This Close...

We are headed down the home stretch of another school year. Whoo hoo!! As much as I love homeschooling my kids, I also love our summer break. Come on, summer break!! I like to be done before recital week. That is a crazy week with lots of time in the van and it's just easier to not worry about school. I feel bad for our public schooled, dance friends. Normally, recital is after school is out, but the last couple of years the venue has been booked and we've had to have it earlier. The year before last it was during finals week.

I want to be SuperWoman, but I'm That's-All-I-Can-Do Woman. We've even had to make new rules abut school work being completed and electronics. You don't get it done, you don't get your iPods or phones or DSs or whatever. They all have to be turned in by 9 every evening and they may or may not be returned the next day. We've had to make new rules about chores and bed times and all kinds of stuff. For the first week of the new rules, I was the meanest mama ever. Yup, wanna see how mean I get? I didn't think so. Of course, that means that I have to change how I do things as well. Dinner has to be on the table before 8 o'clock. Because of dance a couple of years ago, we became late eaters. We just have a hard time breaking the habit. I have to make time during my day to get my own chores done. Have you seen my stove? You don't want to. That's on my agenda for tomorrow. It doesn't help that if I get my nose in a good book, I lose all track of time. Or get in the middle of a big project.

Lately, big project has been getting the garden ready and planted. We have two 4'x4' square foot gardens. We have tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant and sweet potatoes. It took a little more work than we thought to get it ready. We also used all organic soil for them. Go figure, right? For the sweet potatoes, we did use the compost out of our pile. They are vining like crazy. We are very excited about that. We thought that sweet potatoes were cold weather veggies. Nope, they like it warm. Warm is certainly what they're getting right now. We got strawberry plants in the tower. They look so good. We are trying to wait patiently. They've already started producing berries. Oh, yummy. And we also put in purple and green cabbage. I wanted bok choy as well, but we filled most of the spaces with the strawberries. The ones that are empty now are going to be lettuce and kale. Now on to major project number 2.

We are cleaning up for chickens. We plotted out the run and where we want the coop. So very excited. We already have chicken wire and fencing that we're going to bury for predator defense. Then it's a matter of getting the supplies to build the coop. We order chickens on Thursday, so we better get our butts in gear. When the chickens get here, they need a place to live and it's not my living room. We might possibly go in with a friend on meat chickens. Just need to talk some things over first. OMGA, I've become a country girl!! I need a trip to the mall, STAT!!

I made a chocolate cake today. It is so stinkin' good. Except for fresh fruit and a little honey here and there, we haven't had anything sweet since Lent started. It hasn't been that bad. I do miss sugar when I have coffee in the morning. I like my coffee sweet. I did find a brand of lunch meat and turkey bacon that doesn't have added sugar, nitrites, or nitrates. And it's good. Finding ketchup took some doing. There is added sugar in so many things. Try finding cereal. I did and it's expensive, but the kids are happy. Crackers have sugar. Why do you need sugar in a cracker? To make it taste good. I'm going to try my hand at making crackers, hopefully this weekend. It's been harder on hubby and the kids than it has been on me. At one point, shortly after we started, I told them not to complain one more time. I just could not listen to it anymore. They stopped at the threat of mutiny on my part. They have it easy and they know it.  

I've been doing a little planning for next school year. The curriculum I was given can be quite the heavy work load. As I was plotting and planning, just to see where we stood, I started to have a little panic attack. I just kept wondering how we were going to get everything done. Oh, yeah, I don't have to. The boy will be working on a book study. It could take 4-5 weeks just to complete all the work for each chapter. It would take him a whole school year to complete one book. The big girl will be doing literature. Just looking at the amount of reading involved with that was enough to make me shiver a little. Then I took a breath. I feel much better knowing that I don't have to do it all. I don't have to be SuperWoman. I can, but I don't have to.

The baby got two boxes of clothes. Big Sis sent a huge box of pretty, froufrou dresses. You should have seen the baby when I started pulling dresses out of the box. She wanted to dive in and just swim in pretty dresses. She had the best time trying them on. She even had a great time playing in the box after we got them all sorted out. She asked if she could text Big Sis and tell her thank you. She already has them planned out in what order she's wearing them to church. She gets her crazy from hubby. Then at the park, a friend had a box of clothes that her daughter had outgrown. It was like Christmas for the baby girl. You should see the sparkly high top tennis shoes. The baby canNOT wait to grow into those. I like them, too. I thought about trying them on, but if they fit, the baby would never get them back. Talk about a city girl...

Alright, I guess I've rehashed all I can for now. I feel the need for a little Just Dance 3. It's time to get my dance on.

Have a great day.