What's Been Going On: Thursday, 10 February - Sunday, 13 February, 2022

 Monday, Monday! How are you, friends?

I had a really productive weekend and am feeling, in general, a little more optimistic about things. I managed to get all the things done that I needed to, in order for the upcoming week to run smoothly- AND I even got a nap in there!

I struggle a bit when major life changes come around; it takes a little time for me to adapt, and that’s how it’s been with being thrown into homeschooling. My daughter is doing really, really well with academics; she’s able to focus well and pay attention and stay on task (and I make sure to notice when she’s getting antsy and take a five or ten minute break so she can get the wigglies out). She’s feeling pretty betrayed that the schools were forced by the lawsuit to drop COVID protections; she’s hurt and confused as to why the adults in charge aren’t willing to keep the kids safe, and I completely understand, because I feel the same way. I think this is why she’s been such an eager participant in our homeschool activities. She doesn’t want to go back, which is sad.

But we’re doing okay, and things have been going well around here! Here’s what I did during the second half of last week.


Thursday, 10 February, 2022

I got dressed, had breakfast and coffee, then scooped the litterbox, and then we were off to the doctor! It was an appointment with my physiatrist, whom I see about my back. Just a follow-up after my last set of injections, which really helped. She did prescribe me a new medication for the neuropathy I get in my feet (I think I also have Raynaud’s in my feet, which doesn’t help; my feet are a mess…). While we waited, my daughter and I read a book about chemistry. (The doctor agreed with me that it was nuts for the schools to remove COVID mitigations right now.)

At home, I threw a cup of black beans into the Instant Pot, and then we started on math. We took a break for lunch, did more math (in order to catch up with where my daughter’s class is right now), and then we did our 30 minutes of Read Harder (for me, reading American Literary Almanac, edited by Karen L. Rood)/silent reading (for my daughter; she’s reading a Geronimo Stilton novel). And then I dozed, because I was really, really tired. School was shorter today because of my doctor’s appointment, which I had scheduled pre-homeschooling. I have a few other appointments coming up like that; we’ll just take school with us, like we did. :)

I filled and ran the dishwasher, then prepared a batch of beans and rice, and visited my favorite homemaking blogs. I tidied and swept the living room before dinner, then did my Duolingo afterwards. I biked for thirty minutes, showered, threw a batch of white beans in the Instant Pot for the next day’s dinner, wrote my Friday post, put my daughter to bed, and read. My husband and I watched one episode of Deadly Women.

 

Friday, 11 February, 2022

After breakfast and coffee, I edited and posted my Friday post and got dressed. I emptied the dishwasher, then it was time to sit down and start on math with my daughter. She. Did. AWESOME.

Her school uses the Eureka curriculum and I love it so much. It makes math so much more intuitive than the way I learned it at her age; she’s already able to add two sets of three-digit numbers in her head, and she doesn’t sit and cry over math like I did. (That’s not to say that math always goes smoothly, but she very much knows what she’s doing and understands the processes in a way that I never did in school.) I actually enjoy doing these lessons with her. We took a short break afterwards so I could load and run the dishwasher.

We worked on grammar next, a lesson on possessive pronouns, and then we read more about plants, and finished our book about garbage (which gave us some really good ideas for projects. Stay tuned!). After lunch, I made a batch of Cauliflower Potato Soup with the white beans I’d cooked the night before. I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, cleaned up the kitchen, and took out the compost and recycling (my daughter was still eating her lunch during all of this). I tidied and swept the living room and swept the kitchen, then we headed upstairs to tidy up my daughter’s room, and I put away a load of laundry.

We settled down for our 30 minutes of Read Harder/silent reading. I threw a load of laundry in the wash, folded a set of clean sheets from the laundry room, and then we snuggled up for art class. My daughter LOVES art, and I’d given her the choice of activities earlier in the week. She had really enjoyed a fiber art project earlier in the year, so she chose to start learning how to cross-stitch with one of the kits she got as a holiday gift this year. She’s only seven, so it’s going to be a while before she’s ready to do this independently, but I’m happy to help her learn. Lots of good memories to be made together here. Here’s what she accomplished today:

 

We did two chapters of Making Thirteen Colonies (The Story of US) by Joy Hakim, and then we were off for a very cold, windy, sloppy two mile walk (shorter because the path around the pond would’ve been a wet melty mess!). At home, I switched the laundry and folded one load.

