The Circle of Life

Well, it's been a hot minute since I've updated anything here on the blog.  I've popped over a couple times to write and have been sidetracked, I'm sure you can relate.

In my last update I told you I'd gone back to work.  July 17, 2025 was my 2nd anniversary with the City.  There has been SO MUCH drama and changes in those two years.  Our director was fired and replaced and all of our superintendents have retired or been replaced. I've been promoted to office manager, and am currently trying to right the ship within the administrative team.  Replacing people has been extremely challenging, partially because our salaries aren't competitive with the private sector and partially because people lie REALLY well on their resume and in interviews.  The previous office manager hired, and lost, three differed part time people for the same job, over a 6 month period.  I think the one I just hired is going to work out, fingers crossed on that one.

Olivia continues to thrive in the equestrian world.  She's getting to do a lot of traveling with her employers, and has been to several World Shows.  Her employer is very generous and includes her in their team photo shoots, magazine articles and posts.  

She earned her purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in June.  She's teaching several kids BJJ classes a week, has hosted women's self defense seminars and is on the adult teaching staff at her gym as well.

Additionally, she traveled to Australia in July of this year for grins and giggles.  She spent a week in Melbourne and had a grand time.  She had one of those delayed landing situations that required running through the Sidney airport with all of her things to catch her connecting flight.  I was super impressed with how well she navigated things, especially after having been awake and traveling for over 24 hours straight by the time she landed in Sidney.  She had a great time, and got to do some fun animal encounters at the Melbourne Zoo.

We added a son-in-law!!   Lindsey married a wonderful young man, named Ethan, who we all adore.  He is a federal forestry firefighter, and is often out west putting his life on the line in the fires that seem so prevalent there.  They are very down to earth and don't like a bunch of fuss or fanfare, so the wedding was a simple, private event with only parents present.

Then in August, they blessed us with our first grandchild!  Little Hazel Grace was born 7 weeks early, but is healthy and perfect, just tiny.  Lindsey and baby are both doing well, and Ethan is completely smitten with his new little love.  On a side note, someone in our area needs to open a preemie shop because it's crazy trying to find anything like that unexpectedly. 

That's all my updates for now.  I hope you're all doing well.  I'm tossing around the idea of a new blog, so I'll keep you posted on that.

Big Changes!

In my last post, several months ago, I told you all that I was looking to reinter the workforce.  I'd applied for several part time positions and had ZERO response.  Then I saw a full time position in my town's Public Works Department, and applied on a whim.  Well within 2 days I got a call back, followed by an interview on a Thursday morning, job offer by Thursday afternoon and I started working within a week.

My hours are supposed to be Monday-Friday, 8am until 4:30pm, but there's only been 2 or 3 times that I've gotten out of the office on time.  By the end of my second week, the office manager announced that she's already targeted me to be her replacement when she retires in three years.  

We shall see how this all goes.  I do like the co-workers, and I meet some REALLY "interesting" people. The family is adjusting and helping pick up the slack around the house.  The dog seems to be taking my absence the hardest. so he's my shadow when I am home.

In other news, Lindsey turned 18!  It's hard to believe the "baby" is now an adult.  She's been doing a lot of house/pet/farm sitting and has a new thing where she's milking a couple of cows pretty regularly for a family that's traveling.  All this in addition to her position at the museum.   She finished a new 1850's outfit for herself and has a little traveling to Renaissance Faire's with a couple of co-workers.

Olivia's career is thriving.  She's gone for the next several weeks, floating between several horse training centers while the owners are traveling to shows and vacations.   She's also planning her next big trip.  She's heading to Israel in March 2024.

I hope you've had a great summer!  It's hard to believe we're in September!

Touching Base

It's hard to believe it's almost been a full month since Lindsey officially graduated.  Her graduation gift was finally completed, and I was able to pick it up this week.  I'd sent all of her recital/sports/camp/youth group shirts off to have her memory quilt made.  Here's the final project.

The month has been busy for her.  She's working, did some additional pet/house sitting and has been going out with work friends to bowl, eat and do random things.  She's back to physical therapy on her knee.  She's mostly doing at home exercises and going to the YMCA to ride the recumbent bike and do leg presses to strengthen the knee.  She goes back to see the PT for another evaluation in three weeks.

I'm wrapping up small projects around the house and sending out resumes for various types of jobs.  Thus far, I'm not a hot commodity, but that's ok.  The right doors will open up, at the right time.

I hope you're having a good summer!

