100 Days of Hygge - Day 11

The weather was screen porch perfect yesterday.  I sat out and prepared for the history class I'll be teaching at Aquinas Learning.

Sorry I don't have a photo of the ham and cheese sub I ate for lunch!  It was zero waste in that I bought the pretzel sub rolls in bulk using my own cloth bag instead of any plastic bag (or paper bag even).  And both the ham and sliced cheddar were bought over the counter from the deli department with me bringing my own containers for them. Lately, I feel like I'm getting sloppier about my zero waste efforts.  Mostly because my family really isn't 100% on board with it, so they are careless and bring in a lot of extra packaging and plastic.  But this lunch was a definite win!

Anyway, I love history and I am excited about teaching it to the Schola Alta I kids (7th and 8th graders).  I think we are going to have great fun!

100 Days of Hygge - Day 10

Yesterday morning I got up early and made granola for breakfast.

Yummy!

100 Days of Hygge - Day 9

Yesterday was a gorgeous day weather-wise.  Today it is dreary and rainy.  It actually is making me think more about Houston's disaster.  Praying for those people fighting the flooding.

I wound up having to watch our little 22 month old guest for many hours yesterday.  He didn't want to take his afternoon nap without mama around, so I took him for a long walk.  And snapped photos of all the wildflowers blooming abundantly on the sides of the path through the woods behind our neighborhood.

Little Dylan falling asleep.

Wildflowers by the path.

Wonder what kind these are?

Pretty view.

It was a very peaceful walk.  I enjoyed the weather and the beauty around me.  Little Dylan got a little nap, which he very much needed, and I got some exercise which I very much needed!

100 Days of Hygge - Day 8

Sunday was a busy day and some stuff happened that was not happy.

However, in the evening my 25 year old son came over with his girlfriend and two other friends who are all doing a little tour together of original music.  Most of them live in Boston.  They just came back from Georgia and Tennessee.  After dinner (it was one of the friends' 24th birthday)  they all started playing music and singing.  It was really fun.  Sean on harmonica or drum, Nik on piano and the others singing.  I love that I have kids who fill the house with music.  I was too lazy to run and get my phone to record but it really warms my heart to listen to them play and jam together.

The Toll-Gate - Book 25 (Day 7 of 100 Days of Hygge)

This cover seems to have very little to do with the actual story.

With all the heavy stuff going down in the news, I felt the need to find comfort in a Georgette Heyer novel.  Good thing she wrote so many!  I still haven't read them all.  The Toll-Gate was new to me.  It did just the trick.  Captain Staple is back from fighting Napoleon.  And frankly, life's a little boring.  He's a soldier through and through, a hugely built man, who doesn't conform well to society's rules and likes a bit of danger.

Georgette Heyer Hygge.  My bookshelf

Fleeing a boring engagement party of his cousin's, he gets lost on the moors one night in the pouring rain and winds up stumbling on a road with a toll-gate.  When he calls for the gate to be opened a little boy emerges, frightened to death.  The boy's father has disappeared.  Captain Staple has a kind heart and anyway, it is night and he is sopping wet, so he stays with the boy thinking the father will return in the morning.  But he never does.  The next day, enjoying his role as gate keeper, he meets Nell, the daughter of the local squire and falls for her instantly.  She is a great-hearted and independent woman, and tall too.  She feels the chemistry also.   But whatever happened to the boy  Ben's father?  And why is Nell's odious cousin and his horrible, lascivious friend overstaying their welcome while grandfather squire is rapidly coming to the end of his days?

Lots of fun characters and adventure.  Captain Staple to the rescue; he solves the mystery.

While I enjoyed the story once it got going I have to agree with the TOR reviewer on one point.*  The book starts out going in one direction but suddenly switches gears and we never hear about any of the characters that were introduced at the beginning.  That's odd.  And I have to say the end left me rather repulsed.  I never am good at accepting the excuse of preserving one's 'honor' for taking the law into one's own hands.  It made me shudder a bit, it seemed so cold hearted.

So maybe not Heyer's absolute best, but a fun read.

For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.


* I enjoy the TOR reviews of Georgette Heyer's books in spite of their rather strained post-modern critiques that seem so typical of current English/gender studies thinking.  The reviewer is so steeped this particular mindset and she writes in such a glib, overtly witty way, it's a tiny bit nauseating.  But she does make some interesting observations  and she obviously appreciates Heyer, so I forgive her her cookie-cutter, straight out of the politically correct classroom approach.  She does make me think a bit more about what's going on in the plot and with the characters.  It is gratifying to read intelligent takes on Heyer's works.

100 Days of Hygge - Day 6

Today we drove to Baltimore (actually Owings Mills) to celebrate Grandad's 86th birthday (which was actually 2 weeks ago).  We took him and his lady friend out to lunch at Red Robin and then back to his apartment for cake and ice cream.  It was a nice visit.  We drove home the scenic route through very pretty countryside.

A nice Saturday.

Oops!  Got my finger in there.  Sorry, not much of a photo.

100 Days of Hygge - Day 5

Don't feel like wrestling with photos today as I am pressed for time.  And I am still looking for hygge in the little daily things that already exist. 

Like my Day 1, which involved setting up a new housekeeping system, it might not seem like hygge at first, but it creates a harmony in the home atmosphere that allows for hygge.

Friday morning is compost morning.  I have a compost service that picks up my compostable items on Fridays.  I have to thank my friend at The More, The Messier, for telling me about this service maybe 2 years ago?  For I don't know how long, every time I'd go into my fridge, I"d experience guilt and anxiety because of the food I regularly wasted.  I am not a good food manager.  I would always think to myself, if I go to Hell, it'll be because I wasted so much food!  This was just a regular vicious cycle of negative thinking that went on in my head for decades, every. single. day.   I'd beat myself up, feel like a failure, get overwhelmed and never change.

I know some intrepid people compost in their backyards.  I am not one of them.  So this service is so worth it to me!  This morning I got up, cleaned out a couple of the veggie drawers, threw the rotting lettuce and wrinkly moldy cucumbers into the already almost overflowing bin (had to press everything down to fit it all) and then put the bin on the front porch for pick up.  A hygge moment!

The funny thing is now that I can compost my food scraps (and things like recyclable paper towel, finished steel wool soap pads, and numerous other things!  I can compost more than many who have a backyard compost pile because the service is actually a commercial level one, so it can take pretty much anything that was once living, except drippy things like yogurt and liquids).  Anyway, the funny thing, as I was saying, is that now I have begun to even save things that I never thought of saving.  It's like once the burden got lifted from my shoulders of dealing with rotting food, I started becoming more conscientious.  So now I am better at using up leftovers, saving vegetable scraps to put in the chicken broth I make weekly.  In fact, remembering to make chicken broth weekly is an improvement.  The other day I made some salmon cucumber salad for dinner and instead of throwing out the icky stuff (the skin and bones - I know you can eat these but the skin is too oily for me and my kids don't like the crunchy bones, even if they are soft), I saved them and fed them to my cats.  Oh my gosh, my cats loved it.  I never would have thought of doing something like that before.

So no photos today, but definite contentment about a little household issue. 

100 Days of Hygge - Day 4

I have to admit I was having trouble getting to hygge today.  Rick worked until 3 a.m. and I find myself more and more anxious waiting for him to get home, especially since his stroke.  He still works the way he did in his 20s which is pulling all nighters and he isn't that young anymore.  His health is an issue and I just hate all the stress that comes with his career.  I mean I appreciate that he's had such a satisfying and remunerative career, but it does definitely take a toll on one's health and family life.  And then he had to get up and be somewhere by 9 this morning.  And he was all tense about that.  I hope he gets home early tonight and can relax.

So as an exercise this morning I tried to find hygge just in today's early morning activities.  And I found it!  Color!  I love color.  Beautiful colors make me happy.

I ate a plumcot for breakfast.  So delicious.  I'd never had one before this week.

Hmmph.  For some reason I can't download the other photos I took this morning.  Don't know if its my phone or google drive or blogger acting up . . . . Oh well.

The weather is lovely today and B, S and I went to stuff envelopes for an organization that helps homeless families.  That was a good thing to do on our last free Thursday before it becomes really hectic after Labor Day. Then we ate lunch at Chipotle sitting outside.  It was very peaceful.

UPDATE!  Silly me.  I was thinking that next week was September!  I lost a week!  Whew.  Now I have it back and an extra week before it becomes really hectic!

100 Days of Hygge - Day 3

Every summer I worry that my crape myrtle won't bloom.  It is a very late bloomer (like me!).  Earlier in the summer I notice all the other crape myrtles blooming and I think, when is mine gonna bloom???

And then it does.   Hygge!

UPDATE:  It's CRAPE myrtle.  Not crepe myrtle.  Crepes are those yummy French pancakes.

Every time I pull out or drive into my driveway, I rejoice in the Lord!

I think the bark is beautiful too.

100 Days of Hygge - Day 2

One thing I've done for years now, even though I am a generally untidy person, is to make my bed each morning.  I read this advice in some book a long time ago and for some reason it stuck.  To me making the bed entails pulling the covers up sort of straight.  I don't get fancy!

So my made bed is always a little touch of hygge for me.

Please excuse the messy side tables.  This is the best place to get lost in a book!

I also love my headboard.  The beds in my life were all hand me downs until I got into my 40s. These were not nice antique beds.  Just mattresses with frames.  Then we splurged and bought a new bed with an actual headboard!  I love the wood in this headboard.  I actually enjoy dusting this piece of furniture (probably the only one!).

Also, I have an old afghan that my grandmother crocheted.  It is probably 60 or 70 years old.  It is a little worse for wear in some spots, but on most afternoons I lie down on the top of my pseudo-quilt (Bed, Bath and Beyond about 14 years ago.) and cover myself with my grandmother's afghan.  I only get under the covers at night when it's really time to sleep.  But when I am reading and dozing in the afternoon, I have my afghan.

100 Days of Hygge - Day 1

I have been hearing and reading about the idea of hygge, a Danish word that means something like cozy and contented.  It's the way the Danes get through the bleak long winter.  They focus on creating a warm and comforting atmosphere that is homey, simple and peaceful.  So I've decided to try for 100 days of hygge.  That's the theme I'll be posting from now until whenever 100 Days is up.  I'm laughing because right now I am too lazy to look it up to be exact about the counting.  I think I will either end it on the first Sunday in Advent (which might be the last Sunday in November), or I'll just end it at the very end of November.  So not exactly 100 days perhaps but a couple days more or less.

Today's hygge might seem weird; it's basically a chore chart.  But the uneven distribution of housekeeping responsibilities and the general lazy habits around here made me feel it was time for a new system.  Having a tidy home to come back to is definitely hygge.

I'm so stinking proud of the fact that I got this all down to one page!  It's posted on our kitchen cabinet wall.

Most of the work is divvied up between myself, my two teens and our long term houseguest.   Josh does his own thing.  He's working full time and going to night school.  Still he does the following:   picks up teens at night if there are out at an event, changes kitty litter, takes trash/recycling to curb, runs errands, and generally is all around helpful when he can be.

So here's the breakdown:  1) Dylan Duty, 2) Weekly Personal Housekeeping and Assigned Laundry Days, 3) Kitchen Duty Rotation, 4) Weekly House Blessing Rotation.

Dylan Duty (we need to have set times to watch the little 22 month old living here while his mom goes to work.  I will do most of the babysitting in the afternoons but there will be times when I am out and someone else needs to be here to watch him.)

A.M.  Becky
P.M.  Sean (M,T,W) Josh/Sean (Th, F)

1x Weekly Personal Housekeeping
1) Clean bathroom (J and S - hall bathroom; B - Jack & Jill bathroom, V - basement bathroom)
2) Tidy your bedroom
3) Dust your bedroom
4) Vacuum your bedroom
5) Bring down recycling (Sun night) and trash (Thurs. night) from bedroom
6) Laundry- do laundry on your assigned day

Laundry Days:
M - kitchen towels/towels/sheets
T - free/extra day
W - Sean
Th - Viviane/Dylan
F - Mom and Dad/Kitchen towels/napkins
Sa - Josh
Su - Becky

1x Weekly House Blessing Rotation (will probably be done Fri, Sat or Sunday afternoon)

Each person is responsible for one of 4 duties in the main living areas of the house.  These duties rotate every week.
Week 1 -  B tidies up main living areas, S dusts, Mom vacuums, V washes floors
Week 2 - B dusts, S vacuums, Mom washes floors, V tidies up main living areas
Week 3 - B vacuums, S washes floors, Mom tidies up main living areas, V dusts
Week 4 - B washes floors, S tidies up, Mom dusts, V vacuums.

Kitchen Duties (each team of two is responsible for clean up duties each assigned day)
Monday - Mom and V
Tuesday - Mom and S
Wednesday - Mom and B
Thursday - V and Mom
Friday - V and S
Saturday - V and B
Sunday - S and B

A.M. Duties -
1) Unload dishwasher and put away pots and pans
2)Wash up pans and utensils that will likely be needed later for meal prep.

