End of February

 We have one week until the end of February and March will bring the very early snippets of spring. We hope. 

This week has been super cold and we have a lovely blanket of snow over everything.

I think we got four inches or so last Sunday? And it has been really cold this whole week so the snow has stayed. It will warm up the next few days and everything will get muddy and wet.

Kevin likes to make snow ice cream for the children. Get clean snow, add condensed milk and vanilla, mix up, and voila!

It was so cold that olive oil which was shipped was this weird solidified goo when I brought it indoors. It melted nicely but wow. I have never seen that before.

I finished a 1000 piece puzzle this week. I used to whine about 1000 piece puzzles and now I love them, at least so long as the picture has a lot of variety. If it is all just shades of blue I would hate it :-).

This was a lot of fun!

I bought flowers at Trader Joe's. And chocolate. Lots of chocolate.

So the big news of the week is that I have finished the first draft of my latest book. It is over 100,000 words so a long one.  Now I have to edit the whole thing (that is the sound of my teeth grinding.)

It is fine. I don't like editing but still, it has to be done.  Usually once I get in the groove I am fine, but just the thought of facing 300 plus pages of the printed out document is intimidating.

But I will be strong, and I will do it!

Rocks

 Kevin and I went to a "rock show" yesterday; basically a giant room filled with a multitude of neat rocks of various kinds.

We are both materials engineers and love rocks. So it was so much fun. We actually spent quite a bit of money; more on that later.

When we got home, we cleared a few shelves from our IKEA cabinet to set up the new rocks plus some others we have obtained through the years.

And voila.

The last pic is of a big piece of petrified wood. SO GORGEOUS.

Kevin decided to go back to the show today with three of the girls (the kids who wanted to go) and they are there now. Probably will come back with a few more treasures.

Now I am a saver by nature. Like, I was born a saver. Add that to having nine children to care for, and I tend not to want to spend money on non-necessities. I do, of course, spend money, lots of money, on food and shelter and electricity and clothing...

But we are used to being careful financially and it is frankly hard sometimes to spend frivolously.

Not that rocks are exactly frivolous!

Wait, they are frivolous. They serve no practical purpose. We just like them. A lot.

They are also educational :-).

Anyway, I am really happy about our new rocks and reminding myself that money is a tool, and that just storing up money for no particular reason is silly.

In the early days of our parenting, when we were living on a smaller income with a bunch of little kids, we had to be very careful.

Now it is fun to buy rocks! And it is financially just fine.

Book Launch Day

 We just published a short book, only 32,000 words, which is short for me.

We will see how it does. It is kind of light and frothy, with more silliness than usual.

In other news, we had an ice storm yesterday evening and night. Fortunately, everything warmed up through the night and the rain melted any ice on the roads. Everyone got to work fine this morning.

I am almost 67,000 words into another book and I can feel the fire in me starting to burn high. At some point, I get sick of a book and just want to finish it. I think I am getting close to that for this book.

We have started attending a different church; the one we were attending for the last eight years is a very good church, but it is almost half an hour away from us. The older we get, the less we like leaving home. Also, it is hard to make friends when we are quite a distance from the church. So we found a church only ten minutes away (actually, 9 minutes) and while it is tiny, we already have made some friends. There is another homeschooling family with four children and we have a lot in common, including that in both marriages, the wife is a year older than the husband. That is random and not important :-).

Speaking of homeschooling families, we have friends who used to live on our street, and they are military, and they were sent to Germany, and now they are back in the area and living about 20 minutes away from us. They purchased a very old house, like the second oldest in our county. I honestly love the house, which is a rabbit warren of additions and old fireplaces and stuff. It is not the most practical house in terms of layout, but it is charming. The wife and mom is expecting her tenth child (they are quite a bit younger than we are) and while I sort of envy them the new baby, because I LOVE babies, I am aware that life is easier for us now since everyone can feed him or herself, and everyone can put his or her shoes on...

Given our age it is a good thing we don't have a baby. We are pretty tired. I am grateful for having kids who can move trash around and carry softener salt up and down the stairs...

It feels like we are busy but we aren't crazy busy. I mean, I am writing a lot, and the kids have a lot going on, but nothing extravagantly exciting is happening, which is probably a good thing becuase often 'exciting' is a negative thing.

Late January

 

We had a snow flurry yesterday which was actually quite impressive.

Also we are in the middle of a really cold snap. Tonight it is supposed to drop below zero!!

One of my longstanding disagreements with Kevin regards blankets. He, and every other person in the house, thinks you can never have enough blankets. I disagree. Rose decided to make a mountain of blankets which I think proves my point, but ... yeah, everyone else still thinks more blankets are better!

Kevin bought me this puzzle for Christmas and I finished it a few days ago. So fun!

Yesterday was both MLK Day and Inaugaration day. The working kids had the day off, and all seven kids at home crowded around the computer to watch the inaugaration live. Love him or hate him, Trump's second term is historic.

We have spent quite a bit of time sitting around the table or in the family room talking politics. I am generally not a hugely political person, though I have strong views about a bunch of stuff, but the way government works IS interesting.  For the younger kids, there is a lot of bewilderment and it is fun explaining the way the legislature and judicial and executive branches function.

I am fairly knowledgeable about the government in the Regency England thanks to my writing career, and power was definitely in the hands of a few men in that day and age. One of the major problems with monarchy is you don't know if the heir will be a decent person to rule. I think the Prince Regent, eventually George IV, was a pretty lame ruler for a bunch of reasons. Maybe the biggest was his insistence on spending Crown money like water.  Oh, his marriages were a mess too. 

I feel embarrassed to admit this, but I was a little shaky on out parliementary governments (like England and Canada and Australia and a few others) work. I read up on it today.

Kevin and I have had a wearying couple of months, with lots of illness and lots of work with the children. We are grateful for all our blessings and especially the kids, but there are times when a whole lot is going on in their lives and this is one of those times. That, and back to back to back illnesses, is rather draining.

It does help me to think about how fortunate we are, with a warm home and healthy children and food in the refrigerator. Also, I do a lot of praying that God will guide us, and that He will watch over the children and help the older ones as they make adult decisions. He is faithful.

Mid January

 I am finally feeling pretty good today, which is a relief. I have been extra tired and my breathing has been a bit weird. I have been very careful not to push my lungs.

But yes, I feel more energetic today.

Last Sunday, we got a bunch of snow. Here in southern Ohio, we often get very little snow throughout the winter, so this was pretty exciting.

Kevin plowed out the driveway and made a huge pile of snow for the kids to play in.

Rose on our back deck. You can see how much snow we have!

Random picture of Sarah and Miriam. Obviously a big height difference! Sarah may still be growing a tiny bit but I think she has topped out at about 5 ft 10 inches tall.

Kevin has been making snow ice cream for the children. It is snow plus condensed milk. It has been a great hit. And yes, he does go out in shorts.

I thought this was funny. These two sticky notes were on our counter and they describe the difference between Fe2O3 (rust) and Cr2O3, which is the protective surface layer for stainless steel. Cr forms a protective layer but Fe oxide flakes off. I thought Kevin was explaining it to Isaac, but no, it was to Daniel and Sarah. This is what happens when you have Ph.D. materials scientists for parents.

I love oxidation and protective layers and all that. I love it.

That's about all. Oh, wait!

We got 4 or 5 more inches of snow last night! Very exciting!