:: Adventures in Daily Living :: : Quick Takes

3.10.2011

Quick Takes

and now Suzanne has something to say about books :: cookery :: school

Four baby chicks are peeping and fluttering about the bin in the mini-room. It's an odd little room that has been the bunny room, the cleaning supply room, even an office at some point. Right now it is the chickie room.
The bunnies turned 14 today. We moved them into a bin in my bedroom. They don't hop much anymore, so the bin isn't confining. I put a heating pad underneath the bin which they like very much. The bin is clear and sits in front of the big window in our room. This is a perfect spot for catching the late afternoon sun and for being snuggled in bed late at night and then popped back into the bin when I get sleepy.
I'm trying out FlyLady -- a housekeeping program -- as the clutter and dirt are driving me nuts.
Via FlyLady, I discovered Cozi - a really sweet little calendar app -- I've been using Google Cal, but I may switch over, as Cozi integrates with FlyLady and can just pull in all my pre-existing Google Cal stuff. Why am I telling you this? Dullsville.
I have, at the moment, only one class lined up for next quarter, instead of the two or three to which I have become accustomed. Plus my property tax bill is 20% higher than budgeted, so we have implemented Domestic Austerity Measures.
I'm worried that I won't be able to afford my puppy, who was due to join us on June 6th. This makes me very sad.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking

I've been baking awesome bread from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking
I got a thank you note from a student today. Made my day. Probably my week. Thanks CD!
Jamie and I have been enjoying watching Monk and Foyle's War.
I've implemented a sharp 8:30 bedtime for kids. I don't care what isn't done, at 8:31 I am off-duty. I love 8:30. I love my kids too, but they are very high maintenance.
I'm reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. I only get to read two hours a week, whilst I wait for my kids at piano lessons.
Chickadee got braces. She was so excited about it. That lasted about 10 minutes. Then they hurt. Poor dear.

1 much appreciated comments:

jenny said...: Catching up on your blog whilst looking for Gramma Nana's pie crust recipe -- I know it's here somewhere, probably around Thanksgiving. Sorry to hear about the braces sadness. :-( We feel the pain! Hopefully they feel better now and she got to drink lots of milkshakes. Although maybe those don't feel much better - I can't remember. It's just awful for a few days isn't it?

I'll be interested to know how it goes with the Fly Lady - I've been on a Tidification Campaign around here -- figured now it's March maybe it's time to come up with a cleaning schedule for the school year. (!) Especially now that it's mostly me doing the housework. I figure if I do 2 or 3 chores a day maybe I can avoid getting totally overwhelmed and still have a little time to do something I actually want to do. But on a blog recently I read how children need (according to this seasoned lady) Order and Wonder and that usually as homeschool moms or moms in general we tilt towards one side or the other. Finding the balance is what we should aim for. I liked that...because I do find that when my workspace is ordered (like it's currently not) my thoughts tend to be as well. Okay, that's a long comment! I owe you a message too.; March 14, 2011 at 1:33 AM

me! me! me!

Here I chatter about books, parenting, election 2008, recipes, teaching college writing, and the adventures of getting settled in with our two freshly (Fall 06) adopted school-age children from Russia. This blog is chapter two; chapter one is posted at Jamie & Suzanne go to Russia. I live in the City of Subdued Excitement, Cascadia, Land of the Free.

I am the wife of a man I call My Gift from a Generous God. I am mama to two lovely children, Dandy and Chickadee that became ours in September 2006 in a court-room in Siberia. I am the daughter of two people whom I love and admire. One of them, my dad, is a new (Dec 06) paraplegic.

In my previous life (B.C. - before children), I was a college English teacher, specializing in composition and ESL composition.

:: click here to read my 8 things meme

credits

This blog started life as hackosphere's neo and has been heavily tweaked and widgetized by Suzanne :: I got all the coding for the peek-a-boo posts over at hackosphere :: All my pretty little icons came from famfamfam :: The coding for the rotating banners came from Vince Liu :: The very cool tabbed sidebar widgets are thanks to the very cool hoctro :: The fun "Feeling Lucky?" toy -- which is currently disabled -- came from phydeaux3 (fido 3?) :: The pretty label cloud also came from phydeaux3 :: The elegant and easy to install related posts widget came from Jackbook :: I got all the social bookmarking icons nicely packaged for me at the aptly named Social Bookmarking Script Generator :: The 3 column footer came from Technodia :: The pretty sliding photo galleries are from CSSplay :: The recent comments widget is from Hackosphere::