Outside my window…

It has been REALLY hot here the last couple of weeks. Days of 90 and very humid going on for what seems like EVER. And it’s only the beginning of June! We started getting hot weather in April. At least I’m not pregnant this summer like last one!

I am thankful…

For a nice evening that we actually wanted to go outside in! And for our very productive garden. We just got back from our near-nightly trip to the garden to water and weed (well, I water, and Paul weeds), and it was nice and breezy. James hung out on his blanket and tried his darndest to eat rocks, which Mama and Papa kept taking away from him. If you look very closely, you can see his two new teeth on the bottom!

From the kitchen…

We are trying to keep up with the amount of greens coming from the garden. We can hardly eat all the lettuce, spinach, kale, and basil we’re growing. Last night Paul grilled salmon and the best eggplant ever, and I had him set it on a giant platter of spinach right off the grill, so it would wilt, and garnished it with edible nasturtium blossoms. We ate it with a side of steamed kale with balsamic vinegar. Tonight we had fish tacos with lettuce and cilantro from the garden, and tomorrow will be pasta with as much spinach and basil as I can fit, along with tomatoes, kalamata olives, garlic, and pine nuts.

Here are last night’s pickings, which we repeat about every other day. It turned out kind of blurry, but there are several varieties of lettuce, some young kale, mint, basil, spinach, nasturtiums, and some rosemary in the vase.

Towards rhythm and beauty…

I have gotten very attached to my schedule. I find myself kind of lost and frustrated without it. For the month of June, I’m working three days a week instead of two, and that small difference threw my housekeeping schedule into a loop. So I sat down with iCal yesterday and revamped everything, including what I want to accomplish during James’ morning and afternoon naps when we’re home. I also scheduled in time to only spend time with James, since I think I sometimes take advantage of the fact that he’s such an easy-going baby and keep too busy to take him to the park, read books, or just sit on the floor and play with him. It makes me feel much better to know that everthing that needs to be done every week has a reasonable and doable time to do it. Otherwise the bathroom gets gross and Mama gets cranky :)

If my iCal schedule looks this complicated while I have ONE baby in a little apartment, I can’t imagine what it will look like if and when I’m homeschooling multiple children.

I am reading…

I’m nearing the end of a wonderful book on applying Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy to the Christian homeschooling parent, For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School. Now Paul is reading it. We both love it, as it describes much of what we already want for our children’s education and home life. While there are a few minor points that a Charlotte Mason education includes (as I understand it) that we would quibble with (this article is interesting reading in that respect), we certainly wouldn’t argue too much with an education that is so respectful of children as unique persons, that teaches children to love learning and nurtures their curiosity, and relies on really good literature rather than textbooks and workbooks.

I’m also reading The Road to Serfdom by Austrian economist F. A. Hayak, written just after World War II. It’s my layman’s Austrian economics, as Paul is reading some giant four volume tome of another Austrian economist.

I am listening to…

My mom on the radio! My mom and her good friend Joan Konzelman were recently interviewed by another family friend, Carrie Abbott, about homeschooling and specifically about their work implementing Carrie’s relationships and sexuality curriculum in the Tacoma homeschool community. You can listen to the interview here. (It’s the latest program currently listed, and aired 6/2/10.)

On keeping home…

I think I have to clean all the floors just about every day, because James eats EVERY SPECK HE FINDS.

This week in the Church…

We are in the second week of the Fast of the Holy Apostles. This fast is often so short (it changes in length depending on the date of Pascha) that I pay little attention to it. Since it’s an entire MONTH this year, I’m trying to think more deeply about the work of the apostles in spreading the Gospel in those early days, and how we are to go about continuing to share the light of Christ today as members of the Church.

A few plans for the rest of the week…

The family I nanny for has kindly invited us up to a cabin they rented in the Pocanos this weekend. So we’ll go hang out in the mountains for a few days, and since we’ll be so close to St. Tikhon’s, where Paul went to seminary for a year, we’ll drive up there for Liturgy on Sunday.

We also started getting out of the house extra early on the days James and I are home and going walking along the river for an hour or so before we go drop Paul off at school. We like it so much I think we’ll keep it up all summer, especially since it’s nice to be outside early before it gets too hot (although it’s often 75 and humid when we leave the house before 7:30 am).

In the garden this week…

The beans have grown so tall I had Paul tie string high up on the fence bordering the tennis court for them to climb up. I hope they’ll cooperate and grow slightly sideways instead of straight up.

Herbs and strawberries:

Cherry tomatoes:

My intrepid weeder weeding out the greens:

Nasturtiums:

James Benedict this week…

James has had a big couple of weeks! His Auntie Alyssa and cousin Canyon were here for a week (for another post, once Alyssa sends me the pictures…ahem), and on their last day here, he cut his first tooth. He cut a second one a few days ago. And he started crawling! His crawl is very cute, since he concentrates very hard and is still a bit hesitant. But if he wants something badly enough, he can just crawl himself over and get it. (Often, this is lint off the floor that he intends to eat.) He also plays “throw” with Papa (we can’t really call it “catch,” since there is not a lot of catching involved), and if I can figure out how to do it, I’ll post a video of a very intense game of throw.

Here’s a few recent pictures: