When you have a choice between buying more gas for the grill and just picking up fast-food, sometimes you just pick up fast-food. Am I right?!?! Maybe I should preface that with "When you have no kitchen and just regained use of your bathroom AND you're out of gas for the grill..." haha! Welcome to my life.
Well that was Wednesday (
Day 227). We got fast-food. Who am I?!?! Okay, I think Wendy's is the lesser of the fast-food evils, and honestly, their new Gouda chicken sandwich is awesome. So I'm not TOO ashamed. Sunday,
Day 224, I went out to eat with my parents before they graciously took our kids overnight to give us a little break while we were deep in renovations for the long weekend. The following day (
Labor Day) I was on a medical fast and Tuesday was such a crazy day I'm pretty sure we had cereal for supper (
Thursday, too). Wow. This does not sound like a "food blog" AT ALL. "Welcome to my Kitchen" indeed!!! I promise, once I have a functioning kitchen I can't wait to get back at it! Autumn is my favorite season and I'm getting desperate to start making apple pies, apple crisps, and turnovers and pumpkin-everything else! Luckily, I have some time. We keep plugging away, so I'm hopeful the kitchen will be complete in the next few weeks. That's becoming top priority. We got the tiles laid for the bathroom over the weekend. The kitchen and hallway are about ready for tiling but some of the cement board still needs to be laid in small areas before they're completely ready for tile. Randy and I have been laying cement board between his jobs as we can and I'm anxious to see what the weekend brings. As far as painting goes, I should probably say that I've had the entire upstairs apartment fully painted for about a week, now. All it needs is the floor finished and a little cleaning up and touching up and it'll be good to go! For our apartment, I just painted our bedroom which means there are only 2 more rooms that need to be painted before we're done with paint here. What makes it difficult is the fact that our stuff is in the way. It was not an easy task moving all of our bedroom furniture to wash the walls, paint the trim, tape, and then finally paint the walls. Glad it's complete!
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| The mortar that stuck to my skin made a great exfoliate in the shower that night! ;) |
I started home-school with Abby this week, also. I'm not following any particular curriculum, simply using my knowledge as a former public school teacher and some books I've picked up from here and there to do "school" with her. Because she's only 2, I didn't feel the need to spend a lot of money on a curriculum when I know I already have the background knowledge to plan and teach her myself. Before I share how our week went, I feel the need to preface this by saying I do not believe home-school is for everyone. My husband and I believe it is the right choice for us, but I don't discount anyone who chooses not to home-school. Also, my daughter is still 2, about to be 3 on October 3rd. She loves the idea of school and doing arts & crafts. Not every child is like this. I can think of one in particular I know very well (
ahem, her brother, Noah) who most likely will not take a liking to "school" activities quickly. I certainly do not think that every 3-year-old needs to be making crafts and tracing letters everyday. Every child is different and every family is different. We are doing what works for us and what works for Abby. If you see something you like and want to try, you're welcome to it!!!
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| Raccoon MASK (M-word) to go with The Kissing Hand |
A lot of formal public schooling starts with getting the students acclimated with the school environment and the fact that they are no longer with their moms or caregivers all day and now will be in school for a better part of the day. For Abby, a home-schooler, I wanted her to get used to the idea that she and I would "do school" together, at home. She's very aware of the letters of the alphabet, the numbers, and the fact that "school" means using a pencil, scissors, glue, and crayons. Because my daughter is so particular, I wanted to incorporate all of these things in the first week as a way of meeting her expectations but also integrating my own standards at the same time. We started the week talking about the letter "m" (the sound it makes and what it looks like--though I'm not being picky about her printing letters yet--she's too young. She practices tracing lines first and occasionally traces a letter or two.) "M" is a great letter to start with because a capital "M" is written with straight lines. A capital and lower case "m" look very similar, and it always makes the same sound--a sound that is very easy for toddlers to make. Our theme for the week was that "God made me", "God made Mommy" and "God made everything." (
"Me" & "Mommy" start with "M" and Mommy is her teacher, so it seemed fitting.) Abby completed an "M" worksheet the first day and made an "M" book. As a treat, she was allowed to eat as many M&Ms as would make the letter "M." We also read the book,
Are You my Mother?
On another day we read the creation story and Abby completed a coloring sheet stating that "God Made Me." We read the book,
The Kissing Hand and did a fun craft project with it. Even though she wasn't going off to school like the little raccoon in the book, I thought it would be nice to emphasize the special relationship between a mother and child for her as we begin this fun journey. We talked about how some kids go away to school but that Abby would do school with me, to which she excitedly responded, "Yeah, I get to do school at home with you!" If only I could bottle that enthusiasm and keep it for the next 10-12 years. ;)
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| Shirtless (it was hot!) for crafts--just another benefit of doing school at home! ;) |
I look forward to sharing more of our journey with you as time goes on. And I hope that for my next post I have new recipes and pictures of food for you to try!!!
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| Noah doesn't want to be left out, but isn't into the whole coloring thing. (Yet!) :) |
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