Foot Washing

We had an interesting church service yesterday. Kevin has been doing a sermon series on Life-Giving Churches and this past week the sermon was on koinonia. He used Jesus' example of washing the disciples' feet as an example of how we are to do this. He wasn't proposing that we always wash each other's feet but rather that we do acts of service and pray for each other in humility. So he had several footwashing stations around the auditorium and allowed for people to wash each other's feet after the sermon. He did a good job of not making it seem weird and was more like an anointing than a washing. He exhorted us to pray for the other person while anointing their feet with water. It was pretty powerful to watch and more people participated than I expected. And it wasn't just husband/wife pairs participating. He challenged people to anoint those whom we wanted to honor, bless or ask forgiveness.

And we are back home. . . .

One of the beauties of homeschooling is that you can take school with you anywhere! This week we were able to spend it with Dan in the cities. He was working at a bank there and it is much easier for him to just stay in a hotel there overnight since he usually works till at least 7, and then has at least a couple of hours of work to do after that. So we decided to go with him. We stayed at a Holiday Inn in Lakeville and had a great time. Since Dan travels so much, he has earned platinum status with Holiday Inn so we booked the cheapest hotel room and were upgraded to a 2-room suite. Of course, Dan's work pays for it anyway, but it was nice to be able to do that.

We went up Tuesday afternoon and checked in, took a nap, then hit the pool. The pool area was great. They have a HUGE hot tub, a kiddie pool that is only 8 inches deep with a slide and a few other cool things, and a separate 3 foot pool with waterslide and swim area. And the way they have it situated, I can sit in the hot tub and keep and eye on Darin and Natalie at the same time. For me, this is a great benefit since I am almost always cold at hotel pools. They just don't keep the air and water warm enough. Poor Natalie froze her tooshie off and joined me in the hot tub quite a bit.

We had planned to leave the hotel today as Dan was scheduled to be at the bank today also. But as so often happens, the bank just wasn't as ready as they thought. So we came home last night. Dan didn't find out that we were going to be coming home last night till late afternoon so we hadn't checked out of the hotel yet. So I packed everything up and we checked out around 8pm. They didn't even charge Dan for the room last night!! How's that for a late checkout. :-)

We did get quite a bit of schoolwork done and managed to also watch some HGTV--my personal favorite. And Ellie and Kara love HGTV too. That was what they wanted to watch whenever we had any free time (if we weren't swimming).

All in all, we had a great time and Dan was very glad that we were there with him. It makes travelling not so bad for him.

It's a snow day in the neighborhood

It's a snow day here in Minnesnowta (as my mother calls it). We were forecasted to get upwards of 8 inches of snow but I don't think we'll actually get that much. We had only gotten 1-2 inches by this morning, and although it is still snowing, it isn't snowing heavily enough that we will get a ton of snow. Of course, I'll still have to shovel but I'll do that later today before we have to go to choir. Dan suggested that I send the kids out to shovel but the wind chill today is supposed to be 10-20 below. On Saturday the actual temp isn't supposed to be above zero. Brrrr!!!!

In other news, I have instituted a one glass a day rule at home. The kids now can pick out one glass in the morning that they are to use all day long. They are responsible for rinsing it out after every use. It has really cut down on the amount of dishes I am doing every day. And, believe it or not, I have kept caught up on the dishes all week. I even washed out the bowl I used for making bread the same day I used it!! Yes. This truly is a miracle. I started taking Fish Oil and Vit C every day and I think they have helped boost my energy level. I've also gotten on the treadmill 3 times this week. I've started scheduling a specific time for me to get on the treadmill so that it actually gets done. When I just told myself that I would do it at some point during the day, it just didn't get done. I've been scheduling it for 4pm which has been working great because it is after naptime, we are done with school by then and I still have time for a shower before supper. I'm trying to keep my evenings free so I can do some things that I want to do instead of always doing things I need to do.

Darin's bootcamp is going well. He has gained and lost privileges several times. But I have noticed an improvement in his behavior when he doesn't get what he wants. He is throwing fewer fits and isn't writhing and pouting as much when I tell him no. He really needs to learn how to control his emotions when he doesn't get what he wants. I do need to find a physical outlet for him though so I'm open to ideas if anyone has any. He seems to have all this energy and it all comes out at once, but I can't take him to the park since it is winter so I may have him run the stairs a few times a day.

Weekly Update

It was our first week back at school after the 2 weeks we took off for Christmas and it went pretty well (except for Thursday's dryer incident--see below post). So here is our summary for the week.

History: We learned about the Phoenicians who were the first people to dye fabric purple. Apparently the shellfish that they got the dye from really stunk so you could insult someone by saying that he stunk like a man from Tyre. We also learned about King Asherbanipal who brought the Assyrians back to power after being in captivity under the Babylonians. He was a mean king whom all the towns were afraid of and he liked to hunt lions for fun.

