"This is now ... It can never be a long time ago.

We finished Little House in the Big Woods this morning.  One book in the series down with eight to go.  I love these books.  I have no idea how many times I've read them but they never get old.  Laura puts how I feel lately into words,

"But Laura lay awake a little while, listening to Pa's fiddle softly playing and to the lonely sound of the wind in the Big Woods.  She looked at Pa sitting on the bench by the hearth, the fire-light gleaming on his brown hair and beard and glistening on the honey-brown fiddle.  She looked at Ma, gently rocking and knitting.  She thought to herself, "This is now."  She was glad that the cosy house, and Pa and Ma and the firelight and the music, were now.  They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now.  It can never be a long time ago."

Now is now.  All of my kids are still living at home and I know the time is short.  Josiah is chomping at the bit to get his own apartment (and rightfully so.)  Mary is months away from graduating and has a sure plan for herself.  Luke's been ready to take-on the world since he was 10 and only has high school holding him back.  With Ben and Jacob at Ridgeview all day I only have five at home.  Which sounds like a lot to most but is just half of my family.  I look around at the dinner table in the evenings and just soak it all in.  I'm not a sentimental person but the season is changing and I can feel it in my soul.  Like I've said before, THESE are the best days of my life.

Week 3 of School, Rain, Menu, More Rain, Plans and Then Even More Rain ...

I didn't post last week.  After 2 full days at the Longs Peak Scottish Festival last weekend following the first week of school about did us in.  Don't get me wrong, it was a great weekend.  The girls danced beautifully and we had a wonderful time with family and friends.  We were just exhausted!  Thankfully, I had done my lesson plans and menu plans the week before or I would have been toast.

 Rachel and Anna

 Rachel, Mary and Anna

 Rachel in her lilt dress with glitter pink tennis shoes.

 Anna in her lilt dress.

 Miss Busy Lizzy ... what she lacked in actual skill she made up for in personality ... holy cow, she's a hoot!

Two of my brothers, John and Scott.

So here's my menu for this week:

Monday:

Cereal
Bean Burritos
Pork Roast, Green Beans cooked in Ham Stock and Roasted potatoes

Tuesday:

Cinnamon Rolls (Thank you, Mary Stephens)
Pasta
Sausage & Peppers

Wednesday:

French Toast Bake
Ham Sandwiches
BBQ Pork Sandwiches and Coleslaw

Thursday:

Bagels
Ramen
Chicken Noodle Soup

Friday:

Toast
PB&J
Pizza

Saturday:

Cereal
Left-Overs
Chicken Sandwiches and Tater Tots (DATE  NIGHT!!!!)

Sunday:

Zucchini Bread
Sandwiches
Nachos

Despite the crazy weekend after the first week of school, we've had a great start to the school year.  The kids have been consistently working hard and we're loving our Prairie Primer Curriculum.  We'll finish Little House in the Big Woods this week and move on to Little House on the Prairie.  We've made butter, corn cob dolls, drawn pictures of different scenes, learned about bears and much, much more.

 Making butter.

 Drinking buttermilk.

 Husking corn for corn cob dolls.

Winston's drawing of "Pa shooting a bear."  Pa is wearing a dress because that's the only kind of clothes Winston says he can draw ... Bahahahah!

Now, about the rain ... we've had the 1000 year flood in Colorado this week.  Literally, not exaggerating here ... we've had a years worth of rain in 5 days.  We don't get real rain here in Colorado.  It's an arid climate.  Our rains last 10 minutes and are followed up with a beautiful rainbow filled blue sky.  But now, our canyons are devastated, our roads are destroyed, people are stranded and dead.  We, thankfully, are on high ground close to everything we need and very, very thankful.  The floods were nothing but an inconvenience to us.  This is a great example of why it's important to always be prepared.  No one could have imagined that in the middle of September in Colorado they could possibly get stranded in their mountain homes or vacation spots or in the suburbs of Evans, Longmont and Greeley.  By the second day of storms Longmont's grocery stores were empty.  How can supplies and distribution be that tenuous?  It's hard to fathom.  But, with low cloud cover so helicopters could not fly and flooded roads it was only a matter of a few days before people ran out of food and water.  All of that to say, store food and water.  Put a few cases of bottled water under your bed.  Fill a box with pasta, sauce, granola bars, peanut butter, jelly, crackers, beans, nuts and applesauce and just hide it away for a rainy day ... a literal rainy day.  Stepping down from my soap box now to go start school.

