Wrapping Up . . . I Don't Even Know . . .

Whew! Needless to say, moving makes life busy and chaotic! . . . But we're still here. And pretty much still consumed in moving . . .

Sometime last week we got beds for everyone in the new house, and internet in the new house, so we started sleeping here. Whew! That was a huge step of progress, to not feel like we're living both places.

I don't even remember what's happened when . . . I think I'm just going to go through and post pictures and make comments under them . . .

From early in the process . . .

Little Bit photo bombing a picture I was taking of the kitchen/dining area before there was furniture there :)

  

Our very large tub! Rather dated, but huge. Now to find time to use it . . . There's also a massive walk-in closet that's a part of the master bathroom, I should have taken pictures before I started filling it with stuff, but such an awesome catch-all storage spot :) 

Shifting gears. . . one week at church, Little Bit's class learned about the story of the angels rescuing Peter from prison, by acting it out. This was Little Bit's turn to be Peter, in prison :) 

 I snapped this picture driving home (to the old house) from the new house one afternoon! Gotta love living near Amish country!

Ashlyn has gotten lots of experience painting furniture these last couple weeks. She sanded and painted her desk and dresser! This was early in the process.

Meanwhile, Little Bit and Mama (& Papa) were busy painting the various components of her loft bed.

On Oct 31, our church had a bonfire at the pastor's house. My friend Amy is always cold, and amazed at how Little Bit is NEVER cold. That point was rather well illustrated by the difference in their choices of outerwear (or lack thereof) at the bonfire :) 

From the moment we started coming to the new house, the girls have loved sitting in the wide windowsills in the living room and dining room, so I couldn't resist turning one of them into a cozier seat :) 

Meanwhile Little Bit confiscated some of the old baby gear we found while packing and was having fun being a "Mommy" in the other corner of the living room.

Ashlyn's room, coming along nicely!

Our bed is done! I desperately wanted a king size bed, but didn't want to buy one! So we begged some pallets from my brother (who gets them from work), and created our bed that way. So far it's working great!

Way back when we first got married, we bought a living room set that included this "chair and a half" I LOVED it, but since moving to PA, neither of our houses had a place for it, so it's been stored in my parents' garage. Now it's perfect in the sunroom and Lexie and Ashlyn have claimed it as a favorite reading spot! 

Little Bit's loft bed is done! Now we can start sleeping in the new house :)

And Mama and Papa brought a couple old recliners from their house to add to our furniture collection, so Little Bit and Daddy are checking one of them out :) 

One of our first nights here. Lexie loves having her own bed (she and Little Bit have shared since Little Bit was a toddler, of course, I think many, if not most, nights, Little Bit ends up in bed with Lexie before morning) with a reading light on it!

Lexie snuggling with a friend's dog :) 

Our first Friday night "Shabbat" meal in the new house! 

And finally, the finished sunroom! When we went to IKEA last week to get bookcases for the basement, I found that sofa on sale for a price I couldn't refuse. I'd planned to watch for a used love seat or small sofa for that space, but didn't expect to get anything right away, but this is perfect! It even folds down flat to use as a bed, if we ever have multiple guests at the same time!  The cedar chest was made by my great grandfather :) 

And the other side of the sunroom. I had originally figured the easel would either go in the basement or be folded out of the way unless a kid specifically wanted to use it, but nothing begs you to do art like a bright sunny room! So we found a space for it. Weather permitting it can easily move out onto the deck through the sliding doors (or with a bit more effort, we can carry it through the house to the front porch).  And for the moment I'm humoring Little Bit and letting her keep her huge stuffed giraffe in the sunroom. Hopefully in the not TOO distant future it will move to the basement or her room :) 

I didn't take a picture of the interior wall of the sunroom, I have low bookcases along it, that are rather jumbled random toys/puzzles & games. Long term I hope to sort through and keep a selection of toys, puzzles and games on the shelves that are good for sharing when company comes, as well as things for Little Bit to play with while we do school in there. 

And that's a brief overview of what we've been up to. As of this afternoon, thanks to the awesome help of our friend Brian, all the big furniture has moved from the old house to the new (there are still a few biggish pieces at my parents' house waiting for their next trip up here).  There's still lots to do, but I'm feeling good about the progress we've made. And sooo blessed to have family and friends willing to help us! 

Bi-Monthly Wrap-Up - Dec 16

Sigh . . . apparently I decided to take a blog-break LOL.

Things have been chaotic. . .

For the last couple of years we have been casually house-hunting. We were happy where we are (renting), but figured if the perfect house came along . . . While we were in Florida, an e-mail from our landlord, detailing some changes they were making to our lease agreement made it apparent that we needed to bump up our house hunting.

Before we had left for Florida, a friend had told us that their neighbor was planning to sell his house soon and it might fit our criteria. So, while we were traveling, I e-mailed Penny and asked for more information about her neighbor's house. We went to see it the day after the girls and I got home. It was smaller than we'd hoped to find, but otherwise met our criteria pretty well. After much prayer and discussion, we decided to go for it.

