Hosted by Biblical Womanhood

Don’t you just hate it when you have a little bit of dough left after you’ve made a pie, or cookies, or biscuits? I don’t like to throw it away… but sometimes I just don’t know what to do with it!

I was making Baking Powder Biscuits the other day, and as I put the last biscuit on the tray I looked at the leftover dough. Now I could have made about three more biscuits from it, but I didn’t want to just have a tray with three biscuits on it, and my oven doesn’t take more than one tray at a time.

So I decided to make two small pizza bases from the leftover dough and freeze them for later use.

I wrapped each “pizza base” in plastic wrap and put them in the freezer. One day when I want a quick and easy lunch, I can take them out, put some tomatoes and cheese on them, and pop them in the oven! Yum!

Today was one of those days…. you know, one of the ones that you look around and you wonder to yourself - how on earth am I supposed to do all of this? “All of this” meaning, be a keeper of the home (and a joyful one at that!), homeschool and fit in some time for sewing!

Needless to say, no sewing got done today. A reasonable amount of schoolwork was done, and a small amount of housework. Dinner was cooked as per plan in Monday Meanderings, enough for tomorrow night as well. So I guess I did achieve something today…..

But, you know how it is. I still didn’t feel like I got enough done! For now I need to remember what my grandmother used to say:

“Tomorrow is another day…”

Hosted by Tiany

How I went last week:

Well, I got all my cleaning and housework done ready for the inspection. School flowed smoothly too, so that was good. I didn’t do any Bible Study and the Menu Plan was slightly different! Like one night we had sausages in bread instead of with mash. Still, it was not too bad!

Here are my meanderings for this week:

 

1. Bibles Study/Devotions

Proverbs 31 again

 

2. Must Do

 

3. Zone

Kitchen - I haven’t worked out my zones yet, so I will start on that next week, which is the first week of the month. This week I’d like to tidy and organize my pantry. I have some bulk items that I need to decant and tidy up as well.

4. Train Them Up

We made a good start to the Middle Ages! Daniel made a timeline for us, and now we need to find somewhere to hang it where it won’t damage the wall in our rental house. I’ll put up a picture when it is up. I also want each of us to start our own book of the centuries… more on that later in the week too.

On Friday we went to the library and I found a lot of books on the Middle Ages. They actually had a display up, with a castle made by one of the primary schools! I was allowed to take a few books from the display, which was nice and easy! So we have enough reading material for this week.

My plan for this week is to do a lot of reading so that we get a good overall picture of the time period. Then I will ask each of the children to go into more depth on a subject of their choice. The timeline is important in gaining the big picture before going into the details.

5. Menu Planning

 

Hosted by Orgjunkie

Monday

Leftover Roast Pork with mashed potatoes, veggies and applesauce

Tuesday

Pasta Casserole from the freezer

Wednesday

Roasted Chicken pieces with potatoes and salad/veggies

Thursday

Leftovers

Friday

“Fast Food” – homemade pizza or something like that

That’s it for this week! Hope we all have a great week!

to Tiany and all the sponsors of the Homeschool Open House 2007! It was so much fun! I haven’t quite made it to everyone’s house yet, so I am glad that Tiany is keeping the links up permanently. Every now and then I will grab a cuppa, have a break and visit someone else’s home….

I was one of the first 100 on the list, so I got to sign up for 3 free issues of the Homeschooling Today Magazine! I hope they will be able to send it to Australia because I would love to see a *real* homeschooling magazine, LOL! It will probably tempt me to get a subscription… So, thank you to Homeschooling Today Magazine for being so generous to us!

Also a big thank you to Crystal from Biblical Womanhood for donating her latest ebook to ALL of us who participated! I’ve had a quick look through it and it looks fantastic. Thanks Crystal!

Don’t forget my ebook with simple notebooking pages for use in your homeschool. It is free to EVERYONE, not just those who participated in the Open House, so tell your friends

Go HERE to download it!

