Week 8 ~ A Test in Patience

On My Mind ~ This has been an emotional week for everyone.  We are physically and emotionally exhausted.  We have packed up a fourth of our house and staged it for being on the market.  We have also worked hard collecting all of the paperwork the bank lenders require.  There have been some real moments of panic ~ such as when we found out at 11:30 at night with papers due in the morning that Tom Sawyer's adoption decree was missing out of our fireproof box!  My husband and I had all of the "important" papers that represent our life all over the bed.  When that document went missing, we both hit a level of giggling hysteria (and chattering teeth for me). Buying a home these days (at least a foreclosed home with a VA loan) requires more paperwork than adopting two kids at the same time ~ CRAZY!

In Our Homeschool ~ Below is a list of what we are up to in our studies.

• Grandma baked an apple pie with the kids.
• We read How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World.
• We also read Bloomers and Brother Eagle, Sister Sky .
• We finished the audio book, Belle Prater's Boy.
• The kids did Teaching Textbooks Math and Explode the Code every day.
• Everyone made it to dance class and chess class.
• We watched a video on Texas and found it on the map.  This was an activity left over from our study of Gullywasher.
• We started listening to On The Shores of Silver Lake.
• We very briefly stopped in on a library program at the library.  It was pirate school and the kids learned how to make maps.  We were in a huge rush, but the kids enjoyed the quick 15 minute lesson.  Our sweet librarian let us join in and pick which pirate school station we wanted to visit instead of going in order, since we had such limited time.

In the Kitchen ~ I am trying to find a balance between having homemade food and being ready to leave a super clean kitchen behind at any moment.  So far, I am trying to make one extra thing while cooking breakfast, since people usually look at houses later in the day.  We harvested our green peppers and yellow tomatoes this week.

Where We Are Going ~ It seems like the kids and I have been to every government agency in town this week (not really all of them).  However, we did need to collect paperwork from the courthouse, DSS, and Social Security.  My sheltered children were so excited about going through the metal detector at the courthouse, but they were a little disappointed that none of us beeped.  LOL!  We are also making a vacant church field near our home into our hangout when the house is being shown.  It is the perfect spot because we can see our home, but the people looking at the house can't easily see us.

Counting Blessings ~ We were able to get Tom Sawyer's adoption decree easily and quickly from the courthouse.  We got through all of the government agencies with really short wait times.  So far, everything is going pretty smoothly.  Goldilock's former one-on-one has a little bit of extra time and helped her process her feelings about the move for a few hours this week.  We got the house cleaned and staged, including painting door frames and baseboards.  We had two showings in the first 24 hours on the market this weekend.  They each spent almost an hour in the house.  I am thinking that must be a good sign.  My husband has the next week off.  I hope this will help our stress level reduce, since Daddy is such a good playmate when I am busy.



Blessings, Dawn