Thus began the whirlwind of discussions with the seller, figuring out all the stuff the realtor would normally do (nice because no realtor fees, a pain because we have to figure stuff out ourselves).  In the midst of it all, our current landlord informed us that we could no longer store stuff in the farm out building "for free" and if it wasn't out in 2 weeks, would have to pay 3+ times the going rate for that size space (keeping in mind that a storage facility space wouldn't have broken windows that let in moisture and "critters" like this space did). I'm still baffled as to how we were "using it for free" when we were told when we were first shown the house that that storage space came with this house, but apparently since it wasn't specifically listed in the lease agreement, it didn't count, I told Rodney that I'm pretty sure the use of the driveway wasn't specified in the lease agreement either, maybe they'll start charging extra for that too . . . SO, we talked to the seller of the new house and arranged to move everything from the storage space into the garage at the new house while we continued to work to set up the inspections, closing, etc. We knew we were taking a "risk" moving stuff in before the inspections and such, but decided if we moved it all into a storage unit or down to my parents' garage we would for SURE have to move everything a second time. So might as well "risk" having to move it all back out of the garage at the new house if the sale falls through.

So now we have inspections scheduled for tomorrow and, assuming that all goes ok, closing is scheduled for the 26th.

Meanwhile, I've been having fun juggling the need to get as much as possible packed, with not knowing for sure WHEN we're moving and needing to continue not only living, but homeschooling, in the meantime. I originally figured I could hand the girls boxes and tell them to pack our books, but then I realized that we USE a LOT of our books . . . and we're NOT going to be able to instantly unpack all of our books (one of the challenges of the new house is going to be figuring out WHERE to have all of our books, the much more open floor plan of the living area is AWESOME but it means I can't stick a bookcase against every wall (more or less) like I have here. Additionally, the house is a cape cod with slanted ceilings upstairs, and upstairs will be the school room (and the girls' bedroom), so while I'm loving the thought of having a school room, the slanted ceilings means I can't line all the walls, floor-to-ceiling with bookcases. . . so anyway . . . it will all work out, but it meant I had to sit down and schedule out our curriculum more than I normally do, for a couple months and make sure to pull out the books we'd need during that time. So for most of the books, I just packed them and pulled out what I needed as I went. . . and for so many other things, it's been the same . . . Add in that this house is entirely too small to have TOO many boxes stacked around, and it's been a challenge. HOPEFULLY all will go well with the inspections tomorrow so we'll know abit more, and can for sure put more stuff in the garage and get REALLY serious about packing up EVERYTHING. . .

THANKFULLY, all of this happened during the "break" in reviewing for the Schoolhouse Review Crew. I love, love, love reviewing for them, but am so thankful that we were able to just focus on our bare minimum schooling during this chaos. So what HAVE we been doing for school during all of this?

Bible:  In November we continued using Polished Cornerstones for morning Bible time. Starting the first Sunday in December, we began using Bartholomew's Passage for Advent. Last year we read Jotham's Journey and LOVED it! I didn't tell the girls that there were MORE books in the series, so they woke up the first morning of Advent this year to find the Advent candles set up (though I just used candle holders I already have, set in a circle, since the advent wreath is packed in the Christmas boxes that were NOT unpacked this year, sigh . . . ) and the new book sitting on the table waiting for them (shhhh . . . don't tell them I already have Tabitha's Travels for next year, hee hee), we are loving this one just as much! The biggest complaint is that they want to just read the whole story instead of reading a few pages per day LOL.

Evening Bible: The girls decided they want to learn Hebrew so, at least for the moment, we are using Read Hebrew Today to start learning Hebrew during our evening Bible time. For Hanukkah (this past week), we set it aside for a few days and have been reading Alexandra's Scroll which tells the story of the origins of Hanukkah.

History: We've continued with the Civil War - most days we manage to find time for read alouds, though as I've packed our books, I've found some civil war books hidden on the shelves so some days I just tell the girls to each choose one of those to read on their own while I pack LOL. We also finished listening to With Lee in Virginia by G.A. Henty, while in the car.

Math: This is new LOL.  Last fall I started thinking ahead to what we should use to "fill in the gaps" for the girls' math education as they are getting older. I am 100% sold on the idea of delaying formal math until children are older and am so glad we did that, but they are getting older and I like to plan things to death, so I started thinking about it, and in my research, I came across Life of Fred, the girls and I talked about it, looked at the sample problems, and it seemed like a good option for them. BUT at that point, I had said we would start through the elementary books starting next fall. And then, I was ordering something from a site that had free shipping if you spent x amount, and they carried the Life of Fred books, and ordering the first book would get me up to free shipping, so I went ahead and ordered it, so we'd have it when we needed it. And then all of the above mess with housing happened and I had very little time to devote to fun school stuff, but didn't want the girls to just sit and watch tv all day, or even spend all day packing and such, though they've done plenty of helping with that. . . so I went ahead and handed them the first book, showed them how to use it, and turned them lose with it. They LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!! I have to tell them "you need to stop doing math" every day! Sassy (as usual, she works "faster", MiniMe is more thorough and methodical) was done the first book, begging for more within about 2 weeks. So I ordered the 2nd book, and told her it better last her until we move. But they didn't listen (MiniMe is running about 1 day slower than Sassy), so a couple weeks ago I went ahead and ordered several more so they can just keep working through them at their pace. . .

Science: We are listening to the Jonathan Park Adventures again in the car.

