Sleep-walking

Last night at about 11:30 pm Timothy and I heard some knocking.  We thought maybe Eli was banging against the wall (not unheard of) so we ignored it.  Then we heard it again.  I told Timothy I thought it was the front door so he, greatly bugged as it wasn't an ideal time for interruptions and we assumed it was something unfortunate to do with Patsy, got dressed and went to door.

Lo and behold, there was Cowen.  In his pajamas.  With his dog.  With no memory of how he got there.  He says the last thing he remembers is waking up in the van and trying to figure out how to get into the house.  This morning when I brought it up he had only fuzzy memories of knocking on the door at all.

Strange.

I'm glad we bothered to answer the door.

Does the girl in pink remind you of anyone??

I'll give you a hint.

Yesterday was interesting.  I woke up from some painful burning on my back.  Then I felt another sharp pain and realized I was being bitten.  I never found the spider, drat him, but I have four huge swollen painful bites--three on my back and one on my arm.

Then later that morning I took Cowen to speech and Miriam to piano.  Cowen's speech is in Ogden and while he's inside I let the kids run around the outside.  When Cowen finished I let him run around for a few minutes as well.  At one point he came and got me and said, "Come look at this spider, Mom."  I followed him to a rock he had picked up and turned over and found on the other side a . . . black widow.  It was huge.  And freaky.

And Cowen's hand had been right by it when he picked up the rock.  God holds our children in the palm of his hand.

I actually feel better about black widows now that I've seen one in real life.  There really is no way to confuse a black widow with anything else so I won't have to wonder ever again whether a black spider is a widow or not.

What else?  Miriam is making an apron in her sewing class and it is already nicer than anything I've made in my life.  I love her teacher.  Cowen had his first flag football game last night and I was ON TIME--unfortunately, I was on time at the wrong park.  Curses.  By the time I stopped at Lindsay's to get directions to the correct park and found that park, he played for ten minutes.  I would say I hate finding new places but the park we went to first is lovely and dog friendly.  We'll be going back.

I made up an amazing recipe the other night: curried beef with onions, steak, and portobello mushrooms.  I should really write down what I did because it was delicious.

I also made a jello salad for the first time ever and my kids literally licked the bowl.  Maybe I should start incorporating side dishes into their lives.

It is Friday of our first full week of school.  Monday we did awesome.  Tuesday we did awesome.  Wednesday we went to Aunt Megan's and bottled peaches.  Thursday was a run-around day and today we haven't pulled ourselves together and it is 10:15.  I'm tired and ready for a week-end.  I've learned over the past few years that easing back into homeschooling is easier on everyone.  Today we'll make peach jam and go to an iron-working field trip.  I'll make bread and we'll discuss the week and what went well and what didn't.  Then we'll try to do a bit more next week.

Ask my kids about non-renewable resources and peat cutting in Ireland.  They learned something this week anyway.