Oh good! We just got started crafting today. DS (8yo) wanted to do a craft and finally picked sewing. He wanted to make a teddy bear but really needs to stick with straight line sewing. I found a free tutorial for an old fashioned patchwork Scotty dog, which is a bigger project than he’s done before but this DC will stick with it, so that’s what we started. He needs a bit of help but is happily occupied. Cut out 54! squares by hand with a cardboard template, and is now sewing them together. Bonus, getting rid of s few of my MANY fabric scraps.

I’ve been letting my kids jump rope inside, but i don’t have neighbors close enough to object. We’re lucky to live rurally so there’s lots of outdoor space but the weather has been rainy and windy. i also had my 8 year old help me make bread the old-fashioned way, kneading by hand. 8-10 minutes of hand kneading uses up some energy. Making tortillas by hand (lots of rolling out) might be good too. i also had both my boys doing push-ups and other body weight exercises. We had a contest to see who could plank the longest. Has he learned to stand on his head? Learning that and then seeing how long he could do it might occupy him for awhile.

We are still on Spring Break but just got word (as I predicted we would) that the next two weeks of school are also cancelled. So I am preparing my brain and my ps boys’ brains for the fact that there will be not one but three homeschoolers here next week. had a migraine last night. It went away, mostly, but today I feel like I’m walking on egg shells so that it doesn’t come back, being really careful about loud noises and bright light. I did yoga as soon as I got up. I’ve also disinfected all the counters and door knobs and clean the kitchen. I think I’m working out some of my anxiety by cleaning and escaping the rest by reading. I am usually not this motivated to clean. I’m happy my kids are all in a phase of wanting to cook right now, so I’ve been letting them do quite a bit. But it’s hard to convince them that they need to use fresh ingredients and cook from scratch instead of using up the package foods that are much easier for them to fix. But I want to save those packaged foods for later.

I didn’t go to yoga class last night so I did a “yoga for strength” routine after breakfast from a Rodney Yee video. I spent less time online today as yesterday the constant cocido-19 news and speculation was making me anxious. The kids managed to amuse themselves all day with no help from me or electronic devices - nearly a miracle! I got the bathroom cleaned, some laundry done, and the sheets changed. I feel productive, but I also read most of a book, too. 🙂

Got menu planned/shopping done. Turned in the library video and checked out books. Just in time, too. Library will be closed from tomorrow to April 6. I feel less anxious because I for sure have all the things (and some!) that are needed for my family in the next week or two.

I bought my 8 year old a spade to dig in the dirt with, my 14 yr old DD a book of sudoku puzzles, and gave my 12 yr old DS a copy of The Dangerous Book for Boys that I’d been hanging on to for just this sort of occasion. He saw that it had a few paper airplane instructions and was immediately intrigued.

I don’t know about putting it upside down, but yogurt in my experience does keep for awhile after the date.

Baking bread (kneading by hand to work off some energy) origami Following drawing tutorials baking cookies, making tortillas, crackers, homemade versions of other things we usually buy calesthenics/body weight exercises (kept my jr. High boy busy for 45 minutes yesterday) Musical instrument practice (and maybe making videos of child playing instrument to send relatives)

Also - for all you who are upset about not going to the gym: So am I! I just joined one st the beginning of the month. BUT there are plenty of things you can do to to keep up your momentum at home, even without equipment. Look for yoga videos on YouTube ( I like Yoga With Adrienne) and google “body weight strength training” or similar. Also of course YouTube has cardio videos.

Well, my PS boys are on Spring Break, so this is HS DD’s Spring Break as well. We were going to go on a trip but canceled it, and the weather is cold and drippy, so I have unhappy restless kids on my hands. I imagine that sometime before the end of the week, public school may announce an extended break, but we’ll see. In that case, next week would have more school activities for all. today I helped ds8 make up s list of things to do when he gets bored. Then he made origami animals and a paper airplane with videos off the internet and my help. I need to make a grocery list and this afternoon will go stock up for at least the week. I have plenty of non perishables and frozen meat but am out of fresh fruit and veggies because I thought we were leaving for the week. We’ll also Tun by the library and return a video that is due. Everything else I can recheck online but videos can’t be rechecked and if it goes overdue I can’t use Overdrive to check out audiobooks and ebooks, and I have a feeling I’ll need that feature. i am glad my older kids have been amusing themselves all morning.

I have been reading lots of cozy mysteries- brain potato chips, i call them. Sunday I finished up The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, by Lillian Jackson Brain. I like that series, or most of them, and i enjoyed it. It fits the ‘creative ‘ theme in that many of the characters were artists and it dealt with murders in the art world. Yesterday i read Funerals are Fatal by Agatha Christie. I got caught up on the story and finished it in one day (not a very long book), but I don’t know... DH and I have lately enjoyed watching some Hercule Poirot shows, but Christie as a writer I just don’t really enjoy most of the time. She has what seems like an overly negative view of human nature or something. eta: that is to say, no one cares about anyone else very much, and when she says they do I don’t see enough of it in their behavior to be truly convinced.

I have also read several books from the Amelia Peabody series by Ellis Peters. I believe they were published in the 90s, though the books are set in the Victorian era. The main character is an Egyptologist. They’re amusing and lack the dated references that older books might have. As I remember they are clean, maybe a few kisses and romantic references between a married couple but nothing explicit by any means.

Tommy and Tuppence are actually more spy than mystery too if I remember right, but might slide through on the Agatha Christie name.