Language arts: They get this through reading for history, writing for fun, writing out the required "homework" for math, etc. As an added writing bonus for Hanukkah, our "Hanukkah Fairies" brought along a notebook this year. Each night they left the girls' a short message and finished up with a question for the girls to answer, so the girls got abit of extra writing practice in each day of Hanukkah answering the fairies' questions.

The chaos of the last while has meant we haven't really kept up with Little Bit's "Letter of the Week", but that's not all bad, since we took letter "W" with us on the Florida trip, so only had 3 weeks left. We've skipped some weeks, and spread things out, but we have worked through X and Y, and will probably spread out "Z" over the rest of the year. Then, depending how the timing of hte actual move goes, we may skip the first couple weeks of January, but hopefully by mid-January at the latest, we will start in with the same Waldorf preschool curriculum that the big girls started at this age. I'm excited to get back into it, it was a fun, program and I think not only will Little Bit enjoy it, but the big girls will have fun participating again as well :)

So that's what's been going on around here. .  . hopefully I can remember to update abit more regularly from here on out . . .

Sabbath School

The girls weren't overly impressed with the church we went to a couple weeks ago (& then the last couple weeks we (or at least they) have been at grandparents' houses on Sabbath) so this week we tried the other church in our town. When we first got there I thought we were in trouble. We found our way to the Kindergarten classroom and there was nobody there (& it was well past starting time so it seemed unlikely that everyone was running late) we stayed there for a few minutes & I started reading in the bulletin (actually looking to see if there was some indication of a kid campout or something that might have taken all the kids away) and I saw that they listed Kindergarten & Primary as the same teachers. So on a hunch, I went hunting for the Primary room, could hear activity in there so peaked inside & asked if K was included there. They said yes, so I went & got the girls and we went to Primary. There were only 2 other kids, both obviously Primary age, and the program was the Primary program. At that point I was still figuring that the girls would decide the other church wasn't SO BAD since it was at least for their age group LOL. But then they had a craft & it was FOOD!! The lesson story was Baby Jesus so the craft was to use graham crackers & pretzel sticks glued together w/ marshmallow cream to make a "manger" then fill it w/ shredded wheat "hay" and add a "baby" made out of one of those orange candy circus peanuts wrapped in a piece of fruit roll up). As we were leaving they handed out the lesson papers & that confirmed what I suspected when the story was Baby Jesus (I found it highly unlikely that Gracelink would put Baby Jesus in July instead of December) they use My Bible First which I've seriously considered getting and using on our own instead of or in addition to the Gracelink that most SDA churches use. I feel rather strongly that the younger kids (Beginners thru Primary) should be learning the Bible Stories chronologically & it's frustrated me greatly to have to try to explain to my kids why their SS lessons jump around so much, I also feel that in some cases, the story was chosen to "make a point" w/o consideration as to whether it's truly one of the most important Bible Stories (my kids are halfway through the Kindergarten curriculum (for Gracelink) and have yet to hear the story of salvation in SS. Too many kids, even kids whose families are church members, ONLY get their Bible instruction for SS, it seems more important to me to make sure the kids are learning about God's great gift to us and our need to accept that gift rather than using the story of Nicodemus to try to represent "true friendship" (I still struggle with how the story of Nicodemus being ashamed to come see Jesus publicly teaches us what true friendship is, and finally stopped asking "do you want to be a friend like Nicodemus" when I read the story each night because MY answer to that question would be NO, I should publicly acknowledge Jesus, not hide it like he did). . . but I digress. So, I was thinking "man, we finally have a nearby church who's using MBF and they don't have a Kindergarten class. BUT the girls were unanimous & adamant that they want to keep going to this SS. I think they liked that they were "big kids" going to Primary. And honestly, I think they'll do fine. I think the smallness of the class means it won't be a huge deal that they can't read (and Primary classes generally assume kids can). And I think having a different part of the lesson story to read each night instead of reading the same story all week will keep their attention much better. Added bonus, at least right now, the extra story in the lesson paper (can't call it the Little Friend or Primary Treasurer, but the MBF equivalent LOL) is a continued story about Ellen White. The girls really enjoy Ellen White stories (my parents have several kids' books with stories of her life & they choose them often). I happened to notice that while we were in church, and that this week's paper had part 2 of the series. So during the Children's story I leaned forward to the teacher (who was sitting ahead of us) and asked if it would be possible to get last week's paper too, so we could have the beginning of the story. We read the first part on the way home from church :)

The downside is, apparently this church doesn't do VBS (or it's already past, anyway there was nothing in the bullatin about it, and if they did it earlier, it was never on their sign out front, since we drive by there w/ some regularity), but the other church IS doing VBS week after next, so if the girls want to do VBS we can go there.

So, at least for the time being, we'll be attending this church (added benefit, it's only a couple miles from our house, whereas the other one is 7 or 8, neither is FAR obviously, but still . . .).

Oh, and one of the members who welcomed us in the parking lot afterwards turns out to be the man who has a garden plot on our property. When he heard we were living here he mentioned that he might have to share some of his extra garden produce with us, since the tomato plants I put in seem to be dying, and I'm missing frequent access to Grandpa's garden that I had when we saw my parents weekly, I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one LOL.