I did my second hour of volunteer work for the week, blended the soup, and folded another load of laundry. After dinner, I did my Duolingo, put away a load of laundry. and switched the wet load into the dryer. I showered, put dinner away, and put the dishes in the dishwasher. I worked on my knitting, and virtually attended my synagogue’s Shabbat services.

My husband and I watched one episode of Deadly Women before bed.

 

Saturday, 12 February, 2022

Uh, so, the night before, I’d forgotten to take my new medication, and my feet bothered me all night long. TERRIBLE sleep. HMPH.

I had breakfast and coffee, and then, despite being exhausted and having massive bags under my eyes, it was time to dive into the day’s projects so that the upcoming week could go smoothly. I took my dried mushrooms out of the dehydrator, then chopped and put the remaining mushrooms in. I put away a load of laundry, then folded and put away two more loads. I showered my daughter, and then we did another math lesson.

This one didn’t go quite as smoothly as the day before, but I think that’s because she was hungry and getting easily frustrated, so we took a break in the middle for lunch. We finished up afterwards, when she had a full tummy and a better attitude, and then I lay down for a nap.

When I got up, I felt sluggish and gross, so I did a 20 minute yoga video (no walking outside, since I think the high was something stupid like 15 degrees F), and then I caught up on some things on the computer. Dinner was leftover soup. I did my Duolingo and biked for thirty minutes, then showered and put my daughter to bed (we finished reading Anne Frank: Behind the Diary by Ruud van der Rol and Rian Verhoeven. I didn’t read the last few pages to her, though I read them myself. She knows Anne didn’t survive, but she’s too young to know any of the more grisly details at this point. I read those pages myself when she went to bed so that I could complete the book). I read my book- still slowly reading Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott- and my husband and I watched an episode of Deadly Women. I remembered to take my new medication and slept well this night!

 

Sunday, February 13, 2022

After breakfast and coffee, I did a few things on the computer, and then it was time to get to work! I emptied and reloaded the dishwasher, then collected yesterday’s dehydrated mushrooms into the bag- I have about 2/3 of a gallon bag full of dried mushrooms now, ready to add to soups and be rehydrated for other dishes. 

I then hauled the sewing machine upstairs in preparation to sew my torn bedsheet.

 

Yeah. It was a bad one.

I could NOT get the sewing machine to cooperate with me. I don’t know if it was something I was doing wrong (this is probably the most likely answer) or if there’s something wrong with the machine, but nothing I tried made my stitches turn out right. Not straight stitches, not zigzag stitches, the tension was messed up on everything. I’m going to have to play with this a little bit with some scrap fabric and figure out what the deal is. I ended up stitching the entire rip by hand, down and back again. It’s not perfect, but it should hold, and really, that’s all I care about!

 

By the time I finished sewing, it was lunch time. Afterwards, I got to work finishing the second knit square for my friend’s memorial blankets. I watched some YouTube videos while I knit. It’s been ages since I knit anything where I had to pay close attention and count while I knit, but this was a good project to get back into that. I think they turned out well. (If you haven’t seen my last post, my friend, who passed away last month, LOVED spiders. These squares are going into two blankets, knit and crocheted by our friend group, for her two kids, who are almost the exact same ages as my kids.)

 

With my knitting finished, I headed to the kitchen and prepared a breakfast casserole for dinner, with onion, garlic, peppers, and zucchini thrown in, then sat down to work on this post. After dinner, I did my Duolingo, then biked for thirty minutes and showered. I put the no-longer-ripped sheet back on the bed, then I put dinner away and filled and ran the dishwasher. I put my daughter to bed- we started reading Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb- and I read my book. My husband and I watched an episode of Deadly Women before bed (and I kept waking up through the night. Hmph).

 

That’s it! Really, not a bad weekend. I had been worried, since I had so much to do, but I got everything on my list done and still had a bit of time to do other things. Being that productive feels good.

We’ve got an exciting week coming up, with something special coming up on Wednesday, so I’m looking forward to that! Happy Valentine’s day, friends!

Friday links: 11 February, 2022

 Happy Friday! I’m absolutely, 100% definitely looking forward to the weekend. Although I’m not sure how restful this weekend will be, as I have approximately 374823749832478293 things to do, since I’m not getting much of anything done during the week at the moment. *sob* This weekend, I have more mushrooms that need to be chopped and put in the dehydrator, I need to pull out my sewing machine in order to mend a giant hole my husband tore in our sheets this week, I *still* have an hour of volunteer work I need to complete, I need to pick up a new prescription from the pharmacy, I need to knit the square for my friend’s memory blanket, and I have approximately 84237498327932 loads of laundry to wash, dry, and fold.

