Baby Steps

Move the wire down to open up this space. 

Prepare the new innards. 

Slowly but surely.

 

Breakfast with the Ladies

This cat eyeballs me.

 

Harvesting

I wish we loved radishes as much as we them.

 

Movie Night

Open for Godzilla V Kong

There are things to enjoy about our current situation, including theaters to ourselves still. 

I may have napped for half the movie.

 

A Charming Find

Alida recently put some of my grandmother's books on a shelf in her room, and she likes to read through them. 

She found pressed leaf from I can't imagine how long ago or with what memories attached to make its way here, but it was like a special gif that Saturday morning.

 

YouTube said we could fix the fact that we had a pallet under our porch step as another step due to some serious slope issues around here. 

And they were right!

But I'll never do that again. 

Step one.  Remove the sod because we had plans for that, which is a different story. 

Then you rent the red tractor to begin filling the hole. Most people would be digging down to build the patio foundation, but we had opposite problems as usual.  It was a concoction of YouTube videos really.

Tamp it all down. 

Tamp it all down again. 

Sprain your ankle after forgetting that you took out that last step in preparation for burying it. 

But you keep working because you took the week off, and there are things we've committed to now.

Then have two-days of morning freeze with a rain storm during the one week you took off  work to do this project. 

Then, have a whole bunch of gravel, and sand, and rip-rap (another story yet) delivered on the day you can't rent that red tractor again because the wheel is broke. 

So you hook the gorilla cart up to the John Deer and you get to work. 

And you form the patio in a 30 degree morning, so you can be working on gravel in relative warmth in the afternoon. 

Pause.  

Enjoy Easter. 

Find a tractor to rent no matter the size.

No fence was harmed in the performance of this project, amazingly. 

Put your son to work cutting the stones.

Because when I am in charge of stones, things go wrong. 

Work to the point that you no longer take pictures of anything because you just want to be done. 

 YouTube was right, but they shouldn't have said it was easy...

 

A Good Week

Good Food, and adorable.

A visit from family!

And done.  

Patric on shot two this week.

 

And my stint as cafeteria worker after 13 months is over on Wednesday when all of the children go back to school!

 

Sunday Is Coming

 The Best Sunday of the Year

https://youtu.be/QS2wPotScZY

Not All Bad

 

Having this room, where we all fit to watch church or a movie has been a dream. 

We never would have found the time to paint and re-do the space if everyone was going a mile a minute in other directions. 

Being outside with these people gardening, is therapeutic.

Seeing smiles from time-to-time makes me positively giddy.

Sighting

Sighting. 

It's like Big Foot sometimes--he shows up long enough to have a blurry photo of evidence.

 

Sleepovers

Alida. 

Home on a Saturday late afternoon from a sleepover the night before... 

where I suspect there was not much sleeping. 

 

And They're Off

Giving it a go with great concentration. 

Because we may have some backseat drivers in our family. 

 

Why We Cook At Home

Because that was pretty good. 

And even if I have to blast two chickens for a meal now, it doesn't cost much. 

And because, rice pudding.

 Because not only is even McDonalds ridiculously expensive in our house. 

That wasn't even the full order, which made me get back in the car and drive back for the next part of the meal. Making me wonder why I didn't just cook something at least quasi-healthful.

Nightfall

She fell down. 

But we ate around the fire the other night, and it was lovely to be outside after dark again. 

 

Growing Around Here

Our collection of garden boxes

Which are filled with magical soil. 

That arrives in large dump trucks. 

But grows my hyacinth for morning breezes!

And poppies from my dad.

 

Vegetarian Mondays

Black Bean stuffed Peppers

All things cheesy, fruity, and stuffed with vegetables. 

But, then sometimes, you just need meatballs. 

 

Nick's High School Experience So Far

Nick is "back" in school. 

As of this writing, it has been one year since the children went home. 

He has been in physical class on campus six times since they started rotating kids back in class over five weeks ago.

"I didn't think it was possible, but COVID school is worse than COVID remote learning."

He is quiet all day.  All. day.  

There are five kids maybe in his classes.

Two of his teachers don't teach in the school. 

He sits and does remote learning while sitting in the classroom, in a mask, not talking, no interaction.

So far in high school, he has 56 class absences. 

He didn't go to class, didn't turn in attendance, missed roll call, whatever the reason. 

He has a 4.0 High School GPA, 4.25 when weighted for his Honors classes. 

So, in addition to being the lunch lady, principal, janitor, driver's ed teacher, teacher, parent, counselor, and extracurricular manager, I have now failed at being truancy officer. However, it is really tough to actually care at this point, when no grades are affected for absence.  

My favorite teacher to student, complete opposite comment from what Ben received, both being entirely inappropriate: the kids are "lazy" for wanting to go back to school because they just want the teachers to do everything for them.

Driver's Ed update: After being told they would finish their November class with the driving portion in February, we received an abrupt text message in March that the driving school is backed up and still doing the driving portion for the kids who took the class in June 2020.  

So, just one more thing we'll do ourselves and out of step.

I'm exhausted.

 

Glasses Fog

It's real.