Dog (Cat) Days

of summer. Not much going on this past week except for a couple "opening" 'picnics' - one for Adventurers and one for our CHE co-op. We also had our first violin group on Wednesday and cello group on Thursday.

What are you dreaming about Bud?

SO hard to be a prisoner

Buddy has to wear a bib for drooling

What a sweet boy is Booboo!  Always happy for a snuggle, just like Bud.

And you're a sweet girl too!

Question for the week: Will America come to economic collapse in the next few weeks? We are hearing about it... How easy it is to continue as we are and to bury our heads in the sand. But we know that life as we know it will not continue on as it is now forever - God is about to wrap things up and has warned us in the Bible that things will not be pleasant on the earth just before His coming, as He withdraws His protection and allows the devil to have his complete way. Don't lose hope during this time. Remember the Israelites and how God brought them through one thing and another until they eventually reached the promised land.

Let us run the race set before us and not be slackers. The Olympics have shown us how much preparation and discipline is needed before reaching that level. Spiritually we need to be prepared too - to practice being completely surrendered to our "General" Jesus and to practice living by faith during the most trying and tough times of earth's history.

Pray, pray, pray!! Here is a quote:

"We do not value the power and efficacy of prayer as we should. Prayer and faith will do what no power on earth can accomplish" from the book,Prayer, by E. G. White, p.83.

Not much news this week. Happy Sabbath!

Back to Olympics, uh....School

This is what I did last week instead of the blog:
I hope it works, Aunty K!

Yes, it's the Olympics 2008, as you all know. We've had special dispensation every evening to stay up and watch. Last night was the Women's Individual All Around Gymnastics competition which was well worth the 1:15am bedtime (for me only, of course)! A hard-earned 1-2 for the Americans - they deserved it. Phelps, the bionic swimmer-man has been fun to watch too.

So - given that we're having late nights, we're not quite on our school schedule exactly yet, but amazingly, have gotten most everything done every day. We've even managed to get to the pool about 3 times this week. C and Ad practiced their "synchronised jumping" off the edge of the pool.

On Thursday we had our first nursing class. As expected, the theory part wasn't so interesting - but the practical was fun - until the dog chewed up the thermometer!

(In case you didn't recognize her, that's Heidi, Mom - looks like she needs the ER, doesn't it?)

Mom and Dad J arrived on Monday evening then left again Thursday morning for Arkansas to visit P&K. Wish we could have gone, but several appointments prevented our going. We're still trying to work it out to go this summer. The folk will return next week for a day or two before heading back to Florida. Wish they lived close by! (as too, the RSA folk!).

We've been having some hot, dry weather this week but have been harvesting a lot of cantaloupe, ochra, green beans, some cucumber, red bell pepper, tomatoes, tomatillas etc. Watermelon and Honeydew are coming along really well. Finally pulled up the corn and will use the husks for our fall decorations. S has planted more winter squash and will use the corn rows for fall/winter things like greens. C is now officially "sick of tomatoes". I'll remind her of that come winter when all we have to eat are GMO green-picked tasteless red-things.

Sunday brought our first cello lesson of the new school year and we're working on Humoresque. The idea is to play it slowly and elegantly...

Well, my Sanctuary studies are continuing and I'm continuing to learn things. Will have to share them sometime. Am also studying the Bible with a friend and enjoying it immensely. Friend, CAM, and I are scheming to start a weekly study at her office and invite any interested persons to join us. I'll keep you updated.

Til later...

Fleas and Peas

August is here and along with it, lots of those abominable little creatures called fleas. Can anyone tell me what purpose they have in life? Do they do any good? (as with ticks). By the way, a good way to dispose of them is with sticky-tape. (That's my little helpful hint of the week).

Last Sabbath we joined the LBA family for fellowship and a nice hot walk which somehow, inexplicably ended up at the blueberry patch...Yum yum! That was a good part of supper.

A and C have been constant pals this week, seeming to play non-stop. They're having a good time before school starts in less than 2 weeks. Suddenly C wants to do nursing this school year. We're done with the world wars - she found that too ugly and gruesome and it wasn't quite as glamorous as she thought it would be!!
(thank you, nice spell checker....)

We didn't get much swimming in this week - it rained almost every afternoon and A had a chesty cough but they did get some in on Sunday. All the rain is helping to split the tomatoes and we can't eat them fast enough.

Not much news this week. S flew to Charlotte, NC for a day but other than that have pretty much been homebodies. We're picking a lot in the garden now - WAY too many tomatoes to eat fresh, for one thing! We've been giving a lot of them away too. Our vegie picking list is now: corn (near the end), carrots, red bell peppers, green beans, jalepeno peppers for S, tomatoes, ochra, zucchini, melon, herbs, some swiss chard (a little hot for it now but it'll revive), beetroot, tomatilla and cucumber. It is lovely to have fresh stuff, I have to say.

Anyhoo, that's it for this week. I'm sure there are some more mundane details but it's not good for you to fall asleep at your computer....

Here's a flashback to our California trip. L and C - intrepid explorers...

Happy Sabbath!

Bliggetty Bloggity

Here are some photos of DD, hubby Myc. and, as promised, sweet little Freckles. He and Buddy both like grass, except that Bud throws it up later.....

Kisses....aren't they sweet?

Buddy and Freckles grazing....

Sunday picnic and fun at the lake in Soddy-Daisy.

Best friend squeeze....

Catching the breeze.

I don't know who the boy on the left is...

Even the dog joined in...

And.....this is what else I was up to this week! If we all die of botulism in the winter, you'll know why, and if we don't....well, we enjoyed the fruits of our labours. I also canned tomatoes and green beans. It's hard to do when your stove is meant for tiny pots...

