Just a couple of pictures from the yard. This one shows the beautiful colors of a small oak tree.
And this one shows a little autumn haze in the air and the long shadows at the end of the day.
A peaceful time in the garden. The weather has been, for the most part, beautiful. And the garden still holds plenty of delight.
~~Rhonda
The garden is dwindling, but fall is putting out some beautiful color and even some blossoms here and there. Here are two bouquets recently made for church that show the variety still available this time of year.
This basket bouquet is made with hydrangeas and sweet autumn clematis.
And this burst of fall color is made with Southern oak leaves, sumac, goldenrod, wild asters, and sedum.
I’m hoping the garden will provide bouquets through the end of October. Then we’ll put away the baskets and the crocks and the floral foam until spring. 🙂 ~~Rhonda
Last week I made Crock Pot Hoppin’ John Soup. It was easy to make and delicious. Though I did find the kale to be a little too much broccoli/cabbage flavor. And after cooking all day, it was the color of seaweed. Not very pretty. Maybe I’ll try spinach next time.
DD asked for “Golden Nectar Soup” this week, so that’s on the menu for Tuesday. It’s made from the recipe I have for Cheesy Potato Sausage Casserole, which I take to church dinners. There are a few guys at church who dubbed it “Golden Nectar” and the name stuck. 🙂
Monday
Turkey in the crock pot
Stuffing
Baked Potatoes
Steamed Sugar Snap Peapods
Homemade Rolls
Tuesday
Cheesy Potato and Sausage Soup otherwise known as “Golden Nectar” soup 🙂
Wednesday
Hamburgers / Homemade Buns
Veggies / Dip
Red Grapes
Thursday
Baked Ziti with Spinach and Sausage
Green Salad
Corn
Peas
Friday
Pizza
Saturday
Lunch ~ Ham/Turkey Sandwiches
Chips
Melon Slices
Supper ~ Chinese Carry Out
Sunday
Roast Chicken
Mashed Potatoes
Corn
Steamed Sugar Snap Peapods
Green Salad
You’ll find more menu and recipe ideas at Menu Plan Monday.
~~Rhonda
Today, DD spent a lot of time emptying her closet and her room in preparation for the removal of the old closet. DH began the demolition this evening. You can see the new blue color on the wall and the old brighter blue on the closet.
He says the walls are coming down easily.
Dad gives DD a few demo tips.
Having fun. 🙂 BTW, she wrote on the wall just before she began to demo it. Just in case you were wondering how long the marker had been on the wall…
Making good progress…
The new closet will fit behind the bedroom door, in an unused space. Putting it there (and removing the old closet) will make more floor space for DD. We probably won’t get the new closet installed before the holidays, but at least we’ve taken a step in the right direction.
~~Rhonda
We had a full weekend. On Saturday, we went to my niece’s house to pick up chickens for the freezer. If you have access to home-raised chickens, do try some. They are delicious, with a fresher, cleaner taste than grocery store chicken. Sunday, after church, the girls went to the zoo. So DH and I had leftovers for lunch. Later, we took a piece of furniture to our daughter. She needed something for the microwave to sit on in their small kitchen and we had a corner cabinet that worked well for her. It was a Craig’s List find. It had been stained a dark color. After sanding and painting, it looked great. I liked it in the corner of the guest room, but DD will get much more use and enjoyment out of it than we have, so I’m sending it to live at her house for now.
As you can see, Buttercup is still loving the homeschooled life. She finds the sun on the windowsill to be the perfect place to nap.
The week ahead is supposed to be cool. I love to make soups in the fall and winter season and DD asked for cheesy broccoli soup last week, so we’re starting the menu with that.
Monday
Cheesy Broccoli Soup
Tuesday
Roasted Chicken (Didn’t have this on Sunday as the girls decided to go to the zoo in the afternoon.)
Steamed Asparagus
Corn
Green Salad
Wednesday
Crockpot Hoppin’ John Soup
Thursday
BBQ Pork Steaks in the Oven
Baked Potatoes with rosemary
Steamed Asparagus
Corn on the Cob
Tomato and Cuke slices
Friday
Chicken and Noodles
Cornbread
Saturday
Lunch ~ Fridge Food
Supper ~ Pizza
Sunday
Turkey in the crock pot
Mashed Potatoes
Stuffing
Corn
Steamed Green Beans
You’ll find more menu and recipe ideas at Menu Plan Monday.
~~Rhonda
This morning, DD had a tiny amount of water in a little bowl so she could wet a kleenex for wiping clean her wet erasable map. Buttercup thought that teeny bit of water must be there for her to enjoy.
Then she licked her chops and looked around as if to say, “Have anything else you think I might enjoy?”
The activity book that accompanies DD’s history textbook gave some recipes for Native American foods that were made during the era the Pilgrims migrated to North America. Today, DD made this delicious cornbread using one of those recipes. A combination history and home ec lesson. And, no, Buttercup didn’t get any cornbread. 🙂
~~Rhonda
Our black swallowtail chrysalises continue to open. The fourth butterfly was a female. They have more blue than the males. She was eager to be off and flew out of DD’s hands onto the window sill. After I took the picture, DD opened the window and the butterfly flew out and up into the big oak behind the house.
We’re in our fifth week of homeschool. The schedule is still an issue for me. I don’t have the time I had before to do consistently the things like bake the bread, make a big meal, try new recipes. By the time we are done with school, I am doing well to get some kind of meal on the table. So I continue to keep the menu simple, with tried and true recipes. I’m beginning to freak out a little about Christmas…I don’t know how I’ll be able to manage all the baking and decorating alongside homeschooling. We do plan to set up the first tree tomorrow (if you are thinking “that’s *early*!!”, then you don’t know how much Christmas decorating we do!). I doubt we get it decorated, but we’ll get it ready…clean the guest room thoroughly, prepare the stand, check the lights (I know there is at least one string with a problem), assemble the tree, etc. Maybe even put the ornaments at the top where the tree can’t be reached without a ladder. A good job for DH. I’ll let you know how that goes…there will definitely be some kind of schedule shuffling going on to get the Christmas decorating done this year, I am sure. Maybe next year, we’ll have a better handle on homeschooling, so it won’t be the big issue I anticipate it will be this year.
In the meantime, here’s the menu for this week.
Monday
Roast Chicken
Peas
Corn
Tuesday
Ham / Turkey / Cheese deli style sandwiches
Pretzels
Melon
Wednesday
Pizza
Thursday
Baked Penne Pasta with Chicken
Green Salad
Corn / Peas
Friday
Spaghetti / Homemade Sauce
Garlic Bread
Steamed Sugar Snap Peas
Cuke and Tomato slices
Saturday
Lunch ~ Fridge Food
Supper ~ Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry
Sunday
Roast Chicken (The fam loves this so much, we’re having it again, the same week, by request!)
Mashed Potatoes
Steamed Asparagus
Corn on the Cob
Cornbread Muffins
You’ll find more menu and recipe ideas at Menu Plan Monday.
~~Rhonda
DD made a science timeline to use for recording scientists and historical facts, which I hope will help her visualize where these things fall in the course of history. Visualizing it should also help her see how scientific study advanced as time progressed. As we continue through the science textbook, she can add more and more information to this timeline.
I thought a folding timeline would work well because we don’t have wall space for displaying much in the current classroom. Hoping to find something to give me ideas, I googled < folding timeline> and found the Ginger-snap-shots blog, where Ginger has a tutorial to show how to tape a folding timeline so it folds easily. That helped a great deal! Thanks, Ginger!
In the comments to Ginger’s blog post, Lisa suggested storing the timeline in a three ring binder, which gave me the inspiration for a neat way to accomplish that. The timeline is printed on lightweight cardstock that goes through my printer without difficulty. To make the timeline easy to store in a three ring binder, I punched holes in another piece of cardstock and adhered that to the back of the first page of the timeline, offsetting it enough to expose the holes. Now it can be stored while we don’t need it and it can be brought out for adding more information to it, as needed. We can also choose to display it on a wall if we ever have that much room!
So my thanks goes out to Ginger and Lisa, both of whom helped with this project, and to DD who did such a neat and tidy job on her timeline. 🙂
If you’re wondering how we printed and spaced the timeline, read on. I used Print Shop to “draw” the lines. Each page is divided into ten main sections, with smaller dividers between each of those. The line is spaced about 1/3 of the way down the horizontal page so DD can write names above the line and their contributions below the line. DD used colored markers to write each one in a different color and drew a line from the name to the info, so it works pretty well. If I were doing it over, I might opt for writing all the info together, but we’ll do it this way for this year. I think there are pros and cons for each way. I do like the way this one shows the scientific progress across the bottom, going from one discovery to the next.
I put 1000 BC to 0 on one page and 0 to 1000 AD on another. From 1000 AD through 1700 AD, I put 200 years on each page. The 1700s and 1800s each have their own page and the 1900s are on two pages. Deciding how many years to put on each page was rather arbitrary, but I didn’t want stacks and stacks of pages with little or no information, so I condensed the early centuries to save paper. We’ll see how it fits as we progress through the year.
~~Rhonda
It’s that time of year…time to start something new…things are changing…it’s autumn and the beginning of a new school year…
Some things don’t change, however. Our need for meaningful prayer, for instance. I found a little book published in 1916, called God’s Minute: A Book of 365 Daily Prayers Sixty Seconds Long for Home Worship. The prayers are written by 365 clergymen and laymen. The prayers are short, but inspiring. I’ve been using them during the prayer and Bible time that opens our school day, adding our personal prayers and prayer for a particular missionary each day. For my daughter’s sake, I read the Thee/Thou as You. Following is today’s prayer.
September Sixteenth
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving. Ps. 95:2
O Lord God, our Father, Saviour and Guide, by Whose gracious and bountiful providence we have been nourished and sustained until this hour, and in Whose redemptive, all-embracing love we greatly rejoice, accept we beseech Thee, the sincere and profound gratitude of our hearts for Thine unfailing mercy and goodness. Pardon, we implore Thee, all our failings, faults and follies. By the Spirit dwelling with us, sweeten our dispositions and chasten all our appetites and desires. Sanctify our home, light it with the lamp of Thy presence continually, and warm it with the fire of Thy love.
Make Thy way plain before our eyes, and lead us onward and upward. Sanctify unto us all our trials and difficulties. Help us over the hard places, and in the smooth places suffer us not to forget our constant need of Thee. Quicken and intensify our love to Thee, and help us to be compassionate and generous in all our dealings with our fellow-men. Enable us to do justly and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with Thee. May we not be overcome of evil, but may we overcome evil with good.
O let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish Thou the righteous. And may the whole earth be filled with Thy glory! Amen.
~~Rhonda