With the gushing gutters from the rain we made egg carton boats and sailed them with each new front that blew through.  It was wonderful, wet fun!

It's been a while ...

... and I've missed my blog.  I'm such an optimistic dreamer I truly believed I'd have time to read books and blog this summer ... I don't know if that statement makes me want to laugh or cry.  I think cry.  I did read a book, sort of, I'm half way through a book.  I was able to read on my trip with Mike for two nights to Chicago and during a FOUR hour root canal.  The first was great ... the second, not so much. Stupid teeth.

So, my new school year christening post will be this week's menu ... woohoo.  So sorry to disappoint but this is reality.  I live in reality despite my best efforts to avoid it.  For example, I can put headphones on and listen to lovely music via my "Hymns and Psalms" station on Pandora whisking me away devotional bliss.  Unfortunately for me, these are cheap Walmart headphones I can still hear reality with the 20 questions per minute I get and feel reality with corresponding 20 tugs on my arm.

Most of my menu is so ingrained I'll be 95, in a nursing home and will be insisting they serve me Burritos for lunch on Mondays and Pizza for dinner on Friday nights.  It's like nap time ... at 1:00 p.m. I start to shut down ... I just can't help myself.  Lunches and Breakfast do include some form of fruit/veggie, as well.  But, dinners change and so do my followers so here it goes.  Recipes or notes correspond with * at the bottom.

Monday

Breakfast - Cereal
Lunch - Burritos (Tortillas, Refried Beans, Cheese)
Dinner - (Here's where it get's exciting ... wait for it ...) Vegetable Lasagna/Bread *

Tuesday

Breakfast - Muffins (End of the summer means ... ZUCCHINI muffins)
Lunch - Noodles (Either Mac 'n Cheese or spaghetti or Buttered Noodles)
Dinner - Corn & Spinach Enchiladas ala Crockpot **

Wednesday

Breakfast - French Toast
Lunch - Sandwiches
Dinner - Burgers/Coleslaw ***

Thursday

Breakfast - Breakfast Burritos
Lunch - Ramen (Or as Rachel says, "Ramen Day!!!! As if I've taken her to Disney World.)
Dinner - Ham and Corn Chowder/Biscuits ****

Friday

Breakfast - English Muffins
Lunch - PB&J
Dinner - Pizza (Duh.)

Saturday

Breakfast - Donuts
Lunch - Leftovers
Dinner - Fish Sticks/Tater Tots/Carrots (Or as I say, "DATE NIGHT!!!! As if Mike was taking me to Paris.)

Sunday

Breakfast - Quick Bread (Again, it's the end of summer so this means ZUCCHINI Bread!)
Lunch - In my perfect Kathryn World this would mean Chili's but in reality this means Dollar Menu.
Dinner - Hmmmm, I guess I didn't think this far ahead ... Let's say ... Nachos.

*Vegetable Lasagna - This summer I've been using thin slices of zucchini, squash, eggplant that I cook down a bit on the griddle in place of noodles in Lasagna.  So like this ... sauce, zucchini, cheese mixture, italian sausage, sauce, yellow squash, cheese mixture, italian sausage, sauce, egg plant ... and so forth ending with sauce and a sprinkling of mozzarella and parmesan.  Not much of a recipe but ...

**Corn and Spinach Enchiladas - These are from my favorite crockpot site here http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/08/creamy-corn-and-spinach-enchiladas.html . This lady thinks like I do and, for the most part, eats like I do. She is gluten free but I'm able to look past it since she loves Indian food, Mexican Food, Beans and her crock pots like me.

***Burgers/Coleslaw - You may think, "oh, big deal, burgers and coleslaw," but I have to tell you I have the BEST burger recipe from America's Test Kitchen AND I have the best Cole Slaw Recipe here http://www.food.com/recipe/classic-creamy-coleslaw-dressing-245037 . I have to dig up the burger recipe so I'll post that later.

****Ham and Corn Chowder - For Eli's birthday party I made Creamed Corn which he loves.  But, in that I didn't even start on his cake until 2:30 I opted to use frozen corn instead of fresh corn and it was blechy.  Bland, gomby and blechy.  So I'm making it into soup.  I will add frozen ham broth, ham bits, maybe some carrots and so forth.  It's soup ... it's supposed to be nebulous.

There ya go!  If I ever get Numbers to correctly print my schedules I'll post those next.