The Homeschool Mother’s Journal–5/17/13

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“Monday, Monday, Monday.” –in that special radio voice… “Manic Monday, wish it were Sunday.” –by the Bangles…

(5/13) It was just another Monday. Lee had babysitting but for two hours longer than usual so I didn’t bother to stay in town. It meant two trips in the car. I had contemplated, very seriously, mowing the lawns in between car trips but I decided against it because I always worry that I’m doing something wrong with the mower. It’s a riding mower that just has a few too many steps to get it going. I can do it; I just don’t like to. I also didn’t think there was enough time. Well, my surprise when we got home and hubby was mowing the front yard. He’d worked 11 hours and then set to work on the yard as soon as he got home.

Fox and I played the challenging board game National Parks Query Quest off and on. We bought the game 4 years ago at a used book sale in Torrington,Wyoming. But it is for teens and adults and the kids were definitely not quite old enough to enjoy the game. It isn’t easy but it’s definitely educational. I see it at the site for $35+ shipping; we bought it for $2

Oh, yes, and I made some coconut/almond milk. So yummy. I am okay with the almond milk, minus the fact that I cannot strain it quite enough and always have the tiniest grittiness when I drink it. But this time, I used less almonds and some shredded unsweetened coconut. At first I tried to do it like usual: soak it overnight, then use room temp filtered water, blend, strain. Uh, the fat from the coconut wasn’t cooperating. I warmed up what little bit I had strained and started again with warm water. Much better! The almonds by themselves usually have a nice cream top (not sure what it’s called) but with the coconut there is actually the fat that solidifies in the fridge. I like the almond cream but not so much the coconut oil. I attempted to separate the coconut oil from the rest after it was cold; somewhat successfully.

Also, I’ve had some good success with gluten free sourdough starter and bread. I just need to let it rise more before baking. I’m so impatient! And I think I need to cook it longer than the recipe states. It has been too moist when ‘done’. It isn’t as light as I expect it to be, according to the recipe. The last time I fed my starter, I used garbanzo bean flour. It loved it! It overflowed the jar even though it had a good 4 inches to the top.

Otherwise in the day- I was expecting a package from Amazon for this Kindle Fire Keyboard and this glass pitcher. Neither showed up It’s going through Prestige shipping (never heard of them!). It shows that they got the paperwork for the shipment but no actual shipment yesterday. Oh boy.

Sourdough rising…

Sourdough baked…it fell just a bit.

Tuesday- (5/14) started my day with more sourdough bread. I had to clean up the overflow from Monday’s feeding of the starter before bed. I didn’t/don’t want to waste it so I went ahead and made up a quick dough to be baked today. It rose nicely. The flour I used was 2 cups rye, 1 cup Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose (which has rice flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, garbanzo and fava bean flour…anything else?), and 1 cup Bob’s Red Mill garbanzo bean flour. It should be ready to bake around 2:30 pm…If I can just wait that long. It’s already risen an inch in 2 hours. Edited: it turned out great! I baked it after only 3 hours. It reminds me of very moist homemade whole wheat bread- without the wheat!

Wednesday- (5/15) Last night I made enchiladas for dinner. DH has a long, hard week at work and I wanted to make him some good food to come home to. Chicken enchiladas are one of his favorite meals. They smelled so good that I decided I’d suffer if need be to have two of them. Delicious, simply delicious. But I did indeed pay for eating them. Woke with terrible headache and just feeling not well. After feeding the cat, I laid on the couch for another 4 hours; oblivious to all that was around me. Finally, around 10ish, I was human again. The weather must have sympathized with me because it rained and stormed in the morning but was nice and sunny later.

And it was ‘sunny’ later also because I got my Kindle Fire HD keyboard (oh yes, and the glass pitcher ) that I was hoping for yesterday. I figured out ‘who’ Prestige shipping is/was. They are the same people who deliver a lot of our packages one day later than it says it is expected at Amazon lol. There is a mechanical pencil on the left of the keyboard, to give a bit of perspective to size.

I had to drive Fox to Young Marines and Lee and I were to go to prayer meeting but she wasn’t feeling well. We (Lee and I) stopped by the Chick-Fil-A near the armory Fox goes to for Young Marines so that she could get an application. Her first real application!? It just seems so… unreal. I helped her understand what’s what on the application and guided her through filling it out. Now comes the difficult part: turning it in.

Thursday- (5/16) Just a simple, somewhat lazy day. Kids worked on their ‘must finish’ list, then walked to the library. I worked on compiling a list of books and resources that have been used this year. It’s for the portfolio assessment that we’ll have done May 30th. I also plan on taking a printed copy of The Weekly Barden. What else to take? I’ve no idea! I’m not nervous, per se, but I guess I am a bit more than I think. I keep wondering should I take much, or not. I want the kids (and myself, I guess) to talk more about what we’ve done/learned, rather than have a lot of papers. And honestly, a lot of the kids’ work is digital, on the computer.

…And apparently, that’s as far as I made it with my weekly journal entry lol. Posting late but posting anyway!