the brew*crew adventure

What's Your Personality Type?

Well, obviously I don't put much stock in these silly little "tests", but they can be amusing sometimes, and will often even offer uncannily revealing observations. Like this one for instance, you know I just had to post it, because it said that I'd make an "excellent writer, or artist"! Computer generated validation, gotta love it.

This morning I'm drinking way too much coffee (nope, I haven't felt called to give it up right now, though I did go without coffee for a couple months a couple of months ago- not to mention I've a freezer full of it, bought numerous bags for a steal at the local scratch and dent), while strolling through the blogosphere. The kids are watching The Heffalump Movie, a favorite from my Mom. We have a couple of extra little kiddos here with us today, whom we're watching for a dear friend who's stripping wallpaper and repainting her bedroom, with her Mum. Her hubby's on a camp-out with their oldest sons, and will sure be surprised when he gets home! Since I couldn't be there to help out with the painting, the least I could do is to watch her kids for her, right? I love having littles roaming about the place, providing plenty of hugs, kisses, nursery-rhyme-reading couch huddles, and requests to "go see the chickens" to keep my days in perspective.

T and I have been reading this to the little ones in our keep ~

Yesterday, it seemed that she and I were amusing ourselves more than little E, or his baby sister (though she did grimace at me a couple of times over her bottle, as T and I chanted "one, two, buckle my shoe" for the 20th time!) LOL

And speaking of the chickens, YAY! We've found more eggs these past couple of mornings. We're all down-right giddy over it! What's funny is that they're going back into their coop (we let them free-range during the days, and close them each night to keep them safe) and laying their eggs in the nesting boxes, even after they've been out free-ranging already. How cool and convenient is that?! We're hoping they all continue to do this, so that we don't have to go egg-hunting over our two acres every day! So, is that normal, anyone? Do free-ranging hens usually find a favorite nesting area where they'll consistently go to lay?

And no, for those wondering, our laying hens will not be meeting the pot in their old age. Nope. Though they are of the "dual-purpose" (laying and cooking) variety, we just adore them way too much. And, the kids have named them all... we have our two Buff Orpingtons; Hunca Munca and Pertelote, and our four Rhode Island Reds; Candy Apple, Runt (who we caught in the act of laying an egg yesterday!), Copper and Penny. Also, the idea of breeding rabbits for meat is out! and I am so relieved. Chris has decided to start breeding Jumbo Quail for organic, toxin-free, clean meat, as soon as we can round up the funds for the initial investment (the birds, incubator w/egg turner, pen building materials). I like the idea of having poultry to eat (other than our laying hens!) much better. So, that will be a fun and educational project, as has been our chickens. We learned that rabbits are not for us. Not only is it more involved to breed them, but Chris and I were surprised to find that we just couldn't bring ourselves to eat the one he'd butchered and grilled! And we were worried that the kids might have a problem with it! LOL The kids had no problem, said, "tastes like chicken"... but Chris and I both lost our appetites for a couple of days. *smiles*

We've been enjoying our educational reads tremendously these last two weeks, from AO and some others I've assembled. N, who had initially given me grief over some of his assigned readings has now thanked me for them! What vidication! Earlier this week, or last? he excitedly told me how much he's enjoying his American Tall Tales book, which he'd groaned over when he first saw it. Now he's read ahead of what he was even assigned. As we prepared to go somewhere, and I reminded him that he had to find time for his reading once we got home, he actually said, "I can't wait!" This is such music to my ears! He's 10 years old now, and has just these last two years started reading for pleasure, both what I assign him, and on his own time. We talked about not judging a book by its cover. Also, he was thrilled to realize that another assigned reading, The Heroes by Kingsley, is the story of Perseus of The Clash of the Titans, a movie he watched for the first time last year, and loved. As he read the first chapter, and the story-line started clicking, he practically jumped off the couch with excitement as he whooped, "Mom! THIS is the same story as...!!" We've been reading other stuff too... Both the kids are enjoying reading their McGuffey readers aloud to me. T's story this week was titled, "The Poor Old Man" and expounded upon the importance of giving to the poor... which has been a topic of discussion among us lately. I didn't even know that her story would tie in so well, excellent!

T has also been reading aloud from Busy Times and she's reading Stories about God's People for her daily independent Bible reading time. We discuss each story afterwards, and sometimes she'll read it aloud to N and I. N has just about finished independent reading of The Book of Life Volume 10: The Warrior King, David Becomes King Over Israel, by Gilbert V. Beers. We've had some interesting discussions over it, great book, with good "Applying the Bible to Life" sections, and archaeological findings, etc. included along with historical contexts explained. We read Psalm 51 in light of the context/situation in which David wrote it, which made quite an impression on all of us, and tied in with our theme of repentance this month. N and I found it interesting, after reading about how the prophet Nathanael (N's namesake, whom he especially loves to read about) proclaimed God's judgement upon David for his sin against Uriah, with Bathsheba, that the storyline of Kingsley's "Heroes" opens up with a similar scenario, and similar proclamation of judgement by "the gods". We compared and contrasted the two stories, one as history, the other myth, etc. We also contemplated the thought/realization of Psalm 51, that even as we sin against others, we are truly sinning against God Himself. Again, it was so neat to see how our readings are all tieing in together in a way that I could not have orchestrated so well. Truly, our Master is with us, guiding our studies, and showing us His Truth. What a great adventure life with Him is!

We've also been reading Guerber's The Story of the 13 Colonies, love it! Michelle Miller's commentaries from our TruthQuest History guide has been a great accompaniment to our study of American History so far. I'm trying to decide whether to start a timeline on our hallway wall next week (or breezeway maybe?), or just stick with keeping our timelines in notebooks, as a Book of Centuries? hmmmm... Either way, we'll be using our History Through the Ages timeline figures (which are beautiful).

This week we've also been reading through It's About Time: Creative Activities about Time, and doing projects from the book. The kids' copywork has been various portions of Scriptures, and sentence writing. N has been doing his copywork in both manuscript, and in cursive as well. But he's at least practicing some cursive every day.

Well, I'd better scoot, and get busy helpin 'round here. Everybody but me is now outside! Hubby's home, and ready to "do what can be done during the day, while it's still day".

Sabbath peace to you and yours~

ps. um, no, haven't been doing my exercises for the past two weeks... waaah... why, oh why is it so hard for me to be consistent?! *sniff*sniff*

Trackback URI |