The Two Become One. Kind of.

For years, I have maintained two very similar blogs. Both have been focused on our family, but one was private and one was public, and the public one was slightly more focused on housekeeping and living frugally. I'm finally admitting that it was too much. We got busy living life and I abandoned both of them for a very long time.

Until this weekend.

I spent some time yesterday cleaning up the private one in order to make it public, and changed the blog addresses to simplify things. The idea is that if I only have one blog to think about updating, I'll do it more often.

That's the plan, anyway.  In the meantime, please excuse the housekeeping dust!

What Began With A Lost Wallet

Organization, thriftiness, and running a household...among other things.  That was where my focus was when I started this blog.  Now, six years later, it is apparent to me that those "other things" have taken precedence, both in our lives and on this blog.  I still love to organize, I'm still thrifty, and I never stop thinking about running this household (it's what I DO, after all!), but I'm thinking it's time to change things up just a bit.

My kids were 7, 7, 4, and 1 when this blogging adventure started.  We lived in a nice neighborhood, just inside city limits, in a brand-new house.  We were new to homeschooling, and we were still learning how to operate as a family of six.

A lot has changed in six years.

We will have two teenagers next week.  Their siblings are now 10 and 7.  We live out in the country, in an interesting 15-year-old log house, where the neighbors are kind of spread out.  We're in our 8th year of homeschooling (and it's only getting better and better!), and I no longer have to remember to count to four instead of three when we load kids up to go somewhere.  We do piano lessons and horseback riding instead of playdates.  We have a dog now.  And two cats.  And 12 chickens.  And-plum-trees-and-apple-trees-and-pear-trees-and-cherry-trees.  And a creek.  And a barn.  And acres and acres to mow.

I no longer organize to keep things out of toddler-reach, or figure the cost of diapers into the grocery bill each week.  The meaning of "running this household" has changed so drastically that I almost have to find new words to describe what I do.  Yes, my focus has most definitely changed.

Welcome to the new Neither Poverty Nor Riches!

Reading Record 2013

January: The Dirty Life (Kimball)

February: The Magician's Nephew (Lewis)
                The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Lewis)

March: Heller with a Gun (L'Amour)
            The Horse and His Boy (Lewis)
            The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (Esolen)

April: Queen Without Crown (Polland)
           The Castle of Llyr (Alexander)
           When the Morning Came (Prins)
           In the Footsteps of Jesus (Marchiano)

May: The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls (White)

June:

July:

August: Web of Traitors (Trease)
              Ten Thousand Heroes (Barbary)
              The Stolen Oracle (Williams)
              Alexander's Horses (Powers)
              The Counterfeit African (Williams)
              Hannibal: Invader from Carthage (Webb)
              Julius Caesar (Buchan)
              The Golden Hawks of Genghis Khan (Ritchie)
              The Eagles Have Flown (Williamson)
              Message to Hadrian (Trease)
              The Eagle of the Ninth (Sutcliff)
              The Silver Branch (Sutcliff)
              The Lantern Bearers (Sutcliff)
              The Fifty-Six Who Signed (Fink)
              The Prairie Traveler (Marcy)

September: The First Book of Medieval Man (Sobol)
                   Attila: King of the Huns (Webb)
                   Age of Chivalry (Bulfinch)
                   The Horn of Roland (Williams)
                   Legends of Charlemagne (Bulfinch)
                   El Cid (McCaughrean)

October: Owen's Pretty Good Book (Blickensderfer)
               Hereward the Wake (Kingsley)
               Knight's Fee (Sutcliff)
               The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Hugo)
               Son of the Land (Bolton)
               Genghis Khan and the Mongol Horde (Lamb)
               Ironies of Faith (Esolen)
               Men of Iron (Pyle)
               The Brendan Voyage (Severin)

November: Miniatures and Morals (Leithart)
                   No Parachute (Lee)

December:

I Blame My Sponges

I'm sorry to admit this, but blogging is not at the top of my priority list.  Sponges are.

I have four of them.

They soak up knowledge almost as fast as I can write out the lesson plans for the week.  They absorb food quicker than I can prepare it.  And they just will NOT quit getting bigger, so I am constantly on the lookout for bigger clothes and bigger shoes.

Yep.  The shortage of blog posts from me is entirely the fault of my sponges.

(Aaaaand now my kids think I'm nuts.)

Four Days Later

Four days after our first visit to Mt. Rainier, the kids and I went back again,

but this time we took Grandma!

We took an easier one mile hike that had plenty of views like this one.

Our destination was Myrtle Falls,

and this was the view looking up from the top of the falls.

Half of the kids thought the bridge was great

(the other half weren't so sure it was engineered properly), 

and they were all delighted to make a new friend

(from a distance).

Such a beautiful hike... too beautiful to only visit twice...

Mt. Rainier

On Sunday, we went on a four mile hike to Mt. Rainier.

We saw some fun wildlife:

 a buck,

 two does,

and a few marmots.

Wildflowers were everywhere.

 Everywhere.

 On the way up, there was the mountain to look at,

 

and on the way down, there were vistas like this.

And lots of wildflowers.

Did I mention those?

Such a beautiful hike...too beautiful to only visit once...

In The Back Field