Update

Another moderately disjointed "update" post, I'm afraid.

Just after we decided that we were going to work on simplicity, the Universe decided to give us a hand.

We decided to get rid of the bigger car to save on gas and insurance -- and then we discovered that simplicity would be the least of it. The car started making some amazing bad smells as soon as it left the garage, though it could run in the garage indefinitely. Next we discovered that the clutch is slipping on the smaller car. Between them, the cars will require somewhere around $1400 in repairs. Good thing we like beans, eh? *heh*

Then the stove decided to die almost entirely. For some months it has been quirky with one of two of the burners deciding mid-task to stop working. Now it's all of them from time to time and some of them most of the time. This is on top of the fact that the oven won't stay closes and has a leak in the door, oven when it did stay reasonably tightly closed.

So now it looks like we'll be selling the car to pay for the repairs to both of the cars, and maybe buying a new stove.

I'm not actually worried -- we've done it a lot harder than this -- and we started doing one car last week to save on gas and I fnd that it seems to be bringing the family closer together (though it does wreck havoc with my blogging schedule.)

In brighter and happier news, we got together last Friday for a curriculum discussion meeting and I had a blast! We plan to get together again since not everyone could make it - and I, at least, learned vast amounts and am looking forward to learning more.

Jack and Rod have been "doing school" for a while now. They both seem to be enjoying it and Jack has learned enough Spanish to start cracking jokes. That's fun. I think it may be time to start seeing that he gets a chance to go to bilingual story hours so he gets a chance to practice his accent. Otherwise he may pick up mine, which I have been told is almost incomprehensible at this point.

I have been getitng quite a bit o scrapbooking done. jack has reached the oint where we can work side by side with me offering only a little assistance, instead of Jack supervising while I mostly have to show him every step of the way. That's been very nie. I love having the chance to chat and work side by side!

But now, it is well past bedtime.