Last half of April

More game time in the library.

Will we ever finish cleaning the former sewing room? I chipped in to help Melanie through the tougher bits...we had deadline to meet now!

I spent an afternoon and evening visiting a friend. The plan was to meet at a park. It was the wrong park.

And it was cold out!

We had some fun while waiting for friends to show up. :)

Yeah, of all days to go to the park....the morning after, this is what it looked like outside!

Jennifer built a kapla tower which I had to photograph before she would clean it up.

Spring is baseball season! Behold my collected-from-the-ditch pylon. It took me a lot of work to get it home on my bicycle. And my husband accused me of stealing! It was well and truly left behind in the deepest ditch around, I'm sure it was not just waiting to get picked up by the former owner. It was just like a bit of garbage, waiting for me to clean it up like a responsible citizen! It makes a perfect place to mount a baseball if pitching is not working!

Melanie is ready to catch the ball, and to avoid my camera.

Jennifer is also ready in outfield! These guys sure love to play Scrub!

The whole game, while it is going smoothly. It is a challenge to keep everybody playing, and all feeling that things are going fairly.

I wanted to get an early start on my veggie garden. Apparently my rototiller did not. It barely limped through this row. And died. DIED.

Nathan did try cleaning the carburetor for me. But he only had patience to do it once, and no time to anything further...so now it lies at a repair shop...awaiting the possible (but not guaranteed) arrival of a part from China. The people at the shop didn't leave me with much hope of it arriving in even a few months time.

More baseball. Want to join us for a game of Scrub Nathan? No thanks, just going for a walk. (Stuff to do.)

Jennifer and Evelyn making some very delicious recipes. I claimed to be very full, and didn't sample any of their concoctions. Fortunately. They looked really yucky.

Since December I have been putting off taking care of the leather in the house. So FINALLY in APRIL I started the job. Look at all that leather! Also, note the husband, still working from home every day. I get to see him multiple times a day...he comes to the kitchen regularly for an instant coffee. He even offers sympathy and encouragement sometimes.

I am feeling really tired of wiping leather. You are supposed to first put on a cleaner, then wipe it off again. Then add an oil, and wipe it off again. And I don't even like leather couches!!

Just to prove that I can look happy, here is a selfie I took for volunteer purposes.

On a typical Saturday morning , Daniel is frying his own eggs for breakfast. One egg for each toast. Two of each. The yolks have to be broken and cooked through, nothing is to be left runny!

If Evelyn happens to be done her shower, she is probably climbing the counters to find what dishes she needs. Either that or telling us there is nothing that she likes available for breakfast.

Matthew is waiting for a turn to use the pan. He's already let the chickens out, and probably spent a bunch of time not cooking breakfast, but now he is hungry!

Nathan finished eating a long time ago. Melanie and he tend to cook their breakfast together...but maybe this is the last time. Melanie has not been getting up early enough for Nathan anymore.

Melanie is working hard at sweeping the house. She usually makes the floors look presentable on Saturday, which means they look reasonable on Sunday. Which is very nice!

Eventually Jennifer wanders into the kitchen to complain about the breakfast options. We offer a lot of suggestions but she is not interested in anything. (Too much for dinner, we suppose.)

And guess what we found we cleaned up the sewing room? The extra big table for the sewing machine which is meant for quilting!

Why didn't you tell me this before I finished quilting my last quilt Mom? It sure would have made Melanie's job of quilting a lot easier. In fact, we've had it in the house all the time that Melanie has ever done any quilting! (Sorry!)

Evelyn helped Melanie rip up sheets for use as rags. She is a pro since doing it at Grandma's in the winter. She does her best to get Evelyn to also become a pro!

The weather is warm enough to eat lunch outside at last! So nice to sit outside on a spring afternoon!

First half of April

Evelyn is back in action. Nathan is on his second day of being down and out. Today he doesn't seem to have a fever, and he is interested in a bit of company. Both are good signs on the road to recovery.

Matthew and I went to pick up some used shelves. We tried for a "safe pickup" and stayed outside AND wore masks...hopefully we didn't spread anything.

The next day Matthew wasn't feeling so good! He and Philip were the last two having a turn.

I spent a lot of my recovery time reorganizing things. My brain felt full of fuzz, and I'd feel full of energy (in spurts) so I cancelled school and focused on my clutter and mess. These three sections were 3 out of 6 of  my new shelves. They fit in the library perfectly. I think.

Pretty much all of our existing bookshelves still needed to be kept, as they are FULL still. The books moving onto the new shelves were all the ones laying sideways on top of the books or on the very tiptop of the shelf.

Evelyn working on another painting.

Jennifer doing some colouring.

Green grass starting to grow! And still you can see a pile of snow by the rink.

Now that the books are reorganized and relocated, they need to be reinspected.

Melanie's quilt is coming along nicely!

Since everyone recovered from covid (and all my reorganizing was done) we had no more excuses. Time to get back to schoolwork!

My students are eager to be back at work. :p

Work? Matthew, that's a computer game! And it's 10am on a Wednesday morning. Don't you think your schoolwork should get done first?

Yes, I had said I had 6 "new" shelves. This cute little corner one fit in our foyer perfectly. Like it was meant for us.

And the bigger corner shelf fit in the "piano room" even better. Because the bottom shelf has cupboard doors, and the back material was really thin material easy to open up for wires....so we have our wifi router and other rats nest of junk tucked away out of sight. And all our mementos and knickknacks are now up for display. Yay!

The playroom is turning into a greenhouse again, as is per normal in the spring.

Jennifer doing her math. She often does her work in her room, but will come down for help sometimes. Also for company. I think.

Nathan needed a photo for some other purpose. I may as well reuse it! (after all, they are getting rare)

Daniel often has to spend time in the evenings (and on Saturdays) working on math corrections. He doesn't really enjoy it, but believer or not, he will get through all his material soon. We are both looking forward to it being finished!!

Jennifer completed a skirt for herself.

The library got a lot of use...the game table was especially a hit! Nathan just uses headphones when he plays his organ at the same time as a game is going on. He says the sound is better, actually, more "organish" or something. ;)

Another rare person to have pictures of. Philip is still here. He survived covid too, and is as busy as ever.

Matthew trying to work out a computer program for his lego contraption. It is supposed to be able to climb stairs. Now that is a challenge! He didn't get it to do a full staircase, but he did get it to climb a step or two.

We'd decided to move the sewing room from upstairs to the main floor, where our school room used to be. Because we hadn't done enough reorganizing. So, clearing out and emptying the room was first.

It turns out that the old filing cabinet that was in the school room, if used with file folders is, first of all the most efficient storage place for medium sized bits of scrap fabric AND it's size and shape is ideal to put in our long line of sewing machines. This cabinet was one of the few pieced of furniture abandoned in the house when we moved in. And the other really cool piece of furniture was a sewing machine table. Just for us! Amazing!

As part of the reorg, Jennifer inherited a beanbag from Melanie, and her floor lamp. They go together, because the lamp is an unusual height. Good for bean bags. Too tall for a desktop. Too short for a regular floor lamp.

The old sewing room had become a huge disaster. And then on moving day(month?) it got even worse. It was well and truly time to sift through (and toss out! :o ) some things.

What a mess! We stacked up a heap of things for extra dramatic effect. Evelyn is hoping to have this as her very own bedroom in September. Which makes total sense as it's the biggest room and she's the smallest kid. :p  In the meantime a friend has moved in, and even though he is really tall, the room still looks really big and empty.