The other was a Lost Tools of Writing training, also with more than thirty people. My family was with me for both events, helping me. The great thing about homeschooling is that it's a family affair, and we don't live lives separate from our children. I took a photo at the end of the Scribbler's Playdate. All the girls had settled onto one blanket to chat. 

Avril's on the dance team for VBS this summer, so this season is also filled with those practices and with visiting while the kids practice and making and sharing dinners with the kids. Shown above is one of their practices outside the church on a nice, summer evening. 

It's a busy season! 

But it's lovely to have so many people in our lives and lives filled with so many good things! 

Summer Mornings

 

Norah's home!

Norah's home from college!

And she's unpacked.

And she's at work today already earning and saving money for college this fall. 

Above is a photo of us reading The Fellowship of the Ring together. 

It's nice to have her home again and at our read-alouds, at the table, and at church, etc. 

Welcome Home!

Lord willing, my oldest arrives home from her first year of college today! We've put out the "Welcome Home!" signs and decorations. Her sisters are so, so ready to have her home, and I am, too. I have missed having my oldest around to talk to. She's called often enough while she's been gone to college, but I still can't wait for all the conversations that will happen while she's home for summer. When you homeschool, you really get to have a real relationship with your teens, and having her gone to college and too far away to talk to throughout the day has been the hardest thing. But of course, I'm happy she's in college and that's where the Lord wants her to be. But I'm so thankful for this summer vacation! 

Summer Cleaning, Reorganizing, and Leisure

I have been directing Challenge A for my community the last six weeks of this year. Today was the first day following my last day directing Challenge A, so after starting the day with prayer and reading Scripture and the other books I'm currently reading: The Knowledge of the Holy and Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?, I started another new puzzle, this one 2000 pieces, as I listened to Professor Carol's lecture on Don Giovanni. 

After that, I started deep-cleaning my classroom and school supplies while listening to several new-to-me podcasts on Classical Education. I purged old papers, preserved the girls' artwork and school projects in storage boxes, reorganized supplies, files, and bookshelves all over the house, and thoroughly cleaned out and reorganized my classroom closet. I worked all day, my feet are aching, but I am satisfied with all I've accomplished. 

As I type this, I'm listening to a lecture on Art History from Delightful Art Co. 

As I worked all day, the girls did their regular chores, helped me with the work I was doing as often as needed, played board games, practiced piano, watched math videos, completed pages in their math books, read silently for hours, and worked on more Smashbook pages. Now they are upstairs enjoying time in their rooms. 

Today, I also printed Fly Lady's deep cleaning lists for each room of my house in preparation for the coming days and weeks. I usually only have time to keep up with regular housework, maybe deep-cleaning one room a month throughout the school year. So I'd like to deep-clean the entire house this summer break. 

I'll do some more of the puzzle tonight as I listen to an audio book. Summer is such a lovely mixture of work and leisure! I already feel reset, refreshed, and revived. 

Tradition!

My kids love to quote the quotes and sing the songs from Fiddler on the Roof as they go through their days. 

"If I were a rich man..."

And "Tradition! Tradition!" 

Speaking of tradition, my kids seem to love observing tradition so much, they will take every opportunity to make tradition out of anything and everything. 

When my oldest daughter went through Challenge B years ago, she made me wait until after her short story was written and published by her Challenge B director to actually read it. 

This somehow became common knowledge in the household, so my middle daughter wanted to do the same.  

As she went through Challenge B this last year and as she was writing her short story for Challenge B, she also insisted on making us wait to hear her story until after it was finished and after it had been published by her director. 

She read it to us the other evening, just as our oldest had done, and naturally, we discussed her story with her just like we did with our oldest. 

Interestingly, my middle daughter's story was about a boy who had to go through the same trials to earn his sword that his older brother did when it was time to earn his sword and that his dad had done before them both when it was time to earn his sword... 

Homeschooling all my kids with Classical Conversations means they are all basically doing the same assignments that their siblings did at the same stage of life. And this creates a lot of camaraderie and fellowship among my kids as they actually really enjoy talking to each other about the various projects and assignments they have all done even if they didn't enjoy doing the assignments at the time they had to do them. 

Having my kids all on the same homeschool path provides potential for just about anything and everything to become, "Tradition. Tradition!" And since these traditions seem so very important to my kids, we parents dutifully observe them diligently and joyfully.

 

Another Homeschool Year Done, Summer Begins

Adele is done with another year of Foundations and Essentials. Avril's done with Challenge B. 

Avril spent some time cleaning out her desk and notebooks. She felt so much pride and relief and excitement at having finished another year of Challenge and having started another summer vacation. 

That picture above shows the stack of papers she threw out, much of which was from Mock Trial. 

