Stress Management

There are these couple of dudes I know.  They are both genius scientists--chemists, I think.  They work for companies with big names we all know, solving problems we can hardly fathom.  I also know they both like to bake.

This old house is throwing us some curve balls this week...and last week.....and the week before, come to think of it.  I guess it all started when our pipes froze a few weeks ago.  During the poking-around-in-hopes-of-solving-the-problem process, a valve got loosened and retightened.  The pipe poking party gave up and came upstairs.  Hours later, followed by much rejoicing, the pipes thawed and water flowed once again.  We hadn't been in the basement since.
Until....
Babydaddy noticed our water flow was a bit off Friday morning.  He went to the (coal and dirt floor) basement to investigate and found that valve had been spewing water since the Great Thaw of '13.  The basement was drenched and mold was rapidly growing. (It can start in only 10-12 hours of moisture!)  One of our worst fears as new homeowners had become a reality.  Thankfully, B.daddy knows what he's doing, and because of his incredible character, has very good relationships with vendors.  So with dehumidifiers and the last of a very generous Lowe's gift card, he started hacking away at the problem. (Eventually the company has to come in and do the official cleaning up, but B has done A LOT of the job on his own.)
Our floor is dirty.  I'm talking Wet Coal and Dirt dirty.
And while running the dehumidifiers with giant extension cords laying hapless through our walkways, we keep losing the lights in our dining room, kitchen, and entryway.
And the bulkhead finally broke.
But what do you know?  Is there light at the end of the tunnel?
Oh no.
Oh, dear, no.
On one of his countless, jolly jaunts downstairs B.daddy saw our boiler had started spewing water as well.  Meaning it was broken.  Heat, hot water.  Broken.
He's been fielding all the calls and visits from plumbers.  Should we convert to gas now--should we not?  How should we fix the boiler if we stick with oil?  How soon and for how little can you do that?  How long do we want to live in this house after all?

And now.  No matter how many breakers B.daddy flips the lights in the kitchen, dining room, and entryway will not come back on.
That means an electrician in addition to the plumber and clean-up company.

Just when I was starting to feel all settled and content and warm and fuzzy.

So I'm baking.  And sewing.
I don't know how much all of this will cost, or how exactly we'll cover it.  I know I should be thankful that God provides, pray for that, and then feel like an idiot for praying for provision when there are people freezing to death in the city.  If you can't tell, my mind is on overload.  I am not processing well At All.
There are a few things, however, that I can manage.  I can create a delicious chocolate cake from out of nowhere--beginning to completion with pleasant results.  I can take some cheap fabric and make our kitchen look a hundred times better.  I cannot fix what's going on in our basement or make it so that my husband doesn't have to figure it out.  When I find myself swarmed with problems I cannot solve, I start problems of my own--but only the ones I CAN solve!
Since the beginning of said trials I have baked cinnamon rolls, chocolate cake, chocolate chip muffins, and butterscotch walnut cookies.  I have sewn roman shades for the living room, a panel for over the kitchen sink, and white muslin roman shades for the kitchen.  I need these completions to distract from the otherwise fruitless ruckus of my brain.
And when all the dust settles and I realize I was freaking out over nothing, we'll have a whole bunch of pretty and yummy we wouldn't have had otherwise.

whole wheat, of course.  i made the chocolate chip muffins with all white flour.  when i offered one to li'l bit she said, "are they fully baked?"

now i can wash dishes and drink from the jug WITHOUT the back neighbors seeing me.

Art and Science

I know a couple of other gals crazy enough to educate their kids.  We happen to be doing the same science this year, so we get together every couple of weeks to do the fun stuff we don't typically do when we're alone with our kids.  I'd go on and on about how hilarious and delightful and loving these ladies are and how wonderfully our kids get along and how fun it is to teach a whole gaggle of kids at once, but I don't want to make you jealous.  I will tell you I like our set up.  We take turns.  Hosting, teaching, feeding.  1/3 of the time I do it all.  But 2/3 of the time?  They do it.
Suckers.
I simply bring my learners to the great rumpus of communal discovery while I get to sit and chat with the other mama about...well, anything.  Teaching, marriage, leggings, the meaning of life, etc.  Then we all have lunch, the mamas talk, the kids play.  It's not a bad deal.  And since it's just the three of us, we can do whatever the heck we want.  Last time S did penguins, which are SO COOL but not in the "Flying Creatures" portion of zoology.  On my last turn, I did art, which isn't exactly science.  But it was Valentine's Day.  I had to do the Romantic Era.  I had to!
I talk to a lot of mamas who are kind of intimidated by the idea of teaching art.  I love art.  I'm not an expert, I haven't actually created anything in years, but I love it.  Introducing my kids to art is my way of doing what I really want to do.  So it's actually kind of selfish if you think about it.
When I have enough time to share my lesson ideas with other moms they aren't as scared.  So I thought I'd share what we did.