I’m tired already and need a weekend from my weekend…

 

Here’s what I found interesting online this week!

 

COVID-19 May Hide in Brains and Cause Relapses

And

COVID-19 takes serious toll on heart health—a full year after recovery

Y’all, we’re going to be seeing articles like these for a long time- likely the rest of our lives. As more of the long-term effects of COVID-19 come to light, science and medicine are going to be working overtime to catch up, whether that be developing treatment and therapies, or simply struggling to handle the case load of patients dealing with post-COVID damage. This is why I’m so deeply angry about our schools throwing all COVID mitigations to the wind. I don’t want any of these potential long-term health problems for myself, and I sure as heck don’t want them for my daughter. What are we even doing???

 

‘Complete crisis’ as PFAS discovery upends life and livelihood of young Maine farming family

Oof. Accepting free fertilizer, which ended up being contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (which are linked to, among other things, cancer, kidney malfunction, and low birth weight) ruined the farm and thus the business of this family farm in Maine. Completely devastating, and it makes you wonder how often this happens and we don’t know about- and how often it happens and no one knows about it. We’ve screwed the earth up in so many different ways that I can’t believe that number is zero.

 

Why book banning is back

Excellent article about why we’re seeing more book bans around the US right now. I appreciate that the article gets into the fact that the bans aren’t limited to a single political party, though they are heavily skewed towards one side.

I do think there’s a massive difference between banning a book completely and having a nuanced discussion that leads to substituting a different, more modern book into a curriculum. There are many books from the past that still have great literary merit and still aren’t the best book that we could use to confront certain topics. I adore To Kill a Mockingbird and have read it probably at least six times throughout my life, but I agree that there very well may be better books today that teach about the Black experience in that particular time period in a way that doesn’t center whiteness. Replacing it in school curricula is a conversation worth having, but it needs to be done by educators and professionals with a deep knowledge of the available literature (if you’re not familiar with the amazing, diverse voices that young adult literature boasts these days, this isn’t your playing field), the students they’re serving, and the future those students are going to live in. Parents- and I say this as someone who is now teaching my kid at home- aren’t always the best judge of what their kids need, especially if they’re not 100% tuned in to things like education and publishing. Literature has changed a ton since even I graduated high school, and what school looks like and teaches should be changing right along with it.

(I also loved the Little House on the Prairie novels when I was younger, but I haven’t read them with my daughter. While I do think there’s value in reading things and discussing why they no longer meet today’s standards- and we’ve done that with books like the Julie of the Wolves series- my feelings on the LHotP books are complicated, and there’s a lot I find disappointing in them these days, so I’ve opted out of this series that I definitely had warm fuzzies over when I was young. I’m adult enough to realize that these aren’t the best reads for the person I want my daughter to become.)

 

The hidden load: How ‘thinking of everything’ holds mums back

YUP. It’s exhausting. I’m even more exhausted now that 100% of my daughter’s education, plus 100% of the housework, and 100% of the cooking falls on me. My brain is usually going at 3000mph anyway, trying to think of what’s in the fridge in order to plan out tomorrow’s dinner while remembering where my daughter’s school shirt is (closet? Laundry? Floor?), while thinking of the library books I need to return, when I'm going to be on the other side of town so I can pick up bulk peanut butter, when the last time I talked to my mom was, will it snow tomorrow, how much exercise is my daughter doing, and where to buy her new shoes, and now I’m worried about keeping her up on math, is she learning the right history, when will she be able to have time with her friends again…

Parenting right now sucks. Not the kid part, she’s great. She’s been amazing through all of this, and I’m so, so proud of how well she’s handling these sudden changes and her emotions regarding everything. But the choices and the heaviness of it all? It all just sucks. My brain is exhausted, my body is exhausted, and I’m just so done. As is basically every mom I know right now. We’re worn out. We need help that isn’t coming.

On THAT cheery note…

 

Growing community in vacant Chicago lots

I LOVE this!!!

We have a community garden in my town. My family doesn’t have a plot there, but I adore driving by it (which doesn’t happen often, sadly; we live on the other side of town, and with being at home most of the time and nowhere to go, I don’t often have reason to be over there), seeing people working their plots, which are, in the heart of the summer, lush with greenery. The idea of turning vacant lots into community gardens makes my heart ridiculously happy, and I wish every vacant lot could be used in this way.