P.M. Duties -
Sink duties - load dishwasher, scrub pots and pans
Room duties - put away food, tidy up counters and island, wipe down surfaces (counters, island, table, stove), sweep the floor

Rules for all:
1) Use the same cup and glass all day;
2) Rinse your own bowl or plate and silverware and put in the dishwasher.
3) Clean up after yourself, for instance in you make eggs, wash up the pan yourself.  Ditto with making a grilled cheese or mac and cheese for lunch or heating up soup.  Don't leave until you've cleaned up your own mess.
4) If you are cooking, try to clean up as much as possible as you go along

*******************************

There are of course certain duties not included on this.  For instance, I need to meal plan, shop and cook, though I do hope that others will also cook.

I hope to shop on Tuesdays and Fridays while I am waiting for B at her math tutor or voice teacher.
CSA pick up is on Sunday after 12 noon.  One of those days, I should designate as the official clean out the fridge day.

Also, V cleans the basement, but I am not regulating that.

And there will be times when we have to do special chores.  I'd like to do a good cleaning of all the windows. We need to clean out the garage once it gets a bit cooler out.  In November I usually go through and clean out closets in preparation for the clothing drive at church.  The car needs occasional cleaning.

Probable cooking rotation:
M-F Mom with help from teens
Sa - V
Su - Rick

What Falls From the Sky - Book 24

I think I've got my reading mojo back!

What Falls From the Sky is a lovely, profound book about a year of healing.  Esther Emery's marriage was falling apart, her career was in ruins, she'd been running from her crazy, dysfunctional childhood bent on making a name for herself in the world.  But it was all toppling around her.  Almost on a whim, but also because she had some intuitive sense that she needed to pull back from the world and regroup, she decides to give up the internet for a year.  The internet has wound its way into every crook and nanny of our lives now.  Emery did this back in 2007 or 2009 (not remembering at the moment).  I think it is even worse now!

The year was a year of despair and isolation at first.  She had to find things to do and alternative ways to connect to people.  She had abruptly moved from Southern California to Quincy MA, just outside Boston.  Her husband worked erratic hours and often late.  She had two small children.  Her neighbors were strange and unfriendly.  Luckily, she was reconnecting with her brother who I think is a professor at Harvard?   If not Harvard some other college or university in Boston.  She'd been close to him as a child but had spent more than a decade apart and not really keeping in touch.  So that friendship proved profoundly comforting and valuable.  She also had a couple of friends and a former work colleague who kept in touch with her the old fashion way through letters and phone calls.  Letter writing became a new thing in her life.  Emails, texts are different in quality.  She also began to try to teach herself to cook.  Her husband, Nick, was the cook of the house.  But now she took up the adventure of making food from scratch.  She also read voraciously.  There was a Good Will store nearby and on Tuesdays she packed up the kids and they went shopping there for books, toys, clothes, a little at a time.  She read Walden and fell in love with the idea of living in the country and living a more deeply authentic life.  She read the Bible and fell in love with God even though in the past she'd rejected her childhood Christianity and her husband was an atheist.

Her husband had cheated in a stupid fling with her best friend.  She had left him for three weeks, but then gone back.  The truth was she herself had fallen in love with other men but had never acted on it.  Their marriage needed work.  Lots of it.  How to get back to their initial love for each other was the seemingly unsolvable problem. How to forgive? They needed healing desperately.  So during this year of isolation and slowing way, way down, she was also walking on eggshells in terms of her marriage.  She started to go to church.  She randomly walked into a pretty Presbyterian church one Sunday morning.  She came back the next week.  Slowly she began to befriend people in the congregation.  She joined a Bible study group.  She began to read for the liturgy.  Eventually she winds up going to Nicaragua on a 10 day mission trip which was an amazing spiritual and eye opening event for her.

Her renewed faith in God brought healing and courage.  She began to discern what love really is.  Her marriage began to flower.  Her sense of self began to heal. The world opened up to her.  She began to face the demons that had so hurt her in her childhood.  She began to make peace with her now deceased mother.

 This book is so beautiful and so beautifully written.  I highly, highly recommend it.

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Journaling the Day - 8/15/17

Happy Feast of the Assumption!  It's been a day.  We actually went to the vigil mass last night because today was going to be kind of hectic.

2:45 a.m. my dog scratches at the door.  Every once in while she does this.  Seems to be happening more frequently lately though.  I get up and hobble to the door.  My plantar fasciitis is flaring and my feet, especially my left one is killing me.

