This Week at Our House #13 A Birthday, A Garden, House Arrest

We hunkered down at home all week. The dentist appointments were cancelled along with everything else with the rest of the world. The apocalypse continues as our governor issued stay at home orders for all "non-essential" employees.

We finished week 27 of our school year and only have 5 more weeks until vacation. The kids are tiring out as expected this far into the semester.

Ruth had her 22nd birthday. She said being 22 feels like pressure (because I was pregnant with her on my 22nd birthday). Kate made Ruth the most delicious black tie mouse cake. We had a lovely day with this lovely adult daughter.

We had nice weather and spent a lot of time outside. John and Adam helped me with the garden. Right now I have corn, watermelon, and butternut squash seeds planted. They should take a week to 10 days to start moving above the soil.

I have basil, oregano, thyme, cilantro, mint, potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, pinto beans, and cantaloupe already blooming. When I go grocery shopping again, I will get more plants. I have many more seeds to plant too.

We had an amazing rainbow directly in the front of our house. The sky above the arc was dark and the sky below was light.

Ruth finished her book this week. It's formatted and will be put up for purchase on Amazon as both a print and a kindle book. She's worked hard and it is amazing.

Kate made Ruth's cake and then two more on Friday. They went so fast. Usually cake hangs around here and there, but not this one. It fled like the best cut of steak. Kate spent a lot of time on the computer this week learning how to color her drawings on the computer.

Johnny's doing fine. He's still

working on his stuff. He showed me some the pictures he's working on for a game. We have a lot of competition for computer use right now.

Adam dug up a bunch of sod for me, which I am very grateful for. It's a lot of work busting sod by hand. It really limits what we can do. Adam also found the water main to the house, so now I can fix the many plumbing issues we've been having. Hurry for brave sons crawling under the house.

Rachel dragged through the school days everyday. She did, however, make the best naan bread we've ever had.

Anya is drawing pictures for a book for me. I am going to have her focus on that the rest of the school year. I will have Adam do the coloring with her. I am excited about this one. It's fun a little story.

Joseph has been dragging through school now too.He's trying to do math through memorizing, which
I disdain. I want him to learn how to think things out and math really trains that into a person.

Josh was telling Arwen his video game dream. Arwen declared that to be a stupid dream because it is just a game. Josh objected and said, "But in my dream, it wasn't a game. Everything was real.The video game was real life."

I told the kids no computer games

for a week. So Arwen and Josh made cut outs of their favorite video game characters and play acted the game with their paper characters on the floor. I also told them no games if there room was messy and Arwen finally has a clean room.

Susan and Arwen have been wandering through the yard gathering blossoms of all sorts. They love all these gorgeous springtime flowers.

 

Kate was sitting doing transcribing with her bird on her shoulders. Sam wanted to sit by Kate, and he was holding his cat. Kate was worried about Sam sitting next to her with a cat because Kate had her
birds on her shoulder. When the cat saw the birds, she sat looking at them very intently. Kate moved her hand near the cat's face to block her view, and the cat immediately moved to see the birds. Kate tried moving around so the cat couldn't see the birds, but the can kept moving so that it could see them. Then Sam solved the problem by placing his hand over his cat's face. Sam ended the week with a stomach flu. He hasn't left the house for a month, so I think he must have eaten something. We'll see if it spreads.

Gideon gets everything and climbs on everything. We have to keep the chairs and the benches all turned upside down. This morning he found a chair and used it to climb up on the bar. He's a hand full now. But, we've finally gotten him sleeping in the little kid's bedroom. They're fine with that only because they don't have to go to bed until Gideon's asleep.

This Week at Our House #11 and #12 Spring Returns, Apocalypse Begins

I began work with a lot of training. The family hated it, but I got organized and they did a lot as much independent school as they could without me. When I got home, I gave them all the lessons that they needed.

I bought ducklings for them on the way home from work one day this week. They're still alive and still healthy. We're still praying for their health.

I had the weekend off. On Monday, I went into work and all trainees were told that the job was on hold. Later that night the governor shut down all restaurants, so we again we are all unemployed. Ugh, bad timing for the apocalypse to begin, but then those things are never timed well.

Thursday, I took 8 of the kids to the beach. We did not want to be out with more than 10 people. I'm glad that I did because on Friday, they closed most of the beaches.

We've finished two more weeks of school and we only have 6 weeks to go. That feels good. We are past the 8 week half point and I think we are starting to feel the pull toward break time.

1. Ruth is still working on her book. She has some complete pictures now. I think I will be helping

her get it formatted and ready to sell this next week. I expect within a week and a half, it will be ready to go. Her illustrations are beautiful. I can't wait to share her amazing hard work with the world.

2. After a few weeks of uncertainty Kate has begun her next writing and art project. She's got a fairy tale and that she is writing up and illustrating. It will take a few months for her, but she has learned a lot about coloring through helping Ruth.

3. Johnny made me whoopie pies today when I was feeling depressed from reading the apocalypse news. Johnny's still working on a computer game. He's animating it. I have no idea if he will ever have it available for sale. But at least he will have learned a lot about animation and computer programming.

4. Adam, my right hand man has been digging out my garden plot for me. That's a lot of hard work. He's Sam's go to man for sippy cups of hot chocolate. He's Gideon's toss in the air man. Adam's schooling is going very well. He gets his work done and he does not complain.

5. Rachel's been slow about her school work. But she is more helpful with house work and cooking than she used to be. Rachel's birthday is coming up. She's excited to turn 14. I had a funny conversation with her in which she said that it has always been her plan to get married at  16. Now that's two years away, she'll be revising.

6. Anya's drawing the pictures for my next book. She'll color them with the help of Adam. Anya has one character that she draws over and over again. Her art is in the amazing, I cannot believe a 12 year old drew this category.

7. Joseph has been catching his rooster and spending time with him to see if his rooster will stop attacking the other members of the family. I grounded Rachel on down from computer and Joseph has been trying to find projects that he can get permission to use the computer for now. We'll see. Maybe I'll give in.

8. Josh has been drawing monsters and dragons when he'snot doing school, outside, or playing computer games. His dinosaurs are as good as I drew at 25. I'll have to photograph some. One day when I came home from work, Josh told me that he did his work and he knew how to read for the first time. His reading has been greatly improved since then. I think I make him nervous.

9. Arwen's hilarious. she says the funniest things in the most serious voice.

10. Susan's become a pegasus unicorn and goes around neighing, crawling on all fours, and licking everyone.

11. Sam has been drawing. He got a clip board for Christmas and he takes his drawings very seriously.

12. Gideon is getting Giddy. He climbs on everything. Gets into dishes, computers, toilets and more. We have to keep an eye on him. He is big and strong and cute.

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