 

That’s all I’ve got this week. We’re going to get started on math in a few, and I promised my daughter we’d do art this afternoon, so we’re both looking forward to that. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Be safe, stay safe, and take care of each other. Shalom, friends. :)

What's Been Going On: Monday, 7 February - Wednesday, 9 February, 2022

 Good morning from Temporary Homeschool Headquarters! BOY, this week looks nothing like the last!

When we left off Monday, our schools had gone to masks-optional, and so far, that’s still the case. I’m not comfortable sending my daughter into a building where only half of her classmates are wearing masks (as per her teacher), when so many young children remain unvaccinated. I’ve got friends with breakthrough cases who are still three weeks with symptoms. I’m not interested in chancing that, you know? So until we see how this plays out and if the kids are passing it around at school, she’s at home and we’re learning up a storm!

Here’s what this week has looked like so far!

 

Monday, 7 February, 2022

After breakfast and coffee, I edited and posted Monday’s post, then edited and posted my review for When It’s Real by Erin Watt over at my book blog. I scooped the litterbox, put some beans in the Instant Pot, got dressed and ready, and then we were off to the library!

Hoo boy, did we come home with a massive stack of books! Our children’s department has a fabulous nonfiction section, and I love digging through it for great selections to read with my daughter. The bag was so heavy I could barely lift it, and I would’ve gotten more books if I’d been stronger! We drove home and headed up to my daughter’s room with a stack of books.

We snuggled together and read about plants, diversity in the US, the history of disability rights in the US, poison ivy, and how dinosaurs get from an archaeological dig sit to a museum (and the massive team of people it takes to make that happen!).

After lunch, I filled and ran the dishwasher, and then it was back to learning. We read the introduction and the first chapter of Making Thirteen Colonies, the first volume of Joy Hakin’s AMAZING history series, A History of US. I used this series when I was homeschooling my son and we absolutely LOVED it. My daughter isn’t as much into history as my son was, but this book is still leading to a lot of good conversations!

I made a batch of enchilada sauce, and then my daughter and I settled down for silent reading time. I did my 30 minutes of my personal Read Harder project, reading American Literary Almanac, edited by Karen L. Rood, and my daughter read a novel from the Geronimo Stilton series.

I took out the garbage and recycling, hauled the cans to the curb, and replaced the trash bag. I chopped and sauteed some onion, garlic, and red pepper, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and caught up on some computer things. I boiled some noodles, and for dinner, we had Vegetarian Fajita Pasta. I did my Duolingo, showered, showered my daughter, and began reading Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott. I put my daughter to bed, read more, and watched an episode of Deadly Women with my husband before bed.

 

Tuesday, 8 February, 2022

Back to it! Breakfast, coffee, and I edited and posted my review of Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford on my book blog. I got dressed, and then it was time for school. Math, plants, rivers, penguins, cursive, and the story of the 1987 garbage barge were on the menu.

After lunch, we did writing, grammar, history, and Read Harder/Silent Reading for 30 minutes. I chopped and prepared a batch of Brussels sprouts, and sat down for an hour and twelve minutes of volunteer work. We had dinner- leftovers and sprouts!- I did my Duolingo, biked for thirty sweaty minutes, then showered. My daughter and I finished reading Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, and then spent a good long time talking. My husband and I watched an episode of Deadly Women before bed.

 

Wednesday, 9 February, 2022

And again! Breakfast and coffee, and I checked out the grocery sales (BLAH!). I filled the dishwasher and ran it, and we tidied my daughter’s room, and then it was time for school! Math, plants, garbage (yes, really! It’s fascinating. It’s science, history, human behavior…), grammar, and cursive.

 

After lunch, we got right back to work. It was time for writing and more math, we read a book on size, we read two chapters of Making Thirteen Colonies, and then we did thirty minutes of Read Harder/Silent Reading. Then I took out the compost and recycling, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and dug around online for the math curriculum they use at my daughter’s school (it’s Eureka; the whole thing is available for free- legally!- online).

When my husband got home, I went for groceries- just Aldi today, nothing good at any of the stores, really. Must be the winter doldrums. I got home and put the groceries away, caught up on some computer stuff, and baked our dinner pizza. After dinner, I did my Duolingo, biked 30 minutes, and showered. I wrote a little of this post, and then I crawled into bed to read for a good long while. My husband and I watched an episode of Deadly Women before bed.

