Another Great Week

I've had a lot to say this week and absolutely no time to write it all down and here we are on the weekend and I've forgotten most of it. It is what it is in our busy family/homeschooling life...and what another great week it was! 

The highlight was going down to the Blue Ridge Parkway with the family, husband included, and my friend Mandy came too with her kids and it was just beautiful. God's green earth is wondrous and if this is how amazing little old Virginia is, I cannot even begin to comprehend what the glories of heaven will hold.

We spent over two hours swimming, nature drawing, frolicking and chatting. Oh, and eating our packed lunches and enjoying the amazing weather. My husband took this picture of me nature journaling as he was sitting up there on that rock. 

There were some bees and no bathrooms but we all survived and had a wonderful time. 

We are mid-week in school. Last last week I didn't get a full week done so...instead of being even, we have three weeks, 2 days left until summer break. I'm beyond excited to attempt to get a tan, spend hours at the pool, and find the best vegan ice cream. Alpha Gal makes things interesting. 

I don't like things being uneven in the weeks. I like a week to be a week but everyone gets off course and I plan to catch up this coming Monday and do a bit of extra readings so that come next monday we will only have 2 weeks left. Ahhh!! Two weeks!! 

Last week we trialed a new ballet gym for Becky and she is over the moon excited to start ballet this fall if we manage to get a spot. Apparently the spots are competitive. Reuben wants to do some martial arts, so this Monday we will trial a martial arts class and see if he likes it. I hope I can make it to all these things. Esther is almost three--can we can do evenings outings now? When she was 1, we could not. When she was 2...no not really. 3? I am hopeful for. And regardless, it is time. I supposed I am about to find out just how much I can do...the kids really need some activity structure again. I really think it will do them, and maybe me, some good. 

Anyway, I feel like a caterpillar just about to turn into a butterfly after that long postpartum and my serious health issues...many of my health issues were resolved with removing alpha gal foods. I am starting to hope...can I have a life again? What can that look like? Can I do more things? It's exciting and also scary. Yesterday my husband looked at me and said...hey we should have another baby! And I thought he was crazy but today I was like, maybe. Maybe we could try.

Here are our groceries for the week. I made it in budget! So excited. Our weekly grocery budget is $250 and this cart was $244.95. I felt really proud of myself. As you can see, I bought a lot of ice cream but...there are only four ice creams in each box and so each box lasts one day. This is three days worth of ice cream and we won't have any left over next week. Yum.

I plan to make these meals for lunch and dinner this week: sourdough pizza, egg salad wraps, turkey sandwiches, salads with mac and cheese, spaghetti, tuna, soup, something with potatoes because I bought too many, and biscuits and gravy.  If you have an idea about the potatoes, please leave it below. I have two freezer meals to use up from my deep stash that I'm trying to get through and replace with alpha gal safe ones...so I will eat something different and/or leftovers that night. 

Breakfast ideas: pancakes, muffins, french toast, oatmeal, bagels, smoothies, and I really want to try to make these pop tarts if I am feeling adventurous. 

The Weekend was Great

It's so nice when weekends are relaxing. Sometimes they are stressful and I feel yards behind on Sunday right before the week begins again...but this weekend was great. We got a lot done and we rested a lot and the general mood of our house was calm and peaceful. It helped that my husband had this Friday off so we had a three day weekend and it was perfection. On Friday we did our grocery shopping and went out to ice cream. On Saturday we went to the local farmers market and the kids had Barton lesson and we all did a bunch of chores. I got all the laundry done! Sunday was church. 

I also got to tie dye some pieces I have been meaning to dye for a month or two. First I dyed a linen skirt and shirt a blue color. It turned out great. What was once a cream skirt and a light blue top that washed me out now are the perfect two piece set. I wore them to church today and felt fabulous. Becky even let me borrow her necklace which went perfectly with my outfit.

Then I mixed two dyes--a brown and a maroon--in an attempt to make a rust color. It didn't work, it made more of a purple (the pictures on my computer don't show the color correctly) but that's okay. I dyed two dresses, one cotton and one linen that I didn't like the original color of and now I have two amazing new outfits to wear next week, all for the price of a bottle of dye and some elbow grease. 

The kids each picked something to dye as well, even my husband joined in. We plan to tie dye more in the future it was so much fun. I'll take a picture of what the kids made soon and try to post it!

Another fun thing we did was, after decorating our new nature notebooks, we each drew our dream house. It was such a fun drawing activity and I loved to see what the kids put in their houses.

Here we have everyone's dream house. I totally googled a picture of a hobbit house to copy the layout of when I was drawing mine...

All in all it was such a good weekend and I'm ready for the full week of school we have planned and for all the hot weather. We have a day forecast for 87f next week...that's going to be crazy. And I have plants to plant. I may just give them to a friend...I don't know if I am up for a garden this year. 

I really need to make going outside a priority...but I keep getting caught up on alpha gal meal prep, house cleaning, homeschooling and being a potato while I drink tea that often the garden is the last thing on my mind!

Things That Happened Today

I don't know why today was so hard, but it was! I think it might be because I wanted to sleep in, but couldn't, because allergies. Or it could be that Becky cut her hand last night on a light bulb...a lamp fell over and broke in her room and instead of coming to get her parents she tried to clean it up herself and sliced her thumb! Poor kid. She's fine, it wasn't bad. I'm still a little stressed over it. I think she is too, perhaps we both need a dose of aconite. Last night, daddy cleaned her up while I double-checked her room, removed the lamp, swept, and changed Esther's sheets. Esther dumped her entire water on her bed while mommy and daddy were both distracted.

Oh, also we over-drafted our bank account today. Azure charged me twice! I had to call and they are issuing a refund for the second charge. I pulled money out of savings to fix the overdraft but I had a full list of things I wanted to do today and now no money to do them with. We needed bandaids desperately. You never realize you are out until someone gets hurt. We had two in our house when Becky sliced her finger. We now have one. I also need more fermented cod liver oil, new deodorant...and a lady at our local homeopathy store told me about this Alpha Gal remedy that can cure alpha gal in one month, taken twice a day. I am so excited to try it! Anyway, I just decided to use money from the savings account to do all these things and pay it back when the refund comes in...which azure says could take 5-7 business days. 

The older two kids loved Man in Black last night. I was watching it a little with them and was like, HEY it's the TWIN TOWERS! Wow. The kids did not understand. Also, that really made me understand how old this movie was. 

Esther watched Ponyo upstairs on my computer because Man in Black was too scary for her. I mean, she's two. Man in Black is not for toddlers, it has a rating of PG-13.

The girls are loving their tent fort. Reuben's tent broke. I mean, it is 10 years old. We might buy another one, I haven't decided yet. He will just have to share with his sisters unless we can fix the tension rod...the string broke in it. 

Anyway, I ran my errands and said a prayer and now am going to try to tackle all the chores and stay off the internet. I want to read a book to my kids in my peaceful house and enjoy the 70 degree weather together. God is good and I'm so grateful for the life I get to live with my kids...

My husband is going to do the budget this Friday! I'm excited and nervous! He hates budgeting and I love that he's showing interest. But I also don't know what kind of $$ he is going to allocate to groceries... but it's a good move for better communication and for our marriage. Here is to working together, being united, and saving money. 

I'm excited about our new nature journals that I ordered a few days ago (before all the financial issues) because I loveeee new notebooks and we have plans to nature draw all summer. Also, I got some that can be personalized with stickers. And I also love stickers. 

I defiantly love homeschooling more than my children do, sometimes. But someone has to have fun, right?