Days of Joy: Day Eleven

A Long Library Visit

Lily, Aragorn and I took a trip to the library without the younger three today; bliss! I got to ask the poor reference librarian all of the questions I had been saving up; can you find a biography of Harun-al-Rashid? The black and white movie of Thomas Edison? Canterbury Tales, children's version? How about ordering a book on CD for a seeing-impaired friend? Thank goodness the reference person gets "credit" for each question they take while on duty; I went through two of them while I was there.

I wandered through a guided tour of the children's and young adult section with my kids, they pointed out all the cool books I have not yet read and I offered suggestions of what I had read that they might have missed; not much!

Libraries have always been hallowed, favorite places for me, I am so lucky to live in an area with seven or eight at my disposal, what better resource could a homeschooler ask for?

Day Ten in days of joy: cranberry sauce and postponing grocery shopping

We are obsessively organized where food is concerned in our house. We make out a menu each week, a shopping list to go with it and shop once. No take-out, no restaurants, unless we are traveling or the occasional exception. However, with the bouts of swine flu the past two weeks, I have been putting off shopping forever, adding a couple of things here and there in quick trips to the store and using up items in our freezer.

Last night I found cranberries from last year; time to eat those! Although it is not yet Thanksgiving, I have sauce simmering on the stove to go with our chicken tonight. We will celebrate with family out of town this year, and the kids will miss their favorite cranberry from scratch sauce, so we're having a mini-holiday now. I'll bake the angel food cake I've been promising Lily as well...a real 1950's dinner.

Days of Joy: day nine: a haunted house

We made our haunted house from the gingerbread house kit we bought; fun and sweetness! I mixed the dough, Lily baked the house, I assembled and everyone decorated. I'll have a picture up just as soon as I figure out how to remove it from the camera.