january day

It's cold.  It's cold!  An ice storm of freezing rain hit and left a quarter inch layer of ice on every surface.  The snow was topped too, so when we walked through the places with deep snow still, our feet crunched through the ice and then sank through the snow underneath.  We picked up slabs of ice and tossed them away, where they slid and shattered on the crust.  "Let's all do it at the same time, Mom!"  1-2-3... crash, shatter, clatter.

Now halfway through the school year as of this week, I have such joy at all we have accomplished and the ways we have grown in our school plans.  This week I introduced more dry brush painting for our nature journals, which is challenging.  I wonder if I don't have the right kind of brushes because my painting ends up looking very scratchy and imprecise.  More research is needed on this style of art that Charlotte Mason recommended as important for young ages.  I also limited the time spent on nature notebooking and today I had the girls dictate a little bit of what they wanted to put in their notebooks and then they created picture(s) based on the description, rather than the other way around.  That has helped it go more smoothly and kept it from being quite so open ended in the middle of our morning schedule.

We got word today that the house is officially ours, recorded with the county and the loan has been funded.  Much joy!  More joy to come when the sellers move out and we get in.  There have been complications in their travel plans, but we plan to get in Saturday morning to being redoing kitchen countertops and begin painting and cleaning anything in need of cleaning.  Official family move-in will be next week!  The Lord does not always provide in the ways we hope He will, but He always does take care of His children and it is always always better than how we would have taken care of ourselves.  That much we can cling to.

Narnia in the warm glow of the fire at night and soup bubbling on the stove for dinner.  Baby dolls and books and Playmobil and drawing and Just Add Magic (the girls' new favorite show).  Cross-stitch and laundry and spelling quizzes and fleece blankets and deep haunting fog and thick socks and warm baths.  Anticipation of a new home and patient waiting and stomach lurches every time the phone rings.  This is our January day.