If you are a family member, you'll adore the cute photos and rest in the knowledge that your grandbabies, nieces, nephews, etc. are actually learning.  If you're another homeschooling mom, maybe this post will give you some ideas that will lead to even better ideas of your own.  If you're not one of those two, I cannot say with confidence that this post will hold any significance for you whatsoever.

My objective was to introduce the kids to the Romantic Period and the key concepts associated with that time.  I chose the Romantic period because it was relevant to Valentine's Day.  But it proved to be very difficult.  I was lucky to find any interesting paintings that did not contain naked bodies being gruesomely stabbed to death.  So with Chopin playing in the background, these are the ones we looked at:

We compared a Neoclassic piece to an Impressionistic piece and then looked at the above Romantic pieces to see the bridge they created.  I directed them to discover the elements that made these paintings historically Romantic.  Amazingly, I had the kids' attention most when we were simply looking at and talking about the prints.  They were very interested in the visual elements, pointing out all the interesting tidbits, and quickly began questioning what was behind it all.  Once we transitioned into activity time when we were going to make an explosion of our own, and then paint our own version of a Turner fire, it was much harder to get them to focus.  And it wasn't a time thing.  I kept our lesson short and their bodies moving.  This is encouraging me to focus on art when I'm teaching art.  I was trying to make it "more fun" so they'd accept it (we had five boys in the mix), but I found that fine art is perfectly acceptable to young children in and of itself.  I'm sure I'll still tag activities to the end of future lessons, but I won't expect that to be where they "get it."  It was obvious they "got it" as soon as I laid the beautiful prints before them.

I have also found that it is not hard at all to make connections between any of our subjects and our faith.  The most profound benefit of teaching my kids is the opportunity to point out where God's love is--in everything.  I don't even have to try.  I don't look for ways to interject truth where it doesn't really fit.  Artificial and forced is the not the sense I want my children to have of their faith.  The Spirit is constantly at work around us, in us, and all we have to do is pay attention.

During this particular lesson it was natural to contrast the Romantic passion and Christ's passion.  I showed them this painting:

Since the Romantics were so focused on the sensory, we discussed Christ's sensory experience while he was on the cross.  I felt it was a very natural segue from a worldly idea of romance to a Godly view of sacrificial love, which is the most romantic of all. 

Below is my detailed plan if you want to look for something worth retaining and reusing.

February 14, 2013   Art Day

~Discover the Romantic Period of the arts, exploring the artists’ focus on sensibility and passion.  Later discuss sacrificial love of Christ as the love we should emulate.

(In School Room)
Lay Down the Rules
10:15 Fun Fact Song & Motions

10:25 Compare prints of Neoclassicism and Impressionism
Look at prints from Romantic Era
-passion/emotion
-dramatic colors and scenes
-focused on the senses
JMW Turner, “Burning of the House...” prints
-from a rented boat,
-he watched the burning,

-sketching and watching,

-absorbing the event into his sensory mind.

(In Dining Room)
10:40 Sparkly Explosion
-focus!  absorb the experience into your senses!
-see, hear, smell, touch?, don’t taste!
10:50 Wash hands if you touched
11:00 Paint our Explosion
-recall from your senses and paint what rises inside
-German Romantic painter, Caspar David Friedrich said,
“The artist should paint not only what he sees before

him, but also what he sees in him.”

11:45 Clean up table and prepare for lunch

During lunch:
~Set out print of the Raising of the Cross & John 15:13
~Read “Jesus on the Cross” pg. 377 of The Children’s Bible
~Wonder about his senses that day--what did he hear, taste,

feel, see, smell?

~Discuss sacrificial love and John 15:13

Dessert Acticity

~dip strawberries and marshmallows in chocolate

Little Old Man

Our laundry has been out of control.  More than usual.  I've never succeeded at doing a load a day to keep the laundry monster away.  Once a week I wrestle that monster into temporary submission. And I do mean temporary.  As soon as you get all 102 pieces of clean, sweet smelling, perfectly folded laundry put away, there are four outfits and three wet towels in the hamper.  Talk about killjoy.

I have not defeated the monster in a long time.  I'm talking weeks.  That's no big deal in the summer when all we need is a shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.  The girls and I can get by with just one garment--the blessed sun dress.  How I miss those!  And sometimes the kids don't even need that.  They run around next to naked!  But in the winter we need one if not two shirts, pants, and for the girls a skirt on top of those, and two warm, matching socks.  In addition to that, I get the daily battle with snow pants, boots, 30 hoodies and coats--there are only five of us here!--hanging in the entryway, gloves, hats, scarves....

I miss summer clothes.

But here I am belly aching, when I just came to share a cute Gizmoism.

As all-boy and messy as Gizmo can be, he relishes the independence of keeping his clothes in order and getting dressed everyday.  The dirty ones lay around on his floor until I nag, but on the front end he enjoys himself.  His drawers are always neat with the appropriate garments in the appropriate places.  He loves to get dressed, and he actually has a very cool, personal sense of style.  Since we got him a robe and two sets of matching pj's for Christmas, he will emerge from his room in the evening and early morning looking like a little old man donned in said pj's and robe.  It is so cute, which we cannot tell him because that would be embarrassing.  