I limp downstairs, let her out, go to the freezer and pull out an old bag of frozen broccoli.  I let the dog back in, hobble upstairs, grab a pillow case and put the bag in and then climb back into bed with my heel rested on the the pillow case covered bag of broccoli.  It feels better but the cold makes it hard to go to sleep.  Doze fitfully until 5:30 when alarm goes off.  I get up, go downstairs and feed the pets, make coffee, kill a few flies (we are having the grossest problem with flies these last two weeks), and then instead of praying or cleaning as I had intended, I sit with my coffee cup in the dark, on my phone checking facebook and email.

6:44 - oh no!  I've got to get dressed.  I go pull on the same clothes I wore yesterday.  Check in with Rick about listening for little D if he cries while his mama is away.

7:00 - I'm taking V to her Virtus Training.  She got a job as an extended daycare giver for before and after school at our parish.  We drive to the cathedral and can't find the hall where she is supposed to be.  Diocesan info site warned all the new teachers that if they are late (like 8:01 a.m. instead of 8:00 a.m.) they will be refused entrance.  What???  And yet the complex is big and we can't find the hall.  We ask a groundskeeper, as it begins to rain, where the hall is.  He tells us.   I grumble about how they really ought to have put directions in the posting on the website.

I leave V there and drive home in the rain.  It's now close to 8:30 a.m.  J must have left for work while I was gone.  Rick is still upstairs.  I make more coffee, cook him some scrambled eggs, make his tuna salad to take for lunch.  I keep listening for little D, in case he's woken up.  Not a peep.

I start laundry.  Chat with Rick while he eats.  Somehow it is almost 9:30.  It is so dark and rainy.  Neither teenager has awoken.  I get concerned about D so we go down to check him.  He is out cold.  I shake him a little but no stirring.  So we tiptoe out.  But two minutes later I hear crying.  We go down and he's shocked to see us.  Where's mama?  Rick cuddles him.  Then I change him and Rick reads him a book.  He isn't crying now but he's trembling.  That's what he does when he's upset.  He's done that since he was a tiny baby.  He's a sensitive boy.  I get him dressed and upstairs.  Rick plays with him while I make eggs.  Then Rick goes to work and D and I sit down to eat our eggs.  But he is disconcerted by his mama not being there and me feeding him breakfast.  He only eats about four bites.  I eat all of mine.

We chatter and play.  We sing Wheels on the Bus.  I bounce him on my knee humming the theme to the Lone Ranger.  Then I ask our robot, Alexa, to play it.  We bounce along.  D loves it.  We go hunting for flies.  "Wies, wies" he says chasing them with a fly swatter.    It's 10:30 now.  We go upstairs and wake S and B.  It is dark and rainy out.  It feels like 6 a.m. to me instead of midmorning.  B eventually wakes up and starts doing her own laundry which means I have to move the laundry I started earlier.  I ask S and B to please watch D while i shower.  They do.  The shower is lovely but I realize the time!  I pull on the same day old clothes and go downstairs.  The dishes are all still dirty and I am determined to get some washed before I have to go pick up V.  I get the pots and pans done, but just leave all the other dishes to soak.  I kill some more flies.

11:40 - time to leave.  B packs D into his carseat.  We drive off through the rain and I notice the car is on empty.  We get there though and pick up V.  She says: what happened to his eye?   I look at D.  His right eyelid is swollen.  I had noticed earlier it was a tiny bit swollen but now it's really swollen.  Turns out to be a bug bite.  Poor kid.

We drive until we find a gas station.  Then we drive home the longer way.  I don't want to deal with speeding cars in the rain who don't bother to put their lights on so you can't see them approaching as they dart around other cars.  V is hungry.  I am getting hungry.  I give in to my lesser angel and we drive through McDonalds.  We've been eating a lot of junk food lately.  Gotta get my act in gear.  No drinks, so no straws or plastic lids, except for D.  I order him a box of milk, because the novelty of the little straw in the box makes him drink milk, whereas if you just give it to him in a sippy cup, he rejects it.  But no, McDonald's now give you a little plastic bottle of milk that spills over all.  Great.

We only have a few minutes before I have to take B to her voice lesson.  Just as we are eating I get a call from Dr. H.  S is supposed to be there right now.  Oops.  Darn it.  I am always messing up appointments with Dr. H.

B and I leave for voice.  I think the lesson is 45 minutes so I go off to Mom's Organics and buy rice, pasta, milk, toilet paper and a couple of cans of dog food.  I'm taking too long to shop.  I try to hurry back knowing I'll be a few minutes late and the sky looks like rain again.  I see messages that B called.  The lesson was only 1/2 hour.  By the time I got there she'd been waiting close to a 1/2 hour. Good thing it never rained then.