Tiany is going to have a Christmas Open House later on this year, so make sure you check back at her site from time to time. I’m sure it is going to be great fun!

 

Hosted by Biblical Womanhood

I got two pairs of old jeans given to me by a friend. I had thought of making them into jeans skirts, but I decided that a mat for the kitchen was more urgent… so, I started cutting….It went from this:

To this:

To this:

What I did, was basically cut as many 6″ squares from the old jeans as I could. I was able to cut higher on the front of the jeans than on the backs because of the pockets. (AFTER I threw the scraps away I found a good idea for using jeans pockets…. bother!) Then I got some fabric that I had bought a while ago for a little over a dollar per meter and which I have a LOT of, and cut 6″ squares of that as well. I cut 5″ square of batting (again, cut your batting into squares or rectangles as you go, then you have a pile when you need them), and got a nice little pile:

I then sandwiched the layers together and quilted the blocks with a simple line of stitches from corner to corner. One day I will do a tutorial on this so it is a bit clearer. It is a great beginners project. I sewed all the squares together leaving the raw edges out, snipped the raw edges and put it through the wash. You can see how nicely the raw edges have frayed in the picture of it hanging out on the line.

Now it is in its rightful spot under the sink, catching spills and keeping our feet warm! All from a few scraps of jeans and fabric…

to get organized……. I think we only have one more box to unpack – and that is the one with all the pictures that need to be hung on the walls. With the rental inspection happening today, I was able to clear some more piles of *stuff* that has been lying around. The inspection went well, by the way. Everything was clean and tidy. The last remaining piles that need to be sorted were nice neat piles. I am getting there… slowly.

I asked for and received permission to plant a few garden beds. I want to plant some veggies. The agent said she would get someone in to sort out kill the weeds that are trying to pass as our front lawn. They were here instead of grass when we moved in, and we have just been mowing them…. If she gets that sorted out, it will look a bit nicer in the front too.

Elizabeth asked if we could have a cat…… and the kind lady said she would ask the owner and let us know! We’ll see…..

Anyway, back to getting organized. I have begun to notice that my memory has been getting worse lately. Ok, I know I am getting older, but I haven’t quite reached 40, so my memory shouldn’t be that bad….! As I thought about it (and tried not to worry about it), I realized that I just have way too many things on my mind right now, and I need to get them down on paper. Daily things like paying bills, and calling people…. I keep forgetting. Basically, I need to get my diary going again, or as Flylady calls it, my control journal.

I can’t possibly remember everything that I need to be doing at the moment. I’m trying to get the house in order, be frugal, cook from scratch, learn all I can about the Middle Ages (I know, the kids are supposed to, but it is way too interesting just to leave it to them!), do Bible study, be a good wife, keep the house clean… ah, you know how the list goes on, because you have a very similar one to me! We all have so much that we want to do, and it doesn’t all fit in our heads. Not in mine at least!

Over the weekend I am hoping to get my diary set up again. I have most of the pages and the binder – I just need to take the time to get it organized. I need to print out my routines, my favorite recipes, start a price book, track my groceries, track school, etc, etc, etc. I will do it slowly, like I am doing with my house. But I need to do it if I am going to stay sane!!!

Bedtime now, and a new day tomorrow. I will start writing down the things that are in my head and that need to go in my diary. I will make a start, because it is time…..

As I have mentioned before, we started on Latin this year. For some strange reason I have always wanted to learn Latin! Must be the romantic in me…. oh, and yes, I am a linguist… that might explain some of it. Anyway, when we had our first lesson a few weeks ago, I was trying to explain to the children why we were going to learn Latin - a dead language. I had trouble explaining this, and they wouldn’t accept the main reason I had: “It will be fun!!!” My idea of fun and theirs’ is vastly different!

I was very pleased, therefore, to come across all these wonderful reasons for learning Latin on Carla’s blog. Go and check it out HERE!

