Study

Last Friday after I got my haircut, I was finally able to finish up with my study. I have finished sorting all of the books and found places for all of my knitting and sewing materials, and also all of my other things. It feels good to have finished this and its great to finally have a work room of my own after all of these years. Here are some photos.

This is a wonderful room for a study. I have had dreams of having a cabin where I could study and create, and so I love that the pin Oak branches outside look like they are hugging the room. When the tree is full of leaves it really shrouds the view of the street and so I fell quite separate from the outside world. Here are some photos of my view while I am writing this.

Next year's garden

Because of the forward thinking person that I am, and also because of the success of this years garden, I can't wait to get started on next years garden. So, I decided not to. I prepared one of the garden beds with mulch and manure to get it jump started for next spring. I went to a horse stable to get manure, an Joseph came along to help collect it.





















Tommy and Spot waited in the car.

Joseph had a lot of fun. He really had a blast scooping manure; I guess its those Frisian roots, or maybe just that he is a four year old boy. Here is a video.

Leaves, leaves, and more leaves

Today Joanne is here, so I was able to clean up all of the leaves. I hope that this will the last time, but we'll see. A couple of weeks ago we bought a yard vacuum because cleaning up the leaves from the pin oak in the front is a monster task. Here is a before and after picture of the tree.












The vacuum grinds up the leaves and makes the piles about 10 times smaller in volume. I put a lot of the leaves on the garden beds as a mulch. Here are some pictures of today's efforts.

First Halloween in our New House

We had a lot of fun on Halloween trick-or-treating in our new neighbourhood. We had more kids walking around that night than I have ever experienced. I had fun decorating the entrance with spiderweb, and we had a ghost that moved and made scary noises.

Joseph was a fireman, but he really wanted to be a truck. First he wanted to be a tow truck, but I convinced him that a firetruck would be a really good truck to be (and a lot easier for me to make.) I was making an opossum costume for Tommy and me, and then on Halloween wear him on my back (Like real opossums carry their babies, but I ran out of time and so I wore my standard witch costume that I always have on hand. This year I added a lantern that I carried and that enhanced the otherworldly impression. Jim was a bat, and you can see his silhouette in the door of the outdoor photo.

Getting settled

We are finally getting settled into our new place. It has been tough getting it all together; the boys have been sick this last week so that has defiantly put a kink in things. Now Joseph at least is feeling better, so now things will happen a little faster again. Jim has been working on the fence. These photos are from the front. He has been working on the back this week but I don't have any photos of it yet.
Clearly from the amount of foliage these photos were taken a long time ago (probably a month ago.) Another thing we have been spending a lot of time on is cleaning up leaves, and there are A LOT.

Here are some photos of the ground floor.

The kids reading area.



The kitchen.


The playroom.


The playroom has actually changed a lot. We got a big fence divider so that Joseph can build with blocks with getting them knocked down. It has been very helpful because this way I am not breaking up fights every 30 seconds.

I don't have any good photos of what the living room, upstairs, or basement look like right now, so those will have to wait.

Abandonment

Sometimes I read things in the news that are so far from my understanding that I feel unmoored by them. Tonight I read a story that did just that. The horrible thing is that this is the third such story that I have heard about recently (they are all mentioned in the article.) The subject is about the child abandonment that has been happening in Omaha since a safe haven law took effect in Nebraska. Now, in my mind leaving a baby is one thing (because at least that baby will not remember that he or she was abandoned,) but leaving a teenager? And as I said before, this is not just one isolated case, but the third since July.

Montessori

I have gone back and forth on the issue of sending Joseph to preschool. Now it looks like he will be attending the Montessori school after all, at least he will if there is enough room. We visited the school again today, and I completed the application and surrendered the accompanying application fee, so I guess that makes it official that we are trying to send him there at least.

He really enjoyed being there today, and tonight he told me that he wants to go back tomorrow because he didn't do all the things that were there. I really like this school; it really feels like a school, and not just a place to keep them busy. What is great about this is that it is not a school in the academic sense, but in a worldly sense. What I mean is that it teaches children to experience the world though there senses, and also how to best learn and accomplish certain tasks. They have stations set up like water pouring, rice pouring, painting, and clay. They do also have academic things available, like math and language, but the child can engage in these when he chooses. This school is really very close to the original Montessori method, and I think it would be good for Joseph to experience that. They stress being orderly and calm and it would be very good for him to be in such and environment.

The last week or so he talks about how big he is, and he has said a few times "Look how big I am! I am big enough to go to school without you Memmy." He was so excited that he unhooked the gate on his own and got in the car so that we could go. I didn't know he was doing this, and so when I went looking for him, I got a real scare the at gate was unhooked. However, as we were getting in the car to go home after visiting the school, he said he was really to go to the school, but I have to stay. It was really kind of cute; I am sure he would be fine without me now though. He also seems like he is almost ready to give up his nap, and he is getting to be a little bit less dependent on me in general, so this is perfect timing in that sense. The last two weeks he stayed in the nursery during Mom's group of his own will, and he said that he really liked it and had fun playing with the other children. January is still quite aways away, so by then I am fairly sure that he will be ready.