In the summer, my kids keep doing daily chores, of course. But I usually give them an extra chores that need to be done, since there is margin to do more housework when schoolwork isn't pressing. A few days ago, I had them dust in their rooms. Yesterday, they cleaned their bathroom thoroughly "as if we are having guests" and cleaned our big basement living room. 

They keep doing math through the summer. Trial and error has taught me that math needs to go on year-round unless I want my kids to totally unlearn the discipline of sitting, focusing, and thinking math, forget basic math facts and laws, regress in their ability to calculate mentally, and repeat several lessons if not half a book before catching up to where they were when the last school year ended. So we just do math year around, and I'm convinced it's something we actually enjoy more because it's something we do all the time.  

They keep taking piano lessons and practicing piano. They actually can do more piano in summer, a full hour of practice everyday, rather than the half hour I often give them during the school year when there is so much more schoolwork.

I make them read silently for at least an hour everyday all summer out of books I assign them. Adele is given a stack of books on her current reading level that I've carefully curated. Avril is assigned all the books she has to read next year in Challenge 1. They have to spend at least one hour in these books I assign them, but they are good books, so they usually get into them and read them longer by choice.

Note: I have my Challenge students read the books for the next year ahead of time during summer so they are more prepared when the pace picks up during the next school year and they have to reread novels and write papers on them and also do Latin and Logic and Math. So pre-reading the books gives them an advantage when it comes time to think about the books again. And reading in them in summer means they have time to just read and enjoy and relish the stories before they have to use the content for assignments. As a rule, we read books more than once, even many times each. So reading the Challenge books ahead and then reading them again during the official school year is no big deal in our home. 

Since the girls love reading, they usually read much more than one hour, but I officially assign this one full hour of silent reading in the books I've curated, and the girls love to retreat to their cozy spots with books when morning chores are done. 

I usually encourage them to watercolor everyday in summer, because there is margin in the day and light for such a lovely task. But the past few days they've been Smashbooking with photos and memorabilia from this past homeschool year, and that's an artful craft that they are enjoying together, so I am not pushing the watercolor yet. As long as they are using their time in fruitful, soul-nourishing ways, I'm satisfied. 

As a rule, screens don't really exist for us even in summer, and that's pretty much true for me, too, even though I check email daily and text and also blog. 

Screen time is very, very limited, again, because trail and error has taught me that screens don't have much to offer us and do more harm than good to everything I'm trying to cultivate in our lives. 

We've also started a new puzzle, something we do to mark the start of every break.

 

 

Smashbooks Begun

The girls went to a friend's birthday party last night. One of the party activities was creating smashbook pages. All the moms were prepared in advance, so we planned ahead and printed pictures and gathered paraphernalia that was all of the same theme, so each girl at the party could build her own page/s. 

I planned it so that Avril could do a smashbook page about her recent Mock Trial for Challenge B. And I planned so that Adele could do a smashbook page on Faces of History for Essentials. 

Their pages turned out great! 

As the party favor, the girls were sent home with their own smashbooks, blank scrapbooks, so that they could continue adding more and more smashbook pages. 

So today, the girls printed hundred of pictures and pulled out the stickers and scrapbook supplies and washi tape, etc. They added more pages with different themes such as field trips, sisters, family, and even pages devoted to specific friends.  

What a fun, new hobby! And now that summer vacation has begun, this is a great way to pass the leisure time, reminisce, and give thanks about the past school year. 

I'm not sure the girls would have ever started this hobby if not for a simple birthday party activity. This is just another way our friends bring so much richness into our lives!

The Fellowship of the Ring

We're rereading The Fellowship of the Ring as our current read-aloud. Our youngest, now eleven, couldn't remember the story from the last time we read it aloud. I guess she'd know the story if my kids watched the movies, but they don't watch much of anything. So we'll probably watch the films as a family when we are done reading the books this time. 

One daughter has a birthday at the end of March, the other at the start of April, so they contrived to negotiate a Rivendale Lego set for their birthday season. The deal they made was that all birthday monies from extended family would be combined to pay for a portion of the set. And they would forfeit parties and dinners out and all other birthday gifts, so that the monies that would have been spent celebrating the separate birthdays could go to pay for the rest of the set. In truth, it was an outstanding deal for their father and I. We saved a ton of money by paying for the other half of this set. 

Note: We did provide birthday desserts on the day of their birthdays. One daughter had her birthday on the day of our CC Community, so we brought cupcakes to share. The other daughter had her birthday on a plain old weekday, so my husband took her out after a common dinner at home to choose special desserts from the local grocer. 

So the girls built up Rivendale each night as we read the story. They literally constructed it as the hobbits journeyed toward it. 

Last night, we read the passage where The Fellowship was defeated by Caradhas before we all went to bed. This morning, I came downstairs after my shower to find that my youngest had emptied the Kleenex box to create the scene. 

My life is utterly Bless-ed.