 

Today’s a little different; we’re off to my doctor appointment that I scheduled before everything went crazy. We’ll do that and then hit the books again! We’re not expecting a ruling on the stay the governor asked for for another 10-14 days (WHICH IS RIDICULOUS), so this will be our lives for a little bit. I’m happy to do this in order to protect my daughter, but I shouldn’t have to, you know? We as a society should already protecting our children from a virus of which we don’t know the long-term consequences, instead of whining and screaming that wearing masks is the worst possible thing that could ever happen to anyone EVAR. I’m absolutely aghast that so many people have decided that the pandemic is just over and any death or suffering that happens from here on out is acceptable and doesn’t matter. What on earth are we doing???

Hang in there, friends. Stay safe and healthy. This isn’t over yet; the virus doesn’t care how tired we are of it. : (

What's Been Going On: Thursday, 3 February - Sunday, 6 February, 2022

 Monday, Monday. Here we are again! It’s been…a weekend. Some potential changes coming around here, but nothing is certain yet, and I’ll get to that in a minute. This is a bit of a longer post today, because of some of those issues, so bear with me! Here's a cat picture to make up for it.

Here’s what I’ve been up to during the second part of last week.

Thursday, 3 February 2022

After coffee and breakfast, I worked on my Thursday post, got dressed, and scooped the litterbox. I filled and ran the dishwasher, put a batch of chickpeas in the Instant Pot, then finished and posted my Thursday post. I edited and posted my review for Playing with Matches by Suri Rosen over on my book blog, and then it was time for a very snowy and cold school drop-off!

I ran to a local grocery store for some green peppers and tomatoes and ended up coming home with some packages of marked-down cheese ends (they don’t always have these, so it’s a nice surprise when they do!) and a marked-down pizza/focaccia thing that would go well with the leftover soup for dinner. Back at home, I did an hour of volunteer work, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and hung out on the computer for the little bit of time I had left before taking lunch to my daughter. (If you’re new here, I take her lunch every day and she eats in the car. It’s a way to help calm both of our anxieties about being unmasked in the lunch room.)

I stopped by the library to pick up my book from interlibrary loan, then came home to have lunch myself, and I did my 30 minutes of my own personal Read Harder project, reading American Literary Almanac, edited by Karen L. Rood. And then I dozed for a bit!

I put the cooked chickpeas in the fridge, put dinner on to warm when it was time, and after we ate, I did my Duolingo. I biked for 25 minutes, showered, put my daughter to bed, and read Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford. My husband and I watched an episode of Deadly Women before bed.

 

Friday, 4 February, 2022

I had breakfast and coffee, wrote my Friday post, got dressed, edited and posted Friday’s post, filled and ran the dishwasher, and then it was time for a very cold, walk-right-in school drop-off!

I ran to another local grocery store for a few items (zucchini, coffee creamer, and frozen noodles), and they had their discount produce rack out again. Lo and behold, they had THREE bags of mixed mushrooms!!! They used to have these all the time, and I was SO disappointed when the rack disappeared. Needless to say, I took all three bags ($1 each; all kinds of mushrooms in there!), along with a large bag full of perfectly good green beans. JACKPOT!!!

At home, I did an hour of volunteer work, then cooked a batch of taco-flavored lentils in the Instant Pot. I unloaded the dishwasher, took out the compost and recycling, then spent a few minutes on the computer before taking lunch to my daughter.

After my own lunch, I did my 30 minutes of my personal Read Harder project, then took the cooked chickpeas from the day before and made a batch of taco-flavored hummus. And then I prepared the taco dip I’d been craving: the bottom layer of taco hummus, a layer of taco-flavored lentils, a sprinkling of cheese, a layer of yogurt mixed with salsa, and a top layer of cheese, tomatoes, and some torn up spinach. Yum! Into the fridge it went.

I spent some time on the computer and got an idea I may try to turn into a piece of writing, depending on whether I can find the time and an outlet that wants to publish it, then I finished reading Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford. After dinner, I showered, did my Duolingo, and worked on some cross-stitching and knitting. At 7:30, it was time to sign in to virtual services at my synagogue. I so appreciate the virtual services (and they’ll come in handy in the future for me when my back is out- sometimes I can’t sit upright without pain so bad it makes me sweat, which is just SUPER fun), but man, I’m looking forward to when things have calmed down and I’m able to attend in person.

