coming quietly {yarn along}

"Sometimes I imagine another young couple, strong and full of desire, coming quietly into this old house that will be empty again of all that is of any use, and will be stale and silent and dingy with dust, and they will see it shining before them as Nathan and I saw it fifty-two years ago.  And I say, "Welcome!  Love each other.  Love this place and use it well.  Bless your hearts."-- Wendell Berry in Hannah Coulter.  What can I say about this book?  It fills my heart.  It makes me want to cry and laugh at the same time.  When I read it the first time it was before we moved to the country.  Now as I read it, the names have actual faces, the farms and homes are actual places.  Maybe I am Hannah.  

See how far I have come on my Buds and Bumbles shawl?  I am nearing the end of my first skein of yarn but have a second skein so I can keep enlarging it.  I am waiting for a mail delivery of yarn to begin a Suzanne cardi for Lyddie, the pattern and yarn color being her choice.  Sweaters for them are my favorite thing to knit so I'm really excited for it.  My hope it is to make Millie and Rosie sweaters before fall, too. 

We just finished our second term of school last week so Lyddie and I are enjoying "exam week."  Instead of mornings of reading and narrating, I have laid butcher paper over the table and she gets to narrate back to me and draw some of the things we've read and learned about this term.  Geography, nature study, math, history, literature, poetry, handicraft, it's all included.  The biggest benefit so far is that it shows where I have been slack or areas I need to improve and include more.  It's so fun to hear her retell things in her own words that we read weeks and weeks ago!  It shows how she has digested the learning "feast" I work so hard to prepare for her.  I have finally found a system of organization that I really like (2/3 the way through the year, of course), with a weekly planning session sheet tailor made to help me hit all the things I need to prep at the beginning of the week.  I feel like I have so much to still absorb regarding educational philosophy but have some of the groundwork laid well enough now.