Today is an island of calm in the middle of a whirlwind of a month. Derek has the day off and took the kids to the first day of VBS for me, so I have a little time to read and write. It is also the first at-home day we've had this month that it isn't cloudy and raining, so I am sitting out in the sunshine, listening to birds singing in the trees, hummingbirds humming, and grasshoppers buzzing. It finally feels like summer around here.
Odd Weather, And Pricey Too
This is a very odd year in our area for weather. Usually by late June we have consistent sunny and even downright hot days, but this year the entire month has been damp and cool. Almost every day we have some sort of rain in the mountains, and while it is absolutely lovely for our vegetation, it's been dampening my mood. We haven't been able to go outside without a light jacket most days, and we've been feeling the lack of sunlight - to the point that when I spotted a patch of sun the other day, I ran outside to bask in it for a minute before a cloud drifted back in to block the light. But this morning I'm warming my bare arms in the sunshine, and it is glorious.
June is always a hectic month for us (I'm not sure why, but it is), and this year feels especially crazy-making. It has been a particularly hard start to the summer for our budget. With all of these storms, we've had the power knocked out a couple times, and a power surge fried two rows of buttons on our stove. I can now cook things at 375 degrees, or 700 degrees, and nothing in between that. We are trying to decide if we can limp along with our now limited temperature settings, or if we are going to have to buy a whole new stove, because they don't make the replacement parts for our oven anymore. We also think something has happened to our hot water heater, possibly because of the power surges, because the furnace won't stay lit and our water is often cold.
On top of appliance problems, we attempted a camping trip the other weekend. We were so excited to be in a warmer corner of the state for a weekend, the weather was gorgeous, and I could feel my mood lifting...before another storm rolled in. I'll keep it short, but basically a windstorm destroyed our $300 tent, we barely got all our things out of the destroyed tent before it literally blew away, and we were forced to turn around and go right back home on the same day that we had arrived. The disappointment of the kids was the hardest part. We might try camping again later this summer, but not until the state weather patterns change. We did go to a movie as a consolation treat for the kids. It's always an event when we go to the theater, since we go so rarely.
Before all these financial hits happened, I did get a new phone. My other iPhone was three years old, which is practically ancient as far as iPhones go (I kid, kind of). The thing that pushed me over the edge was that the camera lenses on my phone broke, and I do use my phone for a decent amount of our pictures, so that bumped it up in priority. If I had known our stove was going to break and we'd lose an expensive tent, I might have waited on the phone. Thankfully our carrier was having a great deal though, so I have a decent pocket-camera again.
Overall, it's been an expensive and dreary start to the summer, but I have high hopes that things are starting to look up. It's supposed to be sunny for a good part of this week, the kids are excited about VBS, we have dear friends in town to visit, and we have an upcoming visit to my grandma's cabin which I know will be a restful time.
Homeschool Conference, And Books
I went to our state homeschool conference last week, and if I am struck with inspiration I may eventually write about some of the things I learned. At this point in our homeschool journey I feel I have alot of the day-to-day logistics and my curriculum choices figured out, so instead of going to tip-based sessions, I chose based off of the speakers I knew I would enjoy hearing. If you ever get a chance to hear Andrew Pudewa, Jason Lisle, or Paul Washer speak, take it. It doesn't even matter if you are familiar with their work, just trust me, you'll get alot out of their talks. Even though I've listened to many of their talks or sermons before, I was still so encouraged and challenged. Their advice, wisdom, and information never get old to me.
I also took my oldest two kids with me to the homeschool conference this year. We do the IEW writing program, which was created by Andrew Pudewa, so they insisted on coming so they could meet him since they have seen him so often on video! They even got a picture with him, which was a highlight. I was impressed with how well they listened and enjoyed the sessions we went to, and it was so nice to have buddies with me throughout the day.
At the conference, we had a chance to go through the Semisaurus Creation Museum, which is a museum built within a traveling semi trailer! That can sound underwhelming at first, but I was amazed at how much information and interesting artifacts they packed into such a small space. We took at least 45 minutes to go through it, and that was with trying to hurry! We were really impressed with it and learned a lot.
I've had hardly any time to read this month, but a blog post is hardly complete without mentioning some books. I am working through On Our Knees by Susan Heck during my morning devotional time, and it has been encouraging and challenging so far. Susan Heck is one of the few Christian women authors I recommend. She has memorized the entire New Testament, and is working on the Old Testament, and the amount of Scripture she has tucked away definitely comes through in her writing!
I am also reading a John MacArthur commentary, and for fun I'm working through a couple books - Exiles by Jane Harper is one of them. I wouldn't call Harper's books clean, there is definitely bad language in her books and some other content concerns, but something about her books just works for me. It may be the Australian setting. I'm a bit of a sucker for books set in Australia, so if you have read any good ones, pass them along. I'm also started a series with a book called A Gentle Tyranny, which is a dystopian YA, but with a pretty interesting twist. I'll save the full summary for the end-of-summer book roundup.
Next up on the blog will be all the books I read in April and May, since I'm still playing book review catchup! Keep an eye out for it next week.
What conference did you go to?! I've been wanting to go to some now that we have schooled age homeschoolers! HAHA And what movie? We took the girls to Mario for their first movie in theaters and we all loved it! So fun!
That is a tough start to the summer! My goodness. We’ve had the opposite weather—it’s been brutally hot and no rain. We went nearly 2 months without rain and everything is brown and dead. We finally got some storms the last two days. The heat plus the smoke from the Canada fires has made it impossible to go outside. I hope we both have a better July!
It's wild to me that Andrew Pudewa is still doing the homeschool conference circuit. He was there when I went to conferences a million years ago! Now AB does IEW too. I remember meeting the man who wrote the Apologia Science books as well as Doug Phillips (to throw it way back) and being star struck!
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