Friday Projects

As I mentioned in the previous post, my parents helped w/ projects around here on Friday. Mom & the girls helped me unload the minivan that I'd never gotten unloaded from last weekend's trip to the old house (that rain all week slowed down projects like that) and then they helped to collapse the moving boxes that I hadn't yet collapsed & then we loaded all of them into the minivan and took them up to the storage area as well (a neighbor has said she wants them, but I'm tired of tripping over them while i wait for her to come get them, now they're out of my way until she asks for them LOL). The girls honestly did most of the box carrying at both ends LOL.

Dad had built the printer table for the playroom before they came so he assembled it, and mom & I moved it, and the printers & copier into place. I sent the playstands (that I'd been using as a printer stand) to mom & dad's house since we don't have a good place for them here.

Dad's main project (that took pretty much all day) was doing the lighting in the girls' room. When he built the loft bed, he took down the ceiling light because they would've hit their head on it going up & down the loft ladder. As a temporary solution (since he was short on time that weekend) he turned the ceiling socket into a regular plug & we got some "under counter" lights that he mounted on the top board of the loft railing & we plugged into that plug. So Friday he re-did things to the permanent solution. He'd found a flush mount fixture that was small enough to put in the ceiling socket so he put that there, then he put a switch on on post of the loft (underneath) and put 2 larger under counter lights under the loft to give light under there (which looks great) and also ran wires so that the original under counter lights could be plugged in and not on a switch and he moved them to be on the inside of the railing instead of outside so now they make perfect reading lamps when the kids are in bed. I think L, especially, is going to be thrilled with that aspect of it. So now we have decent light for the room as a whole, good light under the loft, and reading lamps for each bed. Woo-hoo! The girls haven't seen any of it except the ceiling light though, since Dad did most of that after they'd left for Grandmom's. They're on their way home now, I'm anxious to see their reaction :)

Mom also remembered, after the girls had left on Fri, that another time when she was here & she & the girls had gone "exploring" over by the creek, she'd noticed some "weeds" that looked like they might be blackberry or raspberry bushes. So we went hunting and sure enough all along the creek, and edges of the woods there are TONS and TONS of some type of wild raspberry (looking at the pictures on this site, I think they're thimbleberries, whatever they are, they taste yummy LOL) and a few black raspberries. There are even some of the thimbleberries right along the edge of the woods in our backyard, so the girls will be able to pick those whenever they want (the ones by the creek, they'll have to wait & have me come with them). So I'm excited to share this discovery w/ the girls this week as well.

Setting Up the Playroom

We're still working through unpacking and organizing and figuring out what needs to go where. I have a to do list a mile and a half long (all in my head) of things I WANT to do, but it seems to be slow going. OrgJunkie's Monthly Organizing Round-Up for June was the Playroom. So I decided that was a good excuse, combined with the girls' renewed interest in "school" which has had me scrambling to find all our supplies that were still in boxes, to really focus on the Playroom/Schoolroom.

This is the 3rd bedroom in our small house & as I thought through the logistics of settling into this house I decided it would be best used as a playroom/school room. With the girls' loft bed providing much more play space in their room than originally anticipated, the play/school room can focus mostly on the school side of things, though the girls spend lots of time playing in both rooms (and every other room of the house, they "travel" so much in their play LOL)

So, here are the before pictures . . .



Standing in the doorway. Random stuff on the bench. Boxes to unpack (there were lots more boxes to unpack stacked in a storage area). . .
Other side of the room , still from the doorway. More boxes and random stuff to unpack & put away.

And the final view of the other corner of the room before. More stuff to unpack & put away. The playstands that I'd thought would be in this room but now I'm thinking w/ the loft arrangement we will store them . . .

This room is still very much in progress, but for the time being, here's what I've done (& what I still have plans to do)

I put down foam mats over a tarp on part of the floor so that if we want to paint & do crafts up in this room we can. I have a small table similar to the one the computer's on that I need to get put together (but I suspect that will be easier done with an electric screwdriver, so that will probably wait till Dad visits again, though I might see if dh will put it together using Dad's electric screwdriver while we're at Sesame Place) and it will sit on the mat area. I might also go ahead & cover the whole floor w/ the foam mats, I haven't decided yet . . .

Also in the above picture. I set up the CD player & some CDs and such in the corner of the bench. The blanket in the windowsill is part of something the kids are doing. Hard to see, but I hung a globe beach ball on some yarn & hung it from the little piece sticking out above the window that blinds were once attached to. And I hung one of our recent "art projects" on the wall. I'm still pondering a good way to be able to hang our art projects on the wall but change them out frequently. I'm toying w/ magnetic paint on a section of the wall but that might be cost prohibitive. And the landlord would probably be annoyed but since they left us w/ bright yellow faux finish I figure that room is anything goes LOL. I might also just hang a "clothesline " near the ceiling and hang our paintings & such from it . . . still thinking it all through.
The wall where the door is. There are still a couple boxes. The fruit box holds the things we'll need over the next month or so to finish up the preschool curriculum we've been using. The basket above it holds what we are currently using on a daily basis, with the overflow "reference books" on the floor between the boxes. The metal bulletin board I want to hang, but I'm still trying to decide which wall I want it on, so for now the unpacked box of random craft stuff is making a nice stand for it. The basket in front of it has alphabet magnets. The white board on it is where we write our daily schedule. The small table that you can just see a corner of I was going to get rid of & then decided it would work well for a nature table. So the plan with it is to probably drop at least one leaf of it so it doesn't take up much room & have it in the rounded corner of the room w/ playsilks on it to use as a nature table. BUT the girls took it over and are using it as a desk so until I get the other table built, we're skipping the nature table (summer nature table is always hard anyway since summer stuff is all GROWING) and they're using it as a desk and such.

