Random Thoughts

 I told myself to start blogging again, and it seems I have a million different things to write about in my head, but when I sit down...nothing. Not one topic jumps to the front and demands my attention. Instead of walking away, I've decided I'll just do a random stuff post. Maybe a weekly or monthly catch up, things we have going on, things we have done...whatever.

--We went to Space Day at The Wilderness Center today. I posted pictures on the Facebook page. The girls had a blast, especially Lilly, since she wants to be a scientist and astronaut. We identified constellations in the observatory, made rockets, moon-walked, took a tour of our solar system, and made star gazing charts. It really is an awesome place to go. I grew up visiting the place, and it's nice that they offer a wide variety of programs, even homeschool ones!

--Winter stinks! I am over it. This is our first full winter in the house (we officially moved in March 2016). We are on a hill, with lots of farm fields around. It's always windy, the windows leak, we don't have enough seasoned firewood to utilize the fireplace as much as we would like, propane gets expensive, and the mud in my hallway at the backdoor is caked to the floor. I can't wait until it warms up, but the mud in the hallway never goes away...

--Our reading goals. So far we haven't done so well. The older two girls have read some of their books, but we have yet to do family reading. Hoping we can get into the swing of things soon.

--Speaking of books, we are suckers for books. The Wilderness Center had a table of books they were selling for a $1 each. Lots of nature and science stuff, thankfully we only spend $9!

--Lowe's Build & Grow. Something we've gone to for the past several years when they have a kid's clinic. Unfortunately their website says that they have enjoyed providing it over the past 10 years, but they have currently stopped them. Home Depot still has theirs, but we've never attended one there, so it's something I will look into. Unfortunately the only one they list is for next Saturday, which is Muggle's Day for Girl Scouts.

--On the subject of Girl Scouts, we just handed in our initial orders for selling cookies. All 4 girls are in scouts this year, so we had a goal of 200 boxes per girl. Initially we sold just a touch over 300, but I ordered the full amount of our goal and we will sell them at cookie booths. It's tricky this way, because we are financially responsible for those cookies since we ordered them and not the troop. I am hoping we sell them all and sell most of them the first weekend of cookie booths at the end of February. We have 515 boxes of cookies to get rid of. We did close to that last year (we only had 3 girls to hit goals, so we did less booths). Honestly though, I'm sick of cookies already, and we don't even have them in hand. The girls want those prizes though, so we'll be standing out in this Ohio weather selling cookies!

--Now that my entire post sounds like a rant I needed to unload, I leave you with Freya. I think she wants one of my hens!!

Lazy Sunday, Rainy Monday

Sunday and Monday were demo days 9 and 10, but really, not much happened in the way of destruction. It's been unusually warm in Ohio for December, and Sunday it was overcast and in the low 60's. We spent a lot of time outside, making a fire, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, climbing trees, and exploring the woods.

The girls put their fire building skills from girl scouts to the test.

 Lexi was trying to pull herself up the tree.

Lexi got to push Lilly up the tree.

And then Lilly's shoe got stuck in between the tree trunks!

They also enjoyed making chalk art all over the concrete. There's a nice patio area, sidewalks, and a concrete front porch to decorate.

Time for S'mores!!

We found a few spots full of these beetles. I did some quick internet looking, and we believe they are pink spotted ladybird beetles. They are good at eating aphids and lots of other insect eggs, so they are definitely beneficial to the neighboring fields and our future garden. 

My brother and dad decided to haul up the lawn mower, just to see how it would handle the long, thick grass that has been left to grow wild for at least 4 years. It clogged easily, so it was slow going, but amazingly enough it did cut it down.

We now have a path to the West field where the R/C planes fly.

We also have a decent pathway from the house to the shop.

 

Of course the planes had to make an appearance since we spent most of the day outside.

We did manage to work on the flooring in the spare room for a tiny bit, and pull off the door and base trim in the laundry room. A few doors made their way to the garage from upstairs as well. The doors all need a good scrubbing, and they'll just be in the way when we actually get to the point of sanding floors, so we might as well just take them off now.

Today isn't much of a workday either. We went up to the house over lunch today and pulled a few staples out of the floor, and quickly took off the doors to the kitchen cabinets.

 While we were there the trash guys came by with another dumpster since we filled the first one over the weekend.

The girls threw a few piece of paneling in the new dumpster before we left.

 

Progress is going to really slow down this week. Luke has tons of work to do for both his day job and photography, so he can't keep taking half days to work at the house. Hopefully the electrician gets finished up this week enough to get the power turned on, then we'll be able to go up in the evenings.