Lindsey's Graduation

This past weekend was the grand finale of Lindsey's homeschooling, and my homeschooling Mom career.  She did not want to participate in the homeschool group's graduation ceremony.  Instead we opted to have a small gathering here at the house.  We invited family, close friends and such.  We ended up with about 21 people spread throughout the house.

We did an evening event, with heavy finger foods (meatballs, sliders, side dishes and a huge cake).  We ate, then I did a little speech and presentation of Lindsey's diploma and then had photos done with each family unit with Lindsey in her cap and gown.

It was low key, but a good time and it was how she wanted her graduation to be done.  The beauty of homeschooling, it didn't have to be like everyone else!  I was so busy preparing food and being a hostess, I didn't think to take photos of the food spread, and other than the scheduled photos (that my BFF was in charge of), there were few photos taken.   Here are the highlights!

Congratulations Class of 2023!!!

1850's Comes To Life

If you've been reading my blog long, you'll remember that Lindsey spent several years in the John Lewis Society as a costumed interpreter at one of our local museums.   She also participates each year in costume at the Holiday Lantern Tours.  Surprisingly, my history hater has really taken to this time period, specifically the cooking and clothing styles. 

Lindsey plans to return as an "adult volunteer" this fall, and has already been approved for the position.  She has spent the last several months, and lots of her own money in purchasing the materials to make her own, authentic 1850's outfit.  All cloth had to be 100% cotton, or 100% wool for heavy items, and patterns and colors must reflect those of the time frame.

Lindsey used her knowledge of historical clothing, and her tape measure to create a dress, apron, petticoats, chemise and kerchief without a pattern.  She had me help with her measurements so she wasn't having to bend and twist and get the wrong numbers.  Other than that, this was her project start to finish.  She will need to make a corset, but will be working on that at the museum under the tutelage of the costume seamstress.

Our dining room became the fabric cutting, pinning and ironing station.

The living room, specifically the sofa, became the sewing room. Each day she would sit and sew until her hands would cramp.  There were times that I had to banish the sewing station in order to have room for guests and the rest of us to sit in the evenings.

Please note, in the photos below, she is wearing a tank top and shorts beneath her costume clothing for modesty.  This is due to lighting with the white undergarments, so if you see the blue on the shoulders, that's why.

This is the chemise, which serves as a slip as well as sleeping garment.  She put gussets in the arm pit area to prevent seams from splitting when her arms are raised.  It was interesting to watch her figure out the configuration to add the material without it bunching.    The neck has a hook closure that allows for ease in getting dressed and undressed.  There is a tiny "V" just below the collar (you can see it in the photo below) that allows for extra room, also to prevent ripping during movement.

This next photo shows her with the chemise, her first petticoat, and the kerchief, which goes on around the neck between the chemise and dress.

This photo is the same as the first, but adds the second petticoat over the first.  Each petticoat has hook closures on the back.

Next is the dress itself.  The fabric is sage green, with tiny flowers.  The bodice and sleeves are lined in cream material, and the bottom is lined with a lovely dusty rose and trimmed with black edging to hide dirt and prevent wear.   She hand pleated the entire skirt to get the right sizing and amount of fullness.  The bodice also has hook closures on the front.

The apron is a light brown plaid.  All aprons of the time were made from plaid print material. The apron would be pinned up over the bodice during cooking, and then would be dropped down when less likely to soil the top of the dress, or when going away from home.

Pockets were typically sewn onto a waistband and worn under the dress for storage. This means there had to be slits in the dress below the waist band to reach through to access the pockets.  Lindsey chose instead to add pockets to the underneath side of the apron.  The cream area you see in the center of the pocket is the edging around the opening to prevent fraying and it is also the backing material for the pocket.

Lindsey ordered 100% cotton stockings online, and knitted her own garters to hold the stockings above the knee.  For shoes, she's allowed to wear plain black or brown boots or shoes with no modern embellishments.

This is what interest lead learning, and craftsmanship look like!

11th Grade Curriculum Picks (Lindsey)

Lindsey is very different from her sister, in almost every way.  They definitely have different learning styles, and the products we used for Olivia don't necessarily work for her.  Some of our items will be repeats, but not all.  Our planners never change.