Science: Didn't get it done this week. On Tuesday I was a zombie from working Monday night and Thursday school got sidelined due to needing to fix the dryer.

Math: Both girls got several lessons done.

English: I started Kara on First Language Lessons this week. It is very easy to use and we both like it. Kara learned the definition to nouns and common nouns. She also memorized a poem. Ellie got some of her lessons done but we'll have to play catch-up next week.

Handwriting: I've started Kara on Daily Handwriting Practice. She seems to have forgotten how to properly write some of her letters so we are working on that. Darin started working in Getting Ready for the Code. He finished the letter f and started on the letter b. He loves doing his schoolwork and keeps asking me to do more.

Latin: Ellie finished lesson 12 this week.

Music: We learned the 2nd verse of A Mighty Fortress is Our God. We also reviewed Holy, Holy, Holy which Natalie also knows how to sing. We also read about Mozart. He died at age 35 after working himself to death. They also suspect he had some kidney problems. The girls also listened to a CD of Mozart's music. While they did that, they drew pictures of images that the music conjured in their minds.

Art: We finished our book about Rembrandt and memorized The Self-Portrait. We also reviewed all the other paintings we have learned this year so far.

Bible: Ellie continued her work in Genesis. We have been reading several Psalms and a Proverb for our devotional time. We have also started to have time for prayer requests and everybody praying, not just one person.

Reading: Ellie is reading Caesar's Gallic Wars and we have been reading various stories throughout the week.

Dryer

My dryer has been acting up for quite awhile. It had begun to squeak while in operation about 6 months ago and I knew I was going to have to fix it at some point, but it wasn't that urgent and I always have a million other things to do so I let it be. That is until this past Thursday. The squeak turned into this really, really loud squealing/grinding noise and I was convinced that if I continued to use it as is I was going to blow up the house. Plus, the noise could be heard throughout the house and it was not at all conducive to peaceful living. And considering that I had just put a load of wet clothes in the dryer and I had another wet load waiting, I needed to fix the dryer immediately. So school got put on hold for most of the day (except for Ellie's independent work) so that I could work on the dryer. Nothing like the urgent to waylay the important. Although you could argue that having a functional dryer is important. :-)

I had previously done some Internet research to try to figure out what might possibly be causing the noise and I was pretty sure it was the rear drum rollers. So I began to take the dryer apart. Wow was the dryer ever dusty inside. Of course, since it hadn't been vacuumed ever and the dryer is somewhere around 17-20 years old, there should be a lot of dust. I managed to get the drum of the dryer out and got a good look at the drum rollers. They were worn and I suspected they were the culprit since that was about where I could hear the noise coming from. I also noticed the belt was cracking in several spots so I figured I might as well replace that at the same time.

I went to the appliance repair shop and picked up the parts I needed. I didn't have much trouble removing the first drum roller; however, the second drum roller gave me more trouble. The problem was that the wrench, although only around 7 inches, was too long to reach the nut that held the drum roller in place. I could get the wrench around the nut, but then I couldn't move it. And considering how long it had been in place there was no hope of me removing it with just my fingers. I finally undid the screws to the side of the dryer and had Ellie pull it away from the drum roller so that I could maneuver the wrench. I couldn't take the whole side off because the side is one continuous piece that is connected to the back and the other side. And I would have had to dismantle more of the dryer than I cared to since several things were anchored to the back of the dryer and to the bottom.

Now it was time to put the new belt on and put the dryer back together. I put the belt on where I thought it went and screwed the dryer back together. Then I started the dryer. The smell of burning rubber permeated the room and I perceived that I didn't have the belt in the right place. I know. I have a keen sense of the obvious. So I took a few screws out and looked at the drum to figure out where the belt really should go--not in the groove as I though but around the wider part of the drum where there was a black line the size of the belt. :-)

I put the screws back in and started it up. No burnt rubber smell and no squeaking!! Now it was time to test it with a load of clothes. No problems there either. It is still working and now whenever I take Natalie with me to put a load of clothes in the dryer, she says, "Mommy, you fix the dryer? It doesn't squeak anymore?"

Win a Hamilton Beach Stand Mixer

A Cowboy’s Wife is having a contest on her food blog! You can win a Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer and she’ll ship anywhere so everyone is eligible!

Why purple is royal

While we were studying the Phoenicians today we learned how purple became associated with royalty. The Phoenicians were the first group of people to take the murex shellfish and boil it. They boiled it for 10 days in order to remove the ink from the shellfish and then dipped cloth into the solution. It turned the cloth purple and was so expensive that only kings could afford to buy it.