In between all these things, I've been on facebook on issues like white nationalism and Charlottesville and such.

I come home and write this up.  Then I want to read and maybe nap, but I can't find my kindle.  I started a new book last night.  Darn it.  Instead I listen/watch my youtube videos and doze to that.  I have the hardest time waking up.  I lie in bed forever trying to get up energy to get up.  I have no set plans for dinner. B comes in and says she's starving.  She asks what she can eat.  I don't know.  She winds up making some cheesy pasta with the pasta I just bought.  She feeds S too.

I get up and get some chicken broth I've been trying to make out of the fridge.  I put it on the stove top to burble.  I start cleaning some pots.  I decide I am going to use the chicken broth to cook up some rice and then put the leftover chicken sausage from last night into the rice and maybe melt some cheese in as well.   That will be dinner.  But I'm hungry so I eat all the leftover salad from last night.

V emerges from the basement with D.  S has been listening to Herbie Hancock.  I heart Herbie Hancock.  S plays with D.  I tell V my dinner plans.  She needs something other than rice and leftover sausage so I dig out some avocados I bought a few days ago.  She's crazy about avocados.   The rice dish is good.  We eat dinner.

Take V to her last class.  Bring D and B along.  Take B to her youth group.  Come home.  Little D needs a diaper change.  Then I start to read him a book on colors.  He gets all excited and runs to my desk and tries to pull out some crayons and markers.  So I find a piece of paper and he get up at the table and starting 'drawing' or its equivalent when you are 22 months old.  What amazes me is he can get the caps off the markers themselves, then put them back on again.  That takes amazing coordination!!!  He figures out on his own you can put the markers caps on either end as well.  While he's coloring he saying to himself  A . . . B . . . C  Of course he's not writing them yet, but he's definitely put together that writing and ABCs go together.  The kid is so precocious.  J got home while I was out.   Both he and S start playing with D.  I go to pick up V.  V takes D and goes down to put him to bed.  It's about 9:30.  J goes to pick B up from youth group.  I find my Kindle!  Hooray!

But it's 10:30 at night and I get on facebook.  I've got three different conversations going on at once.  J has brought B home and they are in my room having a lively conversation about the worst U.S. presidents (inspired by Trump to list them all and compare).   It's nearly 11:00.  I shoo them out and get into bed to read my book.  Read for about 5 minutes and then I am out.  Good night.

I've developed a You Tube habit.

So every once in a while I would go to youtube to look at things.  Like Sue Elvis  (Australian Catholic Unschooler) or Bishop Barron.  Every once in a while I would find a free old movie on there.  But it wasn't a habit.

But now I've a serious one.  It all started with Fouch-O-Matic.  Funny enough, they haven't been posting many videos lately  They are taking family time this summer.   This beautiful couple and their three children live on the side of a mountain in Idaho, off grid.  Nick is a carpenter and welder, Esther is well, just one of the loveliest human beings around.  She is a deep thinker, a person with a poetic and thought-filled approach to living. I love her!  I am currently enthralled by her book, What Falls From the Sky.

Right now I am absolutely in love with Justin Rhodes and his Great American Farm Tour.  He, his wife Rebekah, and their 4 young children are traveling all over the U.S. visiting various farmers, permaculturists and homesteaders.  It is absolutely delightful!  I highly, highly recommend watching these.  They live in North Carolina.  They first went south down to Florida and through those southern states, then up here to Virginia, then Maryland and then up all the way to Maine (where they visited an organic blueberry farm!).  Then they hit the midwest and they are now in South Dakota.   They are really into homeopathy which I am a bit cynical about.  But other than that, lots of fun.

I've already posted some video clips of Off Grid with Doug and Stacy.  They are former preppers (I didn't even know that was really a thing!)  but then they decided to go all the way and go off grid.  They are empty nesters with two grown sons.  Stacy's recipes are great.  They are lots of fun and always interesting.  Doug is a character. 

Somehow I stumbled on The Swedish Homesteader.  I just thought it was intriguing to see homesteading in a different country.  This has become one of my favorites.  The farmer, Simeon, is honest and open and real.  He is really devoted to employing the methods of Joel Salatin to his farm.  He is a Christian pastor as well.  He doesn't mention it much, but he wants his farming methods to work with and respect Creation, not exploit it.  He's got a young family as well and he lives on a 30 acre family compound his parents bought years ago.