You can see the future nature table better in this picture. And at the moment the chairs are around it instead of at the computer. The upside down stool is generally used as a doll seat, I assume that's why it's on the chair. The playstands, I plan to store. And one of the many projects on Dad's to do list is to build a table that the big printer will sit under & the copier (that I haven't carried upstairs yet) will sit on top of. So, once Dad builds that the playstands will leave but for now they're doing a pretty good job of holding the printer.

And finally, all the craft supplies and games and any toys that aren't in the girls' room. We have a huge upstairs hall closet that I put shelving in & am using as my "homeschool closet" this is just one piece of it (there are 3 doors to access it & there's another shelf above the part you can see in the picture) but this gives you an idea of how I have all our craft stuff organized. Games and various things are similarly on these shelves.
And that's our play room/school room. I'm excited to have walls to hang things on. If I decide I want more storage IN the room I can move a bookcase up from downstairs but at the moment I'm liking all the open wall space.

Oh I didn't think to take a picture of the back of the door but it's utilized space too. There are hooks on it that hold a bag with our no-spill paint jars, the girls' binoculars, their "tool belts" w/ tools that Mama made for them last Christmas, and some of their backpacks.

These Directions are Only for Planning Purposes . . .

Ever notice that disclaimer on the online maps & directions? Well, today I'm not even sure how it would have been useful for planning purposes! I entered the address of the Farmer's Market I wanted to go to, 500 ABCD Street (street name (obviously) changed for the sake of security). Got my directions. It told me the location was 7.something miles away, ok, I can live with that. It did NOT tell me that it couldn't find my location & was sending me to a location "nearby" like it sometimes does. I start driving w/ two children "discussing" EVERYTHING loudly in the backseat (such an asset to finding your way on unfamiliar roads). But I DID follow the directions as stated! And those directions took me, not to 500 ABCD Street but to 3900 ABCD Street! HUH?!?!?!?! So at that point I warned the girls that we very well might NOT find the Farmer's Market that day, but we were still trying. And I headed down that street for a VERY LONG time. Through parts of town I actually recognized and beyond . . . and finally DID get to 500 ABCD Street and DID find a very nice (though not huge) Farmer's market and we got some yummy fresh early summer veggies and a source for local raw honey (though I don't need any yet and will keep fingers crossed to find a CHEAPER source, but at least it's something) and yes, I think we'll be going back to this little Farmer's Market throughout the season. But then, I had a vague idea where I was and most definitely was NOT going to go back the way I'd come (which by the time I traveled however far down ABCD Street probably ended up being closer to 15 miles) so I decided to try continuing down ABCD Street (to 400 block and beyond) and see where I ended up. And you know what? We were less than FOUR MILES from home! And a quick, easy to remember & follow 4 miles at that. Seriously it's like 4 turns! WHAT was Google Maps thinking sending me way out through 2 other towns (granted these "towns" are all suburbs of our main city & so are quite small (think DC's Chevy Chase, Bethesda, etc) but still!) and more than 10 miles out of my way?

Oh well, at least I didn't get irretrievably lost in the midst of it all LOL.

Good & Bad

First, the good. We found a farm not too far away that sells raw milk, cheese and pastured eggs at prices that are in line with what we were paying before we moved (the other places I'd contacted, in addition to being VERY slow to respond (which made me leary of making appointments & such) were much higher prices than we'd paid when we were in MD). So the girls finally have their "healthy milk" back.

Now the not so good. L managed to slip and fall on the driveway (where she shouldn't have been) this evening & somehow only minorly scraped her knee but gouged a hole in her forehead. I sent A to help her back to the house and A got there & said "her HEAD is bleeding!!" So I went to check it out . Lots of blood of course, but once we cleaned it up, not as bad as I thought. L kept asking to see the "boo-boo" so finally I sent A (official nurse/go-fer) to get the hand mirror out of the bathroom, L took one look at her forehead & said "I don't want to see any more boo-boos!" She's quite proud that her knee boo-boo took THREE bandaids (minor scrape covering lots of territory, honestly would've been fine w/o a bandaid but you know kids & bandaids. . . I think the biggest challenge w/ the head boo-boo will be getting her to leave it alone so it can heal.

It's HOT!!!!

I wrote this yesterday (Monday) afternoon, but for some reason it didn't post. We'll try again now :)

I so hope this isn't a hint of what this summer is going to be like! All weekend and now today it's been HOT!! Super duper, drenched with sweat the second I walk out the door, hot! And HUMID!! I can somewhat deal with heat (ok, not really) but I CAN. NOT. deal with humidity! Absolutely not! I went to college in TN, and loved it! But by the time the school year ended the humidity was starting & I was beyond ready to head north! Of course now I AM north (of TN anyway) and it's STILL too hot & humid & ICK!

