For Today

Outside my window... Cloudy, grey skies, snow covered fields, and a big old moose huddled up in the snow at the top of the hill. Oh, and I can see Russia from my backyard....NOT (the moose is there, the Russia, not so much).

I am thinking... So many things. It would overwhelm you for me to list them all! My mind is a mile a minute.

From the learning rooms... We enjoyed a nice long Christmas vacation, and now we're back to work. The girls will pick up at W, and we'll continue working on the four processes (multiplication, addition, subtraction, division). Andrew will be moving forward in his Alaska studies and concentrating on mastering his times tables. We're also studying the human body and going to learn to use a compass.

I am thankful for... the holidays being over. Somehow, I feel more like celebrating now that all the stress of getting just the right gifts for everyone, and baking just the right foods, and creating just the right atmosphere, is over!

From the kitchen... can I list all the things I have done? Because Mama's taking a break from the kitchen now! I baked up some Cornish hens for dinner last night...they were leftover from the excess Paul bought to celebrate New Year's. We had them with stuffing. Paul said he's cooking Polish sausages for dinner tonight so I can run to Michaels' when he gets home from work.

I am wearing... blue jeans, gray-blue t-shirt, and a long white sweater, dark brown sneakers.

I am reading...The Get Out Of Debt Book, by Pam Young. If you've never read the book she wrote with her sister Peggy years ago, you should. Sidetracked Home Executives is a great book for organizing the home and feeling good about yourself. The GOOD book is like a mini-sequel to that, talking about how Pam learned to control her spending and giving tips on learning personal self-discipline.

I am hoping... that the New Year will bring all kinds of wonderful growth in our lives. Paul's visit with his girls in Wisconsin went well, and I'm also hoping to meet them and the grandbaby in the new year.

I am praying... for daily help in my job as mother to all these kids. This isn't the easiest job sometimes, and no one realizes more than I do how my own bad moods and lack of patience and even lack of inspiration can affect these growing lives. I take this job very seriously, and I need all the help from above that I can get.

Around the house... Now that Christmas is over, I am ready to take down my fancy decorations and resume my work in simplifying and beautifying. This week, I want to find a solution to bulky curtains...I'm thinking of painting the top third of the huge windows in my living room with some opaque window paint...I'll take a picture when I'm done so you can see. The windows give us a great view, but the southern exposure lets in so much light, you can barely see on a sunny day (and it makes all the dust specks and finger smudges more visible too).

One of my favorite things... Peace and quiet. Rarer than gold, around here.

A few plans for the rest of the week... Put all the Christmas decorations away and get back into the swing of things. Paul and I are supposed to go out on a date with another couple this weekend, too.

Happy New Year to everyone!!! And I'm sorry again about being away so long...I had a glitch involving cookies that wouldn't let me log in to my Blogger account, and I had to wait until Paul was back from his trip so he could fix my computer for me. Anyway, I hope everyone had a great holiday season.