Mud & Mountain Lions

Posted on March 31st, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: General.

It’s been beautiful weather the past couple of days. There’s still oodles of snow out, but it’s a very sunny 30-40 degrees out and simply wonderful. All the sunlight coming in the windows has reduced our need for the woodstove - so now we only have to have one fire in the morning to take the chill out of the air.

Yesterday, I wrestled our mammoth stroller out of the barn. This stroller is great - it’s rugged, a two-seater, and able to handle the mud - but it’s also heavy. Let me tell you, maneuvering it out of the barn through two feet of snow while carrying a screaming daughter in one hand was a circus act in of itself. Let’s just say I lost my patience a couple of times… especially when I hit some unexpected soft spots and sunk into my thighs in the snow.

But finally, I won and the stroller is now sitting on our front porch ready for use. I hope after lunch today to take the kids out for our first stroll of the season… braving the mud. Last week, our road almost became unpassable because of the mud. The straight portion of the dirt road was completely rutted out. I almost didn’t make it out a couple of times. And when our in-laws visited last week, they got stuck coming in and had to push to get the car free.

I hope the sun is still shining around 12. And that the mountain lions aren’t out. I know this is silly, but I’m a little afraid of wildlife. I don’t mind moose when I’m in a safe place, but encountering them outdoors is no picnic.. a charging bull is no fun. As for the mountain lions… well, one of the ladies from our old church ran into one the other day while out for a walk with her dog. Freaky. It’s stuff like that that makes me want to get a dog. But I don’t want an indoor dog… and I think it would be cruel to not let a dog be inside up here when the weather is really cold.

And when I get back inside this afternoon, it’s time to finish the taxes. I’ve been putting it off for a month, because they’re messy this year. I have them mostly finished, but because of my new business, I made some mistakes that I knew I had to fix before I filed. The rates at turbotax jump $20 dollars tomorrow, so I’ve got to finish today.

Éva has now proceeded to tie herself up in some yarn that she found, so I think I better go extract her from the gordian knot she is creating.

13 comments.

Co-op

Posted on March 29th, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: General.

Most of you know that for the past two years, I’ve taught a high schooler all her English and History classes, and two middle schoolers their grammar and essay writing.

Recently, I was asked to possibly teach in the co-op in Bangor. Of course, my high schooler is my priority, so I’d offer the classes that she wants next year plus some ones that I’d like to teach.

Here’s what I’m thinking:

Economics
American History
British Lit (these 3 classes are ones she wants to take)
&
Mosaic Art
Video Editing
Reviewing Music

Basically, it would be one day a week in Bangor with childcare… so it might be a nice change to be able to get out. And I would make a lot more money than I do with individual tutoring.

The video editing sounded really exciting to some of the kids who are in the co-op. We’d probably make a 30 minute movie throughout the course of the class.

With the music review class, I’d like to go through Walt Mueller’s 3D method (Discover, Discern, Decide). I think that could be a very interesting class.

Just some thoughts. On the pro side, this would be a chance for me to get out, expand my teaching skills, and allow my kids to have more interaction with other kids. On the con side, Bangor isn’t exactly right next door.. and traveling in Maine weather isn’t exactly my favorite thing to do.

5 comments.

Easter at Home

Posted on March 27th, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: General.

This week, the kids and I all managed to come down with something akin to pneumonia. We were feverish and coughing almost all week. Thankfully, my in-laws were here, so we had some help, but it was still a long, sick week!

Unfortunately, the kids were not well enough today to go to church. They were sick last Sunday too. This Sunday, they are much better, but they are still coughing and have drippy noses - neither of which I wanted to inflict upon the nursery.

So we all stayed home this Sunday and celebrated Easter at our house. This morning, we lit all of our candles. For those of you who didn’t know, we lit six candles on Palm Sunday, and then one candle less each day until Friday when we blew out the last candle. Then this morning, they were all lit again.

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We also ate some of the Lamb cake that I made yesterday (egg & dairy free of course!). I cut the cake before icing to look like a lamb and then decorated it with confectioners sugar icing and shredded coconut. I also made some challah this week and froze it for today. Mmmmm…

We did our morning devotions by reading the story of the resurrection. We split the story up throughout the week so that we would read about this today. It was somewhat of a difficult devotional time this morning because the kids were coughing and crying and pretty unhappy! After we finished the reading and Éva’s catechism questions, we got out the hymnals and sang a few songs.

I think this was my first ever Easter celebrated alone at home… but we survived!

4 comments.

And uncrossed

Posted on March 19th, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: General.

Our quotes came in from the SIP dealers… and unfortunately it doesn’t look too likely that we will go with them. We still are crunching numbers on stick building… but if it’s acutally not that much different, maybe we will go with SIPs. So it there’s a little hope that we can still go with SIPs, but not much.

In other news, there’s talk afoot of dividing up the land among the grandchildren (something to the effect of two acres each). This would be huge for us as it would give us an edge when going into the talk to the bank.

1 comment.

Fingers Crossed

Posted on March 14th, 2005 by hanfaith.
Categories: General.

We submitted our plans yesterday to several SIP distributors… and hopefully we’ll hear soon their quotes… and hopefully they’ll be reasonable!

2 comments.

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