I've gotten into learning about permaculture, so even though the videos are long, I watch Richard Perkins, of Ridgedale Permaculture, a British guy also in Sweden. 

I've also found a channel called Parttime Permies.    Since I am not a gardener at all, this one actually makes me feel like maybe I could get started.

Curtis Stone is an urban farmer in British Columbia, making a living turning his lawn and his neighbors' lawns into organic gardens.  He is full of business plans and better practices.  Lots of intensity and energy!

I just stumbled on Darci Isabella, a Catholic mom of 10 who is a minimalist who also raises chickens and has a huge garden for her children.  She is very funny!  I enjoy her videos a lot.

Another channel with not quite as many children (maybe they only have six!) is Big Family Homestead.  Lots of good humor even though they've been going through a tumultuous move.

I've watched various other channels as well, but right now these are my top favorites!

Teaching from Rest - Book 22 and The Cozy Life - Book 23

This summer's reading has gone so badly.  I can't seem to finish a book.  I think it is two things:  1) I need new glasses and have been too distracted and lazy to get them.   2) I've been watching too many youtube videos and been on facebook too much.    My focus is shot.

This one has not so long a subtitle:  A Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakeable Peace.

But I finally finished not one but two books!  Both were short, encouraging type books.  The first was a reread: Teaching From Rest by Sarah Mackenzie.  We did a group read at the Catholic Relaxed Homeschoolers group on facebook.  The book reads almost like a devotional.  Very Catholic and full of inspiration and deep thoughts on homeschooling.   I highly recommend it as a way to reset and refresh yourself as a homeschooling parent.

The second book was kind of a secular devotional.  Entitled The Cozy Life; Rediscover the Joy of the Simple Things Through the Danish Concept of Hygge.  Long title.  Hygge, If you didn't pick this up from the title, is the Danish idea of creating a life of coziness and contentment.  The book reads rather superficially and was full of stuff I already knew, but now it was all packaged under the concept of hygge.  I do think, though, it is valuable to be reminded to enjoy the little things in life, and of the idea that a lot of your own happiness (barring any great tragedy or abuse) is under your own control, and that slowing down and making things simple really do create a better, deeper quality of life.

A quick, uplifting read

The idea of hygge has inspired me though to try to really apply it my own life in a not so haphazard way.  I first recall learning of this concept a few years ago from Dr. Carol Reynolds music history video.  But it was under the German term Gemuetlitch.  Same idea though.  So inspired, I have decided that beginning on our first official day of the new academic year, which is August 21st (day of the eclipse!), I am going to try to do 100 Days of Hygge.  Some of the ladies at Catholic Relaxed Homeschoolers are also game.  So I am looking forward to that.

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks (something I have not been keeping up with!).

I have a computer again!

A couple weeks ago, I accidentally knocked a glass of water over my laptop.  It actually wasn't very much water but the way it splattered directly onto the keyboard broke my computer.  I tried mopping it up and drying it out.  After a few days it did come back to life but the keyboard did not work anymore.  It kept typing some kind of funky cyrillic type alphabet.  We took it into the nearby Apple store and of course they said they couldn't fix it and tried to sell me a new one. But I am on this zero waste kick and one thing I've really come to hate is the way manufacturers design things so that you have to buy a new one to replace a broken one, instead of allowing you to fix the one you already have.  C'mon Apple!  Everybody drinks something while on their laptops.  I mean restaurants and coffee shops advertise they have wi fi!  Surely you can make a keyboard that is waterproof.  I keep reading horror stories of child slavery in the mining of minerals that supply us with our computers.  And the horrible working conditions in China due to the chemicals and the demands for new stuff.

But it just happened that we have a Mac computer that is several years old but still good.  It had been put in storage because no one was using it.  That's pathetic in and of itself.  See, we used to have family PC type computers, but then as the kids got older we switched to laptops.  We gave each child a laptop when they reached age 18, usually to help with college.   Becky has been using my laptop to participate in on line classes.   

So anyway, I did buy a new computer stand.  It was inexpensive and yes I am sure it has some plastic, and the packing material did contain some styrofoam.  I needed a small stand that could fit in the corner of my bedroom and I just didn't see myself waiting and looking around for something to use.  I needed it pronto.  So that's a bad!

But Josh put the stand together last night and set up this computer and it is working wonderfully so far.  So now I can resume blogging again!  Hooray!