We hadn't turned the a/c on yet when we left Thurs night to go to my parents' (& the old house) for the weekend. So I was dreading how hot the house would be when we got home last night. The main level was actually surprisingly comfortable. DH turned the a/c on, so I didn't see what the thermostat said (I think he told me, but remembering "stats" is by far NOT my strong point, I have no problem memorizing Bible passages, but then struggle like crazy to remember the text, and all through school, it was the text I'd glance at as the teacher said "clear your desks" and the text was the first thing I'd write on my paper, and THAT was how I survived such things. Then I'd rattle off the howeverlong Bible passage itself w/ no problem LOL). Anyway . . . main level was cool-ish, upstairs was HOT. But cooled down nicely once we got the a/c on.

Today the girls & I had to get all the herbs & such that we brought back from the old house (& a couple I bought while I was down there, though Walmart's selection was pretty pathetic) in the ground before they baked sitting in the pots we threw them in yesterday. Even at 9:30 this morning it was HOT out there! The girls were a great help, digging the holes and such. And we got everything in the ground, were delighted to find that, even though the only outside spigot is by the basement door, one of our hoses IS long enough to reach from there around to the front patio area to water the newly planted plants w/o having to use the watering can (ok, so the girls were abit disappointed about that, but a few good sprays w/ the hose snapped them out of it LOL). And since I'd rather thoroughly sprayed them down while watering the plants (hey, they were dirty from digging in the dirt anyway, might as well hose them down) I went ahead & hooked up the sprinkler after that & they spent the rest of the morning playing in the sprinkler in their clothes, much to their delight. I totally should've taken pictures, but I'm not sure where the camera is.

The minivan is full of stuff we brought up from the old house, but I'm not willing to brave the heat to unload it. So I'll be whining at myself this evening when the day is over & I just want to veg and instead I'm having to unload things. And, after being gone all weekend, I need to go to the grocery store before I can fix supper and I so don't want to get in a hot car, shop, then get BACK in a hot car to come home so I'm putting that off too . . . sigh . . .

On the positive side, my laundry dried in record time on the line today LOL. I must remember that hot days like today can be two load days LOL. I also took advantage of the basement being cooler and shifted stuff around down there (partially because the landlord's solution to the leaking washing machine was to say that they have an extra one in storage and will just come switch them out, so I figured I needed to shift things enough that they can get the new one in & the old one out (especially since, when he brought the dryer, it was just one guy & I got to help bring it in, not looking forward to helping w/ the washing machines, but guessing I'll get to). There's still a pile of empty boxes down there that I need to collapse, and still some boxes of pantry stuff that needs to be unpacked at some point (& the freezer, for that matter, it's mostly still in boxes in the freezer too LOL), but I shifted things such that I THINK anything that could be damaged by water isn't sitting directly on the floor (there was some water in the basement w/ last week's rain, though I couldn't tell where it had come from to know if there's a solution, will have to remember & go down DURING heavy rain next time & figure it out) and just so that it looks better & there's more floor space down there.

And of course, having my herbs up here is a positive thing! I also got a basil plant & a pepper plant over the weekend, so those are in the ground too. The pepper plant looked quite sad when I bought it, but was the best of the (3) sweet pepper plants that Walmart had, and I REALLY wanted to get a pepper plant since the girls like sweet peppers and they're in the "dirty dozen" of foods to ALWAYS buy organic & organic peppers are SOO expensive . . . so I took a chance. We actually watered it at the store, and then more when we got back to the old house and by the time we got home with it last night it was looking just fine. So I'm hopeful that it will do fine now that it's in the ground and can continue to get daily watering.

Thankfully the weather report is saying one more day of this super hot weather & then it'll be back down in the 80s for the rest of the week, which is much more livable in my book LOL.

In Everything Give Thanks

Yet another reason to love a small house! I vacuumed today (yes, we've been here for 2 weeks, yes, this is the first time I vacuumed, it just didn't seem logical to vacuum when all but a couple sq inches of floor were covered w/ boxes LOL). And I was able to vacuum the ENTIRE first floor w/o unplugging/re-plugging the vacuum! I plugged it in in the living room and the cord reached to vacuum the whole floor! even the kitchen (which I normally do w/ the small rechargable, but if I can do it w/ the big vacuum w/o having to unplug/re-plug, might as well). And then I carried it upstairs, plugged it in, and vacuumed the whole upstairs w/o having to unplug it. I'm sure the novelty of this will wear off eventually but it made vacuuming seem like so much less of a chore to not have to mess w/ that LOL.

This Week's Wrap Up

I thought I'd get back to doing a little summary of our week.

We started out the week w/ my parents and SIL & BIL all at our house, building beds, clearing out flower beds and otherwise getting stuff done. Then things quieted down. Other than grocery shopping we pretty much stayed home the rest of the week. We explored our "yard" abit more, the girls are getting into the "groove" of helping w/ laundry. It works well for them to bring me the wet clothes out of the laundry basket, but I find it's quicker and easier to just take the dry clothes down without their help, which they're fine with LOL.

We played some games, got back in our groove of spending some time on Kindermusik each day, read stories . . . and they did lots of playing outside and in while I unpacked and such. They have taken over the "coat closet" (which is under the stairs, so quite small anyway) as their "secret room" in which they have some sort of question & answer show a la the intro part of Veggie Tales (you know how Bob & Larry start the show out w/ some "question from a view", that kind of thing. It's most amusing to listen to. Eventually I'd like to store things like my vacuum cleaner in there but right now they're so enjoying playing in there that I guess I'll find someplace else for the vacuum LOL.

