Around Here Week 6: 02/08-14

 A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this moment. 

photo cred: Uncle Kevin

photo cred: Kristi P

photo cred: Michael O'Ship

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 7+ hours (of 1000)
Some of the snow has melted and the chickens were overjoyed to get outside and dig around. The boys and I walked back in the woods, but the snow was still pretty high and filled up all our boots. We tried to walk lightly so that we could stay on top of the snow and then laughed when we inevitably fell down through up to our knees. It was a laborious hike back to the house but we mostly laughed the whole way. 

Reading This Tender Land by William Ken Krueger. I am really loving it and have been emotionally effected by it multiple times already. 

Superbowl Sunday! Yay to the Seahawks! We were rooting for them because they have cool jerseys and a female owner and also they haven't won as many Superbowls already as the Patriots (haha, underdog fan always). But I do like little Drakey Maye (who I call Reedy because he looks just like one of Grey's best friends Reed!) The halftime show by Bad Bunny was incredible and had me smiling ear to ear trying to catch all the symbolism, Hispanic heritage, latino celeb cameos, and sing along. Gah, the cultura and the joy and the unity! When he said, God Bless America and listed all the North, Central, South, and Latin American countries - I almost cried. I said aloud - "my students have a geography test this week, I hope they are hearing this!" Bravo Benito! 

House Projects underway this week 

• Painting the boys' room & Grey's room before the new carpet comes
• Building the wall to separate the living room and the girls' new room downstairs
• Prepping the upstairs for carpeting (moving everything out of closets, off floors, moving furniture around to accommodate the carpet workers)
• Hanging new curtains up in the boys' and the girls' rooms
• Adding lamps to the living room and the kitchen (yay!)
• Prepping the new divider wall in the living room (paint  for the background of the wood side & mud for dry wall on the girls' side)

New Carpet!! The carpet guys were here two days this week and got our entire upstairs and our steps finished. Gosh - what a difference new carpeting makes! It has been a project that has needed done for a long time and Gigi had always had it on the top of her list of things she was excited to see us update. She even set aside money for us to do it when the time was right. I know she is smiling so big to see that project finally knocked off the list! Pap and Brandon were at the house for both days to help move furniture and then also work on the girls' new room downstairs. So it was a full week of mayhem with everything everywhere, dust, nails, drills, cords, shop vac...all the things. It was an upside down week but very happy to have it be real progress in a direction that better works for our family! 

School Projects underway this week: 

• Violet finished her art submission: inspired by the book The Mitten. It was a multimedia piece including sewn felt and a watercolor background and mitten. 
• The four littlest kids colored, addressed, and assembled their valentines to share at their valentine parties in school 

Math24 practice for Violet. She was competing to make the team this week. Just like our girl Vi, working towards adding another team/club to her long list of activities! 

Someone Special Dance with Violet and Rusty at the elementary school. It was Western themed, so we donned some cowboy hats, fringe, and plaid to fit the vibe. The PTA did a wonderful job planning and decorating (bravo to our friend, Onara who led the committee!) and there was even a line dancing group there that taught us a line dance! Violet and I loved it! 

Smiling about the 'mailbox' in my classroom that Olive has with two of my sophomore students. They make each other pictures and leave them in the mailbox to surprise each other. Thank you Emilia and Abby for being so sweet to Livy - she loves checking the mailbox every afternoon! 

Celebrating Valentines at home with each other. Brandon got all the girls flowers and I made delicious food for all the fellas (heart shaped pizza, tandycake, and peanut butter chocolate balls!) Plenty of hugs, kisses, and snuggles to go around! It was a perfect valentines. 

Time with family and friends: Gemma, Violet, Rusty, Reddy, and Olive all got to hang out at Uch & Kevin's house with the nephews for a giant playdate/babysitting gig (hahah, good job Gem and Violet!) Grey took a day trip to the Harrisburg Outdoor Show with Uncle Kevin and the three nephews. Grey loved it so much and even won a walleye fishing trip in Ohio (thank you Uncle Drip - best day!) and then got plenty of time at the Valentine's house - first for the Superbowl and then again for a sleepover the next weekend. 

Finding a new favorite quote and mantra - Bees don't waste time trying to convince flies that flowers taste better than shit. I can do my best to live in my life in a good and decent way and be an example to others. I can do everything I am able to do to try to steer this little family and this little corner of the world towards the flowers. I can be an example of what life can look like when you choose flowers (even when it's harder, even if it's less convenient and plentiful, even when they're hidden and you really have to seek them out). But some people are just satisfied with garbage.  

