Life is good!

Hello there! No, I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth. More like been running circles, squares & triangles on it! I have a lot to catch you up on, so let's see if my summer-fried brain can remember it all! LOL

I'll start you with my do-list today. It's taken up the front side of a sheet of paper, and has spilled over to the back of it.

• Blanche & freeze 6 ears corn
• Wash, cut & flash freeze 11 bell peppers
• Take the newspapers out
• Make drinks for the week- 2 quarts of each unless otherwise stated- sweet tea, orange gatorade, lemon lime gatorade, cooking milk, yoohoo, orange juice, grape juice
• 4X4 laundry (known to most as 4 loads by 4pm)
• Make bed
• Clean master loo
• Wash linoleum (kitchen, HS room, laundry room)
• Clean desk
• Make copies of first week & 2 days of HS workbooks
• Dinner out to thaw (we're having pork butt steaks, brown rice & peas, maybe salad as well)
• Straighten & gather all library books
• Go through old mags, toss ones from HS room (that have been cut from), replace with uncut, old mags
• Org linen closet
• Put groceries from yesterday up
• Get shopping lists & q's together for tomorrow (shopping day)
• Find or print info & directions for tomorrow's HS meeting (I can't remember if I printed them out)
• Put kitchen back together (from painting)
• Empty science projects from fridge
• Clean fridge
• Sanitise kitchen counters
• Sanitise 10-second touches (we have colds or allergies- not sure which, but not taking any chances)
• Start painting island counter (?)
• Filter water
• Fill bottles & jugs with filtered water

*WHEW!!!*

K, on to other Kayla-isms..... I have gotten the tops & bottoms of the kitchen cabinets painted (will load pics later). I still need to paint the island counter cabinets, but it already looks like a brand new BRIGHT kitchen. I'm in love!!!

I also did some redecorating in the bedroom. Again, I'll post pics at a later date. I used tulle & ribbon and made a romantical swag over the headboard. Painted a mirror & repainted the headboard! Hubba loves, and TBH, so do I.... LOL

The garden is doing alright. I got 3 itty bitty jalapenos from it, handfuls of basil & our maters are FINALLY coming in. I haven't harvested any maters yet, but soon, and I am looking SO forward to it! We also have a BUNCH of cukes. I can't wait for those either. The Elders will be in Heaven once we get cukes & maters (they love those 2). I've also been fighting off the squirrels, and it hasn't been easy to do it organically. I finally found a feasible solution. I dropped a small handful of dried chili peppers into a gallon of water, let it sit in the sun for a couple days and use that to spray the garden and perimeter. Still have the verdict out on that. But so far, so good. My fingers are still crossed! LOL

We've also been keeping up the boys' pool. BOY! I had no idea how much work went into keeping water crystal clear. And quite frankly, the filters just suck! But I found that baking soda helps the pH levels and is such a economical solution!

We are planning a vacation in a couple weeks. So I want this house in order by the time we leave. We just plum have too much stuff. I'm hoping to have a rummage sale in October. Wish us luck!

Our air conditioner crapped out on us a couple weeks ago and we were without air for a couple of days. Luckily we were having a mild summer and the temps remained in the 80's. It was so humid, though, that we couldn't help but be uncomfortable. AND..... we had company in that weekend *sigh*. But, boy were we blessed. The AC guy got it fixed, literally, 1 hour before the cool break ended & the temps soared into the 90's. We've had temps above 100 & with heat indexes up to 108º.

We're due up to resign a lease on this place, but I'm looking forward to God's provisions and the hope & prayer that we'll be moving in a year.

In 1 week, Hubba & I will be celebrating our 3rd wedding anniversary. I am blessed to call him my Husband. God knew what I wanted and needed when he was placed before me. Granted, that man can push every button I have, and sometimes I just want to lash out irrationally at him, but call me blessed. Because I am!!!

We've also been having some issues with the car, but hopefully that will be resolving itself soon. We finally found a part we need, and we've also had some other work done.

We were supposed to start schooling yesterday, but we went with informal schooling, and my parents took them to Dobbins. We'll call it a learning trip *wink*. Then tomorrow we have a meeting with a HS group (they are doing their annual kickoff meeting) to see if we want to join. I'm very excited about joining a group this year! We hope to really hit the books on Thursday. A slow break in Thursday & Friday, then Monday we hit hard!!!

I'm waiting on my second curriculum order, so that's kept us a little behind as well. But since we have Math, Lang Arts & Science, we can still begin without them. This is the first year we've done a pre-boxed curriculum & I'm very excited!!! This is our plan for this year:

• Alpha Omega Lifepacs for Lang Arts & Math, and using the books Math To Know & Building your Vocabulary books as supplements
• Apologia science, with Learning Page (.com) lessons as supplements
• Soli Deo Gloria Social Studies
• Anything Left-handed Handwriting (for Tris).
• Bible work is something we've done each year- we read a verse from the Bible on Mondays, they use it as copywork for the week and have to have it memorised by Friday. We also read Proverbs each day at lunch, the chapter corresponding to the day (Since it's the basic rules of life, and it has 31 chapters, Proverbs is great!). For example- we read chapter 2 on the 2nd of each month, Ch. 17 on the 17th, and so on.
• Sebastion's handwriting is copywork that I have found online, or that I myself write. He has wonderful penmanship, so his is more practise than teaching. Tris, well.... his handwriting needs some work, so I really need to help him with his.
• Spelling will be based upon the books we choose, or the chapters we're in on science or SS. For example, I'll be writing 10 words for Tris, at least 20 for Sebastion from Lesson 1 of science, which is an intro to astronomy. Week 2's spelling words might be words from books I've assigned them to read, week 3 might be SS words. Make sense?
• I took Spanish in high school, so I make those lessons up myself, sign language is learned thru videos & "living" books.

I'm looking into buying the book- How to Teach Art to Children. Otherwise it'll be just fun Arts & Crafts til I get that. All the Art curr. I looked at were out of the already growing budget. So we sorta stuck with the basics- math, science, SS, Lang. Arts for purchased curr.

I think that's everything. This is the first year we've done pre-boxed, so I'm trying to test as many different waters (so to speak) as I can.

I'm also looking to join a HS group this year. I am going to their annual kickoff meeting on Wed. to see if I want to join this particular one. And I have field trips already set up for September, October & 2 for November so far.


Well, I'm sure there's more, but for now I MUST go and get my list done! Hope everyone has a blessed day and a blessed week!