I feel so much better now :), I’ve got 14 reasons to tell my children why we are learning Latin!

(#14 is my addition: “IT’S FUN!!!!”)

Since it is still Monday in the US and we are a day ahead here, and since I’ve just joined in on Monday Meanderings, I thought I would post my Monday Blessings on a Tuesday morning!

This week I want to give thanks for simple things….

Blue sky and washing on the line….

Dishes and suds in my kitchen sink…

A puzzle from the opshop (thrift shop) for 10c, and only one piece missing!Thank You Lord for the simple, everyday things in life - my blessings from You.

 

Hosted by Tiany

I’m late planning my week…. It is already 6pm on Monday! I started planning this morning and then got distracted by actually going to do some of the things that needed doing. Here are my meanderings for this week:

1. Bibles Study/Devotions

Proverbs 31 – I am speaking about this at a ladies meeting next month and want to start on it this week. I will be using some verses from this chapter, and also verses from elsewhere. I need to start praying about this talk and asking the Lord what He wants me to say.

2. Must Do

Get the house ready for inspection by the Rental Agency on Thursday. This is good because it will give me a chance to sort out the last bits and pieces that I haven’t found a home for since we moved. Nothing like a good deadline to get me working hard!

3. Zone

Er… all zones this week since we have inspection on Thursday. Next week I will get my zones set up properly for this house.

At this stage I have finished the lounge room, it is ready for inspection! I will list my rooms here and then cross them off as I go this week.

School/Sewing Room

Lounge Room

Dining Room

Kitchen - is organized, just needs daily maintenance

Laundry

Toilet

Bathroom

Guest Room

Elizabeth’s Room

Boys’ Room

Master Bedroom

Ensuite

Walk in robe

Hmmmm, that’s a bit of a list! But I am happy that by Thursday I will at least have a bit more order in the home and then hopefully next week I can start to maintain it by setting up my areas/zones and routines.

*THURSDAY UPDATE* - Got the house looking clean and tidy and the inspection went well - alhamdulillah!

4. Train Them Up

This week we are starting our Middle Ages Unit Study! We did a simple one, years ago, and now we are back in that time period again with the children all a little bit older. Over the weekend I put the materials together which I had collected over the years, printed out some ebooks, copied some individual pages, and I feel like I am relatively organized!

Our plan for this week is to make a time line to determine when the Middle Ages actually were, and how the different people and events fit in. I want us to start reading and researching, using our own resources and going to the library on Friday morning. I have some worksheets that they can fill in and they have already started coming up with ideas for building castles with lego and huts for the peasants out of clay and mud. They do remember something from last time! They also want to make another mural. This was the start of our mural last time, just before we moved overseas:

There was a big moat….! The children drew little peasant farms, as you can see, and the houses were cut outs on which they wrote the books that they had finished reading. We didn’t get much further than this because we moved countries….!

I’m not sure how this will work in our rented house, but we will see!

The idea is to do our normal schedule of Maths everyday, and then the rest of the time include all the other subjects within the Unit Study – reading, writing, sports, music, cooking, etc. I love doing Unit Studies at least once a year. When the children were younger we did a less-in-depth Unit Study once a term. I’m not sure yet how long this Unit Study will be – we’ll play it by ear.

I am planning on doing lapbooks as well….. I’ll keep posting what we are doing as we go along, and if you have done a Unit Study/Lapbook/Project on the Middle Ages already, I’d love to have any hints and suggestions!

5. Menu Planning

I’m not really good at menu planning. Well, let me rephrase that. I am good at planning a menu, but not at sticking to it! I do find it useful to try, though, so here goes! LOL!