Yesterday we went to the last Kindermusik class (except for the end of class party next week) they weren't overly excited to be going, and A essentially refused to participate, though from her seat in the back of the room next to me, she did quietly join in a little bit. L had a rocky start but then did fine. And despite the struggle we've had with them telling me they don't want to go to Kindermusik (which started when dh started the new job & was gone all week but home on Fridays, so I think it was having to leave Daddy that let to them not wanting to go, and then yesterday that we came from Mama & Papa's house threw them) yesterday afternoon they asked if we could try to find a Kindermusik class near our new house. I'm not sure if they'd do as well w/ a different teacher, I'm not sure financially we'll be able to swing another class come fall . . . lots of unknowns but I told them we'd see. I find it interesting that they're interested in continuing when it's been such a struggle these last few weeks.

We spent yesterday afternoon at our old house. I was packing the odds and ends that we ran out of time to finish up when the moving van came. The girls alternated between playing on their own and the dish network hadn't been turned off yet so they watched tv a bunch of the afternoon, but other than some whining about "can we go YET" they did great. I got the main floor done and started on the bedrooms, so we're more than 1/3 done and are coming back next weekend so should be able to wrap everything up with no problem. Tomorrow I'm hoping to finish the upstairs and at least start on the garage &/or basement. And we need to load up as much stuff as will fit to take back with us. . .

Today was rainy (originally we'd thought we'd use our FONZ (National Zoo) membership one last time to go to the Baltimore Zoo) so we just stayed at Mom & Dad's house. The girls didn't want to go to "Mama & Papa's Sabbath School" w/o Mama (she's sick), and I decided given all the other upheaval in their lives right now, I wasn't going to try to force the issue. We read stories, listened to a new CD Mom got that has stories from our church history on it. Most of it is over the girls' head (according to Mom, I haven't listened to it) but one of the stories was one that the girls had heard in another kids' book Mom has (about Ellen White being hit by the rock, for those who know SDA church history) so we listened to that one. I have to admit that I fell asleep, but I think it held the girls' interest pretty well (my falling asleep isn't a criticism of the CD, I just don't do well just sitting and listening to ANYTHING!). Then L was wanting to play a game but didn't like the first several I suggested so I pulled out Egypt to Canaan and she wanted to play it (I see from the product description that it says age 8 & up, the box on mom & dad's (that was ours when we were kids) doesn't have an age range on it and I didn't remember how "advanced" it was). Last time I was here I'd gone through the question cards and divided out the ones that I thought the girls would know or could learn easily, so we played it using those cards for L (& A when she joined the game) & the harder ones for me (though I realized I needed to "adjust" how many spaces the cards said since harder questions tend to let you move more spaces, but since the girls don't read and I was just reading all the questions I could adjust that as needed). We also played that the girls got to move whether they knew the answer or not, since part of it was about them learning. But they did pretty well. A named 8 of the 10 plagues of Egypt (though the card said to name them in order & I just asked her to name them) which I thought was pretty good (and one of the ones she missed was lice which, everytime we read the story about the plagues the girls ask "what is lice?" so it's not suprising that she had trouble remembering it. The other one she missed was darkness). I'm hoping they enjoyed it enough that we can play it from time to time when we're here so that it reinforces the questions/answers that they don't know.

One of my questions, the answer was Mephibosheth (I don't remember the exact question, something about Jonathan's lame son I think) who the girls had never heard of (& for that matter, when I answered it, dh said "who?") so we had to take a break for me to tell them that story. And of course they couldn't comprehend why his nurse thought that David would hurt him, didn't she know David was nice? But, I guess he DID kill Goliath, maybe that's why she thought he was mean . . . it was a rather interesting conversation LOL. Makes me think they're inching closer to being ready for the Bible in Living Sound CDs.

They also got to find some of the first strawberries in Grandpa's garden (the rain let up enough for us to walk out there & back) and built with Lincoln Logs with Papa and such. But apparently the highlight of the day was this evening when Papa showed them the fun of throwing a balloon at the ceiling fan. Dad had a whole box of balloons that are at least 20 yrs old so we didn't have to worry about popping them, there were plenty more. They had a blast throwing balloons up for the fan to hit this way and that. And declared it "the most fun ever!" And mom could "participate" by sitting in a chair and watching it all (& blowing up more balloons when they popped).

And tomorrow is another long, boring day at the old house, entertaining themselves to the best of their ability while dh & I get stuff done.

Why Would They Do That?

For the past year or more we've been using exclusively raw milk in our house. But, I haven't taken the time to hunt down a source for raw milk since we moved (the closest seller on www.realmilk.com is 15+ mi away so I was hoping to get up there and find someone closer) so I've just been getting regular milk from the grocery store. The girls took one drink and flat out REFUSE to drink it! Mommy, this is unhealthy milk, it tastes gross!!!

Which of course led to a discussion of WHY it's different. I didn't go into too much detail but told them that they cook this milk and take things out of it. To which L said "but they take out the healthy parts, why would they want to do that?" Good question, kiddo! I didn't bother going into the whole history of why they started pasteurizing and homogenizing milk, figured that might be abit confusing at this age LOL.

