It has been a long time since I have written here. But things have been rolling along just the same. We have been busy in school and will start Week 29 Monday! That means we only have six weeks of official school left with our last day being May 3rd (if we don't have to skip any days), just in time for spring.
I know! It is already spring on the calendar. But it's not spring here in North Dakota. If I could post pictures I would show you what it looks like. March has been the winteriest month we have had all winter. There is a lot of snow out there to melt. This is not atypical for our area. Last year our temperatures were in the 70's at this time. That was atypical. The forecast for this coming week shows highs in the 30's which will be warmer than what we experienced this past week.
In our construction work at home:
We finally got all our trim work and new railing put up in the front entry. It looks nice and feels good to have that done.
We got our 4th shower installed in our new bathroom. This one does not leak. Now we can put up the dry wall, texture, and paint (again!!) around the shower.
I think we will be done for awhile. Though we wanted to do the upstairs bathroom this summer, that might have to wait for another year as we used more funds than we wanted to use for the new bathroom because of the leaking shower.
This past week brought us some colds. Leah came down with it first, then me, and now Daniel. Leah is feeling much better. But Daniel and I are still sneezing, blowing our noses, and not feeling too great.
So Daniel and I didn't go to church yesterday. We were pretty sad about that. Daniel hates to miss potluck. I hate to miss everything else about going to church. Plus, instead of having our monthly afternoon program at church we had it at the nursing home. I was looking forward to that. But we didn't want to spread our germs to anyone and would have felt more miserable being away from home. In fact I don't think we feel any better today and won't be able to go to our annual Lord Supper service at church tonight.
A few weeks ago I ordered Trim Healthy Mama, a new cookbook based on the type of diet I have been trying to implement the last few years. Although I had read about this book for awhile in Above Rubies magazine I didn't realize it would take me even further in healthy eating. I thought it was just a diet book.
There is a lot of reading involved in the book. It's more than a cookbook. You can't just use the recipes and expect to be successful in loosing weight. I think you have to understand why you have to eat this way. It supports everything I have already learned about insulin resistance, bad carbs, and good fats. Now I actually have some delicious recipes I can make and eat and still feel good that I am eating right. If you or anyone in your family is overweight or you just want to learn how to eat a healthy diet I highly recommend the book. It is a way of eating that you can and should do even after you aren't overweight. It is doable for the long run.
In school we are up to the early 1800's in history. For read-a-loud time in the evenings we have been reading Bound for Oregon by Jean Van Leeuwen a book about a girl on the Oregon Trail. So far the children beg for more chapters than the one scheduled for every week day.
In our Bible memory we have learned James chapters 1-4 and recite them each week. The children completed another week in Boy Have I Got Problems which helped explain chapter five in a practical way for kids. So this coming week we will start learning chapter five. It has been a lot to learn. At first it seemed Leah learned them quicker. But Daniel has more retention. Leah needs more prompts. But I'm not too concerned about Leah retaining them as she will be going through this history cycle again in more depth when she is in 8th grade.
We still like our Botany book. This past week we studied about trees and how they grow and did some bark rubbings for their Botany notebooks.
Daniel finished Singapore Math 6B. My Father's World recommends starting Saxon Math in 7th grade. This past week I have been giving him the placement test to see whether he should use Saxon Math 76 or 87. When my older children were homeschooling it was recommended to do Saxon Math 76 then do Saxon Algebra 1/2. MFW recommends Saxon 87 then Algebra 1/2. But I will have to see how he scores on the next section of the test before I make my decision.
Leah has been diligently working in her Singapore Math 2A. This past week she started multiplication which wasn't hard for her since she has been singing her skip counting songs every day. She is almost done with her spelling book. She is excited to start Spelling Power that Daniel uses.
Daniel is wanting cream of wheat for breakfast so I had best go make it.
