I know there are two days left in July, so I hope nothing exciting happens!
Read
For my “Books of Centuries” challenge I read Black Ships Before Troy and The Wanderings of Odysseus, Rosemary Sutcliff’s retellings of The Iliad and The Odyssey respectively.
I’m getting more into pre-reading school books, so I read Letters from Rifka, The Mystery of the Periodic Table, and the Sutcliff books listed above.
For fun readalouds, we read The Vanderbeekers on the Road, The Children of Noisy Village, and The Wheel on the School. My kids like the Vanderbeekers, but I don’t think they are that great. The other two were both five star reads!
We’ve been going through a lot of picture books, but here’s just one recommendation: The Curious Garden.
Eat
The girls continue to make supper on Fridays, including garlic basil chicken with pasta, BLTs, perogies with cabbage and sausages, and tortellini caesar salad.
Another hit was Kielbasa cabbage soup (with lots of fresh dill) from this cookbook.
We also made three very good batches of sandwich cookies: molasses krinkles with cream cheese frosting, pecan espresso cookies with chocolate ganache, and pretzel cookies with caramel filling (we took them all to potlucks but there were plenty left over too!).
I can’t forget Tristan’s first birthday cake, made to look like a giant cupcake.
Do
- Swimming lessons (three weeks down, two to go — the kids love it and are learning a lot)
- Fourth of July picnic (Andrew had to work, but I took the kids and we had a good time with lots of food, outdoor games, and even folk song singing with guitars and fiddle)
- Beach (four beach afternoons… feels like a lot of work to pack and clean up, but it’s worth it)
- Waddington concert series (Andrew and I attended a free outdoor concert by Leave Those Kids Alone with brisket and fries from Seaway Smokehouse, ice cream, and cherries)
- VBS (the Olympic themed VBS put on by Lisbon RP and Grace Presbyterian churches was a hit; some cousins came down for the week so we also went to the beach, library, pool, children’s museum, and thrift stores in the afternoons)
- School planning, along with a training zoom for a new writing curriculum and a Schole Sisters online retreat
- Seaway Festival (This is a big deal! We enjoyed the firefighter event, garden tours, fireworks, huge parade, and bounce castles, but there was lots more going on over ten days.)
Meditate
Bible reading update: I finished 1 Kings, Ecclesiastes, Amos, Jonah, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Jude.
At WMF we discussed Psalm 13 and other comforting Bible passages and hymns, as we are working through Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy by Mark Vroegop.
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me. – Psalm 13