This Week

{To help me pull my thoughts together on the many areas 

we pursue through the week I'm borrowing from the day book format. 

I'll plan to post on Fridays about the many goings on around this little place.}

This week found our schedule a little more jam-packed than usual, so there just wasn't a lot of craftiness to speak of. Ellie's cold is still lingering, and I'm trying desperately not to catch it (and not very successfully).

After all, when Mama goes down, it's a sad state of affairs at our house.

On the Needles...

All my progress for the week went into the  first of my yearly socks. I finished the cuff and turned the heel one night and knit about an inch on the foot before bed another night.


I finished the body and hit the first sleeve of my Shapely Boyfriend Cardigan, and you know how I feel about sleeves. I'm trying not to jump ship- I really want this cardigan to be finished (including two sleeves) and in action as soon as possible. But I haven't even gone forward on the Vertebrae sleeves, so it's not looking good right now. I need some energy to plow through sleeves for one week to just. get. them. done.

I read... 

I started reading Ree Drummond's book Black Heels to Tractor Heels. I've had a long run with some bad Dystopian YA and needed something very different to break the cycle. It's a fun fast read and I'm really liking that I was able to borrow it on the kindle through my local library.

Homeschool... 

We finished CC Cycle 1, Week 2 and started Cycle 1, Week 3. It's taking us about 6 school days to really fully memorize each week's material and since we're not involved in a CC community there's no need for us to stick with a super strict weekly schedule. The boys have also been having great fun as we work through our human body science unit using the My Body book.

I also started a rough outline for next school year. I always need to start around now to give myself enough time to really think about what we want and to really evaluate all our options.

In the Kitchen... 

I made my first ever small batch of blackberry jam on Sunday afternoon and it turned out quite well. I was nervous about whether not it would get a good set but I didn't need to be.  Most importantly our primary jam eater marked it Ender-approved.

Watching... 

I watched a few documentaries on Netflix this week, including First Position which follows a few young dancers as they prepare and then compete for prestigious scholarships and job opportunities. 

Michaela's story was so particularly heart-rending- she was orphaned in Sierre Leone and saw so much death and destruction there before being adopted and brought to the states. She talks about having a  page from a magazine of a beautiful ballerina and that she dreamed of become one herself. 

Joan Sebastian comes from Colombia and he has a dream of being the first Colombian to dance a principle part in the Royal Ballet in London. His father says, "there is nothing for you here" and while he is terribly homesick you can see that he knows ballet is his chance to make something of himself.

I read a few reviews as I was searching for something interesting to watch and found the usual "these crazy parents are stealing their kids' childhoods away from them". If you've read this blog for any length of time you know I'm all for age-appropriate work levels, but there are some kids out there who are so very driven to follow a passion and it would be a shame to keep them from following that. I've been on the teacher side of things for a long time and can see the difference between a talented driven child and a pushy parent trying to push a child into "super-talent". That is NOT what is going on in this film. The way these kids look when they talk about ballet is more than enough evidence for me.

Listening... 

This week I listened to the Knitmore Girls' episode 213, and some back episodes of the Nerdist while I  ran.

In Stitches... 

I washed and ironed fabric this week, fully meaning to cut out pieces for a few projects before the schedule exploded on us. So the fabric still waits, and I plan to jump back in tonight.

I didn't get to...

Confession time: I still haven't taken down the Christmas tree.

All it needs is a dedicated hour or two, and I just haven't done it.

This weekend...


Craft night is at our house this weekend.

Maybe that's the incentive I need to take care of the Christmas Tree?

I'd love to hear how your week went... feel free to post a link in comments!