After services concluded, I began reading After Long Silence by Helen Fremont, and my husband and I watched one episode of Deadly Women before bed.

 

Saturday, 5 February, 2022

After coffee and breakfast, I wrote two book reviews (which always takes me a bit) and got dressed. I loaded and ran the dishwasher and took out the recycling. I tidied the living room, and by this time, it was time for lunch!

My son came over, which was wonderful, since I hadn’t really seen him since December. He’s likely going to move back in next month, so we’re all looking forward to that! I gave him a ride back to where he’s currently living, then took his and my own books back to the library.

Back at home, I re-tidied the living room, then settled down to work on chapter 5 of Prayerbook Hebrew the Easy Way. Oof, this one, which was on adjectives, turned my brain to soup a little bit (mostly the rule about using an adjective with a definite noun in a phrase and attaching an untranslated ה to the adjective. What counts as a noun phrase versus a complete sentence is what threw me off a bit, due to some of the examples they gave, because some of them with that extra ה were complete sentences!). I wish I had an instructor for this. I know my synagogue offers basic how-to-read-Hebrew classes (I can read it just fine, so I have no need of that), but I’m not sure about beyond that.

My Hebrew book has jokes, you guys.

 

#12 says, “Holy Moses!” I laughed.

I folded a load of laundry, then emptied and reloaded the dishwasher. After dinner, I did my Duolingo, biked for 30 minutes, showered, did a late-night 30 minutes of my own personal Read Harder project…and then I got the email from school.

Our school’s mask mandate has been going through the court, and a judge decided that, despite 191 people dying of COVID-19 in our state Friday, schools can’t require masks anymore. They can only recommend. My husband, who is a molecular biologist who works in a lab at a major research university, is FURIOUS about this, as am I. He was having an indoor campout with our daughter, though, so we decided to talk about it in the morning, and I did my best to focus on reading my book before going to bed.

 

Sunday, 6 February, 2022

Discussing school was the first item on our agenda in the morning. We came to the agreement that we’d send my daughter (who is double vaccinated) to school on Monday to kind of scout things out. If there are a bunch of maskless kids in her class, or even enough to make her feel uncomfortable (and she would), then we’ll bring her home and I’ll homeschool her. I homeschooled my older son until he was in fourth grade, so I have no problem doing this again, especially if it means protecting her from a novel virus whose long-term effects are unknown. I cannot believe the long-term health of our children has become a political pawn, and the depths of my disgust for the people who have made it this way knows no bounds. How. Dare. They.

After coffee and breakfast, I got dressed, unloaded the dishwasher, and set to work in the kitchen. I had about twenty peppers that needed to be chopped and put in the freezer (especially if homeschooling becomes part of our future, I need to get to work on the weekends so our weeks run smoothly!). I started with the red and ended up with two bags, then started in on the green, which gave me four bags. Phew! That was a lot of chopping; it took pretty much all of the morning!

 

After lunch, I chopped a bag and a half of the discount mushrooms I’d bought and got them set up in the dehydrator.

 

I took the chopped peppers out to the freezer, took the compost out, and wiped down the stove and countertops. I visited my bookmarked homemaking blogs, and then it was time for a trip to the library in order to pick up some books. I stopped for gas on the way home, which is what made me realize I did *not* want to go for a walk- it was 31 degrees out and sunny, but there was enough wind to hurt my ears. That’s no fun to walk through!

At home, I finished visiting all of you, then got to work on this post. I helped my daughter with her math, finished reading After Long Silence by Helen Fremont, and then, armed with some new information, my husband and I made the decision to not send our daughter to school on Monday. The fury we were feeling was pretty big, and while I trust the school to do everything they can to keep her safe, their hands are tied on this and they’re not allowed to do what needs to be done to protect their students. Thus, my daughter isn’t going. That’s that. The governor has applied for a stay, which would put the mitigations back in place; if that goes through, we’ll send her back, and if not, it’s homeschool time. I’m okay with either.

After dinner, I did my Duolingo and showered, and then my brain decided that all that stress was just too much, and I got another migraine, so off to bed with me at 7 pm. I woke up around midnight and took some more migraine meds and went back to bed, where I had weird dreams all night about working as a nanny/housekeeper for a large family whose mother had died.

