What Have We Been Doing?

I figured it was time for a catch-up post considering we will be leaving tomorrow for a weekend trip. Nothing says celebrate an anniversary like taking all three of our children on a family weekend.

This has been an interesting week. We started off the week in a very smooth way. School was good and positive and lots of fun. Lets just leave it that it has not continued on like that. Discussing the myth of Atlantis after reading the SOTW on the Minoans, I have decided that MB is so analytical and concrete based we might have some struggles with literature through the years. "That is not true, I can't believe some people actually believed this." Of course she found the whole volcano/island collapsing thing very cool and we had to go off on a tangent there.

We have also had two short-term wildlife additions to our family this week. On Monday we caught the neighborhood mouser crossing our yard with a snake in his mouth. Stopped him, checking to make sure he wasn't carrying home a copperhead. It was just a garter snake, so we "saved" him. I let the girls watch him for a little while before we released him.

Last night we (dh and I) caught the baby possum that has been hanging around our front porch since this weekend. We think his nest might have gotten flooded this past Saturday after a very heavy downpour. Anyway, for most of the week he has just been wandering around our front door. He was getting to the point that he was "used" to us, which isn't good. Also the neighborhood cats were starting to nose around. We put him in the old cat carrier, fed him some overripe melon I was going to put in the compost and let him sleep for the night. This afternoon, after he woke up again we took him out to the woods, further away from our house and let him go. I really hope he does alright.

There have been interesting discussion material about wild animals, habitats and behavior.

At night MB and I have been watching "The Ranch House" on PBS. It has been nice and we have had some good conversations. But, I am disappointed in PBS for taking a very good idea, living and experiencing life in a historical situation, and then allowing it to become more of a "network" reality show. These people are not "experiencing" life as it was lived in 1867 Texas. Instead they keep trying to impose their 21st century morals, beliefs and ideals within the show. I am disappointed in the bickering and hurt feelings, and just general 21st century stuff I am seeing ("I don't barter with terrorist" says Mr. Cooke when the Comanche "kidnap" one of the cowboys and want to trade him for cattle - come on, get with the idea of the program. This is kind of what would happen during this time - although it was more likely that the Native Americans would have just killed the cowboy and been done with him.) Tonight is the last night, I kind of want to see the follow-up to see what these people actually got out of it.

During my downtime, I have been putting together a bunch of modular cube/wall units in the girls room. We have built a "wall of shelves"



This is in preparation for moving EM into the room. We did not have enough space for another dresser, and I wasn't very happy with the ones we had. So this system, I hope, will work for us. The purple, pink and green baskets will be used for the clothing and each girl's special things (I still need to find some more pink). The area to the side, next to where all the dress-up clothes have been pulled out is the toy storage area. Now, we just need to get the dressers out of the room to free up some space as it is looking very cluttered.

Anyway, that is this week in kind of a nut shell. I am looking forward to getting away for a few days. MB and I have several hikes planned, we will see some family and hopefully just generally do some family bonding.

Peace,

Amy