Week In Pictures

We did lots of gardening this week. I pulled up all of the green beans, plucked out every carrot I could find and brought in the biggest load of tomatoes thus far. Macho Man thought that this tomato was an interesting one.

With the help of Teresa's tomatoes I was able to can a double batch of salsa and had a full drier of tomatoes.

My school room has had a signs up all week, "KEEP OUT!" and "Construction Zone" so the children have resigned themselves to playing in the sun room for now. I put out the blocks on one side of the room and the kitchen set and play dishes/food on the other. The blocks have by far been the most popular. It's nice to see them building.

Here is how the school room has looked this week. I took things down, rearranged and moved furniture. I'm coming up to the deadline, though. We are having an open house for our children on Sunday evening where they will see the "new" classroom, get their daily schedule, weekly work assignment sheets and see their new curriculum. Yikes. I am running out of time! Our home school will start on Monday!

This beauty is the bathroom in the school room. I spent one whole day painting it. Pictures of the finished product to come!

This is my super duper surprise for my little ones. A reading loft. My dear husband spent many hours working on my projects this week, even though he had to work an early schedule (not his favorite), came home and did all of the baths and book reading so I could work on this room and then, when they were all in bed slaved over my lists of to dos. He's a really good Dad and an excellent husband.

Ode to Cucumber

This recipe is especially for Teresa, who has an abundance of huge cucumbers and tasty tomatoes in her garden this year, a friend with a prolific garden is a good thing! Teresa has shared some of her abundance with me. I'll be drying her tomatoes today and trying to fit cucumbers in to every meal I serve. :)

Cucumber Salsa

2 peeled cucumbers, seeded, peeled and chopped
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
2 T lime juice
1 t minced fresh parsley (note to self: grow in garden next year!)
2 t minced fresh cilantro (ditto!)
1/2 t dill weed
1/2 t salt

In bowl, combine ingredients. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour. Serve with chips. Makes four cups.

Large Scale Garden, Small Scale Space

What a dream this is.... although my motivation isn't saving the planet, I'm all for living off the land. My yard doesn't look as small after seeing what this family has done with their little piece of dirt.


Go here to see more.

Tossing and Turning

Anyone else lay awake at night thinking of nothing but classroom layouts, school schedules and curriculum? Maybe it's just me. But, if there is a kindred spirit out there in the blogosphere, here's a fun tool to get your classroom all set up, you can even do it in the middle of the night and not wake your whole family.

Sledding in August

So, I asked Macho Man to watch the baby while I was working in the garden this morning. Next thing I know, I look up and he's riding her around on a sled he tied to his bike. Of course, she loved it but it made my heart skip a beat. Crazy kids!

A Week In Pictures

Some really creative stacking by my dish washing, eldest son. This says future engineer to me!

This week we are s-l-o-w-l-y move toward our new schedule for the school year. This year I will be taking all of the cooking back over (last year my eldest daughter was our dinner girl and my son made lunches) and so I've added in a baking day on Sundays.

Starting this morning at 8 am I made a very, very big batch of pancakes, two pans of these oatmeal scotchies shown above, one batch of coconut chocolate chip cookies, a big batch of beans (you can see my stock pot peeking out in the photo above) for chili and baked beans this week, a batch of brownies and cleaned up the kitchen as I went. I took a break to make lunch (!) and then took a nap. I hope to get some meat cooked during these baking days too. Now I've got a head start on some dinners, there are quick pancakes for the toaster for a couple of mornings, my husband has snacks for work and my children have some afternoon snacks that I can pull out of the freezer.

I really hope that I can get back to the point where I bake one breakfast thing and one snack type thing every week and have enough in the freezer from previous baking days to pull something out several days a week. That will give me extra time to focus on dinner prep. Whew!

We enjoyed a wonderful time at the park with some friends one morning this last week. It was a beautiful day, nobody else in sight. When we were packing up I had several ask when we were going to do this again!

Another new thing, my daughter is going to try her hand at selling on ebay. We found some matching, possibly twin, outfits at a thrift store. She's trying to finance her upcoming piano lessons to go along with her voice lessons. Voice+piano+pony lessons and gymnastics for the the boys=poor parents. Who said that homeschooling moms can't do math!?

A little project time at the table.

My serious artist.

Bike time is back with our new schedule. Get your afternoon chores done and you get a half an hour to ride your bike or scooter or skates. In the house!

Lots of Extra Produce?