U.S. History: Lifepac American History is our pick for history this year.  Lindsey really enjoys the format of the work texts, so we'll stick with that in this area.  This will link together geography, history, government, citizenship, economics and social studies.  1 credit

Language Arts:  Lifepac American Literature will be the core of our language arts study. She'll be reading The Red Badge of Courage, The Great Gatsby, The Pearl, and 1984. We'll also study Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Frost in depth.  Additional she'll be including the Easy Grammar Ultimate Series Grade 11 program, and writing more essays and short stories to round out a full language arts course. 
1 credit

Biology: We'll be using a repeat of the Science Shepherd Biology this year.  Lindsey is not a huge science fan, and the dissections aren't at all appealing to her, but this is a very strong curriculum and, well...I already have everything we need except her test booklet. 1 credit

Math:  Having already completed Algebra 1 & 2, and Geometry, we'll be focusing on more applicable math this year.  Abeka's Consumer Math will allow her to get a better understanding of finances as it applies to her personally.  This is a repeat product for us. 1 credit

American Sign Language (Year 2):  Lindsey absolutely loved Lifeprint ASL last year, and we'll be continuing with this for her junior year.  The instructor, Bill Vicars, is very engaging and an excellent instructor.  I often hear Lindsey chuckling at some funny story, or interaction he has with the students.
1 credit

That should round out Lindsey's junior year academically.  We won't know what extra-curricular things are available until we see what state of reopen things are in come fall.

Sophomore Year - Mid Year Review

We are technically about half way through Lindsey's sophomore year, so I thought I'd give you a little review on where we are over all.  I say "technically" because it's looking like she's going to be done a lot earlier than expected.   You can read about the curriculum we picked, and why we picked it Curriculum Picks - Sophomore Year.

Geometry - Teaching Textbooks was our pick for this year.  We ran into some snags in early January due to their revamping their whole program online. Once the system was working, it still didn't have the proofs working (expected completion now 2/15/21), but you can't finish a lesson without that aspect. We finally had to resort to moving back to the 2.0 series on thumb drive.   This whole thing put Lindsey about 2 weeks behind schedule.  However, as of today she's completed 80 of the 110 lessons. I expect she'll complete this class in mid-March.

World History - Lindsey has never been a fan of history, and that has not changed this year.  The Abeka World History is going ok.  She really struggled early on with all of those ancient names that she couldn't pronounce.  It all ran together in her head, and frustrated her.  She's doing much better now that she's moved past that.  She's about 3/4 of the way finished, and will likely finish in late April.

World Literature - We're using Abeka World Literature to keep with the same time period as our history.  Lindsey is enjoying this class, although she does like to critique some of the selections pretty harshly. As with history, she's about 3/4 of the way finished.

Grammar - This is our first year using Easy Grammar Ultimate Series and we really like it.  The lesson doesn't take forever and isn't horrible dry and boring.  I can see a big difference in Lindsey's understanding this year, and it's showing up in her writing.  She's on lesson 90 of 180.  We'll start to double up on the lessons as we get closer to the end of the academic year.

Science - We both really like the layout of the Survey of Science: History and Concepts.  We've completed the Mathematics and Physics book, and just about finished with the Biology.   This has been a great way to hit several branches of science, and fill in some gaps.  I'm looking forward to the Chemistry and we'll hopefully add some experiments with that.

Civics - This ended up being the perfect year to focus on Lifepac Civics.   Lindsey has learned so much about the  way our government is set up and has been quick to see the things that aren't lining up with our Constitution.  This was supposed to be a 1 semester class, but I've added projects and enough current events to turn it into a full credit.

ASL - We had planned on using Rocket Language, but quickly learned that this was way too slow paced and dull.   We changed to LifePrint and Lindsey absolutely loves it!  She's doing really well, and has been able to use it a few times both at church and in stores.  

Lugandan - We'd planned on doing a semester of  the Luganda language study.  However, finding resources that have audio for pronunciation is proving to be a bit of a challenge.  We've tabled this for now, and I'll continue to research.

So there we are, about half way through the academic year and looking to start wrapping things up in the next 6-8 weeks.  Now it's time to work on our junior year picks.

Weekly Wrap Up - Lindsey Turns 15

The weekend was a little rough on Olivia.  On Saturday, the big draft horse at the farm had a major melt down.  While not the tallest horse there, he is by far the heaviest, close to 2,000 pounds.  There was no rhyme or reason for his freaking out. They were just walking to the barn like any other day when he suddenly began to spin in circles, buck and kick, with 150 pounds of  teenage girl holding the lead rope.  I've never seen fear in her face like I did during those crazy few minutes that felt like a life time.  She did an amazing job of holding on, keeping her footing, staying out from under his huge feet and keeping her head about her until she finally got him calmed and under control.   Her shoulders and upper back were very stiff and sore as the evening went on.