The last few weeks have been very hard for him.  He's been restricted to wear whatever I unearth from the bags of clean clothes.  And socks.  Oh the socks!  You might wonder why I torture myself and my son and not just fold the dang things.  Well.  I'm trying.  I'm not succeeding but I'm trying.  Anyway, the cuteness:

Gizmo approached me tonight after bedtime.  He came downstairs, put his hand on my arm, and sincerely trying to help, said, "Mommy, I think I may have an idea about how to get the laundry done.  What we should do with the dirty clothes?  If you put the dirty clothes in the dirty clothes washing machine, then they'd get clean."

Oh, my sweet, sweet boy.  These past few weeks it's been the laundry verses your education.  I've chosen education.

So cute!  He'd packed his own bags--full of the perfect outfits and pj's and Hotwheels--for a family sleepover.

Perfection Realized. Just Once.

As I've discussed in painful detail, we've renovated our living room to reveal the history and charm original to our house.  Throughout the house, we want to bring out the antique colonial elements without creating a dark, dingy shrine to ALL things colonial.  It's a fine line we walk.  Keeps us up nights.  

Okay, not really.

But I do have to be careful when I'm choosing each element.  Turning the antique ladder into a blanket rack was the right move.  But if I tried to also display the antique ironing board, golf club, and garden rake, well then we'd have a shrine on our hands.  I'm holding out hope that as we continue renovations our other rooms will provide perfect nooks for those amazing finds. (B.daddy found them on the property.)

Another challenge is how long it takes us to settle on the right elements and then get them in place.  I have concluded that we like to take our time, so we can be sure of what we want.  We aren't obsessive or materialistic. On the contrary, we are very picky about what we put in our home so that we won't freak out on our kids or friends if they put their feet on the couch, walk in with muddy boots, jump on our bed, put a drink on the end table, etc.  But--and I say this with all humility and frankness--we do have excellent taste.  I.e. expensive.  On one thing we always agree: beautiful, well-made stuff.  So we have to walk a long road to find beautiful things worthy of our senses that don't cost an arm and a leg.  I am happy to announce we are now one element closer to Living Room Completion!

I found the perfect rug!!

I wanted a braided rug, since they were among the first cloth floor coverings available to common colonial folk.  But I did not want one in the currently traditional braided rug family.  I wanted the basic structure of the resourceful floor covering, but with a creative spin that would reflect our tastes.
And I must take a home-maker's moment to point out that I wanted a rug because we painted our floor a solid, pale green.  So I need to put a rug over the part of the floor that would require I mop more often than I want to.

We had picked out the perfect rug online, but were waiting for the right moment to purchase it.  When the moment arose, the product was "No Longer Available."  Imagine my dismay.  Oy vey!  My life was over!

So I left it alone for a while.

As is my style, I woke up this morning and decided I was going to find our rug!  Today!

What do you know, but I walked into our favorite overstock warehouse and nearly tripped over a bin full of this delight:

I immediately started untying and unrolling!  I couldn't believe my eyes.  Here were rolls and rolls of stupid-cheap, funkily designed braided rugs--in the perfect size for our little room.  I'm surprised I didn't hold a hallelujah session right then and there.  In my heart.  I was having it in my heart.

After all of ten minutes I unrolled the p-e-r-f-e-c-t rug.  It's so perfect, I didn't even know how perfect it was until I got it home.  LOOK at this:

The colors are bright, but also married to some subdued tones.  It is a square so there's a good portion protected beneath the couch in case any of our children barf roof tar on the exposed corners.  And there just happens to be a repeated strip of green that matches our floor color, well, perfectly without turning our efforts into a Contemporary Sage Disaster.

If you can manage to look past the adorable puppy, you can get the whole effect.  It's bright, but not girly.  Braided, but not boring.  And the dog is really, really cute.

Do you see that little strip of red and white ticking?  Well, let me tell ya...our roman shades (that I still haven't made) will be black and white ticking.  There are only three strips of this ticking on the rug, which is juuuuust right.  And there's even one, precious strip of pink just for me!  Can you tell I really like this rug?

And Reason No. 1 that I like it?  

My kids can make a mess on it, and you'll never know.  Except for roof tar.  I've tackled nearly everything but roof tar.

~~~

Here are a few other details we've nailed down, so to speak.  We already had the goods, but had some arrangement challenges:

These are photos I took in the city back when I could carry a camera into the city--you know, before diaper bags.  We had to figure out how to hang them considering the lamp and the obnoxious thermostat.

I found these charming prints in a little antique shop in Little Rock over ten years ago.  They were displayed just like this in the shop, and this is the first time I've had a nook to mimic it.

I got this print from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.  Maybe you recognize it from the blog's background?  I like the idea of having art our home that the kids can actually go see in person.  It makes it all so much more relevant.  We were just at the MFA last Friday, and Colette saw the original painting and said, "Hey! There's our painting!"  Which I love.