Hello everyone!
I have been getting weirdly excited about organizing and redoing little areas of our house. I have also been weeding through some of our things and donating and selling them, clearing out some of the clutter of things we no longer need or enjoy. We must be a family of magpies the way we hang onto things! Last week I tore apart our homeschool supply area in the basement, set up a little work station that has my binding machine, paper cutter, and miscellaneous supplies, organized the shelves, filed stuff in my filing cabinet – and basically just organized to my heart’s content. Next I need to focus on the areas where we will actually be doing our schooling – Wyatt’s desk area in his room and at our dining room table. I think I might put my grandmother’s china away for a little bit and rework the china cabinet to hold supplies – and maybe a new reptile tank… I mean, why not right? Lol. I think we would all like a snake, but as the caretaker I don’t think I could do the feeding. Ick. And what if it escaped? I read that snakes can be tricksy little Houdinis! So probably never a snake.
I am also working on ideas for our first day of school, to make it feel like the first day and special, which can be sort of hard when you homeschool. I did take Wyatt back to school supply shopping the other day (and I have since decided that for all future Target runs I will leave my two guys at home as they zoomed through the store without stopping every 100 feet to look at stuff) and let him pick out some stuff to use. I will say he has eclectic taste!
I mean, I did pick up some other stuff too – a few odds and ends from that Dollar Spot right when you walk in, like a United States puzzle since we are studying the U.S. this year, a planet puzzle just because it was $3 and wooden, that little fox vase in the top photo, a little wooden gnome all ready for autumn and holding a pumpkin ($1 everyone!), and of course I needed to make sure we had a supply of the basics to start the year. We needed new crayons, more glue sticks, a fresh sketchbook for Wyatt. And then of course I had to add a few shirts for Wyatt to the cart, as they were on sale for $8 each. We can cross the first day of school shirt off the list because we found the perfect one, blue with little lizards on it. Or maybe it will be the 70s vibin shirt. I guess we will see which he chooses that day!
We had my little niece’s birthday party yesterday. No surprise, Mermaid Girl wanted a mermaid theme! Well, mermaid/fairy, her two favorite things right now. It was a weirdly autumn like day, very cool temps, and I even found some yellow leaves on the ground. It was a very fun day though, the kids enjoyed playing on the playground, I enjoyed visiting with family, and of course eating the cake. We also took a little nature walk which was lovely. Lake Erie was looking mystical and perhaps, full of mermaids…
Tell me, are you Team Mermaid or Team Fairy?
I am super excited about my tiny baby Brussels sprouts! They have taken forever to grow. While I was checking on them, my little neighbor cat came to peep under the fence at me. He always startles me with how much he looks like my Maggie!
I cut back on raising butterflies this year, but I couldn’t help but bring some caterpillars in. This one was my eleventh Black Swallowtail of the summer. Sadly, I have had zero Monarch eggs or caterpillars on my milkweed. They were declared endangered this year, and frankly, I can see a huge difference myself between this year and last year. I have only seen a handful floating and flying about this this summer, and one of my friends whose backyard is an official Monarch waystation has seen about 50. Her numbers are often between 300-600 a summer, so this summer is dismal. Hopefully something can be done to increase their numbers before they are extinct.
And I don’t want to end on that depressing note! Let’s see…hmmm. Here is a photo of my pretty silly Miso to lighten the mood!
Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.. 