Home Highlights

I like Faith at Strewing's Highlights of the Week and I have been missing doing Wrap-Ups on Fridays so I thought I would try to just list things that come to my mind that have happened around here.   It's not Friday but I suppose that doesn't matter.   Also, I can't think of that many academic-related things.   We seem to be education-impoverished around here -- we continue to plug through the daily 3Rs plus, but we're not doing anything very exciting.  

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As of this writing, Kevin and Brendan and Sean are in Las Vegas.   Sean is on an off-season football team and is playing a 7 on 7 over there.   Brendan went with them to keep them company.

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Meanwhile, here it is snowing.   I went out and used the snowblower.  That thing is really a man's work -- it takes lots of muscles to work it, but it's satisfying, in a redolent-of-gas-fumes sort of way.

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Hardly anyone was at our local "station church" mass this evening.  Because of the snow, I suppose, and because we are between seasons here.   We are a vacation town and people down in the Valley are probably enjoying their spring flowers while summer and the lake aren't here yet.   So it was just locals, which made for a more comradely atmosphere than usual. 
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Because Sean wasn't there for Mass, Kieron was nervous about being the only altar boy.  He had to be solo once before and he was so nervous he said the glass receptacles were clanking together a little as he held them.    This time, the other server was there, which was a great relief to him.   On the way home, we talked about how Paddy and Aidan could potentially serve after they receive First Holy Communion.  Kieron can't imagine either of them being anything but a risk up there. 

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Aidan is making me draw lots of pictures of busses and SUVS (from a back perspective, so the license plates show).    It has literally been two decades since I started drawing pictures for my kids.  I'm not good at drawing, but they think I'm better than they are.  The last 20 years of art  in a nutshell:   "Draw Sonic the Hedgehog!  Draw the space shuttle!  Draw a volcano!  Draw the Princess Eilonwy!  Draw a bunch of guys with swords, and a castle!  Draw a cooler!  And now -- draw all kinds of vehicles like ambulances and schoolbuses and firetrucks and Suburbans!  from the back! with a license plate!"

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It is getting so hard to plow through K12 with Paddy, partly because we have gotten behind because I've had to be out of the house so much, and partly because it is almost April and that's when my thoughts turn to unschooling and nature study.

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The kids were all having trouble thinking of Lenten penances, and I was getting sort of discouraged about the unsacrificial bunch I was raising up, but they all decided on pretty good ones finally. 

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We had an interesting conversation about Voodoo and its problems after watching The Princess and the Frog.  

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I used to do Wilbarger Brushing on Aidan when his sensory system was more messed up.  Though many of his issues are resolved, he still loves to be brushed and comes up at night, pushes a brush at me and says, "Scratch me with THIS." 

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Our old dog Frodo didn't make it.   Brendan and Sean and Aidan came down with me to the vet hospital to say goodbye.  He was on morphine and feeling good and only aware of us in a dreamlike way.    It was sad but in a way reassuring to see my sometimes rough adult boys patting their old friend with tears rolling down their faces.   He was a good dog.  We all have a vivid memory of him running at full speed down the road after us with his long fur streaming and his body looking like a small smart bomb.  I think he had a good life.

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Since Sunday provides a break from Lent, I get to read a novel if I want, and eat chocolate!  

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