Teaching and showing Pachamama in the elementary school (kids are loving it!) Expo finished up their geography unit and too their map test. Spanish 1 started the verb conjugation unit with regular AR/ER/IR verbs. I always love this part of the year because you can really see the lightbulbs go off in their minds recognizing the patterns they've seen all year up until this point. One of my students literally said, "Oh wait, Duolingo makes so much more sense now!" Spanish 2 took their final Ekeko quiz and speaking presentation. Then they started reviewing verb conjugations as we take a dive into stem-changing verbs and direct object pronouns. I got the special honor of attending the Girls' Varsity basketball game for the Cheerleaders' teacher appreciation night as I was selected by my student, Elisa. She is a foreign exchange student from Italy and she is in my Spanish 2 class. She is excellent (trilingual!) and so very sweet. What an honor to be chosen by her (proud of you Elisa!) 

Sporting with one basketball game and one indoor Sparks soccer practice for Violet. Gemma stood by her teammates for the last two Jr high basketball games (didn't play because of her sprained ankle - so bummed!) and was recognized at the Varsity girls game with the rest of the jr high basketball teams. Gem's ankle did feel good enough though by the weekend to attend the softball open gym (thank goodness it is on the mend!) Grey had one baseball pitching, a baseball open gym, four basketball practices, and one basketball game. Brandon attended the Ken Lantzy football coaches' meeting this week too (we had four of our football players selected to play in the game this summer! Congrats to DJ, Brennan, Liam, and Barty!) 

Making candied kielbasa, crack chicken sammies, take out pizza, sloppy joes with shells&cheese, sheet pan chicken fajitas, sheet pan kielbasa/ veggies/ and tortellini, homemade heart shaped pizza (happy Valentines day!) and buffalo chicken dip. We ordered in wings and pizza for the Superbowl (we tried a new local place - That Dam Bar, we liked it!) For Superbowl desserts, Gemma made her cinnamon pretzel bites including letters to spell out Bad Bunny. I made strawberry pretzel cheesecake, pretzel/ Hershey kiss/ m&m bites in the colors of the Seahawks and Patriots, and Tres Leches. I made my own whip cream and I am astonished that it is that easy...like why have I been buying cool whip? I had Reddy taste test it and he said, "It's good! Actually, maybe it's too good!" For Valentines day desserts, I made Tandy Kake and chocolate covered PB balls!

Around Here Week 5: 02/01-07

 A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this moment. 

photo cred: Michael O'Ship

photo cred: Michael O'Ship

photo cred: Michael O'Ship

photo cred: Michael O'Ship

selfie cred: Reddy

photo cred: Peyton L

photo cred: CTHS

selfie cred: Uch

photo cred: Uch

photo cred: Uch

Intentional Outdoor Hours: 5+ hours (of 1000)
We got another tree dropped off this week and it was a big one from a local wedding venue. The goats were thrilled and it was perfect timing with all these freezing temps and so much snow! Thank you to The Willow for the giant goatie snack! On Saturday, we added more hay and wood chips to the goat houses and chicken coop to keep everyone nice and cozy as the temps continue to stay in the freezing levels. Ughhh, I know it's just the start of February, but winter - can you please move along (Groundhog Phil said No on Groundhog's day. 6 more weeks of winter, unfortunately!) 

Reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami and This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger both of which are books for my Lit Ladies book club. I am just not getting into The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, so I'm skipping it for now and jumping into This Tender Land in hopes that I can get one of the finished before our next book club meeting! 

Projects all around! Grey had to do a Vietnam project (he chose to create and write about an example of a care package that a soldier would have received during that time) It was actually so interesting to learn alongside him. Rusty had a Valentines' card box to create. He picked out the design of a mailed package that looks like a dinosaur eye is peaking out of. We printed out mail stickers (like: Heavy: lift with care and Warning: Live Reptiles) and then ripped the brown wrapping paper so the giant dino eye was peeking through. Violet is working on her art submission by sewing little felt creatures and then she plans to crochet a white mitten that they can all fit inside and putting them all within a watercolor background (sheesh!). All inspired by one of our favorite winter books: The Mitten by Jan Bret. I updated our fridge calendar for the new month of February and I also submitted the order for the 5th grade promotion party tshirts after the PTA meeting. 

Proud of Reddy who won the Student of the Week award and got a Sammy Eagle. He has been holding and sleeping with that little eagle stuffy ever since. He and Olive both got their report cards this week and they are doing so well and school and learning so much. Impossible that my two littlest babies are growing up so much - how do mommas ever not baby the youngest ones? yikes. So very proud (and also a little heartached about the growing up). 