Needless to say, the girls have informed me that I NEED to find healthy milk again LOL.

Come Tour Our New House

I finally got pictures taken, woo-hoo! So, without further ado, come look around our new house :) It's still a work in progress, so don't mind the mess.

First things first, see my clothes line? I'm so excited about this!! LOVE the smell of fresh dried clothes :) Even the girls commented on how good they smell (w/o any prompting from me!)

Still messy, but here's our front porch & door. SIL did a great job of clearing out that front flowerbed this weekend. I want to get a bird feeder to put on top of the post (that "bell shaped thing" is to keep squirrels away from a bird feeder, so I might as well use it LOL).

The entry shelving. I LOVE this! Eventually I want to make another shelf to put in that top space. The pass through looks into the kitchen. From here you can go straight into the kitchen, left into the living room or right up the stairs.

This is where the wood cookstove would have been in the kitchen originally (and possibly a fireplace when the house was first built? I don't know if they would've done the mantel & such over the stove or if that's a sign that it was originally a fireplace?) The recent remodeling added (or replaced?) a desk area. I love the big long mantel above, eventually I want to make coordinating labels for all my dry goods to make that shelf look abit more uniform.

The rest of the kitchen (or most of it) standing against the sink/dishwasher area looking toward the front door next to the fridge is the doorway to the dining room.

One of my favorite parts of the kitchen, kind of a butlers pantry area (though mis-placed for a butler's pantry LOL) in the corner by the basement door. I love these glass doored shelves that go all the way to the ceiling. And underneath are nice big cabinets that will house my recycling among other things.

The dining room. Still has some extra stuff in it (that printer cart thing isn't likely to stay in there & I realized after the picture was taken that I hadn't moved the rags from the shelf, but it's a start.

The living room (standing in the doorway from the entry). Tables still need tablecloths (must still be packed somewhere LOL) and I want to get a slipcover for the less than gorgeous recliner. Deep windowsill is a great place for our laptops when not in use though LOL.

The rest of the living room. The recliner in the last picture is facing this TV to the left is doorway into dining room to the right is doorway to entry.

Now upstairs. At the top of the stairs is the hall (this is looking toward the stairs from our bedrooms) the whole left wall in this picture is one big closet (accessed by 3 doors). I put shelving in it & filled it w/ the girls school stuff & toys.

Next to the big closet is the door into the bathroom. The last tenants left the decor, which I'm more than happy to leave up, it's even "my" colors, although the navy hamper doesn't coordinate real well. Toilet is beyond the sink (left side of picture). There's also a door next to the tub that goes into the upstairs furnace room w/ additional storage space in the eves.

And finally, the girls' loft!! I realized it's hard to get a picture because it takes up the whole room, but you get the idea.

And the rest of their room. Door is closet. They're trilled to have Princess the horse in their room instead of in the basement like she was in our old house.

Our room (with L posing). Dad built our bed too, to sit over the bench that runs the length of the room. I have a bedskirt to hide the storage area underneath, just haven't put it on yet. Also want to buy (or have Dad make) some sort of shelf thing to sit on the bench on either side of the bed & act as a nightstand, for the moment we're using packing boxes LOL.

The rest of our room. Bed is to the left. My parents have a small dresser we'll put across from the closet door, not sure where the fan will end up (it's useless where it is, since the closet is between it & our bed, but it's out of the way anyway LOL). Haven't decided if the 2nd cedar chest (on the left in this picture) makes things too crowded or not, might move it to the other side of the bed, or might store it)

The play/school room is the least "done" room. The girls' computer is really the only thing that's in position. Dad will build us a table thing that sits over the monster printer (on the floor behind the computer) and the copy machine (that currently is still on the floor in the living room) will sit on top of it. Stuff on the bench is still waiting to find a room, as is the stuff in boxes on the left side of the picture.

And finally, the other corner of the play/school room. printer is to the right, door is to the left. Playstands are currently being used to stack boxes on. I'm still trying to decide if we want them in there at all or if we want to call it totally a school room and get rid of the playstands . . . we shall see . . .

And that ends our tour. I guess I didn't take pictures of the stairs (really should, they're impressively steep LOL) or the basement oh . . . I DO need to take pictures of the shelving in the stairs to the basement, but that will have to wait for another day.

Enjoying Nature

Here are some of the pictures I took last week as we explored our new home. These are in no particular order.

The woods.
The waterfall just up the path from our house.

Our house, from the creek. The slide/climbing thing has been moved and this weekend Dad put a clothes line across in front of the basement door (from the tree to the end of the porch), but you get the idea.

This pond is right across the driveway from our house. See the geese?

The field behind our house, look at all that lovely lack of people :)

A wanted me to take a picture of the leaf she found on our walk.

Standing at our front door looking out (actually it looks better now, one of the projects SIL helped with over the weekend was clearing all the weeds out of that flower bed so now you can actually see the clematis and other flowers that were there)

Standing on the porch and looking up the hill. The girls' slide/climbing thing is now up under that tree. The little white building keeps tempting me to get chickens LOL.

The girls walking across the bridge just down the hill from our house.

The creek that runs under the above bridge.

The baby geese, and their parents, in our yard.