I really haven’t published to this in a year??

Really?

Well what a year it has been!

We have painted our hallway and living room (mostly). We put in a video doorbell, which honestly sounds easier then it was, but hey, it works now and I am happy! We installed a new thermostat… love that thing! Had our hot water heater go out and didn’t have hot water for 6 days… not fun, but now we have a tankless hot water heater!! We lost one of our fosters (went to another family last summer due to opening up during Covid slow down). We still have one foster though! We had a decent winter! YAY! Bugs should be lower… yeah I heard about the cicadas too. Well the best of plans… We got a new printer. I got a new sewing machine and now have a craft area! I learned how to knit! We put doors on our bookcases and rearranged our kitchen a couple of times. Oh and we got 4 of 6 new windows. No our house has more then 6 windows but 2 are backordered. Our kitchen is definitely warmer now.

I have felt several times that I should be writing on here but I haven’t. Mainly because when you can’t leave your house at all, all the days run together. The only real excitement we have on a week to week basis is with our foster. Yes we had a few moments every so often and those I should write about. However, like they say, all journeys begin with a single step. Here is my step.

Yes we don’t leave our house. We tend to go out in our car about once a month but that is it. Mainly because the kids need to get out or they go insane… at least more then normal. Ha ha! It also helps to keep the gas in the car moving a bit.

I have been sewing more. Tony got me a new sewing machine. It is a Bernina Tula Pink 770. I now can do embroidery and all sorts of things. The machine is really smarter then me and it amazes me most of the time I use it. I have been able to free motion quilt in a way that I expected it would take me years to do. Amazing! With this I also got a dedicated area in the house to do sewing. So now when I need my down time, me time or whatever, I go there and I can sew and create.

This in turn, means I am listening to more audio books. It is amazing what I can learn and do while listening to audio books. I prefer historical stuff, so I have listen to Code Girls about the code breaking women of WWII. I have also listened to a few historical fiction pieces about WWII. I have also listened to 6 books in the Outlander series. It would take me a lot longer to read that but while listening it is much easier. I am also going through some historical fiction books about the lives of King Henry VIII wives. I am almost done with Katherine of Aragon.

The boys have been doing alright through this process. Nathaniel I can tell can barely remember what life was like before Covid. It will be a shock for all of us when can lead a new normal life. Max understands things better then Nathaniel. Because of this he isn’t doing too bad. He will do anything to protect me though. That is sort of how he has always been. Max is now 1 inch taller then me. Impressive given his age. I told him this morning that he will have to duck in doorways when he is fully grown. Hopefully it will not come to that!

I have changed the boys curriculum again. I was actually looking for something for our foster daughter, but then I thought the boys might do better with what I found so we switched. We are now doing Oak Meadow. It is a Waldorf inspired school. The days are not rigorous per say but they have a very gentle approach to schooling. For the first time since we started homeschooling we are able to confidentially finish school in a few hours and be not skipping over important concepts! Amazing!

This weekend we checked on our hermit crabs and sadly we have lost 3. They are not walking around our house, they are gone. So we have one hermit crab (whom we thing was rather aggressive) in a smaller tank.

We are still vegan. We really like being this way and even Nathaniel, who had the most moments of not wanting to be vegan, is coming around. He says he “likes the little piggies!”