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It is peaceful here this morning so before the day gets into full swing I will post a little catch-up. It has been the busiest 6 weeks of my life recently.
We always have many homes to clean and prepare for summer arrivals. This takes lots of work and this year God was expanding our care-taking business so there were a few more than normal. Along with this we have had to work many extra hours in our own cottage which is on acreage behind our home. The renters we had had for the last 1 1/2 years had left with some damage done. Of course what started to be just a quick fix turned into a major gutting and overhaul of the bathroom, stripping and painting one bedroom, and tiling the kitchen floors, painting cabinets and refurnishing the whole place. I cannot sing enough praises about my husband's multi-dimentional skills. He did a great job building and doing all facets of the work involved. On Friday we were under the crunch to get everything done as renters were coming in the next day, and our yard was filled with cars as many chipped in and assisted in the final hours. Did I mention we live in community with others and so this is typical? My friend Mel came and cleaned with me, her mother sewed and curtains that needed hemming and then cleaned as well. Our friend Lyle came and got the water heater working, another fisherman came and sprayed for ants around the house, my FIL was fixing a door that needed work. Our neighbor Sherry came and brought some pictures for the walls as well as a box of brats and bread for our supper as she could see I was not going to make it down to the house to cook anything until late. With everybody's help we got it finished. It was 9 o'clock before my husband and I had finished gathering all the tools and had finished the final clean up. It looks adorable! I am pleased even tho we ran out of time and so I did not get to do the folk art painting on the kitchen doors or paint the living room. That will get done in the fall. I will put pictures up soon of how it turned out.
We were so delighted on Saturday as Jeni came home safely from Africa. She brought us all gifts and has a camera full of pictures to share with all of us. She has started to share stories and it is so wonderful to hear how God used her. She did end up in a clinic and had to have an IV because they thought she was starting with malaria. Praise God she recovered quickly. She was given medicine for "running stomach", and the box with the medicine was hardly marked except for a picture of a torso with red circles around the abdomen area. Yikes, I am wondering if all their medicine is picture coded! Seems a little rudimentary for my likes.
She brought me a beautiful salad tong set with bone handles, very pretty. She got a knife for her father, bone jewelry for her sisters and woven containers for our kitchen.
The oddest thing she saw was in the remotest villages, just a step up from the total National Geographic level. Even there where the huts surrounded the area, there would be a gas station and a bank, tiny buildings in the middle of no-where. The people at the gas stations would be in loin clothes, women would be bare chested ( perfect poster women for the reason we women should wear bras!!! :) ), and have the animal jewelry adorning themselves. Isn't that peculiar, huts, loin clothes and a gas station! Thursday night we are having a family dinner and a time of looking at pictures and hearing more. Oh that all nations would hear and receive the gospel!
Yesterday was the first week day at home in 6 weeks. I emptied the suburban from all the cleaning supplies, caught up on some book work for our businesses, planted some second crops in the garden, built a teepee for our pole beans to climb with Melly, worked with the girls to get the house kind of straightened up, mowed part of the lawn, helped Annie get the posts moved out onto our back acreage and set up the top tape for our riding arena, and then had a lesson! i was whipped by the end of the day! Today I will finish book-work, cleaning and laundry.
I am very anxious to get in our school room and clean it, organize books and then start the process of setting up next years curriculum. I started writing my own history/literature/vocabulary curriculum last winter as I was not happy with the unit study I had purchased. I was giving this study a second chance as I had used it the year before as well. By Dec. I was totally frustrated with it. It is good in the sense of it having quality material, having a classical approach( which I like), but the organization of how it is put together, how it is presented in the teacher's binder was mind boggling. I have come to the conclusion after 17 years of teaching mostly unit study methods under a classical philosophy mindset, that there IS a place for text books. No matter how wonderful the books we read are, they are fictional representations and do not give the over all picture. Through the last 5 years I have learned to take an Abeka history book and recap the period of time we have just read about to bring it all together for the children. In one chapter of Abeka you can read and gel the books together in the minds of the students and they have great questions after each segment to see if the children are catching the main facts. Then we discuss the literature we read pertaining to the time period and how the "facts" fit with stories and characters in the literature. We also cannot stay on the purchased curriculums time-line very well as we have things we just get into and need to study more in depth. This year we are on American history and I want to really dig in have the girls get their American history learned well and use as much time as that takes. I will use Abeka 4, 8, 11 history books and correlate chapters and then set up the literature from all of my Sonlight books, Veritas, and Tapestry books. Since I started in January I am already ahead in the set up process and the girls did really well with this method last year. Abeka already has the maps for you which our girls really enjoy coloring and adding history notes all over the countries. We add all of this to their ever growing history binders and often refer back to past maps and work to refresh and quiz each other. History is hands down our favorite subject as we look at our world and God's hand in all nations and governments and for the sake of all people. I am so excited to prepare for the coming year!
One more thing, on Saturday I had to run to Appleton to take a Mercedes that we care-take for to have some work done on it AGAIN! The last trip two weeks ago when I was picking it up from being supposedly fixed cost me a speeding ticket!!! My very first! This Mercedes is a 12 cylinder and made for pure speed. It is hard to keep it under 60, and I do have a problem with speed anyway :). So, I took the car down to Appleton ( 130 miles away ). I had to deal with the BMW side of the business as I was just dropping off the car and picking up a loaner. The BMW dealer asked me if I wanted to take a very fast little sports car or their suv. Of course I WANT to take the sports car but praise God He reminds me of my last trip home and so I quickly tell him that no, I will take the suv. Good thing, I was picking up Jeni at the airport on the way home and her suitcases would not have fit in the sports car. When he showed me the suv I almost burst out laughing, it was so small. I drive a suburban, a home away from home with room for our clan and a few extras, groceries for two weeks and a pet or two! I smiled, got in the car and drove off. There was just room for Jeni's suitcases and bag, two bags from target and one bag from an antique store where I had stopped and bought some really neat old dishes dirt cheap. Jeni and I met the three younger girls at the races that evening and we all fit tightly! Give me my suburban any day! OK, the BMW does have this really cool roof that is mostly glass so the car is very light inside, and it has lots of tempting buttons which we refrained from touching as they forgot to leave the manual inside the car! We will return the BMW today and pick up the Mercedes. I am begging Rick to make the trip for me so he can drive and see how hard it is to keep that car under the speed limit! He's always working so I have made these trips by myself, it is only a two seater! I hope he makes it off the water today to go with me, we need a date after the last weeks of so much work. Isn't God funny? This week He wanted me to cruise around in a fancy little suv, and be reminded that He is faithful to give me what I NEED and can use for His glory! I love this adventure of walking behind my Shepherd.
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