Laughing about the two very different personalities of our kitties. Blazey is completely domesticated and loves to be in the house lounging or snuggled up with one of his people. He goes outside for a little and then will wait by a door to be let back in. Meanwhile, Nova would prefer to be 95% in the wilderness. Wants some food every few days, but would rather hunt and run all over the mountainside living that feral life. He was gone for 2 days this week in our extreme cold warnings (wind chill -25!!) and I was sick with worry - didn't sleep properly for two days. I kept going down to the doors to check for fresh cat prints outside, praying we wouldn't see his frozen body somewhere in the yard. At 4a going on day3 of him missing, I thought I could see fresh cat prints, so I opened the back door and whispered 'Nova' and he comes bounding happily around the corner without a care in the world. Are you kidding me?! 

Thankful for a mostly quiet Saturday morning as Uch and Kevin took four of our kids to the trampoline park! Grey, Rusty, Reddy, and Olive all spent the afternoon bouncing with their cousins. Thank you Uch and Uncle Drip, best day! 

Major rearrangement happening! We moved the girls' bedroom furniture to one part of the living room because we really need another bedroom. Four kids (ages 11-4) in a double bunked room was just not cutting it anymore. So the girls are moving to the living room and Brandon and Pappy are building a semi-permanent (approx 12 years temporary, LOL) wall to put up to give them their own space. We pushed the move up to now because we got our new carpet install scheduled for next week and since we'd have to move furniture anyway - we might as well just really move it! That space in the living room was really not being used in a functional way anyway - just a toy dump zone and gave a lot of space for the kids to run and play. It will be a big change for them to not be able to play indoor baseball (LOL) or set up winter four square in that space (Grey is probably our worst at change and he was a little mopey on Saturday because it is hard for him to get used to things not being the way they've always been). But I feel a lot better about having an extra bedroom for now in this phase of our life and we will figure it out! 

Time with family and friends Olive, Reddy, and Rust got an evening with Abba and Chum so that they didn't have to trek all the way out to Grey's basketball game in River Valley (thank you!) Rusty got off the bus at Chum and Abba's once this week and had a sled riding party at school with the third grade classes (thank you 3rd grade teachers - you are amazing!!) Violet spent a day at Evaley's house, sewing class with Kuma, a birthday party for Jacey, and sleepover at Bristol's house.  I got to visit for a minute with my friend Renee at her bookstore The Laurel & Leaf when I picked up my book order and I got plenty of time with Peyton (one of Gemma's besties) at all the basketball games (love you Peytie!) 

What could possibly be done or said by this administration that would be too awful for it's base? There is no end to the hypocrisy and crudeness and indecency and immorality. The headlines of the next terrible thing come at us so fast and it appears to have liquified backbones and muddied moral consciousness. It will be studied in the history books and I know with absolute certainty that our great grandchildren will look back at this time horrified and bewildered. When you know better, you do better - so find your spine. 

Teaching my elementary students in my new room which requires some practice in logistics and expectations. Then we started watching Pachamama since we learned about Bolivia. My Expo students began their geography unit. Spanish 1 watched Ferdinand this week and finally finished their bullfighting unit (extra long because of all the FID days last week). Spanish 2 finished the Ekeko novel this week, also extended due to FID last week. We are all just trying to get through these dark, cold, and bitter months of the school year! God bless Loni who organized the Souper Bowl potluck this week where everyone brought soups, desserts, and sides to share for lunch all week (xxox - love you community builder and friend!) and Miss Heather who stops by my room for lunch and chatting during the week. And Miss Jenn from the elementary school who pulled some strings and got me a proper desk in my new room (you are amazing!) I find I can get through these long months a little easier when I recognize all little kindnesses that find their way to me from good people. 

Sporting as Violet had one Sparks indoor soccer practice and one basketball game. Gemma had two basketball practices and two basketball games. She twisted her ankle in the game on Friday and will probably be out for a few days as it is very painful and can't hold much pressure. (Ms Jenilee our trainer is incredible! we appreciate you!!) She did not play in her Gators indoor soccer game on Saturday because of her ankle, but she went in support of her team. Grey had one baseball open gym, three basketball practices, and two basketball games. Brandon had the SAFCA dinner and was proud to be there to support our two football players, Brennan and Liam who were honored as offensive and defensive players of the year with the Southern Alleghenies Football Coaches Association. 

Making Salisbury meatballs over mashed potatoes, crockpot meat spaghetti, copycat Chick-fi-la mini sammies, Korean beef (with brisket - not our favorite, we like ground beef better for this recipe), chili, teriyaki chicken with noodles and broccoli, baked Hawaiian sammies, and take out pizza.  For breakfast I made cinnamon rolls and boiled icing from scratch and Olive helped me make some brownies for dessert.