SharonAndAdam.com

The Joys of Life

Our friends Lauren and Matthew were over today and Lauren made a remark that we haven’t posted anything in a while. So I thought I’d give a little update at the joys of life that have been keeping us busy.

Car Accident: I was in a car accident a week and a half ago. It was really not a big deal except that our hatch and window on the van had to be replace. It was in the Sun Harvest parking lot. No one was injured. God blessed me that the guy with whom this happened was very charitable. I don’t even think his truck incurred any damage. My insurance company was just really great and everyone was really nice in all our conversations. And it turned out that the day it happened, a friend, Kelly, called and she mentioned her husband works for Caliber Collision. So I went with them for the car repairs. I was originally going to get the car fixed at the location on 620 but they wouldn’t see me until May 18, because of all the hail damaged cars. When I told Kelly, she told her husband and he called around the other locations. I ended up taking it to the location on North Lamar and I dropped off the car on Monday and picked it up yesterday. They did a fabulous job and were very timely. If you ever get into a car accident, I would highly recommend them for any repairs.

Gardening: This is probably a no brainer, but if you don’t water your garden, things won’t grow. I somehow always think that Adam should have a green thumb since his dad’s a farmer and all, but that’s not the case. Our gardening experiments in the backyard have been good learning experiences. We have a 2×9 plot based on the Square Foot Gardening. The mix is composed of vermiculite, compost and peat moss which makes for very good drainage…too good. It also means it need more watering than a soil mix, which is what our other two garden plots are. After some extra watering the last week, the seeds are finally sprouting. I ended up transplanting our tomato and pepper plants from the other gardens to this one because they just weren’t growing in the other gardens. I hope they take off. There have been a few days that I sit cursing Adam and Eve! Adam’s grape vines are doing well, but yes, they too require more water. The hops has spouted and my husband is getting all kinds of ideas that I’ll let him tell you about some time.

Homeschooling: Adoremus books had its big Easter sale recently (20% off the order). I like to order our homeschooling materials from there when they have their big sale because I certainly can save a bit if I order all our materials at one time. Of course this means I would have to know what we’re doing next year in terms of our curriculum. So, in a week’s time I had to figure that out else I miss the big sale. I already had some ideas but nothing set in stone. It meant contacting a few friends to see what they’re using and why, and making a trip to Mardel to see some of the stuff they have and be able to actually look inside some of these books. It was also nice to have a serious conversation with Adam about how we want to approach teaching subjects such as history and science. I didn’t choose one curriculum such as Seton or Kolbe. Although I like parts of them, I didn’t like all the materials either offered. In the end, I chose the following:

• Math: Singapore Math and Family Math
• Phonics: Phonics Pathways (what we’re using now)
• English: Seton (for now)
• Handwriting: Zaner-Bloser
• Spelling: Phonics Pathways and Zaner-Bloser
• Religion: Faith and Life
• History: The Story of the World
• Science: (oops, I can’t remember…maybe Seton, for now…or was it Science and God’s World?)

Anyway, I got the materials ordered. It looks like I’ll have a nice summer planning before Baby G makes his/her arrival in September.

Other: Our parish had a book sale of old books/movies from the library they are getting rid of. I pick up a few books and a bunch of VHS movies for the kids and us. Now, if there’s a way to convert those to DVD we’re in business.

Our God daughter, Lindsey, accepted a job offer to teach at a middle school as the theater arts teacher in the fall. Yay! She used to work at Dell and was laid off. So this one less unemployed person. She’s going to be great!

Then I mentioned Matthew and Lauren spent the day with us observing famiy life (i.e. playing with the kids). To celebrate the Feast of St. Mark, we made homemade strawberry ice cream. It was SOOOOOO GOOD.

Here’s the recipe:

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1-1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 2 cups strawberries
• 1 tsp vanilla

Heat the milk on medium heat until hot. Remove from stove. Beat eggs and sugar. Gradually add hot milk. Return to sauce pan and heat stirring constantly until slightly thick (8 minutes). Allow to cool.

In a blender, puree strawberries in the cream. Add this to cooled custard. Stir and add vanilla. Cool in refridgerator. Then crank it out in your ice cream maker.