Sunday afternoon one of the thoroughbreds spooked as they started out of the gate towards the barn.  Between the angle that the horse lunged and the incline they were on at the gate, Olivia hyper-extended her right elbow and landed hard on her right hip as she spun around.  She ended up with a couple of gashes on her leg from the gravel, and strained some muscles in her back.  By the end of the evening on Sunday she was walking like a cowboy from an old west movie.  On a positive note, she learned to drive the big tractor.

Monday morning I dropped Olivia off at the farm at 5:30am.  It was already pouring rain again when I dropped her off, which continued throughout the day with more localized flooding. She did her normal work and then helped with riding until the farrier arrived around 9:30am.  She spent the rest of the day holding the horses for the farrier and picking his brain about things they were doing.   I picked her up around 3pm.    Lindsey slept until almost 8am, which is really late for her.  She worked on all of her school work and was done shortly after lunch time.  I dropped her off at 3:15 for a babysitting job.

Tuesday we were back at the farm at 5:30am.   At 9am, I picked Olivia up and took her to farm #2 to do the morning feeding for those folks while they traveled out of town for doctor appointments.  We made a loop back around to return her to the horse farm, and then it was home to work on house work and school work with Lindsey.  Lindsey's got a pretty good routine going with her school work, and it requires little on my part other than to discuss what she's doing and grade papers.  Olivia got off work sometime around 2ish.

For now, on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, Lindsey is going to be coaching a middle school recreation league volleyball team.  It's the same league she played in (and I coached) during her middle school volleyball career.   She'll be heading from volleyball straight to jiu-jitsu on those two nights.  Olivia is still doing jiu-jitsu as well.

Wednesday was a little more low key.  Olivia worked at the farm from 5:30-9:30am, then back from noon until 2pm.   Lindsey knocked out her school work while I washed curtains and windows, and hen we both worked on doing some deep cleaning.

Thursday was very hectic (for me).  Olivia had her 5:30-9:30am work and her 12-2pm shift.  In between dropping her off/picking her up, I picked up groceries and ran other errands.  Lindsey's day was pretty standard as far as academics.  This was her "Friday" for the week, so that was a plus. At 2:30 I met my gal-pal Yvette for quick frozen coffee and some chit chat.  The evening was a quick dinner followed by volleyball and jiu-jitsu.

Friday Lindsey turned 15!  Tom took a vacation day, Olivia still had to work, and Lindsey had a babysitting gig in the morning.  We celebrated with cupcakes in the morning, and will go out for Indian food for lunch after everyone returns from morning jobs, a little shopping in the afternoon followed by pizza for dinner, and that'll be a wrap.  The official birthday party will be tomorrow, so I'll share photos next week of that.

Have a great weekend!!

Interest Led Learning - Quilting

If you had to put a label on us, I'd say we're eclectic homeschoolers.   We use textbooks, study Latin, do unit studies and try to leave room for interest led learning as well.   Lindsey has taken an interesting in sewing (I don't like to sew), but I'm officially facilitating that interest by providing a sewing machine, supplies, sewing books and a 4-H club that focuses on sewing.

She's made several projects so far.   A pillow, head bands, cinch sack, a flannel pillowcase and now she's moved on to bigger things.  She's been working on a lap quilt, so I'll give you a pictorial tour through her work.

I bought her a pre-cut pack of quilt squares and she worked out what pattern she liked.   Then she used post-it notes to label the rows.

 She sewed each row in a long strip (keeping the row labeled).

 The next day she worked on ironing all the seams on the back of her strips.

 Next she pinned rows 1 and 2 together.

 Lindsey then began sewing the strips together (with good sides facing each other).

Here's the final view of the top of her quilt.

After all the strips were sewn together, the numbered labels were removed and she then ironed all the back seam flat.

Next came the assembly of all the parts.  First she ironed her back piece (this kid loves to iron).

 Then she got her top, batting and back laid out together and smoothed out.

Once she got everything trimmed out, she sent through and pinned all three pieces together, measuring the edges to make sure she had a one inch binding around each side.

Then it was on to the final step of assembling.  She ran into a little problem here because the stitches were fine on top, but horrible on the back.  She went over to ask our neighbor for some insight, since she was a professional seamstress.  She instantly knew the thread was too weak/cheap and gave her some better thread that matched perfectly and she was back in business.

Instead of quilting across each block, she ran heavy thread/floss through the center of the patches and tied each in a knot.

Here is her final product.  She's super proud of it, and it really turned out great.

Someone said they were glad to see that I'd passed on my love of sewing to Lindsey.   That couldn't be further from the truth.  I hate to sew.  This is one of those things where she had a desire to learn, I facilitated by making sure she had the needed items and the rest was on her.   True learning right there!