 

And that’s that for now! Not the Monday I was expecting to have, but like I told my daughter in the beginning of the year, we’re being flexible this year and understanding that everything can change at any moment. This is just one of those moments, so today, we’re off to the library to pick up some books for our hopefully-temporary homeschooling! (Migraine-wise, I'm feeling okay so far, just tired and a little woozy. Definitely better than yesterday, when my vision was so smeared, I could barely see at all.) Hopefully your weeks are all going a little more predictably. :)

Friday links: 4 February, 2022

 Happy Friday! Anyone have any big plans for the weekend? As usual, not much going on here. Maybe a walk on Sunday, since it’s going to be 32F that day, and I have two bags of peppers that need to be chopped and put in the freezer. And I reeeeeeeeeeally need to get some laundry folded; I've been putting that off for, uh, a while now.

Here's what I found interesting online this week!

 

A Tennessee School Board’s Ban of ‘Maus’ Speaks to a Much Larger Problem

This is a good article (full disclosure: I’ve written for one of their sister sites). You may have heard about a school board in Tennessee banning the book Maus by Art Spiegelman recently, on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Ostensibly, they did it because of profanity and nudity. For one, I guarantee that every single one of those kids hears worse profanity every day in the hallways of their school (I sure did, and I went to small-town Midwestern schools, one of which was religious in nature), and second, the Jews in the book are drawn as mice. These people are concerned about naked mice (do they also have problems with Winnie the Pooh and Donald Duck not wearing pants?). And the school board member worried about promoting violence? She’s going to have a real bad time with, say, the Revolutionary War, or, uh, a LOT of stuff in the Bible (and I say this as someone who reads a bit from the Tanakh every day).

I began learning about the Holocaust in depth when I was nine years old. Yes, it was horrifying to learn about, but that’s the entire point. How can we ensure that these horrors never happen again if we don’t teach about them? I’m not a hundred percent sure what that school board was thinking, but I have a few ideas, and, as someone who leaves in-person synagogue services and walks out past the armed guards hired to prevent us from getting murdered, none of them make me feel very safe. Add this to the Tennessee pastor who held a book burning the other day (you read that correctly), and I’m so, so very glad we left Tennessee when we did. I have so many friends still there, and I'm so sorry that they're doing this to your beautiful state.

Speaking of people behaving badly around books…

 

Documents reveal nature of threats made against St. Charles Public Library employees

This isn’t too far from me.

A local group of people got a bug up their behinds about the fact that, two years into a pandemic in which almost 900,000 Americans have died of a preventable, airborne virus, the library requires its patrons to wear masks in the building. So, like the petulant, whiny toddlers they are, they threw tantrums in the building and made horrific threats toward the library staff, to the point where the library had to close down.

Classy move, people. Ruin it for everyone.

The group behind the threats is known around here, and they’re scary and dangerous. I’m disgusted that this is what our society has come down to: people too good to follow the rules, so they ruin opportunities for everyone by making violent threats. Awesome message they’re teaching their children, and odds are good that that will very much come back to haunt them when their children get older.

On a lighter note…

 

A short guide to the 100 most nutritious goods, as ranked by scientists

An interesting look at what one group of scientists consider healthy. I don’t eat the seafood on the list- even if I did eat animals, I have huge concerns over the amount of microplastics researchers are finding in fish- but this is a pretty fascinating list.

 

That’s all I’ve got this week. I’m making a run to a local grocery store this morning, then coming home to do more volunteer work. I’m making a taco dip for dinner that I’ve been craving all week, so I’m looking forward to that. So glad I’m feeling better this week than I did last week!

Have a great weekend, everyone! : )

What's Been Going On: Monday, 31 January - Wednesday, 2 February, 2022

 Happy Thursday! Are you bracing for snow, or are you digging out? We got slammed this week and it was pretty awesome. Surprise snow days are the best- as are neighbors who plow out your driveway. So very thankful to live by good people.

 

Here’s what I’ve been up to so far this week!

Monday, 31 January, 2022

After breakfast and coffee, I wrote my Monday post. I got dressed, scooped the litterbox, and unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher. I posted Monday’s post, then edited and posted my review for Notes from an Apocalypse by Mark O’Connell on my book blog.

I dropped my daughter off at school, then tidied the living room and settled down to make up the hour of volunteer work I missed last week. I then swept the living room and wrote two book reviews before heading off to bring my daughter her lunch. Afterwards, it was a not-as-quick-as-I-would-have-liked trip to Aldi to grab the sliced cheese I forgot the day before. People were stocking up for the snowstorm expected to hit the area starting Tuesday night like they were going to be snowed in up to the rooftop. I just needed some sliced cheese and I picked up a little extra milk in case anyone wanted hot cocoa while it was snowing!