Hosted by Orgjunkie

Monday

Leftovers (good start to the week!) – burgers and chicken wings, salad

Tuesday

Lamb Stew in the crockpot

Wednesday

“Bangers and Mash” - sausages and mashed potatoes

Thursday

Leftovers

Friday

“Fast Food” – homemade pizza or something like that

I like to make large quantities and then either freeze them or have them another day in the week. This way I am not in the kitchen every night and the dishes are limited as well. I don’t mind cooking, but I seem to have so many other things on in this stage of life, that any shortcuts are a help!

So, this is my plan for the week. I will let you all know next week how I went!

We had a lovely, busy week…. Here’s a little peek:

~*~ I had school all planned out for two weeks, a fortnight ago. It turned out to be such a blessing as both these past weeks have been so busy. While I tried to keep on top of things in the house, the children worked at their own pace, ticking off their work as they finished. When we needed to do things together, we sat on the couch and did them. Ooops, we forgot to do Latin….! Well, we did practice our vocabulary all week. We now say “oremus” (“let us pray”) before every meal

~*~ Early on in the week I went to my neighbor’s house to have a cup of tea. She showed me a lot of sewing she had been doing for her next grandbaby who is due soon. There were gorgeous little outfits, singlets, t-shirts, booties, etc, etc! Another neighbor was there too and we decided we really should get together one evening a week and just keep each other company while we do our craft/sewing. They both want to learn how to quilt, so I offered to teach them. I would really enjoy that. It is also a chance for me to reach out to the neighborhood, so I am looking forward to that.

~*~ We made friends with another homeschooling family, with five children, this week! They live in the country about a 40 min drive from us. We enjoyed the drive to their place and the scenery. Along the way I pointed out the various types of trees we passed. I asked the children if they knew the names, and soon they were picking out certain types. We talked about deciduous and evergreen trees…. So we had a bit of school along the way! LOL! We saw sheep and lambs…. And the yellow blooms of Wattle Trees… so Spring must be on its way.

We had a lovely afternoon with our new friends. We saw their veggie garden, chickens and school room that was in a lined outdoor shed. Their eldest children were the same age as ours, and after a while of initial shyness, they all made friends, so much so that by the end of the afternoon they didn’t want to leave!

I was struck by the simplicity in which this family lived. They had a modest home of three bedrooms, small living areas and a large block of land. There was hardly any clutter around, and from what I gathered they are pretty structured in their lifestyle, unlike us! There were some beautiful braided rugs on the floor that made the house look so cozy It renewed my resolved to try my hand at a braided rug one day. It was made from clothes that they had grown out of. So,… I must add that to my list of to do’s!!

~*~ We were blessed to be able to go and see the Watoto Children’s Choir this week! Robyn was one of the organizers, and we were allowed to go to the lunchtime concert especially for the schools. As the children came out of the buses in rows and the teachers were counting them all, I was pleased that I only had my three to count and keep track of!! We joked that they had to walk in a single line too….

We really enjoyed the concert. The children sang beautifully and were such a testimony of what God was doing in their lives. Their gorgeous smiles and the joy that radiated from their faces really touched my heart.

It was the first concert our children had been to, and they weren’t sure what to think at first! It was quite loud and very full, so they looked a bit uncomfortable to start with. But soon everyone started to clap and dance along to the music and they got into it a bit more. They agreed afterwards that they really liked it and were glad we had been able to go.

~*~ It was one of those weeks when the vacuum cleaner came out of the cupboard and stayed out…. In other words, I never quite got the whole house vacuumed! I did clean and rearrange the school/sewing room so that it was a bit more user friendly, and I actually also managed to do some sewing! I made a little rag rug for my kitchen floor, which I will share about next Friday since I made part of it out of old jeans

~*~ Oh yes, I also brought about 16 shopping bags of clothes/books/household bits and pieces to the thrift shop! It is great to have that pile out of the guest room (now I can start making another pile!). I really want to keep working on decluttering my home and trying to make do with less. I’m sure that one day when we are able to buy our own home, we will have a smaller one than we are now renting.

So that was my week at a glance