My Week

Faith: I really enjoyed this scripture this week:

Psalms 31:19-24

How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you. In the shelter of your presence you hide them from the intrigues of men; in your dwelling you keep them safe from accusing tongues. Praise be to the Lord for he showed his wonderful love to me when I was in a besieged city. In my alarm I said, "I am cut off from your sight!" Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help. Love the Lord, all his saints! The Lord preserves the faithful, but the proud he pays back in full. Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.

Our Farm: We let our newest calf out earlier this week. You can read about it below. He is a real friendly one. Now he and Blackberry (the female calf born the week before) are out in the field running around together. The chickens have really been attacking the flower beds in our yard lately. I'm hoping this will actually be helpful to me. As Spring approaches, maybe the ground will be a bit softer because they continually work at it. I need to start planning some kind of greenhouse soon, if that's going to be going by March. For right now we just want to make some kind of passive greenhouse with lumber and greenhouse film to extend our garden's season. We plan on putting it off the back of our garage (which is detached from our home).

Our Home & Our Health: We were home most of the week. We have been doing pretty well eating healthy. Rachel is back on Gluten Free. I need to fine tune that however, and I am considering taking her off milk as well. She is getting an MRI on Monday to check for a possible cause of some problems she has had. I didn't do much more than upkeep on the house this week, except for attacking the dust. Jon also cleaned the furnace filters this week. Natalie & I have had our asthma acting up lately and we are hoping this will make it settle down.

In The School Room: Natalie has been continuing Saxon Math 2 and getting much quicker at it. We have been continuing to read "Carry On Mr. Bowditch". Natalie has also been reading out of the Bible and read the story of Isaac and Ishmael to me - writing down the verse about naming the place where God provided another sacrifice for Isaac. She has such a hunger for Bible reading. Natalie has also been working on a story about our two calves that were born recently. We have been learning about Arthropods this week and the girls made a model of a crayfish this week.

Natalie also practices violin daily and has really been enjoying violin a lot more since she reads her lesson notes herself and follows them. We didn't make it to dance this week as it snowed on dance day.

Rachel has been continuing to do a lot of math worksheets on her own. She has a real knack for math. As soon as she is able to read and to write clearly - she will really take off independently in math I think. She has been "writing" her own stories by having her sister write down the words she wants to use - then she re-writes them onto her paper. We have not been pushing the reading, but rather I continue to read to her and sometimes I will point out a word to her here and there. She said to me the other day that she tries to "read" the books I read but that all she can recognize are "a", "and", and "the". This is much better interest than she had before.

Our Business: Jon has been working long hours at work. He has some accounting due for a state audit next week. Jon has a degree in accounting and he said he had hoped he had put this kind of pressure behind him in college.

I stopped by for a few hours this week and did a couple tasks, but for the most part I haven't put much time in this week. Jon and I are going to go into work together tomorrow, however.

"Me" Stuff: I've been continuing to learn and try to absorb more things about photography. I have some Christmas and Birthday gifts coming on the way late next week and so I am excited for new photography possibilities. I can't wait to try some sort of tripod shot - be it just a crystal clear nature shot, some night photography, or some panning motion photography.

I had the opportunity to go to a sewing class this week - it's one in a series of an heirloom sewing class. This last week we learned about Mexican Wedding Pleats and Shadow Applique. I don't even know how to put a quilt together and I'm pretty much a newbie at garment construction, but I'm really enjoying these classes, and am really looking forward to using some artistic flair in the creation of my own unique garments at some point in the future.