At home, I had lunch, then did my thirty minutes of my personal Read Harder challenge, reading American Literary Almanac, edited by Karen L. Rood. I replaced the bathroom and kitchen garbage bags, took out the garbage and recycling, took the compost out, then hauled the cans to the curb. And then it was time for school pick-up!

I chopped and prepared Brussels sprouts and took the scraps out to the compost. The Brussels sprouts went into the oven and I settled down to help my daughter with her math homework. I played on the computer a bit, cooked the pasta and garlic bread, and we had dinner. I did my Duolingo, and I was going to bike, but I couldn’t find my sports bra, so I ended up skipping and headed straight for the shower. I read my book, and my husband and I watched one episode of Deadly Women before bed.

 

Tuesday, 1 February, 2022

After coffee, I edited and posted the monthly recap over at my book blog, then got dressed. I worked on my monthly goals post for this blog, then dropped my daughter off at school. I emptied and reloaded the dishwasher, and edited and posted my monthly goals post.

And then it was time to sit down and get knitting. The squares for my friend’s memory blankets are due by the end of this month, so I needed to put in some work. I listened to a local radio station while I knit, took a break to do a ten-minute abs & core workout (all that sitting isn’t good!), then got back to knitting.

I took my daughter her lunch, had lunch myself, and swept the living room floor (the things you see when you’re down on the floor doing exercises! Eeek!). I did my 30-minute personal Read Harder challenge, and I finished knitting my first blanket square.

 

Terrible photo, so if you can't tell, the design is a spider. My friend Jen loved spiders; in another life, with more opportunities, she would've made an amazing arachnologist. You could text her a picture of a spider and she'd tell you what kind it was. She was smart, funny, kind, determined, and a wonderful friend and mother, and I hope the blanket we're putting together gives her kids even a small amount of comfort, knowing that she, and they, were so very loved.

I prepared a batch of pizza dough (I use the recipe from The Complete Tightwad Gazette), filled and ran the dishwasher, and cast on my second square. I brought in the cans from the curb and picked up my daughter up from school. It had already started to rain, the start of the winter storm heading our way! At home, I visited a few homemaking blogs before decorating the pizza.

 

I took out the recycling and threw the pizza in the oven, and I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher. And then the pizza was done! Mushrooms and red pepper. It was awesome.

 

After dinner, I did my Duolingo, biked for 25 minutes, and showered. I read my book, put my daughter to bed, read some more, and then I got the phone call- SNOW DAY TOMORROW!!! My husband and I watched an episode of Deadly Women before bed.

 

Wednesday, 2 February, 2022

Snow day!!! It snowed all morning and a good portion of the afternoon. This is what we woke up to.

 

After coffee, I edited and published my review for Invisible City by Julia Dahl. I got dressed and then it was time to clean my daughter’s room. Remember how neat and tidy we’d made it last week? Here’s what it looked like before we began.

 

And after!

 

I prepared a batch of vegetarian green pepper soup in the Instant Pot. I don’t make this often, only when I get a good deal on those fake meat crumbles, but it’s one of my favorites. I spent a little bit of time on the computer and then continued reading When It’s Real by Erin Watt. After lunch, I did my thirty minutes of my personal Read Harder project, and I was planning on reading some more, but I was so comfortable, and it was so cold and snowy outside, and I just rolled over and took a really amazing nap that lasted for hours.

When I finally woke up, I finished When It’s Real, spent some time on the computer, and began reading Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford. After an extremely delicious dinner, I did my Duolingo, biked 25 minutes, then showered. I worked on this post, then continued reading my book, and my husband and I watched an episode of Deadly Women before bed.

 

And that’s it. Bit of a quiet week with a somewhat unexpected break (we were on the edge of the storm and weren’t sure exactly how much we would get. My friend half an hour away got two inches and her daughter had school. Our road wasn’t plowed until almost 10 am. It was crazy!

I don’t think we have too much planned for this weekend. I still have two hours of volunteer work to get to this week, so I’ll get that started today after a quick trip to the grocery store. Other than that, just more of the usual, staying warm and cozy indoors.

I hope you’re having a wonderful week! Stay warm and safe!