Okay, tastes vary but I’d just like to register my opinion that And Then There Were None is a depressing read. Put me off of Agatha Christie. But I very much enjoy her Tommy and Tuppence novels, which have a more lighthearted tone. i just read the first Mrs. Pollifax (The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax) and loved it. Lots of fun. It was for the most part clean, but did have some hells and damns, and one b***ch. Don’t know exactly where you draw the line for “clean” for kids. It was more of a spy novel than mystery, others in the series may skew more mystery, i don’t know.

I have a Rodney Yee Beginner yoga video that I really like. Slow pace, good explanations, plenty of adjustments you can make if you can’t do exactly what he is. but I also like the Yoga with Adrienne videos on YouTube.

When I went to the library and got the Kensington Cozies Club card, I checked out a book called Cat in the Dark by Rousseau Murphy. It was s quick impulse, i totally judged a book by its cover and didn’t even read the back to know what I was checking out. That had a predictable result. I like some cat mysteries but in this one two cats cats are not only totally sentient, they can talk (though only a few humans know)That’s a lot of disbelief to suspend. I spent a few chapters trying to decide if I even wanted to keep reading, though I eventually finished. I remember reading one or two in the series years ago. If I’d recognized the author’s name in the library I would not have checked it out. I don’t plan on reading any others, except DD seemed interested so I might pre-read one or two and see if they’re suitable. DD has been getting into mysteries. So i checked out a Mrs. Pollifax book to pre-read for her, as I remember them being clean but it had been decades since I read one. I started with The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, since it is first, and I now have a thing about reading series strictly in order. I have not always read series in order, as demonstrated by the fact that I am quite sure I never read this one. But it was very good, better than I remembered the Pollifax books being, probably a result of me being older and appreciating the historical context as well as the premise better. eta: so I do plan on reading the other pollifax books (in order!) quite aside from previewing them for DD.

Last week I read All I Know About Animal Behavior I Learned in Loehman’s Dressing Room, by Erma Bombeck. I used to enjoy her writing, but hadn’t read any in awhile. It had its funny moments but was overall ‘meh’. I don’t know if my tastes have changed or it just wasn’t her best work. I started the audiobook of The Crystal Cave a few weeks ago but lost interest and never finished it. Yesterday I realized it expired. I won’t recheck it. Just couldn’t get into it for some reason. Don’t throw rotten tomatoes at me, please. 😁 Yesterday I checked out a cozy mystery from s display at my library. They are doing a program with Kensington called the Kensington Cozy Club, where you get a card punched by the librarian whenever you check out a cozy ( not just published by Kensington) and after the card is filled you send it in for a free book. So cozy readers might see if their library has this too. The punch card also says “Visit KENSINGTONCOZIES.COM to learn more”.

I have a silicone cup cover. I only use it for herbal teas that have a long steeping time, like 6 minutes or more. Otherwise I actually prefer the water to cool a little as I can then drink it sooner. 🙂

Yeah, I’m all set for flour, rice, and beans because I buy them 20 lbs at a time anyway. Not prepping, they just keep well and we use a lot. Since I can’t just run to the store easily, I like to keep lots of staples on hand.

Because Murphy. Sure, electricity will probably be fine. But if we get high winds, a storm, or a tornado, it may not. March is a windy time here, and if we lose electricity and the people at the electric company who fix those things can’t come out, better to be prepared. Our water comes from a well (live rurally). If we have the bad luck to have the well pump go out, extra water comes in handy, especially if the pump company is short staffed because of sickness or can’t come at all because of quarantine. That said, I haven’t gone crazy stocking up, just bought a few canned goods and some water to replace what we used up the time the well pump actually did go out. I’ve been meaning to do it for months.

Some of my DD’s friends are having constant drama lately. I expect it from that age, but what has taken me by surprise is the way that some of the parents (moms and dads) are taking sides and making catty comments about the other moms or just about the situation in general that to me seem to stir the pot and worsen things. I hate drama. I don’t make friends who are inclined to drama. And these grown ups who should know better are saying they deplore the drama, but then helping feed it. I know it’s hard not to take sides if your kid is hurt but one of these ladies really seems to enjoy getting sly comments in.

My library had that too in February, but no descriptions! I didn’t check one out. In the past they’ve done it with descriptions and I did check one out. It was okay. Like most “grab bag” type things, I find I like the idea of it better than the reality.

It’s funny, since beginning homeschooling I’ve definitely realized that I get the Februaries, but it’s only this year that I realized it isn’t just me and isn’t just a homeschooling related phenomenon. I think homeschooling just amplifies it for me, but my public schooled boy is also definitely having the Februaries, and the “being twelves” at the same time. 😡

I have decided to join a gym. That is not exactly frugal (but I have Christmas money!), but I feel like the health benefits of being more fit will more than worth it. I am shopping around for how to do it less expensively and still join one that works for me. But to even try out various gyms to see which would work, I’ve had to get clothes I can work out in. So I made a couple of trips to Goodwill and got a couple of pairs of sweatpants. Spent about $10 for both and bonus, discovered a I love sweatpants (so comfy!), which I hadn’t worn since junior high.

I switched science curriculum. I stand by that decision, it needed to happen. I started looking into joining a gym and though I haven’t pulled the trigger on that I made several visits to different places to try them out, and took a yoga class, which is something I’ve been interested in for awhile.