Week 35 ~ A Caterpillar, a Kitten and a Pig

It has been a great week. There was plenty of learning, time in nature and time with friends. Considering that it is tech week for Alice in Wonderland, everything is running pretty smoothly on the home front and everyone has been fed, has clean clothes and is nurtured. Usually, on crazy, busy weeks, I use an emergency home maintenance plan which mostly means keep up with the kitchen, bathrooms and laundry. This means the rest of the house starts to fall apart by the end of the week. This week, I tried something a bit different and I am very happy with the results. The kids took over all aspects of laundry, and I spent three minutes a day in each room of our house, including the hallway which is large enough to hold the piano. The result is that all of the rooms in my house are afloat. They are not special company clean, but they are reasonably clean and comfortable. In those three minutes per room, I was able to wipe down counters, toilets, make a bed, sweep floors, pick up clutter and generally give a room a once over. I did spend more like 15 minutes cleaning the kitchen each day. This weekend we will put more time into the house, but I am pleased with my new plan for crazy, busy weeks. Next week is bound to be even crazier.

Last Friday I Lost My Mind ~ and we adopted a four month old kitten from the shelter. Dean has wanted a kitten for a long time and the time seemed reasonably right. We saw that there were  four or five kittens and cats to visit with at the shelter who fit our list of desires. Indeed, Dean fell in love with one in particular and we brought her home. She is named Rosie and is living in his room for now while she slowly meets Boomer (dog) and bonds to Dean being her main caregiver.  She is more cuddly than many cats so far, which was important to Dean, and is also great at getting into mischief as kittens so often do. This is bringing much laughter into our home. We are smitten with her!

Exploring Our World ~ For Mother's Day weekend, we drove 1.5 hours away to see two waterfalls and a gem museum we had never seen before. One of the waterfalls wasn't very spectacular, but the other was great. We visited Dry Falls and got to walk behind the waterfall. It was a lovely, short hike to the waterfall. Dean enjoyed taking pictures of all the moss and ferns that were along the trail.

Behind the Waterfall

We also visited a gem museum that was supposed to be one of the biggest in our gem saturated area. It was in Franklin which is the gem capital of Western North Carolina. Dean said, "I love gem and mineral museums because each one has something unique." This museum was unique, because it was in an old jail and had the original cells and jail graffiti. It also had a petrified pine cone, which we had never seen before.

A Watercolor Intensive ~ Dean is really enjoying the watercolor intensive he is taking with his class. They are learning so many exciting techniques.

Fetal Pig Dissection ~ We had a friend over for the day because the public school system was closed. It was still a school day for us, so we decided to do something exciting instead of just reading and math. The overall vote was to dissect our fetal pig. The dissection went well, although my crew is very squeamish about dissection in general, so Grandma and I did all of the cutting. Our fetal pig was female and seemed to be missing her pancreas. We never could find it. Maybe that is why the litter of piglets were lost.

The kids also worked on drawing the human skeletal system into a life-size model.

Alice in Wonderland ~ There will be eight shows over the next two weekends, so we are going to be a busy family. Anne's main character role is the caterpillar. She is also a swinging gate to the garden, which is a dance in pointe, plus a jazzy cat. I haven't seen hardly any of the show during rehearsals so it is mostly going to be a surprise. The little bits I have seen look marvelous. I can't wait!

Catepillar

Jazzy Cat

Garden Gate

Blessings, Dawn