I do have a phone to use while I am out, instead of a laptop.  So between the phone and this, I think I'll be fine.

Life is full of transitional stuff going on right now:

Rick:  he just took a flight up to Boston to see Sean's final performance and to bring Sean back from his 5 weeks away. 

Hannah (and spouse) are off to a wedding in South Carolina.  Josh is housesitting for them and watching their little dog.

Will is in Austria this week visiting his girlfriend.  He'll be coming back to Boston this weekend.  Then he and his girlfriend and a bunch of other musicians are doing a tour around the country for a couple of weeks.

Josh's schedule for work changed once again which is great!  He now has extended hours Sunday through Wednesday and then has Thursday, Friday and Saturday off. This is an answer to a prayer which I will explain in a minute!

Sean has been away for 5 weeks.  Can't wait for him to come home.  I thought for sure that he would want to stay up there and room with Will, but he seems to have gotten homesick about the 3rd week in.  So he's coming home and going to go to the community college as planned.

Becky is at AHG camp this week.  She got diagnosed with Hashimoto's Disease (hypothyroidism), anemia and possibly Lyme just before she left for the trip!  She seems to be holding up, though I don't think she's doing as many activities as the other girls.  No wonder she's been a mess for the last few months though.  I am having bad mommy guilt over it.  I probably should have taken her to the doctors months ago. 

Viviane is going great!  She has gotten her work permit and her social security number.  She's got her learners permit and hopefully this month she'll take and pass her driving test.  We bought another car, a used 2013 Outback that someone's neighbor was selling.  Vivianne got a job at our parish school!  She is an assistant Extended Day Caregiver.  That means she will be working 6 to 8 M-F mornings and 3 to 6 M-F afternoons.  This is perfect because Dylan will be sleeping in the a.m. and I can watch him in the evenings for her.  Which comes to Josh's new hours.  Thursdays this year, I will be teaching Latin and Modern European History which means I'll be in Manassas all day.  Becky too is going to be a paid aide for one of the younger classes.  That meant that there would be no one here to watch Dylan during the gap time where Viviane isn't home yet but we are gone.  But Josh now has Thursdays off!!!!  So he can be home between 8 and 8:30 a.m. while Viviane is still in transit from work to home.  And he can also be here in the afternoons.  Viviane will need to leave for work before 3 and Becky and I probably won't get home until just before 4.  So Josh will be watching Dylan from about 2:30 to 4:00 on Thursdays.  Wait!  I just realized that Sean may be home now.  When I was thinking about this, I was assuming he'd be in Boston still!  Anyway, Rick helped Viviane fill out all her employment forms and Virtus stuff.  So now she's just got to take the Driver's test and go to the Virtus training for new school employees which is next week.

My head is full of homeschooling plans right now as well.  The co-op class that Becky was going to take just to be able to socialize didn't get enough enrollment.  That had me worried because she really is an extravert and needs friend time.  But it turns out that Becky and a friend from AHG can study Ancient History and ASL together.  So I guess the girl is going to come over once a week and they can study here together. 

Ancient History - I plan to be one lecture ahead of the girls in the Foundations of Western Civ lecture series from The Great Courses.  I will watch and then list 5 to 10 events, names, etc I think are important.  Then the girls can watch the lecture, practice taking notes, come up with 5-10 things to put into their annotated timeline (they'll each have a notebook or binder).  Homework will be researching each thing and writing one or two sentences or a short paragraph on each.  I'll have the girls quiz each for review before they start to watch the new episode.

ASL - there are several sign language courses on line.  I am going to let the girls explore their options and then choose which one.  They can watch and then practice together.

So Becky's schedule looks like:

Mondays - afternoon on line Ancient Lit class, 2x a month AHG meeting

Tuesdays - I think early afternoon - math tutor,  voice, evenings - Youth Group

Wednesday - open

Thursdays - 8:30 to 3:00 aide at Aquinas Learning

Fridays - Mass at noon, math tutor in afternoon.

It definitely looks like Wednesday is the best day for the girl to come over for history and ASL.  Though we could possibly squeeze it into Tuesday or Friday mornings.  Monday mornings I think will be catching up for the on line Lit class. 

So once all this is truly in place I can figure out when we will do our Environmental Science course.

In the meantime, Sean will be going back and forth to the community college.  The new old Outback is also going to be used for Becky and Sean once they get their drivers license.  Frankly, I think Becky will get it before Sean does.  But maybe not.

This is a very long post, full of info only interesting to me!  I guess I missed blogging!