Catching up

I've been trying to catch up on everything the last few days and I've finally got some of it under control.

Paul spent all of last week in Cleveland for a training seminar for his new job. He said it was very informative but the best thing was being able to see Pastor and Barb Kavouras and attend the Advent service. That made the week away from home bearable.

The kids and I stayed home part of the week. The kids spent Wednesday through Friday with Paul's mother and I went to spend time with friends. It was great for me to get away and not have to worry about the kids. For my birthday they took me to a great sushi place, I had the most incredible food! I had such a great time I didn't want to come home.

Ever since Paul got home it feels like we have been running to catch up. On Christmas afternoon we cleaned the house, as best as we can considering we do not have a home for the stuff the kids received. I admit I procrastinated too long on a couple of Christmas presents. They are sitting here half-finished. My goal is to get them done this week. Can I still give them out, maybe as Epiphany gifts? One way or another they will be given to the people they were meant for, I put too much effort into them at this point to not finish them. I've learned my lesson, I need to start these projects in October or earlier. 2 moves this year have really put me behind in everything.

There is no way to catch up on school, we will just have to start up again and go from there. Even though we started the year last June I still feel like we are behind. Maybe we will actually get an entire month of school in without interruptions next year.

Snow

This is what we woke up to yesterday. Since the rain turned into snow the roads were solid sheets of ice. Of course we had to leave at 4 am to take Paul to the airport for his business trip so it was a bit frightening until we got down to the highway where it hadn't snowed. By the early afternoon most of it was gone. The kids didn't get to play in it much since it was so short lived but Malachi did manage to throw a few snowballs at his sister.


Who says it's always sunny and warm in CA?

Marshmallows

For once, there isn't much going on here. That's a really good thing but it feels a bit odd.

We spent the weekend at a friend's home. On Friday they had a pre-Christmas party and we met yet another homeschooling family. This is the second one we have met at one of their parties, which I find amusing since they don't have any kids themselves. It is always such a great thing to meet people you have something in common with, especially as the kids get older and more and more people question how long we are going to do this.

I'm beginning to cringe whenever I hear that question. We plan on doing this through high school and although the idea of homeschooling is so much more accepted now it still seems odd to most people that we want to continue this all the way through. So when we meet people who we don't have to explain this to, people that understand and don't start judging our decisions, it is a relief from the norm.

Of course just as I'm extolling the virtues of homeschooling Malachi decides to show me this new use for marshmallows!

Boxes Update

I thought I would take a few moments and give an update on how the unpacking is going. I'm sure you are thinking that I should be done by now, but I'm not. There always seems to be something else that comes up during the day that keeps me from finishing. There are very few boxes left in the house. There are still a few boxes on the deck and a few pieces of furniture in the carport. I keep meaning to get more done but life gets in the way.

Here is what the living room/dining room/Malachi's bedroom looks like.

It's cramped but livable. I need to do a bit more organizing under his bed but everything is coming along.

Here is the kitchen. I'm just about done with everything I wanted to do. I have a few more shelves I'd like to build but on the whole it's serviceable.


Here is our bedroom. I finally got the shelves hung up yesterday and I'm slowly unpacking all my sewing stuff. As you can see I crammed a few bookshelves in our room. I just couldn't bear the thought of getting rid of books so I decided to sacrifice space to walk for keeping our books. Who needs to be able to walk next to the bed?


On the whole I'm pleased with how things are coming out. I like the inside of the house, it's homey and comfortable although a bit small. The outside needs some work but that will have to wait. We still hope to one day get a yurt but all of that is on hold due to monetary resources being tight. The area has turned out to be a good place for us. There are very few people in our immediate area, even though there are a number of homes. The few people that are right around us seem friendly enough for California standards.

Dog House

This was my project for yesterday.

Temperature here took a dive a few days ago and I was feeling really guilt that I had put off building the dog house. So yesterday I was able to almost finish it. The shingles will go on in the next day or so and we will paint it as soon as I can find some clearance exterior paint, but it will do.

This is the fourth dog house we have built in the past 6 years. Each time we have had to leave them behind because they are too heavy. Since we have always had large dogs, and now we have 4, the house has to be able to accommodate all of them. That size house has to be assembled in place since it can't be moved once it's done. This time I got smart. Each of the sides has the framing attached so we were able to move each of the walls, the floor, and the roof in pieces and put the last few screws in at the site. We should be able to dismantle it when we move. It's not as cute as the first house we built, that one looked like Snoopy's house, but it will work.

I felt guilty for nothing, two of the dogs spent the night sleeping on the dirt. I guess the cold doesn't really bother them.