Brief update

Ahh, well. Clever Misti wrote some blog posts on her thumb drive and made sure all the pictures were in order...and then carefully put the thumb drive away in her purse...and forgot to bring the purse (and the blog) to the cafe.

Oh well.

I have, however, learned how to post by e-mail, so I can get everything ready and post quickly when we do a drive-by download.

All is well here at Chez Smiffy; the increased energy at Chez Smiffy is lovely and remarkable. Jack is reveling in his "mid-winter break" as Rod and I work together to prepare the next unit...though the preliminary reading has begun with Boy of the Pyramids as this week's bedtime story. With a lot of input from my newly energized honey, the curriculum is changing pretty dramatically this time -- and all for the good! We're finding that Jack *really* responds to Charlotte Mason style learning and has begun to resist anything less engrossing, so we're moving further and further in the direction of pure pagan CM.

The baking has started to come together, though that was the topic of a longish post, so I'll leave it at that.

We spent the holiday pulling the house together (don't we always?). A visit from Purple Heart
on New Year's Eve has left us with a clear floor and a usable office again and we have started to dig into the dark corners where we hid boxes to deal with "later". The basement is just about empty, and soon we can start on the eaves storage.

I have continued exploring drawing and painting and amazed myself last weekend with not one but *three* recognizable pieces. Not good, necessarily, but one can guess what they are without prompting. This is progress! I have always wished to be able to draw and paint like Hunt, Millais, and Rosetti. Not sure I'll ever get there, but as the frustration subsides, I am finding art rewarding in its own right -- and that's the point, right?

OK, well, I'll post those blogs as soon as I can. Thankd for your patience!