Yesterday

I had quite the whirlwind of a day yesterday - hence no post until today. Today is a little more sane. Yesterday, I woke up bright and early for an early morning bike ride - we're giving our running muscles a break for a bit and doing some cross training. I, however, do not recommend biking downhill on gravel at dawn. It's very nervewracking trying to see where you're going in the pre-sunrise "light", trying to miss the loose gravel, and avoiding the enormously large and loud combine overtaking you from behind you. But I made it home in one piece. Once there, I got supper going in the crockpot for our small group later on in the evening, got things ready for school - which included waking up three very sleepy children. We did a quick morning of school, then off to take David to his science/writing class with other homeschool kids. I dropped my girls off at my grandma's house where they were to eat lunch before heading to Grandma Cindy's house (they "didn't have much" according to my grandma - only hamburgers, fried potatoes, peas, candied apples, carrots, celery with peanut butter, pickles, broccoli, ice cream, and a nutty bar - really nothing at all, so they were sent to G. Cindy's with bags of popcorn in case they didn't get enough to eat at lunch). Before leaving the girls to their feast there, I quickly mowed their ditch for my grandparents as they are no longer able to handle the incline. Then I left to go to my dental appointment at the University. It is a teaching school so things take quite a bit longer there. My appointment took about 3 hours total where they did a very thorough diagnosis. So even though it takes a long time, I am going there because 1.) I don't like/trust my current dentist very well and 2.) they are much cheaper than normal dentists. That turns out to be a good thing as I have a fair amount of things that need to get done in my mouth due to numerous fillings being in bad condition. Grr. I will be able to get some of the work done for free by having younger students learn on me, but that means it will take much longer and many more appointments to get it done. I was feeling sad and depressed when I left. : ( Once I finally got out of there, I did all my errands, which were plentiful. I do enjoy getting to go to town by myself though and getting out of a vehicle and immediately walking to where I need to go versus waiting for children to as slowly as possible exit the vehicle. And I enjoy the chance to go to the library by myself and find fun books for our next few weeks of school. Even being by myself, I ended up not getting home in time for our small group - missed it completely. Aaron beat me home from it - that's how long it took me to get everything done. I was quite tired out, but had to first put everything away and get the kitchen cleaned up for the workers who were coming bright and early this morning to fix my sink. I was quite grateful to see my bed last night and fall into it.

So today feels way more relaxed and slow - a pace I enjoy a lot more than yesterday's RUN pace. We are doing school and I don't have anything planned for the evening. Yea!

Here are some pictures for the day. Ana's perspective of Stanley when he's up high. I kind of forget that things look really far away and out of reach when you're short. When he's up there, he's eye level to me.
The kids and their "coat of many colors" from reading the story of Joseph in the Bible. They each had fun painting what they thought would be a cool coat.
Butterfly mosaic using construction paper pieces. I always enjoy seeing how each kid decides what they think is pretty and how they want to design things. I appreciate that they don't just copy what each other is doing and really make it their own instead.