In swimming, it's on to level 6 for C, also known as Advanced 2. Good job, little miss!

DD and Myc work on the car and mo-ped thingie this afternoon.

And a recent (Thursday) pic of dear little Ca with her Mamma. She wants to stand up and see the world! What a cutie. Now 7 months.

In a nutshell, that was our week. D and Myc (and fam - Freckles) are off to LBA for the rest of their time in TN and we'll probably do a camping trip ourselves within the next 2 weeks.

God be with you this Sabbath and during the next week.

A Full Week

Thank you DD, for your help this week!  What a blessing

This heading is an understatement! We had swimming and 2 VBS's every day which meant late nights and early mornings - not a good combination.

Village Chapel VBS - pioneer life

Our two intrepid and tired primary leaders - they did a great job corralling our kids - Mrs Reynolds and Mrs Young.

The theme at Ooltewah was Kings and Queens, and at C'dale it was "Our big backyard" - I didn't get any photos there, unfortunately!

We're harvesting corn, tomatoes, bell peppers, tomatillas, green beans and of course still the continuous Swiss Chard, beets and various herbs. So far I've canned 9 pint jars of tomatoes and want to do corn and other stuff this week. Logas lent us their pressure canner which is nice although barely fits on our small stove. Our ochra will probably start bearing within the next week or two. Our squash is still plugging along and not doing too well :-(. For those of you in cities, don't lose hope - even a plot 5' by 8' will yield very well if it gets a lot of sun! We started our gardening "career" in the city of Boston on a smallish plot in the Victory Gardens. It was under a tree at first until we could expand but we learned a lot - from all the other experienced gardeners and also through trial and error! God will provide! :-)

On Friday a friend and I were able to attend the local curriculum fair. My main focus was to find "Character Sketches", a three volume set on discovering Biblical character virtues/lessons in nature, mostly animals. Praise God, I found it. This was the first time in several years these distributors had made it to the local fair here so it was surprising to find it - providential! They offered a good price too. Then, I also got some nice reading books - hard to find sometimes, plus other odds and ends for use during the school year.

This seems to be the time of year when I feel the most stressed since there is SUCH a lot of planning to be done for the coming school year - but life just goes on - it doesn't stop and let me DO it. Fortunately my "outside part-time job-from-home" has slowed down SOMEWHAT since the end of June - but still enough for 5-6 hours of work per week.

AnyHOO, that's not interesting....I'm just letting off steam a little...

D and Myc. have been here together this past week (remember, only Myc. was here the week before). D has been working at a local Doctor's office while Myc.'s been in school still (plus taking flying lessons, and working a little on the side too!!). How do they do it?

Here we're having a little fun with sparklers.

Sisters having fun with sparklers

                        Oops, Myc, I think we caught you in your pajamas - and having a shower!

This weekend they're up at LBA with R and C and we'll see them all tomorrow for "a day on the lake". Then D and Myc. will stay one more week with us til the 25th when they'll go camping with the family - what fun! I'll need to get a photo of Freckles the bunny before they leave and a lot more of D and Myc. too.

Take care til next time...and remember - GOD ALWAYS HEARS YOUR PRAYERS!

July Days

Creative heading, huh? This past week we've had swimming lessons every day again,

a lot of work in the garden including canning some tomatoes and lots of play and swimming with friends. I had misplaced the camera for about 2 weeks, but found it today AFTER swimming lessons. Needless to say, the photos are a little outdated and we missed some fun pics....but not the worst thing to happen, considering the world is about to end....:-)
This is from LAST swimming session - beginning of June. Here're they're just finishing level 2 and 3. Now - June 30 to July 11, C graduated to level 5 and A to 4. How exciting!

I've been reading a book commenting on Charlotte Mason's method of schooling. I like her ideas, especially about reading and then letting the child narrate or tell what she just read in her own words. I hope C is as enthusiastic about it.... Actually, I think we'll incorporate the reading and narration into what we already have instead of taking anything out. Like we have time....

School stuff seems to be occupying my mind a lot lately. I like to be prepared but of course there's only so much one can do ahead of time and not be stressed when everything doesn't get accomplished. C says she wants to learn about the world wars - 1 and 2, she says. Where she got this sudden interest I don't know but since this wasn't in the "plan", we'll have to digress - the wonderful advantaged flexibility of homeschool! I also heard they're taking history out of the elementary curriculum in Arkansas - please tell me it isn't true, someone!

I'll add some more pics later. For now, CHOW!

Happy Independence Day

A lovely holiday today - good weather, a little muggy, but sunny. G and J arrived in town last night - probably in time for the big traffic jam after the fireworks! And Myc. arrived from Arizona this afternoon, just in time to join us at Logas for a cookout. He also brought Freckles, the bunny. Will include pics at a later date. I'll also add photos of the fireworks from last night when S sends them over....

For now I'll just show you the progress of the vegetable garden - coming along nicely!

We also planted a lot of zinnia's for the butterflies. We have a lot of honey bees this year who love the corn flowers - seem to be more than last year - a good sign! (and few Japanese beetles....at least so far).

These are still green....We have been picking red ones!



Swiss Chard - mmmm - delicious!


Our "late bloomers" - cucumbers.


Tomatillas.

Here is a tomato hornworm covered in wasp eggs, poor thing. (At least it won't be a threat to the tomatoes anymore)


Well, that isn't all - I'm only putting out what S sent over! Anyway, we're picking green beans and beets, lettuce and our herbs. Carrots, ochra and other squash is also still growing as well as the corn, of course.

Til next time.