I signed Regina up for Miacademy, an online homeschooling service, to see if she will accomplish more if she has the ability to work independently. Day 1, today, went passably well. She groaned and grumbled through the assignments, and the assessments are a lot of "choose the best answer" questions that can get pretty repetitive. The most fun she had was with the Touch Typing lesson. She's just competitive enough to try again and again to finish the drill quickly with 100% accuracy. I predict she'll be touch typing in 3 weeks.
I cut Andy's and Philip's hair on the weekend.
Maverick and Vivienne spent the afternoon here on Sunday, and they had a chance to play with Layla for a while, since she stayed at our house all weekend. After I left to take Layla home, the kids and Andy sat on the porch and watched an impressive lightning storm.
Natalie, Noelle, Theresa, Emily, and Jamison went to a heavy metal concert in Philly on Sunday night, and didn't get home until 3:30 a.m. It will not come as a huge surprise that a few certain someones didn't make it to school Monday morning. That same night I drove to Sarah's to return the Layla, who stayed at our house all weekend.
We spent the bulk of Monday afternoon cleaning in the living room. It's just getting cool enough to burn the wood stove soon, so I cleaned that whole area, and Natalie organized the toys on the ledge and swept the carpet. Then she started to feel lousy - sluggish and feverish, with a headache. We hadn't planned on lighting the wood stove that day, but she was so chilled that we made a small fire and she spent the rest of the evening bundled up in front of it. We played Jackbox in the later evening (Nat, Noelle, Gina, Phil, and me) while Andy was at RCIA.
Clare flew back from her visit with Connor in Portland on Tuesday, and Sarah, Tess, and Layla drove to Baltimore to meet her flight after a visit to the Baltimore aquarium.
Scott got word that they'll be closing on the new house in two weeks.
The Fitbit I gave to Gina has been a game changer. Last week she was awake and alert before 9:00 every day. The USA Ninja Challenge class has also helped quite a bit. She now has something specific to look forward to every week.
I've been wanting to get rid of the kitchen table for some time now. It takes up a lot of space and all it does is collect piles of junk. My hope was to buy some sort of cabinet or dry sink to store our large countertop appliances, thereby freeing up space in the kitchen AND on the counter. However, I couldn't find they type of cabinet I was imagining - not without shelling out over $1000. So instead I rotated the kitchen table 90 degrees, moved the microwave cart, put all the big appliances away, and have started a dedicated campaign to avoid piling stuff on the table. Now there is space in the kitchen to eat breakfast or play a game or do schoolwork, and the counters are empty and gleaming. It's been really nice.
I'd like to update the backspashes eventually and maybe the counters, but the floor needs to be replaced first. The linoleum is torn, and we still have that butt-ugly mat covering the hole Andy had to cut when the sink pipe was leaking and destroyed the floor. The mat has been there for almost 3 years and the finish has worn away. Most of the time we don't even see it because we're so used to it, but it looks really trashy.
Did I mention that a few weeks ago Andy finally busted through the kitchen wall and installed the stove hood? It's a real game changer! The kitchen isn't overheating anymore when we cook, and we haven't smoked out the house even once since he finished.
Ninja class is Wednesday, and we have to deliver meals for the soup kitchen on Thursday because one of the drivers had a death in the family.
A few pictures from this week:
