Catching Up

Had planned to go visit my folks at the end of last week. Vehicle problems interfered. While the van was in the shop and I was grounded, we did some housecleaning. First time since we've lived here that the whole ground-floor has been cleaned all at the same time! That's an accomplishment!

When we rode our bikes to town to fetch back the van from the repair shop, Maggie went too and didn't get worn out and exhausted. Good for her!

Cucumbers seemed to be going wild, so I decided I'd make a small jar of gherkins, planning to intercept those veggies before we had more than I could handle. When we went out to pick 'em, though, there seemed to be far fewer cukes than last time I looked. Hmmm. There are currently three small jars of pickles beginning to lacto-ferment. While picking cukes, I noticed that the melon vines are finally starting to make tiny fruit instead of just producing flowers.

Philip picked plums off the plum tree today, but (like the cherry tree) it is overgrown and most of the good fruit is unreachable. These trees are going to require serious pruning if they're going to provide fruit for us instead of just for the birds.

Drove to Chicago yesterday to pick up some friends who were returning from a bus tour. The drive down was outright funny in how we kept driving through the same storm front. As soon as we drove through it, we'd head south, and it would pass over us again. And then we'd head east, and drive through it again. But the drive back allowed for a very nice chatty visit.

Sheets and towels on the clothesline today. Mmmm. They smell so good!

Gary has the steps done on the deck. Right now he can't go too much further until he gets the support-pylons in place for the "new" part of the deck (the part that used to be there before a "bite" was taken out when the pool was installed). He's still sanding boards, though, and doing some digging, and making some progress. It just keeps looking nicer all the time.

The mower broke a couple of weeks ago. The weather has been dry enough that the grass didn't need mowing. But the ragweed and the lamb's-quarter was starting to get mighty tall. The new lawnmower part arrived in Saturday's mail. One of the guys installed it. And Philip spent yesterday and today mowing. Now we look all neat and clean and orderly and proper again.

I really really would like to get the basement cleaned this week, and the rest of the unpacking (from moving) finished. But the weather has been SO utterly beautiful, I hate to hole-up in the basement. I should, though. It'll feel good and make a fresh before-school start to get the unpacking finally crossed off the to-do list.

The excitement for my week has been a conversation on my homeschool email list where I think I finally may have found the missing puzzle piece for something I've been wondering about for many years. I'd love to blog about it, but there's just too much spinning around in my mind about what classical education is, and what it isn't, and how it's sometimes misrepresented. Suffice it to say (for now) that it's very encouraging to me to realize what it is that's been troubling me for so long.